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

[billd91]

Archons.
Archons debuted in 1e AD&D's Manual of the Planes and were denizens of the Seven Heavens - armies of lawful good powers. Lantern, Hound, Warden, Sword, Tome varieties. They then appeared in the Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix in 2e and in the Monster Manual for 3e. The lantern archon made for a really interesting summoned monster for a lower-leveled PC.
Then 4e came along and changed them into elemental soldiers of chaos because...
And I don't believe they've reappeared in 5e yet.

 

[Echohawk]

Archons.
And I don't believe they've reappeared in 5e yet.

Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica has the Archon of the Triumvirate.
Mythic Odysseys of Theros has the Archon of Falling Stars.

The lore for the first one contains this: "Archons are enigmatic, supernatural embodiments of the harshest aspects of law and order. They espouse a rigid sense of justice and deal ruthless punishment to those who break the law."

 

[Mind of tempest]

Archons.
Archons debuted in 1e AD&D's Manual of the Planes and were denizens of the Seven Heavens - armies of lawful good powers. Lantern, Hound, Warden, Sword, Tome varieties. They then appeared in the Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix in 2e and in the Monster Manual for 3e. The lantern archon made for a really interesting summoned monster for a lower-leveled PC.
Then 4e came along and changed them into elemental soldiers of chaos because...
And I don't believe they've reappeared in 5e yet.

1e were just legally not angles for some reason and 4e is just elementals but with real goals does not matter much.

 

[Yora]

In 4th edition they also threw out eladrins and recycled the name for some new fey.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Archons.
Archons debuted in 1e AD&D's Manual of the Planes and were denizens of the Seven Heavens - armies of lawful good powers. Lantern, Hound, Warden, Sword, Tome varieties. They then appeared in the Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix in 2e and in the Monster Manual for 3e. The lantern archon made for a really interesting summoned monster for a lower-leveled PC.
Then 4e came along and changed them into elemental soldiers of chaos because...

My best guess is that it was a reference to Gnosticism. The 4E lore had the archons as the elemental primordials' answer to the angels employed by the divine gods. In Gnosticism, archons were essentially counterparts to aeons (which were themselves basically angels) that were associated with the material world, as opposed to the divine world of the aeons.

I'm at least glad that the 4E archons were brought over into 5E officially as myrmidons, though the mechanical implementation and lore for them is much less inspiring in 5E.

 

[Black Dougal]

Devourers - the tall, gaunt monsters that sucked your soul out and imprisoned it behind their ribcage - underwent a minor change throughout the editions.

Originally debuting in the Monstrous Compendium Planescape Appendix III in AD&D 2E, they were explicitly called out as not being undead. Third Edition and Fourth Edition (both of which had the devourer in their respective Monster Manual tomes) reversed this, saying that devourers were undead creatures. Then in 5E, Volo's Guide to Monsters classified them as being fiends, rather than undead.

Interesting, I did some research these guys are cool in 3.x.

 

[Mind of tempest]

In 4th edition they also threw out eladrins and recycled the name for some new fey.

eladrin of the CG land where just dull it honestly kinda sucked honestly other than LG none of the good outsiders had anything interesting about them and LG was bland.

 

[Neonchameleon]

In 4th edition they also threw out eladrins and recycled the name for some new fey.

In 4th they decided to (for understandable reasons) separate the High Elves from the Wood Elves. High Elves became only slightly more magical and were called Eladrin.

 

[the Jester]

I'm at least glad that the 4E archons were brought over into 5E officially as myrmidons, though the mechanical implementation and lore for them is much less inspiring in 5E.

That's unfortunately true for monsters in general in 5e compared to 4e. Monster design is one area where I wish a lot more of 4e had come forward.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

That's unfortunately true for monsters in general in 5e compared to 4e. Monster design is one area where I wish a lot more of 4e had come forward.

I feel like it's at least gotten better since Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and forward (for example, one giant in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica has a reaction to move and make an attack as a reaction against an enemy they can see that attacked an ally). I also find it fairly easy to add 4E style abilities to monsters.

Here's some for Redcaps:

Action. Blood for the Earth. The target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or take 2d8 necrotic damage at the start of each its turns. Adjacent recaps are healed by the amount of damage the target takes. The target can make this saving throw again at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success.

Bonus Action. Punt the Fallen. +6 to hit. 1d8+4 bludgeoning damage, and the target is pushed 10 feet.