Rust Monster Lovin'

[Ourph]

Just on the point of death vs losing your equipment.

If my PC dies, it takes about an hour at the outside to create a new PC, and, as an added bonus, he comes fully equiped.

If my PC gets his armor and sword shredded by the rust monster, it will take several sessions, probably 8-10 hours of real time to regain my equipment.

If the latter seems like such an insurmountable problem, just have your naked fighter run full-bore at the next nasty think with teeth and claws he sees. Roll up new, fully-equipped character. Problem solved.

 

[Imp]

I have a naked fighter, assuming 4 man party, and the entire party may very well have to stop and wait until I'm re-equipped since they no longer have a tank. Effectively, the creature has now wasted collectively several hours of everyone's time, not doing anything fun like whack the critter or advancing the adventure, but, "Let's watch Biff the fighter go shopping."

Either you run the subsequent encounters with less meat to carve through; provide some replacement equipment for, say, the rogue to steal; or you green-slime the cleric, have a thief run off with the mage's spellbook, and have a couple giants mug the rogue. Problem solved!

 

[barrowwight]

i assume the mini for ol' rusty will be plastic...cause if it was metal he'd eat himself to death.
or half to death and then repair after 10 mins

 

[A'koss]

It's been a long day and I'm pretty beat so forgive me if this rambles on a bit...

Seeing the rust monster revision reminded me that one area of design I would like to see touched upon down the line is one of complexity. Looking at the supernatural rust ability I can't help but feel it could have been made simplier yet. Right now you have to keep track of attack/damage/AC penalties, item saving throw rules (if a magic item is struck), tracking the time you got hit...

My first thought was... why not just have straight item (HP) damage? Metallic items taking a rusting hit are damaged for 1dX HP.

Done.

No penalty tracking, no saving throws, no time tracking. Your gear if fine until it runs out of HPs after which it's ruined. Use spells/craft to fix afterward.

I think rules should always be looked at as simply and as consistantly as possible (at first), then start adding complexity only if it really, really needs it.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Fascinating conversation. All the snide sarcastic remarks from both side of the fence aside, it's interesting to see the various points of view on the matter.

I agree. There may be a few unuseful remarks, but there are also many insightful thoughts here as well--if we continue at this pace, this thread may well be worth archiving

 

[Thunderfoot]

Actually, you're right. Try this exchange.

DM: You spy a small insectoid creature with feathery antenea and a strange paddle-like tail.
Player #1: I swat it with my sword
DM: Roll a REF save
Player #1: *rolls 1*, Darn I blew it, what happens?
DM: Your sword immediately turns to rust in your hands, the monster waves its antenea and *rolls* your armor is also rusting away
Player #1: But, that was my favorite weapon and armor!
DM: Suck it up meat-bag!
Player #1: Piss off jerk! I'll go play with someone else! *gets up and leaves table*

This could be fixed by changing this as follows...
<SNIP>.

What you mean fixed, this works for me.

 

[I'm A Banana]

For me, PC death is a matter of choice and luck. Sometimes you choose poorly and live, sometimes you choose wisely and die.

This sounds deeply, deeply unsatisfying to me. I want my choices to have an impact on my survivability, and I want my ideas to be present in the game. If the only reason my ancestral sword that I, personally, had an investment in, is because the dice roll a certain way, why don't I just go gambling?

Life gives me little enough control over the events in it. I want to be able to control events in a fantasy!

No, in 1e (and to some extent 2e) encounters that forced the players to think laterally were considered a strength of the game, not a "problem". Only 3e adheres to the design philosophy that every problem that can't be solved with a mindless frontal attack or a skill check requires a rules fix and a new rulebook sale to keep the game fun.

No, 3e is changing to try and adhere to the idea that sudden, unwanted, permenant hiccups in the campaign are bad. Generally speaking, this is true. If you use one as-is Rust Monster, you're paying for it for WEEKS of real-life time. That's a long time for one monster to dominate the game, and it's generally not fun to have to just suffer for a couple of sessions because people like rewards.

What you mean fixed, this works for me.

For most people, though, it's going to be a problem. People game with friends, people game as a social activity, having fun with a couple of buds is key to the game's appeal, and has to be emphasized going forward. If the game's rules anger someone enough to just abandon the game, then the game is going to suffer, wither, and die.

 

[Imp]

For most people, though, it's going to be a problem. People game with friends, people game as a social activity, having fun with a couple of buds is key to the game's appeal, and has to be emphasized going forward. If the game's rules anger someone enough to just abandon the game, then the game is going to suffer, wither, and die.

But tolerance for ups and downs is not a set quality and the gaming environment really influences it. You can run a life-is-cheap campaign where characters are expected to die horribly and maybe the goal becomes who can survive the longest and suffer the most hideous death. That's an experience of a sort. You can run things as easy come easy go and losing a sword or a treasure hoard isn't such a big deal if there's a chance at another one around the corner. Or you can be very very careful not to anger your players and perhaps everyone has a nice even-keeled character development session or perhaps you watch as their tolerance for setbacks grows thinner.

There's tons of ways for a DM to deal with the fighter losing his sword! They don't all have to involve trudging back to town to spend a gp allotment that Negatively Impacts A Character's Wealth. You can have sudden hiccups, plus generous contingency plans... but you do have to have an understanding with your players that their luck may well turn for the better if they hang in there.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But tolerance for ups and downs is not a set quality and the gaming environment really influences it. You can run a life-is-cheap campaign where characters are expected to die horribly and maybe the goal becomes who can survive the longest and suffer the most hideous death. That's an experience of a sort. You can run things as easy come easy go and losing a sword or a treasure hoard isn't such a big deal if there's a chance at another one around the corner. Or you can be very very careful not to anger your players and perhaps everyone has a nice even-keeled character development session or perhaps you watch as their tolerance for setbacks grows thinner.

A lot of those are unspoken contracts between the DM and players when the campaign begins. If you expect to have a gritty, bashed, vulnerable campaign, or one that is odly lucky, people don't walk out because they're going to expect that kind of treatment.

However, it takes even an above-par DM to try to run a D&D game with a "life-is-cheap" kind of feel. Most DMs run the game more or less straight. And in that respect, the Rust Monster is out of the realm of expected challenges and totally destroys some of the key aspects of fun in D&D (the acquisition of sweet loot). It disrupts more than it adds. Mearls's revision is to reduce the disruption without removing what it adds. He does so, and thus makes the Rust Monster fit better in a D&D game.

There's tons of ways for a DM to deal with the fighter losing his sword! They don't all have to involve trudging back to town to spend a gp allotment that Negatively Impacts A Character's Wealth. You can have sudden hiccups, plus generous contingency plans... but you do have to have an understanding with your players that their luck may well turn for the better if they hang in there.

It's still a major disruption. What if the PC's manage to get lucky and their equipment isn't damaged? Suddenly that windfall is potentially game-breaking. What if they get unlucky and get damaged far beyond what that windfall was to compensate for? Suddenly, they're giving up on the game and calling it too hard.

Major disruptions have a big chance to make people angry, at either their lack of power (And slavery to DM's whims), or at the amount of work that needs to go into "fixing the problem." As a DM who doesn't want to spend more work than nessecary on a fun night's game, the revised rust monster is a whole lot better than the one that came before.

Yeah, it still has issues. It's inelegant (it routes around the way the system already handles item damage because it thinks it can do it better). The "10 minute recovery" thing makes little sense (though it could still be easily removed with a Craft check or Mending spell). But the issue is no longer "If I include this monster in an encounter, I will have to prepare the next month's adventures around the PC's rusted items."

 

[Hussar]

Either you run the subsequent encounters with less meat to carve through; provide some replacement equipment for, say, the rogue to steal; or you green-slime the cleric, have a thief run off with the mage's spellbook, and have a couple giants mug the rogue. Problem solved!

So, because of one creature, I now have to rewrite my entire adventure? And, if the party goes back and buys new equipment, I have to then change it back? For one creature?

Hrm, I have two choices. A. I use the creature knowing that a poor roll on the part of the party can pretty much pitch several hours of work down the toilet or B. I can just not use the creature.

I'm pretty sure which choice I'm going to make. Sorry, I spend enough time prepping games as it is. The presence of creatures which force me to amend, at the very least, an large portion of an adventure is not a plus for me as a DM.