Cave Bat
Horde, Tiny
1hp, 0 Armor
Bite (d4 damage, Hand)
Special Qualities: Flying
Instinct: To rest uninterrupted
*Get all up in someone’s grill
*Make a huge ruckus
—
Generic, but useful. When someone draws unwanted attention, just throw a bat in their face.
Instinct: Justice, amirite?
Would you be willing to draw up a stat block for a Zoo Bat?
I’ll stop now, I promise.
I’d say bat have only 1 hp… well, IMO. Also, it’s a lot easier to roll merely d4 rather than d6-2 where you could always roll 0(i.e. 1 or 2-2).
“Get all up in someone’s grill” might be the best monster move ever.
Mr. Wolfoyote d6-2 is what I got from following the monster creation rules, but a plain ol’ d4 was my first instinct and I should probably go with that instead.
Of course, they shouldn’t be doing much biting anyway and mostly getting up in people’s grills.
Doctor Starky Oh, please, ignore my mention of 1 hp, I failed to notice that it is a horde. How about 6hp per horde?
d4 sounds nice and it’s simpler approach, I’d say.
You seem to be thinking of “unwanted attention” differently than I do. I’m curious how you’d play it: character draws unwanted attention -> bat(s) get up in their grill -> then what? Is it just a fight with bats at hand range, so you can’t use weapons? Or something else?
“There’s all sorts of flapping and screeching and flapping and you can’t see shit and goddammit what the hell is going on what do you do?”
“Uh, I swat at the bat?”
“Okay, cool. You’ve got a shield strapped to one hand a warhammer in the other, right? Which one do you swing at your face?”
“Oh… um, I guess the shield hand?”
“Okay, cool. That sounds like you’re defying danger by acting quickly with +DEX or by staying calm with +WIS. Whichever you think is a better fit.”
“+WIS it is. Crap, a 5.”
“Okay, you like swat it away but not before it bites and gouges your face a bit. Take 1d4 damage, ignores armor unless you’ve got a helmet on. Meanwhile, there are like four or five more of these on you. It’s even worse than before, screeching and flapping and buffeting and you’re stumbling around in the dark. Shilo, you see Horton’s like all covered in swarming bats and it looks like he’s about to lurch over that ledge, what do you do?”
Mr. Wolfoyote The monster-creation rules actually do mean you end up with 3 hp even for a single bat. I’m with you, though. I’d go with 1hp per single bat. I’d also probably stick with the proscribed d6-2 damage, because that means there’s a good chance of 0 damage.
Interestingly, there’s no guideline for making a “swarm” other than to stat it up like a single aggregate creature… and even then, you’re going to have to make some stuff up. Here’s what I’d do:
Bat Swarm
(Solitary, amorphous)
15 hp, 1 armor
Bites & scratches d6 (hand, close)
Qualities: flying, blindsight, 1/2 damage from stabbing or precise attacks, double damage from area effects
* Get all up in their grill
* Make a huge ruckus
(For HP, took solitary’s 12hp + 3hp for amorphous. 1 armor from amorphous. For damage, start with d10 for solitary, -1 die size for “small and weak” armaments and -1 die size for “primary danger not from wounds. Close range for standard size, +hand range because duh.)
colin roald I think Jeremy Strandberg has got it.
Think about all the times you saw a bat in a movie or a tv show where they don’t actually bite anyone and just fly around in someone’s personal space while they freak out. That’s what I was trying to get at with that move.
Remember that most injuries sustained from real life bat “attacks” are self inflicted. While bats in DW are probably more dangerous than their real life counterpart, that panic is a good thing to exploit with this monster.
That was sort of what I was trying to figure out how to say: it’s not always obvious how to exploit a situation when the character should be freaked out or panicking but the player is not. If you just tell a player “there’s a bat flying around in your personal space, take, uh, 0 damage” it’s highly likely they just respond, “whatever, I swat it away”. Jeremy Strandberg’s method is plausible .
Incidentally, in real caves, bat colonies contain hundreds of thousands of bats, and every individual bat is doing its best to avoid you. But there’s a hundred thousand of them. And also if they scratch you you take no damage but might get rabies.
Those seem like really tough bats since a human bandit or soldier is 3hp. And that bat swarm seems more like a shoggoth… if they are just an irritant or distraction just make it -1 or -2 ongoing while in the swarm. Unless controlled by vampire or spell effect the swarm wouldn’t be around for more then a round or two. IMO ;)
I lowered the HP