Dear 4e, Please Stop with the Horrible Portmanteaus!

[Peraion Graufalke]

I've just personally almost never seen them used. I was wondering how common they are in other people's experiences.

Back in 2E, at least 2 of our groups were TPK'ed by mind flayers, one group ran away from a mind flayer, and my beloved 9th level priest of Tempus had his brain eaten by a mind flayer while he was unconscious (the group brought him to a "healer" and waited outside ). Actually, I can't remember ever being able to kill one in any of our campaigns.
As for beholders, we once encountered one and my fighter just slaughtered it with a streak of very lucky dice rolls. My DM was quite shocked . Gas spores were far more common, though.

In 4E we've fought a (very annoying) gauth beholder in our Eberron group. In the PoL group that I'm DMing they've just reached 3rd level, so they're safe... for now.

I'd describe mind flayers and beholders as Rare and Very Rare, respectively.

/end off-topic

 

[Rechan]

The highest level D&D game I ever played/DMed in for more than a session only made it to level 9, so I've just never been in the level range for beholders/mindflayers to enter the game. I'd love to use some illithids.

Although the game I'm in, we're only level 5 and we've fought 3 beholders. (Granted, they were vastly leveled down, the highest one a 10th level elite). Even so, it was very awesome to at least battle them.

 

[SkidAce]

Mindflayers are psionic pre-creation of the world monsters with ties to Cthulhu mythos..duh look at the heads!

I had one rising out of an empty pit a thousand feet under an ice cap and fighting the party. They had developed an extreme intoleralance for them so they unloaded on it. Once it's programmed image was defeated the real one floated up. They still beat it (barely) and it was one of their favorite scenes.

Never used beholders...don't like them for some reason...

 

[Stoat]

FWIW, I like a Mind Flayers a lot and use them in my games regularly. They're smart, organized, powerful, alien and by nature cannot peacefully coexist with humans. In my opinion, this makes them perfect villains.

Beholders, I don't care for so much. They don't make a lot of sense to me. Where do they come from? What do they want? I've never seen answers to these questions that do it for me.

 

[coyote6]

Consider yourself lucky!

As a matter of fact, we're in a campaign right now that has beholders AND drow AND desmodu AND salamanders.

Smells like Deep Horizon.

If it weren't for a lucky shot that really dinged a Beholder slave-master, we'd have been toast- it dropped the party's lone single-classed caster (a Wizard) with its first or second attack.

If it is Deep Horizon, that's amusing, because when I ran it, the second beholder the PCs ran into disintegrated the party sorcerer in the first or second round. Fortunately, the cleric had a scroll of true resurrection.

 

[Nonei]

Beholders, I don't care for so much. They don't make a lot of sense to me. Where do they come from? What do they want? I've never seen answers to these questions that do it for me.

[sblock=off topic]
There was a series of Spelljammer books that I read ages ago, I don't recall the names. At least one of the books had, as a semi-main character, a beholder that somehow used illusions to make itself look like a man. It had found work on a ship... it was basically NG and had left its beholder colony b/c of ideological differences. The captain of the ship (the main character of the series) found out, and it was accepted as a member of the crew.

IIRC, the books didn't go into where the beholders came from, but it did have some fascinating commentary on beholder ideology. For example, each type of beholder thinking their type is the perfect creature and considering all other intelligent forms of life (especially other types of beholders) as deserving to be destroyed. The different types were constantly warring. Granted it isn't cannon but it was very interesting.

I can't comment on the quality of the books... I enjoyed them very much in high school but that doesn't mean much LOL. Now I want to find them and read them again![/sblock]

On topic: As far as portmanteaus, I think I must have a pretty high tolerance as most of the words mentioned in this thread don't bother me at all. Then again, I haven't played 4e so I haven't seen the quantity that perhaps others have seen.

I personally like feywild and shadowfell; I don't really care for feydark and shadowdark but then again I have always thought underdark was a bit silly as well. But I don't think they're horrible... just ok, instead of great.

There are plenty of good portmanteaus that, like shadowdark, have essentially the same word twice - for emphasis. Keep in mind too that many languages instead of saying "more dark" or "many rivers" would just say "dark dark" or "river river". So that alone I don't think would qualify a word/name as "bad".

Of course, I am a bit biased. I come from a town that, when translated into English, is called Water Water (there are a lot of creeks and rivers).

 

[Jhaelen]

Smells like Deep Horizon.

Just what I thought
Which is interesting since we're currently playing a largely modified and stripped-down version of the module. The first thing I did was replace the Desmodu with Duergar...

It was the first time I have used beholders in any edition. I think they worked well enough, even with a level 15 Marshall in the party granting massive saving throw bonuses and allowing action points.

Now mindflayers have always been a staple in my campaigns in all editions. I'm a big psionics and Mythos fun.

 

[Kunimatyu]

This thread has clearly been going on for a while, but I would like to point out that the redear sunfish, yellowbar basslet, and eyestripe surgeonfish would like a word with those who think portmanteaus aren't "realistic".

(The real key to a poor-sounding portmanteau, in my opinion, is overly long or obscure words - people don't generally try to intentionally create long names for real-world creatures)