D&D General Obscure monsters that you got great use out of

[R_J_K75]

Two that come to mind from the 2E City of Splendors boxed set are the Lock Lurker and Palimpsest. Neither particularly deadly but sure caught the PCs off guard and made for exciting encounters. It was probably 25 years ago so I don't recall the particulars of the encounters, but I do vaguely remember my players being pretty taken aback.

The Yitsan from the 2E MC9 Spelljammer Vol 2 was great too. I ran a whole adventure terrorizing the players like the movie Alien killing players and crew until the remaining players finally tracked it down and killed it.

Yitsan

A Yitsan is a strange humanoid creature from the Spelljammer campaign setting. The yitsan are a race of incredibly dangerous predatory reptilian humanoid creatures. They are also referred to as “treasure bane” and the “intruders within” due to their habit of introducing their eggs into treasure...

spelljammer.fandom.com

 

[Voadam]

I try to use a mix of both familiar D&D staples and more out there ones in my monster palette. I remember in the 80s working my way backwards through the Monster Manual II to slip in the less known ones where appropriate as I ran a long term campaign. Not every game but every once in a while and it worked fairly well.

In 3e I got a ton of 3rd party sourcebooks so I had a lot to choose from. I remember when running Lord of the Iron Fortress and the planar city of Rigus is described as being populated by humans, aasimar, and elves that I replaced the population with mostly Lawful war oriented evil mortal and planetouched races: Hobgoblins, Duergar, Tieflings, Fire Giants, and these aggresively militaristic flying tiger people from Complete Minions. It worked well to have a variety of both familiar and new that were all on theme.

 

[Tonguez]

Two that come to mind from the 2E City of Splendors boxed set are the Lock Lurker and Palimpsest. Neither particularly deadly but sure caught the PCs off guard and made for exciting encounters. It was probably 25 years ago so I don't recall the particulars of the encounters, but I do vaguely remember my players being pretty taken aback.

I remember Palimpsest - parchment mimic? But covered with layers of ancient Text

 

[R_J_K75]

I remember Palimpsest - parchment mimic? But covered with layers of ancient Text

Yeah, pretty much. I just looked it up. I stand corrected when I said they weren't that deadly. They attacked and absorbed creatures into themselves and caused them to become part of the paper and once fully absorbed only a wish could restore them. I've forgotten how deadly and unforgiving 1E & 2E could be at times.

Another one that I just remembered was the Black Ball I think it was called from the Mystara MC, IIRC it was basically a living sphere of annihilation that wandered randomly through the world destroying anything in its path.

 

[R_J_K75]

I try to use a mix of both familiar D&D staples and more out there ones in my monster palette.

Seems as the years went on the staple monsters didnt surprise players as much as they used to without reskinning them in some way. Think its because newer/younger players have more of a RPG video game background, and older players were already familiar with them. I started using more and more obscure creatures in campaigns out of the gate.

 

[Flamestrike]

Giants.

For some reason they just never crop up, barring a Giant specific campaign or adventure (SKT, or Against the Giants etc).

As a DM and a Player. Over nearly 40 years now.

 

[Voadam]

Seems as the years went on the staple monsters didnt surprise players as much as they used to without reskinning them in some way. Think its because newer/younger players have more of a RPG video game background, and older players were already familiar with them. I started using more and more obscure creatures in campaigns out of the gate.

I go for a mix of staples to anchor my players in the fact that it is fantasy D&D we are playing. So when the "big ole cattywampus" the swampers have been talking about shows up and ambushes the party and turns out to be a displacer beast the party goes "right, good old D&D."

The familiar knowledge base can also be a flavor tool, such as if the party hears about an underground mind flayer slaver being a political power in the criminal underworld of the city the party can fill in some unstated blanks on their own without the DM having to explain known different aspects of the new monster, the players can stay in character and keep the flow going without stopping for a DM background information dump.

You can use all 3rd party monsters across the board and get a lot of surprise, but it will feel a lot more alien than normal D&D. That can be fine, Dark Sun in particular went pretty hard in this direction to great effect IMO, but it is a specific flavor/tone choice.

Sprinkling in a mix of new and familiar fantasy monsters feels very classic D&D to me and is a tone I enjoy and generally go for as a DM.

 

[Voadam]

I try to use a mix of both familiar D&D staples and more out there ones in my monster palette. I remember in the 80s working my way backwards through the Monster Manual II to slip in the less known ones where appropriate as I ran a long term campaign. Not every game but every once in a while and it worked fairly well.

In 3e I got a ton of 3rd party sourcebooks so I had a lot to choose from. I remember when running Lord of the Iron Fortress and the planar city of Rigus is described as being populated by humans, aasimar, and elves that I replaced the population with mostly Lawful war oriented evil mortal and planetouched races: Hobgoblins, Duergar, Tieflings, Fire Giants, and these aggressively militaristic flying tiger people from Complete Minions. It worked well to have a variety of both familiar and new that were all on theme.

I looked up the Complete Minions tiger men because it has been 15 years since that campaign. Asherake.

It worked out well with them, I even managed to weave in their magical flying ships and their use of frostbiter arctic vipers (also from Complete Minions) as missile weapons.

 

[R_J_K75]

I go for a mix of staples to anchor my players in the fact that it is fantasy D&D we are playing. So when the "big ole cattywampus" the swampers have been talking about shows up and ambushes the party and turns out to be a displacer beast the party goes "right, good old D&D."

The familiar knowledge base can also be a flavor tool, such as if the party hears about an underground mind flayer slaver being a political power in the criminal underworld of the city the party can fill in some unstated blanks on their own without the DM having to explain known different aspects of the new monster, the players can stay in character and keep the flow going without stopping for a DM background information dump.

You can use all 3rd party monsters across the board and get a lot of surprise, but it will feel a lot more alien than normal D&D. That can be fine, Dark Sun in particular went pretty hard in this direction to great effect IMO, but it is a specific flavor/tone choice.

Sprinkling in a mix of new and familiar fantasy monsters feels very classic D&D to me and is a tone I enjoy and generally go for as a DM.

I agree with everything stated here. I didnt use unique creatures exclusively but more than usual than years past in late 2E, early 3E. In 2E and previous editions from what I recall there wasnt any guides on what level of knowledge adventurers would have for creatures encountered. Which was something I sometimes struggled with in regard to giving too little or too much information. There may have been a NWP that gave an indication of that but I dont remember. Pretty sure 3E had a knowledge skill. I suppose in hindsight I couldve based this off the monsters frequency, for example common orcs, goblins, ettercaps, etc characters would know their tactics, weakness, etc. But something rare or unique that the party has never encountered would have no or little knowledge of. Wouldnt know what theyre encountering, its tactics, powers and weaknesses. There seemed to always be one player in the group who would shout out "Trolls, they regenerate, hit it with fire, and chop them to pieces" as an example. That was my attempt to eliminate the need to adjudicate that type of meta-gaming. In some of your examples above, in those cases when they were plot driven and added for flavor if they had an inkling of what they were possibly up against regarding staple creatures it was likely that the party would do at least a modicum of research by consulting those with that knowledge before confronting them and prepare accordingly. At least a suggestion by me for them to do so.

 

[jgsugden]

Giff. My upper levels often feature Spelljammer activity - and the Giff form massive mercenary armies. Any enemy with resources will likely have Giff under their command, and their appearances are often big surprises in the story. They have no magic, but their technology is advanced. A lot of them run around with early 1900s era technology, and some have technology on par with modern technology. Their homeworld, which exists in the same plane as my Prime World, has futuristic technology - designed to account for the presence of magic, and to oppose it.