Evil Generic Crature

[leden]

First of all, good day, I've been lurking for a long time in these forumd and i have decided to finally post.

The problem i have is this: In an upcoming campaign I'm making there will be a legend of how people fought against a race of evil beigns from another plane. What kind of creature can these be? They must be strong enough to beat a generic human but not strong enough to beat a, ley's say, lvl 4 character.

PD: Can anyone point me to the book where the traits of various planes are described?

[Miles Invictus]

Which plane?

The SRD has a few things that might help you:
Planetouched (Aasimar and Tiefling)
Elemental Racial Variants
Bloodlines (includes Elemental ones)

You could also allow each warrior from this plane an appropriate Planar Terrain Mastery as a racial ability.

The Dungeon Master's Guide has a section on planes from pages 147 to 168.

[Voyager_I]

Fiendish Housecats?

[Prometheus]

So one or two levels higher than a 1st level characters should be fine, it would be enough to give them a definite advantage, and if they had the same distribution of levels and people did, they would be able to win a war quite reliably. Ogres, Satyrs, Sprites, humanoids (don't forget the special ones like duergars and drows), bugbears, gnolls, kobolds, lizardfolk, locathath, lycanthropes, orcs, troglodytes, centaur, derro, doppelgangers, grimlocks, sahuagin, ettercaps, gricks, skum, chockers, azers, formians, mephits, tritons, and homunculi all fit the mold. My personal favorites are the mephits, because there are a variety of them to change up the encounter (and also their flying and DR explain why commoners can't defeat them but PCs can), chockers, because they are so awesome and completely alien, and formians, because it allows the encounter to scale up as big (or small) as you want.

The Elemental Racial Variants, and Bloodlines are really good ideas how to make a mundane creature extraplanar. Paragons levels (or your equivalent homebrew) also help if you want the creature to be tough but vaguely humanoid and Environmental Racial Variants for more inspiration. Compare the mechanics with the desciption and see how much you can change about the nature of the creature without having to change the mechanics.

[KillianHawkeye]

If it's going to just be in a legend, then you don't really need to be too specific on what the creatures were. Just say there were demons or devils (or yugoloths) and be done with it. There are at least a few types that can be beaten by 4th level characters, or you can make up your own "Peon Devil" that'd fit the generic power level you describe. (Note that this creature does not need to have stats made up for it, since it is merely a story prop that you will not use in combat.)

[sikyon]

I've always wanted to include formians in a game. Formian workers are good enough to kill level 1 or 2 commoners, but are only CR 1/2.

While they're not evil in an absolute sense, if they invade you they might look evil.

[Pronounceable]

Orcs. You don't get more generic than that. Apply some planar template on them and you're all set.

[Chronos]

If it's going to just be in a legend, then you don't really need to be too specific on what the creatures were.

This is a D&D game we're talking about, here. Nothing is ever "just a legend". Am I right?

To the OP, would it be a good thing or a bad thing for your story if there were also advanced versions of these creatures (whether by levels, larger versions of the same thing, or closely-related but more powerful critters) around who could kick the PCs' butts? If you want them all to be weak, then you're going to have a hard time explaining how they got here (Planeshifting or the equivalent is usually a higher-level ability). Maybe a foolish wizard opened a portal, and they killed him before he could close it?

[leden]

Thanks everyone I think I'll go with the Mephits, they look really fun and scary, just the thing I have in mind.

In respect to their travel there will be an overlap between the planes just like in the war of legend and guess who'll save the day.



(the PCs in case u didn't know )