it hurts so much.....

[wlmartin]

... What do you consider the most memorable, distinctive or otherwise impressionable ability of a monster??

It can be a certain type of Aura, the splitting ability of Oozes, the Rusting ability of the Rust Monster... ghosts and their insubstantial or perhaps a monster with a certain type of resistance.

Tell us all what Monster Ability sticks in your head and why... it can be for any important or unimportant reason, perhaps something where you/your group say

"Groan, not another [Monster] and his [Monster Ability] - everyone get their death saves ready"

or

"Yay, I love fighting [Monster] that can [Monster Ability] as it lets me use my [Class Ability/Power]"

 

[Dice4Hire]

The one I hate and worry about the most is an aura that does not allow the characters to spend healing surges in the aura. That can lead to a TPK in a hurry.

As for more fun, there are a lot of them out there. Last session, the MN-NV River Rat ability to play dead was fun.

 

[babinro]

Spriggan Powrie all the way....why?

They are a small fey humanoid that attacks your hamstring to knock you prone and then use the hilariously named power "Punt the Fallen' to push the prone target 3 squares.

In my party we laughed about this so much because of the imagery it conveys. The power and abilities aren't memorable in themselves, but its a small creature tripping you and then using your face like a football as it kicks you across the battlefield. These little fey rock.

 

[On Puget Sound]

level drain. Thank the gods it's gone.

 

[Colmarr]

The most memorable power for me belongs to the hobgoblin leader in Keep on the shadowfell.

Just when we thought we were safely bottled up in a narrow corridor behind our defender, the bugger goes and allows 3 of his allies to shift right past.

It was my first encounter with the 'gotcha' nature of 4e monster and encounter design, and I'm still madly in love with it.

 

[wlmartin]

The most memorable power for me belongs to the hobgoblin leader in Keep on the shadowfell.

Just when we thought we were safely bottled up in a narrow corridor behind our defender, the bugger goes and allows 3 of his allies to shift right past.

It was my first encounter with the 'gotcha' nature of 4e monster and encounter design, and I'm still madly in love with it.

The Hobgoblin ability to use formations is fantastic. A lot of monsters are seen to be dense, running into trouble and don't work together but the Hobgoblins are masters of formation. I dislike that they dont have higher level builds for the Hobgoblins but have found a way to incorporate this into similar monster types well.

 

[Will Doyle]

The Giant Frogs that swallow you whole every time they hit.

I've used them twice, and both encounters were absurd, slapstick and utterly deadly.

 

[Ryujin]

Bloody Dracolich. You're stunned. You're stunned. You're stunned. Hey, I missed you! You attacked me? You're stunned. I know that when I truck one out, in my own campaign, there's going to be a collective groan at the table.

The Remorhaz that I trucked out was pretty fun. It started by chowing down on the trailing party member, who happened to be the Pacifist Cleric. Bite - Action Point - Swallow. The players started to worry a bit when they realized that he had no line of sight, nor line of effect to them. They had gotten pretty used to getting from maybe a quarter of their HP to full, with one surge, so it was a pretty good fight.

 

[wedgeski]

Another vote for swallows. I've twice deployed creatures who can swallow PC's whole, and on both occasions a TPK was avoided only by the barest of margins.

 

[Dungeoneer]

The Anakores from the Dark Sun Creature Catalog have the ability to drag a player under the sand for several turns. What exactly they do with them down there is left ambiguous, although the catalog hints darkly that Anakores have no obvious method of reproduction.

After a memorable encounter with them where one player was dragged under and another nearly coup-de-graced, the phrase 'Anakore love nest' became a byword amongst my group!

Incidentally, every so often a monster in an encounter turns out to be especially lethal, either through luck or dice rolls. DMs, when this happens it's a freebie for you! Bring them back for an encore next time you really want to put the fear of the gods in your players.

"Remember that thing that kicked your ass three rooms back? You see two of them coming towards you."