3.5 is advanced D&D 5e is D&D Lyte. Just to clarify there is no better system just flavor. 3.5 has far more freedom and FAR more math and rules. 5e is quicker easier and more story driven I think. But then a wizard can solo the tarasque with a fly spell spamming catrips.
This video just gave me an adventure idea. What if a mage lost their child to a war or a plague and ended up turning the child into a Slaymate in a misguided attempt at resurrection?
@@esperthebard - Esper, please do a Monster Melee with some of these bizarre undead for the coming Halloween holiday. Please? I don't think anyone would forsee this level of dread. 😳 We need something truly creepy. Your background "music" should be appropriate and haunting.
@@esperthebard - I don't know if you even saw my request but thank you sir. You delivered. Just in time for Halloween. Is there a rematch for the Lich planned? Just curious.
I was fascinated by D&D as a kid but never had the chance to play until I was nearly twenty. I used to sneak to the TTRPG section and peek at the books whenever we'd go to Books A Million. This takes me back to those times. Thank you. I see why people don't like 5e. It's about the player when it used to be about the stories you create as a group.
Original A&DD DM here. 1979-1984. Thank you for this channel. It's fun nostalgia for 50+ year old me. Scary undead adventures were amazing. Description with lots of adjectives made the game fun. We never used minis. THE GAME was about storytelling. Good players "described" their attacks with colorful language. If they "role played well" they got extra bonus. Keep up the good work here.
16:12 Shadows have strength reduction in 5e, if they hit you, you lose 1d4 points of strength (no save involved) and you insta-die if your strength reaches 0 I remind you that they're CR 1/2, and that strength is often the dump stat for most casters, rogues and monks, often not being higher then an 8
Like you, becoming a father intensified my care and concern for the wellbeing of children. That Slaymate monster would be a difficult encounter for me.
The old school gory art reminds me of the older Games Workshop stuff and other horror/fantasy themed art from the 80s and 90s. Love it! Nowadays, everything is so sanitised. 😔
Agreed. Hate to be that guy, but 5e is truly "soft" compared to earlier editions. Still a great game, just wish it was a little less "prettied up" if that makes sense
Wow. 50% of these I've never heard of. Pretty cool entries. I'm kinda glad the guy that gm'ed most my 3.5 games never threw some of these at us, but they're cool, lol.
1: I think WotC needs a age rating so we can have both our PG and our NC 17 2: On a couple occasions I've busted out monsters that drain Max HP or an ability score and every time the players loved it... but I suspect it was because it was special.
3 місяці тому+1
Grand Pappa Nurgel approves of the Plague Spewer! Very cool video good sir! Yours has become one of my favorite D&D channels!
As a Necromancer player myself this video was amazing! You talked about my favorite book and then talked about almost all of my favorite Undead creatures. One I love is The Visage. being able to rip memories away and then act like some sort of mimic is amazing and then being an Undead Creature it having some immunity to Holy energy. Instantly subbed
New players: ability score damage is pretty easy to handle. For every 2 of damage, subtract 1 from anything that uses that score. If the damage ever equals your ability score, you usually die and usually don't get saves. Your DM will tell you what happens, otherwise. Don't be intimidated
This was a particularly great one. When I was a kid, I played 2E. When I was a grown up and got back into it in college, 4E was the most current edition. Now I play 5. So I missed 3 and 3.5 and have only played one or two shorter campaigns with that system. It’s so cool to Hear these breakdowns on monsters I never encountered. Thanks for this.
3.5 system was, more or less, ported into Pathfinder. Couple changes, but otherwise a carbon copy. I loved 3.5, but it was overly complicated. If you like the mechanical aspect of the game Pathfinder kept all of it. 5.0 is my favorite so far for simplifying a lot of it, without over simplifying it like 4.0
3.5 was the best. Basically they took third edition and gave it a hotfix to patch all the problems it had and added a bunch of new crap that worked great. Like DLC for pen and paper.
That’s sad that you missed 3e. It was basically the best edition. If you hear people complain that it was “complex”, pay them no mind…they are illiterate and tipping their hand as such. Like, they swear “grappling” is so complex you need a flow chart to understand it when it’s just two dice rolls: one to hit and then an opposed STR check. Legit that’s it lol
I thought 2E was the best. You get used to the rules. For those who cannot add or subtract.... it explains why 5E is here. But 2E made sense. It was not a board game. You FOUGHT to have a low initiative score. That meant something powerful. An 18 Dex gave you a -4 modifier to lower your Init every round. It gave you a +4 to hit with thrown weapons or missiles.
I like it when monsters are able to damage you in more ways then "you take 10 damage or half as much on a failed roll" because it adds dynamics to the combat, either through making the players play smart or adding panic which is what a horror monster should be doing.
As someone who plays a lot of 3.5, and has a deep, profound love of undead, you made some excellent picks here! Especially good picks with the Forsaken Shell and the Skulking Cyst. Had an excellent night a few months ago playing out a combat with a Skulking Cyst menacing a low level party; darkness is a really, really good spell-like ability for it. Another few undead that deserve a shout are Plague Blights, another great entry from Libris Mortis, and Bonedrinkers from MMIII. I think I vaguely remember a video of yours where you mention Bonedrinkers, but I might be conflating your video with someone elses. It’s great to see videos about 3.5 still coming out, and I hope you keep up the good work!
These are some of my all time favorites from 3.5e. I miss that feeling of looking at a new undead monstrosity and reading its flavour text and feeling deeply perturbed by the thought of facing one as a commoner. The idea that one could live a provincial or pastoral life of peace and have everything upended by undead horrors spreading decay is so deeply terrifying. An unfathomable hatred enduring beyond death and returning to its village in undeath, raising its victims as thralls to assist in the undoing of its place of origin. A single shadow, wraith, or morhg could turn a bustling town into a rotting, bloated necropolis within a night if a well meaning party of adventurers fail to take care in disposing of a murderer's body.
That's one of the reasons I love the world of the Witcher, while it's easy to become complacent and used to the monsters when playing as a character who's life is based around slaying them, when you imagine just being an average citizen of that world, suddenly every ghoul, nekker, and drowner becomes horrific again, let alone the more powerful monsters or entity's like the Crones.
Ninja - Undead are parasitic to the living. They are highly contagious and extremely deadly. In my game, years ago, Zombies were of the type of flesh eaters. Highly contagious like the movies. Not within 30 seconds but it depended upon the Con of the character. If not healed by a cleric, not just the wound, but the negative energy disease, it would continue to cause infecting rot until the character died. Then.... it was a variable amount of time until it turned to the undead. And Vampires, even lesser Vampires.... terrifying. Salems Lot, the movie, was a tremendous idea for a Halloween adventure. This is why 5E sucks. The old days, with undead, scared you. It caused you to fear. It created horror. You could feel it in the game.
Oh man, I love the brain in a jar! I thought about including it here, but it is in 5e, and I wanted to stick with things that have not been done yet in 5e (and maybe never will).
This year celebrates 30 years playing D&D for me (mostly designated DM) I started with AD&D and still playing 5e. Thank you for your stories, history, and in depth descriptions. Adventure on to all my fellow dorks. May your dice never roll a 1. You're always 20 in my book, Esper
While they are incredibly rare in D&D: I really love the non-murderhobo monsters. *Especially* undead ones. The suspiciously specific ones always fascinated me. Like: "This thing is full of holes. It won't attack you unless you attack it first. OR if you are undead. It HATES undead. ... Or if you smell really bad. THEN you are in danger." which, always made me wonder: WOULD it attack a mummy? Or like: "This undead isn't evil. In fact, it's not even hostile. UNLESS you've harmed innocent people. *Especially* children. It can supernaturally sense that within 100'. And it WILL truck your day." Or: "This thing IS hostile. But! It ONLY does subdual damage. And if its knocks you out. It steals your toenails and leaves you alive. Why? Who the frick knows!"
damn i just realized how gnarly and brutal earlier dnd edition monsters were, there are probably so many awesome stories about fighting these monsters!
Undead are best when they are hard to deal with, give them a bunch of immunities, and resistances, and if you feel charitable a few vulnerabilities, and make your players afraid to leave the house after dark, for fear that their might be a few nasty customers in the area, whose lease on life expired a long time ago.
I've played every edition except 4th, and 3/3.5 is a personal high point for me. I enjoy 5th currently, and 2nd was the edition I first played, so it has a special place. 3rd though, just seemed like it hit all my buttons in the best ways.
I've been so desensitized to undead in general that I can't help but watch this and feel quite literally nothing for a good chunk of the featured monsters.
I love 3.5 D&D and its monsters. The Skulking Cysts and Slaymates are two of my favorite undead as well, along with the Atropal Scion. You should consider doing other videos like this one, like 10 disturbing aberrations, demons, devils, evil fey etc. from 3e D&D.
Hell yea! Honestly I never left 3.5 that's where I got a good collection all the MM, Libris Mortis, Fiend Folio, Book of Vile Darkness, Monsters of Faerun, Fiendish Codex Hordes of the Abyss. Just missing the other Fiendish Codex but on the list to get.
I did try a session of 4th & 5th but Idk 3.5 has more appeal to me. BTW Esper I always loved your monster lists videos regardless of the Edition been a fan of them for yrs. I also thought your garden videos were awesome it was fun to watch Mathias was it? going through the maze
I like the balance for this video. From Esper promising us grotesque concepts that 5th Edition can't/won't do to later defending 5th Editions methods and even feeling rather sorry for the Slaymates.
The Dream Vestiage could offer a chance for some stories where both the living, and intelligent undead have to work together to to stop a particularly potent Vestige. Cool stuff. ~ Adam
Funny, if your interested in using the bone yard, void wraith, and forsaken shell. Dungeon Dad on UA-cam has done some very good 5e conversions of them.
Thanks Bryan! I played the hell out of 3.5, but then I grew fed up with it. It's hard to explain. There are many aspects of 3.5 that I love the best of any edition, but then there are other sides to it that make it so difficult to play. The system itself is unstable and out of control, the constant flurry of mathematical calculations is an annoying chore, the bloat is bewildering, many parts of it are legitimately too complicated, and the amount of trifling/mediocre character options that you have to wade through to find good stuff is just a slog. 3.5 will forever hold a very special place in my heart, but I just can't play it anymore.
Looking into ability score loss doesn't sound nearly that bad if you have a cleric or a town with an experienced priest. Hell you could probably have some holy artifact that dispels that bullshit.
I agree with the draining being so much more intense in 3.5e, temporary level drain being a feature common to quite a few sources of negative damage was always terrifying, great way to take the wind out of any adventurer is to take 4 of their levels away
The irony, of course, is that 3E/3.5 *nerfed* Energy Drain. In the AD&D era, such attacks didn't even have a saving throw, and powerful undead were REALLY terrifying! 😱
I turned energy drain into Soul Hit Points. Paladins had the same amount of SHP as they did regular HP. But a normal fighter would only have the same HP as a peasant. 1d8 plus Con bonus. It rarely came up except against undead and the rare Necromantic spell. Clerics had more SHP but only because they knew about the undead and negative life energy. My game went on for over a year before the players experienced the extreme attacks of simple things like Zombies and Ghouls. But undead in my game weren't common. They were truly scary things.
It is one of many 3.5 books that I love, along with the two Fiendish Codexes, MM3, Sandstorm, Frostburn, Stormwrack, Dungeonscape, Cityscape, Drow of the Underdark, and all the "Complete" books.
Bringing back the memories! I forgot how brutal some of these were for players…yikes! Great video! Definitely going to try reskinning these for 5e for upcoming sessions. Would love to see a video of you giving your insight on how to do that with some of these monsters!
None of these are as viscerally disturbing as seeing the iconic characters transformed into purple reptilian monstrosities called "dragonborn" in _Races of the Dragon._
@@esperthebard nothing greater than the tome dedicated to evil and based on edginess being compared to terrorism. In 2002. What attitude we could have maintained.
Ah, that was a great video once again. I just absolutely love these kind of your videos and the intro comment regarding the more tame approach of 5e is sth that always gnawed at me, too. Mechanically I really like 5e (and play it) but growing up with AD&D 2nd, I miss the more mature, mean and ugly approach esp. in creatures and supplements from back then and from 3/3.5e.
The dream vestige is almost certainly based on a 1926 short story from Weird Tales called The Night Wire. It's public domain and definitely worth a read.
Devourers were great to use as penultimate monsters. Either the players figure out what's going on and confront/protect innocents or it gets more utility and power to use against them.
HI Buddy; Just as an aside, I posted this comment whilst viewing a MR Rhexx vid. I thought you may appreciate the little touch of nostalgia it evokes; :) I'm confident there's a few Old Salts that like me, remember the days of the D&D "Satanic Panic" that took place throughout the early '80s. In addition to all the Devils and Demons we used throughout our games, utilizing the Undead also fueled the fire well above bbq levels of heat. The hilariously bad 1982 film "Mazes and Monsters", starring a young upstart named Tom Hanks, also attempted to decry how our souls were going straight to hell for playing such an EVIL game. It got pretty wild for a while there. Funny to think about now but at the time, Lobby Groups tried their best to send us gamers underground and created a lot of Press against the game. Many of us seasoned Vets have since declared; "well, if we survived that, we can survive anything!" Sadly, Hasbro and WotC as of late, continues to try our patience in maintaining that mind-set.
4:15 I kinda wish the monster manual went the full gory route for its imagery. Unfortunate that WotC chooses to mute such down. Horrific illustration of aberrant, twisted and insane fantasy monsters, complete with blood, viscera and violence in their illustrations.
Excellent! Thanks so very much once more Esper, greatly appreciate you 'resurrecting' these wonderfully horrifying entities for us from a darker, grittier, era of play. Of note, I cannot recall which recent 5E book had it but there's a critter called "The Boneless" which is relatively similar to the "Forsaken Shell", though not as powerful if I recall. On a side note: recently I've been focused on developing some unique "Familiars" to spice up the game. Most recent is injecting some horrifying attributes to a "Crawling Claw" which any true blooded Necromancer would find endearing. Many ideas to play with but be assured, a Claw gripping a humanoid type entity would do far more than a simple throttling, heh heh. :) Cheers Buddy!
My absolute favorite among them was the Angel of Decay. The visceral art behind such a creature looked as if it held nothing but contempt for the living. I never had a chance to utilize one as a DM until more recently, but since there are none I could find for 5th edition, I'm pretty much using it as a bbeg for the current campaign. The fact that it is called an angel as a mockery of the heavens always made it appear more dreadful than most undead of the realm, with the exception being the atropal scion of course.
I remember encountering a Dream Vestige (the DM didnt call it that). Folks in the village were all asleep in a constant nightmare, they died if awaken. We find out that if anyone went to sleep the curse would also affect him (a henchmen was the first to fall asleep and started screaming) so we couldn't rest until the curse was lifted. We did on the second night, but was exhausting. Great stuff.
if you watched the 3rd DND movie "Book of Vile Darkness" there was a slaymate in it. just look up "The Undead Girl (D&D3)" to see the segment from the film
Had a campaign where the right hand of the big bad was a Morgh. Party also nearly wiped to a Weep in that one. They managed to retreat, as it was bound to a room to guard a mcguffin.
if a friend of mine tells me "i wish the d&d universe was real!" i will tell them to watch this video and then ask them "do you still wish its real?" :p
Our GM sicc'ed a Boneyard on us a couple months ago. Nasty fight -- and the GM admitted he nerfed it. I shudder to think how worse it would have been at full abilities.
Thank you for the nightmare fuel ideas for me to use in the future. Haven't used undead against my party yet, mostly due to bringing ability score damage back in full force. If you fight a void, expect a part of yourself to be pulled into the dark depths of nothingness. That's undeath in a nutshell. Hungering for life that no longer can exist in a broken shell while trying to leech it away from those that still possess that warmth.
And this video is why to me at least 3.5 edition D&D will always be the best it wasn’t toned down it was dark, gritty, and could be outright disturbing at times but it was made for a more cultured audience back then in my opinion.
3.5 absolutely had some terrifying stuff both looks and mechanically...
3.5 is advanced D&D 5e is D&D Lyte. Just to clarify there is no better system just flavor. 3.5 has far more freedom and FAR more math and rules. 5e is quicker easier and more story driven I think. But then a wizard can solo the tarasque with a fly spell spamming catrips.
@@nicocrestmere9688 in 3.5 the tarrasque was a literal world ender
and this is why i love 3.5 vs 5 e there is so much more to the game
@@jamesfragomeni8039 I agree but I’m thankful for 5E because I can teach my daughter how to play easier
Most definitely whent on a monster book Binge and loved the lore n feel of the monsters helped make homebrews fun on spooky season
3.5 was simply the best edition ever.
The 3rd edition, still the pinnacle of D&D. The most options, gritty play, and great at storytelling.
Agree. Pathfinder was what 4e shoukd have been.
Without a doubt.
I don't know what you're talking about. TSR went out of business before releasing a 3rd edition of D&D.
@@HenriFaust TSR released 5 editions of D&D, and WotC released 3, Piazo released 2.
@@alexandriamason2355 TSR released 7 versions of D&D including four versions of the Basic Set, but not a single one was called 3rd edition.
This video just gave me an adventure idea. What if a mage lost their child to a war or a plague and ended up turning the child into a Slaymate in a misguided attempt at resurrection?
That sounds like the start to a powerful story there.
Those arcane boys, still jealous of clerics for that 🙄
Rocket - The Mage sought out the services of a Hag.... 😬
@@esperthebard - Esper, please do a Monster Melee with some of these bizarre undead for the coming Halloween holiday. Please?
I don't think anyone would forsee this level of dread. 😳 We need something truly creepy. Your background "music" should be appropriate and haunting.
@@esperthebard - I don't know if you even saw my request but thank you sir. You delivered. Just in time for Halloween. Is there a rematch for the Lich planned? Just curious.
I was fascinated by D&D as a kid but never had the chance to play until I was nearly twenty. I used to sneak to the TTRPG section and peek at the books whenever we'd go to Books A Million. This takes me back to those times. Thank you.
I see why people don't like 5e. It's about the player when it used to be about the stories you create as a group.
Original A&DD DM here. 1979-1984. Thank you for this channel. It's fun nostalgia for 50+ year old me.
Scary undead adventures were amazing. Description with lots of adjectives made the game fun. We never used minis. THE GAME was about storytelling. Good players "described" their attacks with colorful language. If they "role played well" they got extra bonus.
Keep up the good work here.
16:12 Shadows have strength reduction in 5e, if they hit you, you lose 1d4 points of strength (no save involved) and you insta-die if your strength reaches 0
I remind you that they're CR 1/2, and that strength is often the dump stat for most casters, rogues and monks, often not being higher then an 8
Yes indeed, that's an example of the extremely rare 5e ability damage. Others are intellect devourer, maurezhi, and vargouille.
Libris Mortis was a hell of a good supplement. I remember how excited I was to get my hands on it.
Like you, becoming a father intensified my care and concern for the wellbeing of children. That Slaymate monster would be a difficult encounter for me.
The old school gory art reminds me of the older Games Workshop stuff and other horror/fantasy themed art from the 80s and 90s. Love it! Nowadays, everything is so sanitised. 😔
Agreed. Hate to be that guy, but 5e is truly "soft" compared to earlier editions. Still a great game, just wish it was a little less "prettied up" if that makes sense
Love the old art. Really miss the style. Great video!
I'm hoisting the torch to keep some light shining on these grittier old styles.
I miss it too. I find the 5e artwork to be lame compared to 1-3.5 art
Wow. 50% of these I've never heard of. Pretty cool entries. I'm kinda glad the guy that gm'ed most my 3.5 games never threw some of these at us, but they're cool, lol.
1: I think WotC needs a age rating so we can have both our PG and our NC 17
2: On a couple occasions I've busted out monsters that drain Max HP or an ability score and every time the players loved it... but I suspect it was because it was special.
Grand Pappa Nurgel approves of the Plague Spewer! Very cool video good sir! Yours has become one of my favorite D&D channels!
I run a campaign about Undead, Horror, Halloween and general spooks. I need a lot of Undead, for it. So this video is doin’ me good.
Thank you for the list!
5e definitely may benefit from few Death metal album covers in it's books.
P.S. Also it was really nice nighttime video.
As a Necromancer player myself this video was amazing! You talked about my favorite book and then talked about almost all of my favorite Undead creatures. One I love is The Visage. being able to rip memories away and then act like some sort of mimic is amazing and then being an Undead Creature it having some immunity to Holy energy.
Instantly subbed
New players: ability score damage is pretty easy to handle. For every 2 of damage, subtract 1 from anything that uses that score. If the damage ever equals your ability score, you usually die and usually don't get saves. Your DM will tell you what happens, otherwise. Don't be intimidated
This was a particularly great one.
When I was a kid, I played 2E. When I was a grown up and got back into it in college, 4E was the most current edition. Now I play 5.
So I missed 3 and 3.5 and have only played one or two shorter campaigns with that system. It’s so cool to
Hear these breakdowns on monsters I never encountered. Thanks for this.
3.5 system was, more or less, ported into Pathfinder. Couple changes, but otherwise a carbon copy.
I loved 3.5, but it was overly complicated. If you like the mechanical aspect of the game Pathfinder kept all of it. 5.0 is my favorite so far for simplifying a lot of it, without over simplifying it like 4.0
3.5 was the best. Basically they took third edition and gave it a hotfix to patch all the problems it had and added a bunch of new crap that worked great. Like DLC for pen and paper.
That’s sad that you missed 3e. It was basically the best edition. If you hear people complain that it was “complex”, pay them no mind…they are illiterate and tipping their hand as such. Like, they swear “grappling” is so complex you need a flow chart to understand it when it’s just two dice rolls: one to hit and then an opposed STR check. Legit that’s it lol
I thought 2E was the best.
You get used to the rules. For those who cannot add or subtract.... it explains why 5E is here. But 2E made sense. It was not a board game. You FOUGHT to have a low initiative score. That meant something powerful. An 18 Dex gave you a -4 modifier to lower your Init every round. It gave you a +4 to hit with thrown weapons or missiles.
I like it when monsters are able to damage you in more ways then "you take 10 damage or half as much on a failed roll" because it adds dynamics to the combat, either through making the players play smart or adding panic which is what a horror monster should be doing.
As someone who plays a lot of 3.5, and has a deep, profound love of undead, you made some excellent picks here!
Especially good picks with the Forsaken Shell and the Skulking Cyst. Had an excellent night a few months ago playing out a combat with a Skulking Cyst menacing a low level party; darkness is a really, really good spell-like ability for it.
Another few undead that deserve a shout are Plague Blights, another great entry from Libris Mortis, and Bonedrinkers from MMIII. I think I vaguely remember a video of yours where you mention Bonedrinkers, but I might be conflating your video with someone elses.
It’s great to see videos about 3.5 still coming out, and I hope you keep up the good work!
These are some of my all time favorites from 3.5e. I miss that feeling of looking at a new undead monstrosity and reading its flavour text and feeling deeply perturbed by the thought of facing one as a commoner. The idea that one could live a provincial or pastoral life of peace and have everything upended by undead horrors spreading decay is so deeply terrifying. An unfathomable hatred enduring beyond death and returning to its village in undeath, raising its victims as thralls to assist in the undoing of its place of origin. A single shadow, wraith, or morhg could turn a bustling town into a rotting, bloated necropolis within a night if a well meaning party of adventurers fail to take care in disposing of a murderer's body.
That's one of the reasons I love the world of the Witcher, while it's easy to become complacent and used to the monsters when playing as a character who's life is based around slaying them, when you imagine just being an average citizen of that world, suddenly every ghoul, nekker, and drowner becomes horrific again, let alone the more powerful monsters or entity's like the Crones.
Ninja - Undead are parasitic to the living. They are highly contagious and extremely deadly.
In my game, years ago, Zombies were of the type of flesh eaters. Highly contagious like the movies. Not within 30 seconds but it depended upon the Con of the character. If not healed by a cleric, not just the wound, but the negative energy disease, it would continue to cause infecting rot until the character died. Then.... it was a variable amount of time until it turned to the undead.
And Vampires, even lesser Vampires.... terrifying. Salems Lot, the movie, was a tremendous idea for a Halloween adventure.
This is why 5E sucks. The old days, with undead, scared you. It caused you to fear. It created horror. You could feel it in the game.
One of my fave weirdos was the penangalang, a flying undead vampiric head trailing carnivorous attack intestine tentacles.
I loved the Brain in a Jar, so simple a concept but terrifyingly potent against low-level groups with its minor psionic abilities.
Oh man, I love the brain in a jar! I thought about including it here, but it is in 5e, and I wanted to stick with things that have not been done yet in 5e (and maybe never will).
@@esperthebard wait, what 5e book has the Brain in a Jar?
@@beardiebuddy I think it got published in Icewind Dale
This year celebrates 30 years playing D&D for me (mostly designated DM) I started with AD&D and still playing 5e. Thank you for your stories, history, and in depth descriptions. Adventure on to all my fellow dorks. May your dice never roll a 1. You're always 20 in my book, Esper
I like the challenge of ability loss and the greater the risk the better it feels to overcome it
While they are incredibly rare in D&D: I really love the non-murderhobo monsters. *Especially* undead ones.
The suspiciously specific ones always fascinated me.
Like: "This thing is full of holes. It won't attack you unless you attack it first. OR if you are undead. It HATES undead. ... Or if you smell really bad. THEN you are in danger." which, always made me wonder: WOULD it attack a mummy?
Or like: "This undead isn't evil. In fact, it's not even hostile. UNLESS you've harmed innocent people. *Especially* children. It can supernaturally sense that within 100'. And it WILL truck your day."
Or: "This thing IS hostile. But! It ONLY does subdual damage. And if its knocks you out. It steals your toenails and leaves you alive. Why? Who the frick knows!"
Undead in early editions invoke a lot more fear, when they can drain you of the ability to fight back, as they prey on you.
Great vid for Halloween. I forgot how terrifying 3e undead were.
Undead in 5e tricky but manageable. Undead in 3.5 are an absolute nightmare
Well done good sir. Your tales of ole are so well done. Perfect for this time of year!
I wish I could like this video more then once
I really miss 3.5
You can still play it! Now is a better time than ever
damn i just realized how gnarly and brutal earlier dnd edition monsters were, there are probably so many awesome stories about fighting these monsters!
Undead are best when they are hard to deal with, give them a bunch of immunities, and resistances, and if you feel charitable a few vulnerabilities, and make your players afraid to leave the house after dark, for fear that their might be a few nasty customers in the area, whose lease on life expired a long time ago.
What a throwback, I had that book, thanks man, keep up the great job 😎 🤘🍻
I've played every edition except 4th, and 3/3.5 is a personal high point for me. I enjoy 5th currently, and 2nd was the edition I first played, so it has a special place. 3rd though, just seemed like it hit all my buttons in the best ways.
26:20 Good, the writers actually did something to make you feel something.
The Atropal always makes me shiver.
Surely enjoyed this list. I personally really like the Bone drinker, i think he is in the Red hand of Doom module.
Bonedrinker just barely didn't make the cut!
I've been so desensitized to undead in general that I can't help but watch this and feel quite literally nothing for a good chunk of the featured monsters.
I love 3.5 D&D and its monsters. The Skulking Cysts and Slaymates are two of my favorite undead as well, along with the Atropal Scion.
You should consider doing other videos like this one, like 10 disturbing aberrations, demons, devils, evil fey etc. from 3e D&D.
Seconding this, that’d be killer, especially since a lot of 3e/3.5 monsters never got published past 3.5.
Hell yea! Honestly I never left 3.5 that's where I got a good collection all the MM, Libris Mortis, Fiend Folio, Book of Vile Darkness, Monsters of Faerun, Fiendish Codex Hordes of the Abyss. Just missing the other Fiendish Codex but on the list to get.
I did try a session of 4th & 5th but Idk 3.5 has more appeal to me. BTW Esper I always loved your monster lists videos regardless of the Edition been a fan of them for yrs. I also thought your garden videos were awesome it was fun to watch Mathias was it? going through the maze
Absolutely great... We do need this kind of undead variety in 5e
It's crazy that undead used to drain levels back RC and BECM dnd lol
YOOOOO these are so cool.
This makes me wish I played 3.5 even more.
I like the balance for this video. From Esper promising us grotesque concepts that 5th Edition can't/won't do to later defending 5th Editions methods and even feeling rather sorry for the Slaymates.
The Dream Vestiage could offer a chance for some stories where both the living, and intelligent undead have to work together to to stop a particularly potent Vestige. Cool stuff.
~ Adam
Great for my Halloween OneShot. Thank you
Funny, if your interested in using the bone yard, void wraith, and forsaken shell. Dungeon Dad on UA-cam has done some very good 5e conversions of them.
I love this kind of content. I wish more played 3-3.5E
Thanks Bryan! I played the hell out of 3.5, but then I grew fed up with it. It's hard to explain. There are many aspects of 3.5 that I love the best of any edition, but then there are other sides to it that make it so difficult to play. The system itself is unstable and out of control, the constant flurry of mathematical calculations is an annoying chore, the bloat is bewildering, many parts of it are legitimately too complicated, and the amount of trifling/mediocre character options that you have to wade through to find good stuff is just a slog. 3.5 will forever hold a very special place in my heart, but I just can't play it anymore.
@@esperthebard I see. Well that makes sense. I love the hardcore feel of past editions but practicality will usually triumph in the end.
Boneyard would make a awesome boss fight. I can see a Boneyard being the undead guardian of a ancient long forgotten tomb
They definitely make a great boss fight, but can often be trivialised with things like freedom of movement.
It would make a great pet for a Lich. 😢
I remember reading about the Dream Vestige in the Unclean, Unholy, Undead trilogy where Szass Tam released on as a super weapon. Horrifying stuff
Looking into ability score loss doesn't sound nearly that bad if you have a cleric or a town with an experienced priest. Hell you could probably have some holy artifact that dispels that bullshit.
I agree with the draining being so much more intense in 3.5e, temporary level drain being a feature common to quite a few sources of negative damage was always terrifying, great way to take the wind out of any adventurer is to take 4 of their levels away
The irony, of course, is that 3E/3.5 *nerfed* Energy Drain. In the AD&D era, such attacks didn't even have a saving throw, and powerful undead were REALLY terrifying! 😱
I turned energy drain into Soul Hit Points.
Paladins had the same amount of SHP as they did regular HP. But a normal fighter would only have the same HP as a peasant. 1d8 plus Con bonus. It rarely came up except against undead and the rare Necromantic spell. Clerics had more SHP but only because they knew about the undead and negative life energy.
My game went on for over a year before the players experienced the extreme attacks of simple things like Zombies and Ghouls. But undead in my game weren't common. They were truly scary things.
Libris Mortis is a gold mine.
It is one of many 3.5 books that I love, along with the two Fiendish Codexes, MM3, Sandstorm, Frostburn, Stormwrack, Dungeonscape, Cityscape, Drow of the Underdark, and all the "Complete" books.
Bringing back the memories! I forgot how brutal some of these were for players…yikes! Great video! Definitely going to try reskinning these for 5e for upcoming sessions. Would love to see a video of you giving your insight on how to do that with some of these monsters!
None of these are as viscerally disturbing as seeing the iconic characters transformed into purple reptilian monstrosities called "dragonborn" in _Races of the Dragon._
I miss the adult stylings of this hobby
Also how the game used to be about making creative, unique content, instead of the simplest, least offensive thing possible.
@@esperthebard nothing greater than the tome dedicated to evil and based on edginess being compared to terrorism. In 2002. What attitude we could have maintained.
Modern younglings say "speech is violence".
I grew up with vorpal swords and level-draining undead. Now that was violence!
Vocabulary is terrific indeed.
Just started up a new 3.5 campaign, I look forward to using one or more of these creatures alongside my newly discovered darling, the rot reaver
Ah, that was a great video once again. I just absolutely love these kind of your videos and the intro comment regarding the more tame approach of 5e is sth that always gnawed at me, too. Mechanically I really like 5e (and play it) but growing up with AD&D 2nd, I miss the more mature, mean and ugly approach esp. in creatures and supplements from back then and from 3/3.5e.
A particularly skilled necromancer could get a Foraken Shell, Skulking Cyst, and skeleton out of one body. Economical!
Great list. Keep making these awesome, creative, creepy, and otherwise interesting videos.
OMG, Sepulterra! Nice creation!
Roots, bloody roots. You're the master of words and storytelling!
I see the world, old!!!
Thanks! The names of my undead elementals are plays on words: blightning, bonefire, sepulterra, shipwretch
The dream vestige is almost certainly based on a 1926 short story from Weird Tales called The Night Wire. It's public domain and definitely worth a read.
Awesome list! Very spooky. Also go watch eldritch castle!
Devourers were great to use as penultimate monsters. Either the players figure out what's going on and confront/protect innocents or it gets more utility and power to use against them.
the old school Esper,s back!
finally an undead list again 🤝
to thing that MTG of all things will be the end of the dark DND lore
HI Buddy;
Just as an aside, I posted this comment whilst viewing a MR Rhexx vid. I thought you may appreciate the little touch of nostalgia it evokes; :)
I'm confident there's a few Old Salts that like me, remember the days of the D&D "Satanic Panic" that took place throughout the early '80s. In addition to all the Devils and Demons we used throughout our games, utilizing the Undead also fueled the fire well above bbq levels of heat. The hilariously bad 1982 film "Mazes and Monsters", starring a young upstart named Tom Hanks, also attempted to decry how our souls were going straight to hell for playing such an EVIL game.
It got pretty wild for a while there. Funny to think about now but at the time, Lobby Groups tried their best to send us gamers underground and created a lot of Press against the game. Many of us seasoned Vets have since declared; "well, if we survived that, we can survive anything!"
Sadly, Hasbro and WotC as of late, continues to try our patience in maintaining that mind-set.
Love the video can't wait for more of the eldritch castle. Love the way uve been going with ur channel lately keep it up
Even as someone that started with 2e and has spent the last few years playing 5e I fully believe 3.5 is when D&D peaked.
Love the tier lists!
4:15 I kinda wish the monster manual went the full gory route for its imagery. Unfortunate that WotC chooses to mute such down.
Horrific illustration of aberrant, twisted and insane fantasy monsters, complete with blood, viscera and violence in their illustrations.
Loving all your content!
Great video! It makes me want to create a horror theme dungeon to use most of these monsters. Thanks for the inspiration!
Nice video Esper, I really appreciate content like this, keep it up.
My favorite is the attic whisperer, not very gross, but so creepy...
That's a good one, though it's Pathfinder only isn't it?
@@esperthebard possible, but I use Monster from all Manuels. Some from the Iron Kingdoms are great to and don´t need changes to 5e..
Just started the video, I'm hoping for a Hullathoin mention (may have mispelled; massive undead rat-thing that can spawn various swarms)
amazing list
Excellent!
Thanks so very much once more Esper, greatly appreciate you 'resurrecting' these wonderfully horrifying entities for us from a darker, grittier, era of play.
Of note, I cannot recall which recent 5E book had it but there's a critter called "The Boneless" which is relatively similar to the "Forsaken Shell", though not as powerful if I recall.
On a side note: recently I've been focused on developing some unique "Familiars" to spice up the game. Most recent is injecting some horrifying attributes to a "Crawling Claw" which any true blooded Necromancer would find endearing. Many ideas to play with but be assured, a Claw gripping a humanoid type entity would do far more than a simple throttling, heh heh. :)
Cheers Buddy!
A grittier era to be sure. Back when there could be actual horror in the official game books, instead of just "spooky but tame."
My absolute favorite among them was the Angel of Decay. The visceral art behind such a creature looked as if it held nothing but contempt for the living. I never had a chance to utilize one as a DM until more recently, but since there are none I could find for 5th edition, I'm pretty much using it as a bbeg for the current campaign. The fact that it is called an angel as a mockery of the heavens always made it appear more dreadful than most undead of the realm, with the exception being the atropal scion of course.
Love your work, keep it up.
I remember encountering a Dream Vestige (the DM didnt call it that). Folks in the village were all asleep in a constant nightmare, they died if awaken. We find out that if anyone went to sleep the curse would also affect him (a henchmen was the first to fall asleep and started screaming) so we couldn't rest until the curse was lifted. We did on the second night, but was exhausting. Great stuff.
Wow. I think slaymate is the best, although the forsaken shell and the skulking cyst are ALSO very horrifyingly good.
if you watched the 3rd DND movie "Book of Vile Darkness" there was a slaymate in it. just look up "The Undead Girl (D&D3)" to see the segment from the film
Had a campaign where the right hand of the big bad was a Morgh.
Party also nearly wiped to a Weep in that one. They managed to retreat, as it was bound to a room to guard a mcguffin.
Dam
Watching this Im almost tempting to break out my old 3e books.
Btw, old school for life.
Toning down...you mean pussifying...beholder used to be terrifying now they're just unsettling 😂😱
Here's towards the video doing well!
if a friend of mine tells me "i wish the d&d universe was real!" i will tell them to watch this video and then ask them "do you still wish its real?" :p
Our GM sicc'ed a Boneyard on us a couple months ago. Nasty fight -- and the GM admitted he nerfed it. I shudder to think how worse it would have been at full abilities.
Just in time for Halloween.
Spooky monsters for the spooky month!
Thank you for the nightmare fuel ideas for me to use in the future. Haven't used undead against my party yet, mostly due to bringing ability score damage back in full force. If you fight a void, expect a part of yourself to be pulled into the dark depths of nothingness. That's undeath in a nutshell. Hungering for life that no longer can exist in a broken shell while trying to leech it away from those that still possess that warmth.
5e art and design is quite literally child’s play compared to this stuff
Freaky- tnx Esper
Great stuff.
And this video is why to me at least 3.5 edition D&D will always be the best it wasn’t toned down it was dark, gritty, and could be outright disturbing at times but it was made for a more cultured audience back then in my opinion.
very nice listing of horrifying monsters of bygone times
As a father myself I would probably skip over the Slaymate. Exactly cense I have lost a child myself.