D&D General D&D monsters that have been changed the most over time

[Faolyn]

In 1e, they were pretty impressive and not emaciated. That was a 2e change.

That was Tom Baxa's art. DiTerlizzi had a different image:

(I will never be able to spell DiTerlizzi's name right without looking it up first.)

 

[Hexmage-EN]

That was Tom Baxa's art. DiTerlizzi had a different image:

View attachment 139821

(I will never be able to spell DiTerlizzi's name right without looking it up first.)

Kinda wish the long tail stuck around.

 

[SkidAce]

Specters/Spectres got a big surprising rewrite in 5e.

They had used to be the big Nazgul incorporeal undead who drained two levels with a hit, right below the level of a vampire in power and a step up on wraiths.

In 5e they got turned into minor ghost spirits who can be faced by 1st level characters and can be created by wraiths as a power.

The 5e ones are a good mechanical niche (low level spirit) to hit that D&D had generally been missing in the core MMs, but I wish they had named them geists instead, like their variant poltergeists, so that there could be a specter monster that matched the old lore and power level for those who converted stuff like old modules and those who wanted less dissonance in monster lore.

Good idea, this has bothered me too, so that when i used spectres, i just termed them as an evilier looking ghost.

I may work on brining back a Spectre.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Sure they have references to eggs, in both 1st and 2nd edition. Let me quote:

Thanks for this -- somehow missed it when I read the entries this morning. Kudos.

 

[Tonguez]

Scales and lays eggs could be considered a clear indication. It is a matter of interpretation if their old art is reptilian such as the head ridge and hairlessness of the dog-like B/X kobolds from 1981.

View attachment 139808

"These small, evil dog-like men usually live underground. They have scaly rust-brown skin and no hair."

I considered the old art as indicative of humanoid reptiles with dog like faces.

Theres an old EN World thread where Gygax answered questions iirc he said something like that the kobold was originally envisioned as a Mammalian ratty dog thing but hairless with scaly skin, apparently it was the artist who came back with the scaly skin looking more reptilian than intended

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've spent two decades now banging my head into the "Yeah, sure, they were indisputably land-dwelling scaly egg-layers, but what indication do you have that they were reptilian before 3E?" wall, so, sure, fine, they weren't "clearly" established as dog-like reptiles (analogous to how dolphins are fish-like mammals) prior to the 3e Monster Manual.

I was thinking they were more akin to monotremes like duck-billed platypuses, echidnas and so on (especially as kobolds had a weird combination of characteristics, were small, and kind of fail, sorry monotremes). I mean literally if you'd asked me when I was, say 12, about kobolds, I would probably have made that comparison (I was zoology/biology obsessive), but yeah, dolphins is another viable one, and some reptiles don't lay eggs either, they're vivaparous (the common lizard is, for example, in most areas, as are some snakes - both boa constrictors and anacondas among them, rattlesnakes too - a lot of the classic "adventure snakes" are viviparous), so the whole idea that reptile = lays eggs or lays eggs = reptiles was not an assumption I was going on.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

(I will never be able to spell DiTerlizzi's name right without looking it up first.)

I feel you but I learned to spell it by remembering "3" and when I think of it I realize that 3 is "Ter" between the di and lizzi.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Scales and lays eggs could be considered a clear indication. It is a matter of interpretation if their old art is reptilian such as the head ridge and hairlessness of the dog-like B/X kobolds from 1981.

View attachment 139808

"These small, evil dog-like men usually live underground. They have scaly rust-brown skin and no hair."

Here is the 1e DMG 1979:

View attachment 139810
And the 1979 1e MM's other picture of kobolds:

View attachment 139811

I considered the old art as indicative of humanoid reptiles with dog like faces.

See as someone into biology/zoology, the external ears and doglike noses were much more "un-reptilian" than laying eggs or having scales was reptilian. There are mammals that lay eggs, and many reptiles that don't, and mammals with scale-like structures, but there are no reptiles with that sort of external ear (or anything even close AFAIK), and no reptiles with mammal-style noses. Nor have there ever been, that we're aware of. At best kobolds were some 50/50 mixture of characteristics.

 

[Tonguez]

See as someone into biology/zoology, the external ears and doglike noses were much more "un-reptilian" than laying eggs or having scales was reptilian. There are mammals that lay eggs, and many reptiles that don't, and mammals with scale-like structures, but there are no reptiles with that sort of external ear (or anything even close AFAIK), and no reptiles with mammal-style noses. Nor have there ever been, that we're aware of. At best kobolds were some 50/50 mixture of characteristics.

Yeah I tended to peg Kobolds as Therapsids, which allows us to take the best aspects of mammals and reptiles and mash them together.

Take a look at the Porosteognathus and tell me that doesnt scream Kobold
(no floppy ears though since only mammals have external ears)

View attachment 38A75F72-A89B-47EF-866D-4C2A07B5CC94.webp

 

[Richards]

That doesn't scream kobold to me. If anything, it seems more reminiscent of the ophidian:

Johnathan