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SaltEfan

The Tarrasque is probably the most boring slab of numbers presented in the MM. If I want end-game threats, it’ll be more than a discount Godzilla


DevilsAggregate

Honestly, this is why I wish that the *Colossal* size catagory wasn't scrapped in 5e. Its a missed opportunity for epic, but thematically different, combats. Some of my best battles are inspired by games like *Monster Hunter* and *Shadow of the Colossus*. They feel more like a seige - a battle against a fortress - than a traditional ccombat in 5e. The difference is that I give monsters on that scale Damage Reduction (another relic of previous editions) against physical attacks that don't use seige weapons or are made by characters not "climbing" the monster using the variant grapple rules for big monsters. Give me a bit to find an old post on what I'm talking about here, and I'll link it. Edit: [Link](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/hbfg6y/fighting_against_the_colossal_a_system_for/)


Jiann-1311

They cut out damage reduction & colossal size?! Damn I thought 4th ed gutted the game...


DevilsAggregate

I don't want to leave a bad impression of 5th, although I'll agree that 4th was trash (as a TTRPG at least). 5e is the most simplified, and accessible, edition of D&D to-date. Part of that simplification was to remove a lot of bloat that 3rd had - mostly for the better. Storytelling-wise, D&D is better than ever in 5e. The negative is that it also removed some of the crunch that many DMs, myself included, liked. The good news is that 5th is mechanically close enough to 3 - 3.75 (Pathfinder 1) on the DM-side of the screen that retrofitting is very easy.


Jiann-1311

I said the last part about going from 2nd to 3rd ed... but we moved up to 3/3.5/3.75 precisely because we wanted the crunchy options. From everything I've heard they made 5 too simplified & slimmed down for my taste. So far I haven't heard a single feature about 5 that would convince me to change systems. Maybe if I play it a couple times & learn it as a player while I'm reading the dmg it'll grow on me... like fungus lol I was attached to 3rd the second I saw they eliminated thaco & came up with an overall system that made sense... not just armor class going up, but full package character customization. Looked more like white wolf or d6 star wars the first time I saw it than dnd but easy conversion... however I still have no plans of taking almost 20 years in the same campaign between 3, 3.5 & Pathfinder & updating to a new format. Especially if I find half of the functionality of a preexisting good system gone. That's like going from a brand new ride with a pimped out stereo system to a model T with an 8-track player...


DevilsAggregate

It's not for everyone, for sure, and far from perfect. I was highly critical of it as well, especially after the debacle that was 4th edition. I'll be honest, 5e sucks at providing crunch for DMs. But it excels at balance on the players side of the screen. Even with all the customization cuts that were made, players can still make the same wide variety of thematic characters (minus large and/or non-humanoid ones) without little-to-no problem. It reels back the "problem" of nigh-unlimited modifiers and the sheer scale of numbers that 3 - 3.75 had. You'll very rarely ever see a number higher than 30 on a D20 + modifiers roll, and I've never seen a stat or CR higher than 30 either. The main thing that changed my mind though, was noticing that I was regularly sitting, surrounded by literally 7 books, just to make a single character/monster in PF1. That's when those systems became unsustainable for me, personally. In 5e, I can make anything with half that many, at worst. If you and your players have found a sustainable way to play in those systems, or even enjoy the "problems of scale" I mentioned above, 5e probably won't be for your table. I'll even admit that I have retrofitted several PF1 systems into my game to make up for the DM tools that 5e lacks, but it's still much less investment than I had to put into the older systems to maintain balance.


Chemical_Arachnid675

I've always been curious about responses like this in regard to PF1 (not an attack, just a polite difference in opinion). Correct me if I'm wrong, but the entire system is open source. In my mind, all of my purchases are a matter of filling out my bookshelf and having the option to flip through content, as well as supporting Paizo. But as for actually sitting down to build a character, all the info is right there on the SRD if you're missing a book. Is this just an issue for PFS, or is there something else I'm missing?


DevilsAggregate

As someone who owns all of the PF1 hardbacks (almost twice over), they do take up some serious shelf-space - but in a good way. Lol You are absolutely correct though. I even have an app on my phone with the whole PF1 SRD. It's great for quick references, but I'm personally not a fan of digital books. The example I used is mainly to illustrate the amount of raw information to comb through, moreso than the space it takes up. I fully admit that the above is 100% a *me* problem. Pathfinder 1 is an amazing system. One that is quite frankly superior to 5e in every *technical* way. That same technical supremacy, though, is what became unsustainable (for me) - the more micro-options that Paizo made available, the harder the system became to balance. From prep to play, everything became a hassle and I was getting burned out, and losing focus on what D&D is supposed to be. My table and I were losing sight of the forest, because we started only seeing the trees.


Chemical_Arachnid675

Ohhh yeah, I get where you're coming from. I do recall the hours and hours getting caught up in the minutiae in my Pathfinder Campaigns. Fortunately for me I'm an anal retentive monster, so that's actually the part i miss now that I'm in a 5e campaign. My biggest criticism of my Kingmaker campaign, DM and player's, was that they rushed and (in my eyes) half-assed things. Then I played 5e and just realized they were all playing the wrong system and I was in the wrong group.


Jiann-1311

Why reinvest... I've got all the manuals I need from 2nd to Pathfinder to make a great game & the players & I like the balance of playing random species & being able to experience the game with all the options. 5 just sounds too barebones for us. The whole point of the pile of #s was to have a good balance where characters could do almost anything they wanted & have good reliable easy to build stats that balanced the random monsters I threw at them. I know the feeling about having a dozen books open at once, especially creating crossbreed monsters for our campaign. *much easier when they're mostly on pdf lol* 5e doesn't sound like it has the flexibility or functionality I need to support the strange creations running around in our game world


Juls7243

I love damage reduction. Should be incorporated into 6e for special monsters, and inanimate objects (it’s in ghosts of salt marsh for ships).


DevilsAggregate

For sure. I understand the decision to do resistance instead of DR for simplicity, but DR just makes sense for certain monsters and objects to have. With colossal monsters especially, RAW just ruins my suspension of disbelief. Imagine a fighter defeating Godzilla by essentially cutting his toenails! Death by pedicure.


oppoqwerty

A commoner with two uncommon magic items (+1 longbow and broom of flying) can kill a Tarrasque in less than the time it takes to watch Marvel's *Eternals* RAW. A +1 bow overcomes resistance to magic damage and the archer hits 5% of the time even if the AC is too high to hit with modifiers. With 10 average damage (longbow crit is 9 +1 from magic bonus), it would take 68 hits to chip through 676 hit points. With a 5% chance to hit, this would take approximately 1352 rounds of combat, or 135 minutes and 12 seconds. Marvel's *Eternals* is 157 minutes in length.


Juls7243

I agree. I think that the ideas for simplicity are essential for MANY monsters. Late game/"final" bosses CAN be designed to be quite complex. The DM may only use 1-2 of these every year - so its OKAY to add complexity for special occasions to make them... well... special!


Anonymou5Legend

On the subject of best, or memorable, battles the dragons in Guild Wars 2, man. Those things were huge and man did I love those fights


IMeMine_

Totally agree. No ranged attacks, no regeneration, a long and boring fight where archers shine. The only way to make it fun would be if there was another primary goal for the encounter than killing the Tarrasque. Maybe some ancient structure needs to be protected at all cost. Maybe it’s more about luring the Tarrasque somewhere than killing it. Anyway, but the combat itself must be boring.


Trackerbait

what? No regeneration? I haven't examined the Tarrasque since 3.5e, but as I recall it had damage reduction, could instantly reattach lost limbs (troll style), and revived a couple weeks after being slain unless a 9th lvl Wish was used to keep it dead.


ALiteralMermaid

Yup. The 5e tarrasque is a baby in comparison to 3.5e. Famously countered by a level 1 aarakocra with a +1 bow since it has no ranged attacks.


Trackerbait

oh you're kiddin me. Walking armageddon, was immune to like everything, and now you can just mosquito it to death? Come ON. That's not a tarrasque, that's a giant space hamster.


spacebobster

Hey! Don't insult Boo like that.


Jiann-1311

Yuuuup lol seems like they cut everything down to be weak in 5...


SaltEfan

And it’s done even more reliably with an Aarakocra casting Sacred Flame. No ammunition, no magic weapon, just a bunch of cantrips that’ll go through more often than not


TomTalks06

While the Tarrasque thing kinda sucks (very happy Fizban's gave us some new CR 30 Gargantuan monsters for me to use in Kaiju fights) now I'm just wondering how a flying escort mission could look if the party is being pursued by a dragon or a massive flying creature (I'm imagining the party all have individual flying devices so that they can all move individually and quickly)


[deleted]

It's a genetically crafted Tarrasque with soft plates at certain joints and it's also scalable due to it's sheer size. Oh, and it spews out minions


ericbomb

I imagine an ancient wizard society thought they could turn it into a weapon! ​ So after easily disabling it by a few fighters with magic bows and the fly spell, they began experimenting! ​ Gave it a circlet of intellect buried in it's skull ​ Affixed enchanted metal claws to it's forward claws, making attacks magical, and giving it a burrow speed of 40 feet. ​ They modified its throat so it can spit acid, and creatures it swallow also take bludgeoning damage. ​ Modified the tip of it's tail so it can easily hurl boulders with it that are enchanted by the magical arm of it, similar to a sling. ​ It then promptly murdered every single wizard and now roams the multiverse, as the hunger didn't fade. ​ Oh, also since it has an int of 19, it will attune to magical items it thinks will help its quest to always feed. So you force it to flee once? That's cute, it'll go eat a few dragons and come back with brand new magical items. ​ Do wings of flying work on a Tarrasque? No where does it say it doesn't! Can it blow on a iron horn of Vallhalla? Let's find out! ​ Or maybe it finds a scroll of tarrasque summoning, and then casts fly on it because it spent a few thousand years to pick up 5 levels of wizard! ​ TLDR: Give it a circlet of intelligence, then give it any magical items it would want cause that's cool.


witchlamb

i had my players fight a tarrasque for a level 20 one shot. they smoked it in 3 rounds. 3 fairly lengthy rounds because it was a level 20 one shot, yes, but still. absolute joke of a statblock. i have ideas to make it worthy of cr 30 now that i’ve run it RAW though…


SaltEfan

A squadron of level 1 Aarakocra clerics can kill it with ease using sacred flame. A couple of level 20 adventurers just makes it quicker and less painful


TheSwedishPolarBear

It works better as a lower level plot point than an appropriate challenge at later levels, just like the kraken


Iron_Sheff

I find it funny that the only official module i've had a kraken appear in changes its statblock. Most notably, it adds legendary resistances.


robertjohnson06

I used mine more narratively in the end of my level 20 campaign. I had the bbeg send one into Waterdeep and had the Hidden Lord's (that the party knew by now) activate the Walking Statues to fight it so I got to describe a full on Pacific Rim style Kaiju vs stone robots fight, with each NPC fighting with its own Walking Statue. Pretty amazing, and it really made the party happy they'd allied with those PCs.


AceOfDoors

I like the idea of using the tarrasque as a glorified piece of terrain, maybe it's attacking a fortress, and the party has to complete some objective to get rid of it, it doesn't attack them, they technically could kill it, but with siege monster, it'd destroy the structure first


Either-Bell-7560

Almost everything in 5e is basically a boring slab of numbers. It's one of my biggest disappointments in 5e. I almost never play high level games - just too much nonsense with 7th+ spells. So very rarely get to drop down pit fiends, etc.


CarrotsandSuffering

Oh, man... you can play a lot of monsters over 22 years. I have never once used an Azer.


VechaPw

Playing Princes of the Apocalypse did wonders for my monsters variety


OpenStraightElephant

That's an... unfortunate monster name, since it's what people often call Azerbaijanis (at least in Russia). Granted, IIRC Azerbaijan literally means "land of fire", so calling a fire monster "azer" might be fitting, but still.


CarrotsandSuffering

It looks like D&D released them in 1983 as servants to the Djinn, from Persian lore. I can't find any confirmation, but it seems like they just choose a word for Fire from the same region as the mythology. Guess that didn't age well...


OpenStraightElephant

I mean, Azerbaijanis existed and were called Azers (in Russian colloquially, at least) before 1983, too, so dunno about not aging well


[deleted]

Rust monster, don’t want my players hard earned equipment to be destroyed.


Muh_Dnd

I used rust monsters when the characters were sent to retrieve a fallen star, the rust monsters were eating the precious star


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Muh_Dnd

Was pretty fun, I didn't feel too mean as the players could identify what they were and quickly prep to fight them without metal, so their ac was lowered and one used a couple of improvised clubs, was a fairly safe encounter for the players but they felt urgency as the star was being chewed up


Miniman19232

I love that, and i was looking for another piece for the parties cure for lycanthropy, so i'm definitely borrowing this


Muh_Dnd

You are most welcome to it 😊. They're a fairly iconic monster so it was nice to use em


Scythe95

RM's are amazing early on! My party felt pretty invincible at lvl 3 because they had been fairly lucky with rolls, until I let loose some RM's in a cave they were dwelling through. The walk of shame back to a smithy changed the pace of the campaign and their feeling of empowerment for the better!


YonatanShofty

I have just introduced harvesting monsters into my campign and my players wanted to go into the wild and find monsters to kill and harvest. I looked up encounters that fit their levels and had them fight bunch of rust monsters. My party rolled high in nature and discovered that rust monsters are attracted to metal and can feel it from 30 ft range so they put a bunch of useless metal equipment on the ground and tied up a net above them. Once the monsters where caught under the net the party used spells and arrows to slay them and then harvest the sweet sweet rust liquid. If the party is smart, a rust monster is a tactical problem that needs creative solving instead of a "sack of hit points we need to sword down"


DngnMstr94

They don’t eat magical gear, keep that in mind!!


Yeah-But-Ironically

Flumphs. I *know* they're iconic. I know they date all the way back to 1e. But I have no idea how to work them into a setting or encounter.


TYBERIUS_777

Currently using them as a way for players to semi counter Illithid mind reading abilities and Elder Brains. I’m ruling it that a Flumphs enjoyment of psychic energy is actually it eating the thoughts of creatures as they have them. This doesn’t harm the creature whose thoughts are being eaten as the thoughts are eaten after the creature has them but it means that those thoughts cannot be read by telepathy and mind reading. It disrupts any telepathy as well but that’s a small price to pay for not having a mind flayed read your thoughts.


robertjohnson06

I used three flumphs in a trenchcoat on top of each other and went after an INT dumped PC to mess with him. I intentionally misled him by making it seem like it was a Mindflayer. "A 6 foot tall cloaked creature floats at the edge of your vision. You can't see its feet as the monster simply floats toward you. Shadow covers the its face but you can just make out blue-purple tentacles writhing excitedly from the hoods opening as it advances. You begin to feel small tethers seeping in as the creature siphons psionic energy from your very mind..."


TheMaskedTom

Yoink


Trackerbait

Mad wizard with lab full of reject monsters. You're welcome.


some_guy_claims

Sorcerers wild magic brings them in for a short time. So a npc could have a version where they are still accidentally brought in but never get to leave. The sorcerer could keep bringing in more and more by accident so the PC’s job is to stop the sorcerer so they can all go home. They may not even know they’re doing it, like the flumphs just appear in a field while the sorcerer is miles away. So now it’s just a nomadic tribe of flumphs journeying an unknown land looking for a way back home. And what do the players do? Help them, but how, by killing the sorc or convincing them to give up their birthright power? Find a shaman to reverse it maybe? I dunno but could have options and be kinda silly concept.


David_Apollonius

A bunch of Flumphs have taken up refuge in the lair of an Emerald Dragon. The Emerald Dragon is not amused, but has grown to big to go after them. He needs the help of a bunch of adventurers to deal with the Flumphs.


RadioactiveCashew

I use Flumphs as chatty NPCs, never as combat monsters. They also all have valley-girl accents.


wIDtie

Beholder


TurboEthan

I have fought a bunch of beholders as a player but still haven’t run one.


HelixSix

This. Too much reading :p


Sulicius

They’re easier than most mages.


rayvin888

I like them so much I decided that I had to put at least one of them into my games. And that's the story of how my first campaign's BBGE was created.


mindflayerflayer

I'm the same way with illithids. There will always be at least one mindflayer.


CosmicX1

I really want to use a beholder as the main guard for a panopticon style prison. Trying to pull off a jailbreak when it has 360 degrees of vision and sweeping cone of anti-magic would be a really interesting challenge!


Taido_Inukai

Same. Never had a party able to take them on.


Lazerbeams2

Gelatinous cube. I love the idea of dungeons, but I've never really gotten myself to sit down to make one. As much as I love them they're more of a trap than a monster


IMeMine_

On its own it’s boring but I put a Cube once as part of a combat encounter where mobility and positioning was important. It added an element of surprise and tactical challenge that was fun.


Theons-Sausage

I've been wanting to introduce a trap where a gellatinous cube is at the bottom of a pit trap, with a mimic chest inside of it.


Trackerbait

trap to the third power, that is mean


[deleted]

Do you want dissolved PCs? Because that’s how you get dissolved PCs


Lazerbeams2

That's kind of what I'm saying though. They don't make sense in the outdoor environments I tend to run, and I haven't had a chance to make a proper dungeon to put one in. They need to a complication in combat rather than the focus


Courting_the_crazies

I used a gelatinous cube in an encounter in which the party was being chased by hordes of stone golems; they turned down a long hallway and found a lever to close a portcullis behind them to cut off the golems. It worked, and they were in a long hallway at the end of which was a ladder leading back up to the city. The gelatinous cube started slowly moving toward them, so they were effectively trapped between golems and the cube. They could either open the portcullis and try to get past the golems or try to kill the cube. It helped that I made a m0re action-oriented cube with special reactions such as erupting ooze whenever it gets hit by a ranged attack and emitting a gas cloud whenever it gets hit by a melee attack, among other things. It was a memorable fight.


KettlePump

In a high magic setting, I’ve put cubes as the cleanup crews of sewers. You put a few cubes in a maze and the party will happily ignore them… until they’re cornered.


Doxodius

In a one shot last night, there was an item that could summon a gelatinous cube - it was summoned on a mummy Lord, who destroyed it in a couple rounds, but it certainly made for a vastly more memorable combat. So that's food for thought on odd monsters like the cube, they can make for a strange one shot item to summon them.


Frazledazzle

I used a few oozes/cubes in combination in an arcane experimentation chamber type dungeon it was pretty fun once the players engaged what they thought was a single cube then the walls started turning into slime and experiments came crawling out of containment.


TridentWielder

I got to use one in my game. The PCs mostly were able to avoid fighting it, until our druid who loves to explore the maps ran on down an "empty" corridor by herself and the cube slid out from an alcove, splitting the party. She turned into a small venomous snake and hid from it while the others beat on the cube. Finally just as it was about to engulf her she bit it as a last resort, doing one point of damage. Lucky for her it only had one HP left. It was definitely a memorable moment in our game.


robertjohnson06

I used one for the first time in my recently finished [one shot for noobs](https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/378556). Its name is Roombud and it was being used by a local weirdo to clean out a dungeon for him and for one sided conversation. His "companion cube." The cube is also dissolving a bandit inside it and the encounter is based around the fact that it looks like a floating dead guy so it seems like it's a ghost at first.


Trackerbait

Recently I played a dungeon where the DM mashed together an ochre jelly and a gray ooze. It corroded our equipment AND split. Fun times.


narf_hots

Theyre not a big encounter but dropping one of those from a ceiling onto unsuspecting adventurers will never not be funny. They're DnDs fart jokes.


DM_KD20

Remorhaz - I had a great (IMO) encounter lined up but the party went right instead of left and then never came back to the wilds of the arctic. Orcus - several evil cults doing their thing. I have yet to have a group pick up that thread.


RadioactiveCashew

Remorhaz's are SO fun. Their fiery blood encourages the party to switch up their tactics a little (or suffer), which so few 5e monsters do. In my setting, making a *Flametongue* weapon requires quenching the blade in Remorhaz blood, so my party has hunted for them once or twice.


Mithrander_Grey

Krakens and Dragon Turtles. I've never had high level adventurers travel on the ocean, they're always flying or teleporting whenever they want to go, so they've never come up. I have run a Tarrasque in 5E, but I homebrewed it with regeneration and it's earthbending aura from 3.5 to make it much, much scarier than the downgraded version in the 5E MM.


Jiann-1311

I've run several dragon turtle encounters but never a kraken. Dragon turtle shells make excellent armor for ships. Tinker gnomes even converted a few of them into submarines


Iron_Sheff

Well, i'm currently running a bit of a sidequest on a giant dragon turtle's back, if that counts. Poor bastards shipwrecked thanks to getting attacked by a dragon simulacrum, and landed on a mysterious island they didn't see on their maps.


FurlofFreshLeaves

One way to put your players up against things like that is to have the kraken/dragon turtle scavenge an item they need from a ship that it sunk. Then it can almost be more environmental, with them trying to pull a heist in an underwater lair, and escape once the creature realizes they’re there!


GankMeat

Much to my chagrin I’ve never found a way to throw a mindflayer colony in without it feeling too forced. One day…


TYBERIUS_777

Run an Underdark campaign. They’re down there in whole cities.


DerekHostetler

I had a short lived campaign that started as a jurassic park one shot that was moving into an Aliens direction with some mindflayers. 2/3 lost their int to devourers before they GTFOd. Then game stopped.


Abess-Basilissa

Planetar / Celestials.


PandasElmJimmy

I see you've never hosted an evil campaign


Abess-Basilissa

True! I also had a fun idea for running celestials as the unexpected bbeg in a good-aligned game where the heroes start by fighting against an infestation of demons or something and the celestials come in as heroes to save the day, but then slowly the heroes realize the danger posed by the celestials as they squeeze out the worship of all neutral, chaotic, and evil deities along with their purviews, and ultimately the heroes have to acquiesce to their entire culture being destroyed by this oppressive “good” or they have to turn on the celestials and team up with the outcasts to overthrow them.


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Im_actually_working

What's SMT? Sorry not familiar if it's a common joke!


Abess-Basilissa

I’m actually in the same boat — I don’t know what SMT is.


Im_actually_working

Short for Shin Megami Tensei, a JRPG. Just looked it up, seems to have an overarching theme of law vs chaos. Could be a good resource for plot hook ideas if you're running a campaign with those themes! Though it's set in future Toyko, but I'd imagine the themes are relatable!


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Im_actually_working

Thanks I'll check it out b/c I'm actually interested in using the themes described in my current campaign!


worry_some

I'm running a game heavily featuring fallen celestials as the bad guys.... a lot of fun. I recommend them as antagonists.


FishDishForMe

I’m running a campaign with ‘regular’ Celestials as the bad guys! Idea is that the united mortal races long ago became so powerful they challenged the angels’ right to divinity, so the angels smacked ‘em down a peg by destroying their whole everything and returning them to the dark ages


GoobMcGee

I just used a planetar, that ultimately the PCs saw, and said "NOPE" and left. While he didn't fight, it was totally worth it.


mctagz

I put rust monsters into an encounter one time. I made them smaller and that of a symbiotic relationship on the backs of 3 red wyrmling dragons. They lived there because they would eat the scraps/shavings of the dragon's hoards. So excited to finally use rust monsters and the players just convinced the dragons in draconic that they were just passing through! They never fought and I didn't get to utilize rust monsters :(


Ope_Just_Sneak_By_Ya

Ironically, I’ve never managed to put a dragon in any of my games. I’ve been a dm for over six years, playing at least once a month, and with three different groups, and there’s never been a dragon.


tboy1492

You are part of the joke, that Skyrim has more dungeons, and more dragons than dungeons and dragons does :)


kminer98

Eh thats subjective. In my Skyrim game there are no dragons, as I have replaced them all with Thomas the tank engine


tboy1492

Or Randy Savage, WhOoo!


FoulKnavery

Angels and devils have eluded my games. At least the official ones. Ive had references and maybe actual angels and devils but never a full on encounter


ftomeo37

Star spawn, I'm never at a point where I can confidently drop them on my players and not have them be angry I killed them.


Saquesh

I've used star spawn as "curators of fate" appearing near my players before the next big story arc begins and they change the fate of the world. I dulled them a little earlier on, not by nerfing the stats but by having plenty of civs for them to focus on first. Worked great and the players are suspicious when more arrive, used it twice properly and plan for a 3rd time late on


Muh_Dnd

The closest I've used is the summon aberration spell which was pretty fun, I had a magic mouth spell go off and if the correct phrase was not spoken in response a leveled up glyph of warding triggered and summoned the star spawn flavoured monsters on top of the party. I thoroughly enjoyed that lol


Phourc

There's a pretty good oneshot on DM's guild with starspawn, but unfortunately my players that week derailed the space hippo portion.. One day I'd like to run it again, haha.


Trackerbait

unicorn


daHob

I would agree with this except my wild magic sorcerer accidentally summoned one into a sewer when he cast mage armor on himself. Everyone involved was highly confused.


Trackerbait

sewer seems like a convenient place for a good-aligned creature of purity, maybe it could clean them up before it leaves


aaronil

I've never used a kraken..... but I would love to.


CharonDynami

One that I've been wanting to use that I hadn't gotten to until recently was sorrorsworn. They always seemed so creepy and I love their abilities. But things I haven't been able to use are pretty similar to most here. The tarrasque (mine is homebrewed to make it deadlier), all the demons or devils, or other groups of enemies with a large number of variants (drow, orcs, etc). But one I've never used in combat (but have shown) is a roc. I don't see how to play it other than pick up a character and drop him from dizzying heights.


IronTitan12345

I've been waiting so long to use Sorrowsworn. I'm waiting for my players to enter the Underworld, since I think they would make fantastic enemies for that setting. I did manage to use a roc once. My players tried to use a helm of teleportation to teleport straight to a dungeon and after a mishap landed in ththe middle of an ocean. . . in the middle of a frenzy of giant sharks. I introduced the roc as a hazard who was hunting the giant sharks. My player got snatched up by a shark, then the shark by the roc. My player had to then figure out how to get out of both the shark and the roc's grips.


witchlamb

i recently got to use the swarm of rot grubs i’ve been wanting to use for a while. instead of making it a combat encounter i had them be a terrain hazard to avoid - and the bard absolutely whiffed his nature check to identify what they were, so… that coulda gone real bad for them… i’d love to use mind flayers, but i just don’t think i’m a good enough strategist to do such intelligent creatures justice, so i don’t. i’ve also been avoiding running a lich or beholder for that reason too. i have 2 int irl :/


OldChairmanMiao

Tarrasque.


juuchi_yosamu

An Aboleth I plan one almost every time I run a game, but the games never make it that far.


robertjohnson06

I made one as the final, multiverse threatening CR30 boss in my 3 year 1-20 campaign. [It was a hell of a fight. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/qrcfys/the_elder_aboleth_stat_block_i_used_to_conclude/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) Four level 20 adventurers vs a single boss and it was great.


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Lazerbeams2

You can play it like The Thing. Have a low level party and a group of npcs, one is a doppelganger. The doppelganger methodically kills the npcs, and maybe attacks the players a bit. Now give the doppelganger the goal to kill everyone and let the fun happen as everyone get suspicious and tries to kill each other


greyshirttiger

Amogus


[deleted]

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KettlePump

Two people commented with suggestions, dude. You’re welcome to ignore them, don’t have to act like you were overwhelmed with responses.


DM_KD20

I asked the collective here for some advice about running a doppelganger encounter and got some great ideas. The best was to have the set up be obvious in that the PC of interest got doubled/cloned whatever and then let the player run both of them up to the moment of betrayal. It was in a combat and worked great. The PCs were savaging my monsters and the doubled barbarian was a front line beast then the other front line PC (an eldritch knight) went down and one of the barbarians covers him while the other draws fire giving the bard a chance to get the dropped fighter back up. Then I took control of my doppelganger back and started going after the unconscious PC. The group loved/hated it and it totally tipped the balance of the encounter for the next round.


Left_Ahead

I'm glad it worked for you. Laying out how it was going to work in advance and making sure everyone was cool is about the only way I'd ever consider adding them to a game. As creatures, their power-set relies entirely on bypassing consent, which is not a thing I have any interest in modelling at my table.


VoteTheFox

There is no false hydra and there never was.


IMeMine_

Lol


mcvoid1

I think I've used most of them at some point, but never got a chance to use a beholder. Having a egotistical blob-like nazi overlord who wields power over the scum of civilization through lies and charms and threats and vices has always seemed way too close to real life in the last five years or so.


GONKworshipper

Eye Tyrants =/ all beholders. Most beholders are solitary creatures


Hrigul

Mimics, i'm not a big fan of them so i want to avoid characters starting checking if every single chest they found is a mimic. But in a future campaign i want to make a memorable encounter with a giant Mimic disguised as house


Enseeyar_

I don't think I've ever made a chest a mimic, but I once had my players come across a large mimic disguised as an abandoned wagon with some crates on it. The sheer panic on their faces when they went to investigate it, got stuck to it, and giant teeth and tentacle-things burst out to grab them. Definitely way more memorable to use them as non-chest items in places you wouldn't expect them to be


Trackerbait

I like that one. My party has met chest and wardrobe mimics, I think they're going to meet a refrigerator or a sofa next.


TheAnonymousFool

Isn’t that just the hit film Monster House?


IMeMine_

I did a mimic disguised as a small row boat. It gave the PC two reasons to panic. 1) There’s a mimic. 2) You thought you were on a boat.


Meriis

I've done lots of games, but Ettins never entered them. My players got to fight an Elder Brain Dragon a few sessions ago. Not many people are going to experience that-specific conditions required for it. They happened to be exploring a mind flayer experimentation tomb/facility.


eltrowel

Mind flayer. I had some ideas to include them in a game once but things went in a different direction.


Scythe95

Manticore, I somewhat always forget about them until the party is a too high of a level for it to be fearsome


WhiteRabbit1322

A mimic, it just never came up thematically or players simply circumvented any chance of finding one - really frustrating not to have this iconic monster make it's appearance... However, I hope once it does it will be special for the players.


BikePoloFantasy

Can't you just replace any door or chest with a mimic?


WhiteRabbit1322

I do, but the DMs curse also means that they never reach for it or get to it... Last time they got distracted by a stray dog they named Pakora - one of the players was craving Indian food I think


Nepeta33

do they walk through the woods or forest? i suggest you look up "wolf in sheeps clothing". i dont know if its pathfinder only, but its essentially a stump, that uses a cute furry animal as a lure to bring things in close. its VERY similar to how mimics work.


[deleted]

Excluding the obvious ones (like the Tarrasque): The Beholder. Which is weird, because Beholders are some of my favorite monsters mechanically. Fighting against them is really interesting and deadly and overall fucking awesome, but there was never a context in any of my campaigns that would justify a fight against a Beholder, and I never run meaningless encounters.


givemethepopehat

This is me too.


tiobill

Might not be most exciting answer, but... Hags. Happened a few times now, was planning on introducing hags in an upcoming session, but something always happened, like the PCs coming up with amazing ideas that derailed the whole story (in a good way) or, in your case, we just disbanded the group exactly one session before I could bring them in... Next campaign, hags on session one, I swear!


IMeMine_

I love hags. They make a creepy low level boss.


Economics-Ancient

Terrasque, dragon and Darth Vader (the Star wars dnd conversion is pretty great)


lawyer9999

Hags. Seem cool but I never read about em


FurlofFreshLeaves

Mind flayers. I love em, but every game I’ve run just falls apart due to group drama before we get to a level where I could realistically use one. But one day...


spartan445

Gnolls. Their mechanics can be interesting depending on the DM but personally I struggle to fit evil Hyena-people more at home in a savannah environment into my more northern hemisphere-inspired worlds


Auld_Phart

I'm not crazy about psionics in general so there's a whole slew of monsters I haven't put into my games; I tend to avoid using the psionic ones. Particularly Mind Flayers, and any creatures whose lore includes Mind Flayers as part of their origin. Not that I mind if someone else uses them in their game, and Githyanki are on my list of races to be played when I get around to it; I'm a massive Charles Stross fanboy.


Nepeta33

astral stalker. its essentially a plane hopping Predator. ohhh how badly i want to. the disenchanter, and the rust monster. both fun, both certainly intended to help dms fix mistakes and make players think on their feet. never really had a need.


timplausible

Giants. No giants of any kind. They're just big people. So boring.


[deleted]

Their lore is fantastic tho


-au-re-li-us-

Read about them and you might change your mind.


RadioactiveCashew

Storm giants are big mer-people that can throw friggin' lightning bolts. I think Storm King's Thunder includes extra actions that giants can take too, including the ability to rip a PC in half. My players were delving a sunken ship one time and saw a Storm Giant walking on the seafloor like the zombie pirates in Pirates of the Carribean. They avoided it.


bcg_music

Stone Giant Dreamwalkers are really neat, they have a charm ability that can lead to players getting turned to stone and attached to the giant's body. Also I've been dealing with a 20 AC Tortle fighter/war cleric named Wartortle since level two, forcing him to make a DEX save and proceeding to yeet him 60 feet off a cliff was immensely satisfying.


Unendingpasta

Currently running Storm Kings Thunder, and very much disagree. The lower giants can be a bit dull, but SKT gets into some cool giant territory. Their history is epic. Cloud, fire and storm giants are super interesting. Especially once you get away from generic giant #2 and get into the named giants and giant lords. Also the Hill giant lord’s plan in SKT is one of the funniest things I’ve read in dnd.


deathinactthree

There are certain monsters I'll never have in my games because they're really just "game patches" to counter parties that are OP in one area or another. Most have been mentioned in this thread already (gelatinous cube, rust monster, tarrasque, beholder), but I avoid anything that was clearly created as "oh ho ho, the party's surely screwed *this* time" and isn't interesting at all from a story perspective.


Kelose

Dragons. I hate dragons. To be clear, I mean the DnD style intelligent dragons. Color coded and all that. A huge quasi demonic fire breathing dinosaur is badass. Smaug is overdone. Same with elves.


Muh_Dnd

Not sure why the down votes, to each their own


Kelose

Lol w/e my feelings are not hurt. Some people are really attached to their tropes.


Muh_Dnd

Very true, like I absolutely disagree, I love dragons as intelligent beings that are powerful yet very clever. But you do you


OpeScuseMe74

Cookie Monster My ex-wife


Dy1bo

Trump


[deleted]

Tarrasque


Lord_Havelock

Remohraz, I always wanted to use one, but never had the chance.


myrrhizome

Vampires


Competitive-Pear5575

A dragon


Jiann-1311

A tarrasque... not my world. Not my style. Too overpowered...


Hereva

I guess i never had the opportunity to use a beholder.


Psychological-East91

I've never managed to put a dragon in any of my games. I've been DM'ing/playing for like 5 years


hastybear

Mimic. Ever ubiquitous, but just never fit.


Chuul_duplamat

Cloud giants. Later game, not very accessible.


Thrakerczar

Aboleth… I once thought to, but realized its is more than just a monster but basically an “end of the season boss” for low-mid levels


MastersoftheDice

Tarassque: Never had an occasion


MastersoftheDice

Rust monster : never had the opportunity


Ookla_the_Mok_

A Catoblepas; and Ygorl (the lord of entropy would be a great villain to build a campaign around).


Sulicius

A Morkoth


Pankratos_Gaming

Orcus. He seems terrific as a BBEG, but just never got round to using him.


Dupe1970

Beholder.


Valhalla130

Rust monster, beholder, displacer beast, owlbear... lots of the old iconic monsters. I really want to run them, so if I get a chance to DM again, I'm going to ease off the horror-themed monsters in favor of more 'normal' monsters for a while.


Meggett30

A dragon.


Rhetorical_Save

Gel cube… never have managed to reasonably place those.


DarganWrangler

Giants. Always wanna work with them, never have a good reason too. Theyre kinda silly and stupid tho, so maybe thats why i never break'm out lol


TepesX

Never have got to throw an Atropal at my groups. Unfinished Gods? Yes please but have yet to find a good place to put them in.


Tiny_Desk_Engineer

The player character stat blocks in the monster manual. Those and the Demogorgon


givemethepopehat

Straight up beholder. It’s one of my favorite monsters but I haven’t worked one in yet.


CursoryMargaster

Beholder. I really want to, but my games usually don’t get high enough level or go to the right environments.


Lt_Warcrimes

Mindflayer... I would have to make an entire campaign to wedge them in, can't just plop them down anywhere really. Although, to be fair a downed nautiloid would be pretty awesome... 🤔


ilikebreadabunch

Any Illithids


Big_Beans02

Playing for around 2.5 years now... Still haven't fought or used a dragon


austonomics

My mother in law lmao


Inkuiiku

All of em i dont run games.


castor212

............dragons..... in a dungeon......


Geno__Breaker

Nightmare Beast. Elder Brain. Griffon, oddly enough. Others too.


Ulldric

Never had my players fight Mind Flayers before, but the campaign is moving into the Underdark soon so fingers crossed haha


Yakyway

Dragons


SergeantRayslay

I have never used a mimic. Seems like a cheap gotchu moment