D&D Monsters that Scare You and Your Players

[Herremann the Wise]

Hi Guys,

For something a little different but no less terrifying for the players:
Drowned (MMIII) in nasty underwater caverns.
Nothing scares people more than a DC 10 con check or fall unconscious then die two rounds later! If only they'd prepared that cheap water breathing spell...

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[focallength]

oh yeah! jeez rot grub wow, all my characters wear gloves now...<shudder> man and if the cleric dosent have a cure disease your screwed. Little buggers eat your heart.

 

[jrients]

The mindflayer has always been a go-to guy for scaring the crap out of my players. I've seen PCs that have faced mutliple shoggoths in melee turn away from a mind flayer if given the chance.

 

[DMH]

Illithids disgust me ever since I read the Illithiad (that picture of the body in webbing gives me the creeps), but the shadow ooze from Liber Bestarius is terrifying- you can't know it is there until your shadow passes over it. Phasms are a close second (and only because they may not hurt you at all). Well played aboleths (with many enslaved people) are up there as well- you expect a vampire or doppleganger plant controlling the town, not a sea monster that can turn your skin to mush.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Speaking personally, Clay golems. When a party meets one as a "boss monster" i.e. major challenge several CR above your level, you know you're not going to get through their DR, and you're probably not going to be able to heal the wounds they inflict too.

(my PC is facing the rest of the current adventure with 17 hp instead of 57hp. Ugh. At least he didn't die like the barbarian did)

 

[Crothian]

THinking back I did scare the crap out of my players withe the Possessors. They were so happy when I stoped using them. Thanks Phil Reed!!!!

 

[Templetroll]

My daughter: "The iron bull that breathes poison gas"

My wife, depends on the character...

Sekeetta 10th level elf wizard with skill in warfare, has not met the monster she is frightened by.

Shadow: elf/true lycanthrope Her brother

Teka, lil halfling barbarian with flaming sword. hasn't been to Hell yet so not sure if anything frightens her.

Elwyn Redsun Puddibairn, half-elf raised by hobbits - the father brought her home from a burglary when he accidently picked up the wrong small wrapped thing from the bed as he climbed out a windown most fears a tone deaf human (she's a bard)

For me - Things that can lie to me. Anything that is intelligent and can talk.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Yugoloths, especially the greater 'loths that are more subtlety, guile and manipulation than combat. I made my players cry during their dealings with a Baernaloth. It's the fact that they approach evil like a manifest entity with themselves as simply its hands and willing supplicants. That they have a reverence for the alignment they exemplify that borders on a fanatical religion just creeps my players out.
"You are nothing. You are insignificant, inconsequential. You mean nothing to me one way or the other at all. But you will suffer just the same, just because I can." - summing up the 'loth perspective.

That's beautiful.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Aboleths.

*shudder*

After nearly losing one guy to an aboleth in my nice DM's game, I was understandably concerned when things started to look like we were moving toward an aboleth encounter in my tough DM's game.

First there was the illusion of a cave-in. (Metagame thought: hmm, we've just come through a watery tunnel, we're deep underground, illusions... hmmm....)

Then my char & the other rogue snuck ahead & saw a large natural lake. At this point we moved from metagame thoughts to metagame muttering... 'Oh sh*@, oh sh*@, oh SH*@!'

Then the other rogue, who my character knew was PHOBIC of water, started calmly walking toward the lake...

In game: HELP!!!

/ooc: Continue frightened muttering throughout the entire combat.

What was especially funny was that none of the other players had the slightest idea what we were fighting -- but their characters made their Will saves to see through the illusion of an empty lake & see the thing. I knew what we were up against even before we got to it, but my char was the last one to make his Will save & actually see the thing, lol. Turns out it was half-fiendish, because a normal aboleth would just not have been scary enough...

*blink*

Anyway, TPK. /mourn level 10 CN rogue/fighter/assassin, one of my fav chars ever; he was modeled on Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter crossed with Van Helsing. *sigh*

The good news is that the DM let me bring in my retired level 2 barb from another campaign who is one of my other top 3 chars.

Things that can dominate you, leave you to drown in AIR, & never even let you see what the heck you're fighting... yup, that pretty much meets my idea of scarey.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Kobolds. My players are utterly paralyzed by kobolds. Not that I had anything to do with that...*cough*

I still tell the story of the two party members who decided to go and assault the kobold end of a particular dungeon after the rest of the party had got what they came in for and were on their way out. They didn't bring the rogue with them. There were traps. They escaped with their lives after losing a masterwork longsword and about 15 points of Str to the kobolds and their damnable poisons. They never actually saw a kobold either, just heard the mocking laughter echoing through the cracks in the walls.

The thing that some people forget about kobolds is that you can design a kobold encounter for any EL. They can get class levels just like humans, and they get a racial bonus to crafting traps. A couple of kobold experts and a sorcerer or two and you've got yourself a TPK without the kobolds having to even lift a finger. They can just sit back and watch the show.