The Twelve Most Obnoxious Dungeons & Dragons Monsters
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While not specifically CRPG-related, I thought it might provide some additional entertainment this weekend to have you read through this list of the most "obnoxious" D&D monsters, courtesy of sci-fi website io9. In the earliest editions of the game and in the video games that were based on them, creatures of the level-draining variety were terrifying:
10-12) Wights, Vampires and Succubi
You may have noticed that most of the monsters on this list do one of two things: trick complacent players, or take something away. In the latter category, there is nothing more terrifying to a D&D player than the threat of taking away his experience points. XP determines almost every aspect of a character's power, including hit points, spells and other status effects. So guess what wights, vampires and succubi have in common? Besides being undead, they have the Energy Drain ability which can destroy a massive amount of XP. As mentioned before, even more than gold, XP is the unofficial way players keep score; if they lose what they worked so hard to acquire, and are forced to kill another hundred kobolds in order to graduate from fifth to sixth level. well, it's a fate worse than death for many players. Literally, because if your character dies and is resurrected, they usually end up at the same level. By the way, the most obnoxious of the three undead monsters is likely the succubus. Mainly because when your characters fight vampires and wights, you don't have to keep making saving throws to not try and have sex with them.
