Wandering Monsters: Creepy Crawlies

With the exception of the rust monster and a few touches here and there, I think that everything here is mostly fine. Of course, when it comes to monstrous bugs and bug-ike things, there is not much that could go wrong, which is why I would like to see more, I dunno, controversial stuff like angels and such.

Ankheg
Though each edition has added its personal touch to these Large, acid-spraying, insect-like monsters, they have not changed much. Though I do not find anything particularly wrong with them, I think it would be interesting to add optional powers to make them unpredictably terrifying, such as blinding acid or an agony-inducing sting.What about ankhegs that form colonies, like cow-sized termites? Why not add a touch of Alien by having them lay eggs inside creatures?

Carrion Crawler
Like the ankheg, the carrion crawler has not changed much over the editions, and like the ankheg all I can really recommend is creating some variant powers that either change what its paralyzing touch does, or just make it worse, such as by causing some kind of rotting disease, or eggs that animate corpses as zombies so that they can potentially provide a larger meal for the larva.

Purple Worm
Though it was Gargantuan in 2nd and 3rd Edition (despite my Huge-sized minis saying otherwise), I think making the baseline purple worm that big is a bit much (though at that size it does make a good candidate for an ancient, probably unique beast). At the least I would give us stats for smaller, younger versions to throw at the characters so that there is a wider level spread. Oh, also a version with serpent-like tentacles in its mouth.

Rust Monsters
A controversial change in 4th Edition—that I preferred—was how a rust monster’s touch did not instantly destroy metallic gear, but instead weakened it until the encounter ended. This meant that the only way for it to completely destroy metal gear was with its encounter-based devour metal power (which recharged on a miss, so odds were pretty good it was going to eat something).

I think a good middle ground is to have a rust monster’s touch impose penalties—attack and damage for weapons, Armor Class for armor and shields, and maybe reduce bonuses provided by equipment for the rest—but have them persist until the item is repaired, instead of just going away after the encounter ends. Once enough penalties have accrued (like, say, -5 or something) then the item becomes useless.

This would mean that characters still need to be careful, without completely hosing a warrior type because of a few bad rolls.

Stirge

Given that these guys still deal hit point damage with their blood drain instead of Constitution points, I think they are pretty much fine (especially because in 3rd Edition they could drian so, so much).

Review: Ecology of the Rust Monster

Probably the most controversial monster since the release of Monster Manual 2, the rust monster gets its very own Ecology article. It goes through the history, touching on origins that ranged from a wizard to natural evolution, then moves on to physiology (they might be mammals!) and habitat. In addition to extensive information on rust monsters, there is also a trio of new alchemical items and variant rust monsters. My favorite of the three is the rust bomb, which inflicts an AC penalty to targets wearing metal armor. Unfortunately, the penalty is set across the board. I would have liked to see it increase a bit at higher levels.

• The rust monster lodestone is what you get when the critter eats too much highly magnetized metal. It (thankfully) loses the ability to rust items, but can still corrode rusting items. Its main feature is its ability to slide and slow targets via magnetic pulses. Hell, one of its attacks lets it launch an ally at an enemy, granting the ally a free basic attack with a bonus.
• Terrors are rust monsters that are somehow imbued with the fear of losing your stuff. Not much changes, but the rust monster can use a fear effect that immobilizes targets. Also, if you nail it with a power that has the Fear keyword you both take ongoing psychic damage. Interesting…
• Finally, the nightmare. This is the rust monster big gun, a level 24 solo controller. Its got a laundry list of a stat-block that compares to a dragon: melee corroding attack, ranged corroding attack, can shift and make a shitload of basic attacks (this is an at-will, by the by), a recharging ranged attack that stuns/knocks people unconscious, close blast that immobilizes everyone, can stop teleporting (and gain temp hp to boot), and finally can cause any magical item used to attack it to start to decay (even non-metallic implements). So…yeah. Be very afraid.

The article then wraps up with a pair of sample encounters and new disease, rusty paralysis. Its a level 8 disease that attacks Fortitude and causes you to lose a healing surge at first, but eventually permanently restrains you in its final state.

A pretty comprehensive article. There are some minor editing quibbles, but nothing major. It goes through the motions and brings a lot of crunch to the table, and it satisfies both the story and mechanic extremes of the spectrum.

Evolution of Rust Monsters

Rust monsters have been around since 2nd Edition, at least. Maybe before? I never played an earlier edition except for Basic D&D when I was in elementary. Rust monsters are a critter that I never got around to using and thankfully encountering. I didnt want to use a rust monster since if it managed to destroy the party’s gear, that I would have to incorporate some way for them to get new stuff or bulk/swap out the items that they were going to find.

In other words, it would have ultimately been pointless and just added more work for me to do.

Honestly all the rust monster seemed to do was perform as a game-stopper. “Oh noes, it ate the fighter’s magic sword and armor! Now he’s useless until he gets another set of magical gear since he is the most magic dependant class ever.” Seriously, whats the point? All it did was make it so that one player has spend the next x encounters waving his hands around in front of the wizard as a literal meat-shield. Thats neither fun nor challenging, but simply random, making it no better than a save-or-fuck-off effect, which is part and parcel to a terrible design move.

Now that the rust monster has been officially re-released into the wild, some people are complaining about the new mechanics like they are a bad thing. Frankly, these are also probably people that dont even play 4th Edition, but want to bitch and whine about how Wizards isnt making more books for their legacy edition instead of rightfully leaving to die in the ditch it was cast into years ago.

The new rust monster fulfills its design purpose and also allows for more interesting combat challenges. If it hits you, it starts damaging metal weapons and armor, which is reflected by an attack/AC penalty. Why is this good game design? Because it doesnt utterly obliterate a character’s prime method for doing anything for much longer than the planned battle.
Its still dangerous and characters packing metal will want to avoid it because it gradually makes them eaiser to hit/harder for them to hit other things. Players unfamiliar with the creature wont be randomly hosed by it from the start, but will be affected by it, yet be able to react in an intelligent, informed matter…which is excellent game design.
It can still destroy one magic item per encounter. The item in question has to be rusting for this to work, so it requires a bit of setup. This would allow a player to discover that metal doesnt work too well and keep her distance, though a lost item can be recovered at the end of the encounter by harvesting the consumed residuum from its carcass.

I like to think its a matter of not being a “dick DM” by throwing all this random nut-punching bullshit at my players. Not wanting to destroy their gear isnt the same thing as not trying to, “make nine-year olds cry,” and it certainly doesnt make the game less challenging. I think its a pretty big leap to get from what amounts to grinding the game to a halt as you arbitrarily punish and cripple about half the party. So you set them back quite a bit of treasure, now you have to make it all back up or reduce the danger of your encounters in the future. Whee!

The important thing is that rust monsters are still bizarre illogical things that matter. They are still feared. Just not for me as a DM. I can comfortably throw them at my players without worrying about having to revamp future encounters and/or treasure parcels to make up for my dick-move.

Of course, I could also just buy my players dinner.