What D&D monster has changed the most over the years?

[Redshirt]

Piercer's have changed a great deal. The change to Darkmantle made them more than just a one shot gimmick.

 

[Lancelot]

I'll second the posters who went with archon, deva and lamia. Those three have clearly seen some massive change. I'd say the eladrin have seen less change. Even in 2e, there were strong similarities between them and "grey elves".

However, I'll also offer another creature that has seen significant change (and should appeal to Shemeshka): the humble nycadaemon.

• Early 1e: First introduced wayyy back in D3 - Vault of the Drow, the nycadaemon was clearly a top-order fiend; perhaps the most powerful of the Neutral Evil fiends.
  • Their appearance in the vault was a Big Deal. The supreme priestess of Lolth, Charinida, had one on call in her bedchamber (...in an amusing piece of Gygaxian mischief, the nycadaemon could be accidentally summoned by the PCs and, in Gary's words, it would be quite unhappy to see the PCs - as it expected something else entirely...).
  • Ed Greenwood, in his classic Nine Hells articles in Dragon magazine, described this: "It is said that the nycadaemon Daerith once appeared unannounced over the lake of Cocytus and flew toward the palace of Asmodeus, and before it reached the crags about the lake was destroyed utterly, torn apart bodily by pit fiends on patrol."
  • Stat-wise, a nycadaemon would have a Type VI demon (balor, to you youngsters) for breakfast. Seriously. It wouldn't even be a contest. Until the release of MM2, only pit fiends would come close.
  • So, uber-powerful fiends. Named. Consorts of the mighty. Would dare to approach, alone, the mightiest citadel in all of the Outer Planes.
• Later 1e: Relegated to 3rd most-powerful of the non-unique daemons in MM2. Arcanadaemons and Ultrodaemons? Really?!? Goofy jackal-headed furries and humanoid hypno-toads? [...all hail the hypno-toad...]
• 2e: Oh, the embarrassment. DiTerlizzi, otherwise one of my favorite artists, makes the fearsome Nycaloth (name change!) look like a goofy teddy-bear with an under-sized axe. And the fluff turns them into glorified couriers and messengers. Still #3 on the 'loth pecking order, but the loss of street cred is palpable.
• 3e: An artistic mistake (...this is true! It was a genuine mix-up between WotC art dep't and the artist!) gives the nycaloth two additional arms! They're now a 4-armed beastie, with two axes. This is one of the few... maybe the only time an iconic D&D creature has changed because of an art mistake.
• 4e: More change, to nycademon (note: demon, not daemon). Fluff change - they're demons, not daemons or yugoloths. But, finally, 4e returns the nycademon to it's uber-power roots. The most powerful nycademon variants are higher level and more potent than either the ultrodemon or the raavasta (arcanademon). And, sigh, still four-armed. Due to an artistic error in 5e, I fully expect them to have six arms sometime later this decade.

So, in summary: three different names, major fluff changes, power changes, role changes, art changes, mechanical changes due to varying number of limbs (!).

Certainly not as dramatic as the archon or the lamia (which have been completely redesigned), but the poor old nycadaemon has been kicked around in every single edition since AD&D.

 

[messy]

can i mention a monster whose appearance has changed?

old kenku:

new kenku:

the new version is much cooler-looking, IMO.

 

[Richards]

And while we're on the subject of appearance changes, how about the poor carrion crawler?

1E - Its body consists of a string of beach balls glued together with two bent legs on each segment.

2E - Tony DiTerlizzi perfectly nails the illustration in the Monstrous Manual, making it fit its description for the first time ever.

3E - A new "interpretation" of a classic monster (boy, how I hate those! - leave the classics alone!) gives the carrion crawler a mouth full of teeth, and moves the tentacles to the bottom of its mouth, where they look like rather ridiculous tongues.

4E - No idea for sure, but I believe I heard the 4E carrion crawler looks pretty much like the 3E one. (Boo!)

Johnathan

 

[pawsplay]

This is one of the few... maybe the only time an iconic D&D creature has changed because of an art mistake.

Actually, that happened to both the orc and the kobold.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Up to 3e, I nominate the goblin. IIRC, In each version of D&D the little buggers got faster. This shows clear lines of evolution as the slower ones failed to live long enough to reproduce.

I do not think they got faster for 4e, showing the utter failure of either the system or the goblin to further evolve.

Hwh, could be an interesting campaign premise. 1E was prehistory, and 4E is the last however many years.

 

[Dragonhelm]

My vote goes for the displacer beast. This is purely for the visual.

In 1e, the displacer was based on the Coeurl from "Black Destroyer."

While the artwork was perhaps primitive by today's standards, it was truly a feline terror. This is my second-favorite version.

In 2e, the displacer was sleek, panther-like. Loved the artwork. This is my favorite version.

In 3e, WotC starved the poor creature. PETA tried to come to its rescue, but they never could catch the poor creature to put a collar on it and lead it to safety. So it became skin and bones. Poor thing.

In 4e, it turned into some weird canine thing. I don't even recognize it any more. At least it found some food.

 

[Shemeska]

[*]3e: An artistic mistake (...this is true! It was a genuine mix-up between WotC art dep't and the artist!) gives the nycaloth two additional arms! They're now a 4-armed beastie, with two axes. This is one of the few... maybe the only time an iconic D&D creature has changed because of an art mistake.

I actually have the original artwork of that mistake framed and hanging on my living room wall. But to be honest, I really liked the change, even if it was because of a mistake.

But don't forget that due to a similar art order error, the Prince of Demons himself (themselves?), Demogorgon, briefly had hyena heads in 3.x in the BoVD. Heresy I know, but I thought it looked cool.

[*]4e: More change, to nycademon (note: demon, not daemon). Fluff change - they're demons, not daemons or yugoloths. But, finally, 4e returns the nycademon to it's uber-power roots. The most powerful nycademon variants are higher level and more potent than either the ultrodemon or the raavasta (arcanademon). And, sigh, still four-armed. Due to an artistic error in 5e, I fully expect them to have six arms sometime later this decade.

They did introduce the so-called "nycaloth general" in late 3.5 which made them pretty mechanically powerful. Though 3.x could never seem to make up its mind about what the 'loths did and if they were or weren't major powers on the lower planes. It wildly fluctuated depending on what folks were running the design team as WotC changed staff over the duration of 3.x. And so far as 3.x not ever being certain what to do with the 'loths half of the time, let's not forget (or try to forget?) the battleloths, and the two super late 3.5 yugoloths who actually ignored the racial naming scheme (and most of the racial flavor text up to that point as far as I could tell): the voor and the corruptor of fate.

 

[Lancelot]

And so far as 3.x not ever being certain what to do with the 'loths half of the time, let's not forget (or try to forget?) the battleloths, and the two super late 3.5 yugoloths who actually ignored the racial naming scheme (and most of the racial flavor text up to that point as far as I could tell): the voor and the corruptor of fate.

Ugh. Yeah.

I thoroughly enjoyed 3e as a system when it came out, but the treatment of the daemons/yugoloths was pretty horrible. The first few 'loths released were dreadfully underpowered. And then... things just went to heck. Battleloths? Voors? Whaaa....?

I also liked hyena-headed demogorgon. I vastly preferred him to 3e's re-imaging of gross, pot-bellied Orcus to buff, Balor-esque Orcus. Don't even get me started on metal-skinned, rippling-with-muscles 3e Dispater.

Wow. I can't believe that a 4e fanboy like me agrees so much with Shemmy in a single post. Must be the shared love of all things Planescape. It transcends the Edition Wars!

 

[Dire Bare]

Most changed
Archons:
1e/2e/3.x = Lawful Good celestials
4e = evil elementals

While you're not wrong, I see this change differently. The 4E "angel" concept replaced the celestial archons and the aasimon (devas, planetars, solars). That left those two names/terms open, and aasimon is kinda a wierd dumb/cool name (IMO). The elemental archons actually are a revamp of standard elementals from the earlier editions, taking only the name from the old celestials. ("true" elementals were introduced later in 4E)

While I agree with the 4E designers that we had a too confusing array of "angels" in 3E, I wish they had kept some aspects of the original archons and aasimon in the new angel concept, although I do like the new angels too.