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Freelance Henchman
2007-11-16, 06:22 PM
I don't mean stuff that's just extremely powerful, e.g. Tarrasque or Ancient Dragon and such, but something that seems fairly run-of-the-mill and a fair fight at first glance, but turns out to be outstandingly tedious to fight, hard to kill, costly to kill, or all of the above, or just memorable.

Douglas
2007-11-16, 06:29 PM
Rust Monster, or anything else that routinely destroys equipment.

Ne0
2007-11-16, 06:34 PM
A cornered mage...Nothing that particulary dangerous at first sight, until you find out he had only one spell prepared...

Mage's Disjunction. :smallamused:

Behold_the_Void
2007-11-16, 06:52 PM
There was an old D&D adage that goes a bit like this.

Threaten a player's life and they say their characters are afraid. Target their equipment and the PLAYERS are afraid.

Paragon Badger
2007-11-16, 06:56 PM
Badgers!!!

Edit: Seriously, TPK by badger is a thing to fear for low level players.

Add half-fiend templates and such and...well...

Freelance Henchman
2007-11-16, 06:58 PM
Badgers!!!

I'm more afraid of snakes personally. And mushrooms.

dyslexicfaser
2007-11-16, 06:58 PM
Monstrous Crab.

Oh, he doesn't look too hard... until he charges in from 80 feet away, kills someone, and then drags them off to be eaten and digested, far from succor and Resurrection spells.

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-11-16, 07:02 PM
Anything with perma-death abilities. E.g. Barghest, Devourer and similar monsters.

JaxGaret
2007-11-16, 07:13 PM
Kobolds w/ adequate prep time.

Darkantra
2007-11-16, 07:33 PM
One necromancer and three wights, who teleported into a major urban trade centre before the PCs could get there. Think about it.

deadseashoals
2007-11-16, 07:46 PM
I'm with douglas, anything that destroys equipment.

Another common one, anything that deals repeated ability damage or drain, especially shadows. Effing shadows. Especially a horde of shadows. 16 shadows is an EL 11 encounter, but that's TPK city for anyone NEAR level 11.

Edit: Unless you turn undead. May your DM have mercy on you if your cleric player took one of the many full casting PrCs that don't advance turn undead progression.

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-11-16, 07:49 PM
16 shadows is an EL 11 encounter, but that's TPK city for anyone NEAR level 11.

Undeath to death, repulsion, command undead (chained), incorporeal nova, transdimensional fireball, chain missiles, orb of force.

Or, the good ole turn undead.

Freelance Henchman
2007-11-16, 07:50 PM
I'm with douglas, anything that destroys equipment.

Another common one, anything that deals repeated ability damage or drain, especially shadows. Effing shadows. Especially a horde of shadows. 16 shadows is an EL 11 encounter, but that's TPK city for anyone NEAR level 11.

Edit: Unless you turn undead. May your DM have mercy on you if your cleric player took one of the many full casting PrCs that don't advance turn undead progression.

Presumably a bunch of giant poisonous spiders would qualify as well? Provided that there is no poison immunity available.

Nowhere Girl
2007-11-16, 07:51 PM
Kobolds w/ adequate prep time.

In a similar vein, Rank 1 divine squirrels.

VerdugoExplode
2007-11-16, 07:52 PM
I'd have to say an ethereal filcher in that most of the encounters with them tend to start with "Hey, where did my (insert best magical item here) go? I swore I had it with me when I fell asleep."

Woot Spitum
2007-11-16, 08:27 PM
Anything with an insta-kill ability (Bodak for example). Nothing is more terrifying than an enemy that places you at the mercy of the dice.

Hawriel
2007-11-16, 08:39 PM
yeah I gota go with the encounters that will sooner or later make me roll a will save. The Will save spells and abilities are the nastiest. That and level drain and the like. Its not just losing that finaly acheaved level but doing the book work in rolling the character back. :smallannoyed:

Xefas
2007-11-16, 08:40 PM
I've had some trouble with using Orcs as encounters with 1st level characters.

They deal an average of 9 points of damage in one hit and they have a 15% chance to deal a critical. Anyone with a d4 or d6 hit die is looking at suicide coming anywhere within 60ft of them without a meatshield interposing himself in the middle. Even a d12 hit die class is going to be wrecked for the day after 1 average hit.

Cuthbert help you if you don't have a healer, especially if its a CR appropriate encounter (2 orcs).

Just think if they didn't have Alertness as their feat...what if they had something USEFUL?

Forrestfire
2007-11-16, 08:44 PM
Rust Monster and Disenchanter...the item destroyers...:smalleek:


another of my most feared monsters is the galatinous cube, if the DM is a good enough story-teller (we were in a 20'-by-20' room with locked doors with this thing)

loopy
2007-11-16, 08:46 PM
The scariest encounter our group has had so far was being trapped in a room with a green dragon that was filling up with water at several inches per round.

It was terrifying for my rogue, as we had just come out of an encounter with some Dire Weasels and my Constitution was down about 8 points, so I couldn't spend much time underwater.

The dragon, who can breathe water and swim easily, almost killed half the party before I found a lever to drain the water and the DM did some Deus Ex Machina to ensure the Dragon didn't kill us all.

de-trick
2007-11-16, 09:01 PM
poison, ability damage or level drain. worst if you have a low dumb stat in the ability that gets drained

Old_el_Paso
2007-11-16, 09:15 PM
A Half-Dragon Minotaur Fighter/Barbarian with Power Attack, Leap Attack, Improved Critical, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, GWF, GWS, and a +5 Keen Flaming Burst Vorpal Falchion. His name's Harold the Destroyer.

clericwithnogod
2007-11-16, 11:05 PM
Wraith: CON Damage, Incorporeal, Touch Attack, Gains HP on a successful attack and Life Sense. They also have great speed and a good Initiative score.

But for sneaky dangerous, anything with rend tends to be more deadly than it first appears.

SadisticFishing
2007-11-16, 11:13 PM
Stupid swarms when you have one that can AOE

Edit: Oops.

Temp
2007-11-16, 11:24 PM
Swarms? Seconded.



...My group's chronically unprepared for them.

Doresain
2007-11-16, 11:26 PM
living spells of the dispelling variety

Crow T. Robot
2007-11-17, 12:27 AM
One necromancer and three wights, who teleported into a major urban trade centre before the PCs could get there. Think about it.

Pyramid magazine had an article about a similar theme. The idea that a wight is smart, quite, mobile, and reproduces by killing. Then they detail the epidemic, starting with the lonely funeral at dusk, to most of the town being converted before dawn.

Kind of like Night of the Liveing Dead, or 28 Days Later. Only not optimistic.

Guy_Whozevl
2007-11-17, 12:54 AM
living spells of the dispelling variety

A mob of Living Disjuctions, Greater Dispel Magic, and Shatter (if those work) would be hell on a PCs equipment.

Personally, a low-level battle with a Warlock who spams Baleful Utterance is also very, very annoying due to the equipment destroyed (thus being feared).
The best way, for me, to instill fear into a PC is to utter the phrase, "You have been dominated." The player who is dominated groans, as they technically cannot make a new character, but moreso because the rest of the party now has a justifiable reason to kill him and take his loot. Some of my friends have issues.

Kizara
2007-11-17, 12:56 AM
Howlers.

They are CR 3, are fast, endlessly annoying, have many attacks and have the consecutive quill penatly thing.

Really, unless you have a Crusader that does 30 damage with a Mountain Hammer or a 4th level druid with a fleshraker, you are going to have one HECK of a headache killing a small group of these.

Adumbration
2007-11-17, 01:32 AM
A mephit with PC levels. You have no idea how scary it is to fight one with Monk levels and a breath weapon once 1d4 rounds at level 3. Nothing but the magic missiles by our sorceror hit it.

Jeah, we got our asses kicked.

Doresain
2007-11-17, 01:35 AM
a pride of lions(about 10 i think) vs a group of roughly 3rd-4th level characters...that was a bad day...

JaxGaret
2007-11-17, 02:01 AM
Living Disjunctions.

I shudder at the mere thought of encountering those.

Yami
2007-11-17, 03:59 AM
Hellcats. Invisible, sneaky, pouncing, raking death. And then when the suprise round ends, they have an annoying tendancy to win initiative.

.... althought, there was one DM who had an NPC necromancer with wither limb as a reoccuring villain. The worst part of those fights was always the long crawl home. But that was not a standard encounter.

Sadly, once you reach higher levels the encounters just don't seem as scary.

Somebloke
2007-11-17, 04:32 AM
Ogres or giants.

Our groups tend to be low magic, and those things can deal out horrific amounts of damage with one hit.

lord_khaine
2007-11-17, 04:38 AM
i will claim rust monsters and things that level drain is the most feared by the general player population.

Soups
2007-11-17, 04:58 AM
A common mindflayer. Sure, they aren't end alls, at least in my campaigns, as we go to level 15ish usually. Nothing like having your frenzied beserker dominated. Anything that requires a will save gets killed first. Our DM constantly yells at us for metagaming, but we are usually good at talking our way out if it.

And I want to second the shadows. evil evil things. stupid DR.