Ampersand: Monsters, Minis, Ammo

[Derren]

How do you get access to rust monsters exactly? You cannot summon them, you cannot teleport to their lair, and at heroic and early paragon you cannot easily and safely contain them. They are one use only as well. And by middle to late paragon the items they disenchant are a minor ammount of gold.

Oh sorry, I assumed that the D&D world has an actual ecology and stuff like that and not that monsters spawn randomly in level appropriate encounters 100 feet away from the PCs.

You seek them out, you capture them, you breed them (pay someone to breed them for you).

Oh really.

You're saying, if I understand your reference to Walls of Iron correctly, that an intelligent player with a pen of rust monsters could get a gamebreaking (or possibly infinite) amount of money.

How? Seriously. How do you pull off this magic trick?

That would also require the ritualist ring which allows you to craft items at half the price. The amount of residium you get from the rust monster would still be the market value of the item, meaning that for every rustmonster the enchanter doubles his investment.

 

[Nymrohd]

But that is the point. Complaining that a system gave a munchkin a way to do something broken is like complaining about the weather. It is out of anyone's control.

 

[Nymrohd]

So you have players who seek rust monsters, capture them and then spend who knows how long until they can breed them, albeit ignoring any and all plot hooks. WHy are those players playing D&D again?

 

[Derren]

But that is the point. Complaining that a system gave a munchkin a way to do something broken is like complaining about the weather. It is out of anyone's control.

Please define what you understand under "munchkin".

So you have players who seek rust monsters, capture them and then spend who knows how long until they can breed them, albeit ignoring any and all plot hooks. WHy are those players playing D&D again?

No, I have players who seek out rust monsters, capture them and pay a commoner a few hundered gold coins to breed them for you.
After some adventuring they come back and get 2-3 monsters to recycle their items for 5 times the money they would normally get.

 

[AllisterH]

Er, even with an ecology, monsters are under the control of the DM. Unless the DM purposely puts rust monsters in a place, you're not going to find them...

Not sure how this compares to Wall of Iron which was a player controlled ability....

A rust monster farm is an exercise in Monty Haulism and that's always been a DM-side problem.....

 

[FourthBear]

Just FYI, numerous real world animals cannot be bred in captivity. If a party breeding rust monsters for efficient magic item conversion offends, you could limit it that way.

Clearly, the rust monster produces the same gp amount of residuum as the original item it devoured to make it possible for a PC to recreate his magic item without too much pain. For DMs who dislike the 1:1 disenchanting power enabled by sacrificing rust monsters could remedy by having the rust monster create "structured residuum", rather than standard residuum. Structured residuum being only fully useful to recreate (with a specific ritual) the item of the same type that was devoured. For all other purposes, it has to be rendered down to 1/5th the amount of standard residuum.

BTW, here's hoping for Al Qadim for the next campaign world. Fingers crossed!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So you have players who seek rust monsters, capture them and then spend who knows how long until they can breed them, albeit ignoring any and all plot hooks. WHy are those players playing D&D again?

To prove a point, of course!

 

[Derren]

To prove a point, of course!

I forgot that only hack & slash player can play D&D and that showing any creativity and business sense is forbidden.

 

[D.Shaffer]

No, I have players who seek out rust monsters, capture them and pay a commoner a few hundered gold coins to breed them for you.
After some adventuring they come back and get 2-3 monsters to recycle their items for 5 times the money they would normally get.

Please answer at length the following questions.

A: How are you feeding the things?
B: How are you preventing them from attacking and killing the people attempting to farm them?
C: Why are you sure they can be bred reliably? Or even raised in captivity to begin with?
D: What makes you think anyone in authority is going to LET you raise these things? They can absolutely ruin any economy you have if they get loose.

 

[Derren]

Please answer at length the following questions.

A: How are you feeding the things?
B: How are you preventing them from attacking and killing the people attempting to farm them?
C: Why are you sure they can be bred reliably? Or even raised in captivity to begin with?
D: What makes you think anyone in authority is going to LET you raise these things? They can absolutely ruin any economy you have if they get loose.

A:
Scrap metal, damaged mundane items. Those things can survive in the wild where you don't have items made out of iron lieing around, so finding food in civilization shouldn't be a problem. In the worst case when you find a dungeon full of them you kill every other monster in there at let the rustmonsters roam freely

B: Fences and whatever. Don't have DDI so I don't know how dangerous they are. Just build high enough fences and tell the peseants who tend them to be careful.

C: Its worth a try. At worst, see A (dungeon)

D: Thats the good thing with small farming communities and PoL worlds. There isn't much of a authority there. Besides, just breed them far away (1/4 day travel at least) from a small village and it should be fine. For a few gold you will certainly find one who walks that distance very day (although that has some problems). Or you simply replace everything in the village they destroy if they break out (farming villages don't have that many iron items except plows anyway).