So, there's another thread about overpowered monsters that are no fun to fight due to cheap tactics like the sceaduinar's deeper darkness, lifesense, antilife shell, and enervation.
What powerful monsters are fun to fight? I've had good results with low-CR humanoids or PC races with class levels, especially themes spellcasters. The whip of insects line of spells was really cool.
Rival Party.
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Stupid constructs are deadly without solid party tactics, but a smart party can troll the nonliving heck out of a golem lacking a ranged response.
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Succubus oh wait you mean fun to fight....never mind.
You will never forget an encounter with a chaos beast.
I kind of like fighting monsters that require lots of teamwork and environmental manipulation.
We once fought a golem (Scout, Paladin, Aristocrat/Bard with gnome cleric/rogue cohort, Truespeaker/Wizard) along a cliff.
My scout lassoed the golem, the rogue/cleric stoneshaped a ramp below and behind the golem, the paladin bull-rushed the golem, the bard cast grease on the ramp under the golem, and the truespeaker/wizard was the bait. My scout got enlarged and jumped off the cliff to pull the golem down, using a one-use featherfall item he had carried for 5 levels.
Very, very fun.
Playing through a dungeon that the final boss is actively partrolig is very dynamic and fun when done right. The villain in question usually needs to have a way to quickly pop in and out like earth glide or dimension door. The difficulty really starts to compound when you have a the final boss dropping in to caste haste or summon a second earth elemental for you to fight while you are going through the dungeon.
I'm doing that with secret doors and kobolds....in 5th Edition.
I'm going to have to do a lot more this...
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Monsters played properly are fun as hell.. If your monster has special abilities like movement, immunities, or range and you're taking advantage of them.
Vampires are one such critter. They should be personally harassing the crap out of the party whenever the priest has his back turned.
Dragons in an open environment should be breath harassing the snot out of the party trying to get them to break ranks. Blacks in swamps are just as nasty. Ever see a black dragon pull a crocodile move at a shoreline?
Kobolds. Kobolds are nothing if not a bottomless bag of fun and hazard, ranging from comically hapless to absolutely diabolical.
A personally fun staple monster for fresh characters are Krenshar. They're usually off-beat enough that they feel new, scary enough to make a fight feel challenging, but simple enough you can throw them out there and not have to worry about the players too much.
Trolls can be a deadly encounter, but they're also fun, especially when the PCs fail their Knowledge checks like our goblins did the other night and have to start improvising idea of how to stop the trolls from coming back to life. We tried chopping off their heads and taking them with us. Shortly afterwards we found a Portable Hole in a nearby treasure hoard and decided to put the trolls into the Hole and then close it. We were actually hoping we'd be able to have our Ninja open it up in an enemy village as kind of a "Troll Bomb" later on, but it turns out that trolls can be killed by suffocation, so now we have our own unique "knowledge" of trolls which states the way to kill them is to chop them up and put the pieces in a Portable Hole.
Depending on the party and the situation you could end up with pieces of troll locked in a treasure chest or a room with a strong door or might see them get thrown into a deep ravine or maybe tossed into a river to float downstream.
Hydras can be fun. I really like manticores--flying artillery!
My friends once fought a mummy in a crypt. They kept failing their saves vs. fear and would run out of the crypt, get un-frightened, then run back in, over and over and over again.
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Hydras can be fun. I really like manticores--flying artillery!
My friends once fought a mummy in a crypt. They kept failing their saves vs. fear and would run out of the crypt, get un-frightened, then run back in, over and over and over again.
Ahahahaha! This is similar to one of our most memorable encounters. While trying to gain entry to a crypt of some sort or other, we were attacked by a Yeth Hound. The entire party except one guy failed their saving throws. Everyone scattered as per the hound's fear effect, leaving this poor fella all by his lonesome to be dispatched in no time at all. The rest of us came to our senses when the fear condition expired and our scout crept forward to confirm that the lone saver was beyond our assistance. We decided to regroup; it was late anyway so a good time to call the game for the night and the dead guy needed a chance to make a new character.
Fast forward to next session: we still need to get into the place guarded by the Yeth Hound. The party, including the newly rolled replacement character, buff ups, gets ready to for the battle we know is coming and we mount our attack. Cue fear effect. Everyone except for that same guy fails their saving throws. Everyone except for that same guy runs off in a panic. And...that same guy's brand new character is murderized while the rest of us cowards survive. We did eventually defeat the guardian and complete the adventure but this experience lives in the annals of our gaming group history as pure comedy: the only guy to die twice, not by failing but by making his saving throw.
Good times!
Succubus. I co-GMed a session the other day (it's a 3-way fight between two demonic factions and the party) and dominating the party's sorceress was rather fun for me and the sorceress in question but the rest of the party not so much (I think she found a lot of satisfaction in polymorphing the high-dps-always-gets-the-kill-near-full-health rogue/gunslinger into a ferret).