What is your most used Monster Token

[JamesBlackwing]

Fed up of using make shift tokens that don't look right or old circles i recently commissioned an artist about making some top down view token sets for D&D 4E'
I want all my tokens, portraits and maps to look like they go together.
each character token would have different poses for attacking,bloodied knocked out, resting etc, also including portraits for characters.

after a long discussion about pricing and how to work around the bulk of player character tokens (players handbook alone has 64 different race-class combinations you'd need tokens for Player characters) we came to an arrangement.

i'm going to be commissioning sets from him but in order to make it more affordable for me he will eventually be selling these sets on his store.

i thought it would be nice if the token sets he put up in his store where things you'd all want to see

so my question is:

out of all the player class combinations and all the monsters being used, which do you all think are the best ones to go with?

what monsters do you find using most in your games and which are the more commonly seen PCs?


based on peoples thoughts i am going to compile a list of work to start this artist off.
having canceled my world of Warcraft subscription i intend to commission the artist regularly, so the collection will expand.

[Griogre]

The most commonly used PC races and classes, in my experience are classes and races from the PH and Essentials PHs. For monsters the heroic monsters are the most used in my experience. Generally if you can think of a few monsters at each level those are the ones used.

[Torgaard]

Hmm, that's a tough one. I guess it would vary alot from person to person, but so far we've used alot of:

Hobgoblins (which I use Devinnight's (https://www.immortalnights.com/tokensite/tokenpacks.html) excellent Winter Orcs and Goblins set for)
Kobolds (also Devin's)
Ogres


NPC's that I would think you can't have enough of, and again; Devin has available for free are maybe stuff like Townspeople (wouldn't mind seein' more of these actually).

Some PC's that we had trouble finding just the right thing were Monks and Bards.

It might not be an option, but in the little bit of token creation I've tried, I find that a modular approach is really useful. That is to say: you design a base token of say, a male in platemail, but then the artist could have a dozen basic weapons he could (relatively) easily just slap into that tokens hand. After a bit of touch-up and editing (which takes surprisingly little time), you end up with something like:

Token 1 - male fighter in platemail with longsword
Token 2 - same male fighter in platemail with battleaxe
Token 3 - same male fighter in platemail with spear
Token 4 - same male fighter in platemail with mace


Rinse, repeat with the "female fighter in platemail", the "male rogue in leather armor", etc, etc. I get alot of mileage out of that approach. I've done a few things like that with interchangeable shields, cloaks (different colors, symbols on them, etc), stuff like that.

[JamesBlackwing]

Defiantly seem to be leaning towards kobolds for the first few monsters and possibly some drakes as they go well with kobolds, combined with npc's and player characters that should be enough to play with. i don't think if end up doing different weapons for each player character as there are already so many, more like ask for a generic selection to cover the race and class combinations as that alone is a lot of tokens.

id considered asking for some matching environmental tokens.. like a chest with open and closed state (possibly go well with a mimic token in the future)

once enough monsters are out of the way to run games with id defiantly consider more anonymous towns people types i find my games have been leaning a little to much towards roughed out dungeon runs recently, and they would make an excuse to get players back into towns.

[Oberoten]

Undead, both skeletons and zombies are staple-food. :)

- Obe

[Griogre]

Don't forget rats and beetles. :) Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, and Gnolls. Spiders and Centipedes of various sizes. Ogres, Trolls and Giants. Wyverns, Griffons, Hipogriffs, and Manticores.

[Zeus]

Here's my view:

Basilisk
Beholder
Carrion Crawler
Cyclops
Demon
Devil
Displacer Beast
Doppelganger
Dragon
Dragonborn
Drake
Drider
Duergar
Dwarf
Elemental
Elf
Ettin
Gargoyle
Ghoul
Giant
Gnoll
Gnome
Goblin
Golem
Hag
Halfling
Human
Kobold
Lich
Lizardfolk
Lycanthrope
Manticore
Medusa
Mind Flayer
Minotaur
Mummy
Ogre
Ooze
Ore
Purple Worm (my personal favourite)
Roper
Rust Monster
Skeleton
Treant
Troglodyte
Troll
Umber Hulk
Vampire
Wraith
Yuan-ti
Zombie

[Blue Haven]

LOL Zeuss you just select them all right from the book to the game eh eh ;)
I love the special tokens made for warhammer (Devin's) and of course my own private warhammer (all the sets 40K, fantasy,LOTR) tokens made from the minis i have painted eh eh my wife's Pink Army of High Elves still kicks *** :P

[Zeus]

Well er yeah .. I went through the index of all heroic tier/classic monsters and selected the ones I have used the most often/frequently + a few favourites like the Purple Worm muahaha ....

[JamesBlackwing]

wow so many, usually my adventurers consist almost entirely of 1 set of enemy's for example different kinds of orc + goblin combinations with an ogre of some kind for a boss

[Blue Haven]

I guess that changes from set to set and of course it depends of your DM style...with me (Warhammer) in a single session i can use a large range of foes so...but its up to you friend :)

[Zeus]

Sometimes, when my players are in between Quests and there is need for XP!

I let them partake in a Wheel of Death competition event in which would be heroes duel it out against a mystery monster thats summoned by local mages hosting the competition.

Rules are simple:
- Each time the a participant has a go he/she has to pay a standing fee of 100gp.
- Standard turn based combat rules apply. PC and NPC roll for initiative.
- Victory is rewarded with XP for the player and spoils from side bets.
- Failure is rewarded by death - you can change this if you want to
- Strictly 1v1 only, no teamwork, no tagging

Its a great way to introduce your players to new foes and keeps them on their toes when their getting ahead of themselves.

Just make sure you rig the random table with a good spread of monsters at levels ranging -5 to +5 for the party/pc levels.

[JamesBlackwing]

That kind of reminds me of the monster festival from final fantasy 9. they release a ton of monsters into a cordoned off part of the city and award points to anyone who kills them based on how big they are. the winner gets a fancy title as some sort of hunter.

i admit i have never thought of doing something like that.. my players are always being sent on a mission to kill something that's been bothering my npc

[Blue Haven]

Errr...ambush, some mad wizard with a personal "Zoo" of Foes...try not to be so linear with the story :) use your foe imagination ;)

[JamesBlackwing]

i should request a 'miniature space hamster' token.. D&D needs more space hamsters.

so a little update.. the artist iv commissioned has done some templates for player characters... each pack will cost around $1-2 and include male and female token for a race and class combination. they will have a standing attacking , crouching ,bloodied,knocked out ,dead and sleeping pose token.. and it will also include a portrait and a side view profile of the character.

all the tokens are going to be textured so that they blend in with the style of the encounter maps you see in books. hopefully they wont look to out of place.

i have to wait for him to produce the player and race combinations in PH1 before we make any decisions on how monster sets are handled.

once hes got a few player / npc / and monster sets up for sail hell also start taking requests for new sets.