RE: [DL] How do you run a Rattler? [mild spoilers]

["Tabb, David" <david.tabb@msfc.nasa.gov>]

> (1) Armour. I had thought that Rattlers had more armour than 1. In this 
> instance, it may not have made a serious difference, but rolling 5d10
> rather 
> than 5d12 might have. NEVER forget armour.
> 
To clarify: I didn't forget armor in the sense of, "Eh, armor, no armor,
whatever."  It was in the sense of, "This is round 6.  Have we been doing
armor?  Nuts."  By the time I remembered, it was really far too late.

> (2) Cover. Rattlers are intelligent. They're not just going to
> erm..."rear" 
> there and undulate while bullets plow into their hides. They move at Pace
> 18 
> while underground, and can pretty well feel where the posse is by them 
> running around. Send it back underground and bring a tentacle up under 
> another posse member. They might hit a tentacle when it wriggles up out of
> 
> the ground, but they'll only do 1 or 2 points to it with a gun. They want
> to 
> do more, they have to get their hands dirty.
> 
I had the whole body of the thing out of the ground.  Should I have just
stuck the tentacles out of the sand?  If I were a rattler and had that
option, that's what I'd do, now that I think about it.  I gotta remember
these are like the graboids from _Tremors_.

Can they travel while in the process of reeling in somebody?  That's one
reason I didn't have him moving around.  Eventually, I decided that a diving
rattler would crush anyone in his "teeth" or maybe just make swallowing
automatic.  It didn't matter which at the time.

> (3) Strength. Get caught in the tentacles and you get to fight a resisted 
> 3d12 fight with the critter. Personally, I'd have Wind done to the char
> every 
> round due to crushing damage while he's being reeled in. The thing is
> going 
> to eat him, for Shaft's sake, not invite him down for crumpets. It isn't 
> going to be gentle.
> 
I shoulda done wind.  When the food's exhausted, it don't squirm so much.
Prolly coulda et him in half the time.

Thanks for the help.  Unanswered question: what do you do if someone tries
to Overawe a Rattler?  One the one hand, they're intelligent, and therefore
can grasp the concept of mortality and possibly be frightened by it.  On the
other, they're giant armored flesh-eating betentacled worms and probably
don't have much to fear in the first place.

ISTR a passage in the book that says abominations simply can't get scared by
virtue of the fact they're the things that scare other people.  So, would
mental showdown type actions be pretty much a waste of time?

David
(I feel I've lost your respect by asking such basic questions.)