Rusty and Co. Crossover, Part 3/5
Sad times, gang. If a couple of fantasy-tabletop-gaming-web-comic-main-characters can’t get along, what hope do the rest of us have?
We’re into Part 3 of our ongoing crossover between The Handbook of Heroes and Rusty and Co., and the mashup continues to yield some unfortunate character pairings. While Fighter’s tiny, primitive brain might make him a personality profile match for a giant cockroach, there are some things that just shouldn’t be in the same room together. In other words, there’s just a skosh of friction between everyone’s favorite monosyllabic bastard sword and the world’s cutest rust monster. Literally no one could have seen this coming. Literally.
The drawbacks of putting Rusty in the same party as a sentient sword might seem obvious, but it’s amazing to me how often folks make the same mistake in their own games. I’m not talking about the conceptual tension of paladin / necromancer groups. I’m talking the straight-up mechanical headache of tossing anti-synergistic abilities into the same adventuring party.
You want examples? How about an AoE wizard in a party full of melee characters? How about 3.X rogues without flanking partners? Dhampirs hanging out with channel-focused clerics. Invisible glass cannons who cannot be found and healed once they get KO’d. The word of the day is “nonbo” folks, which takes us straight into our discussion.
What are some anti-synergistic interactions you’ve seen between party members? What abilities, classes, or spells just don’t seem to work so well together? Sound off in the comments with your tales anti-synergy on the battlefield!
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One thing I have discovered, is that area effects and invisible characters aren’t a great mix. With the melee characters you can at least place the effects to avoid them, even if it also mean hitting a couple fewer enemies.
That’s not really something you can justify when you can’t see the friend you’d like to not catch in your entanglement.
I’ve never found a satisfying way to deal with invisibility and metagaming. The cleanest way is to just say “don’t worry about it,” assume that you know where all minis are at all times, and apply a percentile miss chance / disadvantage. Using mechanical trickery via Roll 20 and visibility is another. But if you’re trying to make it an internally consistent interaction on the talbetop, I’m honestly a bit stumped.
I can’t think of anything that really qualifies… the closest would be a party consisting entirely of smart and social types, without any meat to stand between them and the melee. That’s happened to us a few times in various games…
It’s weird. Party balance is a related concept, but not quite what we’re getting at.
If half of those talky types are great at Diplomacy though, and the other half are all about Intimidate, you probably are stepping on one another’s toes.
Literally. No one.
https://imgur.com/a/pnpgx84
Surprised Fighter hasn’t gotten possessed by it after that!
https://compote.slate.com/images/624d3ae1-39df-4d20-8925-96b6392f50f3.png
As far as non-functional character pairings go:
Anyone with the ‘Warded against Nature’ drawback (which makes animals refuse to come near you) and anyone hoping to use a non-familiar/non-companion pet or other mundane mount.
Dwarves with the Hatred racial plus any Goblinoid PCs. Also applies for Ranger ‘favored enemy’ feature.
Anyone trying to utilize smokesticks or fog spells, when the rest of the party can’t see through those. The main drawback to a Eversmoking Bottle as well (unless you get your whole party a bunch of Goz masks… At which point you become a SWAT team).
Enlarge/Reduce person spells, depending on what stats/tactics your melee’s use (e.g. enlarging a DEX-focused character).
Stealthy characters trying to scout and sneak, plus literally ANY other PCs not turned invisible or silenced. There’s always one dude who can’t sneak.
Darkvision characters plus non-darkvision characters. One person is blind and needs to light the beacons of Gondor to see, making the party unable to sneak or enemies to prepare ambushes when they see said lights.
Oh I dunno. I bet assassins could still be OK partying with fellow humans.
Love this one. That’s exactly the sort of face-palm party composition I’m talking about.
My new Mummy’s Mask party (fresh AP start) has the ‘Warded Against Nature’ problem! My character, a Gunslinger Kobold, has a mule that he uses as a mount/pack animal, wild west style. A fellow PC (who my Kobold is obsessed with, as they have a clear draconic lineage / draconic traits via race points), has the WaN trait. Thus my mount/pack mule refuses to approach them and she has to be 30ft from the mule during any travels unless someone in the party can calm it down.
And since that AP will very likely involve a bunch of desert travel, said PC will also be pretty screwed when it comes to any kind of mundane transportation – what with spooking camels or other animals to traverse a dangerous, deadly desert trip through.
Problem solved! And all for the low, low cost of six easy payments of 13,333 gp!
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/vehicles/land-vehicles/steam-giant
Call now, and for only two extra payments of 1,000 platinum, you can instead travel in true draconic style!
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/vehicles/air-vehicles/alchemical-dragon/
In the campaign I run, the Wizard has Warded Against Nature (kind of makes sense, he is a really socially inept android who maybe-kinda-sorta worshiped a Lovecraftian entity before he accidentally gave himself brain damage and amnesia by not following manufacturer’s instructions), and it has been HILARIOUS. They sneakily climbed out a window, landed next to the manor’s stables, and immediately send the stable into a panic. They approach some enemies loading supplies onto a horse-drawn cart, and the cart starts speeding off and they have to chase it. The party isn’t quite there yet, but I have plans for an enemy Ranger with some hawk companions to attack the party, and the hawks come screeching in to attack from above… then hit the 30 ft radius and immediately turn around and go back. Good times.
But yeah, if anyone in the party had animals, it would be a pain indeed.
“Nonbo”? Is that a portmanteau of non and combo?
I should point out that rust monsters can only eat non-magical metal.
One of my favorite examples of mechanical anti-synergy was when I was in a 3 man party of my Goblin Kensei Monk. (Think Ravnican Samurai Jack) a melee Rogue, and a caster of some sort, doesn’t matter what kind, just that they weren’t a melee type. My Monk’s schtick was to run in, carve enemies up, and pop back out. Then the Rogue went and I realized I was going to have to stay put in harm’s way to enable their Sneak Attack. They were a first-time player, and I had to make sure they had a fun time, which meant I was going to have to be the party’s heavy and give up the strategy my character was built around.
Thematic anti-synergies are usually moral in nature. One of my favorite recent RPGHorrorStories is the Paladin appropriately handling murderhobos.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/rust-monster/
Mr. Stabby should be safe.
Depends on which edition you are using. In 3.5, magic items made of metal can resist the attack, but are definitely anything but immune:
“Magic armor and weapons, and other magic items made of metal, must succeed on a DC 17 Reflex save or be dissolved.”
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/rustMonster.htm
Also…. Mr. Stricklin’s link indicates Pathfinder Rust Monsters are the same:
“An attended object, any magic object, or a metal creature can attempt a DC 15 Reflex save to negate this effect. The save DC is Constitution-based.”
Note to self…. Check all links before replying.
I tried to go back through Rusty and Co. to see if Rusty himself ate any magical metal. Then I realized it was two in the morning and that I needed to sleep.
Off the top of my head, I know Rusty’s eaten a magical amplifier that was currently in use by an ancient artifact, plus I’m pretty sure he’s eaten most of a magically animated statue.
Every edition of D&D other than 5th has allowed rust monsters to rust magical items. Heck, when they were introduced they didn’t even give magic items a save or anything. From 1st to 4th they didn’t even need the item to be ferrous, the rust monster just preferred it. 4th was the second most lenient after 5th. It only rusted items 10th level and lower, and when the rust monster died it left stuff called residuum in its stomach that was worth the item’s full market value.
It’s okay, Rusty, blood has iron in it. Eat blood!
…wait, I feel like this is something I should not be encouraging.
I’m pretty sure you just invented a rust monster variant. I wanna see some stat blocks!
Nothing to invent, it already exists as a Rust Lord! Sort of. Not sure if it’s paizo or 3rd party, but it has stats!
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/rust-monster/rust-monster-rust-lord
Heh. Ecclesiastes 1:9 I guess.
This seems like it calls for the reckless use of the vampire template. Might be funny in a vampire-themed dungeon, though (well, funny for the DM in a Tomb of Horrors-esque sort of way).
Why not? Dietary iron is very important part for your health. Surely it will not damage, Rusty 🙂
And that could make the other comic a little more interesting 😀
Hey, if Magneto can suck it out of NPCs, rust monsters should too!
Why not? Dietary iron is very important part for your health. Surely it will not damage, Rusty 😉
And that could make the other comic a little more interesting 😀
Actually, blood is closer to rust than to raw iron. Rust monsters might be said to turn iron into a blood-like substance – perhaps a reverse vampire, or perhaps some vampires can live on rust?
Characters with the Noble, City Guard, or Military background and any Criminal, Charlatan, or Urchin background character. This seems to result in either the lowborn being malicious to the highborn, or the highborn being condescending to the lowborn. Or both.
Gotta Prince Hal that mess. Go slumming like a proper Lancaster.
Colin, you want to talk about nonbo? Play Warframe. The trigger-happy Ember kill all of Revenant slaves, the Limbo in the group use Cataclysm and prevents for the mission to progress. Oh, and the group’s Harrow got lag while casting Penance and got himself killed. The matchmaking is great for nonbos. Scarlet Spear is either 17 Condrix scanned or nonbo 🙁
As for traditional tabletop RPG games, contrary to pc games with matchmaking you know who you are playing, but still the group can fail a coordination roll:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b9/b2/81/b9b281f60241b538aba0d10ce554a6b2.gif
Once we finished the session talking about how one of us will need to play as a cleric for the next play. Next session we all ended up as clerics. My priest of Myrkul was not so well received, mainly because it was a good party and in Golarion. And there is that time We all decided to play Legacy but we all ended up playing antagonistic families. More than surviving it was more like The Fall II: Now everyone is truly dead 😀
I guess I’ll have to play Warframe. Otherwise I’ll never understand what the crap you just said.
(Disclaimer: I have no intention of actually playing Warframe.)
😛
At least i propose you good games, Warframe, Cultist Simulator and Dishonored.
Ember is a fire-themed Warframe, she can make things explode in burst of fire or crush them with meteorites, engulfed in fire. Revenant is a Sentient/vampire themed Warframe his first ability lets him convert enemies to his side, but they still get killed by the other team members. Limbo is a Magician themed Warframe whos abilities resolve around a parallel dimension. Harrow is a Priest/Void themed Warframe, Penance strips his of his shields to give a bonus to the team, with the down side of exposing his health.
Even if you don’t play the game maybe you could check some videos about the lore of the game or the ‘frames, surely you could get a good idea. Or even make Warframe – The RPG and get richer and famouser 🙂
If you want to make a Cultist Simulator RPG i will not object, i have been stuck with that idea for a long time without succeeding. I would want to play the Moth Ascension but i can’t 🙁
Dishonored, actually the other days Modiphius released the game. So you can actually play that if you want 🙂
Disclaimer: I am not playing any games at the moment.
Studying for quals. Reading something like 120 pages / day of academic texts. There is no fun, only work.
While not from RPGs, but the Skorne faction in the miniatures game Hordes was filled with nonbo potential. It was affably called Skornergy by players.
https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Skorne#What_is_.22Skornergy.22.3F
I love those minis, but my standard for minis is “can they do double duty in Tabletop?” They’re just a little too unique for that purpose. :/
This even works in certain sci-fi games. One PC’s crewing some large blast radius, high damage air support – firing into a firefight where the remaining PCs have short range (if not quite melee) weapons. There’s a reason friendly fire is such a danger with artillery.
An air strike is rarely friendly.
Lesson learned the hard way: If you’re the only melee character in the party, don’t specialize in polearms. I’ve made that mistake more than once in one-shots, and the party rogues weren’t very happy at missing out on sneak-attack opportunities.
Why would it be harder to set up an AoO with a reach weapon? Were you waiting for the baddies to come to you or something?
I meant opportunities as in chances to meet sneak attack conditions in 5E, not attacks of opportunity. If your allies don’t need to get within five feet of a target to attack them, the only option left is getting advantage on your attack rolls, which is harder to do consistently. (Granted, 5E polearms are also bad at opportunity attacks since you can move a lot more without leaving their reach, but that’s a different issue).
There’s a lot of edition confusion going on in this thread, lol.
Aw man, theres one big case of this for a guy i once made. I was playing tomb of annhilation, and my luck cleric that had survived since the start finally died after tanking around 10 beholder beams for the team. Usually after a guy of mine that ive played for a while has died, i like to make a sillier guy afterwards. Thus came the Zook Fnipper, the gloom staker ranger, knowledge cleric, rogue gnome, whose clothing was literally just insect repellant war paint. The strong thing about him was that in darkness, thanks to the gloom stalker ability, he was invisible even to things with darkvision, and combined with other rogue and gloom staker abilities, that made him really damn strong. The thing i forgot, was that i was with a paladin with a flaming sword that made 60ft of light, and 2 other party members without darkvision who needed light to function. That kinda screwed some things up. He was still pretty strong mind, and had a lot of utility, but not nearly as good. Honestly his strongest point came after another player as a joke gave him an item that ended up possesing him with the soul of a rabbit god, which made him lose all ability to focus and caused him to effectively just start leaving the party and act like he had a very severe case of adhd. After this he ended ip clearing a few rooms om his own that would otherwise had been damgerous for anyone wothout his skill set, and wothout his luck, as a few of the dumb ridiculous things i ended up doing to go along with the possesion, ended up being exactly what was meeded, like high fiving a random statue and stuff like that. Sadly he died when he put on a shiny necklace he just found, and it turned out to be a cursed necklace of fireball that exploded as soon as he put it on.
Oof. And then you’ve got to debate the ruling on the darkness spell vs. supernatural light. That’s a double-whammy right there.
Healers and Pathfinder Society in general. Why bother taking the Healing hex on my Witch if the first thing everyone bought with their prestige points was a Wand of Cure Light Wounds?
I feel like this is the reason everyone loved the oradin so much. The ability to do in-combat healing rather than simply topping up between battles makes for an attractive option.
A frequent nonbo is Devil Sight/Darkness Warlock’s with literally any party comp that don’t have devilsight. As cool as it is to hack up your enemies in foul darkness, your allies can’t see shit either unless you dont mind the mage hurling fireballs as you’re beating up bad guys inside.
Yo… That is an excellent call. The only reason it halfway worked with my party was my imp familiar. Dude has built in devil’s site so I could at least coordinate with him.