Underrated / Underused Monsters


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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My two cp on underutilized monsters:

Giants- it's rare that giants are used as cunning, dangerous villains. And rare that they play an important role in a the campaign world.

Mimics- I love mimics. There's some great 3rd party stuff on mimics, but they can be useful beyond the first few levels and usually aren't used beyond the first few levels.

Dragons- I throw this in because someone will correct me, and point out a great use of dragons in an adventure that I'm unaware of. 3E's Bastion of Broken Souls is a great use of a dragon as an archenemy, dragons are challenging but rarely major players in the campaign world (or a major player in all the planes, as some should be).

Half-Fiend, Half-Celestial, and Half-Dragon: There are occasional cool uses, but usually they are either used tactically (making encounter(s) more challenging) or for story (sometimes there are great backstories to the half-____ NPC), but rarely both.

Evil Sea Elves: I ran a campaign featuring evil sea (and lake) elves who enslave surface humanoids, and sell them to evil outsiders and the scary aberrations mentioned at the start of the thread. Medium and high level sea elves spellcasters can alter the environment to their advantage (the fight in the middle of town is now an underwater fight).

The Exchange

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Which reminds me that although I use sahuagin fairly often, few other GMs do. Unless PF changed them, they are capable of terrorizing coastlines - anything a short march away from seawater is vulnerable. Though I'll admit they should probably be worth fewer XP when battled out of their own element.


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Shattered star makes good use of a big blue dragon. Its even on the cover and the fight is set up to make use of the abilities quite well. In Reign of Winter there is a good dragon fight early on, and module 4 is pretty much Dragon Riders of Pern.

Edit: Sahuagin are in Skull and Shackles IIRC. which makes sense, and if there isn't' enough of them they are on the random encounter charts.


I am now inspired. At some point my evil campaign PCs will have to fight half celestial dolphins.


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Giants and Oni are rarely ran and when they are, they are ran dumb.

They don't have intelligence penalties and most have bonuses to Wisdom and other mental attributes. No need to run them as Hill Giant+.


Oni rules!!


SPCDRI wrote:

Giants and Oni are rarely ran and when they are, they are ran dumb.

They don't have intelligence penalties and most have bonuses to Wisdom and other mental attributes. No need to run them as Hill Giant+.

Well I don't want to belabor the point, but in Shattered Star the Giants have intelligent tactics and are willing to make long term plans and execute them in addition to making smart use of terrain and their natural advantages.


@ Giants

Doesn't RotRL focus on them? I am under the impression that they are prominently featured in that AP. And when I look at the AP specific forums here RotRL has almost as many postings in it as all other AP subforums together. But I can't comment on the "cunning" part because I don't own RotRL yet.


While there certainly isn't an AP focused on dragons, I believe each AP has has a dragon in it as a boss somewhere. Reign of Winter had two White Dragon baddies in it as well.

Sczarni

Giants make around 2 books of RotRL AP at least. I am semi sick of them already..

On the other hand, if people read about giant descriptions, they would note that some giants are dumb; hill giants and ogres for example. They even don't care so much as to leave their own buddies half dead to save their own skin.

Monsters that I see as underused are: orcs and hobgoblins. These guys are such a old bad guys, and should definitely see more usage. I literally never ever saw them in any AP or PFS scenario that I played or GM-ed.


Spoiler:
Jade Regent
has all the oni you could want.
Also hobgoblins.
And hobgoblin oni.


I like monsters that have some affinity/ability to make each combat unique. Even something as simple as Ghost Sound can be used to make the party unsure as to the nature of the threat and their tactics.


Level 1 Commoner wrote:

Strangely:

Hobgoblins - in all the modules and APs I have read so far they were not even mentioned. Orcs: sure, tieflings: sure, goblins: it`s no real paizo product if those miscreants don`t show up at least once. But hobgoblins seem to be a rare breed on golarion. Maybe they`re too scary when played right. Tough, smart, numerous and most importantly well organized.

hobgoblins wont sit around waiting to be destroyed by the Party, they would put up an active defense and bring it.


Gah!! Lots of spoilers here, guys. If you're going to say "X AP has Y encounters" use a spoiler button.

That being said, I think I've only ever encountered one mephit in my adventuring career. I may have to write some into my current game...


Halfling Barbarian wrote:

Gah!! Lots of spoilers here, guys. If you're going to say "X AP has Y encounters" use a spoiler button.

That being said, I think I've only ever encountered one mephit in my adventuring career. I may have to write some into my current game...

When an encounter is on the front page of the AP for all the world to see, or in the marketing description, I don't' see the point of putting up spoilers.


Apart from the the Mythic book, has anyone seen many templated dinosaurs? Would love to see a fiendish t-rex or an undead Triceratops.

The Exchange

Vampire compsognathus?!


Clockwork Velociraptors?


The Quite-big-but-not-BIG Bad wrote:

Clockwork Velociraptors?

OMG YES! RoboDinos!!

Well, I know what the plot for my next game I run is....Isle of time time...clockwork dinos!..Andoroids...clockwork everything!


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Blindmage wrote:
The Quite-big-but-not-BIG Bad wrote:

Clockwork Velociraptors?

OMG YES! RoboDinos!!

Well, I know what the plot for my next game I run is....Isle of time time...clockwork dinos!..Andoroids...clockwork everything!

Heheh, yeah it's something I've been playing around with for a while as well, a clockwork-themed (or rather, bad clockwork puns-themed) dungeon inhabited by a crazed artificer called the Clocksmith. The enemies include Clockroaches, Clockatrices, Clocktopuses, Peaclocks, Flintclock traps, Clock Lobsters etc....


The question is- can clockwork raptors open doors?

Liberty's Edge

Lincoln Hills wrote:
Which reminds me that although I use sahuagin fairly often, few other GMs do. Unless PF changed them, they are capable of terrorizing coastlines - anything a short march away from seawater is vulnerable. Though I'll admit they should probably be worth fewer XP when battled out of their own element.

Agreed about the Sahuagin. Besides having light blindness as a weakness. One if the few aquatic enemies not forced to stay near watet. Intelligent and organized enough to use tactics. As well as access to magic and sharks.


Here's a monster I'd like to use, but don't know how: shadows.

HOW DOES IT WORK?!?

If you don't have a light source, it can't attack? The shadow must strike your own shadow and not your physical body?

Like I said, how does it work?

I belive that a shadow isn't something that appears in front of you like a wraith or allip, but how does it work mecanically?


To many of you....

Pick up Red Hand of Doom

Loads of hobgoblins AND an evil druid... lich!

Someone has already pathfinderised it for you to boot! Great adventure by James Jacobs no less!

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I ran a campaign that featured evil fey, goblins, hobgoblins, and trolls in 3.5. Lots of MM3 stuff. And a slumbering half-fiend woodling great wyrm red dragon. Basically a topiary dragon in all its autumn splendor!


SPCDRI wrote:


1. Aboleth

The thing that dooms these guys? They "have to be" in water but you just easily change that. Totally creepy, great abilities, tough, great mental scores to make the Evil Mastermind sort. It is a pity that Beholder and Mind Flayer are owned by WOTC and Aboleths are about as rare as hen's teeth in Pathfinder games. The Core 3 Big Bad Aberrations are MIA.

A single aboleth can completely wreck an APL 7-8 party with its domination SLAs, i used one once. I wasn't careful, and had to use Deus Ex machina in order to not murder the entire party. Handle with care!


Vorpal Bunnies but it's understandable. Their awesomeness is just too much for most people to handle.


I'm surprised Aboleths don't show up more often. The fluff seems to suggest that pretty much the entirety of Azlant was a plan on the part of Aboleths.

The Exchange

They don't show up for the same reason we humans don't jump into zoo enclosures. ;) "As long as they're on their little islands, thinking themselves safe, they won't interrupt our work."

Though it can be amusing to drop an aboleth into an AP as a creature the PCs hear referred to, spot from afar, or even speak to, without a combat resulting. They'll immediately go into paranoia mode. (I still do this with mind flayers. Sometimes there really is a plot, and sometimes the mind flayer is just out amongst the blunt-skulls to trick them into thinking that they'd better stop this obviously-part-of-the-mind-flayer-conspiracy plot.)


Set wrote:

Haven't seen a lot of 'classic' monsters like Basilisks, Chimeras, Griffons or Hydras, recently.

While it's not our enemy, my Sorcerer character uses a Griffon as a mount!


FrankManic wrote:
I'm surprised Aboleths don't show up more often. The fluff seems to suggest that pretty much the entirety of Azlant was a plan on the part of Aboleths.

The meteor they dropped on Aslant was slightly larger than they expected. Their civilization is in decline due to collateral damage.

Shadow Lodge

Inkaos wrote:

I really miss Mind flayers.

Aboleths, Mimics, Shining Children, Mothmen.

Unusual uses of templates (For my upcoming campaign I am thinking of pathfinderizing the mind flayer, and then making one a Lich. Because that image really appeals to me).

Halfing or Gnome villains.

I agree with the druid thing. More creepy evil druids. They have access to some really bizarre and disturbing spells (Blood Mist, Cape of Wasps, Contagion, Epidemic, Fungal Infestation, Plague Storm, Plague Carrier, Polar Midnight, Summon Froghemoth, Snakestaff, Swarm Skin, just to name a few)

I feel like the issue with evil druids comes from upper management. I mean we live in a world where their are more CE demigod options that are appropriate for a druid to worship then NE and that would be where most of them would go. I mean I've heard the debate that their are more druids to Cyth'v'sug then to the horsemen of Famine or Pestilence.


Inkaos wrote:
Halfing or Gnome villains.

I think I've used nigh every race as a foe, but never one of these. Must line one up.


You would think short person syndrome would drive a lot of half longs/gnomes to villainy. Also don't see a lot of major goblin villains. Poor little guys seem to only be there to be stepped on on your way to the Bbeg.

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