Monsters That Terrify Your Players [3.5]

[tanderson11]

What monsters have you dropped in one of your games that horrified your players?

Have you yourself ever put in a monster with low CR that shocked you in its ability to take apart a party?

Personally, the leech swarm (Stormwrack 152) made my players terrified of of ever venturing into the water again. A CR 1 monster that is immune to weapon damage, undetectable unless the character succeeds on a spot check vs. +16 hide, and that deals Con damage every round? Yeah, my 11th level party of two had to teleport out of there.

[nedz]

Two Blindheims, ~10th level party, 6 PC deaths.

The frogs blinded most of the party who then proceeded to kill each other.

[ShriekingDrake]

In order of CR: Stirges, Meenlocks (Note there is a MMII version that's close to this.), Allips, Shocker Lizards, (that darn) Monstrous Crab, and Bulettes.

I have found all of these, if played right, to be more challenging than expected.

ps. there's also Kobolds, check out Tucker's.

[dsmiles]

Kobolds. (Yes, those kobolds. )

[arguskos]

The Voor continues to be the most terrifying monster at low levels that I have ever encountered.

[Noedig]

Every time I fight a Thunderbeast, I cry a little.

[Alleine]

Everytime a DM hauls out the Cadaver Collector minis I cringe. Usually its just because they're large and we don't have many large minis.

It reminds me of my first character, a gith monk. I was so prepared to fight the cadaver collectors because I was like "monks, good at unarmed and therefore grappling, right?". I got slammed onto its spikes, managed to lift myself off only to get shoved back onto them. Then I just stayed there and screamed for my allies to help.

[Lord.Sorasen]

In order of CR: Stirges, Meenlocks (Note there is a MMII version that's close to this.), Allips, Shocker Lizards, (that darn) Monstrous Crab, and Bulettes.

Seconded on Allip. Here's the story:

Group of 3, all semi-new to Dungeons and Dragons: A psychic Warrior half-Giant 3, a human paladin 2, and a Hadozee Scout 2 Druid 1. They step through a large room to find in the center of it an Allip. It's about 10:30 and we'd been playing since 7 so they were beginning to get tired, so even the description sort of freaked them out. It babbles at them, and all 3 of them fail the save. The Allip flies forward and gives the scout an incorporal touch, reducing his wisdom by 4. The party snaps out of it and runs out the door, finding that the Allip won't chase outside of the room.

So the scout asks me how long it will take to heal his wisdom, and freaks out to realize that it's forever... At least until he gets restoration applied to him somehow. And since we're in a slightly lower magic setting, the only way to find a cleric strong enough is on another island; one I have told them time and time again is incredibly dangerous.

The thing is, the party had to get past the Allip to get to whatever lies on the other side of the dungeon. What's more, the party's only way of fighting it was via cure light wounds and lay on hands. And it was clear to them that wouldn't be enough.

Needless to say they were terrified. What shocked me is their unwillingness to give up. In the end they baited it with Summon Nature's Ally and then just ran.

They're now expecting to find a ghost touch weapon at the end of this dungeon... But I'm really thinking about not giving them one, honestly :/

[big teej]

Displacer Beasts

about slaughtered my party.



they will soon learn to feel Kythons, dragons, and undead paladins

[Coidzor]

So the scout asks me how long it will take to heal his wisdom, and freaks out to realize that it's forever... At least until he gets restoration applied to him somehow. And since we're in a slightly lower magic setting, the only way to find a cleric strong enough is on another island; one I have told them time and time again is incredibly dangerous.

**** move, DM, **** move.

[Lord.Sorasen]

**** move, DM, **** move.

You know, you'd think so, but the player's really responded well. After the session all three stated to me that it was the best session yet.

If they didn't have fun with it I'd give them a ghost touch weapon and an easier way to recover their wisdom (actually I did give them an easy way to do it through potion in the end, though they haven't roleplayed that part yet.) But the idea that something was at stake that couldn't be slept off or smashed dead instantly was more than effective.

[Akal Saris]

Grell remain terrifying to my PCs, who have nightmares from the terrible things that they did back in 2E. Likewise bleakborns from Libris Mortis scare my PCs after their experiences in the Tomb of Horrors.

[Coidzor]

You know, you'd think so, but the player's really responded well.

Just because someone can handle it with grace or likes having their paladin castrated by falling for half of the campaign does nothing to lessen how much of a **** move using an incorporeal wisdom draining creature when there's no way to heal the wisdom drain, the character's defenses and magic are keyed to wisdom, and they have to go up against even more challenging opponents which will take advantage of his gimped will save (and which you've just said you intend to try to gimp further) if they get to even go on a quest to the super special island at all to get him fixed.

Heck, most of the issue is the having to go on a quest to get it fixed that's just going to rub that raw wound even more. Especially if you manage to make his druid level's casting go bye-bye.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Just because someone can handle it with grace or likes having their paladin castrated by falling for half of the campaign does nothing to lessen how much of a **** move using an incorporeal wisdom draining creature when there's no way to heal the wisdom drain, the character's defenses and magic are keyed to wisdom, and they have to go up against even more challenging opponents which will take advantage of his gimped will save (and which you've just said you intend to try to gimp further) if they get to even go on a quest to the super special island at all to get him fixed.

Heck, most of the issue is the having to go on a quest to get it fixed that's just going to rub that raw wound even more. Especially if you manage to make his druid level's casting go bye-bye.

Alright, I feel like you're making some assumptions here:

- It's not "handling it with grace." Handling it with grace assumes the party is upset about it but is going to keep going. The party here has made it clear that the monster was very effective at being terrifying and interesting. We've done sessions where they fought ogres and the like. This session they felt was better because of such monsters as the allip.
- Honestly, the druid is honestly more scout than druid: he uses entangle and fog, yes, but mostly it's about his archery and his wind elemental. I could have chosen to attack the paladin, who would lose her healing, her saves, and her smite evil, or chosen to attack the psychic warrior, which would cause him to lose his powers entirely, but I didn't because while I thought it would be interesting to have a character take some real damage I didn't want to ruin the game for anyone. So far it seems like I haven't. The scout/druid is still contributing as much as the rest of the team and has in no way become a liability.
- It's not a super special island. It's been their ultimate goal from the beginning, and what's more it's the campaign's mainland. They intended to go there anyway, and intended to go fairly soon. All this has done is sped it up a little bit, which is frightening to them.. but not all that frightening. And getting it back up isn't really a quest so much as a destination. It won't even take up a single session.
- I have no intention of gimping his wisdom more. The babble of the Allip is only effective once every 24 hours. The party has already figured out that Summon Nature's Ally distracts the creature: I don't want my party killing incorporeal creatures like everything else just yet because then they wouldn't be as special as they were last session. And since the scout's wisdom score will most likely be restored by next session, it really won't be a problem.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to start a fight, but honestly it bothers me that you assume this situation isn't something the players enjoyed, even though I specified that it was their favorite of all our sessions so far (and for the very reason you think they wouldn't.) I totally get from your post why you would be unhappy with this scenario should it be one of your characters, but honestly? If this was the case I would be more than willing to provide the potion earlier and possibly a ghost touch weapon or whatever it takes so that the entire group continues to have fun. And that's the real issue: You've assumed that I am not receptive to the wishes of the players, when honestly I wouldn't be having fun if my friends (the players) weren't happy as well.

[ShriekingDrake]

Every time I fight a Thunderbeast, I cry a little.

Where is this puppy printed?

[Blue Ghost]

My 1st-level party going up against a choker was a terrifying experience. Grab, strangle, move on to the next guy before we could react.

[CycloneJoker]

I think my party might be developing PTSD about kobolds. Really, they're MEAN.

[Shalist]

Being judgmental over teh internetz, how fun!

Also, rust monsters.

[Alleran]

The Unseelie Nymph terrifies my party. Ever since more than half of them suddenly switched sides upon seeing one and attacked the unaffected members of the group, their usual response to the effects of an unseelie nymph (the corruption of the forest) is to carpet bomb the center of the disturbance with a volley of fireballs.

[Sdonourg]

After some encouters with Monstrous Crabs from Stormwrack one of my players became grapple-phobic.

[Zaydos]

In one campaign I made a player afraid of beholders.

In another I broke him of said fear by plunging him through a beholder hive.

I also made people somewhat scared of giant scorpions.

I might have made my PCs a little afraid of half-farspawn.

I statted out slivers just because I knew they would scare one of my players.

[Volos]

It was true in 3.5 and stayed true when my group switched to Pathfinder.

Ogre Mages are terrifying.

Or atleast that is what my players tell me. Five Ogres and an Ogre Mage surrounded the party of 8th level adventurers. The Ogre Mage remained disguised as the driver of their caravan for a good deal of the fight, only jumping in once most of his Ogres were killed off. Casting Darkness, he joined the frey and nearly killed the fighter with a few well placed blows of his greatsword. Once the Wizard was able to take care of the Darkness, the party immediately ganked him from every side with 5 Summoned Wolves, Wolf Animal Companion, and 3 Summoned Lantern Archons. So in response the Ogre Mage turned invisible and flew up 40 feet. The party spent a turn trying to attack an invisible foe that wasn't there anymore. On his next turn he moved up another 20ft and aimed his 1/day Cone of Cold at the gathered party members directly below him. They fit within the 60ft wide cone easily, and were nearly wiped by the wonderful rolls I made. They took to fighting him in the air, but that left the druid fighting alone with other party members making terrible ranged attack rolls. Once he was taking serious damage, he used Gaseous Form to run away. I can't wait to see how they try to handle him next session.

[Saint GoH]

Stirges. Just. *******. Stirges.


My party? They seem to have an aversion to Humanoids in general... typically because they know I made them and not some silly stat-block

Also, Adamantine Horrors have a special place in one of my players hearts.

[Elvenoutrider]

I threw a real curveball at my players when i had a number of corpses each looking like a party member lurch out of the dark alcoves in a room at the party. Each doppleganger corpse monster dealt negative energy damage with each touch, and any damage to the monster damaged the player they looked like. The only way to kill them was to open a hole in the floor leading to a pit full of holy water.

That sure threw my players for a loop

[Avalon2099]

Recently played in a game, Pathfinder setting and ran Revenge of the Kobold King, all I can is Swarms of ANYTHING suck balls, the first group (yes first) didnt have a true blasty spellcaster so we were screwed when the Kobold Druid threw up Entangle and loosed his damn swarm on us, we managed to survive to run from that, then later we opened a chest and BAM another swarm comes out, by this point we had run into 3-4 different types of swarms and I was just done.

[Hida Reju]

Ninja Shadow squirrels there used to be a web article for Interesting monster combos on the D&D website. I loved the ones for the Skurid.

They were in MM3 or 4 and they were murder when encountered in numbers.

They cast darkness like 3 times per day, have mad hide skills and have a area affect negative energy attack that does 1D6 damage to a 10 ft area around them.

They collect nuts of positive energy and run off with them.

The web article gave a few of the Skurid Ninja lvl's, recomended confound the big folk, and swarmfighting. That was just plain mean.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I tend to be what my players might charitably call "template-happy" when it comes to my monsters, so dropping in monsters right from the books isn't exactly a regular occurrence, but the simplest monster I terrified my group with was a flying piranha swarm (yay Imbued Summoning!) This was during a dungeon crawl, so the party had already had some very close encounters with normal piranha swarms; when they retreated from yet another pool of murky water only to have the fish follow them, they completely lost it.

[Skaven]

Illithids and Dragons when played smartly (i.e properly)

[Eurus]

I once had a character who managed to get mauled down to negatives by Beholders on two different occasions. The first one was an unusually nasty random encounter that dropped him in the surprise round, the second one was an advanced nasty that charmed him and had him approach before nearly devouring him while the rest of the party was trying to hack their way through the other enemies. When the charm finally broke, he found himself face-to-face and inches away from a dead Beholder. Yeah, it basically gave him a permanent phobia. My own players tend to react with disproportionate caution to any humanoid foes, since they have too much experience with class leveled enemies.

[BayardSPSR]

Not 3.5, but... monkeys. Yes. Monkeys.