Should he recognize a rust monster? (Savage Tide Mild Spoiler)

[carborundum]

Okay - here's the rest of the background. Savage Tide Players look away now.
Had the players scouted etc they'd have found the rust monster in the basement of a house. It's the pet of a bullywug chief and he's taunting a prisoner who has metal spoons tied to her clothes. the beast is rusting them and so on. Foreshadowing, whatever, everyone happy.

This player decided, solo, to charge in through the front door and fight everything. He slaughtered eight bullywug mooks and is now cornered by another six in the dining room. I'm still trying to capture rather than kill him, but he's not taking the hint.

The bullywugs know there's a rust monster down in the cellar with the chief, who's a great fighter. They can't touch this guy with his shield and armour. Ergo - go fetch the beast and point it at him.

I'm not trying to screw them, and there's plenty of chances to give him new stuff. He recently bought a +1 shield though, so he might surrender when he sees it. I'm quite happy to rust the thing and give him a new one pretty soon as loot, that's no problem.

I can have the few bullywugs with metal axes dive out of the way when the thing appears as a hint, but his foolishness has cost him the less subtle hints in my opinion. I was just wondering how far the basic bar stories and fighter training would have got him - DC 10 thus.

I'm not out to screw him or whatever but considering what's coming up later in the campaign (black puddings etc) I want to foreshadow that you sometimes might lose your stuff, and that you should be prepared.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I lost my masterwork greatsword to that thing. On the bright side it was while one shotting it. But then I'm sitting there unarmed with a really cranky Chief who just lost his favorite pet.

I agree both that investment in knowledge skills should be rewarded and that the DCs are wonky by the book. If I was feeling generous, for a DC 10 check I might call it a "disolver" that he thinks destroys materials, but he's not sure if magical gear is immune to its effects.

 

[Cintra]

On the face of it, this situation wouldn't entitle the PC to any special warnings/knowledge. According to the Rules Compendium, a creature entering an ongoing combat acts at the moment when it arrives - so they lure the rust monster into the room and it immediately charges that lovely metal armor (and the PC inside). If it can reach him in a charge attack from the doorway, it'll get an attack before the PC has a chance to react anyway.

If you want something to help communicate what the critter is, think about how the bad guys are luring it up to the fight. They have to get it up the stairs, and through the correct doorway beyond that, to reach the fight. I picture one bullywug holding a long wooden pole with a metal object (probably another piece of the silverware set) dangling from a string, leading the rust monster by dangling the object. When they get in sight of the guy in armor, the pole gets tilted up, lifting the metal object completely out of reach, and the rust monster changes targets.

And if the player is insisting on bulling his way into scenes like this, solo, he needs to get a wake-up-call now. This adventure path has plenty of places where lack of teamwork will get him, his teammates, or (far more likely) lots of innocent bystanders killed. Make this scene as tough as you like, the rules are on your side, and it's a lesson that needs to be taught now.

 

[billd91]

The basics are a DC 15 knowledge dungeoneering check. If he has no ranks, he can't make the check. What's the point of knowledge skills if DM's just allow anyone to automatically have them?

The point of knowledge skills, as I see it and run my game, is to give the PCs a way to build their knowledge and not have to rely on a straight Intelligence check. I don't generally limit the DC an untrained character can make to 10, I let their intelligence bonus sort out the max roll they can get. With 20 results possible on the die and a typically moderate Int bonus like +2, that means a lot of knowledge is out of range or unreliable to achieve without investing in the skill.

 

[carborundum]

If you want something to help communicate what the critter is, think about how the bad guys are luring it up to the fight. They have to get it up the stairs, and through the correct doorway beyond that, to reach the fight. I picture one bullywug holding a long wooden pole with a metal object (probably another piece of the silverware set) dangling from a string, leading the rust monster by dangling the object. When they get in sight of the guy in armor, the pole gets tilted up, lifting the metal object completely out of reach, and the rust monster changes targets.

Brilliant! I love it

 

[Numion]

QFT. "As a player, I only ever want to succeed. If something is new, different or challenging, I want no part of it. If I can't be an epic god in 5 sessions, I'm going back to WoW".

Sorry, I just don't buy it. There's a HUGE difference between running across a rust monster in one's adventuring career, and having a malicious DM that throws nothing but rust monsters and sundering giants at the characters... To equate the two is silly. Given the OP's questions, I hardly think he falls into the latter category.

I don't know, I just didn't come up in the "everyone must succeed, all the time" school of thought.

IMO there's a huge difference between never encountering rust monster and "everyone succeeding, all the time".

Some of my groups in 3E encountered rust monsters, some didn't. All were challenged quite hard in their careers. Just saying that if the DM did decide to scrap the encounter, it doesn't mean that the PCs weren't challenged at all.

Personally I'd run it 'as is', but maybe give advance warning. that dungeoneering skill doesn't make any sense to me, though: in D&D world I'd suppose that everyone (every adventurer, anyway) would know trolls regenerate, red dragons breathe fire and that rust monsters will screw ya.

Like I said, players using a little bit of metagame info is not the end of the world. Like you yourself, with all those 30 years of experience (don't let people forget that ) have learned a trick or two novice players don't know. It's impossible to keep all that under the lid.

 

[Wik]

Well, I also ran this encounter. So, if you're in STAP, stop reading.

Our dwarf, an armour specialist, had just bought himself a tower shield, and a full suit of plate armour. He had been saving up, and had finally bought a nice set of magical armours. You can all see where this is going.

His general tactic was to get in the middle of a fight, activate a DR aura (he was a dragon shaman) and absorb attacks while the goliath beat on things. In this fight, though, the dwarf still moved forward in the mud (btw, fighting down below is good, because the mud restricts the movement of PCs - as well as villains. It means you can control the motions of the Rust Monster)

So, he got close, and the player realized it was a Rust Monster - but he decided his player didn't, and stayed there. He was definatley disapointed when the monster ate his tower shield, and destroyed his suit of armour next round. But he went with it, and that was pretty cool of him. Actually, the worst part of that fight wasn't the rust monster, but the chief, who nearly took out the Goliath early on. Since the dwarf was effectively useless, and the Goliath was dying, the fight became very touch and go, with both the paladin and the catfolk rogue having to do some careful maneuvering to take him down.

 

[Fifth Element]

Yes, but the skill DC should also take into account background and rarity of the information.

Background = skill ranks

Rarity of information = DC (by definition). Common knowledge = DC 10. Rarer info has higher DC.

This is covered by the rules. You could argue that the info should be more common, or that some classes should be able to make higher-DC untrained checks. But what you're talking about is already considered in the rules.

 

[prospero63]

Okay - here's the rest of the background. Savage Tide Players look away now.
Had the players scouted etc they'd have found the rust monster in the basement of a house. It's the pet of a bullywug chief and he's taunting a prisoner who has metal spoons tied to her clothes. the beast is rusting them and so on. Foreshadowing, whatever, everyone happy.

This player decided, solo, to charge in through the front door and fight everything. He slaughtered eight bullywug mooks and is now cornered by another six in the dining room. I'm still trying to capture rather than kill him, but he's not taking the hint.

The bullywugs know there's a rust monster down in the cellar with the chief, who's a great fighter. They can't touch this guy with his shield and armour. Ergo - go fetch the beast and point it at him.

I'm not trying to screw them, and there's plenty of chances to give him new stuff. He recently bought a +1 shield though, so he might surrender when he sees it. I'm quite happy to rust the thing and give him a new one pretty soon as loot, that's no problem.

I can have the few bullywugs with metal axes dive out of the way when the thing appears as a hint, but his foolishness has cost him the less subtle hints in my opinion. I was just wondering how far the basic bar stories and fighter training would have got him - DC 10 thus.

I'm not out to screw him or whatever but considering what's coming up later in the campaign (black puddings etc) I want to foreshadow that you sometimes might lose your stuff, and that you should be prepared.

I've not played savage tide. Is there any way that the player might know what this thing is via his background? If not, than I'm still on the "you don't know" side of the fence. It's clear though that you aren't trying to screw him over, and tactically, it sounds like a very valid strategy. I also like the other posters idea of how they are leading it around with a stick and spoon. In fact, I'm going to steal that idea if the situation every presents itself...

 

[carborundum]

I think I'll have one of them grab a drawer, rattle it and empty the contents down the stairs. A few seconds later, the big orange beast will thunder up them steps looking for more tasty metal morsels, rusting the remaining spoons on the floor and licking it up before spotting the PC. I might ask him what his spot is and roll some dice behind the screen before letting him catch a glimpse of the spoonless floor through the horde of bullywugs whaling on him.