What monsters are poorly designed?

[FireLance]

This thread on spell weavers got me thinking: what monsters are poorly designed?

In the case of the spell weaver, it was pointed out that it could do an average of 105 points of force damage (30d4+30, from 6 magic missile spells) in a single round unless the party manages to kill it first (it has an average of 36 hp). If it wins initiative, it could kill a character. If the party wins initiative, it could be dead before it can act. Either way, a combat encounter with one is just not much fun.

Dire bears and dire tigers suffer from a similar problem. If the entire party can fly, an encounter with one is trivially easy. Otherwise, one of the PCs could end up dead. Again, not much fun.

Have you encountered other monsters that suffer from similar problems? What are they?

 

[Gez]

The Tarrasque.

 

[Zweischneid]

If it wins initiative, it could kill a character.

...

Dire bears and dire tigers suffer from a similar problem. If the entire party can fly, an encounter with one is trivially easy. Otherwise, one of the PCs could end up dead. Again, not much fun.

Well, those all sound like decent concepts for monster too me *shrug*

I mean, thats whats basically a premise behind most monsters, isn't it.

*if you don't see it sneaking up on you, it could kill a character*
*if you don't have a good will-save, it could kill a character*
*if you don't have a silver weapon, it could kill a character*
*if you don't fight it at range, it could kill a character*
*etc.., etc..

Many D&D Monsters fall into that Paper, Scissor, Stone category, which is, quite frankly, still one of the best ways I can come up with myself to design monsters that aren't just either plain fatal (i.e. TPK more or less inevitable) or plain harmless (i.e. a player death highly unlikely).

 

[Hand of Evil]

All of them. But it does not matter in game terms.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

I agree with Zweischneid - if your entire party has invested in being able to fly, you deserve to be able to triumph over some kinds of monsters. The only problems would be

1- if you designed a monster that could only be defeated by characters with a certain ability (flying) and its CR was too low for anyone in the parties it would normally face to be able to use that ability

2- if your campaign world contained no monsters that could handle a party with an ability (like flying) in the CR range where characters are likely to have that ability

Number 2 is not the same as saying that all monsters have to be able to stand up against all abilities a party of its level might have. It'd be a pretty extreme "fix" to give a tiger wings, or the ability to spit poison into the air!

 

[Psion]

The Tarrasque.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[Christopher Lambert]

Animals frequently have terrible AC scores. Same with the tyrannosaurus - it's AC plain sucks. Only +5 natural, and it's Huge and scaled?

The aboleth's domination ability says "as dominate person" but is very different and affects non-humanoids, too. More of an annoyance.

Animated objects have inaccurate CRs; it varies so much based on the base material. Do the CRs assume you used the best material around? I know I wouldn't want to face an animated steel statue at 2nd-level.

Beholders are still wimps.

A lot of demons with spell-like abilities have low save DCs. Suggestions: introduce a feat called Heighten Spell-like Ability and replace Alertness with it. (Note - save DCs shouldn't be allowed to go too high with this.)

Despite 3.5ification, a few creatures still have one or more terrible saves. The phase spider is an example.

Mind flayers. Really, where did their domination ability go?

Dragon spellcasting - too many have nearly useless abilities, their spell save DCs are low, and their caster levels are low, too. Too easy to dispel.

Driders - should have been a template. (The template is available at www.wizards.com/dnd ... somewhere.)

Githzerai - why the Int penalty? Why the astoundingly huge Dex bonus?

Ogre Mages - simply not worth their CR. Why is a CR 9 creature casting sleep? And only once per day? It can't even threaten a village with that.

Remorhaz - heat damage is way too high.

Swarms - especially low-level swarms are usually too powerful.

Vampires - energy drain with their fists? Plus the weaknesses (except sunlight) are, IMO, very stupid.

Most of the rest are fine, with some real gems in there, too.

 

[diaglo]

The Hound of Ill Omen

 

[Voadam]

Vampires, energy drain with *****fists**** in addition to blood drain with bite, they should have dove into edition changes and made vampires straight blood drainers. And where are the mechanics for staking?

Plant, Undead, and constructs being immune to mind-affecting effects, instead of leaving that just to the mindless ones. I can't charm monster a treant?

A lot of the FFE critters from Encyclopedia of Demons and Devils, 2 HD, but huge SR, DR, and occassionally spell-like abilities or spells, either impossible or one shot takes them out.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I'll concur with the idea that many of the creatures seem like they have really low armor classes. I mean, I suppose that some things could increase their chances, like a wizard ally casting mage armor on them but for higher level encounters, I am always amazed at how some creatures just don't seem quite protected enough.