Which monsters are the most effective / fun in game?

[kensanata]

Well, single monsters that resulted in memorable fights...

I really liked the fight against the fiendish behir in Red Hand of Doom by James Jacobs & Richard Baker (Wizards of the Coast). Two characters swallowed using the Heal staff every round, the fighter grappled, and the cleric slaying the beast in a last ditch move... It was awesome. Yes, I like Improved Grab, Swallow Whole, and grapple modifiers of +25 and more.

I also enjoyed the fight with with the elite mohrgh juvenile green dragon in Guardians of Dragonfall by Anson Caralya (Paizo). Paralyzing tongue, swallow whole, retreat into a pool of acid. I liked it.

Maybe not what you were looking for? Mixed encounters with ordinary monsters out of the MM that worked for me:

• At low levels a party of orcs and an ogre (German page) were very scary but doable (from Crucible of Freya).
• At lower midlevels an encounter with two hieracosphynxes, two wyverns, and two sorcerers that knew how to cast lighting bolt atop a city wall (50% of the party is perfectly aligned) worked well (from Red Hand of Doom).
• At high midlevels an encounter with 15 flamebrother salamanders, 6 ordinary salamanders, and two noble salamanders with one of them arriving late out of a tunnel and already having summoned an elemental protecting the tunnel and casting maximized enlarged fireballs behind its back worked well for me.

If you're really just talking single monsters straight our of the MM... I don't know. These encounters have often proved to be either cakewalk or extremely dangerous for my players. It was hard to get right. Adding more minions and monsters makes it easier for me to adjust the difficulty because I can have some of them run away or crawl out of nearby tunnels as required.

I once ran an encounter with a few airwalking invisible Lunar Ravagers. That went ok except that I killed the rogue during the encounter. Always a bummer.

I looking for some suggestions on this thread myself...

 

[Celebrim]

Heh. Alot of people have chosen monsters I've been big fans of since 1st edition. In particular, back in my very first homebrew campaign the biggest baddest most feared thing on the map was a triple HD manticore with a Dragonne's roar and a Dragon's fear aura. And I love stirges, hydras, ettercap and slaad. (see link in signature)

In fact, I love stirges so much that they've shown up in several different guises in just my 3rd edition games. I've had stirges, giant mosquitos that used strige stats, and stirges with the air elemental template and a special suffication attack (nasty). Additionally, stirges are even tougher under my house rules because they can use the clinch manuever while feeding (think grappling for creatures smaller than the thing that they are grabbing), making them very hard to get off you. Striges go down hard to combat reflexes + cleave though.

In order to get alot of bang for the buck, the monster has to have several characteristics:

a) It has to be reasonably cunning, or at least have an effective strategy.
b) It has to be able to deal with PC's generally superior artillery. That is it either has to have ranged attacks or flight or better yet, both (see manticore).
c) It has to have at least one attack which is relatively level independent in effect. That is, it has to always have a chance of overcoming party defenses no matter how strong they become. This includes things like touch attacks (especially ranged touch attacks) and attacks which bypass AC entirely and are at worst half damage (or other reduced effect) on a failed save. Monsters that are incorporeal or can cast magic missiles (or even stinking clouds) are likely to be good pound for pound monsters that can be useful opponents over a wide range of levels.

My choice would be Shadows. They are incorporeal which lets them largely bypass AC and gives them good resistance to most attack forms and makes them good ambushers/evaders. Thier strength drain attack is extremely annoying regardless of PC level, and down right lethal at lower levels. Of course, they can go down hard to clerics.

Another monster I get alot of use out of is mephits. They consitute a fairly frequent mid-to high level minion. They've got flight, a level invariant attack, and decent resistances and spell abilities. A swarm of them constitutes a if not a challenging encounter regardless of level, at least a resource depleting/threatening one.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I have had some good times running Red Hand of Doom, Kensantana. The fiendish behir did not really have a very significant effect in my game simply because it got dropped a bit too fast. However, I did manage to swallow one of my players that game. While Grapple can work out quite handily, the way it basically screws the player who gets grappled is a bit of a problem. It is a pity because I actually really liked that monster too. I think it would just work out better playability wise if the chance of escaping a grapple were easier, or if the player had more tactical options within the grapple beyond "Hope for some great luck on the opposed roll so I can do something".

Interesting point about attacks that are relatively 'level independant' celebrim. I am a bit ambivalent about such abilities myself. On the one hand, they do keep certain monsters viable much longer than they otherwise would be. On the other hand, such monsters have a tendency to be a bit more dangerous than I would like them to be, since 'level independant' tends to mean ability damage within 3rd edition.

One of my favorite monsters for level independant effect in 3rd edition are Baaz Draconians. They are pretty durable as cannon fodder, though hardly remarkable in that respect. But where they excel is in the effect of their Death Throes. Typically, if you kill one, you are forced to make a Reflex save or you will be disarmed for what usually amounts to the rest of the fight because they turn to stone and trap the weapon. For front line types, that is a huge problem at any level. Once you hit about 6th level or so, alot of your combat ability comes from the weapon you are using.

Consider a 9th level fighter with the following
- Wpn Focus
- Wpn Specialization
- Magic weapon enhancement bonuses of +2
- Wpn Mastery (the +2 / +2 requiring a Bab of +8 from the PHB 2)
- Imp Critical.

If he loses that weapon, than he has lost +5 to hit and +6 to damage for the duration of the encounter.

Aside from the potential impact, it also has the benefit of not forcing the player to work out new modifiers due to ability damage or level drain.

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[Woas]

I've had a lot of success akin to manticores with griffons. Their flight gives them great mobility, plus they have pounce and rake.
And that little bit of lore about griffons attacking and eating horses is great because they are often encountered right at that sweet spot when characters have enough extra wealth to invest their gold into horses, saddles, etc. and actually use them and want to protect them when the griffon(s) dive bomb them from the sky. Maybe even swap out Iron Will for Flyby Attack and you got Stuka Griffons.

I've also had success with ettercaps. Their low CR of 3 makes for a good low level 'boss' villain but also scale well as the characters gain in level. And they are very easy to customize by giving the ettercap different kinds of monstrous spiders that live with it for a different mood.

Lastly are two more magical beasts that has served well. Hell hounds and Krenshars. They both make great pets for stronger opponents. Especially the krenshars. Players think it's just an ol' pack-o-wolves but then "OH MY GOD THEIR FACES ARE PEELING OFF!!!" and it really gets them wigging out.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I have not had much success with Hell hounds, though probably because I am either not using enough, or using them too late. The breath weapon ability though does keep them viable much longer. Even if the Bab sucks, the Save for Half damage can add up if you have enough, I suppose.

Also, Hell Hounds have the bonus of being able to get past Invisibility with the Scent feat.

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[theskyfullofdust]

I've always loved bulettes, and I like the look of the 4th Edition version. I would love to run an encounter, maybe a side trek, akin to the film Tremors, with the land sharks are the principle monster.

Trolls were a favourite inprior editions of the game, but not used them in 3.x.

Manticores are good; so much that my wizard created spells that used their spikes as a missile weapon & as spell components.

 

[Celebrim]

I have not had much success with Hell hounds, though probably because I am either not using enough, or using them too late. The breath weapon ability though does keep them viable much longer. Even if the Bab sucks, the Save for Half damage can add up if you have enough, I suppose.

Also, Hell Hounds have the bonus of being able to get past Invisibility with the Scent feat.

I've had great success with Hell Hounds in mixed encounters - usually of the hunter and hounds variaty. As you point out thier breath weapon is fairly level independent (at least until fire resistance items become common), and the scent ability helps them protect creatures that would otherwise be easy to ambush. They also tend to be immune to the most common low level (typically fire based) area of effect attacks.

Typically, I have the hounds do typical pack tactics - try to flank, try trip attacks, grapple weaker combatants, if targeted fight defensively, etc. Generally I'll accompany them with something with a decent ranged attack (hobgoblin fighters or rangers for example), and something that makes a decent brute/blocker (plate armored ogre fighters). Individually everything has a much (or much much) lower CR than the party, but still makes for a pretty exciting fight and one that isn't over as quickly as a single CR equivalent brute tends to be. You just got to be careful when calculating the XP the fight is worth that you don't overestimate the difficulty.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

In the same vein as shadows, I have much love for the Joystealers from MMIV. All the goodness of touch attacks and incorporealness, the cleric can't turn em, and you'd best believe that the big burly fighter goes down a lot faster when you start sucking his cha.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I've always loved bulettes, and I like the look of the 4th Edition version. I would love to run an encounter, maybe a side trek, akin to the film Tremors, with the land sharks are the principle monster.

I recently ran a fight with some Bulettes. I set up the encounter to use two. One to show up initially, and another to join in after 4 rounds. Given the HP and decent AC of the beast, I expected it to be a pretty tough fight.

In practice, they turned out to be Glass Cannons. Scary glass cannons sure, but the first one dropped in about 3 rounds to four 8th level characters. I might have mitigated it if I had the first one burrow and wait for the 2nd to show up. Definitely worth a revisit later though.

I've had great success with Hell Hounds in mixed encounters...

Individually everything has a much (or much much) lower CR than the party, but still makes for a pretty exciting fight and one that isn't over as quickly as a single CR equivalent brute tends to be.

I tend to favor running fights with multiple opponents as well for similar reasons. Solo creatures just do not have much middle ground between TPK and Nuisance. Manticores are an exception to that, since the Spike volley when flying is both flexible and dangerous. Multiple opponents tends to have several advantages. It is a good counter to builds that inflict huge damage on single opponents, and it is easier to adjust the difficulty of the encounter.

The only problem I am having right now is that my players have some pretty strong defenses at their disposal. I have one fighter that has an AC of 23, and a Cleric that has an AC of 21, and uses Shield of Faith to kick that to 26 or so. The party Sorcerer has Greater Invis, which tends to make targeting him difficult. The party Ranger comes in at AC 18, which is just manageable for me to target with most plausible fodder types.

I tend to prefer opponents who can hit on a 16 or higher for most melee opponents, and I like to use a hand full of them. There just are not many creatures which fit that criteria that do not also inflict so much damage on a hit that using 6 to 10 of them is a good plan.

Given that I am running RHoD right now, here are my opinions of the monsters that I have used. I should note that I use Draconians from the Dragonlance setting rather than the Dragonspawn.

Goblin Warg Riders: Excellent for harassment. They manage a +9 to hit with their bows, and mounted archery can keep them out of harms way. The only downside is that they do not do much damage with their bows.

Ghost Blood Berzerkers: These are very effective at keeping my players wary. When Raged and power attacking at the maximum, they still have a surprisingly high attack roll, and inflict 1d12+20 damage. They also have enough HP to make up for a relatively low AC.

Blade Bearers: Adequate to hit bonus, but not especially effective.

Ghost Dire Lion / Ghost Brute Lion: Not bad, but not great.

Half Fiend Behir: Effective, but Grapple dependant.

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[BlueBlackRed]

A pair of gargoyles with some rogue levels is nice to throw at PC's.
They have DR for a little extra survival
Flight for some maneuverability
And sneak attack damage with all of their attacks.

Also babau demons are good for similar reasons, just replace DR/magic with DR/good or cold iron and teleportation to get into flanking positions rather than flight.