The creatures and monsters appearing in the later stages of the Diablo II beta make the earlier enemies you fought in the wildnerness look like wimps. What follows is a listing of the stronger monster types you'll encounter later in the Diablo II beta:

　　Ghosts: Diablo II's ghosts look like the glowing remains of decayed birds. They lie in Diablo II's crypts and catacombs and deal substantial damage with their clawing appendages. Killing a ghost robs it of its undead life force, reducing it to a small pile of bone. The more powerful ghost breed is the wraith, whose attack drains your mana in addition to your health.

　　Beastmen clans: The bipedal goatlike warriors of Diablo return in the sequel. The blood-clan, the night-clan, and the death-clan warriors are equipped with a variety of blunt and bladed melee weapons, and they won't hesitate to use them against you. Watch out for clan champions, whose attacks are especially damaging. Most beastmen make their homes in caverns and underground lairs.

　　Gargoyle Trap: This semisentient stone structure consists of several gargoyles perched atop a stone pillar. The gargoyles will spew multiple firebolts at you from a long range, and the gargoyle trap itself is usually surrounded by plenty of other monsters, which makes it quite dangerous. Fortunately, gargoyle traps are fairly easy to destroy, but you'll often have a hard time getting close to them.

　　Rat Men: The small, angry humanoids may not look like much, but they wield sharp bladed weapons with authority. They'll dart about in the shadows for a while, but they will eventually close in and try to cut you to ribbons.

　　Disfigured: These grotesque bipedal demons have horns, sharp teeth, long claws, and huge foreheads - and they're powerful and dangerously erratic. Some can spit energy balls, and all are more than inclined to try and bite you to death. Some of the disfigured will try and flee from you when they're in danger, so that they can heal their wounds and later return to exact vengeance. You'll occasionally spot the disfigured outdoors, but you'll mostly encounter them deep in dungeons. You might also spot tougher varieties of these beasts, called the tainted and the afflicted, respectively.

　　Arachs: These disgusting, cow-sized creatures lurk in dank prison cells and catacombs and look like a cross between a spider and a beetle. They deal grave damage with their vicious pincers but are otherwise fairly straightforward to fight.

　　The Banished: Reminiscent of the original game's advocates and magistrates, these evil magicians wear occult robes and carry magical staves that fire elemental energy. The banished lurk in packs underground and also have the ability to teleport, which can make them very difficult to defeat.

　　Most types of Diablo II monsters have bright-glowing champions that you'll encounter occasionally, which are more powerful and tend to drop magic equipment when killed. Most monster classes also have named champions, which are much tougher and are typically surrounded by a contingent of their kind. The named monsters have special abilities that grant them stone skin, extra damage, extra toughness, elemental attacks, and mana-draining attacks, and some of them even explode when they die, in a final attempt to do you in. Diablo II's monsters typically don't look quite as sharp as those in the original game, but they tend to exhibit a more sophisticated intelligence and have a greater variety. Some of the monsters in the game's first act are big and powerful, so the creatures in subsequent acts are presumably even nastier.