D&D (edition-nonspecific): What monsters have you wanted to use but haven't?

[VoxRationis]

The D&D rogues' gallery is fairly large and diverse, to the point that, in my opinion, it suffers considerably from its kitchen sink approach. There are simply far too many monsters that are billed as world- or region-scale threats, or as top-notch schemers and infiltrators pulling the strings of everything, and even too many that are billed as "once ruled the world/the Material Plane/the surface but were driven into hiding by the forces of good long ago." You'd have to be a professional train-scheduler or something to fit all of them into a coherent chronology.

Consequently, I find that when I develop settings, I have to pick and choose what sort of monsters I'm going to include in the setting—and from those, pick what monsters I'll actually include. Consequently, there are a lot of monsters I've never used at all, even ones I like, simply because I haven't had a good place to work them in.

My top examples are formians and yuan-ti. It's difficult to work a monster which operates almost exclusively in massive hives into my games, which are typically low-level, yet I love the idea of the formian hives. They can be enemies (since they're expansionistic and slave-taking), they can be allies (since they're intelligent and adaptable enough to recognize that certain circumstances could call for temporary cooperation with others), and they both embody and refute the "all-consuming insect swarm" trope at the same time (since they construct as much as they conquer). Similarly, I like the idea of snake-people, but have had difficulty fitting them into my settings.

So what monsters do you want to run, but haven't thus far?

[Braininthejar2]

A flail-snail. Somehow I never got a chance.

[Glorthindel]

Somehow, I have never used a Mimic, which makes me a little sad.

[Cealocanth]

Slaads, Gith, Mind Flayers, and Beholders. Some of the most iconic D&D monsters, and I just plain don't get the opportunity to use them.

[Tinkerer]

Flumphs, ever since the 80's. More specifically I wanted to have a swashbuckling Flumph hero as a major NPC. Quite powerful, almost approaching DMPC levels, however since Flumphs are specifically called out as being completely helpless on their backs anytime a situation started someone would flip them. Not doing much with D&D now though.

[Quertus]

Hmmm...

A good lich.

A chaotic good merilith.

A living wall.

A... 3e archer demon whatchamacallit.

And numerous homebrew monsters have never seen the light of play at my tables.

[JAL_1138]

I suggest taking a look at Bogleech's monster reviews for ideas on how to use some of the lesser-known or lesser used critters. The article on the Thought Eater is a good place to start reading.

[Yora]

Ogre mages, yuan-ti, and githyanki spring to mind immediately.

[BWR]

Where to start?
Illithids, primarily. I really like them and have never used them.
Yugoloths. Never really gotten a game where they fit in.
Hivebrood, faedorne, oard, reflectors and a few others.
I did get to use druj and death leeches after some 20 years, which made me happy. My players weren't quite so happy.

[Tetsubo 57]

I've never used any of the generic kaiju. Which seems weird seeing as how much I love kaiju films.

[Pugwampy]

The Gelatinous Cube .
Yaun ti
Hob goblins
Ewoks
Huge Dragon
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Giant Mantis
Giant Wasp
Dire Crocodile
Pugwampy
Rustmonster

[Anonymouswizard]

Weirdly, my two big ones are also relatively low level and normal.

-Hobgoblins. By the time I got around to understanding how to make them different from orcs and fun to encounter I'd stopped running fantasy and I've only recently started again. They're also not suitable for every group, a lot of games I've played would have had dead PCs if the enemy even began using tactics.

-Lizardfolk. This is much more due to finding them interesting and different to every other humanoid creature in the MM, to the point I want to do a setting which is just humans and lizardfolk. Imagine a society that developed in swamps, only moved past the stone age when they began trading with others, but are now equal to the other races in technology and culture (of course with cultural differences). They still live in swamps, but build and maintain villages in them, are are renowned for their ability to move in water. They lend themselves to interesting combat encounters, and to interesting social encounters because of their vastly different environment (something that cannot be said of standard orcs and goblins).


I also want an excuse to use a beholder, just for the fast and furious fight that will result.

[Scripten]

I've not yet had the chance to use a good-aligned dragon, which I realize only somewhat counts for this thread, since they're more likely to be friendly. I've also never used any Yugoloths at all.

[JAL_1138]

Giant Space Hamster
Subterranean Giant Space Hamster
Sabre-Toothed Giant Space Hamster
Rather Wild Giant Space Hamster
Invisible Giant Space Hamster
Sylvan (or Jungle) Giant Space Hamster
Armor-Plated Giant Space Hamster
Yellow Musk Giant Space Hamster
Ethereal Giant Space Hamster
Carnivorous Flying Giant Space Hamster
Two-Headed Lernaean Bombardier Giant Space Hamster
Fire-Breathing Phase Doppelganger Giant Space Hamster
Great Horned Giant Space Hamster
Abominable Giant Space Hamster
Tyrannohamsterus Rex
Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen

...I'm not allowed to use Tinker Gnomes in my games anymore.

(Note: all of these are real, published variants, as subheadings to the "Hamster, Giant Space" entry in the Spelljammer appendices to the Monstrous Compendium.)

[Solaris]

Ogre mages, yuan-ti, and githyanki spring to mind immediately.

Ogre magi are a lot of fun, at least until your players get their Gatling gun and use area fire on the invisible flying *******.

I don't think I've ever used an ankheg, carrion crawler, beholder, illithid, or any of the good aquatic monsters. My players ran away screaming when I suggested the aquatic game. Haven't used a rust monster, either.
Come to think of it, my monsters have been rather restricted to humanoids, giants, undead, constructs, and summoned things lately. Suppose it's time to stick a beholder in where the players are expecting Argos.

[Malimar]

I've used pretty much every monster it's taken my fancy to use.

Even many of the various giant space hamsters that JAL_1138 cites! Including Woolly Rupert, the Tyrannohamstersaurus of Ill Omen. (I couldn't find good 3.PF stats for him, so I just slapped the Kaiju template on the Giant Hamster.) Also, Miniature Giant Space Hamsters (indistinguishable from regular hamsters) infested the party's spelljammer.

I've especially used the classics, the mind flayer, the aboleth, the beholder, the flail snail...

Though come to think of it, I've never actually used a beholder in combat. Gibbetyorb the beholder was the lawyer in a court case the Rakshasa Mafia brought against one party, and I've got an insane beholder running an underground trading post, but nobody's ever fought one. One party fought a gauth, once, but never a true beholder.

The one that's been low-key niggling at me lately that I haven't used but kind of want to is the Wolf In Sheep's Clothing, which I'll probably throw in somewhere sometime soon. Also, flumphs.

[LordEntrails]

A flail-snail. Somehow I never got a chance.

I just used one in PotA a couple weeks ago.

Somehow, I have never used a Mimic, which makes me a little sad.

Shame on you! You do know they don't have to be disguised as chests? They can be a door, a cabinet, part of a bridge, a couch or bed...

[Anonymouswizard]

Shame on you! You do know they don't have to be disguised as chests? They can be a door, a cabinet, part of a bridge, a couch or bed...

Based on my experiences the dungeon is a mimic and the half hour we spent cowering at the entrance was justified.

[VoxRationis]

It occurs to me I've never used trolls, either. Hm...

[Jay R]

I once added boggies, a ballhog, and the sheep-lords of Roi-Tan on a wandering monster table, but I never rolled them in a game.