List of monsters by popularity / rarity?

[orphicblue]

So I’m undertaking a project to make a set of monster tokens using my own artwork. Right now I’m looking at doing about 50 monsters, and 20ish PC/NPC drawings. Since it’s obviously going to be extremely time consuming to generate that much art, I want to start with the most popular, common, iconic and often-used monsters in Pathfinder / traditional high fantasy.

Does anyone know of a good list of monsters sorted by popularity or something similar? If not, I’d even take straight up recommendations that I could compile in a poll-like format. I’ve started putting together my own tentative list, but I feel like I’m missing a lot.

Thanks in advance for any input!

[chopswil]

orphicblue wrote:

So I’m undertaking a project to make a set of monster tokens using my own artwork. Right now I’m looking at doing about 50 monsters, and 20ish PC/NPC drawings. Since it’s obviously going to be extremely time consuming to generate that much art, I want to start with the most popular, common, iconic and often-used monsters in Pathfinder / traditional high fantasy.

Does anyone know of a good list of monsters sorted by popularity or something similar? If not, I’d even take straight up recommendations that I could compile in a poll-like format. I’ve started putting together my own tentative list, but I feel like I’m missing a lot.

Thanks in advance for any input!

If you look at d20pfsrd.com in the User Work?? (vauge, but I can't get to the site right now) area under chopswil, I've got an NPC/Monster DB for monsters used (full stat block that is) for APs, modules and whatnot if you're looking for monsters actually used...

[orphicblue]

chopswil wrote:

If you look at d20pfsrd.com in the User Work?? (vauge, but I can't get to the site right now) area under chopswil, I've got an NPC/Monster DB for monsters used (full stat block that is) for APs, modules and whatnot if you're looking for monsters actually used...

That sounds pretty spot on. I can't access at the moment either but I've made a point to do so tonight. Thanks very much!

[KaeYoss]

Proteans are, bar none, the best monsters out there. They should go first, before orcs and the like. After that, azatas and demons occupy the 2nd place place on the podium.

And I'm totally not making this up because they're all chaotic critters and chaos is the best. Honest!

[orphicblue]

KaeYoss wrote:

Proteans are, bar none, the best monsters out there. They should go first, before orcs and the like. After that, azatas and demons occupy the 2nd place place on the podium.

And I'm totally not making this up because they're all chaotic critters and chaos is the best. Honest!

I'll put them right at the top of my list, next to the dire ferrets and female dwarf monks ;-)

[d20pfsrd.com]

If you mean popular as in "used most often by GM's in their games" then these are the most popular monsters on d20pfsrd.com (of all time)

Monster / Pageviews
elemental / 38408
dragon / 20291
goblin / 18116
demon / 14870
aasimar / 13167
drow / 12300
devil / 11737
mephit / 11735
horse / 10945
orc / 10918
half-dragon / 10864
wolf / 10860
zombie / 10839
kobold / 10734
skeleton / 10442
lycanthrope / 10250
tiefling / 10049
advanced-creature / 10029
succubus / 9724
vampire / 9550
vampire / 9090
hound-archon / 8799
troll / 8750
bugbear / 8444
celestial-creature / 8102

[Gorbacz]

I blame all the Conjurers for the Elementals at the top spot ;)

[doctor_wu]

d20pfsrd.com wrote:

If you mean popular as in "used most often by GM's in their games" then these are the most popular monsters on d20pfsrd.com (of all time)

Monster / Pageviews
elemental / 38408
dragon / 20291
goblin / 18116
demon / 14870
aasimar / 13167
drow / 12300
devil / 11737
mephit / 11735
horse / 10945
orc / 10918
half-dragon / 10864
wolf / 10860
zombie / 10839
kobold / 10734
skeleton / 10442
lycanthrope / 10250
tiefling / 10049
advanced-creature / 10029
succubus / 9724
vampire / 9550
vampire / 9090
hound-archon / 8799
troll / 8750
bugbear / 8444
celestial-creature / 8102

why is vampire listed twice?

[orphicblue]

d20pfsrd.com wrote:

If you mean popular as in "used most often by GM's in their games" then these are the most popular monsters on d20pfsrd.com (of all time)

Monster / Pageviews
elemental / 38408
dragon / 20291
goblin / 18116
demon / 14870
aasimar / 13167
drow / 12300
devil / 11737
mephit / 11735
horse / 10945
orc / 10918
half-dragon / 10864
wolf / 10860
zombie / 10839
kobold / 10734
skeleton / 10442
lycanthrope / 10250
tiefling / 10049
advanced-creature / 10029
succubus / 9724
vampire / 9550
vampire / 9090
hound-archon / 8799
troll / 8750
bugbear / 8444
celestial-creature / 8102

Thanks, that's extraordinarily helpful!

I'm kind of surprised by some of these (er, Hound-archon?)

[d20pfsrd.com]

doctor_wu wrote:

why is vampire listed twice?

Oops, one is the vampire template, the other is just the straight up vampire.

[Caedwyr]

orphicblue wrote:

Thanks, that's extraordinarily helpful!

I'm kind of surprised by some of these (er, Hound-archon?)

I think you are seeing the impact of the Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally spells fairly heavily in this list.

[d20pfsrd.com]

orphicblue wrote:

Thanks, that's extraordinarily helpful!

I'm kind of surprised by some of these (er, Hound-archon?)

No problem- glad to be of help. As to the why? Heck if I know, I just report the numbers! :)

[Black_Lantern]

Do atropus because it would be awesome.

[J-Rokka]

d20pfsrd.com wrote:

If you mean popular as in "used most often by GM's in their games" then these are the most popular monsters on d20pfsrd.com (of all time)

Monster / Pageviews
elemental / 38408
dragon / 20291
goblin / 18116
demon / 14870
aasimar / 13167
drow / 12300
devil / 11737
mephit / 11735
horse / 10945
orc / 10918
half-dragon / 10864
wolf / 10860
zombie / 10839
kobold / 10734
skeleton / 10442
lycanthrope / 10250
tiefling / 10049
advanced-creature / 10029
succubus / 9724
vampire / 9550
vampire / 9090
hound-archon / 8799
troll / 8750
bugbear / 8444
celestial-creature / 8102

while evntually you might do more art, maybe the next few monsters should replace templates? Just my opinion and would post myself but I'm not familiar with the site and am unable to spend time digging right now.

[chopswil]

chopswil wrote:

orphicblue wrote:

So I’m undertaking a project to make a set of monster tokens using my own artwork. Right now I’m looking at doing about 50 monsters, and 20ish PC/NPC drawings. Since it’s obviously going to be extremely time consuming to generate that much art, I want to start with the most popular, common, iconic and often-used monsters in Pathfinder / traditional high fantasy.

Does anyone know of a good list of monsters sorted by popularity or something similar? If not, I’d even take straight up recommendations that I could compile in a poll-like format. I’ve started putting together my own tentative list, but I feel like I’m missing a lot.

Thanks in advance for any input!

If you look at d20pfsrd.com in the User Work?? (vauge, but I can't get to the site right now) area under chopswil, I've got an NPC/Monster DB for monsters used (full stat block that is) for APs, modules and whatnot if you're looking for monsters actually used...

My NPC/Monster DB link