Anyone fooled by gargoyles anymore?

[Sword of Spirit]

My groups tend to be heavy on the in-character acting, and unless we knew it was a gargoyle infested area, I don't think a lot of our characters would feel comfortable routinely destroying art "just to be on the safe side." We'd probably be more likely to test out one statue by taking a swing at it and seeing if it fights back. If not, just keep a watchful eye on statues in case something is hidden amongst them.

Undead and cemetaries are harder. How often do graveyards that the PCs have any contact with or hear about *not* have undead? Makes you wonder why anyone buries their dead in the first place. Same basic solution though--have PCs interact with graveyards that are completely benign.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Smashing stone statues with ordinary weapons will ruin them, even when using blunt weapons like maces. Maces typically have flangs that pushes through armor, these will be bent out of shape by hitting stone. Maybe the only exception is hammers.

Anyway, if it isn't ordinary with gargoyle statues and you mention them in the description of the areas, well, they will be taken care of. They are obviously gargoyles, not statues.

Gargoyles are usually placed just below the roof, often spitting water. They are usually not accessible without climbing. Good luck to the players climbing up, hammering away when they get attacked by someone attrackted by the racket, easily hearable for several hundred yards.

To sum it up: I wouldn't do anything to stop the players crushing statues, it sounds like a good tactic in your game - at least with how you describe it as a problem.

 

[N'raac]

Is the real problem that the characters attack statues, or that the players are aware of gargoyles, and thus suspicious of statues? In the source material, these things surprise because they are not just unusual, but viewed as impossible, and the characters are not expecting them. In the typical game world, such fantastic things as elves, dwarves, undead and dragons are known to exist, and are not uncommon to encounter. So the surprise factor is markedly reduced, for players and characters alike.

To be surprising, they would need to be rare, such that it actually IS surprising if the statue moves, or the dead walk.

 

[Greenfield]

As far as mentioning them: I often describe scenes as having "Elaborate decorative stonework" without mentioning any specific feature, unless asked.

Over all, though, it's become a bit of a joke at my table that there is no such thing as a statue in D&D, just a monster that hasn't animated yet.

For a while I had fun describing scenes with many statues (that didn't animate) just to get the PCs distracted watching the stonework, and thus missing the surprise attack from something else.

Abusing the cynical player may be cruel, but sometimes it's necessary just to keep everyone honest.

 

[Warbringer]

"Poppa, what's a statue?"

"A "statue"? That takes me back," granddad answered.

"Well once upon a time the lords and ladies of the land would commission likeness's of themselves in stone, putting them on display in ballrooms, gardens, halls and even graveyards. Some where even made to look like monsters, even "demons" to scare away thieves and robbers"

Granddad sighed.

"But then "adventurers" started turning up, hunting orcs and goblins, and even the occasional dragon. But they started smashing all the statues willy-nilly; bloody hooligans if you ask me. Well, the lords and ladies stopped having masons carve anything pretty anymore, no point, if some damn adventurer was going to smash it before it was even settled!"

"Still, if it wasn't for all that smashing, we wouldn't have these lovely square blocks of granite, would we now"

 

[DancingSatyr]

Just have a Gargoyle come running out of a cave with a severed, partially chewed Orc head. No subterfuge, just a nasty brawl. If your players have ever ran a character past 5th level, they've probably fought a Gargoyle and hence lost all trust of dubious statuary. Metagaming is killing role-playing...but that is for another post

 

[Greenfield]

Or try this: They see a "statue" of a demon-ish thing. If they Detect on it, it will show Magic and/or Evil.

If they smash it, they release the demon that was imprisoned within, and bring down aq curse on themselves for loosing it on the world.

 

[Trit One-Ear]

Bear in mind nothing says a semi-smashed gargoyle can't partially function still. My party is similarly untrusting of anything that potentially could be animated. While exploring a temple they passed several large suits of black armor set as decorations. After removing the helm from the first few, they left them alone. It was only later when an evil cultist activated the magical alarm runes that the armor finally animated (flanking the heroes from behind). Several we're missing their helms, but attacked just as well as the others.
This also got a nice little chuckle out of the players.

As several said earlier, if you describe every important aspect of a room explicitly, the players can infer what's important and what's not. If you give equal detail to many things, it's much harder for players to predict what will be important.

I find gargoyles work best in conjunction with other threats. There is no real suspense or surprise in entering a room in which the statues suddenly spring to life. It's much more exciting and suspenseful to have another monster or threat to deal with, knowing at any moment the stonework could charge forward.

Trit

 

[darjr]

"Still, if it wasn't for all that smashing, we wouldn't have these lovely square blocks of granite, would we now"

Uh granitinous cube?

In fact that would be hilarious. Yoink!

"You see a large block of granite with an skeleton arm holding a sword sticking out of it."

 

[MortalPlague]

Include lots of gothic statues that are not gargoyles, and then don't have any of them be gargoyles for a good great long time.

This.

When I DM, I use a battle mat and miniatures. I have about seven or eight human statue miniatures that I like to put down on random battlefields. I think they have only animated once, maybe twice in about six years of gaming. I like to keep my players guessing as to whether or not the environment will turn against them or not.