Brown
Yes, I would carry a bunch of weapons just in case. For the same reasons I now carry scrolls of
Remove blindness, Remove Paralysis, Remove Curse, and others. As soon as we could afford these we
bought them, and although each has been used a grand total of one time, they were invaluable
durring that one combat. For just a little more I will now carry Silver and Cold Iron, and scrolls of
Alignment and anything else that might help. It is a foolish adventurerer who is not adaquately
prepared for the challenges he might face.
Agreed, mostly. But let me remind you, it is *obvious* when to use those scrolls, and you have no alternative. Paralysis is binary, you are paralized, or you are not. If party member is paralized, you *know* you need the scroll, and you have *no* other options.
With DR, many times you will not know when to use it, and evenso, you have other options.
lets say a werewolf; which 'everyone knows' needs silver. Your figher approaches with a +3 sword, is it worth switching to a regular silver weapon? What if he isn't specialized in the silver weapon?
Or better yet, the skeleton. Fighter has weapon focus/specialization/whatever on his +3 sword. Is he going to need to switch to a normal mace?
This is assuming that all the traits/weaknesses of all monsters are known. (The alternative is **NOT** that the characters are ignorants bumbling around.)
If you want to withhold information in your campaign that is fine, but I don't feel that such narrow
restrictions would be accurate.
Gee, can we get away from the condescending attitude? I said nothing about withholding information, just that not all information is readily appartent, or trustworthy.
In the real world where monsters are just myths large amounts of the
general population can tell you that to kill werewolves you need silver and to kill vampires you need a
wooden stake.
A couple of problems with that logic. First, it is not true in many many places in the world. Second, what is 'known' *varies* from place to place. heck , read more than 3 vampire books, and you will learn contradictory information. Lastly, they are well known *because* they are myths, and rare. What if we had 750+ monsters to know about?? How much do you know about the 'monsters' from India, native americans, south america, etc. etc.
In a land where these creatures are real and pose a real threat to your life you would
certainly know these things. Just as I know not to stick a paperclip in a outlet I would know that if a
fey trys to steal my child that I need to stop it using cold iron.
You are making many different assumptions. You assume that these threats are common. How often will a fey try to steal a child in a town in FR? So how 'common' is that? It is *very* common for a child to encounter an outlet. But do you know what poisen sumac looks like? Can you treat it? How 'common' is it to encounter one of the 750 monsters in the realms? Orcs, sure. Now what about a Lich, or even an owlbear?
You assume that just because they are a threat, you know alot about them. It is at least as likely that you know enough to avoid them. Take towns in Africa, they know to avoid Lions etc. They don't know a lot about their lifestyles.
You assume that you know what monsters you will encounter. If you know (like part of a quest) than learning all you can makes sense, but to just know everything about everything....
If people did not know the
weaknesses of the monsters they would be quickly overun.
You are again making more assumptions. You assume that the monsters (all 750+) are trying to overrun them. And you assume that you have to know all about them to protect yourself.
Most monsters are content where they are, except for the pesky adventures wandering about. Second, you can know how to defend, without knowing all the details. You like to bring up the 'real world' Look at how much of animal info turns out to be wrong, despite dealing with them for years, and despite actively studying them. Heck, they are now learning that the hundreds of years of dealing with horses may have been doing it the 'wrong way'.
These people did not just stumble accross
the monsters, they have been living with their threat for thousands of years.
You are again assuming that all of the monsters are an active threat, and assuming that the only defense means knowing all about them. Sure, if your town is in the middle of Undead Central, you may know some stuff about fighting undead, because then they are a common threat If a hamlet has been plagued by a family of werewolves for a long time, sure they may learn something, and it may even be right. But there are hundreds and hundreds of threats/monsters out there...
if you are playing Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk then these monsters are a well
known part of the enviornment.
Just because you know the monsters are out there, doesn't mean you know all about the monsters.
You know about elephants, do you know what they eat? How long they gestate? can you even tell the different from an asian and african elephant. (it is important, because the asian is DR silver, and teh african is DR iron
And remember, we live in a time of world wide communication, with nothing to do but sit around and watch Discovery channel. Imagine even 30-50 years ago, there was a lot of misinformation disguised as facts.
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