Monsters that are a Waste of Pages

[Stormonu]

spanner = living trap
denizlilian = mobile obstacle

 

[Stalker0]

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

Lame monsters of course

 

[Stormonu]

I could see the spanner being stated up as a hybrid trap/skill challenge. It would have a high Hide value to make it unlikely to be spotted until it is activated, preferably when the party is halfway across. The characters then have to engage it in a skill challenge, attack it, or try to cross against the things desire (Diplomacy to talk your way across, Athletics to maneuver across it's churning surface are two obvious uses).

And it let's you hit the party with:
"What is the air velocity of an unlaided swallow?"

 

[I'm A Banana]

I could see the spanner being stated up as a hybrid trap/skill challenge. It would have a high Hide value to make it unlikely to be spotted until it is activated, preferably when the party is halfway across. The characters then have to engage it in a skill challenge, attack it, or try to cross against the things desire (Diplomacy to talk your way across, Athletics to maneuver across it's churning surface are two obvious uses).

This...

This right here...

This is the reason I don't like an MM that's all "an encyclopedia of ambulatory sword sharpeners."

There's loads and loads of awesome encounter potential in encounters that aren't slashy-slashy-kill. The MM's of 4e largely ignore this awesome potential and relegate alternate challenges to "whatever your DM comes up with or whatever we have scattered around a few specific books."

Boo that.

I know. They were still ultra-lame. If we needed a few more aquatic monsters for summoning purposes, actual giant turtles would have been a better choice. They were a classic of 1e and could cover a great range of CRs. Or giant crabs. Or tako. Or sea serpents. Or... a dozen other classic D&D monsters that are, imho, far cooler than outer-planar-turtle-that-spits-at-you.

Edit: With an arm.

Oh, don't get me wrong, there's MUCH better stuff out there (and giant turtles would be a much better thing!). The tojanida probably should have been aborted from the designer's brain before their art department gave birth to it (also: Ythrak).

It's just that those who might complain that they're not good fightin' might need to realize that they might not've been there for fightin'.

Like how the Ear Seeker or the Rust Monster were more of a trap than a combat.

The tojanida were more of a spell effect than a combat.

They still may have been a crappy spell effect.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Check out Paizo's Misfit Monsters Redeemed.

# Inside this 64-page book, you'll find monsters such as: Flumphs, everyone's favorite flying jellyfish monster, come from the stars to warn innocent civilizations of the cosmic horrors lurking in the darkness.
# Disenchanters, the blue-furred camels who live to prey on adventurers' magical gear.
# Flail snails, the magic-warping gastropods who weave slowly through the subterranean Darklands, writing epic poetry with their slime trails.
# Doom-screeching dire corbies, the bird-headed terrors of the darkest caverns.
# Lurking rays, the stealthy ambush predators that are really three manta-like monsters in one: the executioner's hood, the trapper, and the lurker above.
# Adherers, those sticky, mummy-like monstrosities whose wrappings of flayed skin are the scarred relics of a horrible experiment by phase spiders from the Ethereal Plane.
# Other loveable losers like the delver, the lava child, the tojanida, and of course, the infamous wolf-in-sheep's-clothing!

Yes, it's those weird old school pseudo-monsters revisited as Pathfinder/3.5 material.

 

[the Jester]

Check out Paizo's Misfit Monsters Redeemed.

Yes, it's those weird old school pseudo-monsters revisited as Pathfinder/3.5 material.

Yeah, but of their list, the tojanida is the only one I've no interest in seeing again, ever.

Well, the delver's close, but at least it's a better version of the denzelian.

 

[DEFCON 1]

kruthik are meant to be like arachnids from Starship Troopers.

And are also reminiscent of Ravagers from The Burning Crusade and the Tyranids from Warhammer 40K.

So there are several reasons why WotC tried to make kruthiks more iconic.

1) They now have three types of kruthik minature on the market (kruthik young, kruthik adults, and kruthik hive lords)

2) They have a new type of non-intelligent, swarming, hive monster for lower heroic tier that is just not rats.

3) They are a monster archetype (insectoid) that has popularity in other parts of fantasy culture... books/movies, Warhammer, World of Warcraft... that D&D did not have themselves yet (besides just oversized regular bugs like Giant Ants, or Giant Bees).

Now I'm not saying the kruthiks succeed in what Wizards was doing... but at the very least I can understand why they attempted it.

 

[BASHMAN]

The Owlbear. It has no abilities that separate it from an ordinary bear. Essentially it is just a re-skinned bear with a more weird/horrifying appearance. While I appreciate the concept, it doesn't "do" anything special as a monster.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And are also reminiscent of Ravagers from The Burning Crusade and the Tyranids from Warhammer 40K.

So there are several reasons why WotC tried to make kruthiks more iconic.

1) They now have three types of kruthik minature on the market (kruthik young, kruthik adults, and kruthik hive lords)

2) They have a new type of non-intelligent, swarming, hive monster for lower heroic tier that is just not rats.

3) They are a monster archetype (insectoid) that has popularity in other parts of fantasy culture... books/movies, Warhammer, World of Warcraft... that D&D did not have themselves yet (besides just oversized regular bugs like Giant Ants, or Giant Bees).

Now I'm not saying the kruthiks succeed in what Wizards was doing... but at the very least I can understand why they attempted it.

I think the point of a monster like this is that there are situations where it actually DOES make a good thematic monster. D&D could have stuck to a very small set of monsters thematic of the core expected campaigning environment, but all that does is narrow down the range of the game, or force DMs to reskin everything if they want a more exotic environment or a strange new threat.

I mean sure, you could just have yet another kobold tribe or goblin horde and give them a few extra tricks that mechanically make them similar to kruthiks but OTOH if I want to create a strange new race of monsters that nobody has seen before or have a "we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto" sort of situation, or as another poster pointed out just have a world that has a bit different flavor where the wildlife is dangerous and rather insectoid then the kruthik is there for my use. Not every monster is ever going to be useful to every DM. There are monster types I've NEVER used in 30+ years of DMing, but they're there waiting for that one day when I say to myself "hey, I want something a bit different."

Admittedly there ARE useless monsters. There are monsters that are less useful or redundant to other monsters. There are monsters who's 4e mechanics simply don't work very well too. I mean, there ARE a good 1000+ published 4e monsters in the MM series, not every one of them is going to be a home run.

 

[Joshua Randall]

The Owlbear.

While objectively the owlbear is, indeed, quite stupid, I have long harbored an irrational affection for it.

I mean.. it's a bear! With a freakin' owl's head! RAAWR!