What are the best designed monsters in D&D3e/PF ?

[OgreBattle]

We often talk about classes, so how about the monsters they fight?

Which ones feel the best designed?

[Schleiermacher]

Funnily enough, my first thought is of the classics - Magical beasts like Manticores, Displacer Beasts, Phase Spiders, Chimeras and Griffins. They have a good hit die which makes their HD/CR ratios pretty sane, they tend to be intelligent enough to use tactics even if bestial, and they generally have a clear schtick without having any glaring achilles heels. They have supernatural powers which are effective and, even more importantly, distinctive, without just having a slew of spell-like abilities for every occasion.

Dragons and Outsiders are just generically good at everything, which is not good monster design, but Wyverns and Rakshasa are exceptions, they are great.

Fey and Undead have systemic problems due to their crappy racial hit dice.
Constructs and Vermin generally fail for all being mindless, which means they auto-lose in all but very spesific circumstances. As such, they're really more like traps.

Some Aberrations are good, like Aboleths, but usually they are heavily dependent on very binary "screw you" abilities (Mind Flayers, Cloakers, Beholders), and fall down immediately if those don't work. Then if they do work, you've got a dead PC on your hands, or at best someone sitting out the rest of the fight. Not good.

Most Humanoids and Giants are workable but bland, although I like Fire and Frost giants - their subtypes make them stand out a little and they're intelligent enough to be tactically versatile. I have a slightly irrational sweet spot for Ogres, too.

Trolls are crap, though, and Hill Giants are pointless -they're just a bigger Ogre, at a level when that's really not enough to hang any more.

[Koumei]

I like the wyvern - it does everything you actually want a dragon to do, at a reasonable level: flies, is big, hits hard in melee and then gets smacked about and dies because it's not a neurosurgeon.

Optionally gets turned into an undead mount.

Templates pretty well, too.

I like the smaller animooted objects from a "HAHAHA nobody is hurting each other" perspective at low levels - the hardness of fighting a wooden chair actually matters then, at it never hits too.

[Username17]

Actually, I'm OK with Hill Giants. It's the guys passed Hill Giants I have a problem with. Hill Giants have a lot of hit points, are pretty brutal in melee (but not closet trolls), and they have a modestly frightening ranged attack. That's semi-interesting as a tactical challenge, and I've had several notable encounters where a Hill Giant showed up at medium range and we ended up grease stabbing it. Stone Giants, Frost Giants, and Fire Giants are basically just the same thing, so I would say their design is poor. Not atrocious, just not good. They need some tactical depth added to them that they just don't have.

I disagree about Phase Spiders, I think they are crap. Not the idea of Phase Spiders, but the actual design work just isn't there. An ultra fatal poison and a "you literally cannot possibly not be surprised by the opening attack" attack is just kind of dickish. The stats aren't really there either, in that their attacks and defenses are pretty underwhelming, meaning that even their ultimate "you die" phase-in strike misses often enough that the whole thing feels like a coin flip as to whether you lose a party member and a shockingly, pointlessly easy fight if you don't. I'd be a lot happier if their phase-in strike immobilized a party member in webbing and/or paralysis poison, to put the desperation in that way.

Anyway, I'm super happy with Manticores, Chimerae, and Wyverns. I also like Will-o-Wisps, Chain Devils, and Ettins. I think most of the "sweet spot" mythology that 4e was founded on actually traces its roots to the fact that a lot of CR 6-7 monsters are pretty well designed.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

Myconids.

[Koumei]

I hear that giant crabs are well designed :3c

[angelfromanotherpin]

Stone Giants, Frost Giants, and Fire Giants are basically just the same thing, so I would say their design is poor. Not atrocious, just not good. They need some tactical depth added to them that they just don't have.

The fire and frost giants I used in my campaign were hill giants with an appropriate sphere each, so they had some signature 1/day spell effects which really helped to make them distinct. I remember that I also gave the frost giants ranks in Balance so they could fight on slippery ice and walk across the oars of their ships.

[RobbyPants]

Dragons and Outsiders are just generically good at everything, which is not good monster design, but Wyverns and Rakshasa are exceptions, they are great.

I've had good luck with Rakshasas, but that may be because I've had a few good encounters with them (as a DM), so I may have a soft spot for them. I like using them as BBEGs due to a lot of their racial abilities, as well as their sorcerer casting.

A few of the monsters from Heroes of Horror look like they can be good if run properly, but I don't have a lot of experience with them. Bog imps are cool, at least how they're fluffed. The bone leaf could be cool if you had the party encounter them two different times, since any in the area learn from previous encounters (they all communicate over a large area). So, once the PCs figure this out, it could be really dangerous traveling through a bone leaf-infested area.

I've noticed, most of these monsters are also relatively low level (mid/high single digit levels), probably so the PCs tools are limited.

[MisterDee]

Mechanically, I tend to like the mid-age range dragons in Pathfinder. They've got fairly balanced, level-appropriate defenses, flexibility, and abilities that matter, plus just enough spellcasting to allow you to flavor a specific dragon.

Unlike many monsters who end upeither mulched by action economy or overpowering, you can go to a few CRs above party level to make boss monsters out of them. As level appropriate opposition, they're fine too.

Low-age category dragons are just flying crocodiles with a shitty AOE. That's not awesome, but it works at those levels, I guess.

High-age category dragons are limited sorcerers with good hp and defenses, and a few shitty tricks that don't matter at high level.

[Aryxbez]

So, what would be the go-to monsters for High level D&D games (13th+) featuring Tome Classes? Though I understand the game is rather broken at that point, and I've found most monsters I've looked up so far to be rather underwhelming, both in actual abilities and easily passable numbers for their CR (easy DC's, low attack and damage for bruiser monsters, weak spell choices).

[Kaelik]

So, what would be the go-to monsters for High level D&D games (13th+) featuring Tome Classes? Though I understand the game is rather broken at that point, and I've found most monsters I've looked up so far to be rather underwhelming, both in actual abilities and easily passable numbers for their CR (easy DC's, low attack and damage for bruiser monsters, weak spell choices).

I will answer that question when the D20 monster filter is back up and running.

[Red_Rob]

The lvl 15 Same Game test is a good place to start - those monsters were chosen as representing a good, solid challenge for characters of that level, which usually means an interesting set of abilities and a good example of their monster role.

[K]

I like Rakshasa. Solid defenses, spells to do interesting things, super-creepy, and some built-in non-combat stuff to tell stories with.

They used to be a bullshit puzzle monster, but got reformed in 3.X.

[OgreBattle]

The original Same Game Test for tenth level characters
A hallway filled with magical runes.
A Fire Giant.
A Young Blue Dragon.
A Bebilith.
A Vrock.
A tag team of Mind Flayers.
An Evil Necromancer.
6 Trolls.
A horde of Shadows.

A fifth level Same Game Test
A huge Animated iron statue.
A Basilisk.
A Large Fire Elemental.
A Manticore on the wing.
A Mummy.
A Phase Spider.
A Troll.
A chasm.
A moat filled with acid.
A locked door behind a number of pit traps.
A couple of Centaur Archers in the woods.
A Howler/Allip tag team.
A pit filled with medium monstrous scorpions.
A Grimlock assault team.
A Cleric of Hextor (with his zombies)

A fifteenth level Same Game Test
A Marut.
A Hullathoin (with its army of skeletons and bloodfiend locusts).
A Nightmare Beast deep in a hedge maze.
A Windghost in the sky.
A Yakfolk cleric with a party of Dao.
A Drow Priestess with an army of ghouls.
A warparty of Cloud Giants.
A Mature Adult White Dragon.
A Death Slaad riding a Titanic Toad.
A Cornugon.
A Gelugon and his Iron Golem bodyguard.
A Rube Goldberg series of contingent weirds triggered to a set of symbols of pain surrounding the artifact.
A pair of Glabrezus
A harem of Succubi.
Twenty Dire Bears.
A dozen Medusa mounted archers on Hellcats.
A forest made out of lava and infested with hostile fire-element dire badgers.
A pair of Beholders.

Here's the list.
I see the bad monster phase spider shows up

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Also showing up: GIANT FROG.

[Koumei]

Living Spells can be fucking hilarious to use. Try to find funny spells to use, not just the old Acid Fog, Cloudkill, Bad Word, Black Tentacles ones. Also, anything that actually casts [Fire] spells (not spell-likes, sadly) tag-teamed with a Bloodfire Ooze.

I'm also a fan of using a Nightmare as a villain... with ranks in Bluff and Disguise, pretending to just be a really good quality horse. This even gets bonus points for fitting the old AD&D love of bad horse dealers.

[Aryxbez]

I will answer that question when the D20 monster filter is back up and running.

Fat chance of that happening, I've kinda given up on that coming back, no clue why they decided to shut it down for "development" or whatever. If it helps, in the mean time, I've taken to using this for finding monsters in certain products: http://monsterfinder.dndrunde.de/

[Red_Rob]

I'm also a fan of using a Nightmare as a villain... with ranks in Bluff and Disguise, pretending to just be a really good quality horse. This even gets bonus points for fitting the old AD&D love of bad horse dealers.

Bad Horse!

[Username17]

Many of the monsters on the SGT list are not ones I find to be well designed, but merely ones that use a mechanic or occupy a niche that I think characters may be confronted with. Shadows and Trolls are fucktarded, but as a D&D character, you can expect to be confronted by that shit fairly often.

As for higher CRs:

• Hullathoin (CR 15, FF) It has a lot of abilities and is actually pretty much a whole combat by itself. Between its minions and its AoEs, it can challenge a whole party, but it doesn't have the kinds of titanic numbers or instant death attacks that would make it roll over individual characters. Can work as a normal challenge at 15th level or as a major villain for a party of 11th level or higher.
• Battlebriar (CR 15, MM3) It's a big dumb brute. It has abilities that allow it to attack and threaten several characters at once. It has the numbers and immunities to stand up to a round or two of late game combat. Its real problem is that it lacks a weapon that can attack an enemy at any great distance, requiring it to show up inside some sort of greenhouse set piece or something.
• Eldritch Giant (CR 15, MM3) It's a Giant, of Huge Size. It does tolerable piles of damage, and has a fuck tonne of hit points. Nothing really interesting there. But unlike lower level Giants, it's not just bigger than the ones that come earlier, it has some tricks. At-will greater dispelling and magic missile allow it to bypass a surprising number of anti-Giant tactics, and having a big Will Save lets it bypass a bunch more. It's a Giant that is an actually different tactical puzzle, which makes it totally unlike any of the Giants from Stone to Cloud. Unfortunately, "Eldritch Giant" is a stupid name.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

The only types of monsters that I usually use with very moderate changes are either: Purple Worm type puzzle monsters, Ambushing Kiting Bastards like Ultraloths, Kolyarut, Glabrezu, or Mastermind Trappers like Ice Devils.

Some monsters that have a lot of good in them and can do fine by optimizing them for one specific number, things like Beholders, or Big Brutes with all their feats replace with the same combat feats the Barbarian is using.

[MGuy]

I'm also a fan of using a Nightmare as a villain... with ranks in Bluff and Disguise, pretending to just be a really good quality horse. This even gets bonus points for fitting the old AD&D love of bad horse dealers.

Bad Horse!

Took the words right out of my mouth.

[8headeddragon]

I like the Blackscale and Poison Dusk lizardfolk in MM3. They were both good as encounters and I once created a Poison Dusk Lizardfolk PC for a one-shot. I'll throw in another vote for Hill Giants being pretty good too.

Come to think of it, I think my parties tend to have the most fun with large beefy bruiser enemies. Lightweight goons are superficial nuisances and creatures with too many special abilities have the parties panicking. Sometimes literally.

[Koumei]

For Hot and Cold Giants, have them rock up in places that accommodates their elemental natures, so they can throw chunks of relevant crap instead of boulders - basically like the giants in Castle of the Winds. Fire Giants would hurl flaming rocks that explode into fire and fragments (treat as a single Meteor as per Meteor Swarm), Ice Giants chuck lumps of ice (as per the Cometfall spell).

[Aryxbez]

So, what would be the go-to monsters for High level D&D games (13th+) featuring Tome Classes? Though I understand the game is rather broken at that point, and I've found most monsters I've looked up so far to be rather underwhelming, both in actual abilities and easily passable numbers for their CR (easy DC's, low attack and damage for bruiser monsters, weak spell choices).

I will answer that question when the D20 monster filter is back up and running.

Well...it is back up and running Now..

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I'm also a fan of using a Nightmare as a villain...

It's been done before, but it worked pretty well.

I had a similar idea of playing an awakened warhorse paladin with leadership and a cohort paladin riding me around. Never found a DM wanting to let me play that though.