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View Full Version : favourite monster (or type of monster) to throw at the pcs?



steam_mage
2009-07-09, 04:38 PM
wanted to hear dm's personal favourites for monsters to run in your campaigns.

my favourite would be golems of any type: they deal decent damage, have good dr, immunity to spells and sneak attacks, generally they piss all the players off when their typical OMG KILL IT WIT MAGICS!!!!!111 or have two rouges flank it an sneak attack it to crap "tactics" dont work and they have to think creativly to kill them (once a bard flew 120ft above a greater stone golem and then used his homebrewed sumon greater instrument to drop a church pipe organ on it to finish it of after the sorceror had used 3 disintergrate spells to drop it down a 30ft pit)

Kyouhen
2009-07-09, 04:39 PM
Anything that pretends to be something it isn't. Mimics, oozes, dopplegangers, that type of thing. Get the PCs to be nice and paranoid and see what happens. :smalltongue:

Vaynor
2009-07-09, 04:45 PM
Anything that pretends to be something it isn't. Mimics, oozes, dopplegangers, that type of thing. Get the PCs to be nice and paranoid and see what happens. :smalltongue:

I like to start out a dungeon with lots of illusions, doppelgangers, mimics, and the like, and then for the last half have absolutely none, but a lot of things that could be. Like after a bunch of illusions, put a weak little kobold at the end.

erikun
2009-07-09, 04:55 PM
I have a preference towards elementals, mainly because you can pile on a bunch of similar effects with them. Fire elementals in an Incendiary Cloud, next to a Fire Wall being pelted by Fireballs will overcome just about any level of Fire Resistance. :smallbiggrin:

I'm also a fan on Golems and Oozes, although I don't care for them making the rogue useless.

Nu
2009-07-09, 05:07 PM
Humanoids.

You just can't go wrong with humanoids. Humans, goblins, orcs, elves, whatever.

Tehnar
2009-07-09, 05:11 PM
Babau demons. I just love them. They are the DMs best support.

Irreverent Fool
2009-07-09, 05:21 PM
Dragons!

Big, bad-ass, Dragonomicon-enhanced (metabreath-using), world-moving, prideful, greedy, plotting, conniving, minion-having, nation-manipulating, adventurer-eating, treasure-hoarding, vengeful dragons.

Especially ones who get away when the party nearly defeats them. You do not want a dragon plotting revenge on your party.

obnoxious
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Mando Knight
2009-07-09, 05:29 PM
I prefer dragons, fey, and those aligned with divine beings. Mostly the divine and dragons. Sometimes even divine dragons.

Jalor
2009-07-09, 05:30 PM
Babau demons. I just love them. They are the DMs best support.

Three attacks and a 2d6 sneak attack on a CR 6 monster. I love it.

Also, Tucker's kobolds.

Gnorman
2009-07-09, 05:51 PM
Two words: Mind. Flayers.

I shouldn't even really have to explain it.

Irreverent Fool
2009-07-09, 05:55 PM
Also, Tucker's kobolds.

Any group in their own territory who outnumber the PCs can become that kind of terror and in that case, I have to admit to a special soft spot for "tucker's Kobolds" as well. My players have learned to fear attacking any group of enemies in their own territory or alerting them. :smallbiggrin:

obnoxious
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Mr.Moron
2009-07-09, 05:57 PM
Whatever I've come up with most recently. Throwing out something nobody has ever run into before makes things just that much more interesting.

BobVosh
2009-07-09, 05:59 PM
Gelatinous cubes. So hilarious.

Beyond that I have a certain weakness for spellweavers and beholders.

Fostire
2009-07-09, 06:00 PM
My top 3:
1- Mimic
2- Gelatinous cube
3- Mind flayer

Ninetail
2009-07-09, 06:02 PM
Kobolds. Sneaky little critters, and players just hate losing to them.

I also love Larva Mage/Worm That Walks for the creep factor. Similarly, Kruthik.

Zanatos777
2009-07-09, 06:06 PM
Devils and undead are my best. Some of my friends panic at the thought of fighting devils. I love dragons but I don't use them often since they feel like climatic encounters more than other monsters.

I also like to take monsters who are always one alignment and change it to throw them off.

Maerok
2009-07-09, 06:09 PM
Black Dragon Dracolich is a classic. I prefer quality over quantity on encounters (so usually one or two big bad guys in a fight), all Shadow of the Colossus style.

Kol Korran
2009-07-09, 06:17 PM
well, i like using monsters for different effects, usually complicating things. i have many favourites, but of the top of my head i'll have to say... Stirges!

not alone, but as a complicating surprise- the party faces some tougher bugger, preferably some big creature that is hard to kill, when suddenly of the ceilings fly 4-8 of the buggers, latch to the party members, and start sucking blood. now the character faces a problem- you can attack the big monster, but you'll be losing more and more CON. or you could attack the wretched little buggers, but then you don't attack the big monster... what to do? my players HATE stirges. (for more inventive uses check my sig)

shadows, the simple kind are good for the exact same reason. only thing- a high enough cleric can destroy them all without a sweat. can't do that with stirges.

i also realy, really love ghosts (though i usually use one in a campaign)- get your party members attacking themselves! also- it keeps on returning!

Claudius Maximus
2009-07-09, 06:19 PM
Humanoids are great, and you can make metagaming hard since the players don't know if they've got levels, or how many.

Undead, especially when they're backed by a powerful necromancer, and nothing terrifies the players quite like a PC rising as a spawn.

Eldan
2009-07-09, 06:25 PM
Yugoloths.

A running gag at my game table was the sentence:

"Good, you have solved the adventure completely, and there were no Yugoloths involved."

No matter what actually happened. Dragon attacks the town? No Yugoloths involved. Someone stole the Crown Jewels? No Yugoloths involved. The local druids celebrate summer? No Yugoloths involved at all. :smallbiggrin:

Xenogears
2009-07-09, 06:30 PM
I want to throw a cranium rat swarm at someone. Average sized so 150 rats with brains exposed. nice. then they get at will mind blast for 3d6 rounds of stun....

Eldan
2009-07-09, 06:33 PM
Ah, yes. Cranium Rats. Great things.

We are Many-as-One...

They can be made incredibly creepy.

Evil the Cat
2009-07-09, 06:37 PM
My favorites are bizarre never used things, and things that people wouldn't think are intelligent, but are. In my current campaign I've used Stirges, Merrows, Myconoids, a Hellcat, and Stone Spikes.

I really enjoy taking weak creatures and advancing them, or giving them class levels. A hobgoblin and 5 goblins becomes much more interesting when the pcs realize the Hobgoblin is a Warblade, 1 goblin is a wizard, 1 is a Shaman, 2 are scouts, and 1 is a Ranger.

Ive done this to my players enough times that they're now wary of anything humanoid. They nearly lost when they attacked 5 3rd level conjurers defended by 5 3rd level Warblades. First round put 2 glitterdusts and a web on the whole party.

SilverClawShift
2009-07-09, 06:47 PM
When I DM, I almost always throw some kind of lycanthropes at the PCs.

Undead are always great too.

AslanCross
2009-07-09, 06:53 PM
Anything that pretends to be something it isn't. Mimics, oozes, dopplegangers, that type of thing. Get the PCs to be nice and paranoid and see what happens. :smalltongue:

Rakshasa are my favorite in this category. Plus they're not restricted to the garden-variety spellcasting rakshasa; the Tome of Battle's Naityan Rakshasa, Eberron's fighter-like Zakya, and MM3's assassin-type Naztharune and super-powerful Ak'Chazar all make for interesting encounters at various levels.

For grunts, I like hobgoblins. They're not morons, and neither are they weaklings. Their depiction as a cruel martial race has always made me add a tone of "cruel feudal samurai" to their image. Of course I never actually gave them levels in the samurai class. :P I especially like them in Eberron since they actually had a flourishing Roman Empire analogue (complete with their own form of crucifixion) before the humans became prolific.

Undead:
-Boneclaws. 20-foot reach can get pretty frustrating sometimes.
-Drowned. "....do you smell that? *urk*"

I'm also a member of the camp that considers devils as more awesome than demons.

And of course, dragons. Especially blue dragons.

mistformsquirrl
2009-07-09, 06:55 PM
I tend to primarily focus on humanoid opponents.

Humans, Orcs, Hobogoblins, Elves... etc...

Humans probably being the top of the chart though. >.> (I like humanoid foes because they give me a huge number of options - including warmachines, squad based tactics, mounts - not to mention they tend to be part of groups; ie: cults, nations, mercenary corps etc...)

A close second is outsiders however; especially fiends. Extraplanar invasion is one of my favorite story types <.<

Other creatures I typically use to support the above two types of situation.

J.Gellert
2009-07-09, 06:56 PM
Ghosts, because there's always a tragic story behind one.

Callos_DeTerran
2009-07-09, 07:23 PM
Aberrations. The squamous horrors from beyond make for fun enemies to use, especially since most aberration races or only very loosely connected so you have to be on your feet.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-09, 07:50 PM
"Just-one-more-thing" monsters. That's what my group calls them. I'm describing a monster, say a dragon of some sort, and it soon becomes clear that it's just your basic blue great wyrm. Right when the players are getting impatient, I'll lead into "...sitting on a huge pile of gold. Everyone roll init--oh, just one more thing: its eyes and claws look like liquid metal and are glowing slightly. Now everyone roll initiative."

The players are left going "I got a 21! Do--wait. What was that last thing?" and before you know it, a simple battle against a blue dragon becomes a life-or-death struggle against a cobalt dragon (and yes, I've had a homebrewed CG electromagnetic cobalt dragon before the 4e devs made one, thank you very much).

Templates, Dragon Mag monsters, 1e/2e to 3e conversions, homebrew variations--you name it, I'll surprise them with it, and though they're getting used to this, they still hate me whenever it happens. :smallbiggrin:

T.G. Oskar
2009-07-09, 08:39 PM
Anything that pretends to be something it isn't. Mimics, oozes, dopplegangers, that type of thing. Get the PCs to be nice and paranoid and see what happens. :smalltongue:

+1. Definitely a fan of shapechangers. Having a Phase posing as a kobold and pretty much asking to be put out of his misery before taking his revenge as a Large dragon, Girallon or Chuul definitely makes it worthwhile.

I'd like at least an adventure or two with Bog Hags. Mostly, a big adventure, spanning the planes, but with a Bog Hag as the (apparent) BBEG.

Also, I want to add Quaraphons and Desmodu. Quaraphon Barbarians are pretty brutal (or so I heard), and Desmodu are pretty tough. Sure, it was two of them, but stunning three of the four Gestalt characters (at least one with pretty high saves) with a single screech is fantastic. Plus, they hit like bastards.

Also, swarms. Bothersome, relatively tough to kill without an Evoker or Conjurer, and of a relatively low CR for low XP. If of such variety as Hellwasps, they get even better.

John Campbell
2009-07-09, 09:01 PM
Humanoids. Including, and especially, humans. It's a much richer game when the opposition is people.

arguskos
2009-07-09, 09:06 PM
Voors. Voors, voors, voors, voors, and more FREAKING VOORS!! Most aggravating enemy ever printed. I love them so very very much.

I like using critters that aren't often broken out, like the voor, chraal, lumi, quarphon, zern (and zern thralls), and other such wonderful toys. :smallcool:

I'm actually AFB at the moment, so I'll return with more suggestions and thoughts.

Quietus
2009-07-09, 09:21 PM
As mooks? Humanoids are good, along with animals or undeads as THEIR mooks. The masterminds behind the scenes are almost always dragons, though.

lsfreak
2009-07-09, 09:35 PM
Humanoids. Including, and especially, humans. It's a much richer game when the opposition is people.

And if you play darker-style games, it's much more personal and much more unsettling when the enemy is not some aberration from across the planes or a tyrannical dragon or insane demon lord, but another person with a family and ambitions and was a child in the same city as the PC's.

Knaight
2009-07-09, 10:06 PM
Humans usually. In sci-fi robots get involved as well, in fantasy there might be non human things that either were humans or were summoned/created by humans. For instance, in a fantasy game with a homebrew magic system it was really hard to create even basic sentience. Alteration of what was already there worked better, and that meant magically and permanently altering humans, or the much rarer other intelligent species. Bonus points when its somebody the PCs knew and liked before hand.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-07-09, 11:24 PM
Kobolds. Always Kobolds.

Devils and anything else that can go Xanatos, though, are just scary.

Nerd-o-rama
2009-07-09, 11:28 PM
Spears or lightning bolts from out of nowhere. It produces such a nice scattering effect.

For specific monsters, goblins are my go-to guys, though they're usually up to something more complex then harassing passing adventurers.

Tallis
2009-07-09, 11:49 PM
Humanoids, particularly ones that are normally thought of as friendly (dwarves and humans top the list, though halflings could be a lot of fun).

After that dragons, could be any kind, I don't follow alignment restrictions. Generally only used for climactic encounters, I want to keep them special. For high levels I've created several unique elder dragons.

Undead are great when I feel the need for horror, works even better if they're created from someone the PCs know.

And of course devils, though I only rarely use the big ones.

bosssmiley
2009-07-10, 05:27 AM
I like using critters that aren't often broken out, like the voor, chraal, lumi, quarphon, zern (and zern thralls), and other such wonderful toys. :smallcool:

Ok, I'm calling your bluff. Those aren't monsters: you're just randomly dumping blogger word verifications into a list, aren't you? :smallamused:

Personal fave monster: Sahuagin. Super-intelligent theocratic nazi fishmen. What's not to like?

("Now they will know why they are afraid of the seas. Now they learn why they fear the depths. Se-ko-lah! Se-ko-lah!")

Arcane Copycat
2009-07-10, 08:12 AM
Doppelgangers and Changelings. Especially when you take someone aside and ask if I can kidnap them 'offscreen' and have them replaced, creating a quest to go find and rescue said character.

steam_mage
2009-07-10, 09:40 AM
I'm also a fan on Golems and Oozes, although I don't care for them making the rogue useless.

it's not that they make rouges useless it's that they are hard to kill using conventional tactics as they make nearly every class less able to do what they do best :)

kjones
2009-07-10, 11:49 AM
Enemy spellcasters, especially clerics
Dragons
Anything that does ability damage

ghost_warlock
2009-07-10, 11:56 AM
I like to play up the horror so I tend to use a lot of aberrations (the weirder and more alien the better) and some undead.

Usually, the undead the party faces are out-of-the ordinary types the players aren't familiar with; except I also like zombies (they're classic for a reason) and you can expect just about every bordello in my campaigns to have a resident vampire or succubus (I've become infamous for this and, as a result, haven't had to deal with situations involving "roll to see if I score" for years).

For 4e, I've become especially fond of the fell taints from a recent Dragon magazine; I read the article and fell in love. http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq339/ghost_warlock/heart.jpg

Lord Loss
2009-07-10, 12:27 PM
I love undead and mindflayers. For instance:

Spokesperson: So, Zombies, what would you enjoy!

Zombies: Braaaaiiiiiiiinnnnsssss

Spokesperson: I see. And you, Mindflayer?

Mindflayer: I would implore you to hand me your brain, but your pitiful mind would render me hungry for something edible other than such muck. Therefore, may I have your brain as a snack, as well as another more delicious confection?

Spokesperson: I see... Runs away screaming.

Rhiannon87
2009-07-10, 12:58 PM
I'm developing a certain fondness for demons and devils, as I'm using rather a lot of them in my campaign. Humanoids are also probably one of my favorites, for the reasons stated earlier: they're versatile, they're unpredictable for the players, and they can be so much creepier. You're not gonna become friends with the alhoon, but the married adventuring couple who hang out with you at the bar and share stories? You'll befriend them and work with them and then flip out when you find out they're serial killers/running errands for devils.

Curmudgeon
2009-07-10, 01:15 PM
Varags (Monster Manual IV are interesting goblinoids because of their 60' base speed and racial Run feat. You see them 300' away -- and they close in a single round.

arguskos
2009-07-10, 01:21 PM
Ok, I'm calling your bluff. Those aren't monsters: you're just randomly dumping blogger word verifications into a list, aren't you? :smallamused:
Oh really? Here, have some pictures then!

Voor:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm4_gallery/98738.jpg
Chraal:
http://dicemonkey.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/82975.jpg
Quaraphon:
http://nightmare.org/dnd/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=11702&g2_serialNumber=2
Zern:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/zern/t-revv13/Zern.jpg
Zern Thralls:
http://guerrerosdesingularidad.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/zern-blade-thrall-by-eva-widermann.jpg

Take that good sir!

Tehnar
2009-07-10, 01:41 PM
Hehe I made a great encounter recently. 2 Voors, 4 rutterkin and 2 babaus. Actually the Babaus give most difficulty with dispel, darkness and teleport at will. Used them to dispel most of the parties buffs and then teleported them into flanking position to the wizard :D. Hilarity ensued.


Though Psurlons are starting to be more and more interesting the more I use them. Though my players are not as fond of them as I am. I wonder why? :smallbiggrin:

Eorran
2009-07-10, 02:07 PM
I'll put in an unusual one: bulettes. Way back in 2nd ed, I threw a twice-normal sized Bulette at a group of lvl 14s, and it gave them a pretty good thrashing. Ever since, they've had a fear of bulettes that's out of proportion to their actual threat.

Also, monsters that can go through terrain the PC's can't. Ghosts, burrowing monsters, elementals, etc. Hit-and-fade can frustrate the most prepared group, and a little bit of frustration actually makes for a better game.

Irreverent Fool
2009-07-10, 06:30 PM
Gelatinous cubes. So hilarious.

The classic monsters are the best. One of my players was once scouting ahead in a (obviously) ooze-filled cave in the form of a wolf. His character told the others to wait until the hourglass he left behind filled to a certain point and if he hadn't come back by then that it meant he was in trouble.

A couple rounds into his scouting, the druid failed the DC 15 spot check and walked right into the gelatinous cube. He proceeded to take the cube's digestive damage for the next several rounds until the party finally came in after him just in time to see the last shreds of hide melt away from the wolf (he had just reached -1 hp). Amazingly, they pulled him out in the nick of time.

Shortly after this, the party invested in a 10' pole and several ranks in spot.

Classic challenges beget classic solutions, I guess.

Oh, did I mention a while village of headhunting halfling cannibals speaking goblinic?

obnoxious
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shadow_archmagi
2009-07-10, 06:46 PM
Gelatinous Cube, because it was the second monster my party ever encountered. Their total killcount was:

2 centipede swarms
1 kobold.

Since it was their first ever time playing, they weren't clever enough to have perfected the 10 foot pole. Instead, they picked up the kobold and dubbed it "Utility Corpse"

They came to a fork in the path. They picked a doorway (with glee, I noted it was the one I'd placed a cube behind!), and hurled the kobold through first. It floated there, at eye height, while the PCs realized just what the hell was going on.

Then they ran. Screaming.

ChaosDefender24
2009-07-10, 06:50 PM
Feral amphibious anthropomorphic giant squid soul eater

No explanation necessary

AslanCross
2009-07-10, 07:28 PM
Feral amphibious anthropomorphic giant squid soul eater

No explanation necessary

...Cthulhu, in other words? o_o

Michaelos
2009-07-10, 09:09 PM
Ruin Swarms worked pretty well both times the party fought them. When it was backed up by other monsters, the party ended up having to retreat and teleport out. The next time, when they were defending a Town against them, It was a good fight. The Barbarian was one of the only ones who could make the Fort saves, so she had to flyswatter a swarm down until she could start getting the swarms away from the casters and they could start rolling out area of affect doom. They're coming up once again, and I'm looking forward to it.

wykydtron
2009-07-10, 09:48 PM
The best monsters to use are classic monsters, riding other classic monsters. (ex. Minflayers riding beholders, goblins riding rust monsters, dragons polymorphed into kobolds riding druid wildshaped as trexs).

Ninetail
2009-07-10, 10:26 PM
The best monsters to use are classic monsters, riding other classic monsters. (ex. Minflayers riding beholders, goblins riding rust monsters, dragons polymorphed into kobolds riding druid wildshaped as trexs).

...Ares riding Talos.

Olo Demonsbane
2009-07-10, 11:53 PM
Dragons

Humanoids

Demons