Insubstantial rules irk anyone else?

[Danceofmasks]

Yes, yes, but in 3e, if you realise you're going to lose, often you've already lost.
Oh look, a greater shadow. Pow. Take strength damage. How about that, you're dead.
Hey .. what's it doing? Blasphemy? Crap. Game over.

 

[FadedC]

What happened to running away?

If you come against something you cannot beat - run away.

Come back later when you figure out a way (or get strong enough) to put up a fight. If they are unattackable, find a special trick/ritual to make them attackable and then go and kick their arse.

Why does everyone just walk in a place and fight till they die? (It is allot worse in 4E now.)

Back in Red Box D&D I had a module that had some harpys the PCs couldn't possibly defeat (even though they were the right level for the module). I kept them in because they could have tried to avoid them or run away/past. (They were not detrimental to the plot part.)


We went through it 3 times (there is no excuse for 2 and 3 - they knew they were there) They got frustrated that they couldn't kill them and I sacked it off because if they hadn't got the imagination to 'run away' it wasn't worth the effort (that and the fact that a couple were habitual wingers. Still are 17 years later.)

While it is often a good idea to run away, trying to run away from an extremely fast flying creature who can go through walls and who (in the case of some incorporeals) can sense where you are through all walls and illusions is probably not a viable idea.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I'm of the following opinion:

If you're an experienced enough DM then it's not difficult to make monsters that are only harmed by X, or for whom X is needed to make the encounter winnable. X typically has to be part of the plot in these situations. There have to be hints that X is needed in the encounter or lead-up to the encounter, and X has to be available somehow.

An inexperienced DM will use the monsters straight out of the book.

Suppose the book has monsters that are invulnerable (or heavily under-valued) unless you have X. The inexperienced DM will possibly use one. He will most likely not put X in the game, and won't work the warning signs about not having X into the encounter. There's a good chance a TPK will occur. An experienced DM won't do this, but we've already established that he's not gaining anything from this scenario - he already has the ability required to add this special ability to monsters.

Additionally 3e had golf bag syndrome for this very reason - the out-of-the-book monsters commonly required X, Y or Z to kill, so everyone carried an Alpha-Omega of weapons around with them at all times and things got a little silly.

 

[Otterscrubber]

No, they don't irk me. It's different, but they don't irk me. If something is not meant to be hit or killed then it will have a power that makes it unable to be hit or killed. If it is meant to be hit and/or killed in some manner, then then new insubstantial guidelines work fine by me.

I actually didn't like the old version. I mean, why would something have a 50% chance to totally avoid a magic sword? Shouldn't it either affect it or not? Seemed silly to me. Ghost touch didn't sit too well with me either as the "insubstantial" nature of several creatures was very different in flavor, yet this one magic property covered all the bases from gaseous to shadow creatures for some reason. I could see a ghost being hit by a holy weapon, or by the weapon that killed it the first time or some other story related thing, but why the random 50%? Why not just give it a higher AC if it is just harder to hit or make it all or nothing based on the nature of the weapon?

 

[Otterscrubber]

I'm of the following opinion:

If you're an experienced enough DM then it's not difficult to make monsters that are only harmed by X, or for whom X is needed to make the encounter winnable. X typically has to be part of the plot in these situations. There have to be hints that X is needed in the encounter or lead-up to the encounter, and X has to be available somehow.

An inexperienced DM will use the monsters straight out of the book.

Suppose the book has monsters that are invulnerable (or heavily under-valued) unless you have X. The inexperienced DM will possibly use one. He will most likely not put X in the game, and won't work the warning signs about not having X into the encounter. There's a good chance a TPK will occur. An experienced DM won't do this, but we've already established that he's not gaining anything from this scenario - he already has the ability required to add this special ability to monsters.

Additionally 3e had golf bag syndrome for this very reason - the out-of-the-book monsters commonly required X, Y or Z to kill, so everyone carried an Alpha-Omega of weapons around with them at all times and things got a little silly.

I like everything he just said....