Fun For All The Family... With Tables!

Demon-slaying is a fun and profitable pass-time that everyone can enjoy. But demons aren't your everyday monster; they shouldn't just fall over and expire when you slay them. So, when you land that killing blow, rattle your d20 and...

What Happens When A Demon Dies?
d20	Result
1	The killing wound bursts into flame which spreads rapidly through the demon's body, incinerating it from the inside out and leaving nothing but greasy ashes and thick, stinking smoke.
2	The demon collapses into a pile of squirming, slimy worms, which rapidly disperse, leaving behind a foetid slime-patch where the demon fell.
3	The demon deflates as thousands of small black beetles pour from the killing wound and scurry away.
4	The demon petrifies instantly into solid granite. A weapon that inflicted the killing blow is momentarily trapped; make an easy STR save to free it (the attempt takes one attack).
5	The demon petrifies instantly into very soft, friable stone that will crumble to the touch.
6	The demon instantly freezes solid, falls over and shatters into a million shards. A weapon that inflicted the killing blow is momentarily trapped; make an easy STR save to keep hold of it as the slain demon falls.
7	The demon transforms into a cloud of tiny, vicious birds that immediately turn on each other, pecking and slashing until the flock disperses in 1-3 rounds.
8	The demon swells up like a bullfrog, tearing open from the point of the killing wound and spilling its bones and entrails out across the surrounding area. Anyone within 20' must make a CON save to avoid throwing up in their mouth.
9	The demon disappears with a blinding flash and a deafening crack, leaving behind nothing but a small cloud of stinking smoke. Save or be dazzled and deafened for 1d3-1 rounds.
10	The demon implodes, its hide crushing its bones and entrails, until all that is left is a small, leathery, wrinkled ball (about 6" in diameter) smelling strongly of putrescence.
11	The demon explodes, showering everything within 20' in stinking mince.
12	Translucent, ethereal tentacles spring up from the ground and drag the demon down to the abyss, leaving nothing behind but a shadow that slowly dissipates.
13	The demon collapses into a pile of worn terracotta blocks, a couple of inches on a side. If someone wanted to take the time and effort, and had access to mortar and brickworking skills, they could be reassembled into a brick statue of the demon.
14	Thick, stinking, tarry ooze gushes from all of the corpse's orifices. It sticks like treacle (and tastes absolutely disgusting).
15	The demon and everything within 20' is covered with (harmless) electrical arcs for 1-3 rounds, after which it disappears with a flash and a smell of ozone.
16	The demon disappears, leaving behind only an irridescent green pearl about half an inch in diameter. It is subtly unpleasant to look upon or to touch, and leaves a viewer with the distinct impression that it's watching them.
17	The demon putresces and mummifies incredibly rapidly, as if a hundred years of decomposition takes place in a moment, and then falls to the floor, shattering into scraps of hide, bone and dust.
18	The demon's skin sloughs off, then its muscles and entrails fall away, leaving its skeleton standing in the posture it was in at the point of death. If touched, the bones will collapse into dust.
19	The demon, and everything around, it appears to suddenly stretch out to a hundred times its length and then snap back like a rubber band, disappearing with a noise like a bag of custard hitting the footpath, having been dropped from the top of a high tower. Make a WIS save or be severely disoriented for 1d3 rounds.
20	The demon is petrified into a statue of sand; a wind arises and blows it back to the Abyss in 1d3 rounds. Make a DEX save to close your eyes or be temporarily blinded by wind-blown demon-grit.

The Damage Done

Back in those ancient days of yore when giants walked the earth and D&D was O, every weapon and every monster did 1d6 damage with a successful attack. The rationale was, I believe, that because a dagger was capable of killing a person with a single blow, and a two-handed sword was equally capable of inflicting a mere scratch, that having different damage ranges for different weapons would be functionally pointless, though I believe (I'm not really sure here) that weapons like greatswords got to roll two dice and took the best score. Maybe not. Anyway, the system is still used by people playing with the original D&D Little Brown Books, and with S&W White Box. Somebody on the Swords & Wizardry forums suggested using it for S&W Core Rules as well, but using a d8 instead of a d6.

I find the idea attractive for one major reason: it makes a character's choice of weapon largely aesthetic; there's no weapon-damage min-maxing to be done. If a scimitar suits a character conception better than a greatsword, the player won't be tempted to go for an inappropriate weapon for mechanical reasons. Also, there's nothing for the DM to remember when it comes to what damage a monster does with its fangs or claws or tail-bash or whatever.

It does have its aesthetic down-side though. In a game in which encumbrance is actually important, everyone is going to be using daggers exclusively — and why not? They're lighter, smaller, you can throw them, and they do just as much damage as anything else.

The most important reason not to adopt Ye Olde Damyge Systeme though is this: it reduces still further the use of all those excellent funny-shaped dice. And the poor d12 already gets the short end of the stick there.

I think I'll stick with the many-dice model.

O Death, where is thy sting? Oh, there it is...

Dyson, over on his excellent blog, has just been talking about the WHFRP system of determining damage and death. To summarize, if a blow takes you below zero hit-points, you get to roll a d20 (+ however many HP you are below 0) for Nasty Critical Damage which may leave you mangled or dead. I really like it, conceptually, and I think I may adopt it in preference to the HP/CON damage split I'm using at the moment. Reposted here, straight from Dyson's blog, is the Grievous Unpleasantness Table:

Effects of Mighty Blows (d20 + points below zero HP)
1-4:	Merely a flesh wound! Continue fighting with a -2 penalty on attacks and saves.
5-7:	Oof! Strike to the groin, head or other painful blow stuns the character for 1d3 rounds, and suffers a flesh wound as above
8-10:	Crushing Blow! Character is stunned for 1d6 rounds, suffers a flesh wound, and must save versus petrification/paralysis or be rendered out of the fight – unconscious or otherwise crippled until healed.
11-14:	Incapacitating Strike! Character is rendered unconscious or otherwise crippled and out of the fight until healed. Further, a saving throw versus death is required to prevent the obvious side effect of permanent and immediate death.
15-18:	Deadly Blow! The character is dead.
19-20:	Mangled! The character is dead, and body parts are missing, thrown around and otherwise mangled.
21+:	Splatterfest! The character is not only dead, but is grossly dismembered and mangled beyond recognition.

For monsters and NPCs, just make a simple save versus death when reduced to damage from 0 to -5. If the save is successful, then the critter remains conscious but fights at -2. If the save fails, the critter is unconscious, if the save is a 1, the critter dies. If struck to -6 to -10, the critter is unconscious and dies if it fails a save versus death. At -11 and below, just kill the critter.

1-6: Flesh wound
7-11: Oof!
12-15: Crushing blow
16-18: Incapacitating strike
19: Deadly blow
20: Mangled
21+: Splatterfest

It occurs to me that it could easily be used as a standard combat Critical Hit system as well as for below-0-damage, though I'd probably run it in that case using a d12 rather than a d20 to avoid insta-death rolls; they're no fun for anyone. Or possibly I'd jiggle the numbers a bit to weight the chart more towards the broken-but-not-dead end, as shown here to the right:

This distribution only has a 10% chance of instant death, compared with the 30% in Dyson's chart, and some may see that as being soft, they may call me a big pussy, but I don't really care. If you get walloped again once you're down below 0hp, you're probably going to die or be horribly crippled anyway.