I often think about which monster is the “best” By this I mean fun, interesting and easy to balance. So I want to know which monsters you like/are your favourites/you use the most/are the most fun.
Prerequisites:
From official D&D sourcebooks (MM, VGtM, VRGtR, MToF, modules, etc.)
no homebrew
5e
has to be fun to fight
Easy to encounter balance(not too high CR, not too low CR)
can be fought but does not necessarily have to be fought
Has to bring something cool to the game and improve your games
Mimics are probably my favorite. I have to force myself not to sneak them into every situation the players find themselves in. Even if they're strong enough to easily fight a mimic to the point that they're mostly just an annoyance, they're still always fun to throw at your party.
So I make a room that all the furniture is mimics and one of the mimics is a wall section that actually has a symbiotic relationship with a hydra behind it and the mimic doesn’t move but when it dies the hydra gets angry.
Orcs. Listen to Matt Collville people. Whenever you are unsure what to throw at your players? Orcs. Dungeon starting to drag and you need a quick combat to spice things up? Orcs. Are orcs too low CR for your group? Bump their HP to 30-40 and you’ve got a CR 1 orc. Their attack and damage are so high, that all you need to bump them up one CR or two is improved HP. You can throw mobs of them at your players if CR-bumping isn’t sufficient. They are easy to run, fun to fight, and RPing them is hilarious. It’s easy to homebrew orc variants too.
Kobolds. Devious, tricky, trap-improvising, small tunnel carving Kobolds.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I like ghosts, spectres and other incorporeal undead. My players learned the hard way not to underestimate a ghost when half the group became victims of her Horrifying Visage and all aged 20 years in a few seconds. Or when their fighter was possessed and did a very unfortunate Crit in the face of the wizard who went down like a sack of potatos. The fight became even more difficult because the ghost continued to move in and out of the Ethereal plane, and it took them a while before they figured out why their attacks only worked sometimes.
Don’t play them as a random monster trapped in a lake, use them as the eternal intelligence they are, have them place enslaved people around the party or put them under a city slowly taking over the ruling council. An RP heavy group can have great fun wondering why certain NPCs behaviour is changing. You can create a real feel of paranoia and uncertainty.
Once killed they can return again later down the road, after all every aboleth is resurrected and remembers everything it doesn’t specify how long that should take, or if time flows exactly the same between planes.
Altwrnativly a Rakshasha (have to do jazz hands when you say the word). Again running things from the shadows, controlling and taking over an area, and then coming back over and over leading to a trip to hell to kill it at source.
They work really well in pitch darkness - they're stealth isn't amazing but it can be enough to confuse the characters in darkness
They can threaten characters of all levels - a lucky hit can screw over even a high level character with a couple of epic feats
They force teamwork and characters looking out for each other - you don't want to leave a companion paralysed if you can cure it
They're just intelligent enough to not be completely stupid and suicidal
Against low level characters a single ghoul is enough to be a decent boss; against a high level party waves of ghouls can give the players plenty of hard choices and make them react on the ghoul's terms.
Mimics are probably my favorite. I have to force myself not to sneak them into every situation the players find themselves in. Even if they're strong enough to easily fight a mimic to the point that they're mostly just an annoyance, they're still always fun to throw at your party.
This.
My party is so paranoid about mimics now because I just randomly loss one in for the lols on occasion. And it always seems to be one character in particular who gets the bity end of them, which has become a recurring joke that every door and every book and every bookshelf is, indeed, a mimic.
I'll have to say Hobgoblins. They're civilized enough to be reasoned with, and intelligent enough to be dangerous in combat. Between their Martial Advantage and varied units (spellcaster, commander, grunts who work as well in melee as at range), I've had a lot of fun pitting my players against warbands of Hobgoblins.
Honorable mention: Kruthiks. While mechanically simple, Kruthiks in a hive underground can be quite the threat! Inspired by Aliens, I had my players fight their way through swarm upon swarm (coming out of the walls and ceiling) in a bid to escape the hive. It was by far the most intense dungeon I've run, and I'm eager to use them again!
The first thing that comes to mind is - Hobgoblin. They're pretty simple to run, with only one attack per turn and only one special ability. But that special ability is just interesting enough to motivate use of tactics.
They can also be scaled really easily to higher CRs. You can adjust HP up a little if you want a tougher monster. It still hits hard enough for slightly higher levels if it gets off its Martial Advantage. If you need to scale it up more than a few fractional levels, you can go to Hobgoblin Captain or Hobgoblin Warlord and scale up or down as desired.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I often think about which monster is the “best” By this I mean fun, interesting and easy to balance. So I want to know which monsters you like/are your favourites/you use the most/are the most fun.
Prerequisites:
Hydras are awesome!!!!
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
Mimics are probably my favorite. I have to force myself not to sneak them into every situation the players find themselves in. Even if they're strong enough to easily fight a mimic to the point that they're mostly just an annoyance, they're still always fun to throw at your party.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
So I make a room that all the furniture is mimics and one of the mimics is a wall section that actually has a symbiotic relationship with a hydra behind it and the mimic doesn’t move but when it dies the hydra gets angry.
Orcs. Listen to Matt Collville people. Whenever you are unsure what to throw at your players? Orcs. Dungeon starting to drag and you need a quick combat to spice things up? Orcs. Are orcs too low CR for your group? Bump their HP to 30-40 and you’ve got a CR 1 orc. Their attack and damage are so high, that all you need to bump them up one CR or two is improved HP. You can throw mobs of them at your players if CR-bumping isn’t sufficient. They are easy to run, fun to fight, and RPing them is hilarious. It’s easy to homebrew orc variants too.
I'm the Valar (leader and creator) of The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit/Anything Tolkien Cult!
Member of the Cult of Cats, High Elf of the Elven Guild, and Sauce Priest & Sauce Smith of the Supreme Court of Sauce.
If you want some casual roleplay/adventures in Middle Earth, check out The Wild's Edge Tavern, a LotR/Middle Earth tavern!
JOIN TIAMAT'S CONGA LINE!
Extended Sig
Kobolds. Devious, tricky, trap-improvising, small tunnel carving Kobolds.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Nothing teaches humility like thrashing a tier 3-4 party with kobolds.
I like ghosts, spectres and other incorporeal undead. My players learned the hard way not to underestimate a ghost when half the group became victims of her Horrifying Visage and all aged 20 years in a few seconds. Or when their fighter was possessed and did a very unfortunate Crit in the face of the wizard who went down like a sack of potatos. The fight became even more difficult because the ghost continued to move in and out of the Ethereal plane, and it took them a while before they figured out why their attacks only worked sometimes.
Nothing beats a good and old Beholder. Those eyes...
Mind flayers!!!!!!
Aboleth’s
Don’t play them as a random monster trapped in a lake, use them as the eternal intelligence they are, have them place enslaved people around the party or put them under a city slowly taking over the ruling council. An RP heavy group can have great fun wondering why certain NPCs behaviour is changing. You can create a real feel of paranoia and uncertainty.
Once killed they can return again later down the road, after all every aboleth is resurrected and remembers everything it doesn’t specify how long that should take, or if time flows exactly the same between planes.
Altwrnativly a Rakshasha (have to do jazz hands when you say the word). Again running things from the shadows, controlling and taking over an area, and then coming back over and over leading to a trip to hell to kill it at source.
Ghouls. They're my favourite undead.
Against low level characters a single ghoul is enough to be a decent boss; against a high level party waves of ghouls can give the players plenty of hard choices and make them react on the ghoul's terms.
This.
My party is so paranoid about mimics now because I just randomly loss one in for the lols on occasion. And it always seems to be one character in particular who gets the bity end of them, which has become a recurring joke that every door and every book and every bookshelf is, indeed, a mimic.
I'll have to say Hobgoblins. They're civilized enough to be reasoned with, and intelligent enough to be dangerous in combat. Between their Martial Advantage and varied units (spellcaster, commander, grunts who work as well in melee as at range), I've had a lot of fun pitting my players against warbands of Hobgoblins.
Honorable mention: Kruthiks. While mechanically simple, Kruthiks in a hive underground can be quite the threat! Inspired by Aliens, I had my players fight their way through swarm upon swarm (coming out of the walls and ceiling) in a bid to escape the hive. It was by far the most intense dungeon I've run, and I'm eager to use them again!
The first thing that comes to mind is - Hobgoblin. They're pretty simple to run, with only one attack per turn and only one special ability. But that special ability is just interesting enough to motivate use of tactics.
They can also be scaled really easily to higher CRs. You can adjust HP up a little if you want a tougher monster. It still hits hard enough for slightly higher levels if it gets off its Martial Advantage. If you need to scale it up more than a few fractional levels, you can go to Hobgoblin Captain or Hobgoblin Warlord and scale up or down as desired.