D&D MONSTER RANKINGS: DRAGONS & DRACONIC CREATURES 

"A golem made out of bones" That's just a skeleton with extra steps!

The Eyedrake here just to remind us the sheer insanity that is the Beholder's ability to manifest just about any kind of creatures with thoughts alone.

“The most social and conversational dragons” Steel dragons literally starve themselves just to fit in better with humanoid communities they’re a part of.

And lo, the bard emerges from the darkest depths of Production and rises anew! Inspiring!

The Grafters would make a lot of sense if they were specifically trolls. Since Tome of Foes established that they are susceptible to mutation through exposure to external sources. No stitching required. They just slap dragon flesh to their wounds and their regeneration does the rest.

The Tiamat in Hoard of the Dragon Queen is probably just a different avatar, as CR 30 is pathetic for a god.

The Sea Serpent needs a stamp of "Plain old Cool!"

Personally, I think the floating gem horns is reminiscent of Ioun Stones, which in a way drive home that the gem dragons are more magical/mystical nature than the other dragons. I can see why the art can be off-putting, and I feel the same way except that I actually enjoy the floating stuff, but to each their own.

Technically, Champions of Tiamat have a reason for that extra damage: They are literally champions of a draconic deity.

Okay, I actually really like the crystal dragon being chaotic neutral! Because while, yes, they are very friendly and supportive, they’re not forced to do good things. I can see a crystal dragon healing one hero in a party, but let another one die because that hero did or said something that the crystal dragon hated. Yeah, they’re big balls of joy, but they’re not here to take care of you.

In the Dragonlance books, the draconians called "infiltrators" in this book lick their daggers before combat, hence poison damage. Sloppy to leave that out of the stat block.

Finally another ranking, we miss your ranking videos

I actually really like the way gem dragons look. They are unique and nothing like the other dragons, and in my opinion they don’t look cartoony at all

43:38 I mean... That's basically what Planescape & Spelljammer are. -In planescape it is stated that material realms like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance (but not Eberron) share the same cosmology, They all share the same Abyss, Limbo, and Bytopia,etc... but each have their own Feywild/Shadowfell echo -Spelljammer lets you travel between realms through the Phlogiston

Honestly, I adore the Mythic actions concept. The lore behind some of the Greatwyrms is funky, but every monster I’ve used Mythic actions for has been a fantastic time in-game. A pushover boss fight becomes harder, or a hard boss fight become terrifying when the “second phase” is reached.

Dracotaurs are featured in the creature codex for 5th edition and I really like them, but it’s third party content

If you think the Greatwyrms are potentially game breaking, wait until somone at wizards goes "Ya know....let's make the Epic Dragons and the Gargantua cannon!". Of course, my crazy ass would then have an excuse to finally have a true D&D Kaiju fight.

What I find interesting about the brainstealer dragon is how it differs from the 3e one in a way that implies development. In 3e they were a dragon infected by a tadpole but partially fighting it off, even a wyrmling's draconic nature being strong enough to refuse the elder brain's control. They had a mind blast breath weapon and powerful psyonics, growing stronger as they aged. They gained all the conniving and eventually many of the abilities of the elder brain. This new version suggests an evolution, with the elder brains realizing the failure but being so determined to seize raw draconic power that they become the Ultimate Tadpole. One strong enough to overcome draconic resistance and acheive a near perfect form, rising to the strength of the fiendish lords themselves.

It would have made more sense to have a tiger dragon, also because the growl of the tiger can get so low that you could feel it and not hear it, people report that this is paralizing fear for a second, and it would make a neat trick for the creature for a wisdom safe for one turn paralisis on surprise rounds.

my minor counterpoint about the Dragon Blessed not fitting in with the world logic is also ignoring how strong a PC can be especially when they know how to combo subclasses, races, and spell, often always having something to do with their normal, bonus, and reaction. the design team has ought right stated they have been simplifying stat blocks and know even the mini-boss monster creatures will probably in 3 rounds. Given they are switching from spell slot to daily usage, I believe the in-world justification would be them cramming their spare spell slots into casting smites with their Mace attacks to stay competitive with player action economy while not making the DM think so hard about slot management.

Shadiversity had a really great video on the best weapons for aerial mounted warriors.

Something that you forgot to mention about the Hollow Dragons that’s in the book is that it makes mention that it could potentially become corrupt in their task/oath. I think this could be a beautifully tragic potential plot point that could be used in an adventure. Love this video overall though! I am glad to see that my favourite Bard has returned safely from his journey and look forward to the next video of his tales.

It was apparently revealed that the Tiamat fought in Tyranny of Dragons was a specific Avatar, and not her real body, so the challenge rating being the same makes sense to me at least. On the subject of the Deep Dragon, I'm actually okay with the redesign, though I wish more of the less common Dragons had returned. Because there was another "Purple Dragon" at one point that was a crossbreed between a Red and a Blue. If that Purple Dragon returned in this book, then I would have been in full favor of the redesign as a means to separate the two.

Esper: “ When you pay $50 for a book, there’s an unspoken agreement that whoever produced the book has taken the time to get things right…“ AAA game industry: Bwahaha!!!

idk if its how it was meant to be interpreted, but i think about the ghost dragon con save for the fear being a purely physiological reaction or an instinctual fear that bypasses the brain and is just a matter of your body reacting to it on its own.

But esper, unlike the hurl through hell, the banish into a dream actually makes sense, your giving the target a flashback or some strange plot related dream, that’s EPIC!!! The moonstone dragon is my favorite in the book because of that

Honestly Id like the gem dragons more if that incorporated their gems more into their designs more rather then have them just float around them Also I actually like the topas dragon Honestly just without the floating spikes a more squat flat dragon is a really refreshing design choice its just ruined by the floating rocks I think if I were to use it I'd leave those out

Btw I really laughed when you used "plant" three times to describe a fungi during the deep dragon segment

I am so, SO happy to get this gift of a video 😭

Great video, and I'm happy to see another one of these from you. Gotta' say though, you Bah Humbug!'d your way through the true dragon section pretty hard. As for me, after reading about how the Amethyst Dragons are the most likely to engage in reality-breaking mad science and "charging some crystals," I don't think I'll be able to not see them as cartoon-y. What gem dragon plot hooks I've read tend to have an extra-fantastical bent, and the snowball fight one is straight out of One Piece. I love it!

The Dragonflesh Grafter/Abomination reminds me of a creature I created called the Dragoblin. A Goblinoid who gained favor with Tiamat or were cursed after attaching a Dragon body part to themselves. When I get an art block or lacking inspiration I like to draw Goblins cause they can look like just about anything, in this case I was inspired by the Fool's Gold Campaign and Sip's cursed Crocodile hand. I figured what if instead of a Crocodile it was a Green Dragon Hand and so the first Dragoblin was created! He had once been a completley ordinary Goblin with a dismembered hand, probably after being caught stealing. He came across a very cursed Green Dragon claw and decided to attach it to their vacant arm stump hoping it would make him stronger, little did he know just how strong he would become. The Curse took affect bonding itself to the Goblin, gradually making them bigger, stronger, and more Dragon-like, but also overwriting the Goblin's mind and personality with the traits of a Green Dragon. He eventually returned to his Goblin hoard, devoured the Boss, and declared himself the New Goblin boss commanding all his subordinates pillage and bring him treasure lest he eat them too! Eventually word god around that a Goblin became a Draconic warlord and other Goblins decided "Hey that sounds like a great idea!" so they attempted to recreate what this initial Goblin did by accident. I am also working on my own new D&D Dragons in case your campaign doesn't have enough Dragons yet or you want to throw your players off guard by using Dragons that aren't traditional to D&D. These Dragons originated from the elemental planes representing each of the prime elements. In the beginning of the Material Plane these Dragons were curious and eager to see this new world and make new homes. Air dragons brought with them the Atmosphere of the plane of Air and began to play around making all sorts of new weather. Water dragons filled the Chasms and pits of the world with the water of their home plane filling the Oceans and carving Rivers. Earth dragons began to Raise mountains and dig canyons experimenting with all the new terrains that could exist in this world. And the Fire Dragons thought it would be all good fun to spread Fire and Magma from their home plane into the Material World... The Other 3 Dragons didn't like the Fire Dragons griefing their new Minecraft server, so they joined forces to beat back the Fire Dragons and ban them back to the plane of Fire. Very few and remote places in the world still carry remnants of the Fire Dragon's mark on the world but it's said a few Fire dragons or their kin can still be found in very hot places like volcanoes. Returning to their elemental plane the Fire Dragons remained unchanged from their ancient primal appearances but over the millennia the other 3 elemental dragon types who stayed in the Material plane diversified into different niches. The Air Dragons became the Chaotic aligned Weather Dragons: Sun (CG), Wind (CG), Mist (CN), Snow (CE), and Storm (CE) The Water Dragons became the Neutral aligned Aquatic Dragons: Lake (NG), River (NG), Open Ocean (N), Coastal (NE), and Abyss (NE) and The Earth Dragons became the Lawful aligned Terrain Dragons: Plains (LG), Forest (LG), Mountains (LN), Desert (LE), and Underdark (LE)

The way I see it, the Hollow Dragon could originate in one of two ways. Either a Metallic Dragon has gain the favor of Bahamut and is offered to continue it’s service after death or a Chromatic Dragon is punished for some humiliation (being slain by a party or losing it’s hoard somehow) and is sent by Tiamat to do her dirty work, like imposing her will onto a cult or something.

I couldn't agree more with your little rant at the end. IMO, the multiverse approach to storytelling is often just an excuse for IPs to have no consequences. We killed a fan favourite character? No worries homie, she's still alive the next world over!

Really love these videos and really love this book. It gave me alot of ideas for my own upcoming campaign involving a Half Dragon Usurper King who has both allied himself with Unseelie Fey and has an Adult Deep Dragon Advisor. One of my personal faves of the Non-Metallic/Chromatic Dragons would definitely be the Deep Dragons since they kinda fill their own niche and can be just as interesting as other Chromatic Dragon types as bbegs or one of their lieutenants. They may kind of fill the spot of the Purple Dragons but they're unique enough on their own and I like their theming. Though I like that idea of a Fungus coated Dragon, may develop that idea myself. I also really love the Greatwyrms since they really feel like your classic apocalyptic dragons of yore. Basically Deathwing going on his aerial flyby scorching on everyone or torrents of acid flooding across whole swathes of city. Gotta love um. My favorite of the True Dragons are the Black Dragons Also in terms of the new Lore, I believe it's a case of conflicting origin stories due to the wibbly wobbly structure of the D&D Multiverse. Given the book is mostly from Fizban aka Bahamut's perspective, he probably isn't the most reliable. Even if he's not intentionally deceiving anyone, his own memory and perception may be off considering the nature of the D&D Multiverse is kind of in frequent flux

All of your videos are AMAZING my man Please, keep the excelent job. Even if I get a bit sad with the fact that you don't bring your amazing critical look at other TTRPGS, you're still the only "D&d youtuber" that I recommend to my friends. Just love your content Você é o melhor! Abraços do Brasil🇧🇷

A legendary quote to start yet another legendary video by the highest level bard to ever walk the earth. Bless you Esper! Each of your ranking videos is an event of epic proportions!

Oh man how I have missed your rankings with their keen insights into the game. I look forward to seeing more again. Excellent video Thank you

You should do a tier list on the monsters from your book!

It's been a multiverse for years, that's literally what spelljammer is

I want to point out the acetent red dragons dose more damage with its breath than the red greatwyrm

Weird thing about Bahamut: If you're dead, his breath bring's you with full HP. If you're still alive, than you only get very much.

Always a fan of the rankings, but these Mastodon subtitles for the ranks themselves are a cherry on top

Your Aurupede was the first monster I used out of your new book and worked really well at confusing my party for a while and came out at the perfect time as they had just defeated a hag and took her gold without a second thought.

There were several supplements in 3.5e that had several different types of grafts. These grafts were magic items that required the character to undergo surgery in order to gain the benefit of the item. There were even prestige classes that made you stronger the more grafts of the same type you had.

I feel like the entirety of 5e is Wizards of the Coast charging $50 for books full of half baked ideas that dms need to fix, and really all we get for the books is artwork that is decent most of the time. At least the player related content is usually good, if not often overpowered and makes previous archetypes outdated.

Dear Esper the Bard Thank you for your amazing videos and your storytelling and everything else that makes this channel great. You've inspired me to write my own book, Ty's Treasury of Monsters. Thank you for everything.

Man am I like the only one who thought the greatwyrms were all grossly undertuned damage wise?

One thing I found that iffed me about Fizbans is just how prevalent force damage is when it feels as if another element should take its place, like a dragons bite dealing piercing and force rather than piercing and fire. It feels like meta gaming from the monsters part as far as damage resistances go lol

That outro was specially inspiring! Obrigado Esper!

Before Fizbans came out I had designed some creatures that are very similar to ones in the book. I designed both a hoard mimic (I called it the Mimic Pile), and a Sea Serpent (i Called it the Eeldrake).

2:20 “Now we welcome, Fizban the fabulous and his *seven canaries.”* I think we all know who Fizban really is.

The way he said "does Bahamut himself impart this epic level boon" 🤣 👌

Another fantastic review video! Wow that’s a lot of information! Thank you so much breaking down the content of the book and adding your incredible insight. Your ideas always give me more ideas and inspiration to draw from. Loving the pdf of your book by the way. Working a lot of ot so I haven’t looked over everything but the monsters are brilliant. Thank you for sharing.

I made my own 4th branch of true dragons: Wood, Paper, Glass, Cloth, and Stone. The wood go from pure wood patterns with rough bark-like scales to smooth finished burnished wood with leafy adornments. The paper look like origami, and as they age they decorate themselves with line art representing their life like tattoos, as their extremities yellow like aging paper. Glass dragons start completely clear, but over time gain color reflecting their personality, turning into basically stained glass behemoths. Cloth dragons start as one color, but over time add cloth fron different sources to make themselves bigger, with sewn together stitches representing the remains of old wounds. Stone dragons begin with some kind of sedimentary rock coloring and texturing, but over time become the appropriate color and texture of the relevant metamorphic rock.

I appreciate your content. This video in particular is helpful for my ongoing adventure that I'm running. Hearing what's out there gives me inspiration for various adventures and encounters.

Yeah but what are the chances of an Elder brain having the opportunity to infect a captured dragon? The dragon would have had to have fucked up in so many ways. Surely only one or two of these exist on any given realm.

The king has returned!

Lendys and Tamara are their full names. They're dragon gods from pre-4e who have been retconned into Great Wyrms in this book. Likewise, Deep Dragons were only Purple Dragons in 4e. Older editions had different approaches to Purple dragons. Same with a lot of the extra Metallic Dragons, they were either 4e inventions or reinventions, and a lot of "extra" stuff like them get dropped when editions changed. I'm sure we'll lose the Moonstone dragons when we eventually move to 6e. The Multiverse aspect likewise isn't new. That's what Spelljammer back in 2e was based around. The settings have always existed in a multiverse, this is just trying to tie it back together. I'm not sure it SUCCEEDS, but my point is it's not a completely new invention either.

Welcome back sir Esper. We have much work to do. Thanks for the video.

Amazing, great to see you back.

Well worth the wait! Excellent work as usual!

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET

Love these. Thank you for making them.

Luckily, as a caviot, when the "D&D origin lore" is explained, it goes out of it's way to say that it may or may not be true, and is simply a rendition, though it being Fizban who is "writing" the book, I can't tell whether or not if we are supposed to take it with a grain of salt, or completely seriously as the offical Cannon Lore, and then that adds in another question, what about the war with the Giants? Where do they fit in with this lore? If the dragons were decimated by the gods, how can empires that span entire continents with members are large as busses have problems with dragons who have been defeated only shortly beforehand as it is said "they are an ancient race almost as ancient as dragons". If the war occurred after the dragons were defeated and managed to recover, assuming losses were at epic proportions, that would be so many generations later, well more than 10 thousand years later (somehow with almost 0 major technological or magical advancements from either it seems, despite their wisdom). With a deep divide with chromatic and metallic dragons and crystal dragons going and doing their own things with aberrations without their dragon gods to unify them, it seems improbable that they would be able to create a formidable force against them. It also seems that there is a very limited amount per region based on the book, whereas entire tribes of giants exist even today who could easily rival even ancient dragons alone (based on stat blocks and lore bits). And it is assumed that either A the dragons won and the giants were totally destroyed by the dragons, or B the destruction was so great that neither side really ever recovered. Did it only occur on one world or did the echos cause similar events all over the worlds of the material plane? The Giants are in the MM, and that is the overall lore from them. These were just my thoughts reading the books, and maybe I'm just overthinking it.

RU-vid FINALLY decided to show your channel to me again, and I cant be more happy it was this episode

The music, the commentary... I've been missing this.

I waited for this vid, as I was expecting Fizban’s for Christmas, and didn’t want spoilers. Worth the wait

Awesome video. I was hoping to hear you talk about the new dragonborn changes and how they improve the race.

nice video Esper, you're ranking are great

I really liked that even the old dragons got more than a reprinting, with ideas of how to play contrary personality versions, this was much better than I was expecting.

Good shit as usual my dude, by far my favorite dnd RU-vidr.

Your fantastic speech at the very end makes me want to play in a game of yours. I'd love to experience the game from someone so deeply familiar with its origins when 5e is all I've known.

I real enjoyed your critics of these monsters, I watched your dragon ranking video before this and noticed a stark difference in the enthusiasm and more of a punching up of the unfinished ideal of scrambled homebrew they slammed together. Thank you.

Love the video! I have to inquire if you ever thought of doing 3rd party tier rankings or something of the like. I got into Kobold Press Tome of Beasts and Creature Codex and it feels very fun and unique compared to a lot of Wizards of the Coast stuff and mainly wonder how you would view it

Great work Sir thank you

Good end message. Very compelling.

I think it's funny how inoffensive floating Crystals but how personally you take there existence. Its like they killed your family. Like this could be a good running gag

Hey just something I wanna say for people to here. You are in fact, mostly right about lions being social. However, Male lions do live as solitary hunters for a good portion of their lives. Which does in fact, lead to the terrifying idea that while you may encounter a lone CR 7 Liondrake, you could also encounter the 90% female pride with up to like, eight of them at once. Would be a great encounter to scare people with.

another great video!! thanks Esper

I love that you picked out the ancient blue to showcase the good monster manual artwork.

Idea for moonstone dragons lunacy gas breath Causes you to babble drool or in the worst case attack your own teammates and it might not even be the deals damage type of attack it might just be your friend comes over and gives you a giant hug thinking that you are a talking Marshmello and begins to try and eat you so essentially a really bad acid trip how’s that?

I know I've already written 2 comments here, but I feel the need to do another. To start with, I don't mind the inclusion of the multiverse. I enjoy the MTG cosmology, and I'd be happy to do something similar in DnD, but I'll admit it's weird. But, as long as the game devs don't start forcing it into everything, it doesn't hurt, and you can take it or leave it (like Planescape). I actually do like how they used the idea with regards to the Gem Greatwyrms (it fits with the psionic theme), and that's saying something since I don't care much at all for the Gem Dragons. Maybe it's the bad art (I didn't like the pre-5e art either, though I did like the implication that 5e Topaz Dragons have reversed wings; it's different and kind of cool), but they didn't really catch my attention. I feel like there's too many dragons already (anything that huge and powerful should be super rare, not having entire societies of separate sub-breeds), and inherently neutral characters are hard to play. In my homebrew setting I'd play all Dragons as somewhat Neutral, but that's because they hail from a radically different society and don't understand or often respect us smaller folk, not because they're biologically predisposed towards Good, Evil, or Apathy. Same with Giants. Also, on that note I'm fine with the Dragon gods vs. humanoid gods story as a story, but I'd prefer it was a possibility, not the gospel truth of the universe. This I think is where I just like Ebberon better than the Realms, because I appreciated the religious mysteries it had as opposed to DnD's absolutist cosmology. Give us some mysteries and religious conflicts and sectarian conflicts! But, going back to complements, I do like the motivations of the Gem Greatwyrms because to me it's a religiously motivated quest rather than just a lust for power.

Best video ever made of it's nature please make many more like this

Esper when i get the money i am totally paying you to read me stories til i go to sleep. Until then i will continue to listen to these for free. Great job!

DND has always had a multiverse and links between settings. Theyre somewhat isolated but have always been connected

I've missed those

The astral dragon already exists. In pre 4e, it uses it's big brain energy to fly around the astral plane and gather arcane knowledge. They actually are some of the only creatures to have completed libraries of knowledge from the netherese empire, because these guys live so damn long.

i actually love the design they went with for the gem dragons. I do find the dragons inspiring.

My man, DnD has always been a multiverse.

There are creatures who developed spines and spikes and armor for protection against predators. After hearing about the chromatic greatwyrms, I think I know why the Tarrasque has them now...

I always do find it amusing when you put art of older edition monsters for one you're reviewing, and I recognize them, and then I realise that that was art for a different monster. In the dragonblood ooze section you put up an image of a bloodfire ooze, and similar happened in the Giant episode. This isn't harmful, just amusing mostly.

I really like the words you said at the end of the video

Oh boy your vids look like the ones I've been trying to find ☺️

Thanks 4 the hard work

Esper must have hated Spelljammer and Planescape. Edit: Also, Moorcock is definitely among the inspirations of old school D&D, and his novels focus heavily on multiversal concepts. I think the idea that "multiverses" are somehow anti-D&D is a bit misguided.

I was personally hoping for a steel dragon.

The aspect of Bahamut and the eldar brain dragon are my favorite monsters they added in this book and esper if you read this the dragon the eldar brain controls has to be altered by the colony and the brain covered in a membrane to survive.

37:26 i think thats intentional, to make the DM's write the lore for them. wotc have realised that the vast majority of tables play in homebrew worlds/ ignore lore, so they stopped writing detailed lore, because they know DMs will do the work for them

I do wish Fisban had covered the lost (orange,pink, purple and yellow) chromatic dragons. I would love to play an orange dragon born for the liquid sodium breath weapon!

It would be really neat to have a Tiefling pyromancer grafted with bits from a red dragon that would give me either the dragon's flame breath or gives them an extra fire based spell or at least a boost to fire resistance. And the same thing for the other types of dragons. Great video Esper. Love your D&D content.