D&D 5E Clay Golem HP Drain

[Thaumaturge]

What you choose to see as blindsided and crippled others may see as an opportunity for adventure! So now you have the three amigos down on hp maximum and desperate for a way to get their mojo back. There is a legend about a magical fountain to found in the nearby mountains. They say that those worthy enough to reach the fountain may benefit much by drinking from it.

Are there piñatas at the fountain? If so, would you say there are many piñatas?

Thaumaturge.

 

[I'm A Banana]

What you choose to see as blindsided and crippled others may see as an opportunity for adventure! So now you have the three amigos down on hp maximum and desperate for a way to get their mojo back. There is a legend about a magical fountain to found in the nearby mountains. They say that those worthy enough to reach the fountain may benefit much by drinking from it.

Take lemons- make lemonade.

This would be peachy-keen except that I'm sure you can imagine hundreds of possible scenarios where such an adventure would not be a welcome intrusion into the game, and the key point here is that if 5e is like this, it gives you no way to know this without some pretty in-depth system mastery, so you can stumble into this without wanting to or intending to. If I've got the space for it or I'm aware of what I'm getting into -- if 5e telegraphed that parties without healers might face this -- then I could still have the opportunity for adventure, but I wouldn't be caught with my pants down when it came up. I could consciously choose it. That would be what explicit roles do.

Plus, I ordered the lemonade, I'm paying for lemonade, I want the lemonade, you can't give me lemons and pretend like it's good enough because I can squeeze them and mix some sugar-water in myself if I want lemonade so bad.

All that was done was cosmetic name changing. Just replace whole groups of specific classes with a role and you have the same stuff. Rather than waste valuable pages basically telling you that different classes have (GASP!) different strengths & weaknesses, the 5E team chose not to assume that the average interested D&D'er had been lobotomized and that a read through of the classes would paint a decent picture of what each class was and wasn't capable of.

There's a LOT of space between "strengths and weaknesses" and "you are screwed without this specific spell." A read through the PHB will show you that different classes are different, but will do nothing to show you that you MUST have the greater restoration spell in the party or you're going to be hosed with certain encounters. Is there some encounter out there that will hose me if I don't have fireball? What about Bigby's Hand? Why would I expect greater restoration to be any different from any other spell in that it is a useful tool but not a necessary bar for being able to fight the thing?

It would be like if I made a monster (call it the Puccini) immune to everything except +2 bohemian ear-spoons and then told the players that if they didn't anticipate having to use a +2 bohemian ear-spoon that this is THEIR problem for being "lobotomized" enough to somehow not divine how important a +2 bohemian ear-spoon is in D&D. Clearly they deserve to get crippled because they forgot to bring one into the dungeon that had the Puccini encounter on the random encounter tables and then decided to fight it WITHOUT a +2 bohemian ear-spoon. Not my problem, right? They'll learn next time!

 

[skotothalamos]

It would be like if I made a monster (call it the Puccini) immune to everything except +2 bohemian ear-spoons and then told the players that if they didn't anticipate having to use a +2 bohemian ear-spoon that this is THEIR problem for being "lobotomized" enough to somehow not divine how important a +2 bohemian ear-spoon is in D&D. Clearly they deserve to get crippled because they forgot to bring one into the dungeon that had the Puccini encounter on the random encounter tables and then decided to fight it WITHOUT a +2 bohemian ear-spoon. Not my problem, right? They'll learn next time!

So they run, and if they really care about defeating the Puccini, they do the research and then go a-questing for +2 bohemian ear-spoons so they can defeat the Puccini in the rematch. Sounds like a good turn of events to me. Heck, it sounds like half the Cthulhu games I've been in (and a sizable number of Buffy episodes). That Investigation skill has to be good for something, right?

"We attack the mayor with hummus."

 

[I'm A Banana]

So they run, and if they really care about defeating the Puccini, they do the research and then go a-questing for +2 bohemian ear-spoons so they can defeat the Puccini in the rematch. Sounds like a good turn of events to me. Heck, it sounds like half the Cthulhu games I've been in (and a sizable number of Buffy episodes). That Investigation skill has to be good for something, right?

"We attack the mayor with hummus."

Yes, but, again, if I rolled that monster on a random encounter table? If I pulled it because its story seemed interesting on the spur of the moment? If I didn't have time in my campaign for a side-quest, or time to research the monster going in, or to bother to find out if any of my party members had bohemian ear-spoon proficiency? If I didn't want to derail the game to go a-questing for some specific thing? If I'm already in the middle of some other episode?

Part of the issue is the "SURPRISE, you have to go do something else now!" nature of not being clear about the necessity for certain abilities.

And still, I ordered lemonade, so giving me some lemons and telling me to make it myself isn't going to cut it.

 

[skotothalamos]

Yes, but, again, if I rolled that monster on a random encounter table? If I pulled it because its story seemed interesting on the spur of the moment? If I didn't have time in my campaign for a side-quest, or time to research the monster going in, or to bother to find out if any of my party members had bohemian ear-spoon proficiency? If I didn't want to derail the game to go a-questing for some specific thing? If I'm already in the middle of some other episode?

Part of the issue is the "SURPRISE, you have to go do something else now!" nature of not being clear about the necessity for certain abilities.

And still, I ordered lemonade, so giving me some lemons and telling me to make it myself isn't going to cut it.

If you rolled on a random encounter chart, you already gave up some control. Why are you trying to seize that control back after the fact?

You ordered lemonade, and when the server asked what kind, you said "surprise me," and then got upset when it was pink.

And anyway, the answer to your riddle is that the Clay Golem (or someone very nearby) is guarding the scroll or wand of (whatever the fix is).

 

[I'm A Banana]

If you rolled on a random encounter chart, you already gave up some control. Why are you trying to seize that control back after the fact?

I'm not asking for control back, I'm asking that the game doesn't have some chance to break down just because I give up some control. If I could get back a clay golem that worked with a party of 4 fighters when I roll a random encounter, I'd be happy.

You ordered lemonade, and when the server asked what kind, you said "surprise me," and then got upset when it was pink.

Nah, if it was pink, I'd be fine, but this ain't just pink, it's not even lemonade. It's not complete as it is. It doesn't do what I need it to do.

And, it's probably worth re-iterating, it's not complete yet. I'm looking at a basket of lemons, but it's entirely possible that there's someone coming over to my table to squeeze it right now, they just won't be here 'till November. Currently, my thought is that this is what's happening, and what's annoying is that I keep getting told that probably no one is coming and that these lemons should be fine because if you wanted lemonade, you can still make some!

Argh, too much metaphor, I broke something.

 

[The Hitcher]

It may be that potential issues of party composition will be addressed in the DMG. That might be helpful for some people (particularly beginners). I think the point some of us are making is that for experienced DMs, this seems like the most trivial of problems.

The rule is flagged - inside the monster, which seems like quite a sensible place for it. When you look at the monster, you'll already know if your players have access to that spell. If you somehow forget, it's easy to modify on the fly.

To join in on your tortured metaphor - it's not so much that we're given lemons, but that we're given lemonade that needs a shake before drinking, and most of us are experienced shakers who actually enjoy the shaking process.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Are there piñatas at the fountain? If so, would you say there are many piñatas?

Thaumaturge.

There is a virtual plethora of pinatas!

 

[I'm A Banana]

It may be that potential issues of party composition will be addressed in the DMG. That might be helpful for some people (particularly beginners). I think the point some of us are making is that for experienced DMs, this seems like the most trivial of problems.

I think it's worth entertaining the idea that not all DMs are the same, that we have different strengths and weaknesses, different desires and capabilities, so that what might be a trivial problem for one is a game-breaking experience-ruining flustercluck for another. I mean, this is part of what the Edition Wars were all about.

The rule is flagged - inside the monster, which seems like quite a sensible place for it. When you look at the monster, you'll already know if your players have access to that spell. If you somehow forget, it's easy to modify on the fly.

I don't have the time or inclination to memorize my players' spell lists. I want to have confidence that the game will work regardless of their spell list. And if it doesn't, then I'd like that to be clear in character creation, not embedded in some obscure paragraph in the monster whose statblock I didn't even read before the fight broke out.

To join in on your tortured metaphor - it's not so much that we're given lemons, but that we're given lemonade that needs a shake before drinking, and most of us are experienced shakers who actually enjoy the shaking process.

Sure, but not everyone, and why didn't they tell me I needed to shake it? Because I did order lemonade, and I brought my own stuff to add to it (got some sort of berry-pomogranate additive that's gonna be really tasty with it), and I can't see it as my problem if they didn't tell me how to prepare their lemonade for consumption.

 

[Sadras]

The bottleneck is, "If you don't want a permenantly crippled character after a fight with a clay golem, you must have someone in the party who can cast greater restoration."

And part of the issue there is that if that's true, the game doesn't really tell you that explicitly, so you get surprised and blindsided because you didn't read the minds of the game designers.

KM, I haven't bothered to read the entire thread (and maybe I should have) but do you remember the time of cursed weapons and where curses would last, I don't know, like forever - I'm curious to know what you as DM did then in those situations with your three fighters? Or how about when there was no Surge or HD mechanic, how did your fighters heal when they ran out of healing potions or charges for their wands of cure x wounds?