Three families of Mooks from the order Ultrahomicida.
Not all monsters are made equal, but some monsters have enough similarities between one another that a strategy or weapon that works for one of them might also work for others like them. A Monster Compendium may list these monsters under the same chapter. If a monster type doesn't belong to any category, then it would be placed in a "Miscellaneous" category.
Weapon of X-Slaying will overlap if "X is a physical/species category" instead of "Boss", "Fire-Affinity", "Gender", or something weird like "Drank milk". Similar to Weapon of X-Slaying, Capture Balls may have variants that work better based on certain categories.
This is a distinct trope from Underground Monkey, with the key difference that enemies within the same classification look and behave entirely differently from one another, rather than merely being Palette Swaps of a single enemy. A basic zombie enemy having counterparts like "Earth Zombie", "Fire Zombie", ect. would fall under Underground Monkey. If said zombie also belongs to an "undead" category that includes vampires and liches, with all members sharing the same weakness to holy damage, then it counts as this trope. Compare Enemy Strength Groupings when enemies are categorized based on strength, which this trope can overlap with for further categorizing.
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Video Game Examples:
Action-Adventure
- Ōkami: Monsters are classified into different families. For example, Imps, Bud Ogres, and Crow Tengu are respectively classified as Fallen Demons, Chimeras, and Flying Demons.
Beat 'em Up
- Gungrave G.O.R.E.: The game has four categories of enemies: Raven Clan Mafia, Raven Clan Troopers, Scientists, and Orgmen.
First-Person Shooter
- Serving as the page image is ULTRAKILL, which categorizes its enemies and bosses based on their species, such as Husks (human souls reincarnated into zombie-like creatures), Demons (natives of Hell made of flesh and stone), Machines (fellow blood-fueled war robots that are also invading Hell), Angels (divine winged denizens of Heaven), and ??? (uncategorized enemies and bosses). There are also Prime Souls, which are souls so powerful they no longer need Husks to manifest.
MMORPG
- Final Fantasy XIV divides its monsters into categories in the lore book Encyclopedia Eorzea, including (but not limited ) "beastkin" (animaloid monsters), "seedkin" (plant-based monsters), "scalekin" (reptilian monsters"), "forgekin" (constructs), and "ashkin" (the undead).
- Phantasy Star Online has four classifications for monsters, each corresponding to a different area: the Natives in the Forest, the Altered Beasts in the Caves, the Machines in the Mines, and the Darks in the Ruins. Other subsequent games, such as Phantasy Star Zero and Phantasy Star Online 2, use these classifications as well.
- RuneScape: For the purposes of the Slayer skill, which ultimately amounts to "What if 20 Bear Asses gave experience?", monsters are divided into certain categories, and certain monsters can be multiple types. For instance, a 'dragon' slayer task counts all types of chromatic and metallic dragon, including bosses— and there's one boss, Vorkath, that counts as both a dragon and a zombie, meaning it can be killed for either task.
- Star Trek Online: The game pits you against various factions known throughout Star Trek canon: Federation/Terran Empire, Klingon Empire/Klingon Seperatists, Romulan Star Empire/Romulan Republic (very rarely), Gorn, Orion, Tholian, Borg Collective, Cardassian True Way, Dominion, etc. As the game has both ground and space combat, combatants are divided into groups for each side, though not exactly 1:1; Ground Combat has the equivalents for Ensigns, Lieutenants, Commanders, and Captains while Space Combat has the equivalents for Frigates, Escorts, Science Vessels, Cruisers, and Dreadnoughts.
Rail-Shooter
- Panzer Dragoon Orta: The game's enemies and bosses are divided based on their factions:
- Mutated Monsters are natural fauna and flora that have mutated to adapt to their current environments.
- Imperial Weapons are the weapons of The Empire, such as battleships or genetically engineered dragons.
- Pure-Type Monsters are artificial creatures created by The Ancients to protect their ruins and technology from interlopers. They have very alien designs similar to the dragons, thanks to their bony shells.
- Creatures-Other refer to the digital lifeforms that inhabit the Sestren network.
Roguelike
- Darkest Dungeon: Enemies are primarily classified into Humans, Beasts, Unholy, Eldritch, Bloodsuckers, and Husks, and have various typical weaknesses and resistances to various Status Effects as well as being weak to certain Trinkets and Quirks that your heroes may have. Some enemies have multiple different types at once (represented as being slashed together, e.g. the Collector is "Human/Eldritch"), allowing for multiple weaknesses to be exploited. Additionally there are also some unique enemy types exclusive to single enemies in the game, usually for mechanically unusual bosses or setpieces in boss fights (such as how the Brigand Pounder is listed as being "Ironwork" and the Miller is given as a "Poor Soul").
- Darkest Dungeon II: The same enemy typing rules apply from the game's predecessor, though since it's a sequel there are naturally a bunch of different enemy types and some returning enemies have had theirs switched around, as well as all enemies in an enemy faction being guaranteed to share at least one exclusive enemy type. The primary ones are Fanatics, Cadavers, Gentry, Fisherfolk, Gaunts, Pillagers, Creatures, Swine, Slimes, Military, and Cosmic. The "Kingdoms" side mode adds three additional ones for each of its three exclusive enemy factions: Beastmen, Witches, and the returning Bloodsuckers.
- Star of Providence: Enemies are sorted into five major types: Undead, Mechs, Constructs, Mages, and Creatures. This is relevant because certain Keywords that it's possible to find or add on to weapons deal 35 percent extra damage to a specific type of enemy as well as "purging" them, which applies a variety of beneficial effects upon killing them: Akashic weapons are strong against Constructs, Antimagic weapons are strong against Mages, Consecrated weapons are strong against Undead and Disrupting weapons are strong against Machines. (Creatures are not weak to any Keyword, as they are usually more deadly encounters).
- World of Horror: Enemies are grouped into eight classifications: Circle, Eldritch, Ghost, Human, Vampire, Undead, Plant, and Monster. Various enemy types are weak to different items and abilities (e.g. plants take more damage from being set on fire).
Role-Playing
- Atelier Series: Enemies are usually classified in categories such as Puni, Beast, Ghost, and Dragon. This interacts with the "Slayer" item traits, which can be added to a weapon to turn it into a Weapon of X-Slaying.
- Bloodborne: The enemies are divided into several types, including Kin, Beasts (further divided into "True Beasts" and "Animal-Type Beasts"), and Pthumerians, which are tied to gameplay. There's also the non-gameplay divisions dubbed "Huntsmen" and "Hostile Hunters" with Huntsmen being humanoid enemies while Hostile Hunters are design more to mimic players in their fighting style. The former groups all have certain interactions with gear, including damage bonuses and penalties found on Blood Gems, and specific weaknesses (Kin to Bolt damage, all Beasts to fire, "True Beasts" to Serrated damage, and Pthumerians to Arcane). Given their origins, it's possible to observe characters change types. For example, Father Gascoigne goes from a "Hostile Hunter" in his first and second phases to a "True Beast" in his third, his weaknesses and susceptibility to equipment changing accordingly.
- Bug Fables: Monsters are broadly divided into a number of categories, such as Lesser Bugs (common animals, usually the Goombas of the game), Plants (animated seedlings and bug-eating plants of various sorts, especially vulnerable to ice), and Leafbugs Leafbugs (swamp barbarians who can call other leafbugs into battle).
- Darkest Dungeon: Every enemy is grouped into at least one type. Heroes' skills, trinkets, or quirks may affect the hero's efficiency against a specific type, and vice versa. Regular types are Human, Beast, Eldritch, Stonework, and Unholy. The Crimson Court DLC adds the Bloodsucker type, and The Color of Madness adds Husk.
- Deepwoken: Enemies are grouped into two blocks, humanoid enemies and monsters, and non-humanoid monsters. Humanoids are smaller, use the standard Roblox rig, their attacks have clearer tells, they can fight intelligently by blocking and parrying, and can realistically be reproduced by players with the correct build with a few exceptions. Their Break Meter is only filled when they are hit while blocking, and, upon their health being reduced to 0, must be executed on the ground to kill them, otherwise they will get back up and keep fighting. They are also immune to the "Damage Vs Monsters" stat that can be obtained on equipment. Non-humanoids are much more overtly animalistic and thus use unique models and attacks, while being unable to block or parry (with a few exceptions). Their Break Meter is filled by striking them in general, and will instantly die upon their health being reduced to 0, no execution required. They are also afflicted by the "Damage Vs Monsters" stat. Non-humanoids are further divided into "giant," "sea" and "Depths" but interactions with these subgroups were Dummied Out due to being overly complicated, and thus they serve no mechanical purpose.
- Digimon:
- Digimon can be grouped into various families. Note that most Digimon can fit into more than one family, due to how their evolution paths work. To wit:
- Nature Spirits include generic animal- or monster-like Digimon, or those that live in desert regions such as Triceramon.
- Deep Savers include aquatic and polar Digimon such as Seadramon and Ikkakumon.
- Nightmare Soldiers include demonic and undead Digimon such as Devimon and SkullGreymon.
- Wind Guardians include avian and flying Digimon such as Hawkmon.
- Metal Empire includes mechanical and mutated Digimon such as Mechanorimon and Mamemon.
- Virus Busters include angelic and holy Digimon such as Angemon.
- Dragon's Roar includes draconic Digimon such as Greymon, alongside more generally fiery ones like Meramon.
- Jungle Troopers include insectoid and plantlike Digimon such as Kabuterimon and Rosemon.
- In addition to the families, there are also loose "species" marked by shared prefixes and suffixes in their names, such as the -dramon species of dragons, which includes narrower categories such as the -seadraom sea serpents and -airdramon flying serpents; the -mamemon species, characterized by spherical bodies and high power; or the -devimon and -angemon species of demons and angels. Insofar as prefix groups go, the most common are the undead Skull-group Digimon.
- Digimon can be grouped into various families. Note that most Digimon can fit into more than one family, due to how their evolution paths work. To wit:
- Dragon Quest has the various monsters classified into fourteen different "families": Aquatic, Beast, Bird, Bug, Demon, Dragon, Elemental, Humanoid, Machine, Material, Plant, Slime, Undead, and ???.
- Epic Battle Fantasy 5: Some weapons cause certain enemy species to react differently, such as Slimes and Wraiths, a.k.a ghosts.
- Genshin Impact: The Archive divides enemies and regular bosses into seven groups: Elemental Lifeforms (creatures of debatable sentience born from elemental energy), Hilichurls (a species of goblin-like beings who are all actually humans cursed by the gods), The Abyss (an assortment of sapient and non-sapient life associated with, well, The Abyss), Fatui (humans affiliated with the Snezhnayan military), Automatons (various machines), Other Human Factions (miscellaneous human enemies), and Mystical Beasts (aggressive wildlife). Bosses that can only be fought once a week and are important to the story are grouped under Enemies of Note, even if they would fit one of the pre-existing categories.
- Honkai: Star Rail: The Databank places every enemy and boss into a group, with each world typically introducing two. For regular enemies, this has a one-to-one correspondence with what materials they drop, but is more story-based for the bosses.
- Jade Cocoon 2 sorts its Mons into 1 of 10 genuses: Oggs (humanoid ogres), Kus (dog-like monsters), Bugs (insects), Alcos (birds and flying monsters), Slimies (amphibians), Na (fish and sea creatures), Gara (crustaceans and armored arthropods), Leifs (plants and Planimals), Maus (Ridiculously Cute Critters), and Dracs (dragons).
- Mario & Luigi:
- In general, enemies can be categorised as either "Spiny" (which means they cannot be jumped on without the attacker taking damage) or "Flying" (meaning they dodge ground-based weapons).
- Mario & Luigi: Dream Team: Enemies can be categorised as either Real World or Dream World, based on their home dimension.
- Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam: There are new types of enemies called "Paper" (which take more damage from fire) and "Shelled" (which take reduced damage from getting hit from certain directions).
- Mario & Luigi: Brothership adds more types, those being "Zok Troops" (which pertains to enemies that are aligned with the Zokket Army), "Bowser's Minions" (which pertains to enemies that are, well, Bowser's Minions), and "Glohm" (which denotes enemies that are infected by the virus of the same name that can kill friendship and positive thoughts toward others). There are also Battle Plugs that can be used to deal more damage to these types.
- Monster Hunter: The Monster List/Monster Field Guide in each game starting with Dos lists each monster's classification.
- Amphibians are well, amphibians. Most of them are frog-like, although Gelidron is based on a giant salamander.
- Bird Wyverns either resemble birds or are otherwise avian in appearance (Pukei-Pukei has feathers but lacks a beak, while Yian Kut-Ku lacks feathers but has a beak, for example); or resemble non-avian theropods, namely dromaeosaurs.
- Brute Wyverns resemble theropods, but tend to be larger, more heavily-built, and stronger than the dromaeosaur-like Bird Wyverns.
- Carapaceons are based on crustaceans, with all the mainline carapaceons resembling hermit crabs, while the ones introduced in Monster Hunter Frontier resemble scorpions, and Baelidae from Monster Hunter Online resembles a spider.
- Cephalopods are, well, cephalopods.
- Constructs are artificial monsters. All examples so far are Guardians, monsters created by Wyveria. All of them except for Zoh Shia are variations of preexisting monsters. (Zoh Shia appears to be primarily based on Fatalis, but has a unique name, design, and moveset).
- Demi Elder is a classification currently only belonging to Gore Magala, a wyvern with six limbs similar to Elder Dragons and matures into one, but is not considered an Elder Dragon itself. (Gore Magala was originally classified as a ???, and was the first ??? monster.)
- Elder Dragons are extremely powerful and mysterious creatures. Most of them have four legs and two wings, although some Elder Dragons have vastly different body plans. For example, Nakarkos resembles a cuttlefish, Kirin resembles a unicorn, and Dalamadur resembles a giant snake, albeit with a long tail and neck, and forelimbs. (It's also used for Behemoth in the Final Fantasy XIV crossover in World.)
- Fanged Beasts are mammalian monsters. Many of them are based on monkeys, although others are based on mammals such as bears, dogs, and elephants.
- Fanged Wyverns are quadrupedal wyverns that often have agility and mammalian traits, like the wolf-like Zinogre, though some are purely reptilian, such as the Great Jagras.
- Fish are fish.
- Flying Wyverns are a classification of wyverns consisting primarily of, as the name implies, volant wyverns. Some walk on two legs, while others walk on four legs. Akantor and Ukanlos, however, lack wings, but have the same bodyplan as flying wyverns such as Tigrex.
- "Herbivore" refers to various weak herbivorous monsters. Unlike the other classifications, this does not appear to be an actual taxonomic group, with most Herbivores being biologically within other classifications. Epioth is evolutionarily a Leviathan, Gastodon is evolutionarily a Brute Wyvern, and Popo is evolutionarily a Fanged Beast.
- Leviathans are quadrupedal wyverns that usually are either aquatic or otherwise "swim" through a medium. Lagiacrus and Uth Duna are aquatic for example, while Agnaktor, Balahara, and Hirabami move through lava and rock, sand, and the air, respectively.
- Lynians are small humanoid monsters. They are as intelligent and capable of language as humans, and even create their own societies.
- Neopterons are based on insects.
- Piscine Wyverns are fish-like wyverns that resemble fish that walk on two legs (except Delex, which lacks legs entirely).
- Snake Wyverns currently consist of Remobra, a volant wyvern resembling a small Flying Wyvern with a snake-like head, and Najarala, a serpentine wyvern with a beaked head.
- Temnocerans are based on spiders.
- Wingdrakes resemble small Flying Wyverns, but seem to be loosely based on pterosaurs.
- ??? was originally created for Gore Magala. It is a miscellaneous class for unclassified monsters, most of which are crossover monsters. It is used for Omega Planetes and the Omega Micros in Wilds, as well as Epona, Kurenai Goukami, and the Great Poogie in Stories.
- Relict is a classification used for the Leshen, a crossover monster from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
- Monster Sanctuary: Every monster belongs to a specific monster type. There are 17 types of monsters, and every monster can be classified with at least three different types, like Vaero being an Aerial Bird. Several aura skills affect a specific monster type, incentivizing building teams around a monster type.
- Monster Strike: Enemies are classified in races such as demihume, mech, fiend, and sprite. Some characters have race slayer abilities that deal extra damage or receive less damage from enemies of said race.
- Ni no Kuni: Familiars are grouped into 14 different families: Milites (warrior-like creatures), Bestiae (beasts), Aquatica (sea creatures), Aves (birds and flyers), Minima (small creatures), Automata (mechanical creatures), Flora (plant-like creatures), Vermes (insects and vermin), Nymphae (fairies), Dracones (dragons), Arcana (magical creatures and animated objects), Daemonia (demons), Mortui (undead) and Nobilia (Olympus Mons).
- Persona: Played with. All of the Personas that the Player Character can use from Persona 3 onwards are each associated with a Major Arcana of the Tarot, with the Updated Re-release of each game typically adding an Arcana or two as well. It's not completely straight, as depending on the game, early-game Personas are obtained either randomly after battle (Persona 3 and Persona 4), or with a negotiation mechanic (Persona 5), and more powerful Personas come from fusing weaker ones. The Arcana system also doesn't determine any type of Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors, but if attempting to level up a Social Link/Confidant, having a Persona of the matching Arcana equipped will improve progression towards the next major event.
- Pokémon:
- The franchise's main way of categorizing Pokémon is through Types, which include elemental Types (Fire, Water, Electric, Rock, Ice, etc.), "species" ones (Bug, Ghost, Dragon, Fairy), and others that describe behavior or "culture" (Fighting, representing honorable warriors, and Dark —"Evil" in Japanese— representing sneaks, thieves, and "dirty" fighters). Any Pokémon may have one Type or two, which affect the moves it can use and the effectiveness of other moves on it.
- Some Poké Balls work better for capturing specific types of Pokémon, such as Net Balls for Bug-Types and Water-Types, Nest Balls for low-leveled ones, Heavy Balls for massive ones, or Beast Balls for Ultra Beasts.
- Shin Megami Tensei: Each demon belongs to a specific "race", that broadly describes the creature's role in the original mythology, though that meaning is often Lost in Translation. Examples include Tyrant (originally Maou), Fairy, and Fallen. Demons from the same race commonly share some traits, like Kishin ("Fierce God") demons mostly using physical attacks. Races also play an important role in demon fusion, and sometimes have race-specific skills. Certain bosses are often given their own unique race, reflecting their special status. Demon races are further grouped into "species" (Gods, Dragons, Evil Spirits, etc.), which are an even broader classification, used in-game only for more complex fusions.
- Soul Sacrifice and its Delta update categorize horrific monsters called Archfiends based on the Seven Deadly Sins (The Proud, The Angry, The Slothful, The Lustful, The Envious, The Greedy, and The Gluttonous) along with The Desperate as an additional category. However, a few Archfiends are uncategorized due to their unique circumstances, like The Werewolf or the Guest Fighter bosses.
- Super Robot Wars:
- Generally, enemies are divided into two groups: Super Robots and Real Robots, depending on the series they hail from. Super Robot enemies tend to have high health and armour but somewhat low aim, whereas Real Robot enemies tend to have high evasion and aim, but comparatively low health and armour.
- In more recent games starting from the PS3 era, the series tries to further informally sub-divide enemies according to their series of origin. For example, Heavy Metals automatically have anti-beam coating (reflecting their prevalence in their originating series), while Knightmare Frames have higher speed and agility than even Mobile Suits, which, depending on the era being used, can have a variety of abilities such as I-fields (reduce beam damage) or immunity to status effects (the Mobile Dolls of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing).
- Vagrant Story groups its enemies and monsters into one of 6 categories: Human (which includes humanoid monsters such as goblins and orcs), Beast (animals), Undead (walking corpses), Phantom (incorporeal spirits and Elemental Embodiments), Dragon (which includes wyverns and lizardmen), and Evil (demons and magical creatures).
- A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: The multiple Weapon of X-Slaying variants imply certain enemy categories, with "The Great Hunter" as the peak of monster-type targetting, being good against both Birds and Beasts, implying both of those types.
- Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening: Enemies are sorted into specific types, indicated by icons, and the types govern their resistances and weaknesses to specific types of attacks. Armored, Creep, Machine, Mystic, Nightmare, Oddity, Primal, Spectral, and Unknown.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: The Bestiary groups monsters into Beasts, Cursed Ones, Draconids, Elementa, Hybrids, Insectoids, Necrophages, Ogroids, Relicts, Specters, and Vampires.
- Yo-kai Watch 2: This entry has all Yo-kai divided into two factions: Bony Spirits and Fleshy Souls. All Yo-kai you fight have a chance to be aligned with either faction, while any Yo-kai you obtain from a guaranteed method, like a sidequest, will be aligned with the faction associated with the game version you're playing. Similarly, if a Yo-kai is only found in one game version, they'll only be able to be aligned with the faction associated with that version. Completing the Medallium in this game requires you to have every type of Yo-kai collected, with some being rarer than others. Certain skills also have different effects based on the faction of the Yo-kai being targeted.
- Zenless Zone Zero categorizes enemies and bosses based on their factions, such as Ethereals (Crystalline Creatures that are the result of Ether corruption; the most common enemy type), Thugs (the weakest enemy faction; it is made up of humans and the occasional Thirens and robot Elite Mooks), Rebel Soldiers (former soldiers of New Eridu that have Humongous Mechas in their strongest rankings), Corrupted (Ethereals born from corrupted Ether-resistant people, often stronger than normal Ethereals), and Special (uncategorized enemies/bosses).
Strategy
- Age of Wonders 4:
- Units come in different Classes, grouped by common features like "repeating magic attacks", "Shield Defense" or healing abilities, which determine which bonus the unit receives at Champion rank as well as what effect the High culture Awakening feature and the Knightly Orders Empire Skill have on it — for example, Awakening a Polearm unit gives it an extra retaliation attack, while fighter units gain Frenzy from Knightly Orders.
- Units can have Types such as Dragon or Plant. Types grant certain abilities (such as Dragons having Draconic Rage or Undead getting Heartless and an immunity to poison and disease) and sometimes Defense and Resistance modifiers (such as Ethereal units having 2 Defense and -4 Spirit Resistance, or Celestials having 2 Spirit Resistance, -4 Blight Resistance, and -4 Frost Resistance).
- Fire Emblem: Classes can fall into one or more categories which various Weapon of X-Slayings are effective against. Mounted classes include the Cavalier, Bow Knight, and Great Knight; Flying classes include the Pegasus Knight, Wyvern Rider, and Griffon Rider; Dragon classes include the Wyvern Rider and Manakete; and Armored classes include the General and sometimes Great Knight.
- StarCraft II gives each unit some Keywords (Ex, a Marauder is "Armored-Biological-Ground") that determines how they take bonus damage from attacks (ergo, our hapless Marauder is vulnerable to the Baneling's Acid Attack from being "Armored," can be 1-shot killed by the Ghost's Snipe special ability due to being "Biological," and can be targeted by a Siege Tank's Arclite Shock Cannon for being "Ground"). Most infantry (and all Zerg units) are Biological, all vehicles are Mechanical (and a fair few are Armored as well), Armored naturally represents bonus armor while Light represents having less armor, and Psionic is reserved for "Spellcasters." Ground is land-bound, and Flying is flying, as it says on the tin. An exhaustive list can be found here👁 Image
. - X-COM:
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown: Certain alien units are classified as robotic, meaning that they take extra damage from the Heavy Class's HEAT Ammo ability, but are immune to fire, poison, and psionic abilities.
- XCOM 2 Keeps the robotic classification from Enemy Unknown and makes it much more common, but has more options to deal with them, such as the Bluescreen Round ammo type, EMP grenades, and the GREMLIN drones having the ability to hack most mechanical units and take control of them.
Third-Person Shooter
- Metal Wolf Chaos: In the game's enemy dossier, enemies and bosses are divided between these types: Infantry, Ground Weapons, Aerial Weapons, Autonomous Weaponry, Armored Infantry, and Special Weapons.
- Warframe: Enemies belong to one of a few factions. Their faction (and subfaction, if any) determines which damage types they resist or are vulnerable to, and generally speaking also general features — most Corpus have shields but lack armour, Infested are usually melee units, Sentients have damage adaptation, and so on.
Tower-Defense
- The Battle Cats divides enemies into different traits, with some enemies having more than one trait. Some traits are based on color, like Red and Black enemies, while others are based on what sort of enemy it is, like Metal, Alien, and Zombie enemies.
Wide-Open Sandbox
- While not every mob in Minecraft has a place in the taxonomy, there are a couple of categories that interact either with enchantments or other mobs. Undead mobs (like zombies, skeletons, and phantoms) take more damage from weapons enchanted with Smite; arthropods (like spiders and bees) take more damage from and are slowed by weapons enchanted with Bane of Arthropods; and in Java Edition only, aquatic mobs (like guardians, squid, and dolphins) take more damage from tridents enchanted with Impaling (although given that the only common water-borne, hostile mobs are the drowned, who are considered undead, it's a very niche enchantment; as such, Bedrock Edition doesn't have this category, with Impaling instead doing extra damage to any mob in contact with water or rain). Illagers, meanwhile, are mobs that are hostile to villagers, won't engage in enemy infighting if hit by pillagers' crossbows, and are unaffected by ravagers' roar attacks.
Non Video-Game Examples:
Anime & Manga
- Delicious in Dungeon: Given the work's focus on the ecology of the dungeon, this crops up a fair bit.
- Marcielle outright refuses to eat anything that can be classified as a demi-human due to ethical concerns, establishing that some parts of the dungeon are off-limits.
- Early on, the party encounters a cockatrice, which is then cooked and eaten in a manner similar to a chicken, but later on, they face a basilisk, which is closely related to a cockatrice, but larger and more aggressive with venom that causes full-on petrification.
- The plant-like tentacles which frequently block stairwells leading further into the dungeon are a form of cnidarian, similar to jellyfish, and have paralytic venom.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition: One of the introduced signature abilities of the Ranger class is the "Favored Enemy" class feature, being able to choose to get bonuses to track and harm enemy types such as dragons, aberrations, undead, or goblinoids.
- Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition was the first to categorize the large number of monsters into various types, including specific traits for each of those monster types. The most common special trait is immunity to critical hits, present in constructs, elementals, oozes, plants, swarms, and undead.
- Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition has creature types, but mostly removes any special effect regarding them to individual situations.
- Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition: Creature types start being applicable again for some spells. Healing spells won't work on undead and constructs, and some spells such as "charm person" only work on humanoids. The 2024 ruleset also changes some humanoid monsters (Kobolds, goblins, etc.) to different types, meaning charm person won't work on those creatures anymore.
- Magic: The Gathering grouped several creature types under the umbrella of "Outlaw" in the Outlaws of Thunder Junction set. This umbrella consists of rogue, assassins, pirates, warlocks, and mercenaries, and is used to group together several creature types under an umbrella to more easily allow for Kindred effects.
- Pathfinder: First Edition has several templates that can be applied to enemies to give them various strength and weaknesses; for instance, the Vampire template is a subtype of Undead that gives a weakness to garlic and holy symbols. Certain templates can be given to player characters through various means, such as being killed by a vampire and subsequently rising granting the Vampire template, and sorcerers who take the Rakshasa bloodline being considered Native Outsiders upon reaching Level 20.