Monsters that have gotten more cool/less cool over the years

[Charles Rampant]

Kobolds rule. One word:

deekin!

Doom doom doom DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOOOOM doom doom!

 

[Shades of Green]

Were always cool:
- Mind Flayers
- Dwarves (I love to roleplay their gruff-but-hardy personality and their religious/national devotion)
- Halflings (and yes, they STILL HAVE hairy feet in my campaign)
- Undead, except for vampires

Were never cool:
- Gnomes (I never got a feeling for that race... their Dragonlance tinker aspects were too grotesque for my taste and their "niche" could easily be filled by Dwarves and Halflings).
- The Tarrasque

Got cooler:
- Most Humanoids (now they are no longer restricted to low-level cannon-fodder)
- Aboleth (Never understood it in 2E)

Got less cool:
- Dragons (been there, done that)
- Elves of any possible kind (OVERDONE!)
- Trolls (their renerative powers were watered down)
- Vampires (the only creatures more overdone than Elves!)

 

[Dungannon]

I will always have a special place in my heart, and my adventures, for lycanthropes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yum! And then let them advance by class (rogue would be a good choice)!

Quickie version slapped together: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=134790

 

[Ed Cha]

Less cool:

Drow- They used to be mysterious, totally evil badasses who could kick your ass. Now they're overexposed, mentally conflicted (should I be a good drow?), and just plain lame.

Mindflayers- Ditto.

Halflings- What the hell happened to them? They have been the most "experimented with". Leave them be!

Elves- Totally lost their flavor.

Demons- They're everywhere and they've become just big CR monsters to kill. They're supposed to be supernatural forces of chaos and destruction that bring terror to everyone, not just more things on the way to adventure.

Kobolds- These are not kobolds. They're baby lizardmen.

Dragons- It's the illustrations that killed me on these. I can never use them again.

Orcs- Warhammer.

Half-anything- Please stop.

Beholders- That D&D movie ruined them for me. They're not laser beam shooting watch dogs, you know.

 

[Templetroll]

I always thought the displacer beast was pretty stupid, but the illustration in d20 Modern of one eating a Santa Claus was really cool.
.

The old illustration of the Displacer beast was of a wonderfully weird monster with gorgeous pelt. the new one is this emaciated thing that doesnt have enough skin to skin. The displacement ability is still a cool thing.

 

[Erik Mona]

Ethergaunts (after Mechalich's stunning essays)

Where might I read these essays?

--Erik Mona
Creator of the Ethergaunts
www.superunicorn.com/erik

 

[Crothian]

Where might I read these essays?

--Erik Mona
Creator of the Ethergaunts
www.superunicorn.com/erik

I think these are them

try here

 

[Shemeska]

Where might I read these essays?

--Erik Mona
Creator of the Ethergaunts
www.superunicorn.com/erik

He originally posted it over on BoneBox Rattler, a Planescape forum, which was where I read them. They've also popped up on the Pits of Evil forums IIRC. He's also written some, well, amazing stuff on the Negative Energy plane and some of the Quasielemental planes.

Here you go

 

[Erik Mona]

Wow.

That's long.

--Erik
http://www.superunicorn.com/erik