Rust Monster Lovin'

[Mycanid]

S'okay Ilium ... open source purists can use openoffice, which will open word docs.

 

[mearls]

To give you a slightly more detailed answer than I did in your LJ, I dislike the "goes away after 10 minutes" just in principle. I want the armor/sword/whatever to be eaten and gone. That's what makes the rust monster scary!

I don't mind the progressive damage; that certainly makes sense. -2 on the first hit, -4 on the second, destroyed on the third works beautifully for me. But the modifier, whatever it is, should stay until the item is repaired by an appropriate Craft check. HP damage doesn't fade after a few minutes; poison or disease don't fade after a few minutes. Sure as heck equipment damage shouldn't!

There's basically two things competing against each other with the rust monster:

1. It's cool when the party is worried that they'll lose their stuff.
2. When they lose their stuff... what happens next?

Eventually, the party has to get new stuff. With HP, poison, disease, and so on, the effects are either hampering but not immediately fatal (disease, poison) or the staggering majority of parties can repair it (HP).

Even a skill check to restore the damage makes me a little nervous, as there's no promise that the party has access to the right skill. This is where a DM is a much better judge of what's right for a particular campaign.

In a Forgotten Realms campaign I played in, a rust monster that required a skill check to repair damaged equipment would've been great. My dwarf fighter maxed out his Craft (weapons and armor) skill and had built the paladin's suit of plate during our downtime in Waterdeep. That take on the rust monster woud've been really fun, and it would've given Bjorn another chance to shine.

On the other hand, in the Eberron campaign I play in that change would really, really hurt. We're in the middle of Xen'drick, hundreds of miles from civilization. No one in the party has Craft. If our equipment gets hosed, we're simply screwed. If the DM handles it right, that can be a lot of fun, but I think that the game is better served if a skilled DM knowingly deviates from the rules and builds and interesting scenario.

This is how I think of it: a skilled DM who thinks about taking away the party's gear also considers the ramifications of that choice. If that option is simply presented in a book without comment, a less experienced DM might toss it into an adventure without really thinking about it. It might wreck his game.

We spend a lot of time thinking about neophytes. The more fun that n00bs have playing D&D, the more likely they are to keep playing. That doesn't mean that you design a game where PCs walk all over everything in their path. What we try to do is make the game easy to run and handle.

One of the big challenges that R&D faces is keeping experienced players happy while fostering new players into the game. Veteran DMs like to bend, fold, and mutilate the game. Newbies might like to think they can do that, but more often than not they simply get into trouble.

The idea of allowing a rust monster to destroy items after X hits is a good one, and it illustrates why development works in groups. Multiple, diverse perspectives are great to have. They yield ideas that the individual would never think of.

 

[FireLance]

Not really. It is not about the "encounter" or the "blast radius." It is about the cool effect on the game. By creating things that never really effect the PCs, you're eliminating consequences from the game.

I don't think it's a matter of eliminating consequences, but making serious consequences more rare and thus more memorable. If every single encounter has serious consquences that the PC can only undo with a great deal of effort, the game starts looking more and more hopeless with every session. This might be fine if you're playing Call of Cthulu, but most D&D players expect a different experience.

It's like designers are walking on eggshells around players. I do not want the rules to reflect "ssshhh.....let'e not make the players mad." Making everything a temporary effect just to rush people through encounters and adventures is a bad thing!

I think the designers have to walk a fine line between making challenges too easy, which makes the game boring, and making challenges too difficult, which makes the game no fun for anyone without masochistic tendencies. I think the Improved Disarm idea proposed by MarkB is a great solution that preserves the danger that equipment is destroyed permanently without making the consequences of a single encounter too severe.

A rust monster that destroys your sword or forces you to find someone to repair it is a cool encounter, a memorable encounter, something that he can tell his patrons at the local tavern after he retires.

Frankly, it's not for nothing that rust monsters and disenchanters and other equipment-destroying creatures get called "grudge monsters". If they are poorly handled, the game can become one of player vs DM, which is seldom, if ever, healthy. As Glyfair pointed out, good DMs can handle it, but many DMs are not good.

Mike, the goal should not be to suck the life, the soul, and the wonder from the game, man.

I agree, but the life, soul and wonder in a game does not solely depend on whether the characters face permanent consquences. It's one factor, but not the only one.

Reminds me of a video game where the sword glows for ten minutes and you hear a clang sound for during the encounter.

By the way, I have no problem with "videogamy".

 

[Kerrick]

I have to chime in here, too - the thing about weapons and armor magically repairing themselves after ten minutes is just too hard to swallow. Whizbang had a really good idea with his acidic bite thing (how does a rust monster dissolve metal, anyway?), as did Gneech with the "-2, -4, gone" thing.

That said, I think being able to dissolve a 10-ft. CUBE of metal is just way over the top - that's several TONS of metal. Rusting grasp affects a 3-ft. radius from the point of contact; why isn't the rust monster similar?

Here, take a look:

You may employ rusting grasp in combat with a successful melee touch attack. Rusting grasp used in this way instantaneously destroys 1d6 points of Armor Class gained from metal armor (to the maximum amount of protection the armor offered) through corrosion.

Weapons in use by an opponent targeted by the spell are more difficult to grasp. You must succeed on a melee touch attack against the weapon. A metal weapon that is hit is destroyed.

Note: Striking at an opponent’s weapon provokes an attack of opportunity. Also, you must touch the weapon and not the other way around.

Against a ferrous creature, rusting grasp instantaneously deals 3d6 points of damage +1 per caster level (maximum +15) per successful attack. The spell lasts for 1 round per level, and you can make one melee touch attack per round.

This is balanced - it deals 1d6 points of AC damage to armor (or it could deal hp damage); striking a weapon provokes an AoO. Hitting a metal creature (an iron golem, e.g.) deals 3d6+1/level (or, in this case, HD) instead of completely destroying it with one hit. Magic items are immune to this spell; I'd either rule it the same way for rust monsters, or give them a +1 bonus to the save per plus, like they used to have. If you go with the rusting attack dealing hp damage to armor, you can use the repair spells from the Spell Compendium, or a Craft check to fix x amount of damage based on the check (say, DC 15 check fixes 1 hp; for each point over that, you fix an additional hp of damage).

A metal weapon that deals damage to a rust monster also suffers this warping and corroding effect. Wooden, stone, and other nonmetallic weapons are unaffected.

Why? I can see this for oozes, since their entire surface is acidic, but why a rust monster? Where's the justification for this?

On another point: I think you beefed it up a little too much. The bite damage was low to offset the rusting attack, IMO (and really, if it eats metal, why would it be biting people?). Weapon Finesse makes sense, since it attacks with the tentacles, but I'd leave Track (it follows the scent of metal) and ditch Multiattack. Maybe give it the ability to "smell" metal in a 50-foot radius, also? And giving it a Climb speed means it can attack from more than one angle, making it able to dissolve helms or get flanking/flat-footed attack bonuses for attacking from above/behind.

 

[jgbrowning]

We're re-writing monsters because we've written in the expected levels of wealth so much than the idea of being under the "reccomended" decreases ejoyment of the game?

The "problem" with the rust monster is a problem with the CR and expected wealth systems, not with the monster.

You can strip a party of all their eq and still have a "balanced" encounter. It won't match up the the party's expected CR because those numbers were based on a combination of equipment and level.

joe b.

 

[FireLance]

We're re-writing monsters because we've written in the expected levels of wealth so much than the idea of being under the "reccomended" decreases ejoyment of the game?

The "problem" with the rust monster is a problem with the CR and expected wealth systems, not with the monster.

You can strip a party of all their eq and still have a "balanced" encounter. It won't match up the the party's expected CR because those numbers were based on a combination of equipment and level.

The problem comes when a DM doesn't realize or anticpate how much of an effect a rust monster could have on the PCs. If he planned the climactic encounter to be difficult based on how the PCs performed when well-equipped, he either has to replace the equipment (which kind of misses the point mentioned earlier about "permanent consequences") or he could be looking at a TPK.

 

[mhensley]

That would be cool. A parasite creature that fed off of spell energy causing a mage to have to seek some mental healing etc.

You mean something like this?:

Memory Moss

or perhaps this:

Magebane

 

[The_Gneech]

There's basically two things competing against each other with the rust monster:

1. It's cool when the party is worried that they'll lose their stuff.
2. When they lose their stuff... what happens next?

Eventually, the party has to get new stuff. With HP, poison, disease, and so on, the effects are either hampering but not immediately fatal (disease, poison) or the staggering majority of parties can repair it (HP).

The majority of parties have access to mending, too, actually, now that it's entered the conversation. It's a sor/wiz cantrip.

Even a skill check to restore the damage makes me a little nervous, as there's no promise that the party has access to the right skill. This is where a DM is a much better judge of what's right for a particular campaign.

In a Forgotten Realms campaign I played in, a rust monster that required a skill check to repair damaged equipment would've been great. My dwarf fighter maxed out his Craft (weapons and armor) skill and had built the paladin's suit of plate during our downtime in Waterdeep. That take on the rust monster woud've been really fun, and it would've given Bjorn another chance to shine.

On the other hand, in the Eberron campaign I play in that change would really, really hurt. We're in the middle of Xen'drick, hundreds of miles from civilization. No one in the party has Craft. If our equipment gets hosed, we're simply screwed. If the DM handles it right, that can be a lot of fun, but I think that the game is better served if a skilled DM knowingly deviates from the rules and builds and interesting scenario.

This is how I think of it: a skilled DM who thinks about taking away the party's gear also considers the ramifications of that choice. If that option is simply presented in a book without comment, a less experienced DM might toss it into an adventure without really thinking about it. It might wreck his game.

We spend a lot of time thinking about neophytes. The more fun that n00bs have playing D&D, the more likely they are to keep playing. That doesn't mean that you design a game where PCs walk all over everything in their path. What we try to do is make the game easy to run and handle.

Well, the same is true of poisons and diseases; restoration doesn't show up for quite some time, so if nobody in the party has a decent Heal check and you throw dire rats at them, there's a good possibility that someone in the party is gonna be screwed. But dire rats in the cellar is the archetypal cliché neophyte encounter.

The rust monster, by contrast, is a CR 3 monster -- still early in the game, to be sure, but not "first session" early. If the destruction of equipment is that big a worry, then by all means, put in a "ramifications" sidebar. For that matter, maybe the standard treasure for rust monsters should be a little higher and consist of gear that they've collected and stashed in their lair -- so that if they eat your chain shirt, you can still find a suit of MW leather that they couldn't digest.

One of the big challenges that R&D faces is keeping experienced players happy while fostering new players into the game. Veteran DMs like to bend, fold, and mutilate the game. Newbies might like to think they can do that, but more often than not they simply get into trouble.

The idea of allowing a rust monster to destroy items after X hits is a good one, and it illustrates why development works in groups. Multiple, diverse perspectives are great to have. They yield ideas that the individual would never think of.

ENWorld is particularly awesome in this regard.

-The Gneech

 

[ValhallaGH]

You can strip a party of all their eq and still have a "balanced" encounter. It won't match up the the party's expected CR because those numbers were based on a combination of equipment and level.

Or you can play Iron Heroes and not worry about losing your weapons because they cost 350 gp or less. At 20th level.

Thanks Mike!

 

[jgbrowning]

The problem comes when a DM doesn't realize or anticpate how much of an effect a rust monster could have on the PCs. If he planned the climactic encounter to be difficult based on how the PCs performed when well-equipped, he either has to replace the equipment (which kind of misses the point mentioned earlier about "permanent consequences") or he could be looking at a TPK.

And this result is different than a wandering monster killing a PC how?

What you're talking about the part of the game and, I would venture to say, the heart of the game:

Anything can happen. What are you going to do?

joe b.