Defend the Ethereal Marauder to me

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, after wanting to do so forever, my Midwood fugitives finally fought a shadow grue, straight out of Zork. Of course, it was really just an ethereal marauder, straight from the Monster Manual, with the boring-to-me Ethereal stuff replaced with Plane of Shadow flavor and (for the character with darkvision) a description of the grue straight from Wikipedia. (Although its fur wasn't glowing.)

And for the first time, I liked the ethereal marauder (although I'm not sure what counts as a beaten encounter by the book, since the beast can and will shift away when badly wounded, and then pop back in to attack whenever the DM wants it to).

This is one of those new-in-3E beasties, as far as I can tell (I think it even uses the art originally intended for a piercer replacement), but like a lot of them, it just seems kind of boring in its basic state. Has anyone used them to great effect in the past and might they be willing to share what's so great about the very vanilla ethereal marauder?

 

[Dragonbait]

This is one of those new-in-3E beasties, as far as I can tell (I think it even uses the art originally intended for a piercer replacement)

I'm sure its been said a buh-zillion times before, but here is yet another comparison between a shrieker (from the Tremors series) and an Ethereal Marauder..

I used them once, and aside from making the shrieking noises, I didn't see anything that spectacular about them. I wouldn't call them "vanilla" however, since they can exist on different planes, jump between the two, and so on.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But so can a phase spider and an ethereal filcher. Given those two (and other similar creatures), why would anyone use a straight-from-the-book marauder?

 

[Ry]

The whole ethereal and astral are boring to me (demiplanes aside). I fixed them good and proper.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The whole ethereal and astral are boring to me (demiplanes aside). I fixed them good and proper.

I'm thinking of using Monte Cook's Ethereal Sea label for the Ethereal and taking it further, with the entire plane being filled with "water" that starts at knee-deep and goes, much, much deeper, requiring people to sail (or fly, which has its own hazards in the fog) to demiplanes and the like.

 

[GAAAHHH]

If you want a shadow grue, from zork, why don't you just use a shadow? This will work just as well. Also, in zork, they run away when light is present, so the only way your players could fight them is in the dark.

I don't mind ethereal marauders, but I doubt I would use them unless the characters were ethereal, or transported to the ethereal plane.

 

[Ry]

I'm thinking of using Monte Cook's Ethereal Sea label for the Ethereal and taking it further, with the entire plane being filled with "water" that starts at knee-deep and goes, much, much deeper, requiring people to sail (or fly, which has its own hazards in the fog) to demiplanes and the like.

What book is that from? (I do something similar with the Astral, sort of looks like spelljammer with water. Ethereal's for ghosts IMC)

 

[Kobold Marine]

I used 'em as backstory in one campaign. Ethereal marauders would travel in large swarms, picking clean entire worlds. I also altered their HD advancement a bit, letting them grow to fearsome sizes. Multiplanar, monstrous locusts essentially. To stop this threat to the entire multiverse, one god started destroying infested worlds before the swarms could move on to others. That god was in turn annihilated by other gods, and his remnants served as artifacts and plot devices in the campaign proper.

 

[Twowolves]

I don't mind ethereal marauders, but I doubt I would use them unless the characters were ethereal, or transported to the ethereal plane.

If you only use them on the ethereal plane, you might as well make them riding dogs. Without their ability to ambush PCs on the prime material plane by shifting back and forth, they are a paltry pile of hp, easily fireballed into oblivion.

As they stand, they make for decently good mid-level Far Realms type cannon fodder. They require PCs to use held actions and single attacks, and even then, they still die pretty easily.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If you want a shadow grue, from zork, why don't you just use a shadow?

Because, in Infocom games, grues tore apart their prey with teeth and fangs, not sapped their vitality. And the mechanism of appearing and slipping away is what the ethereal marauder already does.