Still, nice article.

I think that which monsters are cool and which are lame is really subjective, and thus it’s hard to accuse designers of intentionally foisting filler crap on us. Likely someone on their design team thought it was cool, and there’s a great chance someone in the market thought it was cool too. Maybe the marketing of the future for stuff like this is micro-transactions so we can each buy just the monsters we like and leave the rest out.

As a veteran player and DM, I’ve become quite comfortable tweaking (and/or ripping apart and reassembling) monster descriptions to fit my campaign and make more sense for my players. Screw canon, make it challenging and fun (or at least make sense). I heartily recommend this sort of Frankenstein approach to monster creation. Your players will love it, because they won’t know everything the monster can do and you’ll love it, because the creature works with your story and isn’t just a hodge-podge plug in that happens to meet the level and challenge rating requirements.

For example, last night the PCs sheltered in an abandoned, ruined fishing village. Where had everyone gone? What could have happened to them? They found out later in the evening when a siren song lured the majority of the party to a sandbar offshore, but accessible by way of a breakwater that had conveniently been uncovered by the low tide. Not only did the siren (which isn’t in the 3.5 Monster Manual) have her song going for her, but a few druid levels, too! While the one coherent member of the party tried to restrain or slap some sense into the others, the siren summoned a swarm of crabs (from said Pathfinder Bestiary, bwa-ha-ha-ha!) to rid herself of the nuisance PC. The most dramatic (and enjoyable) moment came when the unaffected PC confronted the siren on the sandbar under the veil of an obscuring mist only to realize that the siren was half-woman/half-lobster! Oh, the look on my players’ faces was priceless! Suddenly, it all became clear — the disappearance of the fishermen, the swarm of crabs, the eerie mist — the siren/druid was an eco-terrorist! A grand battle ensued and when the siren was injured her song ended, the rest of the party snapped out their trance in a round or two a grand battle commenced. They capped it off with a crab feast, having destroyed most of the swarm with a flaming sphere. A good time was had by all (and there wasn’t a crabman to be seen anywhere).

I was running a campaign a couple of years ago with some players who were old enough to have 1st edition monster manuals, and some players who were 10 or 15 years younger. The younger group was looking through old books one day, and found the peryton, which then became a running joke through the rest of the campaign. If you see a flying monster in the distance, it might be a peryton. If you have to travel through the dangerous mountains where no one will go, look out for perytons.

1. Arrowhawks.
what’s better than a hawk? cutting off the legs of two hawks and gluing them together belly to belly!

2. Cloaker.
flying, angry manta rays.

3. Dretch.
The Special Olympians of the demon world.

4. Lemure.
almost as retarded as a dretch.

5. Shrieker Fungus.
hey, you wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?

6. Grick.
just don’t dress like a schoolgirl.

7. Howler.
because “porcupines from hell” really isn’t that scary of a concept.

8. Kuo-Toa.
you thought slaads were bad? meet the Kuo-Toa!

9. Rast.
floating monster dog head with spider legs. keep telling yourself that paralyzing effect is because you’re scary. we all really know it’s based on people trying to figure out why you haven’t committed suicide yet.

10. Tojanida.
vagina monsters are never cool.

Okay, those stupid ‘armadillo’ with a gem on its head thing is a carbuncle and hot damn if it didn’t nearly wipe out our Planescapes party with its evil shiny goodness. I hate those things in the face except that you can’t because it has some kind of freaking ability where you don’t want to kill it even though its the biggest jerk in the multiverse. Tangling with that thing killed out minotaur barbarian.

The point of the article is that even the stupidest monsters can become the most formidable foes, in the hands of the right GM and with the right amount of gravity from the players. Our GM was drawn to the carbuncle specifically because it looked stupid and the story involving it was probably one of the more memorable arches in that game. My husband GMed a game where he used mimics a few times and he had our party basically on edge, freaking out any time we saw an inanimate object and bypassing treasure just in case (Mimic plus one of those dragon-type creatures with one hand that animates objects = a lot of anxiety).

I’m all for stupid monsters, as long as the GM is willing to work ‘em for what they’re worth, which is generally more than their stupid pictures.

@trisj – If only for the “ehtereal felcher” aspect, they crossed my mind. I’ve never used them, and from your description it sounds like they’ve actually got some appeal.

@Matthew J. Neagley – Those are great, and new to me. Much better than my article, too!

@Mairkurion – Flumphs would probably be my #11. Maybe I have a soft spot for them because of OotS?

@Kurt “Telas” Schneider – In the same vein as the hook horror’s little wiping problem, I’ve heard that the reason Pikachu is so frustrated and shock-y is because his arms are too short for him to jerk off. (Count on the Stew for your morning dose of maturity!)

@AlasseMages – I think aboleths are pretty cool. And if you build up to them as a major foe, equipping the party with the gear they need to survive underwater would come up naturally — I think they’d make a great nemesis.

I’ve always hated the Hag concept. It’s strange that old ladies constitute a paradon-tier monster. However, the 4e Bog Hag picture is pretty cool looking.

Destrachans have also been difficult to like. I try to use them whenever I can though, just so I can tell my players that the dinosaur thing echolocated them to death.

Aboleths are just dumb in my opinion, though it’s because it’s so hard to include a game with them in. It’s the same with any aquatic creature really, because generally PCs can’t fight underwater unless the entire party has some kind of breathing and free moving magic. Otherwise, it’s just kinda boring.

Otherwise, I can’t really think of anything offhand that I’d really refuse to put into my game.

Githyanki-my-crankee. “We’re badass, and we hate everything. And we’ve got these really cool swords.”

The endless supply of treasure-imposters (mimic, etc). Because of them, gamers perform more tests on found gear than anal-retentive Consumer Reports researchers.

Any monster based on a rabbit. Yes, we’ve seen the movie, and it was funnier with the original cast. Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time…

Just about everything in the 1E Fiend Folio. “Hey, how does this Hook Horror thing wipe his ass?”

I give up. You’re a better decamer than I.

Here are two “stupid monster” lists that make me laugh endlessly:
http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm
http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article95.htm

@Idran –
I think you’re a bit off-base. The fact that something is a legitimate mythological monster doesn’t mean that it’s DnD interpretation isn’t patently retarded. In fact, a lot of DnD interpretations of classic mythological monsters are horribly off-base.

@Mairkurion –
You step off the Flumphs or we’ll be having a back alley knife fight. Flumphs are, and always have been, really awesome.