Anyway that decision really cuts down the content from 20 pages of my Monster Manual.
So we start at The Isle of Dread staple, the dinosaur. Five wasted pages. As a father living within a 45 minute drive of the Natural History Museum many of my Sunday afternoons were taken up with dinosaurs and I genuinely have a soft spot for these Terrible Lizards, however the entry for them in the MM was utterly pointless, looking at them it should have said “dinosaurs, you know dinosaurs, make up the stats as you see fit, big ones have big teeth and lots of hit points, plant eater ones have lots of hit points and run away a lot. Basically xp factories that any party can easily avoid or defeat, especially if the player has ever watched a Jurassic Park film and shouted at the screen!!
Displacer Beast. A constant in AD&D. Quite a nasty chap with 6HD and good saves. Quite a neat beastie for an imaginative DM to role play.
Djinni (pronounced der-gin by my teenage self). Good aligned and another pretty much unkillable fellow if played correctly - turn invisible, move away at 24”, a quick Wind Walk and hey presto.
Probably one to use as an NPC, giving a bit of semi-Arabic flavour to the right adventure. Capturing one is left to the referee, but I guess a summoning circle and a bit of luck should do the trick, if you can be bothered.
Dog, War and Wild. Okay, every party at first level took it as a plan to buy a war dog at some stage. A good idea as it’s a nasty beast against first level type opponents. Unfortunately Fido quickly gets forgotten and by third level has most certainly gone to the great kennel in the sky - dull.
Dolphin..............,.......................,...yep dolphin.
Doppelgänger- best beast eva!! Should only be played in city adventures, a doppelgänger in the dungeon is basically pointless. Your group has to be able to accept a doppelgänger and your DM should basically be not a vindictive dick otherwise this creature does not go well. However to a mature group they can be great fun - they feature very heavily in the Forgotren Realms and it genuinely works.
Dragonne- vicious beast, nasty attacks and no real reason to be as far as I can tell. The picture suggests it’s a bit “orientally” but I’ve got nothing - sorry.
Dragon Turtle - maritime adventure always struck me as quite deadly if played realistically. Meeting a dragon turtle while aboard ship out of sight of land is a death sentence. Low armour class, massive hit points and huge attacks - the hull of your ship is holed, you’re sinking and you’re in metal armour - good night sweet prince.
Dryad - another creature for the role player. Not worth fighting but quite interesting to the right group. A recent Grogtalk podcast (worth a listen, it’s the Valentine’s Day one) talks about having a PC background involving being kidnapped by a Dryad for 1-4 years - potential fun.
Dwarf - ignore this as a monster, dwarves are PCs and should be treated as such.
That’s it for now, more to follow, perhaps even the rest of the Ds.
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| SURPRISE!! |
