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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 230100" data-attributes="member: 2067">No familiarity with the monster.I mean, this is why new monsters are so appealing. Every player knows (even if their characters don't) that a Zombie is fairly simple, and that demons have spell resistance, and that red dragons breathe fire. It's just the accepted realities of the game world.Which is why, to avoid this, DM's should probably do things slightly different. This can be as much as describing the creature with the same stats as an orc as "seven feet of bristling needles and quills, with teeth dripping with saliva that seems to sizzle in the air." Sure, it uses the stats for an Orc, but simply by altering it's appearance, jaded players realize that New Things Are Dangerous again.I mean, in a group new to 3e, they were astonished the first time I threw goblins at them with a few class levels. "What? Goblins are doing sneak attacks? Holy crap, dudes, these must be polymorphed warriors or something!"Similarly, the first time I described a Lemure to these guys, they ran away "Ah! Liquid monsters that my longsword passed right through!"It reaches a point where, by Goblin No. 35, you realize they're just more red shirts, another log on the fire. That's when you pull out the new beasties, and show them what it's like to be affraid of the unknown again.Of course, this could also work to make them overconfident, as with the goblins-with-levels above, and show them that even your old monsters still have enough new tricks so that you can't take them too lightly.New players, this is easy to do. The first time they see a beholder, their natural reaction is "AH! RUN!" even if they're level 20 and have a few hands of vecna back home.It never hurts to remind characters that no matter how big and tough they are, there's always something bigger and badder out there. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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