What monster abilities do you hate and why?

[Runestar]

I've always detested Spell Resistance. Fer crying out loud Saving throws are easy enough, a second one is just too much.

Sr stopped becoming an issue in my games when the casters discovered assay resistance and arcane mastery. Now, nothing short of sr=21+EL fazes them.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

For my money, the problem with Improved Grapple and Grapple in 3.X is multifold.

1) as noted above, its terribly easy for a monster to get a grapple modifier so high that only specialized PC's can avoid the effect.

2) lots and lots of monsters have improved grab, which makes it a more common effect than, Frex Hideous Laughter.

3) The grapple rules are poorly written and focus too much on weird corner cases (frex, stabbing a guy with his own weapon). Grapple thus slows down the game more than something like Hideous Laughter.

So you have a common effect that's hard for a majority of PC's to avoid that slows the game to a crawl when it comes up. Ack.

All of this.

You're far more likely to be grabbed than any other save-or-suck ability. And no, you don't have a fighting chance, unless you're specifically built to do that, which is its own weird corner case.

The other unfun save-or-suck abilities are (a) rarer and (b) somewhat easier to render oneself immune to.

Though I could really do w/o level and stat drains, too.

Brad

 

[Votan]

Sr stopped becoming an issue in my games when the casters discovered assay resistance and arcane mastery. Now, nothing short of sr=21+EL fazes them.

The flip of this is that the use of Assay Resistance has some odd effects on the CR system as spell resistence boosts CR but it doesn't have muche ffect for medium to high level characters with access to this spell.

I think this effects creatures like Drow (higher CR mostly due to SR) and Dragon (who get hit with massive spells immediately) the most.

 

[Greg K]

I don't have a problem as a player or DM with most of the things mentioned. The two things mentioned that I hate.
1. Level Drain. I hate this as both a DM and a player. Drain Strength. Drain Con. etc. I can tolerate as they make sense.

2. Abiility Score Drain. Ok. I just mentioned that I can tolerate draining abillity scores. I hate the recalculation. I would be much happier halving the ability score loss and applying it as penalties to appropriate rolls and reducing carry capacity (if applicable)

 

[malraux]

I don't have a problem as a player or DM with most of the things mentioned. The two things mentioned that I hate.
1. Level Drain. I hate this as both a DM and a player. Drain Strength. Drain Con. etc. I can tolerate as they make sense.

2. Abiility Score Drain. Ok. I just mentioned that I can tolerate draining abillity scores. I hate the recalculation. I would be much happier halving the ability score loss and applying it as penalties to appropriate rolls and reducing carry capacity (if applicable)

3e ability damage never bothered me all that much, though it could take forever fully recover. But drain always sucked, IME. Ability damage and the fixing spell lesser restoration you hit at about the same level, and as mentioned, you naturally recover anyway. But you start hitting monsters with ability drain well before you get access to the countering spell. That always struck me as out of whack.

 

[HighTemplar]

[No message]

 

[Runestar]

Long duration abilities which disable PCs altogether.

You think being stunned for 3d4 rounds by a mindflayer is bad? Try being dazed for 3 days by a sea hag!

I think this effects creatures like Drow (higher CR mostly due to SR) and Dragon (who get hit with massive spells immediately) the most.

It does cost a 4th lv spell per pop, but as a swift action, higher lv spellcasters will barely feel the pinch (their slots of 5th lv and lower are likely to go underutilized).

 

[Noir le Lotus]

I don't have a problem as a player or DM with most of the things mentioned. The two things mentioned that I hate.
1. Level Drain. I hate this as both a DM and a player. Drain Strength. Drain Con. etc. I can tolerate as they make sense.

2. Abiility Score Drain. Ok. I just mentioned that I can tolerate draining abillity scores. I hate the recalculation. I would be much happier halving the ability score loss and applying it as penalties to appropriate rolls and reducing carry capacity (if applicable)

I must say that I like the idea of a monster that doesn't kill by smashing you into pulp or cutting you in pieces. But on the other side, the recalculation is really painful (especially for ability drain/damage).

Monster abilities I don't like ??

I like when a monster is hard to defeat, so usualy, I have no problem with annoying monsters abilities (like rust monsters etc ...).

But I don't like :

* the hydra's Head ability : with a very fast healing (nearly 15 per round) and an ability that can only be countered by one feat (Improved Sunder, and very few Pcs have it) or a sky high AC (to avoid the multiple AoOs provoked by the sunder attempt), it makes the hydra an impossible monster to deal with for a CR 4 monster.

* Grab : I wouldn't have a problem with it except for the automatic "I Win" when very big monster come into play, becoming automatic "I lose" when all the Pcs are in FoM.

 

[Runestar]

* the hydra's Head ability : with a very fast healing (nearly 15 per round) and an ability that can only be countered by one feat (Improved Sunder, and very few Pcs have it) or a sky high AC (to avoid the multiple AoOs provoked by the sunder attempt), it makes the hydra an impossible monster to deal with for a CR 4 monster.

I have never seen sundering its heads one by one as a worthwhile proposition. Seems better to just have the party focus fire and deal enough damage to bring it down in one round, before its fast healing can kick in. It doesn't really have that much hp, and has a fairly poor AC. Thankfully, its attack roll is also fairly crappy (which helps partially offset its obscene number of attacks).