MONSTERS BITCHES!!!! Please pretend I put something cheeky here. I is the tired at the moment. Also, can I pitch a really great book that Paizo sent me? amzn.to/2I00naq
Love your videos. Don't know how to spell any of the creates you mention and that is extremely frustrating because I can't look them up. Can you leave a list somewhere please 👍
I like how you say the cadaver collector doesn't have a cap on its specters but you literally say, "Yada yada yada." When you should have been reading 1D6 specters arise. shame
I actually used Cave Fishers for my very first dungeon ever, and first dungeon for all the players. It was a very spider themed dungeon, and the PC's had a paladin NPC who they were travelling with that they grew incredibly attached to. The Cave Fishers sucked him up and started wailing on him. I rolled the death saves openly (because I was still teaching all of them how to play and wanted to show them how death saves worked) so when he failed two death saves in a row and the party was going NUTS seeing the blood become to seep through the webs that were binding him and teetering on the edge of death. The only one with a healing spell was able to get in range after breaking free of her own webs and save his life with a well placed healing word, and the barbarian landed a very solid hit which was filled with such passion and hope that made the party's panic turn into a loud celebration that I am surprised didn't get a noise complaint from next door. Very memorable indeed!
Rechordian They undeniably have many similarities, but they both have really interesting takes on corpse collecting and, in my opinion, don’t feel redundant despite having similar gimmicks. Also, being a weaker incarnation of another creature isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it’s different CR lets you can use it on a lower level party, which can feel way different than higher levels. You can also put them together in an encounter if you want to be cruel.
The Allip is amazing! I've got an ancient Lich as a BBEG, and I'm gonna reflavor it's Power Word: Kill into "It leans in and whispers into the recipient's ear. That horrible secret being something that turns the poor soul into an Allip.
Super awesome. I actually reflavored the allip as a mjniboss by stealing some abilities from other creatures and upping its stats. I also Giving an ability that I call castle of memories. With this ability the preacher was able to trap my players in an illusion created from its memories such that they had to relive the set of circumstances that led it to come upon the knowledge that destroyed it. If the players did not escape the illusion in some fashion Before it reached its conclusion, they would suffer the same fate.
@@jarbuthn It already has a death-spiral ability, but I don't think that's an inherently bad thing if the players know what they go up against and are planning around what they know. I never pull this on the players unless they already know that the ability exists. That's what NPCs are for.
Cadaver collector’s just straight up vibe in the campaign I’m playing. We asked one for directions and as it was helping us a decapitated head fell off its shoulder, our Barbarian picked up the head and gave it back to it and it gave us a thumbs up.
One or more Nivix Cyclopes paired with something like an Archmage or some creature that can cast 1+ level spells at will... The cyclops's reaction doesn't specify enemies casting the spell, it says "a creature." Every round, when the boss spellcaster does their thing, CYCLOPS SMASH!
@@thoronbar A friend of mine pointed out that allips can lead other people to become allips by passing on their cursed information, becoming like a memetic plague, which the party is tasked with containing. I think it's a really interesting concept for a campaign! I think you could create a mechanic for it that would be treated like an inverse sanity score, and function similar to Insight in bloodborne, where the higher your Insight is, the more of the giant monsters and cosmic horror in the background you can see, but also, the more of it will see you (and attack you). Thus it also comes with a neat in-universe explanation for why encounters scale up over time. The more allips and similarly eldritch enemies/items/places the party encounters, the higher their Eldritch-vision scores will go, the more the world around them will descend into otherworldly distortion.
@@mooncrime4998 when an allip passes on his secret, the original dissipates to the afterlife. There's only one allip per secret, but each allip wants to pass it on.
what I love the most about Allips is that they're a great source of Warlocks! as they are library keepers, who repeat their secrets nonstop either by voice or by writing, those who read the Allip's book can roll a Wisdom/ Will/ Sanity check &, in case of success, they become Warlocks of the power whose secrets Allips keep instead of crazy people on their way to become Allips.
In my first campaign I ran my players through a custom dungeon. The first layer had your standard zombies, crawling hands, and some twig and vine blights. Nothing a party of five lv3s couldn’t handle. Second layer was more of the same, but they soon got the feeling that something was amiss. In the center of a large room stood a large, withering, bulbous plant that gave off a reeking scent of death and decay. They had just fought and killed a fully grown corpse flower that strangely had no cadavers in its body. On top of this, they ran into a shrieking purple mushroom that scared the living daylights out of everyone. A nature check from our druid told that the corpse flower nor the shrieker were in their natural habitats. Third floor was the introduction of the myconids, gas spores, ghouls, and violet fungus. It was a very tough floor, as the party had to basically play a game of hide and seek with a floor full of shriekers alerting the myconids and ghouls to their locations, as well as the fungus creatures being able to know when the others felt pain. All the while they dodged around a few withering corpse flowers again with no corpses inside them. Then they were ambushed by shadows. The party was surprised, but the shadows didn’t do very much harm. I rolled pretty bad with their strength drain attacks, and the party was able to dispatch them in a few rounds. After killing the shadows, however, it was then they heard whisperings of mad knowledge in their ears that made them have to roll a wisdom save, some of our party taking small damage just from a few words. They descended to the final chamber. The walls and floor were lined with fungus, moss, and ivy. The chamber littered with rotted corpses all huddled into the same kneeled position. From a rampaging cloud of smoke the boss materialized in front of a wide altar stained with dried blood and the skeletons of many severed hands, and the fight with the Allip began. In place of its recharge ability, I made it summon 1d4 shadows as minions. The fight was tough, some of the party going down and being raised to fight again. It took everything they had, but eventually they managed to kill the Allip with our wizard casting firebolt to incinerate the maddened spirit. In a back chamber the party found a mostly plant-infested corpse, his hands being the only parts of his body free from any form of plant life. Due to a journal enchanted to never show age, the party learned the dungeon was a place where druidic cultists offered their life force in exchange for enhancing their powers - or so the cultist leader (the Allip) wanted them to believe. He attempted to conduct rituals to bring a resurgence of nature to destroy nearby cities and towns, invoking the names of primal gods from old and cursed tomes in a desperate attempt to carry out a radical ideal. He eventually got what he wanted, but the resurgence only brought short-term results. Everyone but him was killed from the ritual, and the creatures he summoned wouldn’t obey him. The primal lords whose names he forsook cursed him to cause death and corruption to whatever plants his hands touched, and because he cut them off the primal gods made it so his hands would forever grow back, thus explaining the crawling hands found throughout the dungeon.
I’ve already used the Nivix Cyclops. I bumped up his INT a bit and made him the captain of a band of Ogre marauders on the high sea. My ogre bolt launches attacked from the ship while ogre howdahs carries dynamite-hurling goblins into whatever town the were raiding. It was pretty fun when the PCs realized they could target the howdah with fire attacks to detonate the dynamite, but once the Cyclops captain showed up, he wrecked the spellcasters who dared to cast firebolt/fireball on the goblins.
More revenants! Because they are basically immortal enemies (with a time limit), they can be powerful threats. Unless the party has access to wish, the revenant can always become a threat, no matter the party level. They are intelligent, charismatic undead. They can get allies. They can get equipment. Plus they make great quest npcs, with the whole "I have one purpose, please help me avenge myself"
That's actually kind of an idea for a PC I have. Basically a Death Knight, higher leveled than the rest of the party(though not wanting to tax himself or cause infighting in the party by revealing his true power). Unlike normal Death Knights, who gain undeath by breaking their oaths, the PC is keeping his oath, and until his oath is fulfilled, he cannot rest. Eventually, he will fulfill his oath and finally pass on in one last blaze of glory to protect the rest of the party.
Nivix Cyclopes look like a critter that will make even the most brazen barbarian change his pants when the party caster tries to nuke it and it Sun Goku Satsu's itself over to the caster and plausibly drops them
I remember an encounter with a Roc in a previous game I was playing in. Our group was in the middle of an enormous siege on the enemy capital. Our group had formed a battalion of 'war bears' to lead the charge into battle, with two of our party members riding our giant war-bear Finn. One of our spellcasters used enlarged on Finn just as we stormed the walls, meaning our already massive war-bear became elephant sized and utterly demolished the gate to the city. Then a Roc came and scooped up our elephant sized war-bear tank, nearly killing not only Finn but also the two party members who were riding him. That moment when we thought we were in the clear, only for a roc to scoop up one of our most important tools for the battle (in fact, there were several rocs in the battle that began picking off our war-bears *very quickly*) was one of the most terrifying moments of that session. Also, our group was around level 15 when this happened, so being unable to control that kind of situation only added to the tension.
I actually used an allip and its secrets to give one of my players a level in warlock as he had been asking about being able to multiclass! The whispers resonated within him and as he leveled, they revealed more and more.
I threw my players for a loop with the humble Carrion Crawler. They were going through a dimly lit room and knew something was there with them. They rolled perception and just made the DC. I describe that a puff of pebbles and dust trickle down from the ceiling. Their response: "Oh ****! We forgot to look up!" Moral of the story: Never underestimate Spider Climb.
I was thinking of replacing a Spectre fight in TOA Cellar of Death (they've only recently fought a spectre), a scaled down Allip might be just the thing.
I used a Roc against my group of then 5 level 3's and a level 4 character (The level 4 defeated a CR4 solo when he was level 3, long story). They were on a quest a Bronze Dragon gave them, and the Dragon also flew them to the destination. They knew a Roc lived in the mountains a bit north, and they could see it coming. Since the Roc has such a quick flying speed, it was able to catch up to the young Dragon, and well... His first attack was a nat 20. Our paladin is afraid of birds now. Edit: They didn't beat him, it was merely to show them this world has some dangers in it that cannot be overcome by a low level party. After the players dealt about 100 damage, the Roc flew away.
@@tarcio936 Well, they were solving a mystery in a place called the Adventurer's Academy. Multiple students had gone missing and necromancy was detected. Our barbarian goliath wanted to train some, and went to the first person he saw. That person was the martial arts teacher, a monk which exact level i forgot, but it was between 6-10. Now our goliath was level 3, but rolled 11 and 12 on hit hitpoint rolls for levelup. They agreed on an unarmed battle, and what do you know. First round, goliath got a crit. Two more down the road. Comebined with his frenzied rage, he barely won. And got 1100 xp solo.
I once had a bandit with a crossbow nearly tpk by itself. The group was 6 level 2 players. One of my players thunderwaved and downed a sorcerer and hit everyone else. It also knocked my bandit captain into a pit, the thunderwave hit everyone in the party. After that I thought "oh ok cool, now they'll finish of the othe bandit real quick..." in the next two rounds of combat the players rolled 3 nat ones and downed 2 more pcs. One round later our fighter fell into the pit and the other two fled in terror. They rushed back in, however the bandit had escaped through a secret door. That bandit will be coming back later as a miniboss.
Before Tome of Foes came out, I included an Allip based on an upgrade of the 3e monster. He was one of the pharaohs in a valley of the dead style mega dungeon, one who had driven himself insane by seeking magical omnipotence. He caused a good amount of freakout among the players, since they assumed he was a ghost (the last tomb had a ghost). The babble effect caught them totally off guard
Maybe the party has to track down an Allip, and risk becoming one to learn an ancient secret.That would be an interesting way to mix up a fact finding quest.
Dude, Cody, you just gave me the perfect boss monster for a part of my campaign. I have a Church Grim go feral for an unexplained reason and become a roving Bargeist. (A homebrew version, not the goblin dog thing in D&D. Based on the actual supernatural creature.) I originally had fiends take the place of the reason, but the Alup would work so much better.
The Nivix Cyclops fits PERFECTLY in the Eberron setting, my players will definitely be encountering one or more of them. EDIT: So does the Cadaver Collector, now that I think about it.
Everytime you say “The Roc” I always think of “The Rock” “The Roc has a flying speed of 50ft and can hit you for an average of 25 points of damage with its talons”
1: Set the roc on fire and have a necromancer ride it. 2: Make the collector take dead bodies for its necromancer master. 3: Give the cave fisher a web, and make them a hive mind that serves a necromancer. 4: Make the Allip a victim to your necromancer. 5: Make the Nivix Cyclops the overseer for the collectors that serve your necromancer.
@@michelefolli4132 Actually, I'm more of a demon and devil guy. I just thought it'd be fun to tie all five of them to a necromancer. That being said, I do really like undead.
Congratulations, you've just made my one-shot for tonight. Now i just have to figure out the CR of these encounters and give my players just enough levels for it to be fair.
This is a good one. I have an Allip guarding a haunted well in my upcoming DMs Guild adventure. It's used as an alternative to the Spirit Troll that is supposed to be there for lower level parties.
"I get it, people don't like Drizzt" oh the incredulity upon my face when you acknowledged the haters. You must shed no light upon them, Cody. The legend of Drizzt made the Cavefisher a great monster and has had that effect on numerous D&D properties for me. It is the reason why I have any attachment to Faerun and the Swordcoast setting at all.
I really can get being tired of the stories, but had no idea people hate Drizzt. The idea was new for its time and the characters were interesting to me.
Really great list of monsters. A lot of them would fit in the area where my players are at this very moment. Think of a big desert of white translucent sand with black jagged spikes coming of from the ground like they're the earth's spines. A lot of creatures roam around in there because it is said to be cursed by the thousands of lives that were lost during war. Thanks a lot!
BTW (as trivia), The Cave Fisher made its debut in the A4 "In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords" Mod. :-P As FYI, some time ago, I made a video review of the A4 Mod on my YT channel.
One more thing about the Cave Fisher is that it has valuable innards as part of the (non stat block) text. I ran a game where a pair of them attacked the group while they were resting (by getting the person on watch). This lead to a white-knuckle fight as they were trying to free the bard while still waking up and not in heavy armor. They eventually won the fight, returned to the guild, realized that the guts and shells were worth a ton of money and had to make their way back down to harvest the corpses. However they were ultra paranoid every night, yet still kinda hoping that more would attack. It was great.
The Hydra has some really interesting mechanics that surprised and excited my players. Two of them were only a medium encounter, but posed quite a challenge.
A LOOOOOGN time ago I was running a game where the party was heading into the mountains, along a road which paralleled the base of a lengthy cliff. They spotted a hand-painted sign that read, "BEWARE OF FALLING ROKS" - they assumed the misspelling was for rocks, and decided to travel a little bit away from the cliff wall and felt smart. Until a GIANT bird swooped down from the top of the cliffs and took their pack mule, gear included, away.
I've been a Cadaver Collector fanboy since 3.5e when I tried to make a Warband around the miniature. I just thought it was so cool of a concept. So hyped that it's made the list !
i used the cave fisher in one of my games. i also had a player testing out a monk subclass i made that was all about doing fire damage. their blood is alcohol and duergars and dwarves have used them as cattle. said blood also explodes when dealt fire damage. that was pretty fun
I just used 3 mud mephites for my sons 1-1 one shot. The battle was the longest in the game. It was so much fun and frustrating. His character and his sidekick helped a centaur with it, and despite the mephites rolling incredibly bad dice, so did the centaur so it was basically my kid and his sidekick doing all the work. It took almost 30 minutes.
I have loved the Allip ever since I saw a picture of it. Then I read the description, realized they’re awesome, and have had them stored away in my memory for if I ever need them since.
This video came up at a PERFECT time. In 3 days I’m starting session 0 with my usual DND group where they will know who the villian is right off the bat. The tropic evil necromancer whose belief in immortality has brought together dozens of races and enemies under one roof to spread his ideology forcibly. I can’t wait to use every enemy on this list!
I'm planning a campaign that takes place slightly post Karsus' Folly, and I think I'll use these guys to guard texts on high magics. I like the thought of them whispering a fragment of some piece of the spell they're guarding into the adventurers' ears (which if I recall correctly would have the same effect as attempting to read the spell themselves), thus incurring some of the negative effects of Mystra's barring of knowledge of high magic.
I think the Aboleth from MM and the Morkoth from Volo’s Guide don’t get enough love. I plan to make a port city whose criminal underworld is masterminded by an aboleth; possible campaign themed around him in the future.
I know it's been like, 9 months since this was posted, but I love it! Inspired me to make a haunted house side quest for my players (cause halloween!) where the main catch is that there's a cadaver collector within it. It's not meant to be hostile though (my party befriends everything first, combat later), but it's rather hidden away in the crypts mourning it's long dead necromancer master. As the party explore the house they'll encounter specters it's summoned, all expressing this mourning, as well as finding clues about the necromancer and his work
Funny story about the Allip. I actually used one to impart a secret to the party's Kalashtar, which causes them to suddenly suffer a dam burst of memories from the Quori spirit within their mind. This ended up lending some valuable tidbits to the campaign at large, and the Quori may not be as benevolent as they thought... I also added an extra bit where the Kalashtar couldn't use certain abilities and any divination or enchantment spells they used were a bit muted for a few in game days, because of the trauma dealt to the psychic of the party.
Thanks Cody, I completely forgot about the cadaver collector! I'm going to use it as the elite defender of a Warforged Colossi my party are attacking on sunday. Keep up the good work bro.
My first real game of Pathfinder, DM threw a Bulette at us! Having to deal with a burrowing enemy in an open field wracked all the confidence we had in being mounted cavaliers and perpetually had us checking over our shoulders. It seems such a simple gag character, but the way it was handled made for auch memories.
LOVE the cave fisher. I hid mine up in a crevice in the wall in a cave, the bard was playing music through the cavern and suddenly was just yeeted into the hole. Daggon sharpshooter fighters killed it though, memorable encounter so it was worth it.
I love the Star Spawn. They're so weird and unnatural, and they have weird synergies like a Star Spawn Hulk being able to turn another star spawn's psychic damage into an AOE effect around it. Plus, two hulks stood next to eachother can arguably cause infinite psychic damage because of a feedback loop. They're just insane i love em
Yep, but I've also fought them because my DM is running a very Abberation focused campaign, so watching the other players figure out how these things work is really fun
I threw the Nilbog into the Sunless Citadel and that really messed with my party. Not only is he fun to roleplay, but he can be very hard to kill for a low level party (I gave him the max hit point roll). And even when they managed to kill him, he would just spring up again to torment them with mockery and tricks. Eventually the party was able to convince Nilbog that playing tricks on Belak would be a great deal of fun, and so he joined up with them for the last fight. Turned out to be a lot of fun.
I actually used an Allip some time ago and our wizard, after learning what an Allip is decided to let the Allip possess him to write down the secrets the Allip wanted to share. He redeemed the Allip and now has notes filled with dark and evil secrets which he plans to (of course he does!) decipher and learn.
Stone Cursed. I have a high-level necromancer who deals with insubordination by making his minions into stone cursed and have them as part of my decor, best security system ever. I always love the mini behind the scenes battles my DM has with thiefs, assassins, etc. trying to sneak in to my headquarters only for my character to find a newly petrified addition to his gallery.
Yeah I didn’t understand the “you guys don’t like him” comment either. I have to picture the people that don’t like him as the same sort that don’t like certain movies or music cause it’s too popular. Maybe they don’t realize, Drizzt is the main reason the primary setting is FR.
@@Taking20 See I disagree with that too. Superman is in most versions an illegal immigrant, in some he was actually born on American soil but that is a rare variation (mostly between Crisis on Infinite Earths and the start of the New 52). Then too he is a man with the power of a god who is a devout Methodist. The one area I think his writers lack is understanding that any Kansas farm boy knows when and why to drop an F-bomb (I'm from South Dakota and I've lived in Kansas). Anyway on Drizzt, his story hooked me from page 1 (started with Homeland), and while I've never made a pastiche character after him I did have a group annihilate house Baenre (spelling may be off).
I am a big fan of Drizzt, and I agree the cave fisher encounter was very interesting. I used the cave fisher against level 5 party, and they almost killed more than one member!
Running a puzzle dungeon one shot and needed a 'mystery monster' for my dm/experienced players so made a BG2 'trap' room encounter with Mempits containing a crystal with a CR5 Living Lightning Bolt from Eborren Rising from the last war that set of a spell mimicy lightning bolt on being found... it totally stumped each player who assumed it was a trap and wasted their actions either breaking the crystal or mending it back together... the collage of eloquence bard eventually figured out that they could talk to it but not before it downed 3 party members
Off topic from your video. Been watching your videos lately love them. I used play been years since I rolled the dice. I started with 1st edition when I was 10 years old. Moved up to AD&D up until I was 19. Played DM and pc's Havent played since, but seems alot has changed. I am 40 now, but I remember my favorite character Garon Grangerford. I roll my stays first to determine what character I'm going to produce. I rolled an 18 on str and decided to go with a chaotic neutral fighter by the name of Garon, proficient in the harpoon and longsword. With 8 brothers and an I dont give a shit father Garon was brought up to take "steel" and murder to make it in the dark times of D&D. They all lived in a big house and were very notorious. Garon died at level 5 killed by his own party lol. But still by far my favorite PC I have ever played.
I send a two-headed roc against a ship with four LV 3 characters, it was a great encounter. They spotted the thing approaching, loaded the cannons and started shooting at it. Then, when the bird landed, everyone had to roll to avoid being flown away overboard by this beast. At half HP I described how the paladin decapitated one of the heads with a fantastic critical. And when the gargantuan beast tried to fly after the onsluaght of criticals and demolishing the paladin, it turned into a chase where everyone had to play a role: Commanding the staff, aiming the last cannons, keeping the bird in sight and piloting the ship. It was a hell of a battle
I recently used cave fishers in my campaign as the preferred beast of hunt for an underdark city because their meat tastes like crab, their chitin makes for good armor and other crafts, their filament makes for good rope, and their blood is alcoholic.
Aboleth is frequently the first monster of a bestiary, but you don't see many encounters with them, since they're aquatic creatures. I made a 5 sesion campaing where there was an aboleth villian in the sewers of a city, with a little army of gryndilows running a smuggling operation that could overthrow the local goverment in favor of an evil wizard. The aboleth was a pretty solid encounter, forcing the players to fight underwater in a flooded sewage. The aboleth would overpower them with its tentacles, but also play mind games, creating illusory images of itself while being supported by an entourage of gryndilow minions.
Love the Allip!! Used one in my DeathHouse intro to Curse of Strahd. Changed one the specter in the house into an Allip (no more spoilers) and nearly TPK’d the group. Now the warlock is hearing voices and thinks it’s his patron trying to send him messages; they escaped the house eventually (ironically lost one of the two clerics in the process).
If you want to make a cool encounter with a roc, just have it be used as what they were canonically bred for, and have it be serving as the mount for a giant. Put a cloud or storm giant on its back and suddenly you have a very engaging encounter.
Interesting, I've used 2 years ago the Cadaver Collector before Moderkainen (converted the version of 3.5 in the Monster Manual 3) and it was the most memorable monster of that campaign.
A good way, i feel, to make a cadaver collector a good bbeg is if it collects a cadaver that becomes a revenant that possesses the construct and makes it more intelligent while also keeping many of its powers and/or making it stronger
Goblins! They may be considered as over utilized but i still love using them to throw the party a curveball. One of my favorite examples is having one pull out two flasks of Alchemist Fire and run at a part member like Grunt from Halo.
Cave fisher encounter! My party members were getting pretty jacked up. They got it into some standing water (about 3" of water) and my magus decided to shocking grasp the water. Yes. Yes he shocking grasped the water, knocking himself and the cave fisher unconcious.
Just used a "legendary" Roc in an encounter against a group of lvl6-7's. Essentially the centaurs of the savanna the party were travelling through, deify this immense bird that hunts their region and the seas beyond. They try to offer up their own tributes in exchange for whatever the Roc is carrying. So for my players, they were attacked by a Bulette which drew the attention of the Roc. 3 rounds of combat in, the front half of a trading ship crashed into the battleground, then the next round the roc swooped in to tear into the Bulette. Offered the group the chance to attack & they declined. So off the roc flies with it's bulette dinner. Then as the group is investigating the wreckage of the boat, a squad of Centaurs rock up, offering to trade, explaining the ritual etc... turns into a mass gathering of the nomadic tribes across the day. Allowing an interesting way for the party to meet and be introduced to a new set of NPCs and their culture.
Roc out!! Side note: i saw the Corpse Collector in a campaign that "collected" another boss enemy and the players just gave up on trying to take it out.
Map Mimic from Kobold Press' Tome of Beast. I had 4 of them disguised as swords on a rack, and when a player went to take one, they all face hugged him and he died. The party was struggling through the other stuff in the room the whole time. It was pretty hectic.
LOTS of 3rd party monsters are cool but I believe he was trying to keep his list to WotC only stuff. 3rd party Monster Manuals are some of my favorite books out there!!!
I’m useing a few skulks that have killed dwarfs in a old dwarven mine. All the party is gonna be over 10 so they can’t see them. But I’m only useing them as scare tactics the party will have 1 little girl in the party who will point them out with only the party to decide if they want to believe what the npc says they see.
I love the inclusion of the Cave Fisher! I had the same introduction via R.A. Salvatore and have been terrified by this scorpion like creature since. Love this inclusion!
Ay the Allip made an appearance at my table! My character was a triton prince and tempest cleric from under the sea with a terrible secret i was keeping from the party until the time was right. My sister was the DM and she knew this. We went to a temple and found out i was attached to a 'dark entity' and when the allip and friends sprang forth it allowed me to introduce my characters full backstory in an epic way. Made for a very memorable encounter. Also a ghost possessed our Barb and he immediately swung and crit me so it was sweaty too!
I used an Ancient Black Ooze against my PCs basically as a level check. I really wanted to push the feeling that the world has a lot going on and not all of it is your level. They stumbled into its graveyard lair at night and only at like level 5. The resulting mad dash for life was pretty fun to play.
The Steeders from Out of the Abyss are really cool. They are spiders about the size of horses that can leap up to 90ft in the air. Imagine the players narrowly escape the Cave Fisher, only for a few of these to jump out around them.
MONSTERS BITCHES!!!! Please pretend I put something cheeky here. I is the tired at the moment.
Also, can I pitch a really great book that Paizo sent me?
amzn.to/2I00naq
Lol that's cheeky
Swear
Hey some words splashed up would be helpful. I had literally no idea how to spell Allip.
Love your videos. Don't know how to spell any of the creates you mention and that is extremely frustrating because I can't look them up. Can you leave a list somewhere please 👍
I like how you say the cadaver collector doesn't have a cap on its specters but you literally say, "Yada yada yada." When you should have been reading 1D6 specters arise. shame
"Sometimes a big hulking construct that has no shades of gray in their objective can be a great campaign villain still."
*Liberty Prime intensifies*
Better dead than red
ANCHORAGE SHALL BE LIBERATED!!!
Communist Detected on American Soil. Lethal Force Engaged.
Initiating patriotism sub routine
Objective buried under dirt, gravel, and
C O M M U N I S M
I actually used Cave Fishers for my very first dungeon ever, and first dungeon for all the players. It was a very spider themed dungeon, and the PC's had a paladin NPC who they were travelling with that they grew incredibly attached to. The Cave Fishers sucked him up and started wailing on him. I rolled the death saves openly (because I was still teaching all of them how to play and wanted to show them how death saves worked) so when he failed two death saves in a row and the party was going NUTS seeing the blood become to seep through the webs that were binding him and teetering on the edge of death. The only one with a healing spell was able to get in range after breaking free of her own webs and save his life with a well placed healing word, and the barbarian landed a very solid hit which was filled with such passion and hope that made the party's panic turn into a loud celebration that I am surprised didn't get a noise complaint from next door. Very memorable indeed!
Epic.
That's that good good we can all use!
Wow. A party better watch out or that Gargantuan bird will Roc them like a hurricane.
Yes.
I wish I could give this comment more than one like.
You earned a like, but watch yourself there
Remember, some Giants are proficient in roc throwing.
HERE I AM
I'm surprised the Corpse Flower didn't make an appearance. Scared the loving crud out of my players when they realized they walked into a GROVE of em
I just looked up what a Corpse Flower is, and I'm totally going to use it later in my campaign!
Rechordian They undeniably have many similarities, but they both have really interesting takes on corpse collecting and, in my opinion, don’t feel redundant despite having similar gimmicks. Also, being a weaker incarnation of another creature isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it’s different CR lets you can use it on a lower level party, which can feel way different than higher levels.
You can also put them together in an encounter if you want to be cruel.
@@carp1436 like Cadaver Collector mixed with Shambling Mound.
My party has a mausoleum on their home base grounds, and I had a sudden increase in zombie activity with a corpse flower moving in.
"Nivix cyclops sees caster using spells, dashes trough everything and punches wizard"
Cyclops: CHEATING BAD, FIST IN YOUR FACE!
The Allip is amazing! I've got an ancient Lich as a BBEG, and I'm gonna reflavor it's Power Word: Kill into "It leans in and whispers into the recipient's ear. That horrible secret being something that turns the poor soul into an Allip.
cool! ...but be prepared for a potential tpk spiral.
Oooh that's good!
Super awesome. I actually reflavored the allip as a mjniboss by stealing some abilities from other creatures and upping its stats. I also Giving an ability that I call castle of memories. With this ability the preacher was able to trap my players in an illusion created from its memories such that they had to relive the set of circumstances that led it to come upon the knowledge that destroyed it. If the players did not escape the illusion in some fashion Before it reached its conclusion, they would suffer the same fate.
@@jarbuthn It already has a death-spiral ability, but I don't think that's an inherently bad thing if the players know what they go up against and are planning around what they know. I never pull this on the players unless they already know that the ability exists. That's what NPCs are for.
Lmao back in 3.5 a CR4 Allip was technically able to defeat the Tarrasque.
Cadaver collector’s just straight up vibe in the campaign I’m playing. We asked one for directions and as it was helping us a decapitated head fell off its shoulder, our Barbarian picked up the head and gave it back to it and it gave us a thumbs up.
"Like the roc"
Me: Dwaine Johnson?
"Like the bird"
Me: oh
DO YOU SMEEEELL, WHAT THE ROCK, IS COOKIN.
@@lordscrubugus9897 a adventuring party apparently
@@lordscrubugus9897 As long as it's not eggs, I'm sure the ROC will be fine.
I would say that both are applicable
Will the kill your party with series come back? those where my favourite.
Please? They are great
Pretty please!
All the please??
Our party almost died crossing a stream. Our DM was appalled by our efforts. We now all carry water walking potions
You should never cross the streams.
One or more Nivix Cyclopes paired with something like an Archmage or some creature that can cast 1+ level spells at will... The cyclops's reaction doesn't specify enemies casting the spell, it says "a creature." Every round, when the boss spellcaster does their thing, CYCLOPS SMASH!
prophetisaiah08 😳 not cool! Lol
But now I’m already plotting the encounter..
That's nuts.
That is wonderful. I was looking for something to challenge my players, the self labelled "4 spells and a gun" group. This is wonderful!
How about a night hag - magic missile at will. Plus hags just love to corrupt an coop other critters to their will...
The Allip is just perfect for a darkest dungeon style adventure or campaign.
An allip is great, because somewhere nearby is a magical inscription or book which can cause psychic damage or just give your players madness.
@@thoronbar A friend of mine pointed out that allips can lead other people to become allips by passing on their cursed information, becoming like a memetic plague, which the party is tasked with containing. I think it's a really interesting concept for a campaign! I think you could create a mechanic for it that would be treated like an inverse sanity score, and function similar to Insight in bloodborne, where the higher your Insight is, the more of the giant monsters and cosmic horror in the background you can see, but also, the more of it will see you (and attack you). Thus it also comes with a neat in-universe explanation for why encounters scale up over time. The more allips and similarly eldritch enemies/items/places the party encounters, the higher their Eldritch-vision scores will go, the more the world around them will descend into otherworldly distortion.
I used one a few days ago... he got alpha striked before he could do anything. If your party has access to lots of magic.....bump the hp a bit
@@mooncrime4998 when an allip passes on his secret, the original dissipates to the afterlife. There's only one allip per secret, but each allip wants to pass it on.
The tortured soul of one who grew tired of traditional extravagance
what I love the most about Allips is that they're a great source of Warlocks! as they are library keepers, who repeat their secrets nonstop either by voice or by writing, those who read the Allip's book can roll a Wisdom/ Will/ Sanity check &, in case of success, they become Warlocks of the power whose secrets Allips keep instead of crazy people on their way to become Allips.
In my first campaign I ran my players through a custom dungeon. The first layer had your standard zombies, crawling hands, and some twig and vine blights. Nothing a party of five lv3s couldn’t handle.
Second layer was more of the same, but they soon got the feeling that something was amiss. In the center of a large room stood a large, withering, bulbous plant that gave off a reeking scent of death and decay. They had just fought and killed a fully grown corpse flower that strangely had no cadavers in its body. On top of this, they ran into a shrieking purple mushroom that scared the living daylights out of everyone. A nature check from our druid told that the corpse flower nor the shrieker were in their natural habitats.
Third floor was the introduction of the myconids, gas spores, ghouls, and violet fungus. It was a very tough floor, as the party had to basically play a game of hide and seek with a floor full of shriekers alerting the myconids and ghouls to their locations, as well as the fungus creatures being able to know when the others felt pain. All the while they dodged around a few withering corpse flowers again with no corpses inside them. Then they were ambushed by shadows. The party was surprised, but the shadows didn’t do very much harm. I rolled pretty bad with their strength drain attacks, and the party was able to dispatch them in a few rounds. After killing the shadows, however, it was then they heard whisperings of mad knowledge in their ears that made them have to roll a wisdom save, some of our party taking small damage just from a few words.
They descended to the final chamber. The walls and floor were lined with fungus, moss, and ivy. The chamber littered with rotted corpses all huddled into the same kneeled position. From a rampaging cloud of smoke the boss materialized in front of a wide altar stained with dried blood and the skeletons of many severed hands, and the fight with the Allip began. In place of its recharge ability, I made it summon 1d4 shadows as minions. The fight was tough, some of the party going down and being raised to fight again. It took everything they had, but eventually they managed to kill the Allip with our wizard casting firebolt to incinerate the maddened spirit.
In a back chamber the party found a mostly plant-infested corpse, his hands being the only parts of his body free from any form of plant life. Due to a journal enchanted to never show age, the party learned the dungeon was a place where druidic cultists offered their life force in exchange for enhancing their powers - or so the cultist leader (the Allip) wanted them to believe. He attempted to conduct rituals to bring a resurgence of nature to destroy nearby cities and towns, invoking the names of primal gods from old and cursed tomes in a desperate attempt to carry out a radical ideal. He eventually got what he wanted, but the resurgence only brought short-term results. Everyone but him was killed from the ritual, and the creatures he summoned wouldn’t obey him. The primal lords whose names he forsook cursed him to cause death and corruption to whatever plants his hands touched, and because he cut them off the primal gods made it so his hands would forever grow back, thus explaining the crawling hands found throughout the dungeon.
wow!
I’ve already used the Nivix Cyclops. I bumped up his INT a bit and made him the captain of a band of Ogre marauders on the high sea. My ogre bolt launches attacked from the ship while ogre howdahs carries dynamite-hurling goblins into whatever town the were raiding. It was pretty fun when the PCs realized they could target the howdah with fire attacks to detonate the dynamite, but once the Cyclops captain showed up, he wrecked the spellcasters who dared to cast firebolt/fireball on the goblins.
More revenants! Because they are basically immortal enemies (with a time limit), they can be powerful threats. Unless the party has access to wish, the revenant can always become a threat, no matter the party level. They are intelligent, charismatic undead. They can get allies. They can get equipment.
Plus they make great quest npcs, with the whole "I have one purpose, please help me avenge myself"
Just started a new story arc by bringing back an old PC as a revenant, they really are great plot hooks.
That's actually kind of an idea for a PC I have. Basically a Death Knight, higher leveled than the rest of the party(though not wanting to tax himself or cause infighting in the party by revealing his true power). Unlike normal Death Knights, who gain undeath by breaking their oaths, the PC is keeping his oath, and until his oath is fulfilled, he cannot rest. Eventually, he will fulfill his oath and finally pass on in one last blaze of glory to protect the rest of the party.
Cadaver Collector being compared to Wall-E just makes me imagine a Wall-E compacting bodies into cubes
Bodak was my best “what is happening” monster to-date. It still makes some players nervous when I mention it.
For some reason, the Nivix Cyclops monster reminds me of the "Big Daddy" in the Bioshock video game.
Adding a small sized sorcerer as a companion to it would have some really good synergy, both combat- and flavorwise
@@TheLegoLord100 Definitely!
I was thinking about that!
Nivix Cyclopes look like a critter that will make even the most brazen barbarian change his pants when the party caster tries to nuke it and it Sun Goku Satsu's itself over to the caster and plausibly drops them
The only reason I am watching this video is for the image of a Big Daddy
I remember an encounter with a Roc in a previous game I was playing in. Our group was in the middle of an enormous siege on the enemy capital. Our group had formed a battalion of 'war bears' to lead the charge into battle, with two of our party members riding our giant war-bear Finn. One of our spellcasters used enlarged on Finn just as we stormed the walls, meaning our already massive war-bear became elephant sized and utterly demolished the gate to the city.
Then a Roc came and scooped up our elephant sized war-bear tank, nearly killing not only Finn but also the two party members who were riding him.
That moment when we thought we were in the clear, only for a roc to scoop up one of our most important tools for the battle (in fact, there were several rocs in the battle that began picking off our war-bears *very quickly*) was one of the most terrifying moments of that session.
Also, our group was around level 15 when this happened, so being unable to control that kind of situation only added to the tension.
Dragon Magazine had "The Ecology of the Cave Fisher" it was written in journal form by a captor that was awaiting being the next to be eaten.
I actually used an allip and its secrets to give one of my players a level in warlock as he had been asking about being able to multiclass! The whispers resonated within him and as he leveled, they revealed more and more.
I ran a nivix cyclops in a oneshot encounter. It was epic, the encounter was barely twenty minutes but it was so memorable.
I threw my players for a loop with the humble Carrion Crawler. They were going through a dimly lit room and knew something was there with them. They rolled perception and just made the DC. I describe that a puff of pebbles and dust trickle down from the ceiling. Their response: "Oh ****! We forgot to look up!"
Moral of the story: Never underestimate Spider Climb.
CADAVER COLLECTOR!! I love that monster!
I'm definitely going to use the Allip and the Cave Fisher in my campaign
I was thinking of replacing a Spectre fight in TOA Cellar of Death (they've only recently fought a spectre), a scaled down Allip might be just the thing.
I used a Roc against my group of then 5 level 3's and a level 4 character (The level 4 defeated a CR4 solo when he was level 3, long story). They were on a quest a Bronze Dragon gave them, and the Dragon also flew them to the destination. They knew a Roc lived in the mountains a bit north, and they could see it coming. Since the Roc has such a quick flying speed, it was able to catch up to the young Dragon, and well... His first attack was a nat 20. Our paladin is afraid of birds now.
Edit: They didn't beat him, it was merely to show them this world has some dangers in it that cannot be overcome by a low level party. After the players dealt about 100 damage, the Roc flew away.
Tell the story about the defeat of the cr 4
@@tarcio936 I agree
@@tarcio936 Well, they were solving a mystery in a place called the Adventurer's Academy. Multiple students had gone missing and necromancy was detected. Our barbarian goliath wanted to train some, and went to the first person he saw. That person was the martial arts teacher, a monk which exact level i forgot, but it was between 6-10. Now our goliath was level 3, but rolled 11 and 12 on hit hitpoint rolls for levelup. They agreed on an unarmed battle, and what do you know. First round, goliath got a crit. Two more down the road. Comebined with his frenzied rage, he barely won. And got 1100 xp solo.
Koen Berenschot bet it felt great for the Goliath player lol
I once had a bandit with a crossbow nearly tpk by itself. The group was 6 level 2 players.
One of my players thunderwaved and downed a sorcerer and hit everyone else. It also knocked my bandit captain into a pit, the thunderwave hit everyone in the party. After that I thought "oh ok cool, now they'll finish of the othe bandit real quick..." in the next two rounds of combat the players rolled 3 nat ones and downed 2 more pcs. One round later our fighter fell into the pit and the other two fled in terror. They rushed back in, however the bandit had escaped through a secret door.
That bandit will be coming back later as a miniboss.
Before Tome of Foes came out, I included an Allip based on an upgrade of the 3e monster. He was one of the pharaohs in a valley of the dead style mega dungeon, one who had driven himself insane by seeking magical omnipotence. He caused a good amount of freakout among the players, since they assumed he was a ghost (the last tomb had a ghost). The babble effect caught them totally off guard
Maybe the party has to track down an Allip, and risk becoming one to learn an ancient secret.That would be an interesting way to mix up a fact finding quest.
I can't wait to throw Dwyane "the Roc" Johnson at my players.
When you described the Allip my first thought was to have a few of them that were leftovers from an Aboleth that's just up the way
Dude, Cody, you just gave me the perfect boss monster for a part of my campaign. I have a Church Grim go feral for an unexplained reason and become a roving Bargeist. (A homebrew version, not the goblin dog thing in D&D. Based on the actual supernatural creature.) I originally had fiends take the place of the reason, but the Alup would work so much better.
"Roc out with your c-"
DEMONETIZED
:'D
Dad joke to uncle joke real quick
Thanks for bringing awareness to the Allip. It's freaking perfect for my campaign.
Cave fisher:we had a dwarf that had experienced cave fisher blood, which is canonically alcohol, and they immediately started calling it a vodka crab
Is there a proper monster names subreddit?
The Nivix Cyclops fits PERFECTLY in the Eberron setting, my players will definitely be encountering one or more of them.
EDIT: So does the Cadaver Collector, now that I think about it.
Ah the good old Roc I remember seeing one for the first time in an old Sinbad movie
Lol, now i know where red hook got their inspiration for 'the collector' miniboss in darkest dungeon
Everytime you say “The Roc” I always think of “The Rock”
“The Roc has a flying speed of 50ft and can hit you for an average of 25 points of damage with its talons”
It's not 50ft, its 120ft
And then People's Elbow your wizard
I’ve used a cadaver collector in two different games, with two different sets of players. They. Freaked. Out.
What was the plot?
1: Set the roc on fire and have a necromancer ride it.
2: Make the collector take dead bodies for its necromancer master.
3: Give the cave fisher a web, and make them a hive mind that serves a necromancer.
4: Make the Allip a victim to your necromancer.
5: Make the Nivix Cyclops the overseer for the collectors that serve your necromancer.
I think that your favourite character is the necromancer, isn't it?
@@michelefolli4132 Actually, I'm more of a demon and devil guy. I just thought it'd be fun to tie all five of them to a necromancer. That being said, I do really like undead.
Congratulations, you've just made my one-shot for tonight. Now i just have to figure out the CR of these encounters and give my players just enough levels for it to be fair.
@@X23Natalie Glad to be of service. What do I win?
This is a good one. I have an Allip guarding a haunted well in my upcoming DMs Guild adventure. It's used as an alternative to the Spirit Troll that is supposed to be there for lower level parties.
I can in fact red, I cannot speal tho.
Oh, I remember the allip from CR campaign 2! This monster was a sight to behold! And one monster that threw us off the most.. Must be catoplebas.
"I get it, people don't like Drizzt" oh the incredulity upon my face when you acknowledged the haters. You must shed no light upon them, Cody. The legend of Drizzt made the Cavefisher a great monster and has had that effect on numerous D&D properties for me. It is the reason why I have any attachment to Faerun and the Swordcoast setting at all.
I really can get being tired of the stories, but had no idea people hate Drizzt. The idea was new for its time and the characters were interesting to me.
I didnt realize there was hatred. It's a good set of stories, granted one dimensional, but good flavour.
Something people forget, R.A. Salvatore wrote those for pretewns/teens. They were super impactful on my childhood, and still overall very good books.
Really great list of monsters. A lot of them would fit in the area where my players are at this very moment. Think of a big desert of white translucent sand with black jagged spikes coming of from the ground like they're the earth's spines. A lot of creatures roam around in there because it is said to be cursed by the thousands of lives that were lost during war. Thanks a lot!
BTW (as trivia), The Cave Fisher made its debut in the A4 "In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords" Mod. :-P
As FYI, some time ago, I made a video review of the A4 Mod on my YT channel.
One more thing about the Cave Fisher is that it has valuable innards as part of the (non stat block) text. I ran a game where a pair of them attacked the group while they were resting (by getting the person on watch). This lead to a white-knuckle fight as they were trying to free the bard while still waking up and not in heavy armor. They eventually won the fight, returned to the guild, realized that the guts and shells were worth a ton of money and had to make their way back down to harvest the corpses. However they were ultra paranoid every night, yet still kinda hoping that more would attack. It was great.
The Hydra has some really interesting mechanics that surprised and excited my players. Two of them were only a medium encounter, but posed quite a challenge.
A LOOOOOGN time ago I was running a game where the party was heading into the mountains, along a road which paralleled the base of a lengthy cliff. They spotted a hand-painted sign that read, "BEWARE OF FALLING ROKS" - they assumed the misspelling was for rocks, and decided to travel a little bit away from the cliff wall and felt smart. Until a GIANT bird swooped down from the top of the cliffs and took their pack mule, gear included, away.
Do I have permission to steal this?! This is fantastic
@@lukebarnett2898 Heck yes! Using your players assumptions and expectations against them is an important tool in the toolbox of a DM.
I've been a Cadaver Collector fanboy since 3.5e when I tried to make a Warband around the miniature. I just thought it was so cool of a concept. So hyped that it's made the list !
i used the cave fisher in one of my games. i also had a player testing out a monk subclass i made that was all about doing fire damage. their blood is alcohol and duergars and dwarves have used them as cattle. said blood also explodes when dealt fire damage. that was pretty fun
I just used 3 mud mephites for my sons 1-1 one shot. The battle was the longest in the game. It was so much fun and frustrating. His character and his sidekick helped a centaur with it, and despite the mephites rolling incredibly bad dice, so did the centaur so it was basically my kid and his sidekick doing all the work. It took almost 30 minutes.
I have loved the Allip ever since I saw a picture of it. Then I read the description, realized they’re awesome, and have had them stored away in my memory for if I ever need them since.
This video came up at a PERFECT time. In 3 days I’m starting session 0 with my usual DND group where they will know who the villian is right off the bat. The tropic evil necromancer whose belief in immortality has brought together dozens of races and enemies under one roof to spread his ideology forcibly. I can’t wait to use every enemy on this list!
I'm planning a campaign that takes place slightly post Karsus' Folly, and I think I'll use these guys to guard texts on high magics. I like the thought of them whispering a fragment of some piece of the spell they're guarding into the adventurers' ears (which if I recall correctly would have the same effect as attempting to read the spell themselves), thus incurring some of the negative effects of Mystra's barring of knowledge of high magic.
New to the D&D thing and appreciative to the videos and the supportive community.
I think the Aboleth from MM and the Morkoth from Volo’s Guide don’t get enough love. I plan to make a port city whose criminal underworld is masterminded by an aboleth; possible campaign themed around him in the future.
I know it's been like, 9 months since this was posted, but I love it! Inspired me to make a haunted house side quest for my players (cause halloween!) where the main catch is that there's a cadaver collector within it. It's not meant to be hostile though (my party befriends everything first, combat later), but it's rather hidden away in the crypts mourning it's long dead necromancer master. As the party explore the house they'll encounter specters it's summoned, all expressing this mourning, as well as finding clues about the necromancer and his work
I want to use that cyclops and have it say in giant: "Screw you wizard!" The first time it uses its reaction.
Funny story about the Allip. I actually used one to impart a secret to the party's Kalashtar, which causes them to suddenly suffer a dam burst of memories from the Quori spirit within their mind. This ended up lending some valuable tidbits to the campaign at large, and the Quori may not be as benevolent as they thought... I also added an extra bit where the Kalashtar couldn't use certain abilities and any divination or enchantment spells they used were a bit muted for a few in game days, because of the trauma dealt to the psychic of the party.
Dude, thank you! Pulled out the Cave Fisher on my party this weekend and my party was completely caught off guard and freaked out!
I was actually planning on using an Allip for my upcomming campaign within the backstory of a wild sorceress. THIS just gave me more idea's :D.
Thanks Cody, I completely forgot about the cadaver collector! I'm going to use it as the elite defender of a Warforged Colossi my party are attacking on sunday. Keep up the good work bro.
I just picked up the game and started looking at miniature market and the Cadaver Collecter INSTANTLY caught my eye.
My first real game of Pathfinder, DM threw a Bulette at us!
Having to deal with a burrowing enemy in an open field wracked all the confidence we had in being mounted cavaliers and perpetually had us checking over our shoulders.
It seems such a simple gag character, but the way it was handled made for auch memories.
LOVE the cave fisher. I hid mine up in a crevice in the wall in a cave, the bard was playing music through the cavern and suddenly was just yeeted into the hole. Daggon sharpshooter fighters killed it though, memorable encounter so it was worth it.
I love the Star Spawn. They're so weird and unnatural, and they have weird synergies like a Star Spawn Hulk being able to turn another star spawn's psychic damage into an AOE effect around it. Plus, two hulks stood next to eachother can arguably cause infinite psychic damage because of a feedback loop. They're just insane i love em
Raptors lemme guess you watched webdms vid on these guys
Yep, but I've also fought them because my DM is running a very Abberation focused campaign, so watching the other players figure out how these things work is really fun
I threw the Nilbog into the Sunless Citadel and that really messed with my party. Not only is he fun to roleplay, but he can be very hard to kill for a low level party (I gave him the max hit point roll). And even when they managed to kill him, he would just spring up again to torment them with mockery and tricks. Eventually the party was able to convince Nilbog that playing tricks on Belak would be a great deal of fun, and so he joined up with them for the last fight. Turned out to be a lot of fun.
I actually used an Allip some time ago and our wizard, after learning what an Allip is decided to let the Allip possess him to write down the secrets the Allip wanted to share. He redeemed the Allip and now has notes filled with dark and evil secrets which he plans to (of course he does!) decipher and learn.
Allip is absolutely perfect for my current campaign, cheers Cody!
Stone Cursed.
I have a high-level necromancer who deals with insubordination by making his minions into stone cursed and have them as part of my decor, best security system ever.
I always love the mini behind the scenes battles my DM has with thiefs, assassins, etc. trying to sneak in to my headquarters only for my character to find a newly petrified addition to his gallery.
Dritzz is cool, why wouldn’t you like him. Good books
Good list
I've never met someone who knew D&D that didn't like Drizzt, or Tasslehoff for that matter ;).
Yeah I didn’t understand the “you guys don’t like him” comment either. I have to picture the people that don’t like him as the same sort that don’t like certain movies or music cause it’s too popular.
Maybe they don’t realize, Drizzt is the main reason the primary setting is FR.
Shane Rasmussen yes Tas was cool too
People complain that he's one dimensional. Sort of like Superman.
@@Taking20 See I disagree with that too. Superman is in most versions an illegal immigrant, in some he was actually born on American soil but that is a rare variation (mostly between Crisis on Infinite Earths and the start of the New 52). Then too he is a man with the power of a god who is a devout Methodist. The one area I think his writers lack is understanding that any Kansas farm boy knows when and why to drop an F-bomb (I'm from South Dakota and I've lived in Kansas).
Anyway on Drizzt, his story hooked me from page 1 (started with Homeland), and while I've never made a pastiche character after him I did have a group annihilate house Baenre (spelling may be off).
I am a big fan of Drizzt, and I agree the cave fisher encounter was very interesting. I used the cave fisher against level 5 party, and they almost killed more than one member!
Running a puzzle dungeon one shot and needed a 'mystery monster' for my dm/experienced players so made a BG2 'trap' room encounter with Mempits containing a crystal with a CR5 Living Lightning Bolt from Eborren Rising from the last war that set of a spell mimicy lightning bolt on being found... it totally stumped each player who assumed it was a trap and wasted their actions either breaking the crystal or mending it back together... the collage of eloquence bard eventually figured out that they could talk to it but not before it downed 3 party members
The Allip, Cave Fisher, and Cadaver Collector can all fit perfectly into the campaign I just started. Thanks for raising awareness!
Thanks for the suggestions! I typically home brew my boss monsters and a combination of monsters 4 & 5 will be perfect for my next one shot setting.
Off topic from your video. Been watching your videos lately love them. I used play been years since I rolled the dice. I started with 1st edition when I was 10 years old. Moved up to AD&D up until I was 19. Played DM and pc's Havent played since, but seems alot has changed. I am 40 now, but I remember my favorite character Garon Grangerford. I roll my stays first to determine what character I'm going to produce. I rolled an 18 on str and decided to go with a chaotic neutral fighter by the name of Garon, proficient in the harpoon and longsword. With 8 brothers and an I dont give a shit father Garon was brought up to take "steel" and murder to make it in the dark times of D&D. They all lived in a big house and were very notorious. Garon died at level 5 killed by his own party lol. But still by far my favorite PC I have ever played.
I send a two-headed roc against a ship with four LV 3 characters, it was a great encounter. They spotted the thing approaching, loaded the cannons and started shooting at it. Then, when the bird landed, everyone had to roll to avoid being flown away overboard by this beast. At half HP I described how the paladin decapitated one of the heads with a fantastic critical. And when the gargantuan beast tried to fly after the onsluaght of criticals and demolishing the paladin, it turned into a chase where everyone had to play a role: Commanding the staff, aiming the last cannons, keeping the bird in sight and piloting the ship. It was a hell of a battle
I recently used cave fishers in my campaign as the preferred beast of hunt for an underdark city because their meat tastes like crab, their chitin makes for good armor and other crafts, their filament makes for good rope, and their blood is alcoholic.
Aboleth is frequently the first monster of a bestiary, but you don't see many encounters with them, since they're aquatic creatures. I made a 5 sesion campaing where there was an aboleth villian in the sewers of a city, with a little army of gryndilows running a smuggling operation that could overthrow the local goverment in favor of an evil wizard. The aboleth was a pretty solid encounter, forcing the players to fight underwater in a flooded sewage. The aboleth would overpower them with its tentacles, but also play mind games, creating illusory images of itself while being supported by an entourage of gryndilow minions.
Love the Allip!! Used one in my DeathHouse intro to Curse of Strahd. Changed one the specter in the house into an Allip (no more spoilers) and nearly TPK’d the group. Now the warlock is hearing voices and thinks it’s his patron trying to send him messages; they escaped the house eventually (ironically lost one of the two clerics in the process).
I don't see slaadi used very often. They can be quite the nasty surprise, and are able to be introduced a lot earlier than one might expect.
If you want to make a cool encounter with a roc, just have it be used as what they were canonically bred for, and have it be serving as the mount for a giant. Put a cloud or storm giant on its back and suddenly you have a very engaging encounter.
Interesting, I've used 2 years ago the Cadaver Collector before Moderkainen (converted the version of 3.5 in the Monster Manual 3) and it was the most memorable monster of that campaign.
A good way, i feel, to make a cadaver collector a good bbeg is if it collects a cadaver that becomes a revenant that possesses the construct and makes it more intelligent while also keeping many of its powers and/or making it stronger
Goblins! They may be considered as over utilized but i still love using them to throw the party a curveball. One of my favorite examples is having one pull out two flasks of Alchemist Fire and run at a part member like Grunt from Halo.
Cave fisher encounter!
My party members were getting pretty jacked up. They got it into some standing water (about 3" of water) and my magus decided to shocking grasp the water. Yes. Yes he shocking grasped the water, knocking himself and the cave fisher unconcious.
Just used a "legendary" Roc in an encounter against a group of lvl6-7's.
Essentially the centaurs of the savanna the party were travelling through, deify this immense bird that hunts their region and the seas beyond. They try to offer up their own tributes in exchange for whatever the Roc is carrying. So for my players, they were attacked by a Bulette which drew the attention of the Roc. 3 rounds of combat in, the front half of a trading ship crashed into the battleground, then the next round the roc swooped in to tear into the Bulette. Offered the group the chance to attack & they declined. So off the roc flies with it's bulette dinner.
Then as the group is investigating the wreckage of the boat, a squad of Centaurs rock up, offering to trade, explaining the ritual etc... turns into a mass gathering of the nomadic tribes across the day. Allowing an interesting way for the party to meet and be introduced to a new set of NPCs and their culture.
Roc out!!
Side note: i saw the Corpse Collector in a campaign that "collected" another boss enemy and the players just gave up on trying to take it out.
Map Mimic from Kobold Press' Tome of Beast. I had 4 of them disguised as swords on a rack, and when a player went to take one, they all face hugged him and he died. The party was struggling through the other stuff in the room the whole time. It was pretty hectic.
LOTS of 3rd party monsters are cool but I believe he was trying to keep his list to WotC only stuff. 3rd party Monster Manuals are some of my favorite books out there!!!
I’m useing a few skulks that have killed dwarfs in a old dwarven mine. All the party is gonna be over 10 so they can’t see them. But I’m only useing them as scare tactics the party will have 1 little girl in the party who will point them out with only the party to decide if they want to believe what the npc says they see.
I love the inclusion of the Cave Fisher! I had the same introduction via R.A. Salvatore and have been terrified by this scorpion like creature since. Love this inclusion!
I liked Drizt, he was awesome, I hated that EVERYONE wanted to be a Drizzit clone in any game I DM'ed in the late 90's, early 2000's lol
I love Drizzt, and he has been an inspiration for me, but mostly giving me options that make drow playable with others, not a direct clone.
I enjoyed a good Drow character or two, that was fine, but there was a lot of clones too back in the day.
Ay the Allip made an appearance at my table! My character was a triton prince and tempest cleric from under the sea with a terrible secret i was keeping from the party until the time was right. My sister was the DM and she knew this. We went to a temple and found out i was attached to a 'dark entity' and when the allip and friends sprang forth it allowed me to introduce my characters full backstory in an epic way. Made for a very memorable encounter. Also a ghost possessed our Barb and he immediately swung and crit me so it was sweaty too!
I had a deck built around Nivix Cyclops a couple years back. Was really fun to play.
I used an Ancient Black Ooze against my PCs basically as a level check. I really wanted to push the feeling that the world has a lot going on and not all of it is your level. They stumbled into its graveyard lair at night and only at like level 5. The resulting mad dash for life was pretty fun to play.
Cadaver Collecters are SO underrated
The Steeders from Out of the Abyss are really cool. They are spiders about the size of horses that can leap up to 90ft in the air. Imagine the players narrowly escape the Cave Fisher, only for a few of these to jump out around them.