10 Deadliest Monsters For Their Challenge Rating 

Yeah I was reading through curse of straid and there's a early lvl dungeon like lvl 1 early. And if the party does something which there obviously going to do it spawns 3 shadows it's a guaranteed TPK in my opinion.

Yes-yes very deadly Chief

@@chunchunmaru123 I'm actually playing through this campaign. It summons 5 shadows. We barely made it out of that fight, and you fight it at level 2.

​@@chunchunmaru123i began playing curse of strahd 4 months ago, in two seperate parties at the same time. With the first party, The party was made op of lvl 1s A sorcerer A monk A barbarian And two rogues. We had a very easy time dealing with the shadows. With the second party, I already knew what will happen in that one room, but that did not change anything. That party was made up of lvl 3s A sorcerer A ranger A paladin And a wizard. This time, because we began at a higher level, We had to fight five shadows. And in all honesty, it was easy this time as well.

Early-level D&D is super deadly no matter what edition you're playing. Commoners have 4hp and adventurers barely have more than that. If you can't kill the goblins in 1-4 rounds, better hope they miss a lot, because you're getting a potential 4d6+8 damage between four shortsword/shortbow attacks, possibly at advantage because they rolled high on Stealth every Bonus Action.

@@BeaglzRok1 you’re right. I learned that the hard way after that encounter. Personally, it’s not a design intent that I’m a fan of but I guess it helps to make the encounters more engaging when you’re starting off the campaign with little to no actions to make use of

My barbarian wasn't smart enough not to fight them, which turns out that makes me the easy target. lol...

@@ExciteFGC I don’t think it’s an intent to make the encounters more interesting rather than a philosophy that an adventurer at a lower level is literally inexperienced so things can be tough for them. This is why a lot of DMs start there players at level 3 than 1. 2 levels up from 1 and your character is just learning the basics and gotten some basics of their class. 2 up from three and they’ve become adept at their class and abilities and are more prepared to expect the unexpected.

Many encounters at level 1 can be deadly. Even simple goblins. I restarted a Mines of Phandelver module with some friends a few months ago. All of them have some, to a lot, of experience with DnD. First real combat encounter is an ambush by 4 goblins on the trail. Being good roleplayers, they played it so they fell for the ambush, even though their players all knew about it. But more than that, they were overconfident they would win, because it's 'just goblins' and the encounter is designed for level 1 players. One surprise round of arrows later, the wizard is unconscious and the rogue is looking rough. Then the goblins proceeded to harry them, taking potshots and running into the bushes to use their bonus action to hide, making counterattacks very difficult, forcing the party to choose between chasing them or tending to their fallen players first. They eventually won, but the wizard never got to participate in the fight, the cleric was one bad death roll away from permanent death and the rogue was dangling at 2 HP. Only the barbarian was in relatively good shape after that first encounter. And that was only because as the DM, I didn't wanna fuck them up too badly on a first fight, so I made the goblins run around in a frenzied state of panic after 2 of them died and one of the remaining 2 got heavily wounded. Point being, if you're cocky and underestimate an encounter, anything can be deadly, even a lowly group of goblins. I had to pull my punches a little bit, or it was very possible that they would have suffered 3 KO's and one potential perma death.

Truth right there.

Nah, only CR cheats are ability score drainers because that isnt a DPR/EHP question. If anything, all but the roper and bodak (or a EXTREMELY unlucky person facing a beholder) are the only cases where the CR rating is the cause of something being deadly instead of raw build probability. ID and mind flayers are dangerous because people often face them without prot scrolls and int save prof respectively. Night hags are more plot coupon monsters than threats and at best used as a level 4 villain turned level 5 fakeout boss to show off the power bump at 5. Ghost combines the two and is both a plot coupon for a quest AND a danger when faced by people without prot def (or a cleric). If anything the aging part is the danger here to kill a old character via old age instead of the possession. Hobgob is a wiff-whirlwind (like most sub +3 score and above 15 AC cr 1/2s) teaching positioning (they hit 40% of the time and 1/8th of it is a crit, so much like low level two weapon fighting enemies or multi-attackers, the real threat there is the same as with all low level enemies only more likely overall within session of a crit at levels 1-2), also shield can technically by raw be taken away by a party member to reduce the survival of these extra squishy 1/2s even further. FnW become a problem if given the 1CR GS mount without counting the mount as a creature for CR calc as some people do with mounts for some reason, otherwise extremely low end in CR bracket, average for when likely encountered (and depend on hot water to live through the day). And dragons are just dragons. They are what the cap of each CR bracket should be (and why you can give a dragon class levels appropriate to party/CR without it actually changing their CR).

@@ANDELE3025 meanest thing I ever did to a 20th level party was give an ancient blue dragon a level in tempest cleric, then 19 levels in fighter, I mean the dragon got two rounded, but man it had scary burst damage. 180 points of lightning damage and an action surge on the first turn

@@ADT1995 Im not sure if it can be meanest unless you went flyby-burrow runs with the blue as its technically still just a Hard fight of exactly the right CR (22-23s are expected to do 150-190 damage a round sustained or over 3 rounds a dpr of around 170ish). Still hope twas nice/fun for the table.

Yes, I never understood how they came up with such poor CR rules, and then WotC doesn't even follow its own rules. They should have learned from 3/3.5/4th edition when making 5e.

people really undervalue the action economy with these "weaklings". "oh they are weak, let's just use 2 or 3 of them for each pc. math works fine" and then people start dropping...

CR1/8 does not mean that 8 of them equal CR1, read Xanathars passage on that. Action economy is a big deal

Tucker's Kobolds. Anyone who's read that understands how deadly kobolds are.

The 2d6+2 is only if the bugbear is using the javelin in melee, using it ranged they don't get the brute bonus, though if the bugbear surprises the party and yeets a javelin at the surprised wizard in the first round it would actually do 3d6+2

Chance to auto-kill at any level

@@Spoopball Aren't they lovely?

What's that ? I'm intrigued !

@@974cerebrate Joke is about cr 0 crabs beating a level 1 party, cause when one crits you you die even as a barbarian or something like that not sure anymore^^ more legend than facts, there is a channel who tells storys about bad dnd games who has the same name

@@DieFrauAmHerd yeah i thought dou were referencing him at first

You stay bunched up when you fight a beholder. If he blocks the spellcasters with his main eye then he can't use his rays. If he drops his main ray, he gets hammered by the spellcasters as well.

@@gustaafargoan I don't see why a beholder wouldn't spin like a top and fire eye beams while the eye is turned away while rotating back when it's done.

@@vxicepickxv That's not how turns work in DnD. Sure he can spin, but turns are almost simultaneously, one gets the slightest drop on the other. All attacks take place within a 6 second period. Action, bonus action, reaction is one 6 second period. When a sorcerer finishes his spell, is the Beholder facing him or is his back turned? If he was spinning would he fire his eye rays at disadvantage or extreme disadvantage? I would allow him to spin giving spells cast against him a 15% chance of occurring (finiishing) within the eye beam. I would make the Beholder roll 6d20 and take the lowest roll for his attack.

It’s attacks don’t permanently drop strength, at least not in 5e unless your DM is evil lol. The reduction should only last until the next short or long rest.

@@MrDarkx1000 yes so in a combat encounter usually permanently since your wizard with a strength is going to die

a tax

I second shadows, the drain is super scary at their CR

At high-level play, dragons are dominant right now through sheer tankiness. After zariel getting nerfed in monsters of the multiverse, Ancient red and golds have way more hit points then anything but a tarrasque, and Greatwyrms/Aspects with mythic traits can have upwards of 1k hit points to burn through. The argument of " I killed the dragon in 1-2 rounds" can be applied to other monsters in the game, much more easily.

@@davidstumpf7811 The strength isn't extra lethal for their CR. It makes them scary in numbers to higher level characters but if you get strength drained to 0 on a level 1 character then the shadow has to hit you at least 3 times. That's gonna kill you anyhow and any level 1 character dies in 3 hits.

@@TwoToneShoes Shadows can kill 20th level characters unlike other CR 1/2's! If they get to act first 20 Shadows could potentially kill at least 1 member of a party of 4 20th level characters! I defy any other CR 1/2 to do the same. What about even any CR5 or less!? ( maybe a few like intellect devourer...) If you have tactical players with decent magic items MOST official monsters in 5e are WAY too weak. I often power them up a lot. BUT it depends on the circumstance: size of Party, level, current resource's used, tactical level of the players, gear and terrain effects. As well as logical tactics of the enemies. Dragons DESERVE their CR they are not for me 'STRONG' for their CR in general. Unless you have foolish players with crappy gear and that for some unknown reason lack the basic tactics to ALWAYS have and use RANGED FIRST and switch to melee as a last resort/when tactics dictate. And take cover, use magic items, use tactical/control and defensive spells. People who understand their spells and abilities.... Then yes any flying enemy with ranged becomes "OP". For me they punch at not above the CR. Shadows are DEADLY at ALL levels. I can guarantee you 100 Shadows is MORE dangerous than 100 of anything else in the game of CR1 or below VS a Party of 4; 20th level characters! EVEN if that party has a Cleric! The Tarrasque is also pathetically weak and undeserving of CR30 its at best CR24 as is from the book. I use my upgraded version rather than the book one. Heck one Shapechange into a clay golem. Or any Flight + unlimited ammo+ magic ranged weapon = victory... Always power up MOST base monsters! Some key things to add Magic weapons (Tarrasque and dragons claws and bite aren't magical? You realize golems and lycantropes instantly beat them if they lack Breath weapon or the swallowing acid. (hence why clay golem beats the tarrasque) For me its crazy an ancient dragons/ or the Tarrasques claws are not magical in base 5e! Bonus actions (such as a special ranged ability), Reactions (such as a parry) Immutable form/ or can't be shapeshifted against their will. Magic resistance And more than Max HP (I call this Boss HP) Why doesn't the Tarrasque have at least 1000 HP? It's the Tarrasque?! A CR 30 'world destroyer' Well until a cities clay golem tarrasque defence squad shows up to defeat the 'obliterates everything in its path' ... Can't even hurt a Golem or Lycanthrope unless it Swallows them! Speed of 40 ft. War Horses speed60 ft. ... 1 mounted archer With a magic bow on a regular Warhorse can outrun it and kill it. Just stay a bit a head of it turn around and fire arrows. No ranged, no magic weapons, stupid (so bad tactics), etc. Also am making a 3rd party book myself right now AND I use other 3rd party and base game content. I mostly have to strengthen monsters. A lot. Not shadows, there already OP! As a member of a 17th level party of 5 players with at least 1 party member with a magical longbow (or other ranged weapon) I'd rather face 1 Tarrasque than 20 shadows on a dark night!

5e dragons are only weak if you both dont use dragon tactics AND dont use the full MM rules for them. Give them both the innate spellcasting and generic monster modified with class levels rules, optionally without the hit dice (that would both pointlessly drag up the defensive cr without much effect AND make the fight about as much time as just maxing out the hp except for 1-3 die rolls). And IDs only belong on lists if one assumes weaknesses placed on a statblock arent assumed to be options for the party (ID vs 0 cleric 0 scroll party, even one of higher level if used as mooks, than as a above daily budget "deadly" encounter on which the party spent 200g prior to steamroll through.

Yeah though that only drops its average damage by 1.

Just give it plate máil.

@@Exophite ok disadvantage on all attacks then. (not proficient)

@@SirStanleytheStumbler They are proficient in Chain Mail, which is a Heavy armor, so it save to assume they would proficient in any heavy armor. Though their 13 Str would reduce their speed by 10 ft, the additional AC often worth the reduced speed

@@honahamomoru151 and giving your LEVEL 1 players 2 sets of plate mail. Madness

Really its just the fact you can take a 5 hp fighter back up to 130 hp (Often double their hp at that level.) instantly and keep their damage by making them a Giant Ape. Its a wizard and sorceror's best method of healing. Otherwise its used to turn an enemy into a snail or something at which point you can use any method of cheese to get rid of it. Drowning is often the best method as the creature will drown when it shifts back due to dropping to 0 hp from drowning. If the creature doesn't need to breath, you have Lava at 18d10/round or the bag of holding sending them to the astral plane. I've ended combats with BBEGs with polymorph and these tricks once the legendary resistances wore off.

@@archmagemc3561 But what's the advantage of turning a creature into one form or another? Why is Giant Ape, T-Rex, etc always the best choice? Why not something more creative? Or is it a stat thing where those just happen to have the best stats and they make the other 99% of options irrelevant?

@@SS4Xani The altter. There are very, very few beasts over CR 5, and thats the issue. Just a lack of options.

@@archmagemc3561 Ah. Gotcha.

@@archmagemc3561 you cant drown a polymorphed creature, it returns to its original form with its hp the same as it was.

Eh...one party member dropping to zero is still a long way from a TPK. Unless the monster has high HP and AC, you're still going to kill it way before it can use that ability on all 4 of you. Plus, 50/50 chance after getting dropped to zero a character gets back up. If it was a true save or die effect that would be different

@@agentchaos9332 that's true, that's true. I'm not saying they'll tpk the game but a gm does have to be wary when using creatures with such abilities.

Same for the Banshee

Same with the Shadow.

Good call Buddy. A DM that knows what this beastie is capable of and how to use it properly, can destroy a comparative Party really quick. Yeah, TPKs are not an "objective" but it can certainly humble a group of Murder Hobbos VERY quickly! :)

Maybe that's why the lore puts them as the dumbest of all the dragons.

Yeah, but speaking from experience, if you play a Dragon "properly", you look like and feel like a dick "yeah, she's just gunna fuck off 200 feet up until her breath comes back, good luck with that"

TheManaLogs as well for magic the gathering

The thing with dungeon dudes videos, is they assume you're gonna use crowd control abilities like wall of force/forcecage/prismatic wall. And that's a very niche, min/max playstyle that very few players use. But sure, if you wanna spam those abilities and then add concentration AOE spells like sickening radiation, then really anything without teleportation can be killed low-difficulty. If you roll high on initiative the party won't even take damage, if you drop a forcecage on them first

Which is also why they went and made a bunch of videos talking mad shit about the vecna Stat block. Because yes while his Low AC and HP makes him really weak for his CR in general his ability to spam counterspell makes him one of the only monsters in the game that has a chance against their broken Crowd control hax playstyle

Two things, the sentinel feet counters better than spells and treantmonk did a video on how 2 level 20 fighters with no magical items can 1 round him with average damage so he's a little weak for general game design

@@jakewarman7277 i know that's the exact video I'm talking about lol. Which was intentionally made to DISTRACT from the fact that he's hell on wheels against a party of all casters. Go watch the video where they actually run the adventure, Vecna lasts 3 rounds and manages to kill a player, and without subtle spellcasting he would have killed 1/2 more

@@jakewarman7277 also having reaction attacks that can immobilize creatures, and extra conditions you can use a reaction attack on? Not even comparable to locking targets in an indestructible barrier that lasts ten minutes with no concentration. Sentinel requires you to hit your target, and the effects only last one round. Force wall lasts the whole encounter and then some, doesn't require an attack role, doesn't allow a saving throw, and is literally unbeatable without specific Magical abilities. Like..you could stick Demigorgon In a force cage and leave him there for ten minutes, there's nothing he can do about it. And you could keep hitting him with spells while he's in there. If you had 5 reactions you could take each round then it would maybe be close. But even then, they can keep hitting YOU with no disadvantage. Force wall/cage prevents a monster from hitting Anyone at all

The same happened to me. I was dming, they got into the combat, instant breath. The cleric and the silver dragonborn paladin drop instantly. It was fucking terrifying and had to pull its punches to avoid a tpk on the second session. After that, once they got the hang of it, dragons no longer pull their punches. Nightscale from the Forge of Fury killed the barbarian before dying herself. Dragons are the strongest of their own CR.

@@pablosoria4071 that one almost tpk'd us in the first turn as well ^^

@@kayas7574 it is to be expected, it is a lot of damage and even the paladin with resistance to cold damage fainted because Calcryx got a good damage roll and the paladin failed the save. Fortunately, the others spread out in such a way that it couldn't target them all, but it was crazy scary for a second session of lvl 1 characters.

The problem with her? an optimized bugbear gloomstalker/echo knight can take her out in the first round due to her low hp. And that character will win initiive as their minimum initive they can roll is a 14 usually.

@@archmagemc3561 Few problems; AC 22 + shield gives an ac of 27. Meaning even if you had a +14 to hit (+5 ability score, +6 proficiency, +3 legendary magic item) means you’d have to put out over 1000 damage on the first round after factoring in accuracy. She also has foresight, so she can have advantage on initiative if the dm uses it. She can also use shapechange to boost initiative if the dm wishes. That being said, if you have a party specialized in ftks, you might be able to kill her. However, two abilities make her probably the strongest enemy in the game, her anti magic ability and her maddening secrets ability. Maddening secrets can stun any pure martial as it’s a dc 26 wisdom save and if you don’t have spell slots you get stunned. And, more importantly, if you don’t kill her first turn, her anti magic ability means she’s essentially impossible to defeat. The reason I think she should be on the list is no other enemy, no matter the cr, has an ability that requires you kill them in one turn. Also, post the dpr calculations for your character against an ac 22 creature. I will grant 22 ac since shield can be counterspelled as she doesn’t ignore components to my recollection.

My beholder would just retreat into another tunnel and try to flank the party, using lair actions to weaken the party, as the stalks do not require line of sight, just distance.

I definitely held back on killing one of my players on session 3 because I wasn't aware of how deadly intellect devourers can be, especially in large numbers.

@@vxicepickxv Wow without that first sentence id take you for a dm with a monocle smiling at the players while twirling your moustache

I've found all kinds of fun things to throw players against. Spiked walls are good. The aforementioned pit was actually part of the beholder's network of vertical tunnels, with some horizontal tunnels dispersed in between to create and almost ant colony quality to the lair.

Sadly Tarrasque is kinda poop. It is just an absolute brute that will eventually die to tactics like fly, range and other cheese. Considering players will be high level when they fight it they will have many options.