I mean, the question's in the title, but here's some context:
I'm attempting to homebrew a "harvest witch" and one of her actions will be to summon sentient melons. I looked up some stuff like "how easy is it to crush a watermelon", "can a human crush a watermelon with their bare hands", etc., but didn't really get any conclusive results.
This might be a stupid question, but I got pretty curious about what other people would think?
If you hit a watermelon with a weapon, it will break. Many people can crush one with their body. Almost anyone can crack one just by dropping it. Watermelons have a rigid, thick skin, and they are round so they deflect blows. But it's a rigid strength. It doesn't give much, so significant pressure makes them crack open.
But AC is also a representation of agility. So it all depends on how fast these minions are. And how hard to want the monsters to be.
So if the party is low level, and you want them to have fun smashing melons all night, make them weak. If they are higher level, you can always make the melon minions very fast, or protected by magic to raise their AC.
There is a chart in one of the books for assigning objects AC and HP. Cloth or paper has an AC 11. Glass or crystal has a 13. This represents hitting them well enough to damage them. They aren't moving, so they aren't dodging. A small object only has a few HP. While something like a zombie only has an AC 8. They are very slow and squishy. But they have a lot of HP because they aren't really bothered by losing parts.
I don't know what challenge rating you want these to be. But if they are low level, I might go with an AC of 13 just to represent blows glancing off them. But then give them low HP like 4, so once you break the skin they are done for. Alternatively, if you want them to be extra creepy, fashion them after zombies, so they are easy to damage, but just keep coming even with parts missing.
I mean, the question's in the title, but here's some context:
I'm attempting to homebrew a "harvest witch" and one of her actions will be to summon sentient melons. I looked up some stuff like "how easy is it to crush a watermelon", "can a human crush a watermelon with their bare hands", etc., but didn't really get any conclusive results.
This might be a stupid question, but I got pretty curious about what other people would think?
F e a r m e
(says the small, insignificant worm)
A watermelon has approximately the same resistance as a human head. With no Dex or Armor, a human has an AC of 10.
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Haha, that sounds great.
If you hit a watermelon with a weapon, it will break. Many people can crush one with their body. Almost anyone can crack one just by dropping it. Watermelons have a rigid, thick skin, and they are round so they deflect blows. But it's a rigid strength. It doesn't give much, so significant pressure makes them crack open.
But AC is also a representation of agility. So it all depends on how fast these minions are. And how hard to want the monsters to be.
So if the party is low level, and you want them to have fun smashing melons all night, make them weak. If they are higher level, you can always make the melon minions very fast, or protected by magic to raise their AC.
There is a chart in one of the books for assigning objects AC and HP. Cloth or paper has an AC 11. Glass or crystal has a 13. This represents hitting them well enough to damage them. They aren't moving, so they aren't dodging. A small object only has a few HP. While something like a zombie only has an AC 8. They are very slow and squishy. But they have a lot of HP because they aren't really bothered by losing parts.
I don't know what challenge rating you want these to be. But if they are low level, I might go with an AC of 13 just to represent blows glancing off them. But then give them low HP like 4, so once you break the skin they are done for. Alternatively, if you want them to be extra creepy, fashion them after zombies, so they are easy to damage, but just keep coming even with parts missing.