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## 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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User3
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### 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by User3 » Thu Jun 10, 2004 11:56 pm

Too many monsters have a glass jaw. Players nail them too easily, or get beaten down by the ability that the monster has to compensate for the glass jaw.
For example, Ogres kill 2nd level parties that don't have arcane magic(Wiz or Sorc). Simple. But, with magic, Ogres fall like little girls.
Medusa are red hot death with the Flesh to Stone gaze, but crap Warriors without it.
Vampires are unstoppable juggernauts at CR +1 but fall to household items.
We all know that the only real challenge to a party is another party, because they have wekk rounded abilties, so what if we just gave monsters more rounded abilities like this:
1. Magic, or resistance to magic that scales to level.
2. Some kind of ranged attack.
3. Some kind of melee attack.
4. HD equal to CR, meaning that templates will have to give HD in most cases, or take it away.
5. Around 6th level, an additional movement form thats useful(not swimming).
6. Around 12th level, some way to counter standing spells like walls(with something like immunity or resistance, anti-magic effects, or wierdness like going incorporeal)
7. No weakness more terrible than what we would see in the effects of poison, disease, or acid/fire/energy damage.
So, for example, vampires would be poisoned by garlic(but not regular poison), and take energy damage from Sunlight as per fire, and acid type damage from holy water.
8. No stats bigger than a buffed character of equal level could achieve. (Vampires have Rage and Str as a main stat +2-6 based on level). Giants also have Rage, +Str, and Size bonuses.
9. Skills or magic at 10+ that lets intelligent monsters be boss monsters(Vampires would get Dominate Gaze here, but a simple Hypnotism effect at 5-9 levels).
10. Magic items/abilities that are standard for the level on a 1 to 1. So magical monsters don't have a lot of swag, and swag ridden monsters don't have abilities.
Quest treasure(like that found in a lair) is determined by the quest, not the monster(one chimera might have eaten a great hero and have a +3 sword, and another might have eaten deer, and has literally crap in his lair...like poop.).
So how does this feel? It makes me feel good.
Skip Williams is responsible for 3.whatever Monster Manual and all the rules, and it shows. Its time to take it all back.
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Lago_AM3P
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Lago_AM3P » Fri Jun 11, 2004 5:17 am

What is wrong with having monsters with big glaring weaknesses?
They're just challenges, that's all. Or as Frank put it, puzzles. I really have no problem with PCs always stomping on the Medusa by fighting it at night any more than waiting for the Minotaur to fall asleep before the rogue stabs him in the gooch.
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Josh_Kablack
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Josh_Kablack » Fri Jun 11, 2004 5:48 am

The problem is when a large number of monsters in a given CR range have THE SAME WEAKNESS.
Jebus, a longbow (or light crossbow) and Expeditious Retreat (or Fly or Spider Climb) and outdoor terrain ownzorz a disturbing amount of non-humanoid monsters in the MM, because they can neither catch you nor counterattack effectively at a meaningful range.
In cases like that, the "puzzle" is not usually even a challenge (half move back, shoot, lather, rinse, repeat)
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RandomCasualty
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by RandomCasualty » Fri Jun 11, 2004 6:23 pm

The flying/expeditious retreat problem is another one entirely. That's just simply saying flying shouldn't exist at such a low level IMO.
As for the original topic... I don't think monster weaknesses are necessarily a bad thing in some cases, so long as the weakness makes some degree of sense. Vampires for instance are all about weaknesses.
Magic however, seems to be the counter for way too many things, and there aren't enough things that are super resistant to magic. I think more creatures definitely should have SR and dispelling capability.
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Username17
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Username17 » Fri Jun 11, 2004 7:55 pm

> That's just simply saying flying shouldn't exist at such a low level IMO.

That's not a practical solution. Let's face it, there's some extremely weak flying stuff. An owl could totally school lots of creatures if it just had access to bags filled with caltrops and the guidance of a human intelligence - and normal people can actually do that.
You don't have to be a powerful champion to teach a hawk to drop caltrops on moose - you just have to be a sadistic bastard. If you hypothesize any kind of real world relevence at all, flight is available for first level commoners, so long as they are willing to take advantage of it vicariously.
People being able to fly themselves, while impressive in its way, is actually not very fantastic or powerful relative to what normal people can actually do without modern technology. The practical combat benefits (dropping weapons on stupid beasts until the beasts run, hide, or die), are achievable just by getting the assistance of one of the crows which is literally outside my window right now.
And when you posit that Wizards can have familiars and Druids can have animal companions, then the whole game balance issue of flight is laughable. If flying makes you automatically win, you can automatically win at first level using basic skills and class feautres.
That the monstrous contingent of the universe is largely unable to do anything about that is its own problem. People should stop making a big deal out of flight - the problem is that stupid monsters just aren't very threatening and shouldn't be expected to accomplish much outside of a surprise situation or alliance with something with more on the ball.
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The_Hanged_Man
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by The_Hanged_Man » Fri Jun 11, 2004 9:16 pm

Remember the movie Clash of the Titans? Poor little Titan groping around trying to get the hero on the pegasus before he opens the bag w/ the medusa head in it.
That was a MOVIE. Really, the hero opens the bag 100 feet away, pulls out the head, and *bop* the poor titan has this confused look on its face as it turns to stone, not able to do anything about it.
This is just the problem w/ non-tool-using opponents. They're screwed, if the PC's have enough time and resources to think of a plan. Flight is where it's really obvious and easy to abuse things like dinosaurs, but there's others. Frank's right, monsters need to be smarter.
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Sma
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Sma » Mon Jun 14, 2004 12:12 am

Nah they don´t. Monsters should be stupid, and easy to be tricked by first level commoners. They shouldn´t be trated as a major threat though. Even King-Kong gets fooled by a couple of poisoned bananas.
You shouldn´t pit characters against stupid beasts and expect the beasts to win though. Thats what the intelligent part of the ecosystem is for. You know, humans and stuff.
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rapanui
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by rapanui » Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:56 pm

The deadliest monsters combine intelligence and mobility. Even the terrasque is pathetic against a ready party of about 17th level. You just need that damn wish.
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User3
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by User3 » Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:14 pm

Almost every monster needs 1-3 things off of my list:
1 things:
A good monster at its CR is the Manticore. It flys, has a ranged attack, its own schtick, and an Int of 7, which is smarter than some PCs. You can expect intelligent tactics from them and presence of mind in battle (as anyone knows that wolves and dolphins show remarkably complex tactics, but no presence of mind with an Int of 1-2, a human level Int should allow for much more.)
2 things:
Bullette are a good example of a monster who needs an overhall, with an Int of 2. However, they do have a good movement form, burrowing, which makes them immune to attacks while using it. If they had a better speed on that, and it was combined with Spring attack as a Bonus feat, they could be made into interesting monsters.
3 things:
Giants are the perfect example of monsters who get schooled every time. They need antimagic/SR for most of them, a leap/limited flying movement form, and the ability to break environmental stuff and throw it(like rocks, trees, etc).
Others:
Medusa should be Fighters with the equipment equal to Eyes of Paralysis and a level appropriate Hide skill(to counter the Movement people, since an Intelligent enemy will hide when faced with an enemy they cannot effect or run from).
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Sma
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Sma » Mon Jun 14, 2004 11:34 pm

Still seems backwards to me. Instead of simply accepting that a simple numerical Challenge Rating will never be able to properly describe the level of danger a monster will pose to any kind of party and dropping it, you seem to advocate a massive revamping of the monster books to make them conform to a inherently flawed system.
Sure some or even lots of monsters could stand some minor tweaking, but giving every single one of them high intelligence doesn´t seem like such a good idea to me.
Making Bullettes smart enough so they could sit down and have a nice cup of tea instead of eating anything that moves, and all giants into fliers definetely breaks the games flavor for me. It´s totally fine with me if they get schooled by someone using the right tactics, even if those are rather obvious.
Intelligent creatures like giants generally live in a society and are perfectly able to use weapons like bows and stuff, just like everyone else.
Non-intelligent monsters simply shouldn´t be treated differently from the big game they basically are.
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User3
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by User3 » Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:10 am

There are varying levels of intelligence.
Aliens from the Alien movies have at least human intelligence. However, they are by no means tool users or tea drinkers stemming from the simple fact that they are more dangerous without tools, and they have a strong hive mind and instincts. That's what makes them so scary. They reason, but they can't be reasoned with.
Animal level intelligence will chase its own tail, eat its own feces, and generally get schooled by any sophisticated tactic at all. Pumping up the Int only makes monsters use better tactics and make them react well, it won't change them into people.
Stupid monsters are no fun monsters.
-----------------
The CR system is a rough estimate based on a balanced party, and its leap and bounds better than the old system where the DM would eyeball a monster and hope for the best. I'd like to make it a better and more fun system estimate.
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Username17
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Username17 » Tue Jun 15, 2004 4:31 am

> Stupid monsters are no fun monsters.

That's horse shit. Most really classic monster slayings were done by a clever tactic based on the monster slayer outsmarting the linearly stronger monster.
That's fun. If you want monsters for the purposes of being adversarial challenges, you've got other people. You've got hundreds of flavors of other people in D&D, and you really don't need any more.
All the rest of the monsters are threats only as terrain features or when used as weapons by other people. That's fine. A gorgon is big game or the warhead of a trap or a warbeast. I'm fine with that. That's fun. It doesn't benefit from adjustment into being the boss of the level.
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rapanui
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by rapanui » Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:11 am

Hmmm, the thing about the glass jaw is how metagame knowledge is handled. If the DM doesn't give a rat's ass when everyone in the table pulls out a flamethrower equivalent the first time a troll shows up, then he's asking for players to exploit glass jaws.
If instead the DM establishes early on that players will have to make Knowledge checks in order to use weaknesses against monsters, that fixes the problem. It also fixes the problem of players getting royaly owned when they haven't read the latest errata/version/printing of Monster X.
Only problem is that D&D doesn't have solid mechanics to deal with player knowledge of monsters strengths/weaknesses.
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User3
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by User3 » Tue Jun 15, 2004 3:37 pm

The key phrase is: "clever tactic." Not "same asstastic tactic we use on all monsters with no or animal Int."
Really. Otherwise, you're forced to always put the gorgon in a cave to prevent ranged flyers from tossing arrows until it dies and no one character ever getting near the monsters unique schtick. Thats not even fun. you might as well just say, "its a big low Int monster in the open, and you kill it" and not roll the combat at all, because this one simple tactic wins all the time with no danger to the party.
Classic monsters in myth were not up against mages and clerics and flyers and PCs with the FX budget of a summer blockbuster. Therefore, to even be a challenge at all to PCs, they need to be undated. They don't all need to be boss monsters, but they do need to use intelligent tactics and have decent defenses to be even remotely fun.
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Sma
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Sma » Tue Jun 15, 2004 4:30 pm

But if the monster gets shot by fliers even animal intelligence will make it take cover underneath trees or in its cave. It will not simply stand there and take a beating, and as gogrons actually prefer underground terrain and labyrinths it´s not bad actually encoutering them there.
As has been said before, dumb monsters aren´t the big threats, people are.
Putting the stupid big monster in a situation that does not play to it´s strengths and expecting it to rock, is similar to not giving the wizard bbeg some meatshields and complaining that he got charged to death in the first round of combat.
There are lots of intelligent monsters out there, if you can´t get the stupid ones to work in a satisfactory manner why not use those instead ?
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Username17
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Username17 » Tue Jun 15, 2004 4:37 pm

Can anyone think of why players wouldn't know to pull out flamethrowers against trolls? Trolls are people, the people who live next door and fight with your people.
It would be like not knowing that black people had dark skin.
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Sma
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Sma » Tue Jun 15, 2004 4:43 pm

But trolls could also be monsters never encountered in your neck of the woods before. Common Knowledge often isn´t.
A knowledge check seems most appropriate to me. DC depending on the rarity of trolls in the campaingn in question. The beauty of this that this can be appliled to any kind of monster and is independent of previous play experience.
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Username17
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Username17 » Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:43 pm

The problem with using the knowledge skills is that they are retarded and don't work well. Especially in 3.5, which has "Knowledge Dungeoneering".
Regardless, you have noticed that the experienced troll hunter won't bust out with the fire against one, right? Whipping out fire on the first round is a newbie mistake in the 3rd edition rules.
A 3rd edition troll has over 60 hit points instead of about 30 like they had in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. You know what that means? It means that you don't have enough fire damage in your party to take one down. So you are going to end up having to take them out after they are unconcious, which you can do with a coup de grace (using fire or acid), by setting them ablaze (and having them take enough damage to outlast their regeneration long enough to actually die), or by drowning them in water.
So since you have to wait to pull your killing move until they are unconcious, and regeneration works on an absolute amount of hit points and not a percentage, there is absolutely no reason to set them on fire until you've taken them down with swords. If you do them 10 points of fire damage and 10 points of regular damage, they heal 5 points a round. If you do them 20 points of regular damage, they heal 5 points a round. Which brings the Troll closer to death? Both of them are the same!
But you have a limited amount of Fire available for use per day, so don't use it now, use it later. After they are unconcious from normal damage and you can get automatic criticals.
What this means, interestingly, is that Fireballs are completely worthless against Trolls. They don't cause continuing damage and you can't make a coup de grace with one. I would rather have a bathtub full of water when fighting a Troll than a scroll of fireball. At least I can eventually drown the Troll by continuing to perforate its rib cage with a spear. The fireball scroll doesn't help at all.
As long as you have to do any of your damage as normal damage (and the 63 hit points on a troll in 3rd edition ensures that you do), there is no advantage at all in doing any damage as damage that can't be regenerated. Weird but true.
So if the players are busting out fire on the first round of combat, that's them playing by hearsay and rumor. Which means that they are roleplaying a character who doesn't have clue one as to what fighting and killing a troll actually entails. I can't imagine why singling that out would indicate that the players were using metagame information. If anything it means that they are not.
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RandomCasualty
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by RandomCasualty » Tue Jun 15, 2004 9:09 pm

> Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1087313854[/unixtime]]The key phrase is: "clever tactic." Not "same asstastic tactic we use on all monsters with no or animal Int."

And that's the problem with giving flying at such a low level. Flying is so awesome that it's pretty much unbeatable. Unless you want to give creatures stuff like DR 30/melee, you can't really have the sort of mythological battles you want.
and flying is kinda pointless for the most part in PCs, because it just moves everything closer to the DBZ level. Eventually you've got flying gorgons, flying hydra and all sorts of other crap, because stuff needs to fly to ever use a melee attack.
Really, do PCs need to fly at all? it'll definitely make underpowered skills like jump and climb a hell of a lot more useful if they couldn't.
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rapanui
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by rapanui » Wed Jun 16, 2004 4:37 am

Ok Frank, by showing that fire on the first round is useless against a troll (interesting post by the way) you completely avoided the issue. You'll also notice that I admitted that the current Knowlege rules are ill-suited to deal with the metagame player knowledge problem.
So I have to ask:
Wouldn't you have a problem with PCs grabbing a printout of a new monster you just came up with and analyzing the sheet systematically for weaknesses that their in-game characters will exploit?
How about the DM who thinks he'll surprise the players with a monster from a new supplement, only to find that one of the players has also bought it and wishes to access the book during play?
Or how about if in your campaign world Vampirism had just been invented by the evil bad guy? Should the PCs immediately go buy a couple of those Decanters of Endless Water and a few garlic necklaces?
Is it just me that thinks not every peasant in The Sword Coast needs to know that a Beholder has a large area of anti-magic emataing from it's central eye?
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Username17
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Username17 » Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:17 am

> Wouldn't you have a problem with PCs grabbing a printout of a new monster you just came up with and analyzing the sheet systematically for weaknesses that their in-game characters will exploit?

Not really, why?

> Is it just me that thinks not every peasant in The Sword Coast needs to know that a Beholder has a large area of anti-magic emataing from it's central eye?

Yes, that's just you. The FRCS has a specific existing pantheon of gods, which everyone worships. The Great Mother is part of that pantheon, like it or not. So if you worship Pelor, your enemies include Beholders.
Not knowing what Beholders do is like not knowing that Satanists exist if you are Catholic. It's like not knowing how stop lights work. It's like not knowing what language Italians speak. It's completely ricockulous.
The Fantasy World posits that there are a lot of different types of people. There's no excuse for your characters in that world not knowing what the signiature schitcks of those people are. There's room in the world for obscure monsters, but you have to encourage clever play from your party. The alternative is encouraging stupid play.
If you get on your players about not knowing basic stuff all the time, it breeds hopelessness and stupidity. It's unrealistic and no fun for anyone. Yeah, let's all get in a circle and have our characters do the dumbest shit we can think of because the DM arbitrarily won't let us do anything that seems like it might actually work...
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RandomCasualty
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by RandomCasualty » Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:31 am

Players have plenty of divination spells to help them find out this stuff, I see no reason why they should be entitled to see the stat block of any monster unless they are summoning it.
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Josh_Kablack
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Josh_Kablack » Wed Jun 16, 2004 6:50 am

Animal Companion
Paladin's Mount
Animal Handling training rules
Polymorph, et al
Magic Jar
Knowing whether Favored Enemy/Racial Attack/Resist Nature's Lure bonus apply
Evaluation of available options prior to summoning
Purchase of trained mount available on the market as per Core rules (Griffon, Hippogriff, Spider Eater, Pegasus)
Or howabout, players DMs another game and is preparing for it during offscreen time.
Or even better, how about the situation where one of the players DMs another game and has extensive knowledge of the written MM. This actually happens with something like 50-75% of the players in games which I either run or play in. The alternatives for a DM with players like this are as follows:

2. Ask them to "roleplay" ignorant characters.
3. Make surprising changes to monsters
4. Assume that their characters have a working knowledge of threats likely to kill them and accept that.

Option 1 is pretty much guaranteed to fail eventually, as either players will find clever ways to roleplay around that ignorance when it gets really inconvinient, or feel frustrated when they can't, or the DM will get upset at them for not being clever enough to roleplay around that restriction when they try to.
Option 2 produces the most satisfying game when done right. With templates, custom equipment and class-based advancement, it's really easy to justify monsters with different ability sets in ways that aren't sole "Hose the PCs". I mean really, a troll with a ring of fire resistance (or water breathing) is a great way to change the standard puzzle presented by a troll encounter, and logically if trolls are worried about fire, one of the top priorities for their warriors is going to be protecting their achielles heel.
Option 3 is a perfectly tenable solution too, although (for reasons totally unclear to me) few DMs want to admit it. I have a player in my game who was in the US army for a few years, almost a decade ago, and he can still identify helicopters by the sound of their rotors alone. Now if contemporary stinger missile operators who have no clue how to fly or maintain a helicopter gain the ability to identify potential foes like that after a short term in modern fighting forces, it's really not at all far fetched for warriors in a fantasy army to be able to identify the color and age of a dragon roaring miles away with a DC 10 or lower skill tjeck.
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by RandomCasualty » Wed Jun 16, 2004 7:25 am

It is unavoidable that PCs are going to have some out of game knowledge, but I certainly don't think it's a good idea to just shrug your shoulders and say "ok guys metagame your asses off."
And certainly the monster manual should be offlimits to players during actual play. If they want to memorize the stuff, then fine not much you can do, but they shouldnt' be staring at the exact statistics block during the combat.
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Username17
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### Re: 10 rules to surgically remove the glass jaw

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Post by Username17 » Wed Jun 16, 2004 6:07 pm

It's not metagaming. How long have you been reading the Monster Manual? How long has your character spent living in that world?
However much time you have spent studying the world that your characters live in, the actual character has spent more. I don't find it at all difficult to imagine that the character has a much more indepth knowledge of these monsters and their abilities than I do.
I know a tactically sound method or seven of dealing with a troll. My character probably knows a shocking amount about how trolls think and can come up with various ruses to fool one into making mistakes. Maybe trolls can't see the red end of the spectrum. Maybe trolls really hate high pitched sounds. Whatever.
When I play a character who knows the weaknesses of the common troll, that's still playing a very ignorant character. A character in the world probably has a much more complete knowledge of the ideosyncracies of such a monster than I possibly could.
I don't see why using the extremely telegraphic knowqledge presented in the monster manual isn't simply fair game. As nature listings go it is incredibly vague and incomplete, so it doesn't seem at all unlikely for basically everyone interested (and what ranger isn't that) to have more complete information than that.
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