D&D 5E DM Confessions: What monsters do you overuse?

Mouseferatu · Apr 8, 2016

I'm honestly having trouble recalling the last time I ran a medium- to long-term campaign that didn't involve a lich on some capacity. I'm almost, but not quite, as bad with mind flayers. I just really, really love building plots and schemes around those guys.

I'm curious what monsters other DMs find themselves using as go-to options perhaps more often than strictly necessary. (And I don't just mean "This creature appeared briefly in a random encounter" or the like, but as actual plot-centric or adventure-focused antagonists or NPCs).

Sunseeker · Apr 8, 2016

Dragons, love me some dragons.

pming · Apr 8, 2016

Hiya!

Uh, the 'common' ones I guess. Because, well, they're common. Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds and the occasional Bugbear, Hobgoblin or Ogre.

Lich? Nope...actually, I think I used a Lich *once*. TPK, iirc. I was used to playing a 18th level magic-user (1e), so when I took on the role of the Lich, well, he just annihilated the PC's. Luckily for us, it was just a 'one off' for poops n' ha-ha's.

Dragons? I have used the occasional 'young' or even younger. Once, again, *once*, I used a huge ancient red dragon in one high-level campaign we were doing (I even had my 18th level MU in that one...we did trade off DM'ing every now and then). The result? TPK. But we all decided to 'retro' it and pretend it was all a dream; the players had a chip on their shoulder and said "We could take a huge ancient red dragon, no problem!". HEHEH...."famous last words" I guess.

No...any of the "really smart and powerful" monsters like ancient dragons, liches, mind-flayers, aboleth, etc? They're too powerful and smart to draw attention to themselves. If you are a party of 18th level characters, and you find yourself facing off against the "Aboleth Emperor"...well, you should probably run because anything that smart, that powerful and that old isn't going to succumb to "your parties cute little parlor tricks". Well, at least not if I'm DM'ing...

Chances are you are there because it LET you in...which is never a good sign.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

dracomilan · Apr 8, 2016

Humans. In human-centric settings, I cannot avoid to use humans as enemies, of any level, from cannon fodder at 1st level to world-shaking geniuses. Uhm... I use liches as well, since they usually are human liches.

The Myopic Sniper · Apr 8, 2016

Giant Rats. Giant Rats everywhere.

Li Shenron · Apr 8, 2016

Classical humanoids, mostly goblins, hobgoblins and orcs, as well as human bandits or cultists. I tend to start a campaign almost always against this sort of low-level threats, then increase their numbers, then add class levels to have them as NPCs.

I used to also overuse low-level undead such as skeletons and zombies, but in the last few years I consciously tried to decrease their occurrences in the desperate attempt to restore a bit of the original creepiness of undead.

In addition, at some point I always feature ogres and giants of various kinds.

Imaculata · Apr 8, 2016

Undead. Especially skeletons, ghosts and zombies.

I also have a lot of human opponents. But then again, I run a setting in which monsters appear only occasionally. So most of the time my players are fighting human pirates and human cultists.

Fortunately since I run an aquatic campaign, when I do use monsters, they are often of the aquatic kind. So this allows me to bring monsters into the game that my players rarely get to fight anyway.

Ath-kethin · Apr 8, 2016

My go-to has always been mind flayers. I've dialed it back of late because realistically, there's no reason they WOULDN'T conquer absolutely everything and rule the multiverse. Those are some scary dudes.

In a similar vein, back when I ran my Al-Qadim the Yikaria (yak-men with a natural magic jar type ability) were usually behind everything.