[Rant] Playing Monsters Poorly

[Valesin]

I attacked the party with a covey of hags once. After they mopped up the hags with no problem, I realized that I had forgotten about the hags' SR (75% of the party was spellcasters).

We know refer to them as 'Hags of the Glass-Jawed Variety.'

 

[Piratecat]

I completely forgot a monster ability last game that would have made the beasty MUCH more deadly. I'm embarrassed in retrospect - and trying to figure out a way to cover it!

Hmm... maybe it was young, and hadn't developed vile damage capability yet... yeah...

 

[Agamon]

It happens all the time. A while back I had a fiendish undead creature get killed by a barb greataxe crit. I remebered it was fiendish, I forgot it was undead.

Just last session, they were fighting a spirit naga. I had it cast fireball once, which was effective. 4 rounds later I'm all, "hey, it casts like a sorcerer, whoops" and cast another fireball (also effective) just before it died. A very different (and scarier for the PCs) battle had I remembered that.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I kept forgetting that the Fiendish Locathah in the adventure I was running had Fire and Cold Resistance 5. The party used nothing but fire and cold damage spells (in addition to melee) in the combat but do you think I would remember about the resistance. No.

I am also terrible at remembering Spell Resistance.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Hypersmurf]

I completely forgot a monster ability last game that would have made the beasty MUCH more deadly. I'm embarrassed in retrospect - and trying to figure out a way to cover it!

Hmm... maybe it was young, and hadn't developed vile damage capability yet... yeah...

Swap the vile damage for Inflict Vile Disease?

24 hours after the combat, everyone clawed makes a Fort save or comes down with, uh, Vile Ecchymosis... a magical disease (resistant to Remove Disease, naturally, and requires [insert side-quest] to be rid of it) that converts all bludgeoning damage dealt to the subject into vile bludgeoning damage for as long as they're infected...

-Hyp.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

My bane is often forgetting that intelligent undead are still undead ... and not affected by mind-affecting spells.

 

[DM_Jeff]

I completely forgot a monster ability last game that would have made the beasty MUCH more deadly. I'm embarrassed in retrospect - and trying to figure out a way to cover it!

In our campaigns PC and DM forgetting cool abilities till later is chalked up to "fog of war", and it helps all egos in question.

-DM Jeff

 

[coyote6]

Yeah, I do that all the time. A couple of adventures ago, an entire fight with drow went by, and no one used darkness (and we use a variant that makes it somewhat useful for the drow). D'oh.

My favorite (not) is forgetting a creature in the initiative order. I'll go a couple of rounds, then realize that the bad guy's summoned minion hasn't done anything since the round it was first summoned. Oops.

Or the regenerating/fast healing creature -- I'm always forgetting to give 'em their hp back.

It's okay, though, because the players do stuff like that, too. "Oh, bard song is active? Oh, I'm hasted? Oh, my summoned lion gets to go?" It evens out. Maybe.

 

[Hypersmurf]

It's okay, though, because the players do stuff like that, too. "Oh, bard song is active? Oh, I'm hasted? Oh, my summoned lion gets to go?" It evens out. Maybe.

Huzzah! I got 'im!

-Hyp.

 

[the Jester]

Sigh... yeah... a couple sessions back the pcs were fighting a fire giant in a sea of fire with small solid paths above it, and the fight started some distance away. It took them several rounds of movement to reach the giant, during which time he was hucking boulders at the pcs.

Forgot about his Ranged Bull Rush feat that would have been knocking our heroes into the sea of fire.... whoops!