Yep, I did notice my nails going through the monsters or in the case of spikes that stick to walls... they stick to solid dead monsters too, then are floating when the monster is down. In the nail's touch function I added a check for SOLID_NOT on the dieing monster then removed the nail if the monster was not solid. This certainly would take care of that pesky fish problem!
At first I was setting a deadflag for the dieing monster, but preferred the above method as it did make game play a little nicer.
On the other hand I like the idea of being able to gib the dead monsters. An oldie but a goody!
I always wanted to do this, add in fall damage to the monsters, and make them jump back when shot or near an explosion. Then, when they get shot off of a high ledge they will gib when they land... SPLAT!
And Orion... I learned a lot from your Ricocheting Laser that is in the tutorial section... thanks!