Rust Monsters vave to be one of the most feared creatures in the DnD world why? Mainly becouse you lust really cant replace a magic weapon and honestly if youre a monk youre home free.
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Rust Monsters vave to be one of the most feared creatures in the DnD world why? Mainly becouse you lust really cant replace a magic weapon and honestly if youre a monk youre home free.
That's why I always carry around a monk or two - you just never know when a rust monster is going to come along an turn you fighter into a tearful sissy.
Yeah, rust monsters really suck. Particulary if you prefer to play chaotic characters who can't be monks.
On a note, Dispater, archdevil of the second layer of hell, has a similar ability only the DC to save a magic item is 40 and Dispater himself is CR 26. Now that is just painful!
Also, has no-one ever thought of learning the "Rusting Grasp" spell in order to use similar tactics on NPCs?
I don't use them because they are just so unlore like - such a blatent "Tool" as opposed to a story element.
A demon/devil that steals feeds on magic I don't really take issue with (which I guess is weird) - but I won't use that stupid deer with the trunk.
Also, has no-one ever thought of learning the "Rusting Grasp" spell in order to use similar tactics on NPCs?
Really the horror of losing a magic item is only horrible to the survivor--the dead guy doesn't care. That's a strange thing about a lot of the things in D&D that are really fearsome to PCs, things like stat and level drain or gear destruction. They can permanently set the character back in ways that can never really be made up for. NPC's on the other hand, often end up dead at the end of typical encounters and so the benefit of zapping their stats or destroying their possessions is less useful since they won't be around to mourn the loss. I'd wager in typical games people are also pretty keen on keeping the items of nice mr. dead guy intact so they can steal it.
This is not to say that abilities like these couldn't be used to great effect and with great flair. After all, its stuff like that that makes me love the game so much.
I'd wager in typical games people are also pretty keen on keeping the items of nice mr. dead guy intact so they can steal it.
How about a monk with rusting grasp :)
I've never used a rust monster. I've thought about it a few times, but never brought myself to do it. I could see them as a story element, however, provided they are used extremely rarely, and say, were captured by an arch villain who knew the party was largely metal-dependant, and thus decided to use rust monsters as bodyguards, over normal humanoids.
The desire to keep the enemy's stuff in good repair so that the party can get immediate benefit from it is why a lot of things like Rusting Grasp, Improved Sunder, etc., don't get used. Not only is it much more efficient just to stick to HP damage, it save one having to spend money overcoming the damage they dealt to their own loot, provided the damage can be repaired at all.
However, I did some number crunching once and found that, if a fighter used Improved Sunder in virtually every fight, the monetary loss is negligible. Considering the actual number of magic weapons that the party would be able to sell, and the fact that most are +1 (until very high level, where a spell can fix the item, thus negating the whole problem), AND that they sell for half price to begin with, makes the actual amount of coin lost to repair extremely small.
But, again, it's often so much more efficient just to work on killing someone out-right, rather than piddling around with these little tricks. I prefer to try and run campaigns where such tactics as Improved Sudner and Rusting Grasp, and spells of a similar nature, would be rewarded and emphasized. However, since I am actually a rather novice DM, I've not yet developed a campaign format to do this, as I'm still in a phase of experimenting with different villain and monster types as adversaries as the main focus of my campaign work, after plot weaving.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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That's why I always carry around a monk or two - you just never know when a rust monster is going to come along an turn you fighter into a tearful sissy.
Yeah, but it's tough to justify taking Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Human Shaped Club. Besides, you have to care and feed for the monk while he's in the holster.
I don't use them because they are just so unlore like - such a blatent "Tool" as opposed to a story element.
I think that this is why a lot of people don't like them. Not only can they severely weaken a character, but they are often used specifialy by GMs as Kyr has stated, "blatant tools". Most players get frustrated when they get the notion that the GM is specifically trying to shaft them.
The odd nature of them doesn't really appeal to me. The capacity of the creatures to so easily just destroy items that may be of high value to the campaign and the characters bothers me (even though they are handy for using to get rid of campaign imbalancers if they happen to be made of metals that oxidize)....
But there's always been another factor for me. Their goofy appearance (granted, the illustrations make them look less so now than they used to)...
and the somewhat accidental way i found out about the 'history' behind their appearance. There was a bin of plastic 'dinosaurs' that i saw at some location..a zoo or something..it was a cheap souvenier stand inside something like that...where almost everything in it didn't really fit the environment the stand was in, but you could say you got this little piece of kitsch at the place and let it go at that. Some of the plastic dinosaurs really did look like dinosaurs, others were wild warped designs from nightmares (This happened to me in the early seventies, i hadn't even heard of d and d yet). I still collected dinosaurs, so i bought a handful, which is how they came. in that handful, there were five or six real dinosaurs, and five or six of these pseudo nightmares. Two of the odd ones stuck in my mind, later, when i saw them in the AD&D monster manual, one of them the rust monster, and the other the bulette. I guess someone else got a handful too, and when the game came along, made stats for it so they could put it in with their miniatures
Don't really like Rust Monsters. I don't think I've ever used one but I did use a Rust Dragon recently to good effect.
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Don't really like Rust Monsters. I don't think I've ever used one but I did use a Rust Dragon recently to good effect.
I am a great fan of the Rusties! Nothing is more fun than tha expression on the faces of a seasoned player when he realizes there's a horde of rustmonsters coming for him... One alone is no fun, but a whole corridor full of'em is something far more funny >:)
Anyway - where do I find the Rust Dragon??? Pleasy...
Don't really like Rust Monsters. I don't think I've ever used one but I did use a Rust Dragon recently to good effect.I am a great fan of the Rusties! Nothing is more fun than tha expression on the faces of a seasoned player when he realizes there's a horde of rustmonsters coming for him... One alone is no fun, but a whole corridor full of'em is something far more funny >:)
Anyway - where do I find the Rust Dragon??? Pleasy...
Draconomicon.
GGG
Director of Narrative
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Two of the odd ones stuck in my mind, later, when i saw them in the AD&D monster manual, one of them the rust monster, and the other the bulette. I guess someone else got a handful too, and when the game came along, made stats for it so they could put it in with their miniatures
I had the same experience!!! It was this 3-4 inch long yellow plastic critter. At that age I called it a propeller tail. I had the same shock when I first thumbed through a 1st ed Monster Manual.
As far as them being 'unlore', that may be true, but they've been around in the game since the start, so for many older gamers they are surely nostalgic.
Plane hopping anyone? A horde of rust monsters make total sense on the battle cubes of Acheron.
I had a character concept once that I got a lot of laughs out of...a tauric gnome-rustmonster.
He loves technological doo-dads, and can't help touching them and turning them over in his hands to figure out how they work, but then he starts to sweat and smack his lips and then just finally can't help himself and *DINK!*--touches it with one of his antennae! NOOOOO!
That and the Lapyugh (pron. la-PYOO)--that's right, a tauric Lashae-otyugh, all the beauty and grace of the epic race that puts the ugly and common elf to shame combined with the...um...well...with an otyugh. He just can't understand why people don't want to be around him, since after all he is the living embodiment of all that is pure and beautiful!
I don't think rust monsters are tools. There are lots of stupid animals that eat weird things, so it would make sense that there is one that eats metal.
What is stupid is putting a rust monster in a mostly stone dungeon. Why in heck would a creature that eats metal live in a stone dungeon? Put the rust monster in an iron mine or on a metal plane, and it is a reasonable creature. It only becomes a tool when you place it in unlikely places.
Yeah, but it's tough to justify taking Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Human Shaped Club. Besides, you have to care and feed for the monk while he's in the holster.
^_^ Next time I play a comedy based game I am SO playing a Half-Giant or Half-Orc with that feat. And probably Leadership in order to have a good supply of weapons. Maybe change it to "Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Elf Shaped Club" if I go with the Half-Orc...
Can you imagine an Ogre picking up the Fighter and using him as a club? Sounds absolutely hilarious to me.
I wonder what the stats would be for that?
The only rust monster I have ever used is a large rust monster kept as a pet by a hill giant fighter. Since he could not use the weapons and armor of his humanoid enemies that well he gave most of it to his pet. The encounter with the rust monster did humble the paladin in my group, but at the time he needed a bit of humbling and he quickly got over it when he found a suit of mithril armor shortly thereafter.
For those who don't understand the rust monster, I think Nick Logue has written an ecology for them that may appear in Dragon shortly. That should answer all the questions about those funny critters.