D&D Monsters that Scare You and Your Players

[Kelleris]

Far Realms creatures. Though that's mostly my fault. I make it a point to always run FR creatures on the fly (though I do have some cheat sheets to help out), so my players never know what I feel like doing to them at that moment. I try to be creative. Encounters have ended in everything from one character gouging her eyes out in order to wear a madness-inducing artifact to another being banished for a thousand subjective years into the service of a cockroach god. She came back down a few Wisdom points.

It got so bad I was asked to stop using them for a while because one player was so disturbed by what they did to his character. Probably carried it too far, then, but it was fun doing it!

 

[pogre]

It's cliche' to say, but true - Dragons.

 

[Wormwood]

Black Puddings. I threw an Elder Black Pudding against a fairly high-level party. Before I knew it, nearly the entire party's armor and weapons were dissolved. And they'd split it so much that I ran out of space to put the miniatures.

One of the few times I just said, "You wanna just forget this whole enounter ever happened?"

 

[A'koss]

Two words...

Rot Grubs.

After a couple of rather... unfortunate encounters, they instill more fear in the PCs than having your Paladin paralyzed and being locked a 5' x 5' x 5' room with a lusty rust monster.

The second most feared monster has to be the Mind Flayer. After a couple of rather... unfortunate encounters...



Cheers!

 

[I'm A Banana]

"Someone light a torch!"

Pelor, but it was cold! Her hands stumbled on the oiled rags, half-numb and damp. There was a clinging mist in the air, cutting through her robes and her armor, chilling her to the bone and slowly soaking her clothing.

"Rothgar, can you see anything?"

"Nay," said the deep-voiced dwarf, closer than she expected. He was staying close to the group. That was unlike him. He was a paranoid little thief, always wary of others picking his pocket. He was too agitated to worry about it now. "The mist is too thick."

The halfling sorcerer Bobkin bumped into her leg. "Atroika, why is it so cold? It's summer outside...we're underground...there's frost on the ground and walls here, I can feel it..."

The priestess held the unlit torch in one hand, and gave Bobkin a reassuring pat with the other. "Don't worry, half-pint. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out. We're heroes, after all. We saved the whole city from that pyromancer!" She struck the torch and warm, golden light burst out, lighting the silvery mist around them. The four were close together; the farthest away was the gnome barbarian who was scouting ahead. He was a distant shadow in the mist.

"Odelay!" Atroika called. The shadow jerked slightly. "You okay, man?" The grunt was affirmative.

She stood up, the tallest member of the party, shining her light as deeply into the mist as she could. She sniffed the air, and smelled the smoke from the torch flow into her lungs. She gave a small cough. "All right, gang, let's...." she stopped. Her eyes went wide. Her hand went to her chest.

Rothgar looked askance at her. "Wussamatter, lassie, eat a bad burrito?"

Her scream pierced the cave in all the ways that the light from her torch didn't. She dropped it, bringing her hands to her chest, grasping, ripping, tearing, coughing, screaming...she was having trouble breathing. Her scream was chocked off, suddenly. Bobkin looked up at her, wide-eyed, as the torch sputtered out into a puddle at their feet, seeing the wide terror and surprise in her eyes, smelling the smoking torch. There was a ripping noise, a cracking, a tearing. Rothgar let out a yowl. Something was swung through the air. Bobkin ducked, going low to the ground. There was a fight going on. Odelay rushed in just as Rothgar uttered a loud, terrified gasp of panic. His breath came ragged, and then stopped. Odelay was swinging at something too. He said something. He called it back at Bobkin. But the noise of the clanking armor and weapon on stone and water muffled it. He understood, though. Something bad was happening, he had to get back to the entrace of the cave. He had to come back with more power. He ran.

Sweet Boccob, where was it? Where was the entrance? Left? Right? Was it up here, or down? He seemed to have gotten turned around in the mist...oh no, he was deeper in the cave. No, no, no, this was bad, this was really bad...

Okay, get a grip, Bobkin. You've got the blood of dragons in you, why should you be affraid of a little darkness and mist? Breathe deep. Concentrate. Let the power well up within you...

Bobkin took a deep breath, and smelled smoke. Odd. The torch was a couple of hundred feet of paniced running behind him, and extinguished besides. Something else must be burning...he coughed a little bit. A bit of phlegm was caught in his throat. He took another deep breath to dislodge it.

He screamed as he felt claws rip into his insides. Oh, Gods! It was inside of him! His breath came faster, but he could feel it ripping away, chiseling out great chuncks, tearing through lung and esophagus. He tried to tear at his chest, open a hole, let it get out. OH GREAT MOONS, IT WAS RIPPING HIM APART! He coughed once, trying to force it out, to dislodge it from inside of him, to get it away from his heart, his lungs, his life...it was at the edge of his chest, right behind his sternum, and in one great burst it had ripped it's way out. Bobkin's vision was blurry. The numbness of exquisite pain had washed over him. He saw his ribcage outside of himself. He saw his blood pouring out through the tear. He saw a pair of bloody claws floating in front of him, a pair of beady eyes, but nothing else...he couldn't breathe anymore. There were no lungs to take in air. His last breath had been stolen, and he could still smell the smoke....

-- BELKERS are frickin' terrifying --

 

[Jupp]

Rust monsters....you actually see the sweat on the players foreheads and the panic in their eyes. They grab their character sheets had hold them tightly. No joke

Aside from rust monsters any sort of enemy that uses intrigues, manipulations and deceit against the players always sends a shiver over their back. There is nothing worse than knowing that someone is working against you but you cannot do anything. I think the best one was a high standing politician that had a second life as a padrone in a mafia-like organisation. The players knew who he really was and he knew that they knew. They even met officially on occasions like social gatherings, parties and somesuch....It's hard when you have your BBEG in front of you but you cant do anything to him because you are standing in the middle of a party drinking wine with him. And he has that devilish smile on his face and makes pleasant conversation with you

 

[MonsterMash]

Well as my PC and the other characters in the party I play in are only 2nd level it's pretty much anything - one crit and you're most likely dead.

Otherwise - Mindflayers are always nasty, and generally oozes can be pretty nasty ways to go.

 

[Ry]

Spawn of Kyuss. Scares me so bad I can't even look at the picture. I think it was an old Greyhawk monster or something. Gives me the willies.

 

[Psion]

I'll have to say Beholder. One really messed up my group's PCs. They were VERY leery of the thing's afterwords.

From a player perspective, knowing what you are up against and have a plan to minimize the damage they can do to you goes a long way. But even then, they are usually a sticky problem.

 

[satori01]

Hydras. Not only are Hydras undevalued CRwise, but you have a not so simple set of rules you have to adjudicate as a DM, and figure out as a player. The great thing about the monster is the more you play with it, the more powerful it gets relative to the players, by regrowing heads and fast healing. Meanwhile the party resources are draining down.