Deadliest Monsters in Dungeons and Dragons 5e by CR - Part One 

The correct answer at every CR is Kolbolds.... Just is increasing numbers.

When this series is over, are you going to do another one for the WORST creatures by CR? That would be fun.

When CR in D&D is about as reliable as Power Levels in Dragon Ball Z

Jackalwere is a CR ½ creature that is IMMUNE to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks that aren't silvered. IMMUNE!!! That's pretty rough. Oh, and it has pack tactics and a sleep gaze! CR ½!

I zoned out halfway through the description of the Duergar Mind Master's abilities and realised that conceptually the way we describe stat blocks is very funny because of how it's exactly how someone making fun of d&d thinks we talk

when you have to magic and punch a child to death youtube takes your money

The highest CR monster is an adventuring party who is interested in your stuff! Arm yourselves! We're building and testing weapons over here!

How to lose friends with a Gorgon: Have a High Level Forge Cleric (or any spell caster with Animate Objects) riding it so when someone gets petrified, the Cleric casts Animate Objects on the person, breaking them down to little pieces and using their remains as flying weapons against their friends.

"The Lava Child is outright immune to metal weapons, and has advantage on players with metal armour" Þörrin the barbarian grips his great club and begins to laugh.

Killed a character with a Banshee wail tonight so... this checks out XD

Broke: "ok this video shows me which monsters to watch out for so I dont TPK my party" Woke: "ok, how can i legitimize having a lava child in Ghosts of Saltmarsh"

The CR systen CR-iously needs to be reassessed.

What I learned today is that Duergar don’t mess around.

What about the CR1 Quickling of Volo's guide. It has an AC of 16, blurred movement so players make attacks with disadvantage, evasion against burning hands e.d. It Makes 3 attacks at a +8, dealing 1d4+6 damage per hit, And runs at a wopping 120 ft/turn

I'm surprised there wasn't a mention of Will-O-Wisp, that thing is a nasty little creature. Stupidly high AC, instant invisibility and good damage. It might not be better than the Mind Master, but it is at least an honorable mention.

10:40 To clarify, Barbarians don't need to Rage to reckless attack (unless your DM has houseruled as such, for whatever reason). They *do* take attacks at advantage as well though, so it's not just free advantage against such a high AC monster.

The amount of work you put into these videos is really amazing

In my homebrew campaign, I'm using Taking20's face as the reference for the god of knowledge and the arcane.

Well it's simple. I keep a small chart with all the monster names and how many times they have killed players. Kobolds have been stuck at 68 for like a year.

I subscribed to this channel just to watch this video, and it was worth it!!!

I know this didn't make it on your list, but the CR 1 Shadow was super deadly specifically to my 3rd level party's cleric. See, this cleric had rolled really weird stats such that their physical stats were cartoonishly low (think 4s and 5s) and their mental stats being incredibly high (18s and 19s). When the shadow hit them, they did a bit of damage, lessened by the cleric's necrotic resistance, but rolled a 4 on their strength drain. The cleric had 3 strength. They instantly died. This was a new party so I spared the cleric, having them go unconscious, but it's still imprinted in my mind. Their strength score was lowered to a 1 after that.

I usually use CR as a guideline to pick monsters that are reasonable for the environment, then build something that makes sense from my own perspective... If it ends up being a little broken I adjust AC on the fly like, "You hit and although the Duregar doesn't seem to take damage, you manage to make them drop their shield/ your blade manages to catch the shoulder guards and drop them" It's not perfect but I can prepare faster :shrug:

Dice? Dice! Must collect them all! The little caltrops that are d4's Cute squares that are d6's And the others... Maybe even the rare d100

really missed your content during a well earned break. Loving the content back in full force!

I gotta say, this video impressed me. I can tell how much work went into it; I expected a lot of the considerations, but analyzing the modified variant monsters from the supplemental books really blew me away. Plus it's extremely educational for DMs of all levels. Thanks for making and sharing this, I'm very intrigued to see the rest of the series.

Man, I thought the Bodak would grab CR6 for sure!

Haven’t watched yet, but Specter had BETTER be on here.

While I agree that the Skulk is the strongest CR 1/2 monster (especially at lower levels), I'm surprised you didn't even mention Shadows. Shadows are extremely dangerous even to higher level parties because of their strength drain ability, especially because strength is so often a dump stat. Pair that with many resistance/immunities and you have a TPK waiting to happen. I played a game where we fought 10 of them at level 12 and 2 party members died instantly when they attacked with no chance to save them.

"I hope i dont get demonetized" add drops right the second after. I think your fine cody

I really thought there would be SHADOW on this list.

After a TPK, save those chars as the DM. In the next campaign, use the dead chats as a competing adventuring group. Let them fight.

Honestly, my pick for CR 8 would be the Warforged Titan out of the Eberron book. AC of 20, HP of 125, Huge with 10ft reach and speed of 40ft, it's platform ability (which makes paring it with two ranged monsters no fun for the melee in you party), a nice AoE attack, and those multiattack axehand and hammerfist. The fact that being hit by the hammer can knock you prone, and the axe doing bonus damage to prone is harsh. Granted, as a standalone, it's not bad. It just hits really hard. But placed with two ranged monsters on it's platforms makes it nasty IMO.

I’m surprised the dark mantle didn’t get a mention. The 10’ darkness that you need a 3rd level light spell or higher in order to see through it and if their attack hits the pc starts to suffocate.

I absolutely agree with the skulk so when I read it’s stats I started planing ways the players could see it and the big one I cam to was that when they get that attack off the claws become bloody allowing players with a passive perception of 15 to be able to call it out and ignore the disadvantage but the skulk still retains its advantage

I just want to say that I appreciate your content. I really love D&D I love making characters I love role-playing I love all the aspects about it. I don't get to play very often and I've never got to try my hand at dming , but I feel like watching your content gives me the knowledge to be a better player and maybe one day a better GM

_Yeesh!_ I knew that CR was just an approximation, but this explains the level of variance I've had between supposedly balanced encounters. These two videos are super-useful, I like how you teach us to spot traps and red flags in statblocks.

When we rain into a group of Lava Child... Children? The rest of the party ran and left the Monk to it... Similar tactics to their standard Rust Monster protocol

“AWW man I really hope I didn’t get my video demonetized” *ad plays*

I want to say thank you! I have recently come upon your videos and I'm learning what to do since I've gotten an interest in dnd. Your channel has helped me learn the do's and don't's to this and it's been quite fun!

Thanks for another video bud. Really appreciate you always taking the Help action for people like myself. Your dm advice and player advice has been so beneficial to me personally. Its given me much to think about and mature on. If you ever take requests, I would request a video or series concerning dnd characters or lore. What I come across often is there is juuuust enough info in the phb, dmg, and mm to help you have enough knowledge a out Faerun, forgotten realms, races, etc. I've had to sift through many a resource to collect what I needed for greater character customization and backstory creation. For myself, Tome of Foes, Lords of Darkness, Volos guide, and faith and pantheon have been what I've been wanting, lore about races, the history of Faerun, of the gods and the big name bigwigs of legend. I tthink people, like myself, need help in finding out books that are good for that, what's REALLY useful to you for creating a character, what will give you more details for a really unique and beautiful story. I've come into DND just last year, with the Starter Set. There's a LOT of history out there, that I feel the core 3 books just dont do justice to or even a rich well to jump into. It's really bare bones :/ i hope I've communicated my request well lol. Anyways, thanks Cody.

Imagine my face when my banshee nearly tpk'd my players on round 2. Only one person succeeded on their save, the warlock with -2 to WIS and they dropped to 1 hit point.

Our party got TPK'd last week by the Kobold Underlings. While i dm normally, one of my normal players wanted to run a small campaign in the vacation. So, him not being entirely experienced, and us being with only three level one characters instead of the normal six in the other campaign, got absolutely rekt by four of these.

Great Video! I love that you mention red flags for balancing. Very important for new and experienced DMs

This video is incredible, I love the runner up idea as well so if you think they are to powerful you can go just a step down and still have a real challenging encounter

I think for CR8, the drow priestess of lolth takes the cake. a pretty good caster already; but she also has the opportunity to summon a CR10 demon once a day. a pretty scary adversary indeed

I would've thought that monsters that instakill instead of KO would be considered more deadly such as shadow, intellect devourer, will o wisp or catoblepas Guess this is only for TPKs and not just accidentally killing a party member

Neat list! Thanks for uploading!

You put so much work into your vidoes, it is great! They always are well thought out and informative.

You haven't really got a deadly encounter, until the banshee TPK at 4th level.

how about the swarm of rot grubs? that thing gets in and doesn't inmediately get out, character may be in real danger.

Really helpful video thank you :) I'm a relatively new DM and I enjoy watching your videos for inspiration and tips!

Love the content as always. Just a suggestion: look into getting some foam wall panels to dampen the echo from your voice reverberating back into the mic.

It might not be comparable to CR but the toughest fights I’ve had were when the DM made player characters for us to fight.

In Critical Role, Caleb cast Slow on the Hydra, and that was the best destruction of a monster I have ever seen.

Dude, I like your energy everytime I watch your videos

This was very helpful. Thanks!

Lava Child: the "throw the druids a bone" monster

I love how Taking20 is looking more and more like a 40k player with less hair.

At CR 2 I would like to add the intellect devourer, maybe it’s not as powerful in a 1 on party fight but if it lands a hit on the low int barbarian that may as well be a TPK. 5e is not balanced around PvP so if the players body is snatched and they get to have a turn before the wizard or rogue then just a light smack while in rage and they are done. The point is “insta kills” and enthrallment is very powerful and I think this creature is often overlooked by it looking very wonky

It'd be cool if you put in titles for each section, and maybe a list of links to jump to timestamps for what you're talking about at that time. Great videos, newly found you and I've been going through the videos for the last couple days. Great job man.

Ask anyone who's played the Death House intro to CoS at level 1. I'll fight a bugbear over a Spectre any day at that level. At least with the bugbear there's a chance the PCs who drop will recover/get healing. With a Spectre, only thing to do when PCs drop: go through their pockets for loose change.

Or, in keeping with Rocky & Bullwinkle tradition: How To TPK Your Players At Any Level.

This was so well done.. thank you for this!! Would have loved portraits with each tho :(

Oh cool, looks like I have the roster for the colloseum encounters in the next city. Thanks!

"I really hope that didn't get this video demonitized" *Ad immediately rolls* It would seem you've done well

Maybe the deadliest monster by CR was the friends we made along the way

Loved this video! Just my thoughts on a CR 1 - I always find a standard Brown Bear surprises the party, not the highest AC at 11 but 34 HP tanks a few hits at low levels, two attacks at +5 to hit with a 1d8+4 bite and a 2d6+4 claw attack can drop a Level 1 character, the panic really sets in at that point, a frenzied beast may very well attack a downed party member... I think using a standard animal lures them into a false sense of security like "Oh this thing isn't sparkling with magical energy or wreathed in flames just a standard bear this won't be much trouble" then BAM Yogi shows them what's what and the party never casually waltz into a cave ever again

All depends on the party. I typically try to balance my encounters in and out of combat around the strengths and weaknesses of the party. Where it gets hard is trying not to favor one skill set over another and having people feel left out.

I enjoyed this video. I wish there was a way to show it.

I think that shadow is the strongest cr half monster for higher level party.

Great Video! Thank You!

Great video man

Havent watched yet, but the CR 4 Flameskull should be on here.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing a video for the most under powered monsters for their CR level on top of the most powerful. For example, I think the Cloaker is super underpowered for being a CR 8 based of the encounter I used them in my campaign. A player cast light and rendered the Cloaker’s phantom illusions useless. The Cloaker did a lot of damage to one player but didn’t even touch the other three players before getting killed.

I was certain the shadow or catoblepas would be on the list, but I have to concede your logic Cody, great vid

I had expected will-o-wisps, shadows, intellect devourers or quicklings at least mentioned, I have learned a bit.

Yeah if I run into a specter a low level I just run the other way until I can't. This is a nice, well-thought out list! How many parts are you planning?

I also fully agree with the MF Arcanist being deadliest considering it also has an Int score of 19 so roleplayed correctly, the party is going to really need to work well to outsmart him.

Looking forward to part 2!

Cody, you should talk about your personal 5 favourite homebrew monsters. There's a bunch of really interesting existing ones I've found lately, mostly for their lore and ability to build an entire campaign around. Consider it, it could be a really interesting way to open and show what you really prioritize in your monsters and your games

We almost got tpk'ed by two black dragon wyrmlings luckily I was a black dragonborn so I talked us out of it... Now we're in a dragon cult

The mojo is back. 😀

I love the Overwatch comparison! In fact I have a whole article explaining how to apply Overwatch strategy in DnD 5e

One of the CR 1/2 monsters I found to be insane was the kraul from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. AC 18, pack tactics, climbing and/or flying and immunity to charm while with allies. My players found these so tough to deal with, I had to find a way to remove some of them from the first fight I put them in.

*Party:* _[encounters a Lava Child]_ *Monk:* _[laughs in sign language]_ *Druid:* _[snickers in Shilellagh]_ *Wizard:* _[looks over spell cards: Fireball, Melf's Minute Meteors, Aganazzar's Scorcher, Scorching Ray, Firebolt...]_

Kobold underlings are specifically for an adventure, they’re not just meant for any encounter

I'm glad I reviewed this one for my session. I plan on throwing a Young black dragon and 2 green hags at my party, and I might just have to dial that dragon back a little bit.

Really enjoyed this video. A little surprised the flying sword didn't get an honourable mention at CR 1/4. That thing is an absolute beast for its CR

I'm surprised the Catoblepas wasn't mentioned for CR 5. It doesn't have a whole lot of hit points, but MAN does that death ray have potential to kill. Failing by 5 or more on a DC 16 con save and the player takes 64 necrotic damage? At best PCs have a 50/50 shot of even making the saving throw, and then the ability recharges on a 5-6. It's the kind of monster you only put in your game if you've talked to a player and they've agreed to let their character die so they can play a new one lol

Bruh 2 minutes WOOAAHHAHHA

Great video!

@Taking20 every CR deserves its own TIER-list #Taking20

A monster that surpasses everything in this video: The mimic. No need to explain.

New DM here, and I really appreciate your videos!

This is great, can't wait until the second video. Any plans to do more Pathfinder 2e videos?

Thanks for the PSA to either spare or slay your PCs. It’s great to be aware of deceptive CRs. I think a valuable addition to this Video would be the basic PC who should be a true star in that encounter. Cody touches on it a bit, when Counterspell is a great foil for a big nasty. I love seeing my PCs become heroic, and adding one of these guys to highlight a specific PC class would be extra helpful and add a positive twist to the gloomier TPK threats each tier.

Great video thus far! I'm currently at CR 2. My only thing is that I would like to see the whole stat block on the screen and your body blocks it a bit at the corners. Just as a thought, it would work well if you were positioned to the right and maybe a touch smaller and then the stat block is visible. Hope that doesn't come off as me telling you what to do so apologies if it is. Great research and video otherwise!

I love your list here Cody, and I was wondering something about a creature from the Guilds of Ravnica book. The Category 1 Krasis has a CR of 1, an AC of 15, is Amphibious, has Multiattack (one bite, one claw that do 1d10 and 1d8 respectively with +5 to hit and +3 damage on both) and a base strength of 16. In addition to this base state block, Krases can also have 2 of up to 16 different abilities paired however you choose. Major and minor adaptations such as Armored Hide give this CR1 creature an additional +4 to AC (bringing it up to a 19 on a CR1 with powerful close combat skills) and it will still get an additional adaptation such as making its swim speed equal to its base walking speed or the ability to camouflage with the Cryptic Skin adaptation. Over all, this makes them some of my favorite all time creatures to bring into a campaign, as there are so many ways to use them for plot purposes- but here's the thing, at CR1, a Krasis with an AC of 19 and the ability to swim incredibly fast or become nearly invisible prior to or during combat seems like an enormous hurdle for players at level 1. They come with 19 or 3d8+6 hit points, so they're definitely not easy to bring down and are often quite elusive. I should also mention, this is the stat block for just the CR1 Medium sized Krasis, not the CR6 Large or the CR 16 Huge variants. I felt it was worth mentioning because I feel like running into anymore than one of these CR1s could spell death for the entire party, especially if they are of the Armored Hide or Bioluminescent Markings (gives advantage on saving throws against spells and magic) variants. It is also likely that even just one of them could kill 1-4 party members with relative ease if it had the right combination of adaptations and the party wasn't prepared for it. I just wanted to get your thoughts on these creatures to see if you think they are too powerful as standalone creatures or if they are simply a decent challenge for a low level adventuring party. I once did a one shot with the idea of having my players hunt a Large CR6 Krasis that I adjusted to be more like a CR7 or 8 by giving it 1 major adaptation and 2 minor ones and the party was at level 10. The Krasis nearly killed 2 players before moving into the second half of the adventure (it was supposed to flee the first fight wounded to recover, and their job was to continue the hunt to find its nest). The party managed to stabilize both of the unconscious players, but they were really close to just outright dying. These things are definitely not simple to deal with, they are basically the Predator and an Alien mixed together ._.

Can't wait till the next one