D&D 3E/3.5 The 4E Monster Manual -- what 3.5 monsters need the axe?

[Aeolius]

Skum are just lame.

What I'd like to see go:
Dragon Turtle: change its name to Gamara and we are talking
Locathah/KoaToa/Sahaguin/Merfolk/Skum/Triton: One or two aquatic humanoids is enough. 6 is overkill.
Tojanda: I don't even know what this is. I've never used it or seen it used.

And I continue from L onward:
Locathah - D&D's doing just fine with sahaugin and kuo-toa, thanks.
Sea Cat - Huh?
Tojanida - No.

My top three monsters to get the axe:
Dragon Turtle - I prefer to use Green, Black, and White dragons, all of whom can swim. Or a simple giant turtle.
Tojanida - I find it's a little too weird to try to describe to players.

The least inspiring monsters to me are, in order:
- the various underwater humanoids

Remove most of the silly-looking monsters, or at least most of them :
* tojanida
Humanoids :
* Why are tritons outsiders ?
* locatah, kuo-toa, sahuagin : one of them should be removed, and the remaining fishy guys should be made really different

Sheesh, no love for undersea races and thus the DMs who set their games entirely underwater.

 

[drothgery]

Sheesh, no love for undersea races and thus the DMs who set their games entirely underwater.

It's just you doing that. Sorry.

 

[Aeolius]

It's just you doing that. Sorry.

"I don't need you. I can do this act alone. I often do." - Steve Martin

What I'd like to see go:
Night Hag: We already have Hags. Either get with them or get out.

Now that's just wrong. Go read Nigel Findley's "Ecology of the Greenhag" in DRAGON #125 then come on back.

 

[olshanski]

Now that's just wrong. Go read Nigel Findley's "Ecology of the Greenhag" in DRAGON #125 then come on back.

The topic of this discussion was the MM. Not Dragon #125. The Ecology articles also strike me as pretty silly and useless. I don't care what the mating dance of the green hag is. I don't care if it gives birth to single offspring or litters. I don't care if it prefers to dye its hair on wednesdays.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm seeing a lot of hate for the arrowhawk. Their flavor is weird, but their mechanics are actually pretty nice. Its a good way to set up a ranged skirmish, or an aerial skirmish. They are decently effective (touch attack rays can do nice continuous damage) and easy to run (point and shoot, perfect flight means no tables needed).

 

[pawsplay]

oes it better.
Mephit: Lets eliminate half of these. I don't need pollen-mephits, dust-bunny mephits, or dandruff mephits. Not every substance known to man must have an associated mephit.

you obviously don't understand mephits

Vargouille: A flying head is not a monster.

Real world mythology alert! The chonchon is precisely that.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

If they do nothing else...

Get rid of the Rust Monster!

Or at least reduce its power a bit. I hope its "Oops! All your stuff is automatically, irretrievably gone!" feature is axed--tossed out along with the "save or die" bathwater. Maybe I wouldn't hate it so much if your stuff at least had a fighting chance against it; say, it merely damaged your stuff instead of instantly and arbitrarily destroying it outright.

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

you obviously don't understand mephits

Then I don't understand it either. Can you elaborate for those of us who joined during the 3.x era and don't know where mephits come from or what they are supposed to be about? To me they seem to be just weak and annoying elementals. I've also used them as minor servants of deities, temple guardians and such. Is there more to the mephits than the MM reveals?

 

[Szatany]

Delver, tojanida, arrowhawk, ettercap, spider eater, nixie pixie dixie shmixie, thoqqua, hill giants (too similar to ogres), blink dog, skum, shocker lizard, gorgon.

Some monsters can stay but must be made more interesting: grey render, achaierai, ravid, chuul, mimic.

Oh, and add some cool monsters from MM2: abeil, moonbeasts, juggernaut, myconids.

 

[Jhaelen]

Then I don't understand it either. Can you elaborate for those of us who joined during the 3.x era and don't know where mephits come from or what they are supposed to be about? To me they seem to be just weak and annoying elementals. I've also used them as minor servants of deities, temple guardians and such. Is there more to the mephits than the MM reveals?

The only thing I know is that originally there was one kind of mephit for each of the para- and quasi-elemental planes. Thus there were 16 different kinds:
elemental: air, fire, water, earth
para: ice, ooze, magma, smoke
quasi-positive: steam, radiance, crystal(?), lightning
quasi-negative: salt, ash, dust, vacuum

But in 3rd.ed. (iirc) there's at least one that doesn't fit into any of these categories (don't have any books with me, right now).