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"I'm gonna beat you 'till candy comes out!"
Jack, Mass Effect 3

An enemy target or victim in a video game sought out by the player because they are (relatively) easy to kill and have a very high payout.

Related to the Metal Slime, in that they are often elusive to find, but without the Slimes' annoying tendency to escape from its battles. To a certain extent, the opposite of Goddamned Bats; you want to see these guys. Differs from Money Spider, in that they seem to be in the game specifically to be killed for loot.

Some examples of Chest Monster are also these, dropping their "contents" upon death.


Examples:

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    Action-Adventure 
  • Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night:
    • Sidhes are enemies you will find yourself killing a lot, as they go down easy and are a relatively low threat unless they manage to nail you with their poison attack. Along with decent experience for that point in the game they drop the Healing Shard and the Fairy Wings used to upgrade said shard, so killing these buggers by the hundreds until it is rank and grade 9 becomes well worth the effort.
    • The dragon in the Livre Ex Machina is one due to it having an easily exploitable blind spot: if you run in close and start slashing, its flame attack will miss completely and you'll manage to slay it before it gets another chance to attack. They drop obscene experience at that point in the game and also drop Dragon Eggs that are used in a lot of recipes that boost LCK and MND.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: The best place to go for lots of rupees is the Tektite canyon two screens right of the origin. Zols in the various dungeons also provide a rather high payout, and unlike Tektites are slow moving and easy to kill. However you need the White Sword to benefit, since the starting sword causes them to split into Gels, which give bupkiss.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Wallmasters leave you a crazy amount of rupees. However, whether or not it's worth it is debatable: if they catch you, it's back to the temple entrance for you, and OOT is the poster child for Money for Nothing.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, on the other hand, is more ripe for the enterprising hero.
      • The least resource-intensive way to grind money quickly is to go to Ikana Castle and kill Redeads, who drop 15-20 Rupees a pop, and can be neutralized by wearing one of Ikana's masks (Garo, Gibdo or Captain's Hat, all of which are mandatory to complete the game). Once the hole in the roof of Ikana Castle has been bombed open, just run through the formation of Redeads in the room below it with the Mirror Shield to kill 4 of them in as many seconds. Rinse and repeat.
      • Much earlier than that is the north area of Termina Field, accessible as soon as you can leave town. In the daytime there are several Dodongos roaming the area, with small ones dropping at least 20 rupees and big ones dropping 50. It's not too difficult to sidestep their flame breath and chuck a few bombs at them until they drop. Then simply step into the pit in the area and step out again to get them to respawn.
      • If you're able and willing to use the Light Arrows, a whole host of enemies, including the common Guay and Bubble, become this, dropping 50 Rupees if killed via Light Arrow specifically. And unlike Ocarina, there is a reason to grind so much money.
      • Once you have arrows, you can snipe the takuri bird that hovers around the entrance to Romani Ranch in Termina Field. Once felled, it drops 200 rupees, and will respawn on reloading the area. It can also be fought on foot with the sword, but risks having one of Link's items stolen which will end up in the Curiosity Shop later that night.note  This can be avoided by putting the Stone Mask on quickly before it attacks, then wailing on it while it can't see Link. It also won't steal items if Link is on horseback, which still needs arrows but lets you get closer.
    • ChuChus drop delicious Chu Jelly, especially the rare ones on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which either act as super potion or can be sold for an enormous amount.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
      • Yiga Clan enemies are the only enemies that carry rupees, though it's still a much larger amount of rupees than you would find in other contexts. This is because they're the only human enemies you face, and thus the only ones with a good reason for carrying money.
      • While the Blupees aren't actually monsters, you can still hit them over and over with arrows or a spear for rupees until they run off.
      • If you're looking for something more immediately useful, Hinoxes carry multiple powerful weapons each (frequently including top-tier generic weapons like Royal Broadswords), sleep when not provoked (which makes it easier for sneaky players to steal said weapons), are fairly simple to bring down via kiting (especially if you target their huge, obvious weak point with a bow to stun them), and drop large quantities of food (often pre-roasted) on death. Unfortunately, Stalnox are not quite so simple or lucrative to farm, since they don't sleep and don't drop food items.
      • Taluses and Pebblits drop gems after you beat them. Just be careful when hunting for them, as they're basically rocks piled into a humanoid shape very capable of camouflaging into the scenery.
  • Luigi's Mansion:
    • There are specific blue Palette Swaps of the standard ghost who only appear in set places once, never to return whether caught or not. Of course these dispense mucho moolah.
    • Golden Mice appear only in certain areas and give off tons of money, as well as being instantly vacuumed up with one suction. Unfortunately, they have elements of Metal Slime due to being small, fast, and have a tendency to be lost for good if you don't suck them up in time.
  • Luigi's Mansion 3:
    • Similarly to the aforementioned Golden Mice, gold forms of various vermin appear in the third game. They can be lost forever, but tend not to flee and can be popped with the Strobulb, dispensing lots of Bills and Gold Bars when this happens.
    • The third game also has Golden Goobs and Crystal Goobs, two kinds of ghosts that spawn when certain actions are fulfilled in a room (i.e spinning the chairs around in one room of the Hotel Shops.) The former has 2.5 times the health of your standard Goob, and drops tons of money when slammed on the ground, but it runs around the room in fear, and thus is a bit of a slippery critter, and flees after a certain period of not being attacked. Crystal Goobs, on the other hand, don't flee after enough time has passed, and can only be damaged by the Slam move. When killed, they drop one of the Gems for a given floor, and thus are neccesary for 100% Completion.
  • Persona 5 Strikers have aptly named Treasure Demons, which were present in its prequel Persona 5, but streamlined. In Strikers, Treasure Demons cannot be turned into Personas to aid in fusing in the Velvet Room, intensifying their already Piñata status from Persona 5. Treasure Demons spawn in the current section of the map the player is innote , heralded with a distinct ringing sound that can be heard over the BGM, and can be tracked down on the map by a red dot like other Shadows, only with a more weird travel path. Once found, they have to be hit by any attack, then you have to kill the Treasure Demon in 30 real time seconds or it flees and combat unceremoniously ends, resulting in nothing. Upon death, Treasure Demons can reward a great amount of money and EXP, as well as rare Skill Cards to slap onto Joker's Personas or Incense to improve stats of the party. Treasure Demons on standard difficulties resists nearly all magical attacks aside from one weakness and Almighty, while on Merciless difficulty, they resist Physical and Gun attacks and don't take any magic damage that isn’t their weakness or Almighty.
  • Shantae and the Seven Sirens: Crystal Crabs have a shell of Gems, the currecy, which can be extracted just by dancing near it.

    Action RPG 
  • Bloodborne: Small enemies called "Waking Nightmares" that look like a pile of limbs and skulls, but are harmless, will drop rare materials upon death. The Nightmare Frontier has a larger variant that can fight back, but is still rather weak and still drops excellent loot.
  • Dark Souls:
    • The first game has the Forest Hunters and Darkmoon soldiers, quick sources of souls, and a respawning Titanite demon, which drops the otherwise limited in number Demon Titanite (as well as Titanite demon Catchpole), used to upgrade powerful boss weapons. The Black Knights in Kiln of the First Flame also count due to their guaranteed drops of Titanite Chunk and Black Knight Weapons.
    • Dark Souls II has a very weird example of this. While it's not necessary to farm him, as you only need to kill him once, many players straight up murder Maughlin the Armorer once they reach Majula for the Tseldora clothes he wears, which boosts the amount of souls you get.
    • The rooftops at the very top of the Grand Archives in Dark Souls III are manned by a trio of giant acrofatic golden angel knights that, due to their bulk, are very easy to backstab. With soul-boosting items equipped, one can harvest over 90,000 souls from them in one run (about 30,800 each). They're also guaranteed to drop high-level titanite.
    • All three games, as well as Demon's Souls, have Crystal Lizards, harmless little creatures that run away when you approach. Killing them results in gaining rare and valuable upgrade materials. Dark Souls III subverted the "harmless" part with the occasional Ravenous Crystal Lizards, giant versions with high health pools and dangerous attacks... but which also drop the extremely rare Titanite Scale upon death.
  • Dragon's Dogma: Daimon himself in Dark Arisen expansion is one, not only he drops expensive materials, rare armors and experience, the fact how easy he can be killed with Blast Arrows and Conquerer Periapt is the main reason he's so frequent to be killed over and over again.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Early in the game there's a small area in Agrabah that has a chance to spawn four Black Fungi (a subspecies of the Mushrooms). Most of the time, due to their poisonous gasses and occasional invincibility, they'd be quite annoying... but they give out 96exp per Fungus, which is way more than most Heartless would give out at this point, and also have a chance to drop a Mystery Goo or a Mystery Mold. Quite worthwhile if one does not have the patience to grind with the common Heartless.
  • Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Certain characters have "extra loot drops" as a passive ability.
  • Mega Man Legends has those machines that release dragonfly-like robots which are relatively easy to destroy (the player's weakest weapon can destroy then in one hit), but are otherwise defenseless. What's even better is that upon being blown up, the machines will release an entire mountain of zenny. It's not uncommon for players to go treasure-hunting while equipped with the Vacuum Arm, go to specific rooms containing this certain type of enemy, and then destroy them just to suck up the spare change. Each successful cleanup will net players somewhere between 15,000 to 20,000 zenny.
  • Monster Hunter: World:
    • Zorah Magdaros is barely a threat to players but is often seen as a Crutch Character due to the vast amount of High Rank materials that can be harvested in a single fight. His shell is studded with ore deposits containing both his crafting materials and High Rank ores; his magma cores drop loot when destroyed; and he has a chance to drop loot when shot with cannons during the final phase. If a player is willing to invest a little extra time, the ore deposits and magma cores will eventually reset and can be harvested for additional loot.
    • Kulve Taroth is quite difficult but the sheer volume of loot she drops is incredible. Where most monsters only drop "shiny" loot when body parts are destroyed or special conditions are met, Kulve has a chance to drop shinies on any hit. A single phase can see dozens of shiny drops litter the floor. Then there's her horn plating which, when broken off, creates a carve item worth three pieces of loot and if her horns are broken they are worth four pieces of loot. And the after-battle bonus for beating her can reward up to eighteen pieces of loot.
    • The game introduces two event-exclusive examples of this as part of its one-year anniversary, Arch-Tempered versions of the Great Jagras and Lavasioth — the most-fought and least-fought monsters in the game, respectively. Both of them have breath weapons (after a fashion): Greatest Jagras projectile-vomit its lunch, Lavasioth retains its ability to spit fireballs, and each time they use these attacks the projectile leaves behind a decoration jewel. Jagras takes it a step further, since it retains a strategy from the original version: smacking its full belly repeatedly will eventually make it fall on its side and puke up its lunch, potentially leaving upwards of 10 decorations in a pile next to its head.
  • In Soul Sacrifice Delta, the Orichalcum are giant snails with treasure chests for shells, and they drop tons of Life and Magic EXP that range from the few hundreds to even thousands with EXP Rumors. They're harmless and easy to defeat, and while their spawn rate is low, you can increase it with Orichalcum Rumors.
  • X-Men Legends:
    • The first game has this in the enemy Astral Fury. Halfway through the game, you get a Danger Room simulation that spawns this enemy that, while enemies give 2000xp is considered generous, will award 117987 xp upon death, and is no tougher than any of the other enemies of that stage! Your party could easily jump 10-15 levels after repeating this mission after a few hours, making the rest of the game a walk in the park.
    • In the second game, you get Limit Break powers called Xtreme once you fill up your Xtreme meter, but you probably have to do a second playthrough to get your secondary ones. Gambit's secondary Xtreme is called Prince of Thieves, and Toad's is called Plunder. These increase the drop rate of health, energy, and techbits for a limited time (often Money for Nothing, but they can buy some useful items). Effectively turning all your enemies into this.

    Beat 'em Ups 
  • Golden Axe: The Thieves are the quick but harmless creatures that Diablo 3's goblins are based on. You beat on them until they start coughing up potions to restore your magic, the amount varies depending on how many hits you land but you can expect to get at least one or two.
  • River City Ransom:
    • The second encounter with Benny and Clyde. They keep respawning, give out a lot of money, and by that point in the game you can easily build up enough stat gain to defeat them in a couple of blows every time.
    • The Entrees gang in the remake drop about seven times the money dropped by other gangs. They also drop very useful weapons.
  • Yakuza 0: Practically every single enemy is this, to the point that simply landing a good punch to the face will lead to cash raining all around you. This is because cash doubles as XP in this game, making the skill tree a Money Sink. There are two standout examples of the trope:
    • Mr. Shakedown is loaded with cash, but he also turns this trope back on you, making you drop money when he hits you and potentially taking all of your money if they beat you. Fortunately, they hold onto the money they take from you, so play your cards right and you can get it back plus interest.
    • The Nouveau Riche enemies, which pop up after you purchase the corresponding perk at a shrine, is a milder but safer example, as while they're not any stronger than regular enemies, they yield a lot of money. Nowhere near as much as what the Mr. Shakedowns can fork over, but nonetheless a welcome bonus and a much easier fight.

    Eastern RPG 
  • Bravely Default:
    • The first game has Gobblers, which drop 5000 pg each, and Guzzlers, which drop 333 JP each (so defeating a party of three of the latter will hit the cap for JP gain within a single battle). They also have very high defense and tend to flee from battle, and the Guzzlers can inflict all sorts of status effects on you. Overlaps with Metal Slime.
    • Bravely Second has Chompillionaire, which, unlike most of the Chomper family, doesn't attempt to flee during the fight, as well as having low defense, thus playing this trope straight. It may appear on Fort-Lune as a Ba'al, however, it isn't really one at all, and ends up being surprisingly weak (Aside from occasionally using Venomous Bite, which, even then, does little damage, but may inflict Poison) and can give 10000 pg when defeated.
  • Chaos Rings:
    • Chaos Rings II has weak enemies which call reinforcements. It's possible to enter a fight with them and easily rack up hundreds of thousands of EXP and money by not killing the last one and letting more get called. You can make even more by using items which double EXP and money obtained. A short time in battle can easily earn multiple levels, even in the post-game.
    • Chaos Rings III: The Eggons. On their own they drop a bit more money and experience than enemies of the same level. If you fight three at once, they become three Lucky Sevens, multiplying the rewards by three. The tricky thing is, Eggons only take 1 damage from any attack, so Eggon hunting is best done with weapons and genes that hit multiple times.
  • Cthulhu Saves the World has Gold Wisps, which are exclusive to the Ice Cave. Even two Gold Wisps drop three times more XP and gold than every other enemy pack in the location, and when they appear in a group of thirteen, you can get about 13000 XP and 5000 gold! For comparison, an average enemy group in the Very Definitely Final Dungeon can give only about 5000 XP and about 1000 gold. And the fact that Gold Wisps are fairly weak enemies makes them excellent targets for grinding XP and gold.
  • Digimon World 3: Numemon take a lot to kill but are otherwise weak, and pack a ton of experience. The Numemon in the Asuka Jungle Shrine pack as much experience as some of the late Amaterasu Mooks. The ones in the Amaterasu Jungle Shrine pack more experience than any other Mook in the game.
  • Dragon Quest
    • Most games have golems made of solid gold which dispense a college fund on death.
    • Dragon Quest IX has Gem Jamborees and Gem Slimes. If the Gold Golems drop college funds, the Gem Jamborees drop retirement funds and the Gem Slimes drop enough to buy the goddamn college.
    • Goodybags are a pain to defeat due to their agility and use of disruptive magic, but the huge amount of gold and rare items they drop make them well worth it. Especially so in Rocket Slime.
  • EarthBound (1994):
    • Foppies are extremely weak, their attacks almost always backfire, and they're worth a buttload of experience points. You can even use PSI Magnet Omega to get a lot of PP from them.
    • The Criminal Caterpillar in the Dusty Dunes Desert and the Master Criminal Worm in Scaraba give out ridiculous amounts of EXP. They're a pain if you actually have to fight them but late game they run from you and if you sneak up behind them, you may not even have to fight them at all to get the EXP.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • The Mover enemies usually give absolutely ridiculous amounts of both money and experience, being a rare and powerful monster usually stalking the final dungeon, so that the player can have quick and fairly easy access to power and resources at or after the endgame. Depending on the game, though, Movers can be very difficult (Crisis Core is the worst with this). Cactuars sometimes fit the trope, though, since they often give a ton of cash and ability points, and can usually be dispatched fairly easily as long as you have the right skills.
    • Final Fantasy: Lit2/Bolt 2 makes the Wizards/Piscodaemons in Marsh Cave these, as one casting can wipe out the entire group for a very sizeable amount of gil and XP.
    • Final Fantasy V:
      • Assuming you know their weakness, Statues become this. They drop 5 or 8 APB a battle (the highest source of it in the game) and can be fought as early as the second world. They are tough, but their entire party can be wiped out in one turn by Level 5 Doom, which can be easily cast by anyone in your party, and they can be one-punched individually by using soft items on them.
      • Nutkins are easy to find and beat, being found in the woods just outside the first temple (second dungeon). What makes them valuable is that if you fight three of them at once, they dispense 2 ABP instead of the 1 that most fights in the first half of the game grant. Given their extreme ease to defeat and high appearance rate (nearly 50% of encounters in these woods will be against 3 Nutkin) it's pretty much the best place to power up your classes for a long time.
    • Final Fantasy X: Mimics in the Bonus Dungeon are worth the danger (you can't escape from a battle with one) because they drop 50,000 Gil — or twice that with the right weapon ability equipped.
    • Final Fantasy V has the Zu, an enemy that appears in the overworld near a town less than 1/8 of the way through the game. It has a bit more HP than the other monsters nearby and doesn't reward significantly more XP or gold for killing it, but it has Elixirs (which completely refill 1 character's HP/MP) as both a stealable item and a random drop, at a fairly high rate.
    • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: Cactuars are not very tough and have a base value of 5000 Gil each, rising to 15,000 on day 13, and 25,000 if you unlock day 14.
    • Final Fantasy XIV has rare enemy encounters in its two treasure hunt dungeons that drop valuable rewards. Golden goblins and Namazu Stickywhisker, in particular, drop generous amounts of gil and rare items, but only if the party can defeat them before they escape.
  • Golden Sun: Dark Dawn has the standard mooks of the last stage, the Tua Soldiers. While they have decent attacks and will heal themselves, they are worth a truckload of experience and they'll always drop the Water of Life, a much-valued reviving item. To further sweeten the deal, they are completely outside the game's Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system in that they're weak to all the elements. This means that Djinni kills—which give you an additional 50% of the experience if you finish off your enemy with a Djinni of the element that it's weak against—are ridiculously easy to achieve. A standard group of three is worth almost the same amount of experience as some of the weaker bosses if killed in this way, and it's easy to level up your party by five or six levels in thirty minutes.
  • Live A Live: Lost Souls in the Edo Japan chapter. They're very easy to beat and give out a lot of EXP, making them ideal for leveling up quickly. In addition, since they aren't, strictly speaking, "living", defeating them doesn't count towards your kill count for the chapter, making them ideal targets for a pacifist player.
  • Mega Man Legends:
    • The Miroc, a small quail-like Reaverbot that you'll first encounter in the ruins found in the fields north of City Hall are very easy to kill, slow moving, and drop either 500 or 1000 Zenny upon death, which is a king's ransom this early in the game that easily allows you to afford much better armor and max out your Machine Buster. The only risk is they can easily sneak up on you and can inflict a lot of damage if they actually land a hit, but that's nothing to worry about if you're carrying an Energy Canteen.
    • There's a Mook Maker that spawns tiny, dragonfly-like enemies, which upon being destroyed will explode in a massive pile of refractor shards.
    • A simple and much publicized Good Bad Bug known as the Gorubesshu Army, which simply involves going to the ruins that connect to the Lake Jyun Subgate and tricking the game into spawning far more of these guys at a time than it's supposed to by running back and forth through a door. Killing them and sucking it up with the Vacuum Arm will reward utterly ludicrous amounts of Zenny, allowing you to comfortably fully max out the Shining Laser and Active Buster in about an hour.
  • Onmyōji (2016):
    • When fighting in a dungeon, sometimes one of the Mooks will spontaneously turn into a paper cutout wearing a gift bag. When you win that battle, you will get fantastic rewards such as high-quality kekkai cards, daruma fragments or battle tickets.
    • After clearing a dungeon, there's a possibility that an Octopus will appear, which you're only allowed to fight if you can invite at least one player and at most two players to fight it with you. Defeating an Octopus will give a huge amount of experience points for all shikigami and the team leader's onmyōji, high-quality mitama, some Awakening materials, and of course coins.
  • Phantasy Star: Werebats give out a lot of gold and experience near the beginning of the game, and are relatively weak for their rewards.
  • Both of the Wealth and Treasure Hands Shadows from earlier Persona games, specifically 3, 4, and Q. The differences between the two rare Shadows are very negligible (the Wealth Hand looks more chrome-like), with availability being their only real difference between the two. They usually drop good Shop Fodder items for their games.
    • In 3, they will attempt to run away and if they run into a dead end, they vanish. During battle, both take bonus damage from any Physical skill type, and can additionally drop Nihil Weapons for Sword Fusion once the Antique Shop opens. They also drop Request-specific items once said Request is active. During the Bonus Dungeon in FES, they now null all magic that's not Almighty, but they also are weak to a randomized Physical attack type; said Phys weakness is also randomized per character, to boot.
    • In 4, there's more notable differences. Wealth Hands are weak to Elec Skills and take more damage from Almighty Skills, while Treasure Hands are more supportive with buffs and null Hama and Mudo skills. This uniqueness is downplayed in Golden, as both have similar movesetsnote  and affinity charts.
    • In Q, they resist everything, so they have to be hit hard and fast. Treasure Hands also come packing with Megido, juuuust to add salt to the wound.
  • Pokémon:
    • Pokémon Black and White:
      • When you see a bush shaking, it usually means an Audino got lost and is ripe for the pummeling. They give disproportionately large amounts of EXP compared to the rest of the local fauna (a Level 8 Audino found past Striaton City gives an average of 1,080 EXP, enough for most similarly leveled Pokemon to instantly gain three or four levels, a feat that usually takes about a solid ten minutes of Level Grinding) and are almost completely inoffensive — their moves all either do very minimal damage, require an allied Pokémon to work and thus fail to do anything in a one-on-one battle, or just give you a free heal on top of the experience from beating them. This is even lampshaded by an NPC near the first area you can encounter them in. They effectively tell you straight up that Audino is an EXP cow.
      • The Pokémon Breeders in the Black Tower/White Treehollow. Although there are only two per level, and you'll have to dodge other trainers to find them, they have at least two members of the Chansey family, making them perfect for leveling up if you're training a physical-based mon.
      • There's a chance of the Big Stadium or Small Court in Nimbasa City having a Doctor or Nurse, who will have an Audino in Black or White, or a Chansey in Black 2 or White 2. The trainers there also aren't set until you enter the building, so you can keep resetting and going in until they appear.
    • Pokémon X and Y: Audino can still be found in the wild but are harder to get. However, if you fight enough trainers in the Battle Chateau and obtain at least the Duke/Duchess title, you can then find Furisode Girls there, who use nothing but Lv. 45 Audino... and Pokémon owned by trainers give off more EXP than ones in the wild. In fact, if you have at least Duke/Duchess rank, you write a Red Writ of Challenge to increase the level of the other trainer's Pokémon by 20 so that the Duchess Furisode Girls have three Level 65 Audino (or two Level 55 Audino, for the Marchioness-ranked Furisode Girls). Equip the Lucky Egg to your Pokémon if you have one, and use a Level 3 Exp O-Power on yourself before the fight (or get someone else to give it to you), and you can get around 20000 Experience per Audino.
    • Blisseys are an even better source of EXP, as they give out twice the EXP as Audinos! However, good luck finding somebody who has one, let alone defeating one. In Black 2 and White 2, a Nurse on Twist Mountain has one of the few instances of one in normal gameplay, with one at Level 62. Another trainer in Scarlet and Violet in the Indigo Disk DLC's Savanna Biome has a Level 74 Blissey, although this one is in a Double Battle accompanied by significantly less passive Pokémon like Rabsca and Farigiraf.
    • Rich Boys, Ladies, and the like give you tons of cash after beating them. In R/S/E, there's a Rich Boy on the third route of the game that gives you $1400 after beating him, ten times the amount most trainers at that point are giving out. They're also usually pretty weak trainers overall.
      • A natural extension of this can be found in the post-game in Undella Town, where you fight The Riches, a whole family of comically-weak-to-pretty-hard trainers that you fight gauntlet style, with a new family member showing up every day till there are six. It can be pretty hard later on, but each member of the family gives you over twelve thousand cash each.
      • While technically set up by the community, the Blissey Bases in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are very very good for EXP. These are secret bases in which the owner uses only Level 100 Blissey, and each Blissey knows only Healing Wish - a move that faints its user to heal one of its teammates. This means that the highest amount of EXP a single Blissey can give is a whopping 95681; if your mon is internationally traded and is past the level it's supposed to evolve at. Under more normal circumstances, you'd still get 46902 EXP, which is still nothing to sneeze at. And that's just one out of three Blissey in that battle. The catch is that you can only do this up to twice a day per base, and if you added a base to your game via a QR code, you'd have to wait till the next day to do it.
    • Gym trainers can become this in any of the games for a Mon of the right type. About to face a gym full of trainers with Flying type Pokemon? Better get your Electric or Rock-type ready. Bonus points if you give them an Amulet Coin (double money) or a Lucky Egg in Gen V and onwards (50% more experience) to hold. Beware though, the Gym leader will often have at least one Pokemon with a secondary type strong against the one you have been cleaning house with.
    • A straighter example can be found in Pokémon Sun and Moon and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon with wild Wimpods. Their Ability, Wimp Out, causes them to run from battle if their HP falls to 50% or below, but if you catch or defeat one, it will always drop an item that can be sold at high prices to stores. The ones at Poni Breaker Coast are the highest-leveled Wimpods but give out the most valuable items—the most common things they drop are Big Pearls, which can be sold for more than Nuggets. If you're savvy enough, you can spend about 45 minutes there and gain enough items to sell for six-digit sums of money.
    • Pokémon Sword and Shield introduce these in certain Max Raid Battles with promoted spawn rates. Delibird, the event for Christmas 2019, dropped a disproportionately large amount of valuable items and EXP Candies in the L and XL sizes. Magikarp, which had an increased spawn rate for the New Year's 2020 event, left behind a small fortune in Nuggets and Big Nuggets: they also had an extremely increased chance of being Shiny (1/12.) Milcery, the promoted spawn for the Valentine's Day 2020 event, is the only Pokémon (besides Charmander) that can evolve into a variant of its final form with the Gigantamax factor; they also can drop the previously unavailable Ribbon and Star Sweets needed to evolve it. But even besides these exceptional examples, the EXP and Rare Candies dropped from Max Raid Battles will level up your team faster than regular battles and can get a team from Level 65 to Level 85 with as little as 15 minutes of grinding. The Isle of Armor also has the Exp. Charm as a Key Item that's obtained early on, which works as an upgrade of Lucky Egg in that it increases experience for all Pokémon in the party. The expansion also reintroduces the Chansey line, and allows Chansey (and, in very rare cases, Blissey) to be found as a visible encounter, along with the chance to obtain Lucky Eggs.
  • Secret of Mana: Embermen appear only in the Palace of Darkness and a very select few other screens, but they give in the thousands of experience per kill... and, oh yeah, they're Mook Makers. You take it from there.
  • Tales of Symphonia:
    • Despite being more powerful than the average enemy, the Dragon in the Temple of Earth is still relatively easy to defeat (maybe not on your initial trip, but definitely gets to that point long before the end of the game) and has an insane payoff, made even more insane when you get an item that effectively doubles the monetary output from battles. And there's a sidequest that requires the donation of copious amounts of money. Guess which enemy you'll be facing repeatedly? Apparently the amount of money the dragon drops was a bug (someone misplaced a decimal point, turning 1000 into 10000), evidenced by the payoff being significantly lower in the PS2 Updated Re-release...not that anyone outside Japan got to know that firsthand.
    • Its cousin, the Gold Dragon, however, drops enough money in all versions of the game to be the go-to monster for gald farming as soon it's available.
    • The Chimeras found on the Fuji Mountains after a certain point can have extremely valuable Rune Bottles stolen from them, especially if Colette has the Item Getter compound ex skill. In addition to powering up stat boosting herbs and improving access to rare accessories, they can be used to turn Talismans bought in Flanoir into Blue Talismans, which can then be sold for a massive profit, indirectly making Chimeras the go-to money source in the Updated Re-release.
  • Wizardry has the recurring Murphy's Ghost monster. It appears early in the game, usually in a hard-to-access room and can be fought as many times as possible. It provides much more experience compared to other enemies found in the first floors and while it does little damage, its defenses are rather high, making it difficult for a party of newbie adventurers to defeat it.
  • The World Ends with You: Jellyfish-type noise drop valuable money pins and multiply themselves during battle. They're an excellent source of money if they're around, and they can even mutate when multiplying, spawning rare variants that drop important crafting materials.
  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon: The Slugger enemy drops 2000 yen upon being defeated when most fights you'll be in will drop a tenth that amount. He's also slow moving and has extremely low accuracy on his attacks (though he does hit hard). Early on in the game he's an extremely good source of money until you begin unlocking the side quests and minigames that are the game's primary source of wealth.

    First-Person Shooter 
  • Borderlands:
  • Dead Trigger 2 has the Special Zombies, who have unique powers and are stronger than regular Zombies. They drop ammo when hit and will drop lots of Money (if killed during a Tournament, they only drop more ammo) when killed. If you're lucky, they will also drop a Weapon Blueprint piece.
  • Deep Rock Galactic:
    • The aptly-named Loot Bug is a fat, slow-moving creature that feeds on valuable minerals like gold and nitra, and drops them when killed. The only thing about them that doesn't immediately invite a pickaxe to the head is the fact that they're quite cute, and the dwarves will sometimes express guilt over killing them.
    • If there is such a thing as a Piñata Boss, the Crassus Detonator is it. It's extremely rare, and is fought like any other Bulk Detonator (meaning stay the hell away, especially when it dies and goes off like a ton of dynamite). But when it dies, the gigantic crater it leaves upon death is coated in gold instead of slag. Kill it in the right place and you can easily haul literal tons of gold out of the mission.
  • Descent has supervisor droids (or other specially set units) that drop powerups such as invulnerability or a large amount of shields. The ones found in a Secret Level are a bit more deadly, which instead release rather dangerous enemies instead of the desired items, but destroying these subenemies results in the items that you wanted.
  • Doom:
    • By themselves, former humans aren't much of a threat, and they drop either bullets or shotgun shells on defeat; it's entirely possible to have more ammo left over after you've shot them. This stops applying when they're in large numbers and can pose more of a threat, though, and the chaingunners are never sought out by players.
    • Doom (2016): Any enemy you Glory Kill (perform a finishing move on) drops health, while chainsawing an enemy makes them drop tons of ammo.
    • Doom Eternal adds the ability to set enemies on fire to make them drop armor. The ability to make enemies drop health, ammo, or armor on demand is now critical because there aren't enough resources just lying around on the ground to keep the player in the fight.
  • Halo Infinite introduces the Grunt Mule, a rank of Grunt that carries a weapon rack on its back. The Mule will always carry two random weapons on it and drop them upon death.
  • The End Times: Vermintide and its sequel, Vermintide II feature a rare enemy called the Sack Rat, which runs from players upon seeing them and drops useful items.
  • GMOTA: The Miniboner (a tiny annoying golden skeleton) drops some health items, ammo, and one rare item like the Superburger or Ring of Might when it is killed. Opening chests rarely spawns a Miniboner.
  • Left 4 Dead 2 has the Fallen Survivors exclusive from The Passing campaing. If you manage to kill one, they'll drop either molotovs, pipe bombs, pain pills, first aid kits or multiple (sometimes all) of them! Even if they are a bit of a Metal Slime since they run away as soon as they get attacked, killing them is relatively easy with the appropriate weapon or strategy.
  • Overwatch: This trope gets a Shout-Out in the form of a literal piñata shaped like Diablo.
  • Team Fortress 2: In Mann Vs. Machine mode, all of the robots drop a bit of cash upon defeat, with the tank being the biggest money piñata of them all.
  • Time Crisis: Some harmless "bonus enemies" will pop up from time to time. Shooting one will yield a timer bonus. In Time Crisis II, shooting a bonus enemy yields 5,000 points. In Time Crisis III and IV, they give you ammo for your special weapons instead. However, since then they are capable of actually hurting you.

    MMORPG 
  • City of Heroes: The Rikti portals spawned by Communications Officers are inanimate objects with no attacks that give large amounts of XP and influence (the game's money) when defeated. The drawback is, naturally, that they spew out enemies while you're beating on them. Later updates changed the Communications Officers themselves to be the ones to give the huge payout.
  • MapleStory has the Leprechaun, whose name alone should be a no brainer. What makes these guys interesting is that they don't attack, they don't move, they drop stuff twice before dying, they're fairly easy to kill at around Lv. 50 or so, and most of the time they spawn so close together that you can kill one while waiting for another to spawn. One could theoretically camp here and make a million mesos in about an hour, except that most of the maps they spawn on also spawn a type of ghost monster that's significantly less impressive (often taking away a Leprechaun's spawn); save for one which can randomly spawn the Headless Horseman.
  • Phantasy Star Online:
    • The Rappies don't attack much (Or at all) unlike their more common relatives and can drop large amounts of money and valuable items when defeated.
    • The sequel has the Mesetan and Takamikazuchi, which grant absurd amounts of meseta and EXP respectively. However, they're several magnitudes rarer then the aforementioned Rappy, to the point where you can easily go countless hours without running into either.
  • Ragnarok Online has a few, most notably Mandragoras, which are rather low-level and cannot move. They're easy bait for ranged attacks, and fairly weak for close-range combateers too. They drop an item that's easily sold to Alchemists at a 90% chance and are found on a map directly north of a town in massive quantities (occasionally Alchemists will even park their characters right in front of the map change portal to buy this item, also in massive quantities). This is an easy way for people to make enough money to cover daily expenses early in the game.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • Certain raid bosses have been specifically referred to as "loot piñatas" due to the ease of killing them compared to the amount of gold/loot they drop. Onyxia in particular acquired this reputation, as she was possible to solo as early as level 70 and dropped a comparably large amount of gold for the effort. Her reboot as a level 80 boss made this slightly harder. Grobbulus from the original Naxxramas was also widely considered "free loot" after the Beef Gate Patchwerk encounter.
    • Rare mobs tend to be only marginally tougher than normal enemies and drop superior quality loot.
    • Starting in Mists of Pandaria, most world bosses are regarded as easy loot, only requiring enough warm bodies to meet the damage and healing requirements. Oondasta is the sole exception, having been designed for a regular raid run and having mechanics that punish zerging attempts.

    Platformers 
  • Keith Courage in Alpha Zones: The flying cats are the best resource for money grinding, especially given that killing sixteen of them will spawn a golden version with a more valuable drop.
  • Mega Man X has a cameo from a classic series enemy that's pretty much an instant one-up. And it respawns the moment you walk off the screen!
  • Ratchet & Clank:
    • In Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, the penultimate level of Koros features small drones that give an unusually high XP payout, as well as giant mechs that give enormous amounts of XP, and later some troopers that give smaller but no less useful amounts. All three make this level highly desirable for XP farming, and abusing it is the only way to get all the weapons up to their max levels before completing the game.
    • Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time has the Agorians in the Gimlick Valley level, who also give large amounts of XP when killed. While the level can only be played once and the enemies appear for a single one-shot section, players can farm them by deliberately killing Ratchet and re-doing the section. And as in the previous example, they are the only reasonable ways to max level the weapons before the final boss. These enemies appear again in the Corvus Sector, but this time cannot be farmed.
  • Sonic Adventure 2: The Golden GUN units teleport in at specific locations if you get close, and then teleport away if you don't kill them in time. They are worth 1,000 points, so you might want to consider memorizing their locations if you want to get those A ranks.
  • Super Mario Bros.: Moneybags drop a lot of coins, 1-ups, or Star Bits depending on the game. They also tend to be invisible, and only trackable through their footprints.
  • They Bleed Pixels: Shamblers are the most basic enemies, but have the most HP, so they're easy to get high combos off of. In later levels, they're conspicuously placed in spots where you'll need a high combo to generate a checkpoint.

    Real-Time Strategy 
  • Pikmin has a few examples of these, such as the Iridescent Flint Beetle and the Honeywisp. They're among the few things on the planet that aren't interested in eating or otherwise harming your Pikmin, and attacking the latter gets them to drop nectar (which empowers any of your Pikmin that are not already flowered), while the former can drop nectar and pellets. There's also Iridescent Glint Beetles and Doodlebugs in 2, which are essentially regular Flint Beetles on steroids, as on top of regular nectar, they drop sprays that can be used to make your Pikmin faster and petrifying enemies - the latter of which can be used to create even more nectar from destroying said petrified enemies.

    Roguelikes 
  • EVERSPACE: When destroyed, all enemies drop weapons, warheads, crafting materials, credits and nanobots which are all essential for your survival.
  • Road Redemption: Some opposing riders have cash, health, nitro, or ammo icons over their head. Taking down these enemies gives a large amount of the resource indicated by the icon.

    Shoot 'em Up 
  • Brotato from Blobfish is a top-down survival shooter where your Brotato is fending off an alien invastion. Among the aliens are Looters. These aliens will drop a Loot Chest and 8 Material when killed.
  • Bubble Tanks: Some enemies in the second game don't attack and drop a lot of bubbles. They usually tend to appear in an adjacent bubble if the player took too much damage (where taking damage meant losing experience points).

    Turn-Based Strategy 
  • Civilization: In Civilization V, barbarians come from camps that spawn in unpopulated wilderness. Defeating the defenders of the camp and razing it gives you a gold bounty (which is far larger for the Songhai empire, and has a slight chance of also giving you a free combat unit as Germany). The Aztecs gain culture from every unit killed, meaning they can develop their society by hunting down barbarians or engaging another major civilization. Investing in the Honor social policies also lets any nation gain culture and gold benefits for each enemy defeated.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Revenants and Entombed are pathetically weak, usually having laughably low attack power and defence (the ones in Spiritual Successor TearRing Saga outright have 0 in most stats), but Entombed give huge amounts of EXP on being killed. They're usually kind of rare, but the few maps where they're guaranteed to show up generally end up as Peninsulas of Power Leveling. The first floor of the Tower of Valni in Sacred Stones is one such example, as well as a DLC map full of them in Awakening.
    • Though not to the same extent as the Entombed, thieves and their promoted classes tend to give more EXP than other classes of the same level.
    • In general, enemy units sitting on a healing tile can serve as ample sources of EXP, especially if they happen to be the boss of the map. If they only have a melee weapon, the player's squishier ranged units (mainly archers and mages) can plink away at the hapless foe until they die at no risk to themselves.

    Tower Defense 
  • The Battle Cats: In later levels, weak enemies from Empire of Cats like Kang Roo and Mooth will occasionally spawn. Even when heavily buffed, they're weaker than other enemies at this point, and drop a huge amount of money on death — the perfect opportunity to send out some expensive cats or level up your worker. Floor 49 in particular sends out almost nothing but these enemies, making the otherwise-unbearable duo of Hermit Cat and Yulala on the stage possible to beat.
  • The Yeti from Plants vs. Zombies is a rare type of zombie that occasionally appears in the lawn but runs away after a short while. If you manage to kill it before it escapes, it will drop precious diamonds.

    Web Games 
  • Gaia Online: The rare Ring Box enemy from zOMG! drops several rings when defeated. You just need to catch its attention first. Duneslam may also count as this, since people farm him intensively for orbs and rings.
  • The Last Stand: Union City has zombies with backpacks. Killing them drops a shower of items on the ground, from food to ammunition and usually a weapon or two.

    Western RPG 
  • The Bard's Tale: Parodied when you kill a common wolf and it spews forth all sorts of goodies, followed by a brief dialogue between the narrator, who decides to veto this sort of thing, and the bard, who's rather upset at this cutting off his main source of income.
  • Diablo II:
    • The first time you kill the Countess, her spirit floats into a chest in the middle of the room, which pops open and dumps out several dozen piles of gold. Even in subsequent battles, on higher difficulties she has a better chance of dropping runes than most enemies, and probably the best chance proportional to the amount of effort needed to find and kill her. In addition to being useful in their own right, runes have also become the standard trade commodity of the Battle.net community.
    • Pindleskin was not intended to be this, if being patched is any indication, but before then it could drop the most powerful items in the game.
    • Diablo III:
      • The Treasure Goblins and their variants drop large amounts of gold and items, but if you don't kill them quickly they'll open a portal and escape you. The Blood Thief and Malevolent Tormentor are especially sought after as they drop an end-game currency and a higher number of legendary items respectively.
      • The Joke Level Whimsyshire lampshades this trope with literal piñatas of the titular Diablo that drop large amounts of loot.
  • DragonFable: Some of the "titan battles" are this. The Metal Slime aspect is averted because the player can use the Dragon Rider armor, which, if it weren't exclusive to said titan battles, would be the most powerful armor in the game.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Giants are a play on this; while they will mostly send you to the moon with every attack and are quite beefy, they are easy to spot and drop generous loot.
  • Fallout:
    • Fallout 3: Super Mutant Behemoths carry loads of ammo, including at least one of the rare Mini Nukes each.
    • Fallout: New Vegas:
      • Lone mercenaries can be this. If they're not part of a caravan (who will all universally turn on you for shooting one of them), you can quickly stealth-kill one and effectively gain the contents of a low level player character's inventory. This will always include basic armor, a decent one-handed weapon (including the uncommon but valuable 10mm SMG), and various kinds of food and ammo. The player doesn't lose any reputation or karma for killing these mercenaries, and they're not even hostile to the player to start.
      • Mini Nukes are rather rare in the Mojave and are almost never seen... except for one Boomer who spawns with three of them. This Boomer's inventory doesn't respawn the Mini Nukes if they're stolen from him, but he respawns in three days if he dies. Cue many couriers hunting and killing this one luckless bloke repeatedly so that they have a supply of Mini Nukes.
      • With a low-mid-tier gun like the cowboy repeater, you can find a group of bighorners, squat down at a distance so they don't detect you, and blow their heads to kibble with a single sneak-attack-critical shot each for far more experience than they really should be worth and enough meat to last you hours in Hardcore mode (especially if you cook it).

    Wide Open Sandbox 
  • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Drug dealers. Each drops around $2000 and a bit of pistol ammo when killed, generally spawn alone, and become extremely common after an early mission, making them a valuable source of income early in the game, though not so much later on when missions start paying out considerably.
  • Minecraft:
    • Blazes drop Blaze Rods, which are incredibly useful as a fuel source, crafting the brewing stand, and a potion ingredient, as well as for reaching the End.
    • Wither Skeletons have a very rare chance of dropping Wither Skulls — it takes three of these skulls to build the Wither, a boss monster that drops the Nether Star when it dies.
  • Saints Row: The Third: Professor Genki is a mascot of a game show bearing his name. He rarely shows up and when he does, you'll want to kill him since he can drop over $300,000, which is enough to level up your abilities, cribs, or weapons many times (very helpful if you're in the beginning of the game where cash is hard to come by). Genki is very difficult to take down due to him having a ton of health and provoking him will have him attack you and everyone else in the area by kicking them only in the balls.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Arkham Horror has the Mi-go, a fairly weak enemy that gives you a unique item when killed.
  • Dead Reign has Shopper Zombies, a rare subtype of the Pattern Zombie named for its habit of looting stores and hoarding useful items. Killing one will give survivors immediate access to some quick and easy loot, but the real prize comes from tailing it all the way back to its lair, where it keeps a veritable jackpot of supplies ready for the taking.
  • Exalted has furnace rhinos, which were genetically engineered to collect and process valuable materials. All body parts of a furnace rhino are valuable, but its horn especially contains enough pure orichalcum (or moonsilver, or jade, etc.) that it counts as an artifact weapon. Even with that, however, the creature's inability to channel Essence puts it well below Exalted player characters.

    Other Non-Video Game Examples 

Literature

  • The Stormlight Archive: While wild chasmfiends are too dangerous to fit this trope, when they pupate they are effectively helpless, and all chasmfiends have a "gemheart", an enormous gemstone that grows within the chasmfiend's body.

Live-Action TV

  • Doctor Who: The mandrels in "Nightmare of Eden" are monsters that decompose into a highly sought-after (and very illegal) narcotic when they die.

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