The monster you fear most

[Dog Moon]

And from a purely ugh point of view --- Stirges --- huge mothering mosquitos -- 'nuff said.

My group fears things I homebrew when I DM. I've messed with Stirges a little bit and if I ever put another stirge in my group, the players will flee, especially if they're high level. At low levels, they know I can't do too much, but at higher levels, they fear the concoctions I will come up with to make Stirges a challenge.

Multiheaded Cryo Stirges. Think about it. Twice the blood drain. And they can breathe cold damage at you.

Ghoul Stirges. They paralyze you and then drink your blood.

Enlarged Stirge of Legend. Stirges are NOT supposed to be bigger than you. And they can drink a lot more blood at a quicker rate than normal size stirges.

As a player, the thing I fear most is any creature or character able to cast Mordenkainen's Disjunction. Secondly, groups of creatures that have save or die/dominate/suck effects, such as the aforementioned beholders and illithids.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Anything that drains levels or turns your ass to stone.

Agree completely. Level drainers are brutal.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Dragons.

Because if the DM does not make a dragon an epic fight, he or she is doing something wrong.

 

[Pentius]

Vampires. Anyone could be one and they want nothing less than your blood.

 

[Pilgrim]

Sons of Kyuss. Zombies with little worms that turn you into one of them. Nasty.

Also up there are slimes and oozes when you're not expecting it.

 

[Wik]

Sons of Kyuss. Zombies with little worms that turn you into one of them. Nasty.

Also up there are slimes and oozes when you're not expecting it.

Sons of Kyuss can't really be used in my games, at least as named. This is because I'm a huge fan of the band Kyuss (named after the monster!) and most of my players either are fans too, or know about my band love.

I'd be too tempted to throw in song titles during the encounter.

"Curse you for trying to wash my taint from the world! Curse you, demon cleaners!"

"I shall boil your blood until it boils at one hundred degrees!"

...and so on.

 

[Rechan]

Outside of say, a swarm of flies/roaches or giant versions of those, nothing would elicit the "Oh god get it away" feeling from me per se. Because those make my skin crawl in RL.

But the monster that elicits the "Oh Crap" reaction from me are carrion crawlers.

I managed to wipe an entire party of 7th level PCs with them. Because in 3e, they had 8 attacks per crawler. Which translates to at least 3 hits on average. Each hit gave a fort save vs. paralysis. Three rolls in a row, you were bound to miss one.

Even in 4e, they elicit that same "OH GOD MAKE IT DIE" because I just knew that it meant "you're going down".

 

[Dragonwriter]

Nice topic.

Personally, I hate fighting Rust Monsters. I tend to play warrior-types, so weapons and armor are important to me... and item saves are garbage even at higher levels.

Any save-or-die/suck critter... Mind Flayers, Beholders, etc.

Anything dealing CON damage/drain. And negative levels.

Swarms are just plain cheaply annoying, IMO.

But one that just plain scares the daylights out of me and I hope my DM never gets a copy of is the Molydeus from 3.5's Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss. Massive attack bonuses, numerous attacks, high DR and saves, SLAs and Fast Healing 30. The thing is a killing machine... and I'll still end up going toe-to-toe with it, if it ever comes up in the current game.

 

[silliker]

I fear all those ugly monsters.

 

[kinem]

Gelatinous cube (3.x) - because if you fail a spot check - not normally an important enough skill that you'd necessarily bother to be good at it - you're (roughly speaking) as good as dead. Downright unfair IMO for the given CR.