Exception-based monster abilities?

[Morrus]

By an "exception-based" ability, I'm referring to a power or ability that a creature might have that cannot be modelled normally by the standard creature-building rules structure. You have to make an exception to the rules. Older D&D editions were very exception-based; 4E was in terms of monster design. 3.x less so, more focused on a strong structure for monster building (though it does include exception-based stuff too).

I enjoy both approaches for different reasons. Below is an example of an exception-based ability for my WOIN game. This sphinx is built normally using the monster creation rules and maths, but it's "Riddles" ability is completely exception based. Not only that, it's absolute - it's not dependent on character power; you can't bypass it or overcome it except in the specific way stated.

How do you feel about this exception-based stuff? Do you prefer everything modelled by a predefined set of 'physics' in your game, or do you enjoy some absolute outside wonkiness like this?

What games, out of curiosity, are the least exception based? The ones where a critter is completely modelled by building rules to exact detail?

 

[delericho]

How do you feel about this exception-based stuff?

Very mixed feelings. On the one hand, lots of exceptions offends my sense of neatness and I don't like such things. On the other hand, it's just not possible to construct a system to cover every possibility, and attempts to do so build in lots of complexity to handle lots of little-used cases - probably better to have a system that broadly handles most things and then introduce one-off exceptions for the rest.

Do you prefer everything modelled by a predefined set of 'physics' in your game, or do you enjoy some absolute outside wonkiness like this?

I wouldn't bother with the 'predetermined' part of the proposed "set of 'physics'", but often there's value in packaging up some of the exceptional cases into modules that can be reused - the 'riddles' ability of the Sphinx is a one-off exception now, but if someone were to later introduce another creature that again had a 'riddles' ability, it should probably work in the same way in both places.

That said, some "absolute outside wonkiness" is also a definite plus!

 

[Psikerlord#]

I couldn't read the sphinx entry here from work, but I am a big fan of special/unique monster rules. They make the monster feel special and are more fun for both players and DMs, in my experience.

I am not as sure about an exclusive list of solutions to overcome an ability, but on the other hand, these can also work great... For example, trolls only being killed by fire or acid, or vampires only killed by immersing in running water, sunlight, or stake through the heart, that sort of thing. I guess it depends somewhat on what's at stake, and the party's capacity to escape/regroup/research and try again.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In order for the game to be playable as a game, the choices of the player(s) must be meaningful. In the context of a role-playing game, this means that the players have to be able to reasonably guess how certain elements of the world are represented in the game mechanics.

The question which players face should always be, "How do I respond to these elements within the fiction?" rather than, "Which game mechanics are used to represent these elements within the fiction?"

I can't speak for WOIN, but in terms of D&D, "completely immune to damage and spells unless X" would never be something that I could guess. It comes completely out of left field, and I would never consider it as a possibility for how the world works. It doesn't jive with any laws of reality as I understand them, so it could never influence how I make any of my decisions. It sounds like something that the GM is making up in order to mess with the player at the table, rather than anything that could reasonably exist within the game world.

That's one of the (many) reasons why I stopped playing Pathfinder.

 

[Morrus]

I can't speak for WOIN, but in terms of D&D, "completely immune to damage and spells unless X" would never be something that I could guess. It comes completely out of left field, and I would never consider it as a possibility for how the world works. It doesn't jive with any laws of reality as I understand them, so it could never influence how I make any of my decisions. It sounds like something that the GM is making up in order to mess with the player at the table, rather than anything that could reasonably exist within the game world.

It's not part of reality, true, though it's very common in mythology, both ancient and modern. It's where the term "Achilles Heel" comes from. Lots of absolutes and prophecies and riddles and stuff. Would you guess, for example, that only the King can pull that sword from that stone? Or that Hulk can't life Mjolnir?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It's not part of reality, true, though it's very common in mythology, both ancient and modern. It's where the term "Achilles Heel" comes from. Lots of absolutes and prophecies and riddles and stuff. Would you guess, for example, that only the King can pull that sword from that stone? Or that Hulk can't life Mjolnir?

It's a matter of consistency, and like I said, I'm not terribly familiar with WOIN. If we've already fought the Hydra, and it was completely immune to injury unless you cut off its head and seal it with fire, then I might be more willing to believe that the Sphinx can only be hurt by someone who overcomes its riddle.

More often than not, at least as far as games I've seen are concerned, all of those myths are descriptive rather than prescriptive. If nobody could injure Achilles without hitting his heel, then that describes what happened, but doesn't rule out the possibility of someone else hurting Achilles by just hitting him in the face really hard (e.g. with the Hulk or a rocket launcher). Saying that he's invincible is a perfectly adequate description, if he has DR 20/epic and nobody around is strong enough to do 21 damage with a single hit.

And on the scale of believability, the idea that he's ridiculously tough is way easier to believe than the idea that he's infinitely tough. Occam's Razor must also apply to any fictional world, if I'm going to buy into it.

 

[Nikosandros]

I'm strongly in favor of exception based design for monsters. Modelling some kind of underlying "physics" strongly appeals to me on an intellectual level, but - in practice - (in a D&D-like context) I much prefer the former method. Even when I was running 3e, I just "cheated" with the monsters, building them in a 4e style and completely ignoring BAB and saves progression, skill points, number of feats, etc.

 

[delericho]

It's not part of reality, true, though it's very common in mythology, both ancient and modern. It's where the term "Achilles Heel" comes from. Lots of absolutes and prophecies and riddles and stuff. Would you guess, for example, that only the King can pull that sword from that stone? Or that Hulk can't life Mjolnir?

One thing that's worth noting here is that there was only one Achillies, one sword in the stone, and one Mjolnir. And, in each case, there's a whole lot of in-setting lore about that unique instance that ideally would precede its appearance in the game.

By contrast, in an RPG monsters tend not to be unique as often, and they also frequently appear exactly at the point where the PCs need to deal with then - there's no time to go back to hit the library when you've got an angry Achillies bearing down on you!

That's not to say "don't do it", of course! But it is, perhaps, to say, "be careful." (Also, as I've mentioned on other threads, I'd very much like to see a MM which had called-out "how best to use this monster" sections for at least some critters. Which would be an ideal place to put a guideline saying "before using Achillies in your game, be sure to introduce the legend that he's unkillable by normal means.")

 

[Celebrim]

I don't feel exception based has a definable concrete meaning. Pretty much anything that appears beneath the stat block would fit the definition of exception based, which means that pretty much all monsters with any unique mechanical abilities are exception based. About the only thing that might not qualify for that is if all of a monster's unique abilities map to a common list of spells and powers - for example, if dragons in your system have an ability like: 'Fiery Breath: Casts fireball at its level 3/day'.

On the other hand, I feel absolutes in a system are always bad. Everything in a system should be quantified in some way. For example, even a fire elemental shouldn't be 'immune to fire damage'. They should have Fire Resistance 100. One big problem with immunity is the problem Saelorn calls out with Achilles - just because ordinary weapons could only harm his heel, doesn't mean that he could resist Zeus tossing a lightning bolt at him. Whenever you put an absolute in the game, whether you make an explicit exception to that absolute or not ('this object can't be seen without true seeing', 'mind blank renders you immune to all mind effecting spells') you are making assumptions that leave no room for the endless creativity and possibilities that will arise elsewhere. Those assumptions ultimately require you to reference each individual ability and remember everything that is out there in order to make an coherent world. But quantifying everything means it just works without having to remember what else is out there or plan for it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's not part of reality, true, though it's very common in mythology, both ancient and modern. It's where the term "Achilles Heel" comes from. Lots of absolutes and prophecies and riddles and stuff. Would you guess, for example, that only the King can pull that sword from that stone? Or that Hulk can't life Mjolnir?

I think it is fine to customize monsters however you see fit. I don't really have much desire these days to return to the 3E way of doing things (where it felt like too much of the system operated on the same mechanical rules, and for me that started taking some of the imaginative spark out of things). I am a fan of 3E....but just in term of this one aspect, I like the GMs (and the designer's),imagination and judgment to be a little more freed up.