D&D 5E Holy crap, that's cool

[aramis erak]

But this is a bit different. Rumours that there is a gobin or chimera about are fine, as are rumours of a medusa. That's cool. This goes a bit beyond finding some scat or burned wagons though. Basically every medusa/basilisk/cockatrice has a statue garden within spitting distance of their lair, just to conveniently tell adventurers that they are very close to finding them.

Do your goblins leave signs outside their holes saying, "Hey, goblin hole, beware small corridors, but, don't worry about bigger monsters"?

That goes beyond direct implications of the monster's combatant uses... Do gobbos keep a midden, or live amidst their castoffs and bones? Do they keep a privy pit, or just go into the midden and squat, or live amidst their own excrement? Is the Midden and or Privy inside or outside the caverns?

I've seen different GM's answer those wildly differently, and that crosses over from simple monster ecology into monster anthropology and monster sociology.

 

[Hussar]

For me, the bigger issue is, I can ambush the party with goblins or a chimera and it's fine. Difficult encounter, but fine. Ambush with an AoE SoD creature and you've pretty much guaranteed at least one dead PC.

 

[Riley37]

What we really need is a stone eating creature that we can use as medusa/cockatrice/basilisk markers. You don't find statues, you find pebbly scat!

Xorn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xorn_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)

Magic items made of metal and/or gems are delicious to a xorn. Magic items made of wood would be normally be inedible to a xorn, but if an adventurer is carrying a +1 bow or quarterstaff, and then gets petrified, I bet that statue's weapon would be *om nom nom* to a xorn. Xorn might want to lure people with such items towards a basilisk lair. That might even be sufficient motivation for a xorn to voluntarily forage on Prime Material.

Could a sufficiently-motivated xorn take action to prevent mirror use? For example, making the area around the basilisk's lair so foggy that mirrors become less effective?

Along those lines, if a medusa could spellcast, or had an ally who could... Shatter?

By the way, in Nethack, it is possible to polymorph into a xorn, and eat items such as a sword, spear or halberd. If you eat a trident, you get a special message about pure chewing satisfaction.

 

[Piratecat]

So this means that there are likely many petrified basilisks in and around basilisk breeding grounds.

I now need to set an adventure in a basilisk breeding pit, in complete darkness.

 

[Fralex]

It's worth noting that of the three petrifying monsters, only the Medusa doesn't provide a way to revive the victims. The effects of a cockatrice bite only last 24 hours, and the gullet of a basilisk contains the key ingredient in concocting a petrification antidote. And medusas are sort of high-profile monsters. It makes sense that there'd be rumors and tales about one around the area it lives.

 

[JasonZZ]

The Nethack dev team thinks of everything.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I now need to set an adventure in a basilisk breeding pit, in complete darkness.

Complete darkness?
[sblock]You are eaten by a grue.[/sblock]

 

[The_Gneech]

Complete darkness?
[sblock]You are eaten by a grue.[/sblock]

I wanna cast magic missile!

-The Gneech

 

[Reynard]

For me, the bigger issue is, I can ambush the party with goblins or a chimera and it's fine. Difficult encounter, but fine. Ambush with an AoE SoD creature and you've pretty much guaranteed at least one dead PC.

You say that like it's a bad thing. ;-)

More seriously, I think very deadly creatures should be very scary -- not just to the PCs, but to anyone in the area. Ghost stories, rumors and panicked reports would follow a monster like that, even in remote lands (it isn't like the goblin tribes would want to get turned to stone or death gazed any more than human settlers). I'm of a mind that you let the players know their characters live in a dangerous world and when you present them with a threats of nasty doom, they should consider those seriously.

 

[Hussar]

You say that like it's a bad thing. ;-)

More seriously, I think very deadly creatures should be very scary -- not just to the PCs, but to anyone in the area. Ghost stories, rumors and panicked reports would follow a monster like that, even in remote lands (it isn't like the goblin tribes would want to get turned to stone or death gazed any more than human settlers). I'm of a mind that you let the players know their characters live in a dangerous world and when you present them with a threats of nasty doom, they should consider those seriously.

I just strongly dislike one trick pony creatures that are of limited use. The only reason medusa's are threatening is because of their gaze - they're pretty much pointless otherwise, although, to be fair, later editions have improved that greatly. Same with most AoE SoD creatures. They are basically walking traps and that's largely the only way to use them. I prefer critters with a broader application.

Note, this is hardly limited to medusas. Things like the old Dryad or some of the other faerie types that were basically trap monsters, were things I almost never used. It's just not to my taste.