Mundanes fighting monsters

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:28 am

Okay, one of the biggest problem that fantasy adventure has is the question of why monsterkind hasn't flattened civilization yet. For example, two Worms that Walk could pretty much destroy anything smaller than a metropolis without using cheese loops.

So I think that from now on, any monster more powerful than a troll that doesn't have an incentive to interact with civilization (such as rocs) should have ways that mundanes can counter it. For example:

Owlbear: Owlbears hate the smell of domesticated dogs and will do their best to avoid them. If within one mile of a domesticated adult dog they take a -2 penalty on all checks, attack rolls, and AC. If within 100 feet of one they become nauseated. If unable to escape the dogs, owlbears will prioritize attacks against them to the exclusion of all else. A dangerous yet popular sport with nobles is to grab a bunch of hunting dogs and herd them into traps, then finishing them off with bows and arrows.

Gelatinous Cubes: Gelatinous Cubes go completely coocoo for fresh vegetables, preferring them even over meat. While they're dissolving vegetables (a process that takes 1d4+4 rounds per ten pounds) they will ignore other creatures as long as they are not attacked. After having a meal of vegetables, they will spend up to three hours frantically looking for more eat before giving up. Cubes will risk dangers such as going through fire or creatures for their meal.

Things like that. What do you think?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:41 am

Lago wrote:Things like that. What do you think?

Pretty much. Of course, D&D is frankly filled with way too much crazy bullshit. Having there be a mundane way to counter Mudmaws or Red Sundews really doesn't matter because none of the players are going to know what it is.

You're up against basic theater conventions. If you show Chekhov's Gun, you must fire it. But in order to fire it, you better show it first. With the hundreds upon hundreds of monsters that D&D heaps upon us, there is simply no possible way to establish an accommodating counter to the civilization destroying effects of even a small fraction of all that crazy bullshit. And that means that when carrion crawlers or vasuthants show the fuck up, the reason that civilization is still standing is always going to feel totally contrived.

If there are two many potential enemies to do an establishing shot on them all - and there totally are - then it's not really possible to use all the enemies and have that not feel like a total Deus Ex Machina either way.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:54 am

Well, then why can't we just have broad categories of monsters and have the counters apply to the category at large, with of course exceptions now and then.

For example, owlbears and centaurs get lumped into the 'chimera' category and all of them have the weakness against dogs. Then you could have certain exceptions like manticore not being nauseated by dogs that have ever killed creatures bigger than a rat or chimera being able to get used to the smell of dogs for life after a month of exposure. All oozes react that way to their favorite food, it's just that some oozes prefer different foods --gelatinous cubes prefer vegetables, ochre jellies go ga-ga for sweets, so on.

I think that any game world the size of Eberron or Forgotten Realms can support about fifty counters, assuming that monsters stay in certain regions. And I think they should. There is a certain drama to having a pack of displacer beasts show up on the west coast and the locals having no idea what to do, since no one in the village has even heard of a displacer beast.

Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp · Sun Jun 28, 2009 11:38 am

If you have too strong of counters, now you have to go the opposite way and justify the Centaur's existence because they're weak against dogs cause I would totally wipe out the centaur civilization with dogs for their land if I could.

shau · Post by **shau** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 12:08 pm

I thought the understanding for why monsters have not taken over human civilization was that humans have many wandering murderous hobos who do nothing but wander around looking to stab monsters in the face. Even if you get lucky and find a village without an appropriately powerful face stabber in it, the news of your shenanigans will get out and then many humans will be after your tender, tender face.

This also explain why the humans are willing to put up with so many people pursuing a career in traveling murder.

Thymos · Post by **Thymos** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:52 pm

DnD is one of the more extreme RPG systems with leveling making you stronger.

What I mean is that at higher levels in DnD you effectively become immune to lower level people. If there is a system where it's hard to answer why Monsters haven't wiped us out yet, it's DnD.

That said I always figure reproductive rates among Humans are higher than the stronger Monsters. This means that we have more people, and more importantly because this is DnD, more adventurers.

Monsters for example probably wouldn't want to attack Monte Cook's Ptolus because there are enough adventurers in that city to take down pretty much anything. Now Ptolus does fail to really implement the high magic to it's fullest extent, but we're talking about whether the cities make sense, not how high magic is implemented.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 2:04 pm

How many monsters actually could threaten people on a large scale? No really. Even if they can kill 50 people a minute, it will still be hours before they've done much to dent a large settlement's population. And that's just one settlement. Also, most of the creatures who can do even that much would rather just use humans and their ilk as pawns.

Most of the low and mid level stuff can be beaten by enough mooks focusing fire if for no other reason than that stuff has AC in the teens and not that many HP. So they don't have to worry about animals and magical beasts because the militia and guards and whatever can deal with it.

And this is without figuring in their access to real characters.

Some dumbfuck mook (Warrior 2) will manage about +5/1d8+2 with bow auto attacks. Throw them at most animals and magical beasts and half will hit doing around... 65 damage a round. Maybe 1 or 2 dies, but they kill whatever they shot at.

Just another user · Post by **Just another user** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 2:24 pm

shau wrote:I thought the understanding for why monsters have not taken over human civilization was that humans have many wandering murderous hobos who do nothing but wander around looking to stab monsters in the face. Even if you get lucky and find a village without an appropriately powerful face stabber in it, the news of your shenanigans will get out and then many humans will be after your tender, tender face.

This also explain why the humans are willing to put up with so many people pursuing a career in traveling murder.

Also a mob of torch-and-pitchfork wielding and/or rock-throwing peasants is still a strength to be reckoned, many monsters, like owlbears are afraid of fire and unless they are especially hungry they try to avoid populated areas. The way I see it when push come to shove even peasants in large numbers are still dangerous, what with the '20 is always a hit', or torches, IIRC, touch attack 1d4 fire damage, isolated monsters like a wandering ogre or troll can be dealt with even if at a price of human lifes, more organized monsters are where adventurers are needed but they are also considerably rarer, or they should be for civilization to survive.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 3:29 pm

I don't get your owlbear example. In D&D, an owlbear is basically just a slightly weaker version of the brown bear. Are you suggesting that it's unrealistic that brown bears haven't taken over the world in real life?

Dumb animals (even deadly stuff like gorgons or basilisks, for instance) don't really require any special weaknesses because they're already susceptible to being slowly plinked at by arrows, or poisoned, or falling into pit traps and starving to death.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 4:17 pm

Unintilligent brutes can be fairly easily taken out by crowds of armed hunters, unless they are purple worm-level strong or above. Same goes for intelligent brutes, in the end, although they would be significantly better at avoiding disadvantageous fights or cowing humanoids into submission. Manticores and other things like them are far from being immune to large numbers of low-level characters.

Smart and magical, but not overwhelmingly so, monsters, such as medusas, hags or nagas, can be handled, if they are sufficiently rare and slow-breeding. Or if humanoids have some head start, allowing them to develop their civilization and magic before the monsters appear.

The true problem is beings like old dragons, which can obliterate cities before breakfast and completely ignore any numbers of low-level mooks. They probably should be isolated on other planes, which PCs visit after becoming high-level characters. If remaking cosmology is unacceptable, they should be exceedingly rare.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 4:38 pm

hogarth wrote:I don't get your owlbear example. In D&D, an owlbear is basically just a slightly weaker version of the brown bear. Are you suggesting that it's unrealistic that brown bears haven't taken over the world in real life?

Just want to put this out there: before firearms, there was no civilization in areas frequented by brown bears.

-Username17

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 4:45 pm

FatR wrote:Unintilligent brutes can be fairly easily taken out by crowds of armed hunters, unless they are purple worm-level strong or above. Same goes for intelligent brutes, in the end, although they would be significantly better at avoiding disadvantageous fights or cowing humanoids into submission. Manticores and other things like them are far from being immune to large numbers of low-level characters.

Smart and magical, but not overwhelmingly so, monsters, such as medusas, hags or nagas, can be handled, if they are sufficiently rare and slow-breeding. Or if humanoids have some head start, allowing them to develop their civilization and magic before the monsters appear.

The true problem is beings like old dragons, which can obliterate cities before breakfast and completely ignore any numbers of low-level mooks. They probably should be isolated on other planes, which PCs visit after becoming high-level characters. If remaking cosmology is unacceptable, they should be exceedingly rare.

Remember what I said about preferring to use humans as a resource? That's where dragons (and to a lesser extent stuff like medusas) comes in. Why kill everything when you can extort protection money or something? And hell, with the dragon serving the same role a murdering hobo would they're pretty safe from everything else. It may even be cheaper to pay off the dragon.

imperialspectre · Post by **imperialspectre** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 4:54 pm

How are you defining "civilization," Frank? Humans certainly inhabited areas frequented by brown bears prior to possessing firearms (most of the western United States, for example), so is civilization something on the order of ancient Egypt/Mayans/Greece and up?

I'm honestly not convinced at this moment that creatures like brown bears do much of anything to hinder the growth of civilization, considering that Egypt and India both had to deal with large predatory cats and elephants. If anything, large animals tend to get people to band together so they have a fighting chance.

In D&D world, the same thing probably holds true. If you're sticking with relatively mundane populations (<7th level) and equally mundane threats, most monsters are either not able to overcome sustained resistance or don't have any interest in wiping out the humanoid population (sure, a dragon can wipe out a village with relative ease, but it's easier to build up a hoard by just raiding the miners every so often).

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:37 pm

I liked that "points of darkness" explanation that came up in one of the TNE threads. Where most of society is settled, or at least deserted, and nasty critters are actually pretty rare.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:38 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
hogarth wrote:I don't get your owlbear example. In D&D, an owlbear is basically just a slightly weaker version of the brown bear. Are you suggesting that it's unrealistic that brown bears haven't taken over the world in real life?
Just want to put this out there: before firearms, there was no civilization in areas frequented by brown bears.

-Username17

There still is no civilization in areas frequented by brown bears, because brown bears live in the forest and civilized humans live in cities.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 10:44 pm

Technically, there were many fishing villages and places with even farming in places frequented by bears. Either they did not compete - like fishermen - or they replaced the environment like farmers. Bears aren't particularly threatening, honestly. They would prefer berries to human flesh.

But we're talking things that will eat people. And in those areas, very little of it could be civilized if those lions and bears could do things like operate doors or jump fences and shield walls. And even so, large swaths remained uncivilized because too much pressure on those environs would create too many attacks.

Humans managed to wipe out lions and tigers from entire continents before firearms.

-Crissa

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:42 am

shau wrote:I thought the understanding for why monsters have not taken over human civilization was that humans have many wandering murderous hobos who do nothing but wander around looking to stab monsters in the face. Even if you get lucky and find a village without an appropriately powerful face stabber in it, the news of your shenanigans will get out and then many humans will be after your tender, tender face.

This also explain why the humans are willing to put up with so many people pursuing a career in traveling murder.

"Hullo ma'am, I'm a door to door murderous hobo."
"...oh..."
"Do you have monsters about?"
"...no..."
"oh... Tha's too bad ma'am... *stab*"

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:48 am

Okay, one of the biggest problem that fantasy adventure has is the question of why monsterkind hasn't flattened civilization yet. For example, two Worms that Walk could pretty much destroy anything smaller than a metropolis without using cheese loops.

Ten thousand human archers standing at the ready are why. FOR THE EMPEROR.

And the bigger stuff--the really nasty stuff--probably isn't that interested in humanity, and even if it is, fucking with the material plane is going to draw unwanted attention, and it might cause other nasties to get involved.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 7:23 am

Doesn't the old DMG have breakdowns of how many high-level characters are in a given settlement? Those should be enough to keep the general monster riff-raff at bay.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:23 am

Fuchs wrote:Doesn't the old DMG have breakdowns of how many high-level characters are in a given settlement? Those should be enough to keep the general monster riff-raff at bay.

Yes, but unfortunately, these breakdowns are insane and no less harmful to the verisimilitude than the question of why monsters hadn't eaten the settlement yet.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:31 am

I think limiting the problem monsters to a few per campaign works best if one is after verisimilitude. Most of the other (intelligent) monsters can at least be held at bay by an army (or the threat of a retributive strike at their homes by an army or hired adventurers).

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:54 am

Fuchs wrote:I think limiting the problem monsters to a few per campaign works best if one is after verisimilitude. Most of the other (intelligent) monsters can at least be held at bay by an army (or the threat of a retributive strike at their homes by an army or hired adventurers).

I also kind of like the Eberron solution that problem monsters either:

live far away (giants), or
are trapped (demons), or
aren't very interested in humans (dragons)

and the ones adventurers encounter are generally exceptions to the rule.

violence in the media · Mon Jun 29, 2009 12:21 pm

I like the simplistic RPS system used by Age of Empires: Mythology. Hero units get +X% damege to Myth units, Myth units get +X% damage to Human/Mortal units, and Human/Mortal units get +X% damage to Hero units.

That fits with the generalized idea that I've seen thrown around here of Hero>Monster>Army>Hero. Though it isn't so severe that you can't have Hero units take out human units. But that's possibly because of the interaction of other tags, for unit type, that the game uses. It subdivides unit type into Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Archery, Cavalry, and Siege, and those all have their assigned strong/weak interactions as well.