The Awful and Dangerous Monster?

[trancejeremy]

If you read the Appendix in the 1st ed DMG about which author's literary works inspired D&D, HP Lovecraft gets listed as 5th.

"de Camp & Pratt, REH, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL, and A. Merritt"

I'm not saying add gigantic octopoids. But maybe add stuff that can't actually be killed. Or things that need to be researched before a method is found to kill them.

But really, to paraphrase HPL, the oldest fear is the unknown - the rules need to allow new monsters to be created easily, rather than requiring a Masters in Monster Design like 3E did. The DM needs to be able to come up with interesting monsters from his own imagination.

 

[Felon]

Monsters are scary when they push players out of their comfort zone. This happens:

1) They can bypass standard defenses.

2) They have defenses against the party's "big gun" attacks.

3) They don't play to the party's accustomed tactics.

In the first case, bypassing defenses can be as simple as having good attack bonuses and extreme damage. Or it can be something exotic: energy drain or damage that can't be cured with magic. It can also mean attacking defenses that are typically lower than normal defenses. Or it can be the dreaded "save-or- toast" power. Dragons, beholders, rust monsters, and mind flayers were all made scary by being able to bypass standard defenses.

In the second, resisting a big gun generally means either a resistance to magic, high defenses against certain types of damage. Parties can rely heavily on their own save-or-toast effects, so being immune to suc effects also gets their attention. Undead, oozes, and constructs were mainly scary because they were resistant or immune to a party's big guns.

The third case is a bit more conditional, because different parties use different tactics, but most parties have either a melee or ranged configuration. It's funny how often I find that the resident fighter, paladin, or barbarian doesn't even bother to carry so much as a dagger for throwing or a light weapon for use in grappling. Flying monsters are especially troublesome for melee-heavy parties, as are monsters with aura effects. Monsters with extreme size, reach, or speed are big trouble for ranged parties.

We lost the first two in 4e because were built according to a certain formula. They had weak damage up-front, and save-ends effects were too easy to scrape off. Worse still, it was a bad edition to be undead in, because your immunities went bye-bye while vulnerability to radiant made you a walking joke. The design philosophy was basically "being beaten up and having your attacks resisted isn't fun". What we got instead were monster that dazed to beat the band. Man, it sometimes seemed like being dazed was the default state in some campaigns. Get out of bed in the morning, shower, shave, and put on your daze hat.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

mind flayers are still very very scary... (especiallythe lurker variants...)
notice, that lurker work best, if they are some levels higher than the average party members^^

 

[Beastman]

I would give monsters only a handful of special abilities that are outstanding and make an encounter memorable. Many monsters have so many special abilities that as a GM i cannot use them all or have to study for an hour before play thei stat blocks (including cross-referencing spells) to make combat as smooth as possible.

These few abilities can then by "significant" and should have an impact (not necessarily the death of a PC) effect when used. That would make monsters scary again.

I also have no need for little-variation-monsters: i don't need stats for a goblin warrior, a goblin archer, a goblin shaman, and a goblin assassin, coupled with a goblin ghost-strider-dervish-fireeater and goblin cookpot-thrower.

 

[Aramax]

I dont think any RAW is going to present monsters that work perfictly due to party compasition,as always it will be the DMs job to beef up or tone down.

 

[Celebrim]

Suppose you could make monsters new and fresh again in 5th Edition?

Suppose you could make them truly dangerous and awful and awe-some (inspiring awe)?

Suppose you could make monsters scary, creepy, vicious, a real threat...

How would you go about it?

What would you do, and why?

This would once again be the problem of attributing to system problems that are mostly problems of encounter design.

But, I suppose if you really wanted system support for 'scary', the best thing you could do is integrate a Ravenloft still fear/horror/madness system into the core game.

That's probably not the sort of answer you want.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Well, I want something in the DMG that asks "what happens after the battle is over"? Do the players slit the throats of their fallen enemies? Do they take prisoners? Do their opponents come after them a year later with a veangeance? All of those things are scary in different ways. The issue's always been there, but it's often been handwaved.

This is very important. Also what happens to characters who slit the throats of defeated enemies (out of cowardice to stop them from ever coming back).

First we need morale rules or at least a discussion on which monsters are likely to break and run and under what circumstances. Secondly we need an alignment system that is about moral and ethics and not attacks and defenses.

When this grey area is established the monsters who won't run and won't hesitate to slit the character's throats are scary again.

If every single monster is fearless and fanatical none are.

 

[Jack7]

I also have no need for little-variation-monsters: I don't need stats for a goblin warrior, a goblin archer, a goblin shaman, and a goblin assassin, coupled with a goblin ghost-strider-dervish-fireeater and goblin cookpot-thrower.

No green-haired, sabre-toothed silver daggered moon-beamed goblin Pony Express Courier Circuit Rider who only eats at Applebee's on the second Wednesday of every third month. I'm with you.

I'll settle for Goblins that eat people.

That's probably not the sort of answer you want.

It's not what I want. It's what you wanna say or suggest. A wink is as good as a nod.

 

[GSHamster]

I think D&D needs a good way of handling Alternate Win Conditions.

Historically, they have been too good (save or die) or too weak (4e save per round). The save mechanic is just too binary to be useful.

An analogy is Magic: the Gathering. The primary win condition is reducing your opponent to 0 life. But you can win in other ways, like running your opponent out of cards (decking them).

The thing is that decking someone is not binary. It's a process, and the other side can work to prevent it or slow it down.

For example, suppose Level Drain did not actually drain a level, but if you were drained X times, where X is your level, you automatically died. This makes level-draining monsters threatening in a different manner than high-damage monsters, but isn't insane the way past versions of Level Drain used to be.

 

[Celebrim]

I'll settle for Goblins that eat people.

Which is a good example of why I say that the problem is one of encounter design and not of system.

In order to have goblins that eat people, it's not enough to tell, you have to show. Goblins have to be seen by the players as things that eat people, and not merely, things that go down easily to sword swings.

I think most people in the thread are focusing on the wrong end of the problem. They think that the problem is, "Goblins are percieved as things that go down easily to sword swings", and are looking for mechanical solutions to that problem. So you are seeing lots of suggestions about mechanically amping up monsters with immunities or attacks that by pass defenses or what not. That's not what makes them scary.

What makes them scary is being seen eating people and engaging in other acts of horror.

Likewise, the way you make players panic and afraid isn't by having them know that X monster is immune to Y, or has a potentially lethal attack form. The way you make players panic and afraid is by having them NOT know what powers and immunites the monster has. You take players out of their comfort zone when they don't know what the rules are here and you force them to deal with the encounter not at the metagame level but at the in game level.