Monsters that are a Waste of Pages

[Stormonu]

I think a lot of these monsters that are undesirables is because folks don't catch the nostalgiac reference or hidden meaning behind the creature which (in an in-joke sort of way) is supposed to make it a "cool" creature.


for ex.:

swordwings originally appeared in the companion-level adventure Sabre River, that's why their epic (nostalgia)

denzilians from the 1e fiend folio are Horta monsters from an old Star Trek episode, "The Devil in the Dark"

kruthik are meant to be like arachnids from Starship Troopers.


...and so on. The successful ones tend to be flavorful creatures with strong mechanics. The ones listed here tend to have mechanics that don't match their cool factor.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Berbalangs suck. Annoying and not fun are they.

I too disagree - I through one against my party, and that encounter was LOADS of fun.

That said, it had a lot more to do with the encounter design than the monster itself - it threw the party for the loop when the mayor they had just saved had a devil as a town guardian, and had to decide whether to protect the berlabang, the mayor and her guards against the palladin and his lackies that showed up to kill the berlabang and arrest the others for consulting with devils. Even more fun was the party split roughly half and half as to which side they supported so were acting cross purposes to each other.

Personally, the idea behind the berbelang, that of a subdividing devil, is really cool... its execution, on the other hand, could have been much, much better. I'm hoping its one of the monsters that gets revisited and rewritten by essentials.

 

[Thasmodious]

I could definitely see the designers sitting around brainstorming new monsters to try and make one up that could join the lexicon of iconic D&D monsters. That said, the kruthik isn't it.

 

[Stormonu]

out of curiousity, I looked up the 4e version of the berbalang (I'd used it back in 1e days, and it was a terror to low-level parties). They really took the scariness out of it by limiting the duplicates to only being able to move 10 squares away (at the very least, it should have been 20, if not 30 squares or more).

Part of the reason the berbalang was so scary was that it would hide it's body in a cave or some other secure area (in a locked room, on the other side of a cave- in or some other hard-to-reach area) and send it's psychic double out to hunt, quite some distance from it's real body. Tracking down the real berbalang was like hunting for a vampire's coffin - a coffin that could fight back, mind you.

 

[Stalker0]

I felt that swordwings were a waste of pages in 4e. Epic monsters that live in big hives and... what? Collect some stuff? Why should these be epic creatures? They have nothing about them that speaks 'epic' other than their attacks and defences are set at the 'appropriate' numbers!

Glad I'm not the only one! How does a species that spawns epic monsters like bees not take over the world?

 

[TheClone]

I had more trouble getting my players to not laugh at (and alter) their name than I did running them in combat. Of course, I was using the Kestrekel Swarm...

My players immediately recognized them as vultures. they started trailing them up to the ringing mountains. but I guess, I don't get your joke

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

They can be pronounced in a way that sounds like part of the male sexual organs.

Though, from the smilie, perhaps your comment was fascecious.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I felt that swordwings were a waste of pages in 4e. Epic monsters that live in big hives and... what? Collect some stuff? Why should these be epic creatures? They have nothing about them that speaks 'epic' other than their attacks and defences are set at the 'appropriate' numbers!

Agreed.

They're not Epic in any way, shape or form.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Honestly, you could condense all monsters into (probably) a dozen archetypes.

For example, take the archetype savage humanoid warrior.

This covers: kobolds, goblins, orcs, ogres, troglodytes, minotaurs, giants, etc. etc. etc.

Why do we need all those different types? One man's "variety is the spice of life" is another man's "familiary breeds contempt". (Mixed metaphors - yay!) Your tolerance for the different types will determine whether you like or dislike a given monster.

 

[the Jester]

Honestly, you could condense all monsters into (probably) a dozen archetypes...

Largely true- but what archtype would you put the spanner under? Or the denzelian?