D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Living Traps

[Savage Wombat]

Sounds like different perspectives on a shared opinion, actually.

All living things need rules to cover their interactions with PCs - you need to know how many HP a shrieker can take since the sniper might try to kill it from orbit. But you don't want the rule book overstuffed with creatures that have "attacks - none" and driving up the page count.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I think there has been too much emphasis on creatures, and not enough on hazards and interesting features in both previous editions of D&D. Even 4th edition, heavily reliant on interesting terrain interacting with forced movement, had only a handful of interesting ideas in the DMG. I want more traps, hazards, features, all sorts of things that make dungeoneering interesting.

 

[ExploderWizard]

This I'll disagree with. Anything that can't really move on its own, like molds and slimes, really should just be a trap. Why bother with a full monster write-up? If it can't attack, as you say, then it doesn't need those stats. Rot Grubs, Throat Leeches and the like? Traps. They're pretty binary. There's not a whole lot of difference between an acid trap on the chest and a bunch of rot grubs. Mechanically, they're pretty much exactly the same.

Same goes for shriekers. They can't actually hurt you, so, why do they need hit dice and AC? What's the difference between shriekers and an Alarm spell?

And, if you make these things into traps/hazards, they get treated differently. Maybe the rogue or druid can do something about that trapper instead of just beating on it with lumpy metal things.

I'd actually go the other way and have a fairly lengthy section in the DMG for living hazards. I know the Environmental series (Sandstorm for example) had really cool environmental and living hazards for their specific environments. Makes space in the MM for actual monsters.

The is a great deal of difference between a shrieker and other sorts of alarms. There is the ecological factor. Shriekers are scavengers and fill that niche in an ecosystem. Creatures have properties and are worthy of consideration beyond thier use in an encounter.

Monsters need a place in the game world that goes beyond combat/mechanical considerations. I don't need a book that is just full of stats to fight. If the mindset with Next is that monsters are only useful as far as how well they perform in an encounter then it has already failed to get the concept behind a campaign world before release.

 

[JasonZZ]

This I'll disagree with. Anything that can't really move on its own, like molds and slimes, really should just be a trap. Why bother with a full monster write-up? If it can't attack, as you say, then it doesn't need those stats. Rot Grubs, Throat Leeches and the like? Traps. They're pretty binary. There's not a whole lot of difference between an acid trap on the chest and a bunch of rot grubs. Mechanically, they're pretty much exactly the same.

Same goes for shriekers. They can't actually hurt you, so, why do they need hit dice and AC? What's the difference between shriekers and an Alarm spell?

And, if you make these things into traps/hazards, they get treated differently. Maybe the rogue or druid can do something about that trapper instead of just beating on it with lumpy metal things.

I'd actually go the other way and have a fairly lengthy section in the DMG for living hazards. I know the Environmental series (Sandstorm for example) had really cool environmental and living hazards for their specific environments. Makes space in the MM for actual monsters.

I agree with most of your post, but wanted to point out just one thing: you can't saute an Alarm spell in butter.

 

[JasonZZ]

On a more serious note, I would gladly be rid of the "gotcha" monsters (ear seeker and throat leech). Many of the rest have a reasonable place as environmental hazards.

Also, I'm a little surprised that they didn't include mimics. Of all of the "trap" monsters, they seemed the most interesting to me, if only because they could (theoretically) be intelligent, and perhaps even negotiated with.

 

[Li Shenron]

Has anyone here ever used rot grubs or ear seekers?

No, never...

But I've used the molds and the fungi... I think these trap-like monsters are really a nice addition to the game, as long as they don't become a "find the one only possible cure within 24 hours" which usually means "go to sleep, next morning Cleric prepares the right spell".

I am a huge fan of the Exploration phase, so I'm biased. I would like to see more hazards or trap-like monsters. I don't really care if they are put in the MM or in the DMG tho.

Thinking about it, 3ed IMHO seriously lacked creativity when it comes to traps. They were practically all mechanical traps with scaling DC and damage, with some variation on the trigger etc, but if the game would include "living traps" (just think e.g. of carnivorous plants), each with different resistances, immunities, vulnerabilities, special attacks, then there would be a lot of room for design.

The difference between a "living trap" (or "trap-like monster") and a regular monster, could be a bit blurred... mostly I would expect that a living trap or hazards is something you don't fight using combat rules, typically because it doesn't move, follow, or direct its attack. It has no mobility and possibly no intelligence, therefore no tactics that isn't a simple stimulus-reaction. Once you find the trap (or you're found by the trap!), killing often it doesn't matter much, either because it's trivial (just chop it down in relax, it doesn't strike back) or because it's irrelevant (it has already done to you everything it could).

 

[RichGreen]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4wand/20130604

Has anyone here ever used rot grubs or ear seekers?

I used rot grubs many times back in the day. I have never used ear seekers.

Thought this one was an interesting article. I'm happy for green slime, mold and shriekers to be hazards but the rest all feel like monsters to me. Piercers are pretty naff - once they've dropped, they're helpless - but I'd like to see most of the original AD&D monsters in the new edition, ear seekers excepted

Cheers


Rich

 

[Dausuul]

Yeah, I was a little annoyed that he lumped in rot grubs, ear seekers, and throat leeches together.

Rot grubs have a place as a proper adventuring hazard; any time you have to wade into filth and nastiness, you risk facing rot grubs, and adventurers wade into filth and nastiness a lot. It doesn't have to be a "gotcha" for sticking your hand into an otyugh's nest to grab the shiny. It could be a known risk of going through the sewers under a big city, for example. Of course the rules would need some adjustment. It's pretty lame to have a hazard that you can't see or feel but suddenly OOPS! you're dead.

Throat leeches, I see as more of a world-building thing. Adventurers should be assumed to boil or filter their water as a matter of course. Throat leeches mostly happen to NPCs. I wouldn't bother giving them a whole page in the Monster Manual, but I could see listing them as a hazard that might befall PCs who are for whatever reason unable to treat their water properly.

Ear seekers are just lame and should go away.

 

[Ichneumon]

I think that rot grubs are better served as a disease - "rot grub infestation", for want of a better name - that PCs risk if they go poking round in otyugh middens, rubbish heaps and the like. As for ear seekers, I can see them as an assassins' tool: rare bugs that are collected and sold to killers who attempt to maneuver the seekers next to their targets' ears. For example, dropping them onto a pillow, hiding them inside a hat, or even (ta-dah) concealing them on a door where they expect their victim to eavesdrop. I believe that makes them a more robust, and scarier, addition to the world than just parking them on random dungeon doors.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I've used Ear Seekers. As a method used by an assassin's guild to kill people. (As suggested just above). Rot Grubs are just a disease like any other although quite a messy one.

And why isn't beating it up until it falls apart a valid response to some traps?