Wierding out / customizing your monsters

[RedWick]

How about a woodland entity akin to a medusa or a cockatrice which, instead of stoning it's victims, turns them into plants?

 

[Psion]

When traveling through a graveyard, the party came across what were basically hot goth chicks. They had a tendency to disappear from sight, and reappear far away. Sometimes, they'd assume the shape of tombstones (an excellent way to ambush the party).

They also had a penchant for mind-affecting magic.

I wish I could find the original post that described them - it was magnificent.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1802495&postcount=5

It was linked in the previously linked thread.

 

[Dog Moon]

Another tact is to add PrC levels to monsters. Just today I added Hunter of the Dead to a Spellwarped Otyugh. [Spellwarped is from MMIII] Although technically it normally advances into stronger Otyugh, due to the template it had a 9 Int, so I saw no reason for it not to be able to take a PrC. Give it a little history which makes sense, and voila, you have a variant creature and who would expect an Otyugh to dislike and hunt Undead?

How about a cockatrice who bites and paralyzes instead of petrifies so it can eat its meal while the creature is still alive? That would be a painful death. Better yet would be keeping the same stats, take away flying, give it climb, and have it be a squirrel. The image of the cockatrice is what people recognize, so the best way to confuse people is to change the image.

 

[Psion]

Whoops... I see dog moon already posted the post I linked to.

Here's another thread along the same lines:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2011

I particularly like Pielorinho's cosmic horror nightmare creature:

In a recent game, for example, my players fought the nightmarish remnants of a man who was driven insane by Lovecraftian cultists. His nightmares appeared as a cloud like a galaxy that distorted space and time around the players until they couldn't tell what was directly in front of them and what was as distant as the stars that appeared in the cloud. Mammoth faces appeared and disappeared in the cloud, at one moment distant as the stars and the next moment next to the character, screaming and biting mercilessly at the PCs' exposed flesh. Every now and then a comet or shooting star would flash in front of the party, blinding them with brilliant light.

Hmm... a creature with
-A constant confusion effect
-Multiple bite attacks
-A blinding attack every other round

Yep: it was a gibbering mouther. Only described in different terms that (I believe) appropriately freaked out my players. After the session I told them what it was, and one of them commented, "I had no idea how nasty gibbering mouthers were!"

Truth is, it wasn't any nastier than normal. It just looked it, and because the PCs weren't able to put a label on it, the battle was scarier.

Dressing up monsters in different clothes is a lot of fun, and can go a good way toward giving your adventures the appropriate ambience. I much recommend it.

 

[DMH]

How about a woodland entity akin to a medusa or a cockatrice which, instead of stoning it's victims, turns them into plants?

Splinterwaif from the MM III. Nasty fey, it is.

 

[Gez]

I'm rather proud of my Choker++. Advanced (to Medium size) Choker + Corrupted Template (BoVD) + Entropic Template (PlanarHB).

They managed to make the PC flee in panick, and it had been a long time I've tried to make them do so.

 

[Dog Moon]

Oh yeah, here's another good thread. It's about adding templates/classes to different creatures. It may not be QUITE what you're looking for, and a lot of the creatures are quite powerful, but it does add a fair amount of power to many of the creatures found in the MM.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=44315

 

[kigmatzomat]

method of movement can make quite a difference in combat if the move is changed from ground to flight if the players have not yet become comic book characters who fly everywhere.

Actually, I meant from going from say, 4 legs to slithering like a snake, millipede legs, a large snail-like foot, etc not changing types of movement.

 

[Thasis]

Well it is quite possible to give them masks, armour, etc, to make them unreconizable. Also adding certain templates or having them have acess to Shapechanging spells can be intressting.

 

[genshou]

I'm going to again point out that the Extraterrestrial template in d20 Future is a very good tool. While it is designed to make D&D monsters into alien bioforms for d20 Modern, it can be used in a D&D setting to produce a radically different monster the players will not recognize as its base creature.

Take the following:
Extraterrestrial Bulette (3E MM version)
Huge Beast
HD: 9d10+45 (94 hp)
Initiative: +2 (Dex)
Speed: 40 ft., climb 20 ft.
AC: 22 (-2 size, +2 Dex, +12 natural)
Attacks: Bite +12 melee, 2 claws +7 melee
Damage: Bite 2d8+8, claw 2d6+4
Face/Reach: 10 ft. by 20 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Leap
Special Qualities: Blindsight, poisonous bite
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +8, Will +4
Abilities: Str 27, Dex 15, Con 20, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 6
Skills: Jump +12, move silently +7
Climate/Terrain: Temperate mountains and underground
Organization: Solitary or pair
Challenge Rating: 7
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 10-16 HD (Huge); 17-27 HD (Gargantuan)

By swapping out a burrow speed for a climb speed (normally we would swap out a burrow speed of 1/2 base land speed for a climb speed equal to base land speed, but in this case the creature had a lower burrow speed), and trading in scent and tremorsense for blindsight and a venomous bite, we have created a poisonous rock-dweller that likes to climb above its foes and leap down on them. I moved its skill points around to reflect this, as listen is not an essential skill for a creature with blindsight. You could describe it as an eight-legged, dog-like creature with a tough hide, batlike ears and a maw of wicked teeth. No one encountering it in-game would ever suspect it was originally a bulette.