Named monster

Every quest or raid has named monsters that often have special abilities, damage reductions, immunities, and/or importance to the quest or raid objectives. Often, named monsters are bosses—monsters that, once defeated, often complete a quest's central objective.

Despite the use of the term "monster," your enemies might be more humanoid, such as a human or elf, or be a non-humanoid, such as a Pit Fiend. "Enemy" and "monster" are used synonymously in DDO.

Named monsters are often designated by the color of their name as shown during a quest, which will differ from the typical blue-white names of monsters in a mob.

Named monsters often have greater than average hit points than the mobs that accompany them.

Here are general characteristics of named monsters by color type.

Yellow - Basic Named Enemy
Yellow named is generally used to denote a special, but not particularly dangerous foe. Although basic monsters' overhead names are also colored yellow, you can tell the difference in an actually -Named- Foe by the fact that their name will ALWAYS appear above their head, even when not targeted, compared to regular monsters which will only display their name above their heads when targeted. Yellow named enemies are very rare and generally only used for special objects like crystals, or foes which start as NPCs. Orange is far more commonly used for named foes.

They have no blanket immunities, but are generally at least a tiny bit tougher then their non-named counterparts.

Most NPCs you can recruit onto your side in quests are considered yellow-named. A small number of these enemies are more powerful and possesses traits similar to orange- or red-named monsters.

Example:

Not targeted at the top, targeted at the bottom. Notice how only the yellow named monster's name is visible when they are not targeted and how their names have the same color when targeted.

Orange - Named Enemy
Orange named is generally used to denote a more powerful foe when compared to a standard non-named or yellow named foe of the same type. While they generally possess no additional immunities (*), they can still pose a major threat. Orange-named enemies can appear in large groups, unlike their more powerful counterparts. Nearly every quest in the game feature at least one if not multiple orange named enemies.

(*) Note: There are a few exceptions to the lack of immunities:
 * 1) They are immune to bardic Fascinate.
 * 2) They are immune to some charm spells.
 * 3) On epic Hard and Elite difficulties, orange named monsters all possess the effects of deathblock.

Red - Powerful Named Enemy
Red named monsters are quite powerful and often can't be beaten by a single player character by themselves if the player character matches or is less than the quest's level difficulty. Most quests feature at least one red-named enemy, generally the end boss.

Red named monsters feature many blanket immunities:
 * Are immune from negative level effects
 * Are immune from instant kill spells and effects, such as vorpal weapons, banishing, Finger of Death, and the like. Basically considered to have deathblock all the time.
 * Cannot be stunned, held, paralyzed or stopped by any similar effects or spells, such as Flesh to Stone, Web, and pretty much any crowd control effect in the game that would completely stop an enemy does not work. Some crowd control effects which only slow enemies do work.
 * Are highly resistant to statistic-draining damage: Only 10 points of ability damage is counted and cannot be made helpless (or have any ability score reduced to zero)
 * Are often highly resistant, if not immune, from specific elemental effects, such as fire or cold.
 * Sometimes have specific damage reduction that other monsters of the same type may not possess.

One notable monster, General Xanti'lar, the boss of Stormcleave Outpost, is a quintessential example of the power of a red-named monster, complete with challenging damage reduction and immunities which can and often need to be disabled in order to defeat him.

Purple Named Bosses
Purple named monsters are rarer and pretty much always considered bosses. They are found primarily in raids, such as the Hound of Xoriat or The Reaver's Bane, as well as some other challenging quests which require flagging.

All of the special abilities of red-named monsters apply to purple-named monsters. In addition, purple-named monsters:
 * Are completely immune to any ability damage
 * Immune to the debuff Ray of Enfeeblement
 * Cannot have their movement speed slowed down by any spell
 * Can be affected by some de-buffing spells if the player can defeat the enemy's spell resistance (if it has any)
 * Most have True Seeing, so their attacks are not affected by concealment effects such as Blur. However physical concealment still applies. They aren't able to see through the physical concealment effects of the spell (Cloudkill, for example).

Some purple-named monsters are often colored as such to warn the player characters that this boss type cannot or should not be defeated until the players (and their party) complete a specific task(s) that either enables the players to damage the purple-named monster at all, or compels the monster to unlock a specific task that completes an objective.

Some notable examples:
 * Sor'jek Incanni, the boss atop Tempest's Spine, cannot be damaged by the raiding party until a special puzzle atop the mountain is solved (using runes found in the raid), switching off the boss's weather control and damage immunities.
 * Xy'zzy, the mother hound in the Hound of Xoriat, is completely immune to any damage, except that from her brood of puppies—if you can make them turn against her.
 * Arraetrikos, the boss of The Shroud raid, is a quintessential example of the power of a purple-named monster, complete with challenging damage reduction and immunities. He is so tough that you must slay him twice in the same raid.