Not hated as in feared and/or respected, but just plain hated. For me it's effing stirges. Every time I try to test something by traveling on the worldmap, I get waylayed by effing stirges. Actually if it's something non-critical and not urgent, I get waylayed by goblins or bandits, with the avoidance option. If it's critical and something is at the forefront of my mind that I need to test right now, I roll a 1 on survival and get auto-waylayed by effing stirges. :blegh:
Bodaks, I hate those ?!@%$ undead. The save for their death gaze is so low I don't bother with death ward for my high Fort save PC's (fighters, clerics, etc.) But one PC inevitably manages to roll a 1 at the worst time.
Gotta be all the creatures that cause blood drain :angry: ( If I have to pick one I'd side with Gaear, effing stirges.... ) No matter how heavy armoured you are, they WILL score a damn crit for 1 !!!!! point of damage. Enough to cause trouble, Con damage and such, grrr...
Stirges and Bodaks are very high on my list too, but I would have to go with the Noble Fire Salamanders in the Fire Node. Even with damage reduction (cheating by knowing it is coming and preparing makes me feel bad also) there are so many of them and they take no damage from my kill-all Fireballs and Flame Strikes. If I drop Ice Storm on them then I have to keep my party out for a round or two, allowing them to throw more Fireballs at me! Ugh. The Balor sucks too, but he is only one (bring back Frank!).
Trolls. Not a hard enemy to beatdown but just the fact you have to finish them off or they come back makes them especially obnoxious to me.
My personal hate are wizard seeking kamikaze bugbears that charge through your party to tactically awful positions just so they can mash your wizard on the floor before they die.
The damn goblin sergeants and commanders- tough for their size and damn hard to hit with missile fire but not enough of a problem to wast a spell on- if there were more of them in Welkwood Bog some folks might reconsider a career as a FedEx guy...
Those damn bsholders in the water node. They look stupid and slow, then hit you with a 20HD cone of cold (or 3 or 4) and half the party is dead.
Agree with the blood drainers- always seems to happen when I've healed up, learned non-restoration spells, and am heading off for a big fight, I end up either having to waste a fireball to get them all first, or end up with constitution loss, or both... Trolls are annoying in that coup de grace is relatively clunky to use because you have to be in the right spot- tricky if you've stacked half a dozen Troll corpses in waist-deep water. Move, select, not enough time, further micromove, combat restarts as Troll gets up to 2 hp and stands up, falls down again because you AoO'd him automatically, repeat fumbling around for downed troll. Reach weapons are vitally important here! Hardest damn' XP this soldier ever earned... Things that are hard but but challenging are still fun.. irritations are just wastes of time to sort out. Diseases are another annoyance- just going to have one last sleep to restore spells and hitpoints to full before heading off to finish the lower floor of the moathouse, or recover Terjon's medallion, and half the party comes down with filth fever which takes 5mins of real time to sort when you could be out savin' the world again..
I think stirges top my list, but those damn skeletons with crossbows are a close second. They never seem to miss, and crit WAY more often than they should. Skeletal guards with longspears are up there, too. They also seem to crit more often than they should, and do plenty of damage even when they don't.
Will o' the Wisps. Impossible to hit and damage and they never miss. The Hag that casts fear then damages party members' charisma.
I agree with the Will o' the Wisp. Awfully hard to hit and those battles end up taking so long. If I could choose any monster from any version of the game, then it would be the Carrion Crawler and Galeb Duhr. So slow I wanted to just quit the game and take a different route to avoid those guys.
I'm usually high enough level to survive wisps when I finally encounter them. You do have to surprise them if possible, though.
GOBLINS! Those darn gobbos in the Welkwood Bog .... You kill a few and BAM you're flat footed again for the next one that pops up, come on ... I just killed a gobbo that was hiding in the shed, I think my guys would be looking for more and not just acting like, whooh ... Glad he was alone, OK I think I'll just put my hands in my pockets a whistle because there couldn't possibly be more, goblins always travel alone, right?