D&D MONSTER RANKINGS - UNDEAD 

The funeral was so sad even the undead were in tiers.....I’ll leave now

Skeleton is F tier? lads, we need to give this one more CALCIUM!

I refuse to see skeletons as F tier. Think of the possibilities. -arrows miss them constantly -immune to diseases, toxins and poisons -can't drown -no need to sleep -bone puns -no need to eat -can disconnect an arm or leg to use as a weapon -can chatter to intimidate

"Where in the nine hells did they get all those murderer's hands?" Think you might have answered your own question there

Skeletons are 100% better than zombies. Zombies are one note fighters while Skeletons can use a variety of weapons and can even have slightly different personalities.

"One striking thing I noticed as I was reviewing undead monsters is that they consistently rate high in Style, but low in Flexibility" Are you telling me they get Rigor Mortis?

Here's a way i used undead in my dnd games and kept it 'fresh' (no pun intended) but i had a faction of necromancers called "The Wheat Kings" and they sold high quality wheat at a tiny fraction the price other grain sellers would and they afforded to do by having all their labour for farming and harvesting done by skeletons and zombies. They weren't evil with a capital E, but they did destroy farmers livings by undercutting their prices and forcing them to go broke, then they would swoop in and buy the land for cheap when the farmer has to sell it. Thats one way to use your undead in a different way that can help flesh out your world.

You know what makes undead scary? They're mindless. You can maybe see yourself talking your way out being killed by a goblin or hag. A Devil will at least pretend to be nice to you for a time. But undead don't understand anything that you're saying. You can only hope that you're strong, fast, or lucky.

Death Knight is top tier IMHO. They are the Darth Vader of D&D. Arguably one of the all time greatest villains in modern story telling. Death knights are way more flexible than you’re giving them credit for. They could have any number of motivations. Even more than a Lich or Vampire. Given the fact that they would have been a Paladin of great renown and deeds in life the tale of their long fall from grace can be very rich with lore. Lord Soth books are some of my favorite to read. He was far less predictable than Strahd and Lich characters. Mechanic wise Death Knights have it going on just as much as a vampire. They are a powerhouse with a large variety of different abilities and spells. They are no one trick ponies. Also Death Knights lend to combining them with a steed more so than a vamp or Lich. The coolness factor of a Death Knight mounted on a plate barded skeletal mount, Nightmare, or even a Dracolich easily bumps them to top tier.

1:43 - How funny is it that the snake is the example of low flexibility? I don't know if it was intentional or not, but hilarious nonetheless

Given that Mummy Lords are high priests (translation: high level Clerics), I'm inclined to consider them as having as good a potential for a major villain as the Lich does. Ditto the Vampire. While we're on the subject, though, I really wish the "Vampire" stat block was called something like "Vampire Lord". There should be a greater gradient of vampire enemies, with ones between "Vampire" and "Vampire Spawn". But that's just me.

Tierzoo is spreading. And I like it.

Whenever I see a dnd video I'm like: "Yeah!! I wanna use that!!" But I feel like 4 dragons and a tarrasque in one campaign is a bit... overkill...

2:34 what is that 1 star roleplaying? You can spice it like: A chopped hand of a noble that wanders in the city, the noble sends them to capture the hand, but when they meet the hand the hand tryes to guide the players into the noble's basement where he performs dark rituals.

I view Revenants as less of a generic monster but as a punishment for your players. A close ally or friend who was betrayed by a member of the party who follows them for the entirety of their adventure until they get their revenge, or until their spirit becomes as broken as their body.

You could just change the Wraith's touch to a Dex save, which is a decent way to represent touch AC in 5e

I have a plan of creating a horde of bog mummies... From a halfing village which was flooded by a necromancer, who then raised the haflings as mummies and trained them as monks. Picture this: the players are investigating reported attacks on caravans. In a wooded surrounding they are started being harassed by unknown assailants until the dark brown, undead haflings attacks them in force. This would be awesome! ^^

Sokushinbutsu Mummy Lords could be Lawful Good with divine magic since the practice was supposed to protect the province for as long as the mummy maintains meditation.

Crawling Claw is my favorite monster, my group had so much fun when one of them asked a necromancer to heal his cut hand and... well, you know what happened next. The concept presents so many possibilities and inspiration no other undead does.

I find that Skeletons can be highly flexible. because a skeleton dosent need to be a humans keleton. how bout monster skeletons? like a hydra? or a skeleton that is amde from other large skeletons? like say a Bone kraken ? give skeletons a a reassemble trait or even a ossification trait, basically they turn your muscles and soft tissue to bone. look it up its a real condition. Zombies can also be made into a threat. like causing rot,posion,disease, maybe womit up biles,blood and maggots, being big a bloated and exploding. have the severed body parts move even after they are cut off. Mummies can be made into clerics of old gods. yes Mummified animals, that should be more of a thing. I hade an idea of a Mummy dragon. Gave it a desication aura, mummy rot, multiple attacks, either a sand breath or a breath of flesh eating scarabs, decked it out in some nice magical ornaments and gave it two mummy clerics . Also Mummies of none human races.. Yuan-ti Mummies anyone? Draugr should be a more common undead in DnD and i dont mean the rather limp version from skyrim. I am talking about the Draugr from norse myth Ghosts also have so much potential. mad ghost wizards. annoyingly flinging fireballs at you while floating through solid objects

tierzoo **ready to die for my sins**

Running a campaign with many undead, this was perfect.

I can only imagine if you made a video like this for the 4th edition book "Open Grave". Literally an entire monster manual of undead, both generic and full characters like Strahd and Vecna.

I think ghouls and other undead are interesting when you include the story of the misfortune of how someone became undead. It makes fighting the undead have more weight to it.

“I want to play a sorcerer.” “Good choice.” “Can I be an undead or a skeleton?” “Sure, so for it. Have you decided on a name?” “.......” *earrape Megalovania plays*

Good to see you’re listening to your viewers. Like this video much better that the previous thanks to the change of “mythology” to “lore.”

Why do people keep saying TierZoo? It isn't like TierZoo invented the tier list and stats format. Or is this actually inspired by Tierzoo and I'm totally off base?

this series serves as a great starting place for evaluation of publisher content, an the same logic can be reasoned during creation of content for your home game

"This is just one of those things where you have to let go of what makes sense and embrace the smoothness of 5e's simplicity" What a very eloquent way of saying that WotC is absolute dogshit at their job, but have become great at expecting the players to fix their nonsense for them with house rules.

Hmmmm just my own thoughts and grievances of some of the undead. I miss how the DemiLich is no longer the epic level powerhouse it use to be in 3.5. Now reduced into some... laughing skull in a jar in 5th edition. I miss that feeling of terror that the DemiLich used to have Trap a Soul and had to exercise extreme caution when fighting one. How the mighty have fallen. Also the Revenant... I always understood it to be bound by its desire for revenge, but once its completed its task. It disintegrates into nothing, not even the soul remains, nor the soul goes to the afterlife. Just vanishes for good. I always feel that is one of the most damning aspects of the Revenant. Bound to a quest of revenge and will stop at nothing to complete it, because your senses always pull you towards that one goal. Yet you know that once you complete that goal, your soul is damned to not a good afterlife anyway. Yet it makes it harder to complete the quest because what if your party stands in your way or they have an abrasion towards all undead? Least that is how I've roleplayed mine in one campaign. I agree that the Dracolich is a waste of potential in 5th edition... man makes me want to drag in the templates from 3.5 into 5th edition. Like the Vampiric Dragon or a proper DracoLich as the major hook villains. Also agreement on Vampires being among the best undead about. Especially with Count Strahd of Ravenloft and the Realm of Dread. That campaign was what got me into D&D after I was so invested into Castlevania. Ah the memories. Good video, I really enjoyed it! You got yourself a new subscriber.

Thank you for not loading your videos with ads! Makes me watch them over other channels that puts 4 ads in a vid

I like the BODAK and the NIGHT WALKER from the 3rd edition, i plalyed that edition a lot and still playing this

I went to D&D Camp in 1982 and it was amazing. Our campaign had a Beholder in it. Very memorable. Gary Gygax was there

Where did this info about demiliches being *lesser* come from? They've always (to my knowledge) been an EVOLUTION on the basic lich, transcending the need for their body on a whole.

"Where did those murderer's hands come from?" From Murder Hob...I mean, Adventurers.

The Lich would be a lot more flexible if they hadn't tied its lore directly to soul-consumption. 3E made it vague exactly why the Lich was evil, giving the DM the luxury to decide that it *wasn't*, if he wanted to explore narrative themes about what it means to transcend mortality. I prefer to assume that most Liches don't start out evil, although centuries of living without the ability to empathize with the living almost inevitably turn them that way eventually. There's a tragedy to the idea of someone who was once Good having turned to undeath in order to continue his mission, only to lose more and more of his moral compass without noticing the process.

Tier Zoo ... still covering alot of creatures in one video... doing templates or type categories would allow you to dig deeper into each creature... templates such as Vampire or Skeletons... or types like Goblinoids ... would allow for a deeper look and a more varied investigation of all the creatures you're featuring, or breaking them down even further like "Sentient Undead" there are so many creatures and varieties that doing a deeper dive wouldn't take anything away from the videos.

How to make the skeleton more versatile and interstiting. Add a second type of necromancy. In wich the undead are not mindless and regain their old souls as they were in life. (Basicly they become sentient.) *you can still use them as mindless creatures. (this is what I refer to as type 1 necromancy.)* This can be used in many ways, such as: •necromancers being hero's as they reunite family's who were separated by death. •whole towns of undead as they go about their lives • interesting NPC'S •and whateverelse you can think of! •

"Have you ever seen a campaign that doesnt touch on undead? It's unheard of." Challenge accepted

Your passion for this is tangible. You're like a chef talking about favorite dishes and cuisine. Thank you very much for this.

I had a will-o-wisp whisper to a black Dragon about the undead god of vecna ened up as a draco litch it was awsome then it got killed like all bosses do.

Quit at 1:35 Do not insult the hippo men.

Nice to see Jack of the Lantern is holding a turnip. The Irish originally used turnips - when the New World was discovered again, Irish migrants came across pumpkins and said "these things were made to be Jack's lantern" and broadened the tradition to all of America. Turnips are really difficult to carve into a face. And this was before the Irish were considered white.

I'm playing a Dhampir in my groups current campaign. He requires blood plasma to survive, but will only feed on willing creatures or a creature that has died in the past few hours. He seeks two powerful magical artefacts; the Fanged Insignia and the Sword of Dracula, in order to become a creature with all of the strengths of a vampire with none of the weaknesses. He then wishes to use this power to commit genocide against vampires across all planes, finishing the job by ending his own life. His stat boosts are +2 Con and +1 Cha, he has Superior Darkvision and Sunlight Sensitivity, resistance to both poison and necrotic damage, advantage on death saving throws and a natural bite attack that deals 1d4+Str damage and once per long rest he can heal as much as he deals damage with this ability.

Undead are a living reminder of our mortality. The reason they’re so effective at getting under one’s skin is because they remind us that everyone and everything dies, and more so that there are fates worse than death.

Skellies are better than rotheads( zombies ) !

Just wanted to say these types of videos are amazing! Keep up the fantastic work!

I had one of the best times with a Revenant. The party had this NPC that they liked, but due to some unlucky rolls he fell into a river where they were escaping.. they assumed he drowned. Well one day they heard: ""I didn't drowned, you didn't come, they tortured me, you didn't come"" From that point on it became a thing, a whole ark, and it became almost like a bogyman. It was awesome! Especially when they destroyed his body, but they forgot that they killed a giant not long before, which was closest body to it... So few days later they herd from the giant mouth: ""I didn't drowned, you didn't come, they tortured me, you didn't come"

The flameskull gives me ptsd. My group was clearing out a mine full of monsters and we came upon a room full of corpses and a single floating skull. We had no idea what it was so we thought it was going to be easy. As soon as we walked into the room it resurrected zombie dwarves me being the fighter I charge into the zombies because why not. Then the skull shot a fireball at the entire group so I was left fighting all the zombies and got shot by a fire ball. The others were trying to hit he skull bet kept missing because we can’t role over a 13 on an attack role.

Yes, actually I had lots of campaigns where there were no undead... In my opinion the most campaigns are quite self sufficient without them and they just get shoehorned in because "every campaign needs them". Why did the enemies flee into the undead-filled crypt to die and not into the village directly besides the crypt where they have food, shelter and hostages as leverage? "welllllll... because.... because the cleric player complained he wanted to be of more use than just being a walking medkit. That is why..."

I think your aesthetic rating is kinda biased. Sure, is obvious when some designs are better than other but not everything has to be badass or gritty, sometimes you just want something simple, recognizable and appealing. I think a good design just needs to tie into the central themes of the creature, be clearly readable and convey character without saying a single word, but that is just my opinion.

This was fun; liches are far and away my favorite D&D monsters. I love Wizards, and seeing one forgo mortality, and sanity, to procure a body that gets away from almost all the wizard's classic weaknesses, and is immortal, is cool. Even after spending decades honing their arcane skills, they can gain a form that may let them enjoy it for centuries, if they can simply justify the nightmare process required to achieve it. I also like Baelnorns; elven liches created by Correlon Larethian Himself, in order to allow the extra time needed to achieve some great deed; something so crucial even the God of All Elves allows one of His to become undead.

"A mockery of us, the living", I'm gonna quote that in my next adventure

This videos are awesome, I just started running an undead campaign with the players stuck in a war between a lich, vampire, mummy, and a lingering spirit, all trying to find the book of vile darkness

Wow! I mean just wow! This was such a fun video to watch and I was wondering why I had not seen it and I see now that this is a recent video and you are growing! You really need to keep this up! I dont know if you can beat this video personally because I love the undead but I hope you make great content! I will most certainly follow you! :D

I'd honestly say that the Demi lich Flexibility should be a lot higher in my opinion. Think about it as a being that in theory brings the most impotent aspect of a lich to the table, it's spell casting and on top of that it's not shackled by it's phylactery meaning it can go where ever he pleases in the multiverse... Think a lich on the go rather that a lesser lich which is a lot more interesting of a character in my opinion because what they trade for that is some power and the ability to come back without other means and let's be real...they most likely found a way to come back despite abandoning their phylactery.

Gotta point out that Demi-lich's can actually mean two different creatures: Either the "weakened" lich you mention OR a lich so mind mindbogglingly old that it decayed down to a single body part stuffed with magic gems that contain slowly digesting souls. The ancient demilich version is what Acererak was and they're so powerful they might as well count as a demigod. Hell, Acererak was pretty close to becoming an *actual god* supposedly. Generally you can tell the difference because the weaken ones are called "Demi-Lich" while the overpowered ancient ones are called "Demilich".

God, this series is like the best thing i found in 2019 so far.

Regarding Wraith, since they can move through solid objects, I always thought that players are able to block a wraith's attack its because in order for the Wraith to physically harm, it has to concentrate and give solid form to the part that it's attacking with be it their hand/claws or if the Wraith has a weapon.

I have an undead creature unique to my own setting, and I call it the Skinthief. The Skinthief is a ghost, Banshee, Specter or Wraith who cannot return to the physical world, but desperately tries to, and does so by skinning alive, it's victims and using dark magics to keep the flesh alive, and the souls inside of their stolen skin, still screaming and in agony as the Skinthief uses their torn hide as a coat, and a new face, constantly trying to grow itself, and constantly trying to build itself a new, working body to return to life, but never quite getting there. They are incredibly hard to kill, and are far more recommended to flee from than to actually engage, because they fight in groups, have a stun ability, and are fairly strong if they have a few skins attached to them, and of course they have necrotic damage, life drains as one may expect, on top of them returning to life if not properly disposed of with holy water for the remains of the spirit and fire to put the skins to rest. Their desire to drain life essence is simply because they want to be alive again.

um... what about the Death Tyrant? why was it not included?

"There's just no end of these things, who knew crawling claws could form SWARMS?" "Where do you think he got all those murderers hands?" "The nine hells, turns out they have a discount sale."

I actually have some memories of a campaign that one of my friends were DMing and one encounter involved a lich that didn’t want to be evil but he only wanted to be famous so he turned to dark magic which turned him into a lich

Love the rankings and info. Keep it up man.

You know, what's funny is the Crawling Hand is what inspired me to buy the books. I immediately thought of a necromancer's tower with the hand hiding on a shelf and waiting until it could leap at an adventurer, wrapping its ice cold fingers around their throat, the other adventurers struggling to pry it away before their friend is choked to death as swinging their weapons at it would be too dangerous for their incapacitated ally.

I added two abilities to my Dracolich from the necromancer subclass to give it a little bit of lichness. I gave it Grim Harvest to be used once per turn, and undead thralls to be recharged on a 5 or 6. We were doing mini campaigns based on our main characters backstories. I was surprised they wanted me to do mine, because his whole clan was murder by a Dracolich when he was a small child. The ancient black Dracolich destroyed them. As 6 level 7 characters with a small amount of magic items. Looking back I probably could have leveled them up a little bit more to even out the playing field. But it was awesome to watch the raised barbarian slaughter his sorcerer brother. While the Fighter watched making sure the sorcerer couldn't get away.

Wow! What an incredible video and channel that I just randomly came across. Thank you for all the work and love you put into these videos as well as your other projects. I am an instant fan!

I have a blood hunter with a backstory that involves quite a bit of homebrew because it sort of breaks a few rules. He's a Ghostslayer, which has a lot of very ghost like abilities. And I explained it narratively by saying his backstory involved him being initiated into the order by allowing a benevolent spirit into his body to share its powers. And so he is "possessed" by the soul of a Revenant that, rather than taking a corpse to seek it's own vengeance, chose to join with him to live vicariously through him and deliver justice for the sake of others. And it's a sort of Talion / Celebrimbor thing where the revenant can appear next to him and talk to him, but he's the only one in the party that can see or hear it.

I had a really fun Revenant Monk, he was a Paladin killed by his order simply for questioning his Deity after they killed Orcs who had abandoned the Orc ways and tried and even succeeded in partnering with other towns, but being Orcs they all had to die in the eyes of this Order, he was very fun and re-rose and has had a few titeles as the GM just did not want him dead to the point he is now loremaster and protecter of his largest city.

Very cool video. Really enjoyed the format. I hope to see many more videos like this.

I LOVE THIS CHANNEL. even if i dont play d&d i started reading the books in oblivion, i jump to lord of the rings from there i play old isometric rpgs and now only d&d lore is last tnks to larian studios for marking the path like a good ranger trought the internet forest.

A: B: revenant, ghost, lich, vampire C: vampire spawn, mummy, death knight, demilich, mummy lord D: zombie, shadow, ghoul, specter, wraith, beholder zombie, wight, banshee, will-o-wisp, flameskull, dracolich F: crawling claw, skeleton

I always thought the Demilich was a Lich that didn't care to exist on the prime material plane anymore and simply left it's remains behind.

Amazing channel man! Those Mummy variants especially are such fantastic idea for my game. Keep up excellent work!

Dude you did an awesome job with this video, you’ve been so helpful and informative. Keep up the great work!!

My favorite undead were the 3.5e Bleakborn. Also called Moil zombies from Greyhawk, they were damn hard to kill for lower level players. Frozen and seeking the warmth of living creatures, their presence would drain you of your life. You could reduce them to 0 HP or less, but unless you outright destroyed their bodies completely, they would come back as nearby warmth reanimated them. And they would deal cold damage to you even if you hit them with non-reach melee weapons. Our party had a hell of a time with these things. We faced six of them one session without knowing what they were, and eventually decided to stuff their bodies into a bag of holding so no one else who might have happened upon them (in a deep, dark dungeon where no one had been for hundreds of years, yeah, I know) would have to face them. A few sessions and couple levels later, the party was using overland flight over an illithid city and we dumped them out into the street. Let the mind flayers figure out a way to deal with undead immune to mind affecting abilities!

I’m currently creating a campaign off undead and this is so helpful

Vampires are also often known for their ability in political maneuvering, both among their own kind and to gain power and influence in the mortal world as well. Even a solitary one probably has minions and spies in the areas around their castles. And given as they must consume the life force of the living they can't be *that* solitary. They do solidly belong in the A tier.

Favorite way to use dracolich. The dragon long ago found the soul gem of a dracolich and keeps it in its hoard unknowingly. Party kills said dragon and than immediately after it raises again as a dracolich that they are unprepared for.

I had a really cool idea for the backstory of way of long death monks in 5e. Throughout the years they train until eventually they commit shokushonbutsu and actually become a form of undead. For funsies I thought it would be cool if they only ever had 1 apprentice at a time, like the Sith. I should homebrew a prestige class for becoming an undead monk or something

I really like how you work history, myth, and mechanics into each ranking (I'm glad to see the tier genre embracing 5e). Nice voice too - the character voices aren't really my thing, you've got a fine analytical voice as is

The wraiths touch is pretty easy to explain, as long as it is not on a material level it can't do damage,or harm to living creatures. So if it wants to touch something it has to solidify and is therefore blocked by shields.

My favorite concept of using the undead in creative ways was someone who proposed a giant extra-dimensional undead super computer. If the zombie raised its arms, it was a 1. If it kept them down, it was a 0. Make time move super fast in this dimension, and you have a working computer comprised entirely by undead.

It's SO nice to see someone with a brain put zombies on a higher tier than skeletons. I love your candor and wit. I do think Vampire and Vampire Lord should've been 2 categories. Strahd is no average vampire. Anything that is summoned and commanded will complete chores. All zombies "have" skeletons and thus SHOULD be more formidable. They should never be weaker. The Dragon Magazine back around 1993 or so put out a Halloween issue with the assassin skeleton, Bloody Bones, and the flesh eating zombie, Hungry Dead. Imagine a high level campaign where there's a rumor that .... "The assassins guild has been killed. Every last one of them..." Of course a death worshipping cult has made them a deal "they simply could not resist".

I still want to play a handless Revenant Warlock who uses a form of prosthetic Mage Hand for pretty much everything, but keeps his cut off hand as a Crawling Claw pet. a goofy, stupid, terrifying pet.

I just got started looking into the video but will you just said I was fascinated by the undead especially the Grim Reaper as a child

AD&D also had some pretty good undead, with higher-tier undead, like mummies and ghouls/ghasts' upgraded forms, and a vampire variant for the most common player-races, like dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, and kender (whoo boy most people aren't going to know what a kender is). Most of this was from the Ravenloft or Dark Sun monster manuals, which I still have lying around.

hmm now I have an idea for how I can use clawing hands for a campaign. During the trek, the adventurers notice that every undead in the area has both of their hands cut off. Eventually once they reach the dungeon, a swarm of crawling hands will creep out from the crevices from all directions on the party.

What about the Undead that features in Volo’s and Mordenkainen’s?

Another fun fact about mummies: the reason there are so few left is because people in the Middle Ages were convinced that ground-up mummies were some sort of ultra-healthy superfood.

"The ghoul just wants to eat" I'm a ghoul y'all

3:00 *doot intensifies*

Undead were my favorite monsters as a kid and I still love them.

Revenants are the perfect middle finger to murder-hobos. If your characters slaughter every NPC you have, keep a list of those NPCs, so that they can all return, like, have a an army of ~20 revenants just wait inside an area where they know the players will go, and you've got the perfect anti-murder hobo plan.

Nice video, by the way, I think some undead were left out, like the bone naga, the bodak, the gnoll witherling, the spawn of Kyuss, and the alhoon (the mindflayer litch).

For me, when running a Dracolich, I follow the lore of it essentially being a dragon who becomes a Lich, so give it a slab of spells and rituals from the necromancy spells, as well as any of the dragon breathes (depending on what sort of dragon it was in life). It also had a small cult following it to give it more reach.

A few suggestions I'd add to the list would be the nightwalker and he deathlock and their variants, they have more or less as much story possibilities as the ghost. Great video, I could possibly change some of these monsters' functionality if I ever make a campaign out of them to meet up with the downsides you mentioned

Von Carstien! The vampire blood line of the warhammer world

I tabbed out to look at my email and you started to talk about DKs come back and the DEFINITIVE Death Knight was on screen mother trucking Soth!

"We are the undead! Theres a zombie on your lawn.."