I love Pathfinder and have been involved with a weekly game for roughly the last 12 months or so with no end in sight. The AP/Adventure I am running does not really matter, the crux of the point is as follows:
I have a player in my weekly game that has a very extreme phobia of spiders.. and I know I can literally just swap out creatures for an equal CR.. but I feel doing that can ruin the encounter.
Spider encounters typically are put in so players can deal with mobility issues (web) or poison issues (duh.. spider), or even "it keeps getting to high in the webs for me to hit!!!"
Having said that, I am just looking for reasonable replacements for spiders I can use on the fly to maintain the intent of the encounter without completely having to re-balance every spider encounter I see in printed materials (I am a semi lazy DM that loves Adventure Paths and Modules but am finally branching out to make my own as well).
Anything I create I can just not put spiders in easy peasy at design.. any help is appreciated.
TL;DR My player has arachnophobia that I do not wish to abuse, keeping the difficulties of poisons, webs, or climbing creatures, I am looking for advice on what creatures I can swap spiders for on the fly.
Kobolds with traps might substitute for webs. If they have small tunnels it might create similar mobility issues to climbing, and there's nothing stopping them from using poison. Obviously there'd be some work to recreate the encounter though, they're not a simple drop-in.
Things that are a simple drop-in would vary. A hissing centipede with some undergrowth around might be similar to a giant spider with webs around, but there are a lot more types of spiders than of centipedes.
I do not mind a little work to drop in a replacement. And of note, with pre-published material sometimes swapping creatures on the fly is easier based on other creatures in the area.
As an example:
If the "area" includes mostly creatures that use similar attack methods, just add more of the same. It only gets time consuming when you do not have other creatures around. I know I can pre-read and completely scrub spiders out of any adventure, but anyone who GMs knows, sometimes just saying "every spider gets turned into X" really doesn't work out well.
Eventually I will just take all spider abilities and just change the insect that are attached to and remove spiders from my entire campaign, but that will take a bit of time and of course diligence.. just looking for things like Avr suggested till then.
I like the hissing centipede suggestion as it keeps the creature types similar in nature and easier to swap. I guess I could just compare the different spider types and create sudo-templates for other vermin to keep the trend there. That would help make quick swaps out I think.
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While it's described as lobster-like, there is a creature that emulates some of the specific spidery-type of things you might be able to use: the cave fisher.
Could always do plants/plant-like enemies.
They can cause difficult terrain, pull people around, can have poison and be a general nuisance.
Don't have any off the top of my head outside of the Assassin Vine.
If I'm understanding this correctly, it is the player who has the phobia..... not the character.
You might consider talking to the player and see if they would be willing to work that phobia into their character's background and role play it accordingly. I wouldn't remove pre-designed spider encounters from the game, nor would I add additional spiders to make it more difficult for the player.
You might consider offering a small perk for the character for taking on a role playing disadvantage that has a meaningful mechanical effect in the game. Possibly an additional trait or something along those lines. That being said, you would need to designate what effect the presence of a spider has on the character.
I don't see removing spiders from the game as being any more necessary than removing spiders from real-life. A character with a debilitating condition, such as a serious phobia, can add a lot of depth to a background.
As an arachnophobe myself, GMing an adventure path where I googled 'ogre spider' looking for an image still gives me chills when I think about it.
There may be some tweaks you could do that keep the spidery theme but don't trigger the phobia. A template to make it a clockwork spider, for example, would likely make it less creepy but keep the threats (webbing, poison, climbing walls).
But as Nightfiend said, talk to the player. It's possible that stomping RPG spiders is more cathartic than phobia-inducing.
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There's always reflavoring too. Take the creature, make it some kind of monstrous creature that doesn't resemble a spider. Really, I can't imagine web would come up a lot, and you could thematically replace it with alchemical goo in the palette swap.
But agreed with others in saying don't bring it up, phobias are serious business, and it's never cool to throw that into things without getting the other person's okay.
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I would just come up with a made up term, something like Zilchik, Borgul, or just about anything, and say they are a type of aberration with the vermin traits instead of aberration. I'd give them all a somewhat similar appearance red scales and purple tufts of hair or something and just substitute them in mass for the spiders. No changing of stats at all.
"It looks like you are facing a weaver Zilchik. They are known for their entangling webs."
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I would reflavor the spider as some type of abberation.
Haha I know someone who was so scared of spider, that he was stuck in some video game (namely Skyrim and WoW) because he just can't approach them, even when he know it's virtual.
I don't really have suggestion for replacement, but the system of background/character disadvantage is nice, I already use it. You have to find a balanced advantage to give him.
I would absolutely strongly advise you to remove them for the sake of your player. This is a game and it's supposed to be fun.
The advice to "reflavor" them is a great one. HWalsh is spot on.
Reflavor it as a spider monkey
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Might want to talk to the player before starting on the reflavoring. Try to find out what it is about the spiders that creeps them out -- the eyes, mandibles, what? It probably isn't just the word spider, it is something that they imagine when they hear that word. It does no good to avoid spiders if your replacement causes the same reaction.
The idea of using an aberration in place of spiders is a good one.
As for other existing creatures:
- Venumous snakes have a climb and swim speed plus poison.
- Giant Geeko have climb speed.
The obvious advice is "Talk to your player". See how much it bothers him, if at all, to face spiders in-game. My cousin has a pretty severe... snakephobia (?), but she has no problem seeing and fighting snakes in video-games.
If it trully bothers him... Just reskin the spiders as aberrations or plant creatures. That way you can keep their abilities and still give them completely different descriptions.
Ophiophobia, IIRC. Latin is important for stuff people are afraid of.
Tentacle monsters who spit sticky slime and have poisonous stingers in the tips of their tentacles. Done.
That... Might invoke a different type of imagery for fans of anime. One that would be improper for all too different reasons!
XD
Ophiophobia, IIRC. Latin is important for stuff people are afraid of.
I was going to guess "ophidiophobia" based on the word in Portuguese... But I decided to play it safe and just use the word "snake" instead. ^^
Or bring about new phobias...
Not to mention octopuses with eight stinger attacks, each delivering a +2 to the DC of the poison save...
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I love Pathfinder and have been involved with a weekly game for roughly the last 12 months or so with no end in sight. The AP/Adventure I am running does not really matter, the crux of the point is as follows:
I have a player in my weekly game that has a very extreme phobia of spiders.. and I know I can literally just swap out creatures for an equal CR.. but I feel doing that can ruin the encounter.
Spider encounters typically are put in so players can deal with mobility issues (web) or poison issues (duh.. spider), or even "it keeps getting to high in the webs for me to hit!!!"
Having said that, I am just looking for reasonable replacements for spiders I can use on the fly to maintain the intent of the encounter without completely having to re-balance every spider encounter I see in printed materials (I am a semi lazy DM that loves Adventure Paths and Modules but am finally branching out to make my own as well).
Anything I create I can just not put spiders in easy peasy at design.. any help is appreciated.
TL;DR My player has arachnophobia that I do not wish to abuse, keeping the difficulties of poisons, webs, or climbing creatures, I am looking for advice on what creatures I can swap spiders for on the fly.
I dunno... Normally I would say talk to the player but if they have already said something along the lines of "<Nervous laughter> You know I am very afraid of spiders," then I would just let it drop. Talking to them about the extent to which they are afraid of spiders might just exacerbate things. And also saying stuff like, "Is it their creepy hairy legs that bother you? Or instead their multiple beady eyes? Or their sticky webs that trap things? Or the sharp mandibles that hold you while poison is injected into you?" could just come across as either psychological (i.e., actually scaring them more) or social (i.e., let's talk about how lame you are that these things actually frighten you) torture. I would just let it drop.
Instead have them fight, as others have said, a group of nature fey that can imitate all of the mechanics without any of the flavor:
* They cast entangling roots (instead of web) as plants grow up from the ground.
* The plants are poisonous like poison ivy (poison)
* They climb up trees around you and/or climb up the plants they just summoned (hard to reach.)
This way, it doesn't matter whether it was the hairy legs, beady eyes, mandibles, webs, etc., because the above flavor doesn't have any of it.
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I dunno... Normally I would say talk to the player but if they have already said something along the lines of "<Nervous laughter> You know I am very afraid of spiders," then I would just let it drop. Talking to them about the extent to which they are afraid of spiders might just exacerbate things. And also saying stuff like, "Is it their creepy hairy legs that bother you? Or instead their multiple beady eyes? Or their sticky webs that trap things? Or the sharp mandibles that hold you while poison is injected into you?" could just come across as either psychological (i.e., actually scaring them more) or social (i.e., let's talk about how lame you are that these things actually frighten you) torture. I would just let it drop.
The other option would be to quit asking leading questions and instead ask if any other monsters would present the same problem.
"Hey, I realize you don't like spiders so I'm not going to avoid them as monsters. Is there anything else I should know? I don't want you to feel uncomfortable in my games, so knowing what to avoid ahead of time would really help me."
Let them lead the conversation. Hopefully they will give you enough to guess at the details.
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While I appreciate every piece of advice I have seen here, and plan on using a few I find to be awesome ideas... in reply to all the "speak to your player and find out blah blah blah blah."
This game has been ongoing for a while as I stated in the OP and every time a spider slipped by me that player ran from the table in REAL FEAR.
That is not my intent as a GM, I want my players to know the can join my games and feel safe while having fun.
I do not wish to torture my players by exposing them to near debilitating phobias in a game that is supposed to be fun.
Outside of that I really do appreciate the suggestions, I find it nice to have a Forum like this where you can get multiple viewpoints on something because often someone will suggest something you never even thought of.
I never thought to ask about Clockwork types of arachnids and thanks to the suggestion I'll ask my player about it.
If this was just a CHARACTER Phobia I would abuse the living daylights out of it! But to clarify this is a PLAYERS PHOBIA and I am not a certified anything on how to treat such things so I do not view "killing your phobias in a game" as "cathartic" as much as "pushing deep seated buttons of fear in your player" and that is not my intent.