Cliff Toads

[Agentorange]

i was reading in the bestiary about Cliff Toads and it says that the tongue attack goes in on SR4 does constriction damage and at the start of the next round pulls the hapless target back to be swallowed and then digested.

Which means that theoretically there's a time gap where adventurers with lightning fast reflexes may be able to save the target. maybe they sever the tongue, or maybe they can hurt it so the Toad lets go.

Which got me to thinking - what Hit Points would the tongue have ?, would it have a couple of point of armour ?

[Akhôrahil]

Quick call might be half the HP and armor of the head? Targetable by Called Shot (and it makes sense for the GM to be generous with changes to Statement of Intent here)

Edited April 30, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Scotty]

59 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

i was reading in the bestiary about Cliff Toads and it says that the tongue attack goes in on SR4 does constriction damage and at the start of the next round pulls the hapless target back to be swallowed and then digested.

It actually says next turn. The idea is that they kill the target by constriction, then swallow it, then dissolve it.

59 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Which means that theoretically there's a time gap where adventurers with lightning fast reflexes may be able to save the target. maybe they sever the tongue, or maybe they can hurt it so the Toad lets go.

If you look at their tactics, they are hanging from a cliff. If the target is a rider, they are now swinging horseless in the air. If the adventurers can reach the victim, they can of course sever the tongue. 

59 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Which got me to thinking - what Hit Points would the tongue have ?, would it have a couple of point of armour ?

I would suggest that due to its nature, it can pull the toad's SIZ, give it half the armour, and the hit points of an arm (old ones will have tongues like very thick rope).

[Agentorange]

Thanks guys, i was thinking along similiar lines so it's nice to know I was in the right territory 👍

[Bren]

On 4/30/2023 at 5:38 AM, Scotty said:

It actually says next turn. The idea is that they kill the target by constriction, then swallow it, then dissolve it.

But shouldn't it say, next round? Surely the Cliff Toad doesn't leave its prey dangling at the end of the tongue for 5 minutes before trying to swallow it?

[g33k]

On 5/10/2023 at 12:40 PM, Bren said:

But shouldn't it say, next round? Surely the Cliff Toad doesn't leave its prey dangling at the end of the tongue for 5 minutes before trying to swallow it?

That's the constrictor method, yes.

Squeezing tighter, ever-tighter.  It gets hard to breathe... then almost impossible... than you black out from lack of air... then you die.

 And then it eats you.

[Akhôrahil]

Make sure to watch the D&D movie for some nice tongue-chopping.

[Bren]

38 minutes ago, g33k said:

That's the constrictor method, yes.

Squeezing tighter, ever-tighter.  It gets hard to breathe... then almost impossible... than you black out from lack of air... then you die.

 And then it eats you.

My issue is that constriction takes way, way too long before it swallows.

Tongue*       35% 1D6+db damage  SR 4
Swallow **   80% Acid damage

The note says,

Quote

* On the turn after the tongue hits, it will zip the target into its mouth 80% of the
time. As the tongue sticks to the victim, a “miss” in swallowing means the victim
takes 1D6+damage bonus in constriction damage, with an 80% chance of being
swallowed next round.
** Digestive acid is systemic and has 2 levels of potency per D6 of SIZ.

So on the first round that the Cliff Toad hits with its tongue it does 1D6+db. damage. And 1 turn (60 rounds) later it tries to swallow (80% chance). If it succeeds acid damage starts. If it misses, the victim takes 1D6+db more damage and the next round is automatically swallowed. There are two possibilities.

1. Once the tongue hits, the Cliff Toad does no more damage to the target until it tries to swallow (which won't occur until 60 rounds have passed). That seems a reasonable reading of the text, but it leads to a strange result with a very long delay between the first attack and any subsequent attacks. 
2. Once the tongue hits, the creature holds the victim in its grasp waiting for 60 rounds to pass before it tries to swallow and the toad continues to attack with the +40% bonus vs. an immobilized opponent. In this case, the victim is either going to be freed from the toad by their efforts or that of their friends long before it can swallow or the victim will be dead*** long before it swallows, yet for some reason it waits many rounds before trying to swallow.

*** The toad has a 70% chance to hit the immobilized opponent. It probably won't take more than 10 rounds (20 rounds with bad die rolling) until the victim is dead. Leaving 40 or 50 rounds before the swallow attempt occurs.

It seems turn is a mistake and the note on the Tongue should read as follows:

Quote

* On the round after the tongue hits, it will zip the target into its mouth 80% of the
time. As the tongue sticks to the victim, a “miss” in swallowing means the victim
takes 1D6+damage bonus in constriction damage, with an 80% chance of being
swallowed next round.

Unless I am missing something important here, my revision makes a lot more sense to me.

[Bren]

58 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Make sure to watch the D&D movie for some nice tongue-chopping.

I can't tell if the movie is any good. It's off topic, but what did you think of the film overall?

[g33k]

1 minute ago, Bren said:

I can't tell if the movie is any good. It's off topic, but what did you think of the film overall?

I considered it a fairly-standard "fantasy-adventure" sort of movie.
Nothing great, but far from as bad as some are!

BUT: for any gamers who have played & enjoyed D&D, it has so many easter-eggs & fanservice(*) moments, it borders on must-see for that audience.

 

(*) no, not the pervy kind of fanservice

[g33k]

19 minutes ago, Bren said:

My issue is that constriction takes way, way too long before it swallows.follow

...

Unless I am missing something important here, my revision makes a lot more sense to me.

The thing you're missing is that @Scotty's reply, above, is an official Chaosium reply.
"Turn" is the intent.

You raise some good issues, but -- to keep it to the intent of the RAW -- your revisions need to work in the other direction, to make the "next Turn" reading make more sense.

(I suspect someone somewhere took an editorial pass without thinking much, and worked in some details with round-by-round assumptions that were out of place)


But if the victim's arms are trapped (likely IMHO) and the victim is dangling out of reach of any blades, their allies will be MUCH more challenged to sever the tongue.

This "Monster" is more of a puzzle/trap, not a "fight" -- how to rescue our friend, who's helpless & being suffocated & likely to die if we don't get him down in the next few minutes...

Edited May 15, 2023 by g33k

[Akhôrahil]

34 minutes ago, Bren said:

I can't tell if the movie is any good. It's off topic, but what did you think of the film overall?

It was both good and massively entertaining.

[Bren]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

The thing you're missing is that @Scotty's reply, above, is an official Chaosium reply.
"Turn" is the intent.

• I didn't miss it. I wasn't certain he really meant turn rather than round. Turn doesn't make sense to me in the description as written. Real world toads are pretty quick to swallow their prey. I think Cliff Toads would be similar.
• Contrast the Cliff Toad description with the Esrolian Python writeup on p160 of the Bestiary where attacks and constriction damage from the Crush attack is spelled out as round-by-round.
• Also contrast the Cliff Toad description with the RQ3 description of the giant in Toad Book 4: Creatures p38:

 

Quote

 

When the tongue hits a victim, it wraps around him and sticks to him, then retracts with the victim into the toad's stomach on the next round. Once in the toads belly the character is immobilized, and takes 1 point of acid damage to each hit location each round...

 

• Using the description in the Bestiary as written would result in a successful tongue attack doing 1D6+db damage once. Then 1 turn (60 rounds) later, the Cliff Toad  makes a second attack as it attempts to swallow. If successful the victim takes acid damage each round there on. If the swallow is unsuccessful, the victim takes tongue damage for one round and the next round they are automatically swallowed and take acid damage each round from then on.
• The Bestiary text appears to have been copied, directly from the RQ2 write up for Cliff Toads.
• The original RQ2 Cliff Toad write up looks to me like it was originally a typo where "turn" was written when "round" was intended. That error then being continued in the current version.

Of course I could be wrong and the intent is for the victim to hang around dangling in the air from the Cliff Toad's tongue for 60 rounds before the toad tries to swallow them. I can see the humor in having a victim hang around that long. And the lengthy delay certainly gives the victim's companions a lot of time to plan out how they will try to rescue their companion. In fact, the victim might even rescue themselves. Unlike the description for the Python, the Cliff Toad description doesn't say the victim is immobilized (though I think immobilization would make a lot of sense), so the victim should be free to attack with whatever body parts weren't hit by the tongue. Even if they don't have an arm free, they can probably kick the Cliff Toad to death.

[Akhôrahil]

On 5/10/2023 at 9:40 PM, Bren said:

But shouldn't it say, next round? Surely the Cliff Toad doesn't leave its prey dangling at the end of the tongue for 5 minutes before trying to swallow it?

I agree that Turn makes no sense here, and it has to be Round. It would be pointless to have a swallow mechanic that will never happen in player combat.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Akhôrahil

[Agentorange]

For what it's worth as the thread starter I incline to the next round approach as well, especially as the RQ3 version seems to have said that.