You know, thinking about it, I really like so many of the monsters from D&D and Pathfinder I got to wondering what my favorite was and at the moment I believe it to be the Molydeus, in 3.5 it was a CR19 that I could envision facing any other demon fearlessly, win or lose even a balor! I believe with the proper strategy the molydeii could have ruled the abyss over the balor. So I am asking all of you out there, what is your favorite 3.5 and/or Pathfinder monster in the UPPER challenge ratings and feel free to share why.
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Solar is pretty cool.
Solar is pretty cool.
yes,yes they are! Gotta love the large slaying evil outsider bane greatswords >rubs palms together maniacally<
This topic must be a re-run, not getting the attention i thought it might :-/
Give it time.
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My favorite? the rakshasa. shape changers canbreally do a lot. i ran a game once where they took over an area of osirion. they had infiltrated the governemnt and no one could trust anyone. they had also allied with other shapechangers, namely ogre magi. they took on the party and then used magic to escape to tell the rakshasas how the party fought. then they ambushed them and mind f*&%#@ the heavy hitters amd controlers and picked them off piece by piece. what was worse was that the people of the town started to doubt the so called divinity of the pharoh because he couldnt solve the probelm. namely because the spellcasters of the capital were being killed by an unknown enemy and others dod not want to come to their aid in fear of dying. then there was a huge fight and almist outright civil war when they got too close to the pharoh and almost killed him and they killed one of the players father.
needless to say they are my favorite. when ran properly they can do a lot of damage. shapechanging can be a very powerful ability. and it made for a known enemy to be an unknown element.
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This may sound cliché, but I love dragons as antagonists. I play them to the top of my ability as a GM as the most cunning and capricious of opponents. I know they are not as powerful as a good chunk of the outsiders, but nothing seems to strike more fear into my players, or as much pride in the overcoming of a dragon encounter.
I had a party of players, naively, attempt to take out an old black dragon in his own swamp. They had defeated high CR level monsters and were quite confident that this would be only a minor challenge. They prepared well, but the dragon had minions and allies which alerted it to the party’s presence in its swamp. The dragon sent war parties of lizard men after the party to test heir strength and observe their tactics, identifying the melee crew and the spellcasters.
When the time for battle came, the dragon used minions to block / hinder the party’s movement. The dragon used the terrain to its advantage, using hit and run tactics from underwater and the air. The party was driven off after one of spellcasters was killed. The dragon then proceeded to harass them until they retreated from the swamp.
He held a grudge, and occasionally, just for fun, over the next few years sent assassins after the group, or hindered them in other ways. Eventually, the party finally killed him, and it was the most celebrated event for the players. We still talk about that dragon.
Easily
Mothers of Oblivion (Black Maga) from PF# 03
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Rustlord: eats items, drains con, scares players and especially power-gamers.
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Oozes. All that slime crawling over the pcs. Makes doing laundry a nightmare. Especially after its hardened and crusty. Rocs with monk levels. Causes at least one pc to suspect they have been poisoned or are in very strange dreamland.
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I'm a big fan of the Atropal from the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook.
It's an undead aborted/miscarried fetal god.
It's just such a morbid idea.
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Keketar. Warpwave just looks so fun, and as much as I used slaadi (heck look how much I post with Nurn) I can't say I had much adoration for their design or their stats. Proteans are so much better.
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Rustlord: eats items, drains con, scares players and especially power-gamers.
Sounds like a Rust Monster on pcp AND steroids!
This may sound cliché, but I love dragons as antagonists. -snip-
I have to agree; The big bad evil dragon using all the attendant abilities are tough versatile foes that should strike fear in even seasoned adventures. These beasts are inelegant, long lived foes whith a host of capabilities than can make any encounter memorable, they shoud break and run when things go badly only to hunt down the party when the dragon has the advantage this makes for a tough returning foe that can wipe out villages and destroy castles where the Pcs hope to heal and rest. (My group still gives me the stink eye when i tell the tale of a dead white dragon falling 150 feet onto a frozen lake, crashing through the ice and thus wiping out all but the wizard who was airborne himself... )
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Wendigo
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Oh that's easy, my favorite monsters of all are Gugs.
Smart, fast, insanely powerful and with a 20 foot reach and 5-6 attacks a round with Awesome Blow if anyone makes it into melee range with them makes them a nightmare for a party to face.
Add to it decent saves and a near inability to be sneak attacked means any fight with these things is going to result in some beau-coup pain.
I have been dying to loose one of these on a party some time
Bebilith
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/outsiders/bebilith
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The Leshay from the epic level handbook 3.5. Though mostly because I want to be one IRL.
In pathfinder games the best/worst enemy is the Pugwampi. Nothing elicits more hate from our group than those little bastards.
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I came in here to say Wendigo. I love the lore behind it, and I'm also a sucker for trying to throw in some horror elements. I'm an iffy DM at best and haven't done it in a while, so how horrifying it comes out is questionable, but I always wanted to have an adventure where the much lower level party is investigating an old shrine on a mountain that's several days hike into the wildness just to have them stalked by a Wendigo and get lost in the unnatural mist :O
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Wendigo are horrifically nasty creatures. They bury you in howling winds and feet of snow without respite. They tormet the nightmares of defenseless NPCs seemingly at random. At the worst moments, those afflicted with the psychosis cannibalize their spouse or children before running their feet off in the sky into burned stumps, screaming all the while ... then you have more than one wendigo ... and the accursed storm just ... doesn't ... stop ... more and more turn on the survivors ... when none are left alive to eat, they spread into the world ...
I statted up Grandfather Death a short time ago. While his stat block needs some tweaking, he's gawdawful in the Turin way .... ^__^
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Wendigo are horrifically nasty creatures. They bury you in howling winds and feet of snow without respite. They tormet the nightmares of defenseless NPCs seemingly at random. At the worst moments, those afflicted with the psychosis cannibalize their spouse or children before running their feet off in the sky into burned stumps, screaming all the while ... then you have more than one wendigo ... and the accursed storm just ... doesn't ... stop ... more and more turn on the survivors ... when none are left alive to eat, they spread into the world ...
I statted up Grandfather Death a short time ago. While his stat block needs some tweaking, he's gawdawful in the Turin way .... ^__^
Have you ever seen the movie Ravenous. Its a pretty good movie about the Wendigo legend.
I love the minitoars. Ogres are another good one that I love. Probably my favorite is the TITAN. Titans are beautiful creatures that have an air of royalty and dominance to them. reminds me in 3.0 I had a barbarian that reached epic level, forged his own kingdom, and using the powers available to him he almost... almost ascended to a true titan. It involved a craftsmith building a titan body from 28000 pounds of stone, an epic level spell culminating in 60 unwillingly sacrificed low/mid level casters to create life for it, one very trusted epic psion Telepath casting True Mind Switch, multiple times, Me to inhabit the new body, and one vengeful god to completely muck it up >:[ We were actually trying to attain godhood in that one, and my barbarian decided to go this way to attain the power necessary. Man I love the titan!
That and any overtly large beast of besidal fury is a favorite!
Have you ever seen the movie Ravenous. Its a pretty good movie about the Wendigo legend.Wendigo are horrifically nasty creatures. They bury you in howling winds and feet of snow without respite. They tormet the nightmares of defenseless NPCs seemingly at random. At the worst moments, those afflicted with the psychosis cannibalize their spouse or children before running their feet off in the sky into burned stumps, screaming all the while ... then you have more than one wendigo ... and the accursed storm just ... doesn't ... stop ... more and more turn on the survivors ... when none are left alive to eat, they spread into the world ...
I statted up Grandfather Death a short time ago. While his stat block needs some tweaking, he's gawdawful in the Turin way .... ^__^
Missus Turin and I first encountered that movie on our honeymoon when we spent the night at a place that featured renovated cabooses as a form of "cabin". We fell in love with it. Personally I see it as the inspiration for Green Ronin's "ravenous" template, at least in part. I watch it before running CoC sessions and as I'm going to sleep most nights ... ^__^
Rustlord: eats items, drains con, scares players and especially power-gamers.Sounds like a Rust Monster on pcp AND steroids!
That is what it is. Paizo put it together.
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Well, Fluffy...I mean the Tarrasque, will always hold a special place in my heart, simply because we encountered one in a high level game once, and turned it into our pet. The Tarrasque, in 3.5 at least, was not immune to mind effecting, so our parties psion hit it with Dominate Monster over and over until it rolled a 1. For the rest of that campaign, we were able to sic him on our enemies whenever we needed to. We had to raid a valley that was heavily defended against us specifically, so we teleported a flying, buffed tarrasque on one end of the valley, and had teleportation circles target the other end of the valley. We then marched a literal army through the circles, formed up, and went to war. It was the most epic gaming moment any of us had ever experienced.
Now, from a GM perspective, I love dragons. All of the dragons, but specifically the reds. Evil, greedy, genius' that breath fire. What's not to like. Way too many readings of the Hobbit (not to mention viewings of the Rankin/Bass movie from the 70's) have etched Smaug into my brain as one of the most fearsome beings in existence, and what could be better than getting to be that?
"'I am SMAUG!!" 'Nuff said. I share the vision of Smaug from that movie - and hold VERY high expectations of Peter Jackson's presentation. Whomever voices Smaug had best be up to snuff!!
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if noone is saying it, then me, modified shield adamantine golem.
Unkillable under normal circumstances. No need to carefully roll out loot, he's made of treasure.
Shows the all powerful wizards and any other spellcaster who is boss.
Modifications are normally homemade, but even the vanilla one scares the hell out of everyone. You can just run, but altough he is slower, you have to sleep.
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Humans.
Nothing worse or scarier than a well thought out and devious minded Human.
They blend, they breed, they plot.
So many ways to create and use one that they never grow tired.
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I'm a sucker for undead, particularly "bottom of the barrel but intelligent" undead like wights and ghouls. And souping them up with levels/templates.
Love the Wendigo. My personal favorites are probably anything high leveled from real world mythos. More specifically probably the Jabberwocky, Bandersnatch, and Phoenix.
"'I am SMAUG!!" 'Nuff said. I share the vision of Smaug from that movie - and hold VERY high expectations of Peter Jackson's presentation. Whomever voices Smaug had best be up to snuff!!
Aparently smaug is voice by the same guy that does the voice for The Necromancer(Sauron in disguise).
Apparently if one digs deeply into middle earth lore and possibly non canon MERP content, we find that Smaug was merely the most powerful wyrm alive during his time. It seems long before him there was an even more powerful dragon named Ancalagon the black and he was so powerful he was stated in his MERP description as making Smaug loook like a "Home sick Hobbit"! by comparison.
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I really love ghouls. Ever since I read HP Lovecraft books and played a campaign in the White Kingdom of Doresain, they've become my favorite undead. They're like smarter Fast Zombies and unluck other undead, they don't look like they are rotting and they are one of the few that are intelligent and have the fecund traits of people. The only other undead I can think of that really shares those traits are vampires.
Wendigos are a close second. I seem to have a thing for anthropophages redone by Lovecraft...
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I seem to have a thing for anthropophages redone by Lovecraft...
Who wouldn't!!!!
Lovecraftian Ghouls are pretty creepy.
Who wouldn't!!!!
Lovecraftian Ghouls are pretty creepy.
But after GMing for 32 years I really cannot say that I have a favorite beastly enemy. Although I did enjoy quite a bit using a Scanderig (Forgefiend) lately while running RotRL. Watching the Fighter and others cringe as he was chomping on their armor was priceless.
"'I am SMAUG!!" 'Nuff said. I share the vision of Smaug from that movie - and hold VERY high expectations of Peter Jackson's presentation. Whomever voices Smaug had best be up to snuff!!Aparently smaug is voice by the same guy that does the voice for The Necromancer(Sauron in disguise).
We'll presumably have to wait for the 2nd film to find out...
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Apparently if one digs deeply into middle earth lore and possibly non canon MERP content, we find that Smaug was merely the most powerful wyrm alive during his time. It seems long before him there was an even more powerful dragon named Ancalagon the black and he was so powerful he was stated in his MERP description as making Smaug loook like a "Home sick Hobbit"! by comparison.
Ancalagon and Glaurung were definitely above Smaug in weight class, but Smaug began my fascination with the mythical creatures.