...as a kid, playing RPGs in my cousin's basement (who was, essentially, my older brother) I always wondered: which flavor went bad? They're still one of my favorite monsters of all time. What are some of yours?
When I DM, most of my monsters are homebrew; though in one of our campaigns, the must memorable so far has been a by-the-book 7 headed Hydra that went down after only doing like 20 damage. What made it memorable was the fact that the players then gutted it, drug the corpse through the streets, plopped it in front of the company that had shipped the thing in, and then the Cleric used the corpse as a soapbox for a sermon on the evils of animal trafficking. As a player, I tend to enjoy the big+intelligent creatures, such as Sphinxes, Dragons, etc. Getting into a slugfest with a big stupid Zombie Ettin is fun and all; but when interacting with something that is capable of squishing your head, but also capable of being bargained with for a reason to keep you alive, either side capable of backstabbing the other later, with both sides potentially employing traps and immunity/dispel methods for the other...adds a lot in my opinion And sure an enemy wizard/warlord can do the same, but that's less exciting I also really, really like Gem Scarabs from 3.5 monster manual 5. Their spells aren't super dangerous or anything, but it does change the fight a bit, and it's a great way to put lootable treasure in a believable setting; "Ok, you kill the 2d4 dire chinchillas. You find 17 silver, a masterwork guisarme, and a scroll of inflict minor wounds" is awkward compared to physically carving your sparkly loot out of the vanquished beetles And if those gems don't get sold, it can make for an interesting moment when a running-on-fumes party starts digging through their backpack and ends up killing a Roc or something with them ten levels later.
I had to think about this one for a while. What's become clear to me is that much of the stuff I like to remember now is also the stuff that made me really uncomfortable as a kid. I think the other ingredient to making a lasting impression was originality. If you've seen one "giant" you've seen em all, but it takes a bit of imagination to come up with the good stuff. So sticking with D&D, I think my list would go: - BEHOLDERS - Displacer beasts - Thri-kreen - Bulettes - Everything in the mimic family, lurkers - Rust monsters and slimes. All the creepy stuff that destroys your gear just by touching it. - Modrons - Otyugh (which you made a good dig at with that player aid) - Cranium rats I'd be very afraid to extend this list to other games, since it's the sort of thing that can go on forever If I let it.
Oh, crud, I almost forgot the old rules for when you become an immortal and end up fighting entire planets. When I figured out that the official lore at one point had a few of the standardized worlds pegged as these living planet things, I was totally beside myself. Imagine living in Baldurs gate or Toril and never knowing that it's cannon that your entire planet is a giant space monster that can spew space lava as it's attack. Killing your homeworld could grant you Billions of XP!
