Monster Combos

[Ragin' Sage]

Once upon a time I remember reading an article somewhere about certain monster combos that work really well together. Creatures whose abilities stacked very nicely together and complimented each other. Any body have any suggestions for those combos?

[Kydeem de'Morcaine]

Monsters that grapple/hold like roper, grell, mimic
Along with the ones that area affect or envelop like jellies, slimes, molds

I remember a really old module where a huge storoper's tentacles would try to nab the characters then drag them down a corridor that had mold's on the ceiling and slime on the floor. So they'd get hit with both attacks while being dragged to the storoper's maw.

[Morbios]

Golems are classic for this, in that they're not just immune to a lot of effects but also get benefits from being hit by things that hurt the party.

A flesh golem surrounded by shocker lizards is really nasty, for example. The shocker lizards' area of effect shock ability is nothing to sneeze at if they're encountered in large groups. Combine nice damage with healing the golem and preventing the heroes from slowing it with cold/fire, the encounter becomes a nightmare. At higher levels, iron golems with fire-based monsters are very similar.

Other than golems, NPCs who can channel negative energy are natural pairings for undead, especially large hordes of weaker undead.

Anything with area of effect damage works well with flanking buddies or meat shields that are immune to the damage type of their area attack. An NPC pyromancer (sorcerer, alchemist, etc) with a bunch of salamander or fire giant minions can be pretty dangerous.

Some monsters (namely the withfire from Bestiary 2, though maybe others I'm forgetting) can bestow vulnerability to an element. Any other monsters in the encounter also deal +50% damage to the affected target. Consider giving the witchfire some hell hound pets, or giving a red dragon a witchfire minion.

Finally, nightmares make great mounts for really any higher-level NPC, and can be bound with lesser planar binding. Anyone with the resources to bind a nightmare also has the resources to guard his and the nightmare's senseless forms while the two spread misery via astral projection.

EDIT: It seems nightmares lost astral projection in the Pathfinder conversion. Very sensible. Binding them still gives access to a nice mount and the ability to plane shift, though.

[boring7]

The only one I can remember from the article you're talking about is Iron Golem and a Red Dragon.

I'm pretty sure there were skeletal undead rolling with flesh-eating fungus (yellow mold?). A Xorn with a trained gorgon can work, since the gorgon eats rock and the Xorn eats metal and gems.

Theoretically a shrieker and an invisible stalker would synergize, I don't know if there are specific rules for making a perception check next to a really loud distraction but there should be one.

[Movin]

The once and future king of monster combos would be a shambling mound with anything that generates electricity.

Pugwampi and ghouls.

Brown mold and flaming undead.

Ant Lion and a Sandman.

Skeletal Kracken (or other sea based grapple beast) and Leech or piranha swarms.
Swap out for a scarab swarm and you can also make it work in deserts.

Orc barbarians with the teamwork rage feat with themselves.

[blackbloodtroll]

Actually, Pugwampis and any creature with a powerful supernatural ability.

Medusa, Cockatrice, and many more.

[notabot]

The bad thing about pugwumpis is they also effect the allied monsters with their ability. Unless they are gnolls, gremlins, or animals that is.

Also its really easy to negate their penalty. Anything that gives a luck bonus like from prayer or divine favor.

If the PCs know about the power of pugwumpis, try to hide them. Have them hidden near a dangerous obstacle that PCs need to make a climb or acrobatics check. Nothing makes for angry players like pugwumpi generated falling damage.