Ten Monsters In Your Campaign

[moritheil]

I saw this guy’s list of 10 DnD monsters (http://critical-hits.com/2009/02/26/10-monsters-i-use-in-every-dd-campaign-and-5-i-dont/) he uses in every campaign, and that got me thinking.

My own “big 10” are probably:

Elementals. Just a big mass of hit points, with a single special trick in combat. Water elementals always seem sub-par until the party has to cross the sea in a boat, and then they become unholy terrors of the deep. :smallwink:

Ogre Magi. I’m intrigued by the idea that ogres have more advanced cousins, and that “more advanced” means a racial ability to spit cones of cold. Plus, any time your BBEG dies too easily or you need a sudden plot twist? HE WAS AN OGRE MAGE ALL ALONG! No prep needed.

Dragons. Iconic. Usually I favor smaller ones with class levels, so the encounter doesn’t revolve around watching the players exploit low touch AC. At higher levels, though, the HD to CR ratio is too good to ignore.

Phthisics. Seriously, a phthisic is a regenerating, teleporting, psionic monster that looks like a melted zombie! Always fun, both for the “what the hell is it” factor and the “aaaaugh, it doesn’t behave anything like what we expected!” It’s difficult but not impossible to kill, and while mind thrust can kill someone at level, they’d have to roll badly on their save, and you’d have to roll well on the damage (or they’d have to have also rolled terribly on their hit dice.) All in all, a fantastic encounter.

Zombies. A classic of modern literature.

Golems. I’d have to say the iron golem is probably the most iconic, but a flesh golem is always fun to throw in amongst some undead, and a clay golem can make the party really appreciate their cleric.

Quells. They play up the “you rely on divine magic” angle of clerics without being obnoxious by use of DM fiat. DDO took this a hilarious step further and made Favored Souls immune to quelling (while paladins and clerics were still vulnerable.) If you have a favored soul in your campaign playing second fiddle to a cleric, that’s not a bad idea to crib for one encounter.

Rust Monsters. Totally iconic. Plus, since my players almost always enter into paranoia mode with regard to breaking their stuff, at least this way their preparations don’t go to waste.

Bearded Devils. Every ounce of them is geared for melee. It’s interesting to note that advanced Bearded Devils scale very nicely. (Be sure to apply the size increase properly.)

Vrocks. I just think there’s something clearly otherworldly and weird about a screeching, telekinetic avian demon assaulting the party, making plant growths in their wounds, etc. For a change, try playing one as a teleporting assassin/skirmisher who wears the party down from 400' away with at-will spell-like abilities.


What are your big ten?

[Ranting Fool]

Dragons: Dito on small ones but never gave them class levels.

Mindless Undead: Mostly Skelly's or a Good 'ld Zombie

Goblins: More so for the start of a campaign but eveyone loves to kill those sneeky gits

Ogres Often by themselves but have popped up as buddies with Goblins or Armoured with a few class levels as trained Mookes for a BBEG

Imps Not always to fight but they like to hang around BBE-Wizard lairs

Dire Boars Something about the giant angry pigs that I like.

Liches for when I want a BBEG to last and be scary

Orcs Almost always with a few class levels in fighter or barbarian I do like a good horde of these guys.

Giant Spiders Ewwww

Clay/Iron Golems often used as a "Oh **** that guy's FAR too mean to deal with, we have to think of another way to get past it/around its orders"

[Griffith!]

Mind Flayers - I'm a stupid big fan of aberrations in general.

Orcs - armies of them. Whole hordes.

Goblins - nothing shocks a party out of complacency more than a goblin perpetrating a tpk.

Dragons - they're obligatory.

Giants - all varieties, but hill giants and ogres are a favorite.

Drow - what can I say, I'm a fanboy.

Sahuagin - not every campaign, but often enough it's a theme.

Mindless Undead - it's the easiest mooks for arcane spellcasters

Beholderkin - iconic, you know?

clay/stone golems - as a midboss, they do great.

[iceryu66]

Bullette
I've only run eight or nine sessions, and I only consider one successful, and the Land Shark sat center stage as the only monster/enemy featured. It probably helped that I stole the plot to Tremors and rped some cunning into it, having it strand a wounded ranger away from the party and while they fought it they had to mount a rescue mission.

OwlBears
In a game where I foolishly allowed to many pc the only way I could combat to last more then 1/4th a round was to introduce the "Wand of Summoning Owlbears." It quickly became the main weapon of the Druid Eco-Terrorists.

Blue Dragon
Lawful Evil is one of the more fun things to DM as. I had him guarding a tomb with various undead who feed on electricity. He shocks the undead until they are full and don't attack the nearby city. The nearby city pays him cows and treasure to keep the undead from attacking the city. Then all that was left was to let the pc hear about lighting shooting monsters at the tomb, let them investigate, find a dragon and watch them instantly attack. The look on their faces when they return to town to collect the reward only to have the entire town take cover because they know the undead horde is coming.

Shambling Mound
See above. These guys like electricity and fit the theme nicely.

That's really all I've gotten to use.

[That_guy_there]

I'm fond of:

Kobolds I love these little guys. They're so small and pathetic once you reach mid levels, PCs usually laugh when they see them. Toss in a few class levels and/or a template and you've got an encounter! (also the Dragonomicon.)

Orcs For the standard horde and tough guy reasons, though i do tend to use them as "stronger" soldiers (Adding a class level or two).

Golems I like changing their sizes and advancing their HD. Nothing throws my PCs off like an Iron Golem the shape and size of a Lawn Gnome kicking their asses.

Dragons I've run an epic level dragonslayer campaign... and dragons are always great once you play them smart and deadly.

Displacer Beasts/ Blink Dogs The constant displacement and misdirection coupled with pack tactics always seems to make an encounter better.

Lycanthropes Their DR is always a good way to keep PCs guessing and there are enough types to keep them challanged for a good number of levels

Trolls I like regeneration, what else do i need to say?

Litches They're the in your face evil BBEG that makes a party of good aligned PCs feel justified after hacking through millions of undead minions.

Dopplegangers isn't fun to replace someone the PCs trust with one of these guys, just to see their faces when he betrays them to the Litch?

Goblins in most of my campaigns these are the stock weak mooks.

Honorably mention: Pit Fiend In all honesty i've only used this one once. The set up was worth it though. He was posing as a mortal Pirate Captain who the PCs were serving under (they didn't know he wasn't human), when they tried to mutiny and overthrow him. That lasted for all of a round before he reverted to his normal form (hat of disguise is often abused by my PCs so it was time for the NPCs turn) and beat them down. He let them escape and they vowed to defeat him. The campaign is ongoing.

[moritheil]

It's cool to see that almost everyone uses Goblins! I do use them a lot myself, but sometimes the role of "low-level creature that can end you if you get arrogant" is taken up by kobolds instead.

(Fun fact: a kobold sorcerer 10 with the Worm that Walks (http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/172860-tweak-kobold-my-players-stay-out.html) template is only CR 13, and is equally viable as a melee and ranged threat at that level. I had one give a serious fight to a pretty optimized EL 17 party, with some low level kobolds to back it up. It's totally great to see a bunch of players go, "But - but he's a kobold!")

[Kamai]

Kobolds/goblins: When I run stuff, I really do like a lot of the big threats being caused by something intelligent on the material, and it's always interesting to mess with these guys as the fringe of society.

Skeletons: General undead, though set in fantasy fluff to do more stuff than just shamble.

Trolls: Great low-level "We're in trouble" monster.

Pixies: I do like the feyfolk, and the invisibility/prankster aspect lets so much cool stuff happen.

Lyncathropes: Always great to have a lot of variation while keeping the "Oh crud" factor.

Dragons: You have to have your dragons. You can get some fun fights out of it, and they make tons happen (and lead nicely from Kobolds being a major low-level protaganist).

Gelatnious cubes: I really like trying to find a reason to use these things, whether for scenery or actual danger.

Animated objects: Truly fun fun stuff. Nothing like getting your skull beat in by a giant grandfather clock in a joke campaign.

Some stuff that I'd like to use but haven't had a decent chance:
Clockwork horrors: Even though they are broken beyond broken the concept is good enough that they're worth fixing.

Living spells: These things seem like a pile of plot hooks in themselves.

[eggs]

As my campaigns extend in length, the probability that I will include every lawful outsider race and a good batch of Giants approaches 1.

Inevitables - They're like the Terminator, plus karmic themes, plus moral ambiguity (can be on either side of a conflict, depending on the details), plus a reason to fit into almost any game (which campaigns don't involve violating earthly laws, cheating death or screwing with time/gods?), plus clockwork robot skins. I get the most use out of Zelekhuts (hunt down fugitives from justice), Maruts (hunt death-defiers), Quaruts (hunt time violators), Varakhuts (hunt characters who screw with deities) and PF's Lhaksharuts (hunt characters who screw with planar boundaries). I was ecstatic the one time I got to use the Sandstorm Desert Wastes Inevitable thing.

Formians - Giant hiveminds of OCD ant-men with their own inhuman goals. The combination of their scary mind control and general moral greyness can make them an interesting interfering party in almost any conflict.

Modrons - Another race that has some actually alien traits in its behaviors. The lack of individuality and 3e unpopularity makes them weird, the purpose of Mechanus itself can be manipulated into being a huge campaign piece, and the easy shape-based identification exaggerates PC progress in long-running campaigns (the first hundred-sided tentacley hierarch modron will have a party of ECL 7-8 characters on the ropes; but a few levels later, the PCs can feel big and powerful by plowing through the things). And the official 3.0 stats (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20010921a) are generally really powerful/challenging encounters for their CR.

Dromites - With DSP's support, these basically turn into Formians with psionic powers and more customization on a character-by-character level.

Giants - I tend to make an awful lot of my high-level major campaign players Huge or larger. I blame Norse myths. The only varieties of giants that I don't regularly feature prominently are Trolls and Hill Giants, on account of the stupidity. Plus, there are giants for everything (terrains, elements, characteristics, emotions, magics). They also get a surprising amount of splatbook support (just about every monster collection; plus I get way too much use out of Fantasy Flight's Giant Lore).

Nezumi - I always liked the idea of OA's shadowlands, and I like to include components of it into various campaigns. Plus, the race itself is pretty cool - both in its stats (Con bonus, speed boost, save bonus, useful skill boosts) and in its fluff (vagabond race of outsiders skirting between human lands and nightmare regions).

Fey - It might be the folklore creeping up on me again, but I love evil fey villains - it doesn't even matter which kind; as long as it's creepy, kind of whimsical, and it does terrible things to babies, it's a fun monster in my book.

Skeletons - I don't think I could imagine a campaign that didn't have skeletons running around somewhere. My players are starting to notice how strongly I favor them to zombies, so I might need to start deliberately changing this up.

Weird Lycanthropes Wereelephants, Wereorcas, Weresnakes, Weremoles... I can't help myself; these things just creep in.

...and dang. That leaves one more. Let's go with Lizardfolk, since they're usually my kneejerk Evil Monster Race.