Have you seen an Aboleth in game?

[Huw]

Never seen them as a player. Used them twice as a DM, and that's because they were in a published adventure (one was Dwellers in the Forbidden City which AFAICT is their first appearance).

It's a great creature with lots of background, but it is quite hard to make an encounter. Both ones I've seen follow the same format: Water is covered by an illusion. First victim falls in to be attacked. Aboleth charms fighter type. Party has to use a lot of resources to win. It's effective, granted, but the sort of thing that only works once.

 

[Mark Hope]

Ran Night Below in 2e so yeah, lots of Aboleth . Also ran Rod of Seven Parts, which features an aboleth too (I made it a refugee from the destruction of Great Shaboath). That one mind-controlled a character with a sword of sharpness, who then proceeded to kill other PCs, much to everyone's annoyance. Great monsters. Love 'em to bits.

 

[Samuel Leming]

Yes. They're classic monsters.

Sam

 

[Samuel Leming]

Wow. The numbers really surprise me! People have nearly 2 to 1 - I would have predicted the opposite.

For my part, never as a DM or a player - though I have ideas for using one or more someday.

I'm kind of surprised by the large number of no votes.

Now if someone were to ask if anyone had seen a tojanida in a game...

Sam

 

[firesnakearies]

I've really loved aboleths since Night Below in 2nd edition. That was an awesome boxed set/adventure path.

I ran a high-level, high-powered 3.5 game which featured several very tough bosses each in their own dungeon, and my extremely smart, optimizing players pretty much walked all over each of my carefully-crafted villains (an 18th level sorcerer formian queen, a 20th level half-fiend githzerai monk, a high-level barbarian storm giant were-roc, and the like) . . . until they fought the aboleth mastermind. That fight was a total party wipe, and my players were dumbfounded at how utterly they were destroyed.

Aboleths are scary.

I'm really intrigued by this new Abolethic Sovereignty faction in the new Forgotten Realms. I think that Bruce Cordell's new trilogy about them will be awesome, and will be the first Forgotten Realms novels I've bought in quite a few years.

 

[Tetsubo]

I used one in an old 3rd edition Gamma World campaign. They fit into a world full of mutant things rather well.

 

[el-remmen]

I'm kind of surprised by the large number of no votes.

Except that they are psionic creatures, and I'd think that alone would keep the numbers down as opinions on psionics always seem to be split - then again, maybe folks who are not into psionics in D&D at all just avoid threads with 'aboleth' in the title and thus do not vote. . .

 

[Aeolius]

An Aboleth vs Kraken war took place in my last game(my SH one).

In my games I have two kraken hybrids, the krakidan, a human/kraken crossbreed (it's...complicated) and the sykraken, an aboleth/kraken experiment gone horribly awry.

 

[Dausuul]

I introduced an aboleth in my 4E campaign, although the PCs never fought it or got more than a glimpse of it - they just battled a couple of its minions. (They were only 2nd level at the time.) But they know it's there, lurking... there is a high likelihood we will revisit it sometime in Paragon tier.

 

[Wombat]

No, but it is very far from alone.

Heck, there are only about 20% of the critters in the Monster Manual (basic) that I use in any game...