My wife has a sudden....fixation, shall we say, to use rot grubs and throat leeches in a 3.5 campaign.
But I can't find any informaiton/stats for them in the sourcebooks I own.
Have the grubs/leeches been officially updated for 3.5 in any source?
Thanks (I think).
Creative Director
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My wife has a sudden....fixation, shall we say, to use rot grubs and throat leeches in a 3.5 campaign.
But I can't find any informaiton/stats for them in the sourcebooks I own.
Have the grubs/leeches been officially updated for 3.5 in any source?
Thanks (I think).
They haven't been updated in any of the WotC books. They're in the Tome of Horrors though, I bet...
James is spot on -- both are described (in Hazard format) in Necromancer's first Tome of Horrors.
They both nailed it. Tome of horrors has 328 pages of your faviort 1st and 2nd ed monsters that did not make 3rd ed. Add to that Necromancers mother of all encounter tables and you are now playing with fire.
As an old first edition player, I can attest that throat leaches are a terrible idea. Sure, they put the fear into players, but does a DM really want to adjudicate every rest stop or swig of water. It's a super-cheesey threat. "What? I died from drinking from a tainted canteen? Awesome. How heroic. I'm so glad I invested so much in this crummy game." Why not role on tables to see if your character gets leukemia? Throat leeches IMHO are a dirty trick monster, and belong in the kit of only the most adversarial DMs. Stuff like that often results in the characters inching along dungeons testing every square inch with a ten-foot pole. Fun!
... testing every square inch with a ten-foot pole. Fun!
A thousand curses upon the inventor of the 10 Ft pole.
I think things like rot grubs and throat leaches have a place in a game, but the should be limited to places with tainted water and offal. They should not be used as traps in places where they would not be expected. The players should have an idea that they are entering a filthly enviroment, and should thus act accorfingly when they find the open, old canteen half submerged in the city sewers.
It is true also that the last thing you want is a paranoid party that takes forever to do anything because they fear everything.
"Just walk down the hall and open the door already"
Oh, and Kyle, When you going to get your web page up and running?
ASEO out
Well said ASEO.
I sometimes use rot grubs in a "take the gamble" sort of way.
To illustrate, I recently wrote an adventure in which a creature's lair contains a refuse heap. The heap/nest is disgusting, but PCs digging through may find something of interest. The longer they search the better the chance they'll find something of value/interest ... but they can also contract disease. You could just as easily throw a rot grub in. The unspoken choice is: "Want to search for buried magic in the filth? Fine, but there's a risk..."
I prefer that sort of hard choice, where the players can assume thir actions might hold a risk, as opposed to simply placing a throat leech in the nearest jug of water.
in. The unspoken choice is: "Want to search for buried magic in the filth? Fine, but there's a risk..."
It also makes the cure disease and purify this and that type spells something of value...especially when traveling in mucky areas. Otherwise those spells only get used the morning after.
ASEO out
... testing every square inch with a ten-foot pole. Fun!A thousand curses upon the inventor of the 10 Ft pole.
I agree - if I had a dime for every perfectly good trap my crummy players got around with a 10 foot pool i'd have...umm, many dimes.
agree - if I had a dime for every perfectly good trap my crummy players got around with a 10 foot pool i'd have...umm, many dimes.
Although, I guess I would not have lost the whole party in Tomb of Horrors had they used the 10ft pole to check out the Sphere...
Why is it that parties are never cautious when they should be, and overly cautious when their are no threats around?
ASEO out
hmmm I found the Tome of Horrors II on amazon but I guess everyone is refering to a different version? Or is it this one?
Thanks.
agree - if I had a dime for every perfectly good trap my crummy players got around with a 10 foot pool i'd have...umm, many dimes.Although, I guess I would not have lost the whole party in Tomb of Horrors had they used the 10ft pole to check out the Sphere...
Why is it that parties are never cautious when they should be, and overly cautious when their are no threats around?
ASEO out
I'm getting the impression that we are both cursing the 10 foot pole for different reasons. While I find that players using 10 foot poles when there is nothing to find is annoying its a mild annoyance really. What really makes me upset is when they use the 10 foot pool when there is a trap around and therefore wreck a perfectly good trap that I had invested time and effort into. I feel strangly cheated if my traps don't at least remove a characters limb - paralyzed from the neck down is better.
My wife has a sudden....fixation, shall we say, to use rot grubs and throat leeches in a 3.5 campaign.
But I can't find any informaiton/stats for them in the sourcebooks I own.
Have the grubs/leeches been officially updated for 3.5 in any source?
Thanks (I think).
I never used throat leaches, but rot grubs were amusing every once in a while. Here's the Creature Catalog entry from 3.0.
ROT GRUB
Fine Vermin
Hit Dice: 1/4d8 (1 hp)
Initiative: +1 (Dex)
Speed: 5 ft.
Armor Class: 19 (+8 size, +1 Dex)
Attacks: Slam +4 melee
Damage: Slam 0
Face/Reach: 1/2 ft. by 1/2 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Burrow
Special Qualities: Vermin, darkvision 60 ft.
Saves: Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +0
Abilities: Str 2, Dex 13, Con 10, Int –, Wis 10, Cha 1
Skills: Jump +5, Hide+ 5
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Swarm (5-20)
Challenge Rating: 1/8
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement Range: 1 HD (Fine)
Rot grubs are a vital part of any dungeon ecology. They are the ultimate garbage disposals. Rot grubs are occasionally found in heaps of offal or dung, but are most commonly found infesting decayed organic matter such as corpses or wood.
The refuse heap surrounding an otyugh will sometimes (25% chance) contain 1d4 swarms of rot grubs. Also, there is a 10% that that any corporeal undead creature is a walking nest of rot grubs. Such undead pose a serious threat to any creature that comes within combat range—for that puts them equally in range of the grubs.
COMBAT
Rot grubs lie in wait in decaying organic matter. When their nest is disturbed, they attempt to burrow through any exposed flesh. Rot grubs can, if they so choose, through strong muscular contractions, hurl themselves at one target within 5 feet.
Burrow (Ex): A rot grub secretes an anesthetic when it bites (DC 12 to notice). It takes the rot grub one round to burrow through exposed flesh. It then travels through the host’s vital organs to its heart. There it burrows into the heart and kills the host in 10-30 minutes. If the victim is wearing armor of add one round per point of protection to the time it takes the grub to burrow through the skin. This extra time represents the grub’s attempt to find an opening in the armor, where it can (hopefully) slip in unnoticed.
The victim must immediately apply flame to the wound (1d6 points of damage per application) or have a cure disease spell cast upon him. Flame kills 2d10 grubs per application, while a cure disease kills all of them. If not administered within 3 rounds, the rot grubs are too deep for fire to be an effective way of killing them.
The Rot Grub first appeared in the Monster Manual (Gary Gygax, 1977).
There are a few things that have been said thet I'd like to address:
1) I find the entries in Tome of Horrors and Creature Catalogue on rot grubs to be mired in 1st edition thinking a little too much. Rot grubs should not be able to burrow through the skin of creatures with high natural armor bonuses and I think a creature suffering automatic death when a grub reaches his heart to be a little too dramatic. They should really be doing Constitution damage instead.
2) I agree with many people that throat leeches are a really sad way of killing a PC. I think they don't really have a place in the game, though some people might feel the same way about green slime. I have to disagree that throat leeches would only be found in tainted or dirty water. Who would drink from obviously tainted water? Who would drink from a water canteen floating in sewerage?
3) The idea of undead being used as living rot grub factories is cool. It sort of reminds me of the spawn of Kyuss in AOW.
4) Someone was complaining about his PCs using 10-foot poles to find every trap. Personally, I think you should be inventing better traps (what pressure plates or pit traps are activated by someone poking a pole at them? Most of my pressure plates and pit traps are activated by a bit more force than that). Of course, you could also give them a few traps that are activated by the touch of the poles. Can anyone say glyph of warding or symbol?
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1) I find the entries in Tome of Horrors and Creature Catalogue on rot grubs to be mired in 1st edition thinking a little too much. Rot grubs should not be able to burrow through the skin of creatures with high natural armor bonuses and I think a creature suffering automatic death when a grub reaches his heart to be a little too dramatic. They should really be doing Constitution damage instead.
Let something eat its way to your heart and we'll see how you feel. It may be "a little too dramatic", but it seems to be realistic (as far as fantasy goes).
Contributor
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I kind of like weird little critter like Rot Grubs and Throat Leeches That said, I have never used them as written, for all the reasons mentioned above.
First off, I never use insta-kill stuff, when I use these guys, I tone them down so that they only do ability score damage and can be killed by energy damage and cure spells. Secondly, I try to make their presence somewhat, if not entirely obvious to the characters.
Here are some examples
As a contest or test: the antagonist has a bottle of water containing one throat leech and challenges a PC to trade swigs with him.
As a trap: The treasure is in a springloaded box of rot grubs. When opened, the character is sprayed with grubs instead of say acid or poison.
As weaponry: An assassin places a throat leech in the wine glass of his victim (instead of say poison).
Also, I just don't use them as common hazards, instead I use them as rare quasi-magical things rather than common creatures with potent adaptations.
I think Phil has grown accustomed to me disagreeing with him from other threads :) But I agree with his points above. Rot grubs can be a worthwhile creature to use, but need some modification for use in a v.3.5 game. I like Phil's suggestion of the thing doing Con damage (perhaps 1d6 every minute as it slowly eats its way toward the heart). Also, any creature with a natural armor bonus should be safe or at least take much longer for the creature to burrow into.
I also don't like the fact that as it appears above, it has a Slam attack (a frigging tiny little grub you could simply step on or flick with your finger has a slam attack?!). I would get rid of that altogether.
I would add a couple addendums to the creature above to make it more useable:
Burrow (Ex): ...as above, but add "Creatures with a natural armor bonus are immune to the burrow attack of rot grubs.
On the "Attack" and "Damage" lines I would replace what is there with "Atk burrow" and "Damage 1d6 Con (see below)."
And I think I would add a +8 racial bonus to the rot grubs Hide skill modifier for a total of +13 if hiding among refuse or decaying matter.
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Interesting Rot Grub Story: It was a 2nd edition game and our DM told us we had all been infested with rot grubs. We applied fire to ourselves, drank healing potions, and cast spells. Nothing worked. It was only as the little #*%&* were approaching our hearts that we though to disbelieve the illusion.
Interesting Rot Grub Story: It was a 2nd edition game and our DM told us we had all been infested with rot grubs. We applied fire to ourselves, drank healing potions, and cast spells. Nothing worked. It was only as the little #*%&* were approaching our hearts that we though to disbelieve the illusion.
Hats off to your DM! Very clever.
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Awwww, rotgrubs. My second death ever came by way of rotgrubs. I believe it was in either B1 or B2. I love rot grubs and expect them in every pile of trash of decay since that experience. I never ran across a throat leach though. Interesting, what module would that be found in? My 2 cents.
F.Y.I. My first death was by way of a carrien crawler(sp?)--i believe it was in the same module. Awww, memories.
Thoth Amon
One thing that people forget about rot grubs was that they literally created and promoted an important device for the 1st ed AD&D thief, the ear trumpet. This small bronze tube enable the thief to hear things on the other side of a door without having his ear literally to the wooden door where the rot grub could simply crawl into his ear.
They were nice, but the new creatures in Dungeon/Dragon that cause undeath makes the rot grub seem mild.
I don't recall throat leeches however.
Personally, nothing would scare us more than a simple pool of clear liquid with a silver coin inside. Those were clearly vile traps of instant death!
One thing that people forget about rot grubs was that they literally created and promoted an important device for the 1st ed AD&D thief, the ear trumpet. This small bronze tube enable the thief to hear things on the other side of a door without having his ear literally to the wooden door where the rot grub could simply crawl into his ear.
They were nice, but the new creatures in Dungeon/Dragon that cause undeath makes the rot grub seem mild.
I don't recall throat leeches however.
Personally, nothing would scare us more than a simple pool of clear liquid with a silver coin inside. Those were clearly vile traps of instant death!
Actually Tzor, the ear trumpet was partially invented to combat the monster we have all forgotten about, the fabulous ear seeker (though Tome of Horrors has put it in as a CR 1 hazard)! Actually, that makes me think of a few more hazards that used to be 2nd Ed. staples, like olive slime, russet mold, and symbiotic jelly.
Ah well, maybe they'll appear in Monster manual IV.