Rust Monster Lovin'

[BluSponge]

Depends on the size of the spike. They always go for the biggest metal object.

Which edition is that in?

Where does it say that resurrection is impossible? Raise Dead, sure, but resurrection?

Green slime will attach itself to living flesh, and in 1-4 melee rounds thereafter turn the creature into green slime (no ressurection possible).

Granted, this has probably been changed too by now. But my 3e books are packed away.

90 feet, slightly above-human Wisdom, scent ability.

Ah! My bad. I haven't gotten used to WotC's new statblock scheme. They also have darkvision (which makes sense, but has also been tacked on over the years). I'm starting to wonder if the rust monster isn't suffering from too many cooks syndrome.

Tom

 

[Knight Otu]

Which edition is that in?

3rd Edition. It's also in the SRD (I only have a 3.0 MM to check, but the SRD is 3.5). I've also got my AD&D books somewhere, but I'm too lazy to dig them out and check.

Granted, this has probably been changed too by now. But my 3e books are packed away.

The SRD is your friend (unless you cannot access it, such as from work).

Ah! My bad. I haven't gotten used to WotC's new statblock scheme. They also have darkvision (which makes sense, but has also been tacked on over the years). I'm starting to wonder if the rust monster isn't suffering from too many cooks syndrome.

Might be. Darkvision definitely makes sense, though it is likely an addition from the aberration type.

 

[Knight Otu]

OK, I take it back. The MM does say everything I quoted above, but also mentions the possibilty to distract the rust monster by "tossing it some metal objects."

Now the question is, what takes precedence? It being a relentless hunter that goes after the biggest morsel, or a hunter that relents for a few scraps?

 

[buzz]

Okay: Mithril shirt, taken away in Cirith Ungol and never returned.

"Sorry, Sam, I quit. Without my shiny armor, I'm pointless now. Let's go home."

If Tolkein's work actually adhered to the D&D 3.x ruleset, there might be a point to this analogy.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sorry, KM, but by now I really wonder what kind of rust monster encounters you had in your past to make such statements. Care to elucidate a little on that statement? Since when is there no other way to recover from a lost sword than to run back to town? And since when does a lost sword mean the adventure is over? What kind of player stands up after he loses his weapon, armor or shield and drops out of the adventure? What fighter/cleric/ranger/paladin is so totally useless that he quits the adventure because he lost his sword/mace/shield/armor because he cannot do anything without it?

"I strike at the vile beast with the great axe of my dwarven fathers, soaked in the blood of a thousand orcs!"
"Reflex save"
"Uh....I'm a fighter so....12"
"It dissolves into pitted rust as it strikes the creature's carapace."
"It....what? My ancestral axe? It doesn't deal damage or attempt to sunder or..."
"It dissolves. That's what the reflex save was for."
"Oh. Well, that sucks, and you suck for using it. You suck long and hard."
"It'll be an interesting character challenge."
"No, an interesting character challenge would have been soaking it in the blood of a thousand MORE orcs, not watching a cockamaroach eat it. You suck."

OR

"This legendary greatsword was forged from a meteor by a master gnomish smith, weighted and sized for a creature twice is size! Surely it can slay this beast!"
"Reflex save"
"Uh...I'm a fighter, so.....15"
"It dissolves into pitted rust as it strikes the creature's carapace."
"But....it's forged of a meteor!"
"It dissolves."
"You son of a.....how long is it going to take me to get this back?!"
"Well, you'll need to find another one of those exceptionally rare meteors, another master gnomish smith...and the gnomes are extinct now."
"Screw you!"
"Trust me, there's repayment in the treasure."
"Yes, but I DREW my character with the meteor-sword, all gray-green and savage. It was COOL."
"Less complaining, more rolling dice!"
"Yeah, I think I have to work next weekend....not that I'll be missing more than you killing us now that you're going to eat all our equipment."

OR

"It touches your armor with it's antennae, and the ornate suit collapses into fine red particles."
"I just GOT that suit!"
"...and?"
"That's the suit of magical full plate I've been saving since level 1 for! I scrimp, I save, I go without healing potions...we had to travel to the capital city to get it after it was specially made for me!"
"And now it's rust."
"Screw you!"
"Not my call, man, that's the way they work."
"I break it's effin' neck."
"It dies without complaint."
"Wait, that was it?"
"Yes."
"So you're telling me, the entire purpose of that encounter, with it's 3 points of damage and piddly hp critter, was to destroy my armor that I had saved since level 1 to get?"
"Uhm...I guess that's how it worked out, eh?"
"Why the hell did you let me get it if you were just going to take it away?"
"The dice just fell..."
"BS, you knew that thing was going to HIT the party TANK. What's your problem?"
"What if this treasure has a new one?"
"I didn't WORK for this one. Jackarse."

OR

"FINALLY. Now that it's dead, we need to head into town and get our stuff back."
"But what about the mayor's daughter who is held captive under here?"
"Is she now? Well, she just cost us 3k. She'll have to wait."
"But what if she's executed?"
"Whatever's going to execute her could do the same thing to us. Three times to me with my AC."
"You may fail your mission!"
"Well, sometimes the bad guys win. I'm not facing that legendary orc warlord in my underpants with my bare fists. Besides, the old codger's only paying us 800 GP anyway. We should charge him for these expenses."
"He can't afford that!"
"He should've thought about that before signing our contract. Anyway, we head back into town and re-fuel for free."
"Actually, you can't even do that, the GP limit of this town is only 200 GP."
"So we can't buy new weapons and armor? Can we make some? From your bones?"
"Maybe you'd prefer to DM?"
"Nah, screw this. Life's to short to argue about imaginary armor. I'ma go play some WoW now."

And that's just a quick survey of what could happen.

 

[BluSponge]

Maybe I'm mis-reading things, but this sounds like "Do things smart or I will punish you." Which isn't nessecarily DM-vs.-player (some players like being punished), but it's definately in the realm of "teaching them a lesson" about not being so reckless.

You're misreading things. If I put a 10 ft deep covered pit in a 10 ft wide hallway, is that "do things smart or I will punish you" design? Or do we take for granted these days that the party rogue will be actively checking for traps. And if he doesn't, do I ignore the obstacle because I don't want to make it a me v. them scenario? C'mon, KM. You're better than that.

A game-stopper? No, to me, it's a chance for the non-heavily-armored, blunt-weapon-trauma characters to shine. The barbarian, the monk, even a clever enough rogue. And the new version preserves that. If one of the nessecary components for a rust monster is that it draw the game to a screeching halt, I submit that it's a fundamentally bad monster because there should be things that facilitate the enjoyment of D&D (one of the most basic of which is overcoming challenges to get phloot), not things that STOP the enjoyment of D&D.

Is it really a game stopper? Does it draw the game to a screeching halt? I can see where it can pose some unforseen difficulties to the party. But does that necessitate a complete overhaul? From what you suggest, 90% of all traps should be eliminated from the game (because they don't facilitate the award of phloot). I know that's not really what you are suggesting, but that's the logical conclusion. Again, if that works for your style of play, that's fine. But I wouldn't call that good game design necessarily.

The rust monster should be an interesting encounter because it forces new tactics. And this one still forces new tactics. It just doesn't stop the game in it's tracks.

No, as someone else pointed out, you just have your biggest tank go up and swat the thing, then break for 10 minutes. That's not a new tactic. That's an encounter the spellcasters get to kick back and relax during.

You don't see anyone else hailing it, either. It still has some flaws (the 10 minute heal, the descision not to use existing weapon damage rules, and, as you point out, the impermenance). But the rust monster, as written, isn't the risk of loss, it's virtually the guarantee of loss. That's not a challenge, it's just a huge headache.

But it ISN'T a gauranteed loss.

But this is a descision that varies depending on the campaign. A standard D&D campaign may know of adventurers, but what if we're cleaving more closely to history and having the horrible monsters be rare and special and unknown? That's using flavor to balance mechanics, and it doesn't work because the flavor depends on the campaign and DM.

Everything depends on the campaign and the DM. But what we have here is game design based on the lowest common denominator. We revamp the rust monster so mediocre DMs can employ it without unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) of ruining the scenario, and then when folks complain that it was done because of whiny players, THOSE people are criticized in turn.

Being unprepared once is enough to leave a bad taste in your mouth forever, and, depending on what is fun about D&D for you, enough to ruin your fun for that night and for a long time to come ("Yeah, I'd be able to afford this passage accross the styx at level 60.....IF YOU HADN'T MADE ME PAY FOR A REPLACEMENT +1 GREATSWORD AT LEVEL 3!"). And when, in the future, they ARE prepared, they barely earn their XP award for overcoming that challenge (toss some nails at it and then poke it's face in).

::sigh:: I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree then. Because when that 2nd level mage dies falling down a 10" pit, inadvertantly screwing the rest of the party, that's just as big a game breaker. And if this party hadn't had to cough up for that raise dead spell, they would have been able to afford passage across the River Styx, too! And I could also argue that the experience reward includes keeping that same +1 greatsword the second time you run into the little critters. What's the CR of a 10" deep pit?

So there's the problem of universality. You can't say what the monster will behave like and what the adventurers will know in every campaign. There's the problem of all-or-nothing, where either the creature draws everything to a sudden stop because of the devestation it wroughts, or the creature is almost not worth the effort to consider an encounter. Solving the all-or-nothing solves also the problem of universality, because when it's less of a binary mosnter, it's easier for it to fit a variety of roles.

It's not a problem of universality, its a problem of getting the critter to fit into a narrowly quantified challenge rating system. Of the gradual deterioration of DnD to a series of challenges that take 25% of your resources and send you on your way. Of challenges that aren't really challenges.

Some critters should bend the rules a little. It keeps life interesting. This goes for the rust monster and plenty of others.

Tom

 

[BluSponge]

3rd Edition. It's also in the SRD (I only have a 3.0 MM to check, but the SRD is 3.5). I've also got my AD&D books somewhere, but I'm too lazy to dig them out and check.

Yeah, I went and dug it up for just that reason. No point in making arguments about 3rd edition material with the first edition MM. However, in this case, it sounds to me as though this was an addition Skip Williams made for flavor. Easy enough to remove. BAM-O!!! Problem solved with no need to redesign the rust monster.

It could have slipped in during 2nd ed. But there is no mention of it going after the largest piece of metal in 1st ed certainly.

OK, I take it back. The MM does say everything I quoted above, but also mentions the possibilty to distract the rust monster by "tossing it some metal objects."

Now the question is, what takes precedence? It being a relentless hunter that goes after the biggest morsel, or a hunter that relents for a few scraps?

Seems likely the solution is to track down Skip and beat him about the head and shoulders with a dead trout. Or, when in doubt, blame the WotC R&D department!

Tom

 

[The_Gneech]

If Tolkein's work actually adhered to the D&D 3.x ruleset, there might be a point to this analogy.

Please.

I could have said the same thing of Conan (who loses all of his equipment on a regular basis, sometimes two or three times per adventure) or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (whose equipment is never important except as fluff) or any number of other examples.

I was using it as an illustration of mentality, which transcends the D&D ruleset. There is a very specific and applicable point to the analogy.

-The Gneech

 

[painandgreed]

My main problem is the design philosophy that seems to be behind it which I see as the main problem with D&D currently. People are designing to the CR rather than using a CR as a tool to judge how powerful a certain creature is. Everything is being designed to a medium bland flavor where the only thing that matters is the CR, and all CRs pretty much have the same effect on the party. Personally, I think this makes for a lackluster game and poor DMs and players.

Part of it is me being an old grognard. I like my old 1E monsters the way they were. "Stop destroying my childhood Mr Lucas!" If you really want to change the system that much, then just create a brand new monster and see which one people use. Not too many people really complain about having more monsters. You can call it a Psuedo-rust monster, or perhaps just make it a different type of rust monster such as a "wester purple spotted rust monster", but while the old stuff may need to be converted to the new system, it doesn't need to have 3E crappy design philosophies imposed on it.

 

[BluSponge]

And that's just a quick survey of what could happen.

What could happen and what actually do rarely have any similarity. Then again, your anecdotal evidence seems to support the stupid whiny player theory.

Now anyone else want to pipe up with tales where their players actually encountered a rust monster? How did they respond? I know there are at least a few of you out there.

Tom