Monster in the woods help

I wanted something to hunt them down, make them scared of something they couldn't see, but i was having real trouble because one player can kill almost any creature he fights if he get in close enough, and one player can detect anything in a 150ft radius around him.

So i'm going to have it study them and prod them, it will use their abilities against them such as harming a deer and using it as bait to lure the person who can detect enemies, then it's going to one by one attack them if theyre ever alone.

And then i think i'm going to have it so if they do kill it then it will return later that night, theyll be like what the fuck and as they go exploring theyll find a tree with a huge hole in it and what looks like blood covering the insides. If they explore enough theyll find more of these trees all over, whenever thing thing dies it just makes another of itself from the trees, they have to find the one thats in cave deep in the woods, where the real one (a much larger one) has been hiding.

But i feel like giving it the ability to make multiple copies kindof negates the fear of one monster hunting them.

What can i do to improve this creature/encounter? since this creature is entirely made up, what other powers might it have that can really trouble the players?

Read up on the Wendigo. It's essentially exactly what you want, near as I can tell. As far as I'm aware, there are only rules for it in Pathfinder, but you should be able to adapt those into whatever system you're presently running.

Check out "EVOLVE" underrated game, awesome for monster hunting a party of players
Look up "over the garden wall"
Lastly if you wanna add some supernatural stuff to the creature, give it stuff that might fuck with their heads

self bump before i head out

This is your best bet. Wendigoes are smart as hell and absolutely terrifying. The legends about them highly vary depending on the sources, but some recurring themes are cannibalism, being intelligent hunters and even mimicking vocalizations to lure their prey further into the woods.

Just make them think that something is out to get them. Detector-dude doesn't detect anything (cos there's nothing there). The fightlet can't fight anything, cos there's nothing there. LIE TO THEM.

Jesus, you kids...

That is the stupidest idea here, first off that leaves no challenge for the players to go against, second that's so unfulfilling it's practically a wild goosehydra Chase.

"You don't see the monster beccause there is no monster!! Yay you wasted two sessions!"

Should it still have the resurrection ability or would you consider that a cheap copout?

It's up to you. The way it works doesn't have to match up perfectly with its mythology. The tree resurrection concept would be a great idea for making them paranoid about their surroundings at all times, but I think it should be able to only have one copy at a time.

Of course, whether or not you tell your players that there's only one copy is up to you.

The gorgon is a great idea for this

>one player can kill almost any creature he fights if he get in close enough.
How?
>one player can detect anything in a 150ft radius around him.
He can't detect this because "magic". Some times the gm needs to bend the rules.

>He can't detect this because "magic"
No
>batman can't just swing in on a rope this time because it's more exciting that way!
That's the cheesiest way to increase tension, and usually just makes players quit giving a shit. Why don't you just tell them they all woke up with none of their gear or memorized spells and only three HP? Won't that make it super duper scary?

To challenge a group of murderhoboes who can kill anything that bleeds, you need to
>keep the monster hidden
It influences the environment and the other creatures in the area, but it doesn't pop out of the trees itself to attack.
>it's nature is such that it can't be slain by normal means
An evil spirit can't be chopped up with a sword. A swarm of intelligent rats can be dispersed with fire and poison gas, but they'll just regroup, and come back with a vengeance. A fungus that dominates animals and turns them into tools can't be turned like the undead.

The player mentioned has an insane move that he can use on a single target, it's easy to negate this when I have multiple enemies in a normal encounter. But since I'm going for one scary monster I need to keep it away from him.

>He can't detect this because "magic". Some times the gm needs to bend the rules.

Isn't that one of the biggest GM mistakes, taking away what the players worked for just for cheap tension

Assuming he is playing p.5/5e if thats the case then yes. "No becasue of Magic" is fine if you use it here and there and give a reason why. There is no diffrence between that and throwing something that goes around there abilities like op wants. "Want a monster that my players can't use their abilities on with out saying they can't use there abilities." They are still going to be annoyed.

So long as rational explanations and a consistent effect are applied it is actually in the best interest of the DM/GM to toy with player crutch abilities and encounters that are designed to challenge their comfort zone. I understand some players would prefer a larger HP pool or more targets for challenge, but any challenge provided to a player is going to create friction if it causes them trouble in a resolution.

If a player has a physical attack they use all the time, including an encounter where that doesn't work allowing other players to act or requiring that player to use other abilities is a good thing.

If the party is never surprised because one dude detects everything around them, finding a loophole in what can be detected makes logical sense to instigate surprise and challenge to ratchet up encounters. Do they detect life? It isn't actually living. Or maybe there is too much life for them to pin anyhing down. Detecting magic? It's paracausal and exists extradimensionally and no of its abilities are magic, just 6th dimensionally mundane.

>no, pnp is not for creativity it is only for numeric wankery

I am not playing any kind of D&D, but I am excessively flexible with all kinds of rules, I constantly rip stuff from D&D to use.

I'm not trying to negate their abilities, I actually plan to use their abilities against them, the detection guy will detect red herrings, and the offensive guy will use up his instakill on a bunch of copies. If there's a better idea I'll surely use it though.

That is a very good call, make a situation where an attack roll is a bad choice or will be not very effective, causing them to think out an encounter instead.

As for the detection, it detects everything that has an aura including plants and traps, there's only one thing and that's a being without an aura made of negative energy, I've used this against him in the past twice now and it's supposed to be pretty rare so I won't be just making it so he can't detect if, I would definitely be abusing it at that point.

That is very good advice I will keep in mind, I'm very open to more suggestions or changes

If your established rules have the detection working like that then Not abusing undetectable things is good. Mixing it up with an overload is always an interesting way to do it instead.

Idea, have the trees that the creature spawns from also count as detectable, and once it figures out that it's being tracked, have it put pieces if itself onto other creatures

Abilities so far
- super intelligent
- possible cloning/resurrection
- voice mimicry
- nightmares

My suggestions
- natural camouflage
- tracking ability of its own
- poison to weaken it's prey? (Maybe a resin of the creature so you can also track it better)
- allow it to invade their minds when doing nightmares, and so it can cause them to see stuff that isn't true when they're awake
- somehow find a way to use the other party members as shields for itself so they rely less on damage
- haunting screech or something
I might be back with more powers later

OP here, I'm not very familiar with creature types, usually I just add on powers to a beast template or something. Someone recommended have it be a haunting spirit or something and I kind of like that idea, I never actually thought about WHAT this thing actually is, I figured they'd kill it without ever knowing so why bother.

How about Dead space style, endlessly regenerating monstrosity, that is slow but powerful, has to be escaped and endured for a long time (given some minor weakness, like cannot cross moving water) and in the end has to be killed by enviroment somehow? That will hunt the players, but test their endurance and intelect in the end?

Other possibility is a monster that split in two on death, smaller but still deadly. Possibly several times over. Insta-kill move is negated that way and fun can begin.

I agree with anons that taking away players abilities is not a good idea, but there is a bad matchup for every ability.

It could potentially work if the illusions were there to protect something else. A location, some shit like that.

Like some anons said, it could be a spirit that possesses other creatures. Send a bunch of "probes" that the spirit is possessing. The party will deal with them easily, but meanwhile the spirit learns more and more about their approach to combat, and gets smarter with their strategy.

Maybe something similar to the beastmen? A master at ambushing its foe and striking hard and fast. Lives in the forest and utterly despises civilized races. They construct massive rocks named herdstones that they more or less pray to which can fit in with the tree idea.