Your Worst Template and Class Monster

[joela]

Something I started over at rpg.net:

And I don't mean "worst" as in "bad". I mean nasty, over-powering, etc., something to remind the PCs that monster means MONSTER.

Here's mine:
Fiendish warlock adult black dragon.

Give me your most frightening combos, Paizoians!

[Matthew Morris]

The classic Half red dragon troll.

Half black dragon fiendish troll.

anything with the vivacious template

[The Dalesman]

My most memorable foe from 3.0 was a tribe of half-fiend stone giant barbarians I cooked up for a one-shot epic adventure. Half of them hit the party mercilessly with blasphemy while the other half raged and beat the stuffing out of the PCs. The first encounter with them almost wiped out the party, but they managed to fall back and regroup. They came back strong for the rematch, though, and eventually finished the tribe off.

Now that I own the Advanced Bestiary, I'm having a tough time deciding what I want to add to my RotRL campaign, and where to add it. Choices, choices...too many choices... :P

Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"

[LMPjr007]

This is easy: Vampiric Lich

[PurinaDragonChow]

I just fought a vampiric hag in a session a couple of nights ago. She had a mephit pet. That fight was brutal for the CR it was. We were in an enclosed space - half the room was filled with a stinking cloud, the other half with obscuring mist. Two party members were immobilized from her strength damage as soon as they got into the room.

[Stewart Perkins]

PurinaDragonChow wrote:

I just fought a vampiric hag in a session a couple of nights ago. She had a mephit pet. That fight was brutal for the CR it was. We were in an enclosed space - half the room was filled with a stinking cloud, the other half with obscuring mist. Two party members were immobilized from her strength damage as soon as they got into the room.

Wasn't mine but a friend of mine once had us encounter a full assault force of Ogre Magi, who the leader three each had an at-will spell of 4th or higher level. One had disentegrate at will, one had reverse gravity, and one had stoneskin. They came in pre stoneskinned, the one spammed disentegrates, the leader (who had stoneskin ability) cast a prismatic dome over us (don't remember if it's just an application of Prismatic wall or a variant, and the third used his reverse gravity to fling us through the sphere and make us take all 7 layers of pain... We actually survived (well most of us).

As for my personal guy, a Vampire Cleric of the God of Death. He also had levels in Blackguard. He wasn't so much super powerful, he was just hated by the players. Oh and I gave a living demon sword to a player that slowly took him over.... talk about a nasty surprise.

[Cato Novus]

Mine would be the "Frank Zombies". They were living people who were cursed with "half-death".

Until the hunger strikes them, they're normal people, but afterward they become driven to feed. Although, magic can reveal that they are cursed.

Since they're not undead, they can't be turned.

Negative energy(such as Inflict spells) only dealt half damage. Likewise, positive energy only healed for half. Feeding upon the living healed them completely.

Their underworldly hunger pushes them beyond their normal limits, allowing them to ignore pain(DR 2/-) and light fortification.

The fact that they're not mindless means they can reason and formulate plans.

They get half the physical bonuses that a standard zombie gets, no mental bonuses.

They gain a Charisma bonus to all Will saves. They can order any uncontrolled mindless undead of equal or lesser hit dice(although anyone with the ability to take control normally can still do so).

This curse spreads similarly to lycanthropy. Any living being they kill does not rise as a zombie.

Once they are killed, they rise as real zombies in 1d6 rounds. The Frank Zombie template is replaced with the standard zombie template. The exception with this rule was if the character was decapitated or head destroyed, they would not rise as a standard zombie.

Once their hunger is sated, they typically become grief-striken over what they have done.

I called them "Frank Zombies" because that was the name of their leader. It was a bit of a joke because I was using 3 by 5 inch index cards to keep track of things, but I didn't want my players figuring things out, so I put code names on them("Oven Mitt" for a looted gauntlet, for example) as a means of me knowing which card stood for what without giving away what exactly I was looking at. Referring to the character as "Frank" just kinda stuck when he made his entrance.

"I am... FRANK!" said in a menacing manner at a dramatic can really confuse your players and keep them off-guard.

[ericthecleric]

The following might be too high in CR for you, but in one adventure I had the following:

An encounter with a “polar sickener” (Living Ooze template (MM3) featuring polar ray, ray of enfeeblement, and wave of exhaustion; CL 20th, CR 20) and an advanced (7-HD) paragon carrion crawler (CR 20) in one encounter. Additional versions of these creatures could be released separately later on.

Enhanced dire tigers (CR 16) encountered in trios. These were advanced (28-HD) dire tigers with the corrupted creature (Book of Vile Darkness) and monstrous beast (Savage Species) tempates applied, with the latter template adding the Cold type and a petrifying gaze. They also had the Final Strike (Savage Species) feat, too, as a final “F-you”.

In the same adventure I also had several Ak’chazar Rakshasa (MM3) ur-priest/mystic theurges with war troll rogue6 guardians. The latter had the Tomb-Tained Soul (Libris Mortis) feat, meaning that the latter would be healed by the rakshasas’ pain wave ability. Naturally, the rakshasas fly invisibly above the PCs and trolls while the pain wave is active! :-)

6 dread wraiths and 8 ropers (OK, no templates there but it was a nice mix of creatures! ;-) ) The ropers were split into two groups of 4, on either side of a 40-foot wide room, while the wraiths attacked as necessary, ganging up on individual PCs.

I also considered writing an adventure about avolakia (MM2) warshaper/sorcerors allied with mind flayers. Since the avolakias and their undead minions would be immune to the mind blast ability, it seemed a nice combination.

Another adventure idea I had included the following:
Eleven-headed very old fang dragon (Draconomicon) simulacrum (multi-headed creature template (Savage Species), and knowing the spells masochism and sadism (both from Book of Vile Darkness)
Deathdrinker (MM3) simulacrum
Werewolf Chameleons (Dire werewolf rogue1/chameleon 10; the PrC is from Races of Destiny) encountered in pairs.
Great wyrm hex dragon (Dragon 343) simulacrum (with a very old hex dragon as the adventure’s BBEG)

I’ve also contributed a number of nasty SOBs to www.dmtools.org

[fray]

Barbarian Greathorn Minotaur of Legend
This bad boy beat the crap out of a 16th level party of 6. He was the last one standing and his fellow bad-guys were gone or unconscious. The DM only saved the TPK by offering them a chance of surrender. His only real opponent was the dwarf monk who he had a hard time hitting, needed a 18-20 I think and the monk was doing little damage when he did hit. (he was fighting defensively.)

[ArchLich]

Dragon + Ghost

Spell Stitched + Dracolich

[SmiloDan]

I've used mounted paladin ghosts mounted on ghost special mounts, all wearing ghost-touch armor and ghost-touch shields. Nothing like a lance charge that ignores the PC's armor!

The ever popular half-fiend woodling (MM3) greatwyrm red dragon. Blasphemy alone can TPK the party!

[Repairman Jack]

A lower level pain in the ass creature:

Bat swarm with the half-dragon template. CR4. I prefer red dragon, but blue works well too. Some of the template stuff is useless, but the bigger hit die and breath weapon freaks out players.

[Dementrius]

Young adult gold dragon monk1/paladin2 with a vow of poverty. It wasn't really fair.

[Krome]

Half-Demon Cleric Hag...

One of my favorites

[David Fryer]

Fiendish Half-Dragon Vampire Drow Warlock

A friend of mine pulled out all the stops and created a Pink Dragon Rogue which combined traits of a red and white dragon.

I never cam up with a name for it, but I once create a Tauric polar bear/dwarf barbarian.

Also once stated up a half red dragon troll. No vulnurability to fire there guys.

[SmiloDan]

I want to see a tauric orca orc statted up.

I once made an illborn nymph blighter 3/sorcerer 4/arcane hierophant 10. I made the nymph illborn by replacing her blinding beauty with the sea hags horrendous appearance.

A nymph monk/duelist or ninja/invisible blade might be interesting. Dex + Int + Wis + Cha to AC.

[psionichamster]

Half-Black Dragon Tendriculous (not too crazy CR, but tough as nails, regen, breath weapon, flight, and immune to acid.)

and my favorite personally designed monster ever:

Advanced Elite Phrenic Beholder. Advance him 1-2 HD (forget which), give him the Phrenic template, and Disintegrate Finesse (just for kicks)

Let's see...that's 3 Eye Rays at you, SoD, SoD, SoD, 3 at you, Hurt, Hurt, Hurt, 3 at you, Charm, Sleep, Whatever, you can't use magic, and you all can't hit me. Oh yeah, and save vs. confusion, DC 24+.

HA!

here's the template if you're not familiar with psionic monsters:

Phrenic Creature

-t