What's your favorite villainous creature type?

[Lord Zardoz]

Humanoids

I like my Goblins / Orcs / Hobgoblins. If the encounter is not hard enough in most cases, you can just add more until you hit the sweet spot.

I also enjoy the tactical challenge of keeping them effective as the players get to the levels that make them more difficult to use. Once Fireball comes into play, it does get alot more difficult, but it is doable. (Avoid clustering until you can force a mage to hit his own men. Attack in waves. Readied actions to hit spell casters from multiple archers at medium range, ambush tactics).

Benefits:
- No special case weakness (Turn undead vs Undead, or Prot. From Evil vs Outsiders)
- Easy to add class levels to for champion types
- Easy to improve by adding equipment.
- Large numbers benefit from buffs like Bless more
- Near human Inteligence justifies tactical behaviour.
- They can communicate with the players allowing non combat resolutions
- Players never question why they can repopulate so damn fast
- Its easier to correct a too tough encounter with Humanoids than it is to do the same with a Dragon.
- Humanoid minions are recyclable through the use of Animate Dead.

Drawbacks:
- While lacking a special case weakness, they are just weak.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Aaron L]

Aberrations, Outsiders, and Undead.

I'm a Lovecraft kinda guy. Almost all of my games have at least one of these three types as bad guys, and the best ones have all of them (sometimes in the same creature!)

Oh, how I long to use my 15th level Psychic Warrior Pseudonatural Yuan-Ti Anathema Lich in a game. Oh, that will be a glorious day, indeed...


Interestingly, at game yesterday, while taking a snack break, the DM started reminiscing about old games (he'd had me bring over my Fiend Folio to borrow, and looking through it brought up some memories), and he said that he's only actually ever really gotten a genuinely scary feeling from a game once. He then told everyone about the time when his Paladin and the rest of the party, all around 18th level, were on an arctic plain in search of an ancient temple of the insane alien god Abomination, and in the distance on the horizon saw a giant, tentacled thing moving across the ice towards them. As it got closer, they could see it was a giant, severed head, with tentacles, entrails, and assorted gore hanging from the stump of the neck, dragging it along the ground toward them. (a Pseudonatural Crawling Head.) The battle that ensued cost two members of the party their lives, left the rest mentally scarred, and one completely insane. He told everyone that that was the only time a game had ever freaked him out or actually made him feel the least bit of fear, and one of the best single gaming sessions he'd ever played in.



This guy is our main DM, and has been since I started playing D&D; he's the guy that taught me to play, taught me what it meant to be a DM. He's the best DM I've ever seen, and one of my best friends.

I was honored because I ran the game he described; the only campaign I've ever been able to run through to completion (up to about 25th level.)

For him to say those things about it, that it actually made him feel things... I was amazed, honored, and touched more than I can express. It made me feel that perhaps I'm not as bad a DM as I've always thought... he told me that that campaign was one of the funnest he had ever played.


After that I've decided to start planning a new campaign, to start whenever he wants to take a hiatus DMing. I think it's going to revolve around a conflict between the 2 Evil gods of my world (Alterra); the Abomination and the Adversary. This is going to be fun thinking about

 

[Agamemnon]

I've a fondness for that most horrible, most ruthless, most thoughtless villainous race of them all: humans. After all, a demon can be expected to do horrible things. A beholder can slaughter dozens of men without blinking an eye. A construct would dismember you of ordered to.

But a human being can do all those things, and still be perfectly ordinary. Bob down the street, in fact. He could get his mail, walk to the inn, have a few pints, then walk back home and brutally murder his family and friends with a blunt instrument, cackling like a lunatic. "And he seemed like such a nice man."

That's horror right there. Man's inhumanity to Man.

 

[The Human Target]

I voted for aberrations/humans for the ones I use/like the most.

I like the creepy aliens from beyond time inhumanity of aberrations.

I like humanoids because they can really be interacted with, have understandable motivations, gear that can be taken etc.

Plus, an evil gnome is just creepy.


I'd like to see more fey villains, just because they don't get much airtime.

 

[TarionzCousin]

It's dead-even for least favorite between oozes and plants. Who will lose? Tune in tomorrow....

I picked Undead. They seem more "villainous" than outsiders to me. But then again, I prefer my fiends to be NPC's, not BBEG types.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I picked Humanoids, Dragons, and Magical Beasts.

Humanoids are such a flexible category that anything can be done with them. They are also by far the easiest foes to use in a political conflict. Dark Knights, corrupt kings, evil wizards...

Dragons are just awesome.

Magical beasts are my vote for "should be used more often". There aren't many magical beasts who work well as BBEG types, and that is something that should be fixed. Many magical beasts are classics of fantasy, and make interesting foes in battle. Just raising the Intelligence score for things like Gorgons or Chimeras would make them even more interesting.

 

[Monstrosity]

Voted undead and dragon, because both contain monsters that players fear before they even get into a fight.

My players are so terrified of liches that they pretty much incinerate every skeleton they find lying around, just in case. Liches are also good because they don't necessarly die once the fight is over.

My players love fighting dragons, but they carefully plan every encounter with one in advance if they can because they know how dangerous a dragon can Dragons are also smart and charismatic, allowing them to have a bunch of minions that the players can fight before they get to the big villain.

 

[Pants]

Outsiders (Fiends mostly)
Dragons
Humanoids
Undead

Honorable Mention:
Aberrations

Humanoids make great, well, anything. Most are fairly versatile and can be customized however you want. Hm, I want to do a dwarf-based adventure, well I can have dwarven rogues, fighters, clerics, wizards, pretty much anything I want.

Drawback: Most are heavily reliant on equipment.

Dragons make great 'boss encounters.' They're tough, smart, and they have some pretty good magical abilities. Plus, they're imposing, even if its just a large dragon, most will think twice about going after one.

Drawbacks: Take a lot of work to design/plan for. Harder to run than most monsters.

Outsiders have quite a lot going for them. They usually have potent spells, melee attacks, and lots of special abilities that keep them from becoming predictable. They make good mooks, minions, allies, and even campaign bad guys. Plus, they've got years of lore backing them up.

Drawbacks: Their countless special abilities make them a bitch to run 'right.'

Undead: They're creepy, they have lots of potent immunities, and lots of fairly nasty attacks.

Drawbacks: Fairly low HP, turn undead makes them glass-cannon-esque.

 

[Simm]

Humanoid (human) is by far disproportionatly represented as a villain in my games. Probably because I like creating enemies who's motivations I can easily understand. Undead arn't that uncommon but they're usually ones which retain a human frame of mind to some extent. Dragons and Fey follow because although they are not understandable they are understandably inexplicable. Everything else is just too hard to get into the mindset of to feel I could really pull them off convincingly.

 

[freyar]

I've not run many distinct villains so far because I've only gotten my first campaign to level 4, but I've used humanoids and monstrous humanoids exclusively so far. But I'll be very happy to get into abberations in a few levels.