[QUOTE=Shienvien]I didn't assume an yth's arm would be three feet long - I assumed its armspan, the entire distance from the claw-tips of a right hand to the claw-tips of a left hand while the measured pair of arms is spread as wide as it can go, to be three feet... So yeah, I was picturing a much more short-armed - and by extension, only half as mobile - yth.
- An adult yth would have an armspan of ~208 cm, whilst only having the body length of ~152 cm? Interesting proportions for a non-flying creature of this size, and ones that would probably make moving around and balancing somewhat harder. Their arms are positioned attached quite close to one another on the body, right? ...And now I feel somewhat tempted to try sketching an yth, if you don't mind?[/QUOTE]
Ah, that explains it. That's good, then. And yths do have very long arms compared to the length of their body, which is why they tend to use their arms to skitter like lizards or insects when there is room for it, and slither like snakes in confined spaces. This also makes their front-body much heavier than their hind-body, obviously, so when standing up they would usually support themselves with their bottom pair of arms simply to keep them from falling over. It's worth noting that they originally came from a significantly different environment than Rodoria, and are cave-dwellers in the wilderness...
I don't mind if you want to sketch an yth, really. In fact it would be interesting to see how you'd depict one.

[QUOTE=Shienvien]Neverteless, moving on... I don't see how Aemoten could have done much better with all the obstacles around, beginning from not hitting any of the guards to the wall on his right and the other people behind him to Olan's halberd, held by the yth, being somewhere in the way. (How did the rightmost guard end up partially under the middle guard when the middle guard fell first? Wouldn't it be the other way around?)
...So we have an yth which is still stuck by one of its right arms, with maybe three quarters of an inch deep and four inches long cut on somewhere on its hind body from Aemoten's first swing at it while it was in air, with shallow cuts on the underside of its upper right arm and top of its middle right arm from Olan's halberd with its middle left arm missing, its two other left arms with flesh sliced off on the outer side near the shoulders, and a shallower long gash somewhere further down the side of its body?
Nothing immediately fatal, yes... Although I've got a feeling that the yth would be losing very large amounts of blood with all those injuries, the missing arm especially - with a relatively large creature such as the yth, a proportionally long limb like that usually has quite significant blood-pressure behind it, amongst other things. (Not to mention blood-vessels of smaller diameter are easier for the body to seal even with the same blood pressure. Earthen creatures who can easily survive losing limbs are small mostly for the aforementioned reasons.)[/QUOTE]
You are correct once again; an ordinary yth would never even have considered sacrificing an arm like that, so it's definitely not typical behavior for their kind, but this one would, despite the fact that it would almost certainly result in its death from blood-loss in a rather short amount of time. Basically this particular yth is willing to do so due to its ability to distinguish between "will die" and "might die". Having sustained a blow to its main body would have killed it with certainty, whereas sacrificing its arm is very likely to kill it, but not beyond doubt. It's a strange one... I'm quite surprised at it myself. Heh.

[QUOTE=Shienvien]Is it safe to assume the yth would retreat farther from Aemoten and try to remain facing him rather than try to attack immediately? (Meaning it would move over the guard to its right that it is still stuck to and retreat onto the floor, with the people who were in front of it (remaining halberdiers, Olan) being farther to the right in front of it, Jaelnec being somewhere to the left next to it, the stairs being to the left in front of it, Aemoten being in front of it, some tables and chairs being behind it?
In that case, Aemoten would draw his sword to a low defensive position (so he can block if the creature decides to throw itself at him) and close in again, delivering a much less restricted, essentially a low-horizontal half-circle swing (base of blade higher than tip).[/QUOTE]
Hmm, not entirely correct. The yth would indeed try to retreat from Aemoten (his sword is dangerous, after all, and has a dreadfully wide range of deadliness), but rather than move over the guard and try to flee up onto the floor it would remain on the stairs, lying next to the guard it is stuck to so close that they are touching, and try to use its arms and tail to lift the guard's torso, using the man as a shield, and then cause him to tumble back down the stairs with the yth still attached to it. ("Will die" and "might die".)