The most frustrating monsters to encounter as a PC...besides rust monsters

[Beheld]

Just tell everyone you have like 500 phylacteries, and then carry around one phylactery which is all your magic items in one item, so that you can be sure no one destroys it

[Calthropstu]

I don't see anyone saying "demi lich"

Those things are ridiculous, even optomized.

[Beheld]

As for the thread... Aboleths, Gelugons, Basically anything that has "the entire world is unreal around you" written on their character sheet.

[PraxisVetli]

(such as +5 sizing tarrasque of lich-eating)

Where do I get me one of them??

[nedz]

where do i get me one of them??

Ravenloft.

[Inevitability]

Ravenloft.

Big T wouldn't be that unlikely a darklord. After all, he's smart enough to make moral decisions (if only barely) and has caused widespread death and destruction.

I wonder what his domain would look like. Maybe a realm where all inhabitants are doomed to return to life upon death and all buildings slowly reconstruct themselves, so that the tarrasque may never truly destroy something?

[Randomthom]

PF Wendigo, not sure how they compare to a 3.0/3.5 version.

These guys can wreck your party while out in the wilderness without ever needing to come into contact with you. All they need to do is use their nightmare (unlimited range) on one of the party's low will save people and within a few days they'll be munching on someone. They can remain hidden easily by use of distance, quick flight and control weather. They can escape combat if things are going poorly (120 ft. flight speed) and have decent DR (15/cold iron and magic).

Bizzarely not technically immune to trip but a CMD of 49 means that they might as well be.

[Eldariel]

PF Wendigo, not sure how they compare to a 3.0/3.5 version.

These guys can wreck your party while out in the wilderness without ever needing to come into contact with you. All they need to do is use their nightmare (unlimited range) on one of the party's low will save people and within a few days they'll be munching on someone. They can remain hidden easily by use of distance, quick flight and control weather. They can escape combat if things are going poorly (120 ft. flight speed) and have decent DR (15/cold iron and magic).

Bizzarely not technically immune to trip but a CMD of 49 means that they might as well be.

3.5 Wendigo is a template, but a very frustrating one. They're basically always Windwalking, give you perpetual -2 to Wisdom-checks and hit you with a Will save-or-take 1d3 Wis damage. Their bite causes a Disease that likewise does Wisdom-damage over time. They can easily fight for a short time and then go back to Windwalking to regenerate. Best of all, you can toss a CR3 one at the party on level 1 when they have absolutely no chance of harming it in its Gaseous Form complete with its Regeneration (Fire deals normal) and Damage Reduction (5/Cold Iron), and fairly decent AC (base + Charisma deflection and significant stat buffs). It doesn't have Nightmare, but given how bloody low the CR can get I'd say it's probably more problematic to fight against. PF Wendigo again falls prey to the fact that it's CR17 meaning it's competing with level 17 Wizards in terms of the terror it can inflict; that's rough company.

[The Viscount]

That reminds me of two more that are beyond frustrating, and into straight lethal territory.

The Night Twist (MMIII) at night generates an effect extending out 75 miles (or more if advanced) that if you fail your save, you cannot sleep or do anything but approach the creature (That means no spell restoration). If you prevent someone, they take damage over time. Better hope you can cross the distance before anything bad happens. The only way to end it is to use limited wish (which you don't HAVE at the level 12 you should encounter this CR 12 monster) or to kill the thing. If you kill it, great job, it ends! Now you are cursed with a nightmare effect that can only be removed with limited wish (which again, you don't have). Too bad you wandered 75 miles out to get the thing.

There's also the Plague Blight for acute death. It's moderately tough due to all physical attacks dealing half damage and an aura of strength damage. What really makes it frightening is that if it hits you with its slam, you contract a Con damaging disease than triggers a save EVERY ROUND, lasting until you reach Con 0 (and die), make 2 successful saves in a row (good luck with your decreasing con), or receive a remove disease spell (which you actually do have for this CR 6 monster), so you better have that spell ready, or you're gone. If somebody dies from it, their corpse becomes nothing in 24 hours unless you remove disease on it, so better return fast if you want to raise dead on them.

[daremetoidareyo]

That reminds me of two more that are beyond frustrating, and into straight lethal territory.

The Night Twist (MMIII) at night generates an effect extending out 75 miles (or more if advanced) that if you fail your save, you cannot sleep or do anything but approach the creature (That means no spell restoration). If you prevent someone, they take damage over time. Better hope you can cross the distance before anything bad happens. The only way to end it is to use limited wish (which you don't HAVE at the level 12 you should encounter this CR 12 monster) or to kill the thing. If you kill it, great job, it ends! Now you are cursed with a nightmare effect that can only be removed with limited wish (which again, you don't have). Too bad you wandered 75 miles out to get the thing.

There's also the Plague Blight for acute death. It's moderately tough due to all physical attacks dealing half damage and an aura of strength damage. What really makes it frightening is that if it hits you with its slam, you contract a Con damaging disease than triggers a save EVERY ROUND, lasting until you reach Con 0 (and die), make 2 successful saves in a row (good luck with your decreasing con), or receive a remove disease spell (which you actually do have for this CR 6 monster), so you better have that spell ready, or you're gone. If somebody dies from it, their corpse becomes nothing in 24 hours unless you remove disease on it, so better return fast if you want to raise dead on them.

Your descriptions of these monstrosities are awesome. I both feel your pain and want to inflict that pain on others after giving them ample opportunity to formulate a plan of attack. Do the rust monster, please.

[nedz]

The Night Twist (MMIII) at night generates an effect extending out 75 miles (or more if advanced) that if you fail your save, you cannot sleep or do anything but approach the creature (That means no spell restoration). If you prevent someone, they take damage over time. Better hope you can cross the distance before anything bad happens. The only way to end it is to use limited wish (which you don't HAVE at the level 12 you should encounter this CR 12 monster) or to kill the thing. If you kill it, great job, it ends! Now you are cursed with a nightmare effect that can only be removed with limited wish (which again, you don't have). Too bad you wandered 75 miles out to get the thing.

It was Errated - which is just as well since it would be hard to fit into most worlds.

Pages 110–111: Night Twist
Remove “Survival +17” from the Skills line of the stat block.
Also, the range of the night twist’s despair song ability is 50 feet per HD, not 5 miles per HD.
Changes to the stat block for the ancient night twist:
Advancement: 26–48 HD (Huge)
In the Combat section of the ancient night twist, delete the sentence: It summons plants to its aid if faced with superior numbers. The ancient night twist does not have the ability to summon plants.

[Vertharrad]

OK. Cool. I was informed otherwise. Took a look and it seems I was informed incorrectly. Thanks for pointing it out. Again, I never actually saw it in play.

Though, I think it could be a cool campaign hook that there's an undead cult who's working to desecrate the world so (perhaps unknowingly to them) it may become the phylactery of a lich... or perhaps an ascension attempt. idk. Would kinda suck to be the god of a dead world but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Kiaransalee from FR was actually a goddess from another world(a dead world).

On topic - Rust Dragon, any near normal group has quite a chunk of rustable metal. My female elven ranged ranger/sorceress came across one in a campaign about Kyton, lost a cursed armor arrow tips, etc.; the only reason she was left with a rapier...was because it repeatedly made the save against the dragons breath weapon. Being pinned was no fun at all. And any treasure from the hoard was non-metallic.

[Ferronach]

I always hated most of the oozes that you can encounter.

Use the wrong weapon and you have a swarm on your hands.
Use the wrong material to attack them and you weapons can dissolve.
Use the wrong damage type and it does nothing (or very little).

And to make matters worse, I seem to recall an ooze or two that were anti-casters. Arcane ooze or something like that?

[nedz]

Why has no one mentioned Shadow Dragons ?

Level loss is very annoying.

[The Viscount]

It was Errated - which is just as well since it would be hard to fit into most worlds.

Ah yes, that makes it a bit less of a problem, but it still means the instant somebody fails a save you're all in to kill it. I had forgotten how almost every other monster in MMIII was erratad.

Your descriptions of these monstrosities are awesome. I both feel your pain and want to inflict that pain on others after giving them ample opportunity to formulate a plan of attack. Do the rust monster, please.

Well I'm glad you enjoyed it. Rust monster it is.

The rust monster's famous to most, and for good reason. The creature is evil, and the thing is designed for use by the cruelest DMs. Nonmagical metal items are good as gone, and good luck making the save if you have something magical at CR 3. What turns this thing to truly evil is that they gave it scent and track so it can find you if you somehow escape. Whoever added the line about eating gold and silver as well is cruelty incarnate. A PCs wealth is all they have in this world. The only small mercy is that like the allip, fighting it won't kill you, since it just wants your metal. Like almost every threat, it hurts brutes harder than casters.

But how could I talk about the rust monster without discussing his psionic counterpart, the Folugub! He's only CR 2, which makes sense because he can only destroy crystal and blessedly cannot track you. This is a rare one in that brutes are least in peril here (unless you bought weird crystalline armor), and it's actually dorje users who are in greatest danger. I'm sure there's other things it will take (I hope it doesn't apply to psicrystals) but at least it doesn't eat your money. Neither of the buggers give you any treasure though, to make up for eating yours.

If you want to complete the unholy trinity to prove to druids even they are not safe or just to be a mean person, you have the wood woad. It's a largely unassuming monster at CR 4, fair amount of health. What makes it nasty is warp wood at will, with the ability to retry until you fail. Treewalk means it can teleport all around the field, and it will get the drop on your party, and it has the ability and intent to club the bejeesus out of them, unlike the other two.

A group of level 3 adventurers could encounter all of these in a single day, and still be "owed" one encounter, which would almost certainly end one or more of them.

EDIT: Oh that reminds me!

2 more monsters with similar theme of their frustrating abilities.

The Vasuthant is a nasty little undead who has a surprising array of things at CR 2. It's got a lot of resistances and immunities, blindsight, and a 60 foot aura of suppressing any light source, granting concealment you need LLV or darkvision to see through. Fortunately he's too small to use his strength drain on anything but your familiars (though he could kill most pretty quick), but he can fly perfect, so will likely evade your brutes. The pain comes with its 3/day ability to make itself or an enemy reroll any die roll. It makes fighting it a bit annoying, but because it's such a low CR and only 2 HD, it could very easily be added on to a multiple monster encounter with little change in CR, or rebuked by necromancers for a frightening fight. Save or dies suddenly become save and save and save or dies with these guys in the mix. Don't get me started on the big versions. They're CR 17 and they will end you. They have assorted nasty SLAS (like time stop), they can force a reroll every round, and 3/day they can redo entire TURNS. Tremble.

The Corruptor of Fate isn't necessarily unfair, but he will be very annoying to fight. If you touch him or he hits you, you get a bestow curse for only 50% chance of doing anything every turn (hey at least at CR 5 you have access to remove curse), and whenever attacking him, you must roll twice and take the worse value for attacks and damage! There's no getting around this one, you just have to deal with it.

[MisterKaws]

I always hated most of the oozes that you can encounter.

Use the wrong weapon and you have a swarm on your hands.
Use the wrong material to attack them and you weapons can dissolve.
Use the wrong damage type and it does nothing (or very little).

And to make matters worse, I seem to recall an ooze or two that were anti-casters. Arcane ooze or something like that?

Living Disjunction? Living AMF? Living Slashing Dispel?

Or maybe a Living Locate City Bomb?

[Inevitability]

Living Disjunction? Living AMF? Living Slashing Dispel?

Or maybe a Living Locate City Bomb?

Living Painless Death.

[daremetoidareyo]

Living Painless Death.

Living grim revenge is really good at hand to hand combat.

[Hunter Noventa]

I can't think of anything specific at the moment, but every time I've encountered something Large Size or greater that uses any kind of grapple I just want to burn the book it comes from. Before you have access to freedom of Movement, being grappled by something focused on it is inevitable. The only counter is Freedom of Movement, because you can't build your character to grapple, you're too small. Between size bonuses, strength bonuses, and not needing to be good at anything else, monsters cheat at grappling. End of Line.

[Malimar]

Living grim revenge is really good at hand to hand combat.

Living Love's Pain. Fight an ooze, discover afterwards everyone you ever loved is dead.

[Calthropstu]

A custom monster that did something along these lines...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9N...LzKY1nQ5rTUP2g


would be kinda cool.

[Willie the Duck]

I can't think of anything specific at the moment, but every time I've encountered something Large Size or greater that uses any kind of grapple I just want to burn the book it comes from. Before you have access to freedom of Movement, being grappled by something focused on it is inevitable. The only counter is Freedom of Movement, because you can't build your character to grapple, you're too small. Between size bonuses, strength bonuses, and not needing to be good at anything else, monsters cheat at grappling. End of Line.

It's an arbitrary distinction, but I always say that that is a frustrating (and even though I tend to cut the designers a lot more slack than many people do, I tend to also say that grapple was apparently very poorly thought through) mechanic, not a frustrating monster.

[Khedrac]

The Drowned (from MM3) - the aura can take out anyone not prepared for it, level is very little advantage here.

[Calthropstu]

It's an arbitrary distinction, but I always say that that is a frustrating (and even though I tend to cut the designers a lot more slack than many people do, I tend to also say that grapple was apparently very poorly thought through) mechanic, not a frustrating monster.

Pathfinder did a lot to fix that.

Though they still allowed the ring of free action so timmy power gamers can just flat out ignore it.

[Ferronach]

The Drowned (from MM3) - the aura can take out anyone not prepared for it, level is very little advantage here.

Two of these almost wiped a 6 man party of level 6 or 7s that I was part of. Until my warforged managed to smash their skulls in that is hahaha.
Not breathing occasionally has its perks :)

[EvilBarrels]

In my last campaign, I decided to use my homebrewed D&D setting. It was completely untested, and as a result, a lot of the custom rules and monsters were a lot more OP than I anticipated.

The very first encounter was almost the last. My imps had a very high Speed stat, allowing them to dodge and counterattack very easily. They would've died in one shot from most weapons, but they simply couldn't be hit. And half of these issues resulted in a counterattack.

After that encounter, I nerfed the counterattack ability. Almost causing a TPK using my setting's equivalent of guard dogs was fun, but it's damn annoying for anyone who's not DMing.

[Thurbane]

I can't think of anything specific at the moment, but every time I've encountered something Large Size or greater that uses any kind of grapple I just want to burn the book it comes from. Before you have access to freedom of Movement, being grappled by something focused on it is inevitable. The only counter is Freedom of Movement, because you can't build your character to grapple, you're too small. Between size bonuses, strength bonuses, and not needing to be good at anything else, monsters cheat at grappling. End of Line.

It's entirely possible we might be playing them wrong, but in our games, grapple based monsters tend to suck.

The way they generally play out is they grapple/snatch/swallow one PC, apply some damage or status effects to it, while the other PCs wail on the beast with impunity. Unless the monster has a specific ability that says otherwise, they generally need to suck up a large penalty to hold onto the PC with one limb, if they want to make attacks with others. If they don't do this, they lose all (most?) offensive abilities against anyone except the grappled.

It's generally a ticking clock for the rest of the party to smash the monster before the grappled succumbs to damage or lethal status effects - but once you throw in a few power attacks, it almost always comes out in the favour of the PCs.

...at least at our table. Like I said, maybe we're doing it wrong.

[daremetoidareyo]

It's entirely possible we might be playing them wrong, but in our games, grapple based monsters tend to suck.

The way they generally play out is they grapple/snatch/swallow one PC, apply some damage or status effects to it, while the other PCs wail on the beast with impunity. Unless the monster has a specific ability that says otherwise, they generally need to suck up a large penalty to hold onto the PC with one limb, if they want to make attacks with others. If they don't do this, they lose all (most?) offensive abilities against anyone except the grappled.

It's generally a ticking clock for the rest of the party to smash the monster before the grappled succumbs to damage or lethal status effects - but once you throw in a few power attacks, it almost always comes out in the favour of the PCs.

...at least at our table. Like I said, maybe we're doing it wrong.

This is my experience too. Even with our houserule that freedom of movement doesn't affect grapples.

[Arbane]

Just tell everyone you have like 500 phylacteries, and then carry around one phylactery which is all your magic items in one item, so that you can be sure no one destroys it

You could make it a ring or something... maybe it could turn the wearer invisible...

[Beheld]

You could make it a ring or something... maybe it could turn the wearer invisible...

That's pretty pathetic for a Phylactery. I think baseline you are looking at +5 saves, +6 to casting stat, and then a bunch of other effects stacked on from the MiC.