Rust Monster Lovin'

[Greg K]

Occasionally, I read certain threads and realize how much I appreciate the members of my group. If one of them loses an item, there is no animosity or temper tantrums. The worst reaction is to smile and jokingly say, "you suck" before returning their attention to the game and having a good time.

 

[Vanuslux]

Occasionally, I read certain threads and realize how much I appreciate the members of my group. If one of them loses an item, there is no animosity or temper tantrums. The worst reaction is to smile and jokingly say, "you suck" before returning their attention to the game and having a good time.

No kidding. I've been DMing over ten years and I can count on one hand the number of times that I've seen a player get upset over something that happened to their character, much less something happening to their stuff, and pretty much all those times were the same 14 year old boy.

 

[Hussar]

Truth be told, I'm the same as you two. My players wouldn't blow up about this.

However, the internet is no place to be reasonable.

OTOH, I was honest in that I don't use rust monsters for the reason I gave. They're a nuclear weapon. It would take away far more from the game than it adds, IMO. Particularly if you play with some of the variants out there.

Imagine, for a second, that you are using Legacy weapons and items. The point of these is that the player gets attached to the item to the point where he identifies part of his character with that item. It's not just a +1 sword that's getting torched. It's hours of game time that is now chucked out the window.

From my point of view, while it might be fun, once in a long while, to strip the party naked and send them through the maze, it's not particularly something I enjoy very often.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Also, you guys with your crazy tactics, and carrying multiple weapons on you, are pretending you are the sole audience for D&D. Imagine a group of 12-year-olds working through a low-level D&D adventure for the first time. A rust monster is going to rock them hard, and possibly make it impossible for them to keep going without a TPK. WotC needs to design for newbies just as much as the hardcore. In some ways it's more important to design for the newbies.

I don't know, but carrying around multiple weapons was the norm among the 12-14 years olds I started playing D&D with...except for the wizards, of course. and we met our share of rust monsters, because the DM had plenty fun in trying to rust away our weapons and armor, and the wizard and archers/crossbowmen had plenty fun in doing away with them in other ways than straight hacking them with swords and axes. And what crazy tactics? If you meet a monster than rusts the fighter's sword with its first attack, you roll back to those weapons not made from iron and push the leather-clad folks in the foreground.
I don't know what kind of rust monster is bandied about here, but none of them caused a TPK ever, and none traumatized any of my fellow players, or me, into not playing anymore? Why are today's newbies portrayed as so thin-skinned that they will give up D&D because a low-level beastie ate the fighter's sword?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

This thread is giving scenarios that are completely out of proportion, too. No rust monster ever gets to strike effectively more than once. The usual reactions I've seen from players after they first experienced a rust monster run along the following:

- avoid the rust monster
- send the characters with light armor and non-metal weapons forward to take care of it
- cast Charm Monster
- distract it by throwing it some coins, a disposable dagger, or any other scrap metal. Some even collected the weaponry from slain monsters to that effect.

Not once in the last 18 years have I seen a fighter go "naked" after a rust monster encounter, and I use that little classic more than others, because I actually like it. They might have lost a sword, or their shield, but those were all losses that were easily remedied. Shopping trips to the nearest village that take 8-10 hours of real-time gaming, or even more than one session? Makes me wonder if I'm not simply playing a totally different game. If it's not the whole group that goes shopping, and each for rare stuff, shopping doesn't even take 30 minutes of real time. And if it's a low-level dungeon crawl, it's usually satisfied with "Okay, it takes you 2 hours to trek back to the village. The weaponsmith is all too happy to sell you a new longsword, since you pay with good gold. You decide to rest at the local inn for the night, and after your morning activities (cue wizards learning spells, clerics praying, etc.) and 2 hours of marshing back, you've returned to the entrance."

Another thing...it's patently funny to read people complaining about "save or die" effects being no fun, but at the same time seeing D&D turn characters into more and more effective death-dealing killing machines. Mid-level characters that can dish out 50 to 70 points of damage are effectively the same as a magical "save or die" effect, except that you don't get a saving throw, the attacker must hit you with an attack roll. If insta-kill is "no fun", and lost equipment is "no fun", and inconveniencing the character beyond one encounter is "no fun", it really makes me think D&D has turned into a game that's focussed on the "one encounter" philosophy. And it's no surprise that a lot of players and DMs feel that new players are being coddled. "Hey, I wanna go up against dragons, ogres and other monsters, evil wizards and supernatural horrors...but if that includes the risk of being incinerated with one puff of flame, or losing my precious weapon, or being afflicted by some permanent nastyness that takes special measures and long time to cure again, count me out."

Of course it's nice to have a new variant of the rust monster than works in different ways...but if that is a demonstration of the new design philosophy, why don't we simply integrate Save Points into the game where people can save their current game status before they continue down the dungeon? Should be easy enough to do with computer RPG software as it is by now. Simply save the character files, make a snapshot, and if the encounter wasn't satisfying enough, return to the snapshot and repeat with better knowledge of what lies beyond.

To quote the NPC with the most silly name ever, Bargle the Infamous: "We all take our risks here, down in the dungeon."

Edit: At least one good thing came out of this thread...I've read up on the 3E version of my beloved monster, and decided to simply go back to the older version of the monster. If it hits something metal, it rusts it away. If the metal is magical, it gets a chance at resisting the effect. And if the monster was successful in rusting something away, it simply stops its attacks and starts feeding. Because inherently, it's a peaceful little creature that simply wants some food.

 

[Melan]

I don't have the time to read all these posts, but I have to say this redesign is just sad and pathetic. A good testament to how creativity and energy is sucked out of the game under the aegis of "balance" by an incomptent and inbred design culture. I don't care if it comes across as a personal attack, but the so-called "R&D staff" at Wizards isn't worth the salary they are paid. From non-decaying drow weapons through restricting the Command spell to this lameness, every interesting bit which stood out from the game has been replaced by bland, "balance-correct" pap.

 

[Soel]

Hey, I just can't wait to see some of the reactions when Mike and the devs tackle another horribly-designed (but cool-looking!) monster: the Beholder.

I was just wondering the same thing about the same creature (not that its horribly-designed, I'd just like to see some new thoughts about them.)

 

[MarkB]

Okay, if I'm wearing +1 plate, see rust monsters, and know what they are, I run!

Man, I'm gettin' nitpicked to death today.

-The Gneech

Oh, it wasn't a nitpick. The fact is, when most groups first encounter a rust monster, they will not know, in-character, what it is or what it does. IME Knowledge (dungeoneering) is not one of the highest-priority Knowledges a group takes, and without it they have little chance of figuring out what they're facing.

So unless you abandon role-playing in favour of metagaming at that point, all the lateral thinking in the world won't save the front-liners' equipment at that point, because they won't even know it's at risk until it's too late.

 

[hong]

Oh, it wasn't a nitpick. The fact is, when most groups first encounter a rust monster, they will not know, in-character, what it is or what it does. IME Knowledge (dungeoneering) is not one of the highest-priority Knowledges a group takes, and without it they have little chance of figuring out what they're facing.

So unless you abandon role-playing in favour of metagaming at that point, all the lateral thinking in the world won't save the front-liners' equipment at that point, because they won't even know it's at risk until it's too late.

See, you can fix this by vaccinating your characters. Have them fight a rust monster at 1st level, thus gaining metagaming immunity to its future effects.

 

[Piratecat]

I don't care if it comes across as a personal attack, but the so-called "R&D staff" at Wizards isn't worth the salary they are paid. From non-decaying drow weapons through restricting the Command spell to this lameness, every interesting bit which stood out from the game has been replaced by bland, "balance-correct" pap.

You should care - personal attacks have a tendency to get people suspensed from the site. In addition, it's almost always best to preface personal opinions like yours with "I think" or something similar.

Please avoid blanket insults in the future. It's entirely possible to criticize ideas without critizing people.