That was such a fun creature to run... and the players were terrified. The were still running in terror from it, even when it only had 10 hitpoints left.. which made me laugh at the whole situation.
One player was swallowed, cut his way out and then got snagged again and re-swallowed, where he died in the gut of the beast. When I was reading the encounter and the creature I was thinking that there was no way the party was going to survive... and I was almost right. The encounter took most of their resources and one party member perished (it wasn't the rogue, despite the party pleading with her to jump inside the creature).
I'll have to bring that creature back in some other adventure... nothing says love like 4 tenticles and a lolling tongue.
I loved this monster, as well. I'm especially a fan of aberrations, and their weird SQs and SAs, like the partial electrical immunity. I even went so far as to make the creature gargantuan, giving it all that much more space and reach. One of the most fun creatures to run.
It comes from outer space!!!! This is what endears me to the monster. Some monsters can idly claim that they aren't from this world; the froghemoth really isn't! I simply had to mention the Barrier peaks and my iconic-savvy players instantly recognized its origins. There's even talk of a sidequest after Kyuss is stopped to research the origins of the extra-terrestrial (spelling?) terror...I definitely heart the Froghemoth!!
I loved it running the Frogehemoth as well.
My brother had given me a stuffed toad from Honduras years ago, so I used it as the fig, hiding it from the palyers until the crate was opened. They were sure inside was going to be the Ulgurstasta, but were totally flabergasted when they heard instead:
"GROOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!! Ribit!"
I laughed so, so, hard at that moment, just cracking up.
But yah they had a healthy respect for it, when it nearly killed them both and their little cohorts too. In fact it was kinda the beginning of me heavily using grapple as a tactic for the single big baddie against a party of players. The Frogehemoth had a good range of attacks and was deadly when allowed to focus them.
The Frogemoth downed most of my party as well before it was defeated. This guy was the final draw for the group in terms of grappling. I've easily shut them down with grapple checks from the other monsters leading up to to this guy but his multiple attacks and swallowing on top of it. Yeahhh.. let's just say my players are now taking feats and spells specifically to help them beat grapple checks. Which is a nice change from the super uber combo move they all keep trying to build towards.
A bit spoilerish...
Freedom of movement was the tipping point in the encounter for my players to win out. Once character had it on him, which allowed for him to get out of the grapples. Luckily someone had it readied for the day (having dealt with grapplers several times they learned to be prepared).
Myself and one of my group who had played in the old days of "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" loved it, of course. Dimension Hop saved them because the beast was pounding them to dust. Once I had the tank grappled I figured it was over. Definitely fun, though.
I had a blast with Frogy too. Within the first three rounds three of the four players where at a third of their hit points and running for their lives. One character had been swallowed, though he did manage to cut himself free (with less than 10 hit points). It was looking like it was going to be a TPK, but the party pulled it off.
Madtooth finally dropped from a lucky shot with a sleep arrow (I rolled a 1 on the save). Still, it came off looking heroic as the battle dancer had been using spring attack, along with her boosted movement to get it to chase her.
I was even doing play-by-plays that came off sounding like a WWE wrestling event. A couple of the players ran with it by hamming it up for the crowd after they won.