- Anakores: they are mean, tough and its always fun to drag the PC under the sand.
- Braxat: My player are still scared by them since the last encounter with a Braxat. Good psionic, huge size, breath weapons, can only be hit by steel weapons and they hit hard. I killed a lot of people with these.
- Halfling: Its always fun to have a pack of hafllnig shooting paralyse poison arrow and stalking the PC in there forest without never being seen. My PC are also scared by them.
- Spider cactus: Put two spider cactus at the same spot and watch the PC being teared apart in two.
- Banshee dwarf: You can always put a good background story under every Banshee, and they are a tough kill. The only time I put banshee dwarf was in an abandonned mine and the PC had to hack there way in the mine and find the copper vain so the banshee stop chasing them. They never found it and they had to withdraw.
- Tagster and Tigone: stalk your PC at night. Specially fun when the PC have to guard an erdlu herd.
- Nightmare beast: badass and mean. Specially fun to attack PC in there dream during the night. A vast array of possibility.
- Ch'trang: change them a little bit, they can shoot at target on the ground. Have fun.
- Strangling vine: Hentai tentacle **** (just kidding). But seriously, I put them sometime and its pretty fun and the PC have a hard time overcoming these bastard.
- Tembo: the ultimate sucker. Uncommon monster and hunt in pack. Hour of fun stalknig the PC with Tembo in a rocky badland. Plus they have good psionic power like chameleon, shadow walk and displacement. Hard time to kill.
- Kes'trekel: What, you dont know what to do with Kes'trekel? Two word; Vulture flight. They turn around the PC as they march into the desert running out of water. Then you can eat them alive. They are pure terror. They look weak, but never sleep with kes'trekel hovering near you. I remember once a PC in the desert with only 2 point of constitution left. He was sleeping on the ground tired from fighting and walking when a kes'trekel landed on his shoulder and popped one of his eye out
. It was fun to watch the PC trying to throw arrow at the fleeing kes'trekel with the eyeball in the mouth. :D :D :D Evil Dming.Silt Horrors.
Shadow Giants.
By the way, how come one of the most popular and powerful athasian monsters got cut out from TdA?
"Uh? What's that pretty sound?"
-Member of a party who will soon realize to keep more than one man awake to watch over the sleeping ones.
The Land Shark and Nightmare Beast: mean and effective! :D
By the way, how come one of the most popular and powerful athasian monsters got cut out from TdA?
The nightmare beast appears in MM2, so we didn't put it in ToA.
A telepathic parrot with a limited vocabulary.
Not as much as a TPK monster, but as a MAJOR annoyance to PCs trying to stealthily run away or to spring an ambush...
Or just trying to hunt for food.
Dune Trapper
Cistern Fiend
DM (me): "After three days without water, wandering lost in the endless sand dunes, one more failed fortitude roll will cause you to collapse and die. However, you believe you see a sparkling oasis over the next ridge."
PC: "I'll stay as far away as possible from the oasis. We'll take our chances."
"I rest up after our encounter and get my spells back."
"Do you? Ding-dong!"
"Crap."
Nothing makes for a better adventure than a bunch of 13th level characters running away from a pack of persistent 5HD critters one of whom can teleport back to the tribe of 200 and grab a few more friends. It's funny when a character actually kicks themselves for memorizing "Read Magic" when all they needed was one more "Magic Missile."
The nightmare beast appears in MM2, so we didn't put it in ToA.
So was the Braxat. I always felt that the 'Athasian Nightmare Beast' would be a bit more dangerous.
So was the Braxat. I always felt that the 'Athasian Nightmare Beast' would be a bit more dangerous.
Yeah, good point. I recently statted out an athasian rampager/so-ut for Part 2 of DA, so there might be some merit in doing an athasian version of the nightmare beast too...
I mean come on, the original description says that it is right below the Dragon of Tyr when it comes to scaring the daylights out of folks. The MM2 version doesn't quite fit that bill.
Speaking of which. Have you seen their 3.5 stats in MMII? They made them hugely over powered from what they were in 2e.
I can't decide is thats bad or good though.
- Braxat (two time)
- Wyvern (two time) (not a DS monster but in a Dark sun game, always with the poison. )
- So-ut
- Rock golem
- Yuan ti
- Elf
- Dwarf banshee
- Human
- Faylorn (dont know if its spelled right. Its the big monster that live in forest ridge and have four arm. )
Silt Runners. I love this nasty little beasts (though they can run on silt as long as they want in my campaign).
I actually had a PC play a silt runner in an old game. He was a decedent little
The nightmare beast appears in MM2, so we didn't put it in ToA.
Why not creating a athasian version. If you refert to the 2ed of the DSMM, they were intelligent. There should be an athasian version of it.
...For single encounters, psionic cat...
I used a pair of tigones last night during my group's excursion to the Forest Ridge - they were horribly effective. That psionic charm works a treat. I also hit them with a silk wyrm earlier in the adventure - or a "giant invisible mountain water stealing snake thing", as they dubbed it.
I used a pair of tigones last night during my group's excursion to the Forest Ridge - they were horribly effective. That psionic charm works a treat. I also hit them with a silk wyrm earlier in the adventure - or a "giant invisible mountain water stealing snake thing", as they dubbed it.
The "giant invisible mountain water stealing snake thing" encounter would have been fine for our party but for one factor Mark (Kamelion) neglects to mention - the party were all asleep (apart from Lokar, my halfling, who was on watch) and the silk wyrm was actually inside our tent tucking into our water rations by the time I spotted it. Cue much panic and mayhem and waving of large weapons and throwing of spells in a dark and confined space.
Mark is again making something of an understatement when he says the Tigones were horribly effective
If it wasn't for our one remaining healing fruit Lokar would have been returned to the food chain of the forest ridge at the lowest level. As it was he was still at deaths door as the party attempted to find a safe campsite that evening (A lesson learned for all of us being never trust a Mul when he says "oh look, I've found a safe campsite...")Talking effective and atmospheric creatures however I think the next one we ran into sums up what I find most enjoyable about the DS setting. Running straight into a fight where we can see heavily armoured human and half giant soldiers closing in was bad enough, but then hearing Templar voices calling down the wrath of Kalak upon us and watching plant life wither and die as Defilers raised spells against us - now that was when it got scary.
Anyway, the point I set out to try and make a few paragraphs ago was that while I find the creatures and plant life (hostile and occasionally not) really help to set the scene for the world of Athas - the most scary, effective and terrifying creatures are actually the Defilers and the magic they wield, beyond anything that we as players can hope to match. The sense of dread we felt as players a few sessions ago as we watched the Defiler pursuing us cast his spell and turn the plants at his feet to dust was probably only topped when his lightning bolt actually hit us....
This campaign is my first introduction to DS, and my return to PnP D&D after a long absence. Have to say I'm loving it.