Folk Lore weaknesses for monsters

[Prak]

Specifically Kappa.

So, if it's a monster, I guess you just make it a puzzle monster and CR accordingly. right.


What if you want Kappa as a playable race? what the hell is one supposed to do with a race that is immediately helpless and subservient if it's head juice* spills?


*Kappa Head Juice totally needs to be a drink in some fantasy/sci fi asian setting...

[K]

Specifically Kappa.

So, if it's a monster, I guess you just make it a puzzle monster and CR accordingly. right.


What if you want Kappa as a playable race? what the hell is one supposed to do with a race that is immediately helpless and subservient if it's head juice* spills?


*Kappa Head Juice totally needs to be a drink in some fantasy/sci fi asian setting...

I personally hate puzzle monsters. At best, you get an auto-lose monster. At worse, you punish and maybe TPK the party because they didn't read the MM as well are you and/or failed a Knowledge check.

[Thymos]

Well, puzzle monsters can be done decently with the right foreshadowing and set up.

The problem with them is that they can't be black and white; you have the solution and it's easy town or you don't and it's impossible.

Instead you need something like mega-man. If you have the solution it's easier but still not a gimme, if you don't it's still possible but fairly hard.

There also needs to be a good amount of foreshadowing.

CRing puzzle monsters is nigh impossible.

As far as making puzzle monsters playable... you can't. At least not in anyway I can conceive. They are just far too open for abuse in player hands.

[RandomCasualty2]

I personally hate puzzle monsters. At best, you get an auto-lose monster. At worse, you punish and maybe TPK the party because they didn't read the MM as well are you and/or failed a Knowledge check.

Puzzle monsters shouldn't exist in the base MM. At all.

They should always be unique monsters to a given quest. And after you've fought one a few times, they should basically just go away and never be heard from again.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Kappa weaknesses?
Credulous: Kappa take a -4 penalty when making a check opposed to Diplomacy or Bluff.

[Juton]

Puzzle monsters are fine if there are ways to take it out other than it's one weakness, or if it is foreshadowed out the ass. Take wererats for example, our CR 2 group went up against 5 of them, we would have lost or fought to a stand still except the druid was able to spam sandblast and knock them all out. It would also be fine to have a big foozl which can only be slain with magic sword X, as long as you send the PCs on a quest for said magic sword.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I would like to suggest an alternate approach.

I remember playing Mega Man X a lot back in the day. Every boss monster had a weakness and exploiting that weakness really helped, but doing so would make the boss monster change attack patterns.

Would that be something that's workable? You can beat the boss without the weakness it's just harder; you can exploit the weakness but the attack pattern changes making it easier but no cake-walk.

[Prak]

Ok... remember, I'm asking for the purposes of making a playable race. If I were just making Kappas monsters that you come through and fight, I wouldn't worry so much, but players need to be able to play these things