I don't spend any time on the SJG Forums anymore. So I miss a lot of good posts by Dr. Kromm. One of them I saw yesterday thanks to this post over at GURPS Hexy Time:
Game log 10 February 2018: Don't poke the pudding!
The post in question was Difficult Monsters.
(FWIW, for my players, meteoric iron tipped arrows ignoring Missile Shield is not a thing in Felltower - that's been established in game fact, and DFRPG won't change that. Get a sling or prodd if you want meteoric iron ammo.)
This goes hand-in-hand with this post on Dungeons on Automatic.
From a PC perspective, it's good to have an idea of what's tough and what needs special handling.
From a GM perspective, it's critical to understand how to deploy a monster. If you put in a monster with See Invisible and the PCs sneak up on it with Invisibility and one-shot it . . . or you put in crazed berserkers with Battle Fury and they don't go berserk because you forgot they do that automatically . . . or you put in monsters that trap weapons that hit them but forget that until the fight is over . . . you've done a few things:
- given the PCs an easy win, undercutting their ability to gauge the danger next time when you remember their traits
- nerfed a monster, and may have based treasure based on its perceived un-nerfed power
- and broken the monster writer's heart.
So don't do that. Read 'em and read their traits.
Totally agree about how important it is to understand monster deployment. Read the monster from top to bottom (but jump to traits first) when planning the adventure. Make sure to parse each one of the traits separately to digest what it does. Then take the time to go over the traits again right before the fighting starts.
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