Weaker? Nah!
One of the critters in the MM2 that sorta jumped out at me as having been diminished was the Thri-Kreen (piddling CR1).
Then I thought about it: The bug-men can advance by character class. You toss on a few levels of whatever class will most bedevil your players (hmmm... maybe monk?), and viola, instant bad @$$.
The same holds true for almost any beastie. Even the ones that the books say advance by hit dice. We all know that the DM can add character levels to ANYthing he wants.
So, with that in mind, there probably are a bunch of nasties that may seem to be defanged (so to speak), but with judicious modifying they get MUCH worse.
One of the critters in the MM2 that sorta jumped out at me as having been diminished was the Thri-Kreen (piddling CR1).
Then I thought about it: The bug-men can advance by character class. You toss on a few levels of whatever class will most bedevil your players (hmmm... maybe monk?), and viola, instant bad @$$.
The same holds true for almost any beastie. Even the ones that the books say advance by hit dice. We all know that the DM can add character levels to ANYthing he wants.
So, with that in mind, there probably are a bunch of nasties that may seem to be defanged (so to speak), but with judicious modifying they get MUCH worse.