Calling all authors, stop with the {spoiler} already!!!


Age of Worms Adventure Path


I recently received my latest issue of Dungeon and thoroughly enjoyed the Prince of Redhand adventure. My major beef with it is the part where the improved Ebon Aspect comes into play. Scenario {spoiler alert}: the party enters a room with statues, including one monstrous one with several arms and a hideous face. But wait {insert gasp!} it's not *really* a statue at all! It's attacking. Oh noooo!!!
I'll tell you what's really scary about this scenario - how authors can keep including it in their adventures and thinking anyone who's played D&D for more than a day doesn't see this one coming!! Please, authors, PLEEEASE! Stop including the statue that isn't in your adventures!!!
As a DM I try my best to prevent metagaming and my faithful players are good people who try their best not to engage in it, but we all grit our teeth whenever this scenario presents itself (which is disturbingly often). As a DM I'm half-tempted to award ad hoc xp to PCs who manage to stand stupidly next to the statue they know very well is going to animate any second and bash them!
For example - in Whispering Cairn, the characters enter the sleeping chamber and there's the large terra cota statue with the heavy mace. Everyone rolls their eyes. I sheepishly announce at the proper moment that the statue comes to life. The role-playing comes when the players are forced to act surprised when any preschooler could see this one coming.
This is sooo frustrating! Please, just once, I'd like the characters to enter a room full of creepy, well-armed, menacing statues (maybe even step on some floor trigger or whatnot) and have nothing happen! THAT would freak them out!
Once more (because after 25 years or however long Dungeon has been in print it apparently bares repeating) please, to all you authors out there, keep up the good work with writing excellent adventures but please, for the love of God!, skip the scene where the statue shockingly comes to life.
Thank you and good night!

Contributor

Its an interesting point Sir Marcus and I take it. I had thought of using a huge stained glass window in the vault, suddenly lit and animated to deadly effect, as well as other methods like animating paintings and bells that toll and summon the creature, but the silent watching guardian approach seemed to fit the setting. Funnily enough another adventure I've written called Endless Tear, and which I hope will make a future issue of Dungeon, uses the very point you've made and turns it around to deadly effect.

Glad you liked the rest though.

Rich


Well, what else would just hang out without complaining for years and months to guard dungeons? Certainly not goblins, they're too busy playing knucklebones (another D&D cliche').


SirMarcus wrote:


But wait {insert gasp!} it's not *really* a statue at all! It's attacking. Oh noooo!!!

While it is a time-honored (and sometimes worn-thin) convention of D&D to have the golem/animated statue trap in an adventure, I find that more often than not the players spend all their time avoiding the non-animated statues, only to fall right into the trap.

This thought struck me as particularly humorous in Life's Bazaar. The party made it into M6 of the Malachite Fortress and assumed the chains were restraining a dwarven golem so that the hobgoblins could move about safely.

When the chains unwound and attacked the party, the entire party assumed that the statue was attacking. It wasn't until it made the grapple check that one of my players looked up and said, "Wait - the statue's just sitting there? What's attacking us?"

I find that DMs oftentimes inadvertently stress the location of traps, golems and treasure when a room is described. If oyu include it as an afterthought, with a bored 'just reading the description' feel to it, you may find them less likely to start shooting it before it moves.

-Alex R.


I'm afraid I'm with SirMarcus on this one. I read it and thought exactly the same thing. Kind of like the PC's finding "Allustan" sitting on the throne in Harsh Reflections - not even time to finish the monologue before it was being peppered with arrows.

These scenarios are like a good joke - it works ... once!

I do like the contemplated glass window approach and will inset that into my game when the time comes. Thanks.


In my game the perpetual guardians tend to be gargoyles. Once they're created using the appropriate Craft or Profession skill, they can be animated using Animate Object and Permanency spells. They are then bound to the building or dungeon they were attached to. They gain intelligence gradually and can gain experience levels. If destroyed, they can be repaired and reattached and they'll be good as new 24-72 hours later.

Free-willed gargoyles (as presented in the MM) are rare in my game. Gargoyles used to scare my players more than statues. They haven't discovered gargoyles with class levels yet, as I only converted to 3.5 14 months ago....can't wait to spring it on them.


My players reacted the same way with Life's Bazaar with the statute of Zenith. They were sure the statue was restrained by the chain, and would come to life. When the chain came off they thought the statute shrugged it off. They were quite surprised when the chain attacked.


SirMarcus' group reaction to the terra cotta statue in WC was similar to my groups. I have to go the extra mile and think long and hard about how I introduce situations like this without being cliche.

It is certainly a challenge - I think you can find a way to tell the story that will be suspenseful even if the players believe that the statue will likely animate, but again, its tough to pull off.

Scarab Sages

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Gold Katana wrote:

I'm afraid I'm with SirMarcus on this one. I read it and thought exactly the same thing. Kind of like the PC's finding "Allustan" sitting on the throne in Harsh Reflections - not even time to finish the monologue before it was being peppered with arrows.

See, my players actually suspected that Allustan was an evil wizard the whole time, using magic to hide his alignment. So when they saw him, they were too busy patting themselves on the back to attempt to see through his disguise, and thus tried to go talk to him.

It was kinda sad actually.


We had fun with the tera cotta statue in WC. If I remember correctly, it only animated when a non-vaati fell asleep on one of the stone sleeping biers. My party did a casual search of the room and eyed the statue suspiciously. No one triggered the statue by climbing onto any of the stone slabs, but eventually they disturbed the giant beetle in the room. They had already encountered the beetle swarm above and the beetle swarm/giant beetle encounter across the hall from this room, so another encounter with a giant beetle was going to be a bit wearisome. Instead, the beetle came after the party, the party ran back to a more defensible position in the hallway outside the room, the beetle took a shortcut over the first sleeping bier, it failed its save and fell asleep, then the statue came to life and subsequently smashed the beetle. No exp for the encounter, but the players had a good laugh about it.

While players may not be surprised that often by the suddenly animated statue encounters, it still doesn't mean you can't have fun with 'em. =)

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Something interesting I thought of while reading this is to have a room with a statue that's apparently going to animate. The floor is very soft and spongy. The ceiling is very decorative, but with a large, plain patch in the center. A PC can make a spot check to notice scratches in this portion. When the PCs step on a certain pressure plate and think the statue is about to animate, the scratched portion of the ceiling slides away and the real (whatever the statue is of) drops into the room, the floor breaking its fall. Sadly, however, this trick can also be used only once.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Also, this works only in tall Dungeons. No real loss.

Contributor

::Nicolas cries out in rage as he trashes his next fifteen proposals - all of them based on animating statues!!!::

Back to the drawing board. ;-)

Actually, I like falling for it. I mean if I am playing a character who has never had a statue animate on him before, and one does, I usually spend the first round screaming like a little girl.


farewell2kings wrote:

Well, what else would just hang out without complaining for years and months to guard dungeons? Certainly not goblins, they're too busy playing knucklebones (another D&D cliche').

Any animated construct will work just as well - I agree with SirMarcus - the scene has been played to death and there ought to be something of a nearly indefinite hiatus on animating statues.


Good call, Sir Marcus. Ive had to retro-fit all the "sculptures" in the AP as well.

Sovereign Court

I did'nt use the first ebon aspect in FOE because since as stated in the aow overload for FRCS the ebon triad worshipped dead gods okay Bane ain't dead so i replaced him with Iyachtu Xvim the godson and Theldrick and tiefling as (very)low powered Bhaalspawn, no way i'm giving them devine spells so they don't get servant of the fallen from Lost empires of Faerun. I know now that the cult was being controlled by the so called lords of the rift(Avolkiva?) which makes me ask this question: why would they need another aspect in the first place since Kyuss is close to being released?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Cold Steel wrote:
I know now that the cult was being controlled by the so called lords of the rift(Avolkiva?) which makes me ask this question: why would they need another aspect in the first place since Kyuss is close to being released?

This is explained in the adventure, but the short version is this: Once the Age of Worms starts, the Ebon Triad intended to use this new, advanced, CR 17 ebon aspect as a manifestation of their deity to whip their cultists into a frenzy and to serve as a puppet leader of the cult.

As for encounters with monsters posing as statues... sorry that some readers think they're morbidly cliche. They probably are. But they won't be going away. After all... golems are a staple of the game and you can't really do a golem encounter without the "monster statue" factor playing into it somehow. If your group hates this cliche, by all means change it. Have the Ebon Aspect in motion by the time the PCs reach the room. Makes no difference to the adventure's flow at all.

Liberty's Edge

Bravo! The Voice of Discerning Consumer Demand speaks! Yes, I too am wretchedly sick of unoriginal, uncreative somethings-around-the-corner. It's marginally frustrating to have to insert my own notecards in place of a scenario that is so cinematically pervasive, in every third fantasy novel, and every other canned adventure, that EVERY player chortles before the DM can even finish describing the encounter--"Oh, the Giant-Kali/Cyclops/Naga/Norse-like god/insert-favourite-mythical(ly-proportioned)-gigantimous-statue-here is attacking!! Oooh! Ahhh! What ever shall we do now! Oh, John, could you grab another bag of chips?" Yeah...it goes something like that...I second the motion: no more attacking statues. Whatever happened to modules like Saltmarsh? Puzzles, mysteries, logic-demand?!?

Frog God Games

I use lots of statuary in my own campigns. Some animate, some don't; so it's kind of a mixed bag. My players are all experienced and don't necessarily react suspiciously to statues most of the time just because most of the time they are only statues.

Unfortunately, on some level most of the game (and all forms of creative writing) is cliche. Oh no, another room with monsters in it. There are a lot of neat and interesting things you can do with traps, puzzles, logic, etc. but even that becomes cliche. IMHO the key is to keep a good mix. There probably really isn't anything new under the sun but a lot of people are doing the old things in interesting ways. One animating statue doesn't make the adventure, but if that's the whole point of the adventure then it's probably falling short of its potential. I think Redhand is an excellent example of where you see this cliched encounter yet the adventure is put together in such an original and captivating way, it doesn't detract from it at all. You just don't see many advenutres written like that out there (and if you did then they would become cliche too).

I think the bottom line is you've got to know your players and cater to them. If they roll their eyes at animating statues, change all the statues to inanimate ones and add a different encounter or just make it a non-encounter altogether. Something to get them good and nervous over nothing. I remember in UK3 The Gauntlet there was room with four alcoves. Three held statues that animated. The fourth was empty. Every time I ran that adventure the players were always far more concerned about what was up with that allegedly empty alcove, so you can definitely have fun with a non-event.

Anyway, like James said, golems are kind of a staple of the game so they'll probably always be popping up from time to time. And they're the best guardians of abandoned tombs, temples, etc. that don't have a functioning ecosystem in them (unless you're willing to resort to undead which if anything is a bigger cliche). So I'd say accept, them replace them, or ignore them--whatever works best for your group. Because I, like Nicolas Logue have about six scenarios pending that are nothing but golem-o-ramas (Okay I'm kidding it's really only about three.) ;-)


Hey, don't get me wrong. Redhand is a great and original adventure. One "statue" encounter isn't going to change that.

Frog God Games

I couldn't agree more. :-)

Which is really kind of what I was trying to get at.


Just a note about horrid cliches. Its funny, on one hand, we decry cliche and talk about how things should be completely unpredictable, but then complain about things the merest hint of good drow, for example. We complain when villains are two dimensional, but then we complain when every villain has a tragic sympathetic past.

I guess my point is that if the adventure is good, and it works, then one element shouldn't ruin it. And keep in mind, the group I have been playing with has only been playing a year. One person in the group has played for about four years, one has been playing for nearly ten, and another for over fifteen, but they have only had me for a DM for a year. I have never thrown any animated statues at them, so if I ran this adventure, they have no previous knowlage of me, as a DM using this "old trick."

Finally, I am also teaching my kids how to play, on and off, sporadically, and I can tell you, anyone new to the game probably isn't looking for cliches. In fact, if anything, they are likely to say "Oh cool, the statue is attacking us, it just like in Tomb Raider," than that this plot device has been used before.

Any time you get jaded, just think back to watching the Fellowship of the Ring and tell me, for one brief shining moment, throwing hordes of orcs at your players didn't seem really cool again.


It always kind of bugs me when people decry logical things as being cliche. Golems make perfect guardians, and they are relatively easy to construct. Therefore, anyone who is trespassing where the property owner has a lot of resources shouldn't be surprised to find golems. I imagine that adventurers in a fantasy world would discuss it and may take the view that "dungeons with golem guards are so cliche," but it makes sense. Just because something is used over and over doesn't mean it shouldn't be used. That's like asking fast-food joints to stop selling hamburgers.


I defend my original statement. I *did not* say that animated statues don't work, I just said they're cliche and over-used. The reason that cliches come to be is because it's something that is generally true/effective. I love a "classic" as much as the next guy but there is a point where a person has to say enough is enough. It's like stumbling upon a collection of oddly posed statues, "let me guess, hmmm, medusa anyone?" or a low level encounter in the sewers, "can you say wererat?". The thing that stops me from complaining about the above encounters is that, though common, they are not exclusive. I've seen several oddly posed statue encounters that didn't result in the BBEG being a medusa or low level sewer crawls that didn't include wererats. I started collecting Dungeon magazine at #8, and I don't recall a single adventure where the menacing statue was exactly that - just a statue. On top of which, at least 50% of the impact of the animated statue, IMO, is the surprise resulting from the PCs not expecting the statue to animate. This is completely lost at this point because the animated statue is so overdone. As I said in my original post, my players and *myself* would be shocked at this point if the statue *didn't* animate. A flesh golem is one thing. I know immediately what its purpose is and can immediately assess it as a threat. Even some other kind of golem residing inside the treasure vault or standing beside the door is logical but just once I'd like to see a statue in some other room to be for purely decorative purposes.
As far as fast food, I go to the restaurant to *get* a burger, fully expecting them to be available. I don't want my players to enter every temple or building complex fully expecting the animated statue. That's not just cliche, it's plain old boring.


I used animated topiary. Although not as hard to defeat as animated statues, it's worth it to see the players go "What?!?! The GARDEN is attacking us??" Great fun, especially if the antagonist is a druid.

Scarab Sages

Lilith wrote:
I used animated topiary. Although not as hard to defeat as animated statues, it's worth it to see the players go "What?!?! The GARDEN is attacking us??" Great fun, especially if the antagonist is a druid.

Especially if you have a few obviously placed statues here and there. Take the obvious, shift it three feet to the left and clobber them with it.


Lilith, what a great idea. I could see that as an interesting and surprising (Hoorah!) encounter.
And to everyone who reads this thread I would like to make clear that I LOVED Prince of Redhand and thought it was one of the best adventures ever. The statue/aspect encounter did not ruin the adventure by any means it just served to remind me of a nagging irritation of mine that has been festering for decades - I figured it was high time I brought it up. I merely wanted to voice my frustration with what I believe is a vastly overdone encounter in hopes of inspiring present and future authors to go a step beyond the "obvious" route. Honestly I did not wish to offend or even start a big debate. I meant my over-enthusiastic complaint in the most encouraging, inspiring way possible. And even an adventure with one or two cliches is better than always rehashing a DM's own tired ideas. I appreciate the fact that it isn't easy to get published in the first place and that the authors out there are truly performing a valuable service. I just had a manic moment when the only thought coursing through my brain was "If I see ONE more animated statue, I'll ... I'll..." I don't know, write an irritated post maybe?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

SirMarcus wrote:
I started collecting Dungeon magazine at #8, and I don't recall a single adventure where the menacing statue was exactly that - just a statue. On top of which, at least 50% of the impact of the animated statue, IMO, is the surprise resulting from the PCs not expecting the statue to animate.

Point taken about the surprise statue animating, but consider this; if the statue animates and attacks an the PCs expect it, this is no different than the PCs entering a room with a normal monster that lunges at them. However; for those groups who aren't expecting it, it's a fun surprsie.

As for menacing statues that don't animate, we use them all the time. The one that comes to mind first is the statue of Orcus from the Cathedral of Feathers in issue #107's "Test of the Smoking Eye." It doesn't animate, and it's pretty scary looking.


Gotta admit...animating statues are cliche', but mighty convenient from a dungeon-building point of view; I mean, an animating statue requires no food, no water, no sleep, no pay, doesn't get bored and doesn't waver in its loyalty - it just stands there until its contingency activates it!

If there's something that I hate more than animating statues, it's populating a dungeon without providing for water sources, food supply/kitchen, latrine or anything other than filling a room with bored creatures - no wonder they want to kill anyone who comes into the room! :-P

M


James Jacobs wrote:

As for menacing statues that don't animate, we use them all the time. The one that comes to mind first is the statue of Orcus from the Cathedral of Feathers in issue #107's "Test of the Smoking Eye." It doesn't animate, and it's pretty scary looking.

I think this may be a case of only noticing what you are looking for. The statues that don't animate aren't really noteworthy, so they tend to be forgotten. I know that I've used a *lot* of purely decorative statues in my own adventures, and my impression is that a lot of purely decorative statues have been used in other adventures, as well. FWIW, the AoW adventure where the party returns to the Whispering Cairn to the tomb of the Wind Dukes does seem overdone in this regard, so maybe that just triggered repressed feelings.

Sorry if I misrepresented the feelings about using cliches. Nonetheless, I still think it's inaccurate to say that statues are mostly used as guardians and only rarely as decoration. I also think that, in a world where statues make such efficient guardians, adventurers should be expecting an animating statue when they enter the temple or tomb complex.

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