Alternate Creature Interpretations (Feel free to add your own additions)

[jqavins]

Catching up after a period of absence from this thread.

My eyes must be blind, because they can't see nothing good about kobolds.
They are just as annoying as gnomes, if not more

Is somebody around who uses them as something other than super cute things or things that automatically kills everything else?
The combination of both doesn't count.

In the old days they had only 1d4 hit points, which made them a suitable challenge for brand new first level characters. Goblins had 1d6. Once the party advanced to taking orcs, which have a whole hit die, kobolds could be forgotten. In 3.5, kobolds have a full hit die, so they're useless.

Also, does anyone else think that the duergar are redundant? "These are dwarves, known for their deep mines and being grumpy, except even deeper and meaner."

Yeah, they are. Probably because they were inspired directly by Norse dwarves (sorta), while more "normal D&D" dwarves closely resemble those from Tolkein more. Since Tolkein basically just used Norse dwarves but with the positive aspects played up a bit, duergar end up pretty redundant.

I've always thought of the duergar as the chasidim of dwarves.

I'm still catching up, so more later.