Taking20 Heya! I wanted to ask if there would be a cool way of making a Magical Beast type Ranger, and limiting the creatures to a CR2 or lower when it came to that, because there’s a lot of REALLY COOL creatures, but there’s obviously the ones that can break a campaign, and there’s a lot of material possible for that also. What do you think should be done to stat/flesh that out in the long run? Hope you’re staying dry, lol. Sincerely, from Ohio!
All right all right these are game-breaking monsters... But what if I gave the players a, wait for it... A Flumph! JK that would never work. Better just to make a mindflayer campaign.
Number 6:EVIL EYEBALL CREATURE CAPABLE OF KILLING SOMEONE IN A SECOND Number 7:Frog Number 8:TENTACLED BEAST THAT RULED THE MATERIAL PLANE FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS
Once a beholder attacked my party that included a human paladin, a human barbarian, a human cleric, a dwarf fighter and my charachter, an elf wizard. I just stood behind a stone column and while the rest of the team were struggling for their life, cast an invisibility spell. Then i got behind the beholder and cast a flesh to stone spell. As a result of this the beholder became a nice beholder statue. This was my proudest D&D game victory of all. :)
@building boy They don't. However, they have ten eyestalks arranged around the crown of their body, so unless you take some of them out, sneaking up on one requires some major talent (or magic).
I unexpectedly killed my party's sorcerer with a will-o'wisp. He was at 2/23 hit points, the wisp's shock does an average of 9 (2d8). Nat 20. Ok, now time for the consume life save. Roll damage. 6 and a 7. Oh. Sorcerer takes 26 points of damage, dying instantly. A couple minutes of shocked silence later he remembers his strength of the grave feature. Rolls a 1. Rest in peace Imhotep the Unlucky.
My vote is... Water! I've had multiple players dive deep for treasure or exploration only to underestimate the danger of drowning. The other monsters listed here can't be defeated by an air-filled waterskin but for some reason not many players give water the respect it deserves. "I'll hold onto this rock so I can submerge faster!" - Last words of a waterlogged corpse.
Can you imagine how paranoid you would be if you were an educated, high-end bodyguard in a DND setting, and you knew of things like Doppelgangers, druids, high-level spellcasters etc and what they were capable of? You would trust nothing. Absolutely NOTHING. Given the mind boggling multitude of unique, exotic and werid ways to die, it'd be the most stressful job ever. I can just imagine going over a MASSIVE parchment of security protocols, covering scrying, wards, invisibility, shapeshifting, enchantment, runes, curses, doppelgangers, mind control etc.
SinerAthin and then the one body guard that has some sort of anti magic field, and is a pro at all of it must be one of the richest people out there. For a bad body guard is a dead one
this is how im making my Vedalken Order of Scribes Wizard, his highest stats are all mental scores and he trusts nothing and no one because he knows so many terrifying things from working as a scribe.
If you were a bodyguard in the world of d&d you world have some serious skills too. I also played shadowrun, a cyberpunk-fantasy tabletop rpg where my charachter was given a task to protect some VIP on a lots of occasions. And yes, i did not trust anyone. 🙂
Today I saw a post on reddit about how creatures have spikes on their back to ward off larger predators. The terrasque has spikes on it's back There is something worse than the terrasque out there
Back in 3.5 the Tarrasque has a Wisdom of 10 and an ac vs touch attacks of 2 or 3 so the idea was to acquire an Alip via rebuking, control undead, or a summon undead spell from a splat book.
Made me think of the D&D5e game I watched on a well known RP channel. The 3 or 4 players had ballsed up a few attempts to stop the shadows and ended up losing the town. It was hard to watch D:
I tuned out for a minute to tell my friend about how putting a Banshee in their Halloween one-shot is a bad idea and I came back to random toad facts...
Is it a bad idea? I guess it might depend on their players and the kind of fun they like to have. Overall though, i dunno--the banshee seems to me like it was made for halloween-themed one-shots. The players won't be highly invested in their characters, so dying won't be a big deal, and banshees are spooky, spooky ghosts.
As a GM I just love how the rust monster changes the combat setup All of a sudden the wizards and rangers are on the frontline, the figters, clerics and paladins are now in the backline throwing rocks or using their backup ranged weapons and that one guy who you all laughed at for buing a wooden club has the last laugh As a player who loves playing fighters I hate them... A lot
My DM threw 3 Rust Monsters at the party as the Paladin/Warlock I was 120ft away throwing Eldritch Blast while the rest of the party was in the middle of them. Those levels in Warlock earned their keep from that fight alone.
I run a homebrew monster called HatRats. They come in packs of ten, and can cast a random cantrip as an action. Doesn't sound too bad... unless you kill one. Because, each time you kill a HatRat, the level of spell they can cast increases by one, until eventually you just have a single HatRat casting random ninth level spells every round. I ran this monster for a long time, giving them a single hitpoint each, and watching the players never discover their secrets, as they would see a random handful of cantrips popping off, and then AoE them all in one round... Until this one time, when they came across a pack of HatRats that were quite spread out. In their haste, they settled for killing all but one in the first round. After all, all they do is cast cantrips, as far as the PC's know, how bad could it be? And that is how the party's fifth level Paladin died to a Power Word Kill from an unassuming rat, wearing a tophat and a monocle. It turns out, on average, HatRats aren't very effective. The average random spell of most levels don't deal any damage, and once you know their core mechanic they're pretty easy to play around. But... That was how my players learned that the cute little magic rats they'd been encountering for weeks were actually terrifying monsters.
Also there is iron wood. Basically wood as hard as iron. You could have a dex palidin of the ancients (for flavor) with a good sword, a monk and a wizard and make it work really well. The palidin could could also use shillegha with a feat instead.
Bring on the memes, for here comes the creature that broke my campaign: the MIMIC. Forget about not trusting NPC's, my players don't even trust random leaves on the ground.
Gindranis I had a dungeon with mimics, animated armor, flying swords and rugs of smothering. Add in a stone Gollum flavored as a living statue and a few mirrors that cast viscous mockery when you look into them my PC were paranoid for several weeks.
@@deanjohnson7809 The last kick in the balls would have been to lead them into a wandering tower after all that ordeal. www.wizards.com/dnd/files/excerpts/intheworks_20110404_3.pdf
Ran in to a couple of rust monster in lower level campaign: fighter and paladin went this is going to rough. Myself (a monk) and the bow using rogue in the bow group looked at the two of them and told them to get back and we would protect them. It was hilarious watching the run around the chamber trying to avoid the critters. Me and the rogue eventually took the critters out, maybe a bit slowly because it was just too funny watching the tanks squealing kill it! Kill it!. They decided it would be wise to carry a back up missile weapon and if I remember correctly they both took slings...
@@theolddm696 - Hilarious. :) You needed a big glass and a giant sheet of paper so you could safely pick it up and put it outside. "Ew ew ew! Kill it!" "Oh stop being a baby, it's more scared of us than we are of it."
I think you should have mentioned Bone Naga and the ever popular Succubus. The Bone Naga can just shut down 2 party members and can start the encounter with an AC: 17 with Shield of Faith.
Omg in my one campaign we fought a bone naga and our solution was to somehow trap it in a bag of holding. Next time that dm ran a game we immediatly asked if the bone naga bag was still floating around 200 years later. It is and we are terrified
I threw an incubus at my party and unintentionally killed them all. The incubus itself was pretty weak, but the barbarian PC it took control of was more than a match for the other players.
Crocodiles hit with a 1d10+2 and auto grapple, which is brutal for a cr 1/2 monster. A pair of these happily devoured my lvl 2 warlock, grappling him and dragging him beneath the water to never be seen again.
If the rules haven't changed, and I don't remember them incorrectly, those crocodiles would be a balanced encounter for a party of level 2 characters. So a squishy PC like your warlock should be dominated by them pretty quickly.
MrSlothJunior a perfectly balanced encounter if it’s a ‘full’ party (3-5 players depending on how tryhard their builds are) would be 3 or 4 crocs for a normal battle, 5 if it’s meant to be pretty dangerous, 7 if this is the day’s only fight but you still want the risk of them dying and force them to go all out
@@phoenixjones2569 That sounded outrageous to me, so I checked my book. I game mastered a bit in Pathfinder, which I without having checked believe has the same CR system as D&D 3.5 had. In this system 2 CR ½ creatures would be a CR 1 -> Easy encounter for a party of 4-5 level 2 players. 3 crocs would be CR 2 -> Average encounter. 4 crocs would be CR 3 -> Challenging encounter. 6 crocs would be CR 4 -> Hard encounter. 8 crocs would be CR 5 -> Epic encounter. So I guess you're not too far off from the game system I knew. I'm not sure though that it takes into account that having multiple creatures upsets the balance. Being outnumbered is devastating.
Fun fact, rust monsters are the exact reason that my barbarians never use metal weapons. They will have great axes that are made of chunks of wood and obsidian or greatswords that are constructed from bone or Stillwood which is a type of wood that can only really be cut with an angle grinder.
Kudos for pronouncing Coup de Grâce properly. I found that a lot of people pronounce it "Coup de Gras" which would be the French equivalent of saying "strike of fat" instead of "strike of fate"
@@paulrudd1483 in French, when a word ends in a "soft c", it's signified by the "e" at the end, as in "Grace" giving the same enunciation as a "short s" {a hard c is the equivalent of a "k"} The other way to soften "c" is with that dangly tail accent, the "sediya" [phonetic spelling] Worth pointing out that "gras" really is "fat" as in "Mardi Gras" or "Fat Tuesday". {cheap ways to help keep it straight} ;o)
@@paulrudd1483 As I understand it, if it was the letter S, it would be - as shown above, that would be the word "gras", or fat. Since in the phrase it is spelled "grâce", it is not silent, even though it makes an S sound.
I've had to officially promise my players never, ever to use the banshee / Will-o-Wisp combo. The Banshee's wail gets a save or drop to 0 HP, or lots of psychic damage on a save. The WoW Consume Life can target a character at 0 HP and then it's save-or-die. Two failed saves takes a character from alive to stone dead, just like that. Ouch ! Any DM who does that is sending a message saying "I want to play a character next week" ;)
I did a 1 shot campaign with a couple of my buddies a while ago and I had recently purchased a special edition original monster guide for original DnD and just had to use the Lurker. They sprung the empty room trap pretty easily and had to deal with trying to save their ally from suffocating, but with a series of bad rolls they just managed to stab through the monster into their ally. In the end our classic hot headed Dragonborn lit the room on fire, which prompted me to have to read how the monster floats, and sure enough it was gas. The house they were exploring exploded and that 1 shot ended pretty darn quickly. It was really fun to watch that happen though.
List explained poorly: 1. Trust no one 2. Death singer of D&D 3. NOPE! 4. Toast to Grog Strongjaw 5. Armor Break 6. Lovecraft 7. Devil May Cry 4...? 8. More Lovecraft 9. Kingdom Hearts...? 10. This bonehead?
Remorhaz in the hands of one of my DMs has made me call them ‘Mage Killers’... That burrowing combined with the swallowing aspect makes it evil. I have lost a wizard in two rounds of combat to one of these things...
My party fled from a losing battle against shadows, right through a goblin village. Seemed to work out just fine until several months later people in the area start disappearing at night... We found out the shadows had eventually turned the whole village (over 100 goblins) into shadows then the horde started roaming further afield for victims/food. We ended up having to recruit every priest in the valley to help us clear that village out
Our warlock and paladin were both killed from those last session. None of us knew what they were and both of them went down in the same round with no way of us figuring out a weakness in time to save either of them.
I gotta just say, I think the revenant needs more love. It's not a high CR, sure, at 5. 13 AC, 136 HP. Not super tough. But the thing that makes them incredibly interesting is HOW they come about. Revenants exist for one purpose: to avenge their own wrongful death. "It claws its way back into the world to seek revenge against the one who wronged it." That's some truly incredible rage. They're immune to any effect that turns undead, and always knows where their target is. If your party is going full murder hobo, this is a perfect thing to throw against them. One of the NPCs who was just going about their day, in their death, becomes enraged and becomes a revenant to seek its revenge. And low level PCs, which this would be most appropriate at, can't actually deal with the revenant once and for all. If its body is destroyed, (which is hard in the first place, since it regains 10hp every turn) it reforms and inhabits a new corpse in 24 hours. It gets one year to get its revenge. That means for 365 days, the players must deal with this undead threat that cannot be turned away, persuaded, or truly beaten (since it can only be truly stopped via a wish while the revenant is not in a body...or the death of its target). They're also intelligent, so if a full front assault fails, it can stalk and follow them, wait for them to finish fighting another foe that drains them a bit, THEN strike. And if that, in turn, fails, it also has an incredibly high charisma (18! My paladins wish it could start that high). It can convince other monsters and foes to join forces against the players, and strike with a full squad at their back. For high level PCs, that can actually defeat the revenant with ease, that it cannot have any hope in defeating, it can employ the last tactic against them, but to a higher degree. It needs allies that are more powerful than itself. A dragon, perhaps, or a beholder. Maybe the players made an enemy of a king, and the revenant seeks out the king, and in return for his services for several months (they are incredible warriors, not going to lie), the king gives the revenant access to magic items and an army. A revenant is much harder to kill if it's donned platemail, a shield, and a vorpal sword. After all, the 13 AC is simply leather armor+dex. Who says a revenant that is forced to plan for months before striking can't get better gear? Now, my favorite use of the revenant isn't against the PCs...but as a plot hook. They are intelligent creatures, and will seek allies to defeat their foe, if they cannot do it alone. A poor NPC who was framed and executed by a city leader, simply because he dared to court the leader's daughter? Now turned revenant, and knowing that he cannot take on an entire city guard to seek justice for himself, and now seeks the brave adventurer's assistance to clear his name, but more importantly kill the leader, likely freeing the city and his daughter from what is likely a cruel rule? Now THAT'S a hook, if you ask me. But yeah. Played right, a revenant can destroy a low level group, and certainly a threat to a high level one, especially if given its own agency, and not treated as a mindless monster. I honestly think it's best to have as quest giver-style npc, but it's a terrifying enemy if you're it's target.
@@meganofsherwood3665 of course not! Revenants need to be used more. Murderhobos should tremble in fear at the name. The good aligned party should weep for the poor soul and be motivated to help them. The good and wise party would help them after bartering and having a functionally immortal helper or scout for a few missions (You help us, we help you)
Now that's what I should've done, the guards of the city that my party burned down, or everyone who was killed by the flames, becomes an army of revanents, I do belive elven artificer would be extremely useful for creating new powerful magic items, that or there was already strong magical weapons in the rubble of the city. I would like to ask if, per say, a mid to high fey ancestry sorcerer became a revanent, would they keep their levels, the campeign of question was scrapped but I'm inquisitive.
@@faceless6709 I wouldn't say the fire would allow them all to become revenants; remember, they are souls that were killed so wrongfully and cruely that they were enraged and determined enough to *claw their way* back to the material plane to seek vengeance. Most souls would accept the afterlife. This would only be for the most wronged, the most determined. As far as levels and such, there is a variant in the MM for spellcasters and equipment: in short, if the dm wants it, they can have any skills they had in life
They autokilled my Barbarian one time. He was revived later on but he never trusted lamps or any kind of similar light again. It became a character flaw and he'd go into a rage anytime a light like that appeared. Which sucks because the party bard loved Dancing lights
This happened to us last week. Our party is 9th level. The first room of a dungeon had one of those freaks inside, and she nabbed our totem warrior Barbarian on the first turn. A few (un)lucky rolls and my ranger was down from 76 to 5 hp, and couldn't hit anything unless he wanted to hit the barbarian. Somehow, we managed to survive. By the end of it, we all agreed to seal the door and retreat outside for a long rest.
Succubi and incubi could be dangerous. A succubus can disguise herself as a bar maid and lure the flirty guy of the party into willingly kissing her and then charm him and toy with him and have him sabotage the players. An incubus of high standing could charm a maiden and weasel his way into power. Yet it would be terrible if a group of these fiends decided to wreck havoc in the Spine of the World region and Neverwinter. Imagine them seducing the dwarves and using them to attack humans and the orcs from many arrows. Not only would it cause the Dwarves to violate their end of their agreement by leaving Lorgru and his subjects alone as long as they live in the mountains, but the humans would demand financial compensation. Add an ancient white dragon to the mix who is freed from a petrification spell and you got an interesting campaign and a story.
Had one hide in a crowd, and sneakily charm one of the PC's. Appearing only as a soothing voice for 18 hours, before popping out at the start of the boss fight and saying "kiss me" to the PC. He died instantly. (Level 4)
I laughed at number one, the Doppelganger... I totally threw a wrench in my game by introducing them into my game without considering the ramifications. That my coven of doppelgangers were just the front for an aboleth worshiping cult is even funnier.
Goblins, when run well, can be absolutely deadly. We were a party of 8 1st level adventurers, and my Sorcerer got pelted with a half dozen arrows. Instant death.
A Nothic that was openly trying to make a deal with a 2nd lvl party killed 2 pc’s when during said deal i heard one of my players yell “i throw my javelin at it” ofcourse its the barbarian
The catoblepus (see Volo's Guide) can be absolutely devastating. It has an aura that can poison melee PCs, a basic attack that can stun EVERY ROUND, and its Death Gaze deals a formidable 8d8 damage, or max damage if they fail a DC 16 Con by 5 or more. If that possible 64 damage didn't scare you enough, the fact that the target automatically dies if reduced to 0 HP should. All of this on a CR 5 monster. To put that into perspective, our level 7 barbarian, with Tough, has ~82 HP, meaning Death Gaze can shave 75% of his HP IN ONE ROUND. Every other character in the party would be killed outright by that attack. Catoblepus can straight up end characters WELL above their CR
The toughest monster I put my players against was literally a huge mountain on the back of a giant lizard. My own creation, which I called Metzian. Three of the five players died in the encounter but they eventually killed it and the mountain slid off, burying a small town
I was in a game, and our group of 4 was at around 5th or 6th level. The DM sent a Remorhaz at us, the sorcerer identified it, and we immediately ran as fast as possible.
The scariest secondary thing about Shadows & Intellect is that _low-level PCs have no way to regenerate Strength or Intelligence damage that they take in that fight._ They're essentially statistically crippled even if they survive until they find a high level Cleric.
That might make for an intense campaign if the players are made aware of it so instead they are forced to minimise the amount o encounters they partake in and not murderhobo-their way trough for XP
@@viorp5267 With shadows, it makes for a really awesome way to set up a maze-like dungeon where they have to move through, and uses a lot of light-based puzzles, and rumors of many groups of strong adventurers going in and never making it out alive. It's also good to have an NPC to tag along with them who can serve as a first target for the shadows to give the PCs an idea of what they're in for. Also from a gameplay design standpoint, it feels like it's one of those things that was initially created earlier on and not really re-considered when 5e changed a lot about how severe status effects were. There are barely any creatures that do ability drain in 5e compared to the previous editions where it was a very common debilitation to hit parties of any level, these few seem like they just never had their abilities reworked, and stat regeneration is almost forgotten for everything aside from them.
Page 131 of "Xanathar's Guide to Everything" Relaxation downtime activity can restore attributes. Not in the core books though which is a bit of an issue as that is when those monsters were introduced. And probably not available to new players which is when these monsters are probably going to be the most unintentionally dangerous. Plus this is not that much good in a dungeon or between encounters. So all in all it's not the best option and it kinda depends on the DM giving the player a week of downtime to relax. But it is available.
The shadows' ability says Strength recovers after a short rest. Intellect devourers don't have that stipulation in their stat block (possibly because the author didn't think it would matter since they're supposed to ambush solitary targets), but in the interest of fairness and keeping the party going I'd allow some recovery after either a short or long rest.
Had a party fight some goblins riding on Worgs and my god it nearly killed all my party members. Had the final guy, who was late to the session and was the party monk, not arrived it would have been a tpk.
One thing is for sure is that your haircut is very unique! The second fact is that I think you have even coloured that hair with highlights. It’s weird but cool at the same time. On to the topic at hand! Ok the Doppelgänger definitely has earned a place on this list. Banshee? Never fought one but sounds terrifying! I am only on the first three monsters on the list being at the Ramoraz, but I am counting on the Terrorask or whatever it’s called being on the list. The Terask is the size of a football field, multiple sizes larger than most dragons, and practically immortal. They heal fast and can quite literally destroy just about any dragon they encounter regardless of species and colour. Interesting list! I only agree with about half of the monsters on your list though. I mean your list should have instead been called The Most Annoying Monsters to Wipe Your Party. Like the rust monster?! I do agree with half of them like your lich, but your liar should hav3 been called: THE MOST ANNOYING MONSTERS TO WIPE YOUR PARTY.
It’s not really a creature but pack tactics in general. I remember setting a few blood hawks on a 5 pc level 1 party and a few bad rolls later, it was a massacre.
Similarly, we had a hallway fight against 4 rogues. My Bladesinger took a hot Nat 20 sneak attack with a poison knife for like 39 damage, just gently underneath an instant kill with my damaged self.
Appreciate the doppelganger being here, we encountered one at level 2, though it didn't attack us, and now we're constantly running investigation checks on our party to be sure none of them are a fake lol
I’d like to mention a creature I used lately on my campaign: the Helmed Horror. Even if it has a relatively low HP for a CR 4 monster, its solid 20 AC, summed with its resistances to non magical attacks and immunities to poison, force and necrotic damage (besides of three spells of your choice), makes it an almost unkillable enemy for low level parties. Even if it lacks of damage, combined with a hazardous environment, the Helmed Horror is a great choice if you want to see the despair in the faces of your 2-4 level party as they fight this living suit of armor.
@@tikifreak19 Ah the triumph for arguing on RUclips. Someone chooses the wrong wording and now it is time to show how superior I am. Aren't you funny? Wow, I hope your life has gotten more meaningful now that you got that little triumph.
@@johntuck77 ...wait ... what? I literally agree with your original post ... Rakasha are game breaking because of their resistances and ability to teleport single PCs into alternate dimensions before vanishing ... sorry if that's not what you needed to hear today I guess
Danilo Soares Couto the spawn of kyuss is one of my favorite monsters. I just wish I still had the monster statblocks/magazines for the age of worms/savage tide adventure paths
I joked that our DM must be feeling bad about something. When asked why, I said, "Well, he's showing remorhaz..." I got pelted with snacks and small minis.
Had a DM running doppelganger assassination attempt on 2 of us (me included) - bard fights back, guards investigate commotion, doppelgangers try to save themselves by rallying the crowd (racial tensions in the city), half of the city ends up in chaotic racial melee (humans and dwarves vs elfs and gnomes, basically a war of ears) while it went quite anticlimatically - knowing my DM as a cruel ambush fan I expected more assailants so I stunned the doppelganger, shapeshifted into an eagle (fighter/druid) and booked it into the sky.
Hate when that happens, it's ruined about a dozen campaigns of my own and a few I've played in. Sucks that one player death can equal the death of a whole campaign
I homebrewed a monster that essentially has 4 different versions of wildmagic for every action it takes. If it takes damage, I roll a table I made. If it takes an action, I roll the table. If a PC takes damage from one of its attacks, I roll the table. If something dies within range, I roll the table three times. The table has fun items on it such as "double size of one random creature within range," "heal 3d6 damage," "teleport all nearby creatures to a random point in the world" and "cast fireball at 5th level on a random creature." This creature was an incredibly chaotic feature and serves as one of my favorite memories. Ever since my players had to struggle to find each other, as they had been teleported hundreds of miles away from each other, they get very nervous when I roll a table. It's very entertaining. If they stop paying attention or get too rowdy, I pretend to roll a table and put a large, evil smile on my face that send shivers down their spines. I then look at them all and say "You don't *notice* anything strange." I only do this if they are being incredibly unruly.
GM, im playing with for 3 years, really likes to put some Banshees and Ghosts. Multiples in the same encounter. We are starting new games time to time guess why.
5 is excessive for level 3. I mean, that's 5-20 STR damage and 10-60 points of necrotic damage if they all go for the same target and unless someone is really paying attention, the shadows get a surprise round so most likely someone's immediately getting not KO'd but killed outright. That's not dnd, that's Dark Souls.
@@bitingapotato3277 It wasn't the fault of the DM. An idiot player touched a glowing orb which auto spawns I think 1d6 shadows. DM rolled a 5. Short of fudging the roll there was no save. (Idiot player literally said "I was calling his bluff")
I hate any creature that swallows, except in real life. There’s a creature in kobald press that when the swallow you, the true polymorphs you. My party cut out a water buffalo
It was amazing when my DM threw a Banshee at us and nearly killed all 6 of us. The thing was he threw it at us because we were not fearing death at all. Previously we were cruising through all our fights without getting close to death so we were getting cocky. It was amazing even with the risk of destroying the campaign
Glad RUclips recommended this channel. I've just gotten back into dming after a long hiatus. First session having 5 people with a full on belly laugh and cheering when an enemy was taken down reminded of what i was missing.
I know the comment is a couple weeks out of date, but the freaking star spawn mangler is ridiculous. Six attacks? Advantage?! Sends shivers down my spine.
Recently started Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and I'm very happy to see that in the very beginning you already interact with disguised dopplegangers and a brain devoured hero, when my players _inevitably_ antagonize them it's gonna be fun.
Wights can be pretty gnarly against a low level party. The life drain ability, reducing max hit points and allowing the wight to have 12 zombie thralls under its command, can absolutely shred a party. No longer a shambling horde of CR 1/4 monsters. The zombies can now have tactics thanks to the Wight’s average intelligence of 10. A truly underrated monster.
Adding minions is always a good way to make a star monster a whole lot worse. An Evil Wizard flavored as a necromancer with a wight lieutenant and a bunch of zombies can be a dungeon ending boss fight.
Checkmate Chess Channel I know thats commonly claimed. If you want confirmation just google “grâce” and look at the wiktionary article (I would link it but the comment would most likely be taken down as spam)
Started running waterdeep and the Kenku in the first lair killed a party member, turns out you shouldn't just go up and knock on the door to a bad guys lair.
@@Tank1711 2/4 of the party members were rolling death saves. The last guy only survived because the Kenku are supposed to run away when there's one or two left. Edit: 2/4 not 3/4. One died and dead people dont get death saves obvs
In a game I ran many years ago (3.5, I believe) I wrote a doppelganger-heavy story, with a demonic portal that transformed anything that passed through it and survived into a fiendish-templated version. The big bad was a massive orc warlord with bat wings and both wizard and cleric levels, and who had absorbed some doppelganger essence that allowed him to shapechange at will. I loved running him - he was terrifying, and the players felt a genuine sense of elation when they finally beat him (he was trying to open the portal up to enormous proportions to transform every living thing with a hundred miles into fiendish creatures, and they managed to sabotage it so it sucked him in and chopped him up like a blender). Anyway, there were three "doppelganger generals" who had been through the portal and gained the fiendish template, plus maybe a dozen mundane doppels. They were really OP, plus I wanted to add a bit of a detective drama to the mix, so I decided that in my campaign world doppels are gastropods, and they react violently to salt. It's a big silver bullet, but I also had the doppel-replaced butler sabotage the castle's salt supply so they only ended up with enough salt to test half a dozen people, and he also ripped out the page of the sailor's journal in the castle library that described how they react to salt, so they also had to track down the missing page to learn about the silver bullet in the first place. That was a FUUUNNNNN game...
This was the same game where I had private one-on-ones with each of the players to tell them about a possibly prophetic dream they were having, except for one player who I explained had been kidnapped and locked in a secret dungeon under the castle, and from that point on they would be playing a doppelganger duplicate of themselves. That was a fantastic reveal - the player LOVED it.
I think problems come from playing most of these intelligently (in character of course). The intellect devourer being a good example of how this can go awry. Of course the little bugger doesn't have to sneak around and pick an opportunity most advantageous to it, but thats kinda how you image this little stalking predator acting. Had a party with high stealth that would constantly sneak around, being very careful and choosing battles. One night the watcher fails his perception and they are ambushed very throughly by highwaymen... They didn't like this as I didn't "give them a chance" to react before they were set upon by these guys (says the party that gets miffed if a guard has the audacity to actually make a perception check).
I was running a lvl 12 oneshot for a 5e. The objective was to take out a mindflayer colony, after a slog through sewers, as well as plenty of traps, puzzles and combat encounters, they fought the elder brain, several mind flayers, and one intellect devourer I threw in just for fun. I ended up having to break narrator character and flat out tell them they should focus on the harmless seeming brain with legs before it killed them all.
Rust monsters are a personal favorite. A Horror story retold over and over by folks that were part of one of my earlier games was a group that entered a set of caves and tunnels occupied by orcs. Given that they were a higher-level group (lvl 9) they didn't consider them a challenge. Party was a Paladin, a Fighter, A cleric, a rogue and a Sorcerer. The first three all wearing plate mail. As they approached a tunnel deep in the cave system there was a sign in orcish above it. None of them could read it and the sorcerer didn't have comprehend languages so they traveled on. As they went deeper I started asking for strength checks from those in metal Armor. The deeper they got the higher the DC became until all three failed and were suddenly pulled against the floor and walls.. the Tunnel was lined with thick deposits of Lodestone. As they struggled to move the Orc patrol arrived with a Shaman controlling a pair of rust monsters, the orcs all have stone weapons and leather armor. The sign basically said "No Metal Beyond this point." Wasn't a TPK, but the closest I've ever had to one. Of course the group lost about 75% of their gear in the process.
Well, Hell hounds can definitely destroy a 3 player party if they're unlucky. They got the paladin instantly downed with 54 damage breath weapon (two of them at once and the DM rolled really well) and the barbarian was only at a fourth of its hitpoints in the surprise round( after succeeding both Dexterity Saves). Not to say more than 50 HP is not easy to kill for a 4th level character.
Slight pet peeve: I am annoyed about the advice of "never the party". Fundamentally as long as the PC's can expect to have some table downtime and have the expectation that the encounter's aren't gonna change just because they spilt up, it's fine. Honestly, some of the best moments are when the PC's are spilt up and have to draw upon their less explored skills, often to some hilarious consequences. Of course I feel there are some situations where you shouldn't spilt the party, but that isn't the same as "never."
I agree I have recently prepared a campaign that is meant to split the party over and over. Just because things sometimes get to slow or blocked up when 5 people are on the same monster. Plus there are always skills never used by certain characters cause they are not as confident as their partners. Gotta let them explore that.
A bullette killed our party wizard outright because he was the only elf in the party and apparently they love the taste of elves more than anything else. Que an hour break so that player could roll another character.
Not even mentioning the lore. a beholder can not be surprised and will always have solutions to any trick the party may pull. from a lore perspective, beholders are almost impossible to beat
I was playing a warforged barbarian in a campaign where each and every one of us managed to build a character single handedly capable of destroying the DMs campaign. He threw a beholder at us at level 12, and that was nothing to us due to our insane characters. That was, until the beholder rolled petrify 4 times and got me and our fighter both petrified. Our lore Bard and thief rogue barely pulled a win through, but they had to spend a lot of money to find someone to cast greater restoration twice. Took a while as well because it was an invisible moon beholder, but still.
@@empoleonmaster6709 I can't really explain (without many many paragraphs) why we were on the moon, wierd call on the DMs part, but as for the invisibility part that was just the wizard we were trying to fight who booped it invisible and ran. It was, *terrifying*
@@kaseybennett7415 Holy shit that's what I can throw at my high level players (they'll be level 17 by the time they face this) if I run out of ideas, a beholder with a Cloak of invisibility that was expecting the players. Unless they have detect magic or blind sight, it gets a surprise round! *laughs in evil DM*
@@empoleonmaster6709 one logic inconsistency (that our DM refused to acknowledge) is that the beholder's eye is visible unless it closes it's eye because of the antimagic cone. Could make for an interesting dynamic though, they get mere glimpses of the beholder when it goes to disable some magic.
I put a third level party in a trial by combat against a basilisk in 3.5e. The gnome was turned to stone second round. On a funny note, the party gave the gnome statue to the evil lord as a gift to win his favor. The gnome was later turned normal by the lord and set loose upon the disloyal party for months of fun.
We had to deal with rust monsters quite early on in our campaign, around levels 3-5. Our DM had us go through some abandoned mines, which in addition to having some basilisks deep inside, were inhabited by rust monsters. A few sessions later and we were begging the DM to please never have us encounter another rust monster. We had no armor left on any frontliner. We had no weapons left other than the druid's magic stick. Low on spell slots with very few places to safely rest... We beat a basilisk by mass punching it to death at the end.
I've used almost half of them. But the intellect devourer were used basically as doppelgagner, since they were replacing NPC. And the remorarz was defeated with the "banishment & run" they even used polymorph and druid transformation to transform half the party in mounts.
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Taking20
Heya! I wanted to ask if there would be a cool way of making a Magical Beast type Ranger, and limiting the creatures to a CR2 or lower when it came to that, because there’s a lot of REALLY COOL creatures, but there’s obviously the ones that can break a campaign, and there’s a lot of material possible for that also. What do you think should be done to stat/flesh that out in the long run? Hope you’re staying dry, lol.
Sincerely,
from Ohio!
All right all right these are game-breaking monsters... But what if I gave the players a, wait for it...
A Flumph! JK that would never work. Better just to make a mindflayer campaign.
What about a terrasque?
How is the Shadow immune to stunning fist? The stat block neither mentions immunity to the stunned condition or the incapacitated condition.
The succubus/inccubus is an extremely deceptively high kill potential for its CR
Number 6:EVIL EYEBALL CREATURE CAPABLE OF KILLING SOMEONE IN A SECOND
Number 7:Frog
Number 8:TENTACLED BEAST THAT RULED THE MATERIAL PLANE FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS
And that's how you knownits a good list ;-)
Taking20 Thanks for the ❤️ dude! Keep up the the good work!
As the people say... Get Nae naed
Araki approves!
And they made fun of kazuma and crew for struggling against toads.
I can't handle your hair. I'm building an encounter around it.
Definitely the guy fieri of dnd
I actually love the new hair!
Would that make him Game Fieri?
Thats not hair, its an intellect devourer.
I mean, I see the guy fieri resemblance, but the first thing I thought was dorito
Once a beholder attacked my party that included a human paladin, a human barbarian, a human cleric, a dwarf fighter and my charachter, an elf wizard. I just stood behind a stone column and while the rest of the team were struggling for their life, cast an invisibility spell. Then i got behind the beholder and cast a flesh to stone spell. As a result of this the beholder became a nice beholder statue. This was my proudest D&D game victory of all. :)
Nicely done. ^_^
You must have had a pretty good stealth to sneak up on a creature with eyes facing every direction, even with Invisibility.
@building boy They don't. However, they have ten eyestalks arranged around the crown of their body, so unless you take some of them out, sneaking up on one requires some major talent (or magic).
Typical elvish strategy... But good job mate, saving your party's lives all by yourself is always an epic moment 👍
@Building Boy you are wrong
I unexpectedly killed my party's sorcerer with a will-o'wisp. He was at 2/23 hit points, the wisp's shock does an average of 9 (2d8).
Nat 20. Ok, now time for the consume life save. Roll damage. 6 and a 7. Oh. Sorcerer takes 26 points of damage, dying instantly. A couple minutes of shocked silence later he remembers his strength of the grave feature. Rolls a 1. Rest in peace Imhotep the Unlucky.
f
F
F
F
Emile David de Kadt or
My vote is... Water! I've had multiple players dive deep for treasure or exploration only to underestimate the danger of drowning. The other monsters listed here can't be defeated by an air-filled waterskin but for some reason not many players give water the respect it deserves.
"I'll hold onto this rock so I can submerge faster!" - Last words of a waterlogged corpse.
My players fear the prospect of flooded tunnel sections, and rightly so.
On a related note, I put a Water Weird in a small pond once. The fighter very nearly drowned and he is now terrified of water.
This post was made by the Sea Elf, Merfolk, and Triton gang.
@@keijy6524To put it another way, the fighter now approaches dangerous obstacles more tactically. That's more valuable than any enchantment!
Half my party nearly drowned in a river once cause on of them slipped off the bridge
Can you imagine how paranoid you would be if you were an educated, high-end bodyguard in a DND setting, and you knew of things like Doppelgangers, druids, high-level spellcasters etc and what they were capable of?
You would trust nothing. Absolutely NOTHING. Given the mind boggling multitude of unique, exotic and werid ways to die, it'd be the most stressful job ever.
I can just imagine going over a MASSIVE parchment of security protocols, covering scrying, wards, invisibility, shapeshifting, enchantment, runes, curses, doppelgangers, mind control etc.
SinerAthin and then the one body guard that has some sort of anti magic field, and is a pro at all of it must be one of the richest people out there. For a bad body guard is a dead one
That actually sounds like a really neat NPC - or even the background for a PC, though I don't know how you'd build it
this is how im making my Vedalken Order of Scribes Wizard, his highest stats are all mental scores and he trusts nothing and no one because he knows so many terrifying things from working as a scribe.
If you were a bodyguard in the world of d&d you world have some serious skills too. I also played shadowrun, a cyberpunk-fantasy tabletop rpg where my charachter was given a task to protect some VIP on a lots of occasions. And yes, i did not trust anyone. 🙂
Today I saw a post on reddit about how creatures have spikes on their back to ward off larger predators.
The terrasque has spikes on it's back
There is something worse than the terrasque out there
A 2e terrasque
Well, I mean...Cthulu is a thing that can exist in 5e and could easily beat the poor terrasque like a rented mule.
A tarrasque from any other edition. 5e tarrasques are weak.
A bloodthirster
@@bitingapotato3277 oi cthulu was beaten by a ship, terrasque wins
Shadow: "do not make any death saves."
*Tarrasque screaming noises*
After an average of 12 hits the tarrasque dies. And he only gets hit by a nat 20. Those 12 crits deal an average of 192 damage.
@Jordan Newsham That sounds like a good idea for the bbeg, a giant intellect devourer that was specially made for that purpose...
Back in 3.5 the Tarrasque has a Wisdom of 10 and an ac vs touch attacks of 2 or 3 so the idea was to acquire an Alip via rebuking, control undead, or a summon undead spell from a splat book.
My warforged fighter with 20 AC:
Rust Monster: I'm about to end this man's whole career.
Run!!!!! You metal Man
Yeah that’s how you just die
Edit:spelling
Truly evil. . .
That's why you always bring a longbow with you. Run and shoot!!!
Uh, warforged usually have dark wood cores anyway.
Shadows are so dangerous! Your campaign world is one shadow in a village away from a shadowpocalypse.
My immediate thought when someone mentions OP monsters is the shadow.
They are beyond brutal.
@@stockvillain 3.5 Allip
@@stockvillain my first thought was the intellect devourer
Made me think of the D&D5e game I watched on a well known RP channel. The 3 or 4 players had ballsed up a few attempts to stop the shadows and ended up losing the town. It was hard to watch D:
Ghosts are just as bad attack damage 1d6 ×10 aging? Bye humans
I tuned out for a minute to tell my friend about how putting a Banshee in their Halloween one-shot is a bad idea and I came back to random toad facts...
XD
Is it a bad idea? I guess it might depend on their players and the kind of fun they like to have. Overall though, i dunno--the banshee seems to me like it was made for halloween-themed one-shots. The players won't be highly invested in their characters, so dying won't be a big deal, and banshees are spooky, spooky ghosts.
As a GM I just love how the rust monster changes the combat setup
All of a sudden the wizards and rangers are on the frontline, the figters, clerics and paladins are now in the backline throwing rocks or using their backup ranged weapons and that one guy who you all laughed at for buing a wooden club has the last laugh
As a player who loves playing fighters
I hate them...
A lot
My DM threw 3 Rust Monsters at the party as the Paladin/Warlock I was 120ft away throwing Eldritch Blast while the rest of the party was in the middle of them. Those levels in Warlock earned their keep from that fight alone.
@@aliasunknown4879 Lol nice
That's a dam good cantrip
Monks have an easy time too.
This guy is kinda cool, but...
...isn't he the adoring fan from Oblivion?
Oh that annoying s**t
By Azura by Azura by Azura! You're the grand champion!!
Throw him off a cliff to see if he comes back
BY AZURA BY AZURA BY AZURA
You mean that guy who makes even the most honorable and heroic champions become murder hobos for a day?
I run a homebrew monster called HatRats. They come in packs of ten, and can cast a random cantrip as an action. Doesn't sound too bad... unless you kill one. Because, each time you kill a HatRat, the level of spell they can cast increases by one, until eventually you just have a single HatRat casting random ninth level spells every round.
I ran this monster for a long time, giving them a single hitpoint each, and watching the players never discover their secrets, as they would see a random handful of cantrips popping off, and then AoE them all in one round... Until this one time, when they came across a pack of HatRats that were quite spread out. In their haste, they settled for killing all but one in the first round. After all, all they do is cast cantrips, as far as the PC's know, how bad could it be? And that is how the party's fifth level Paladin died to a Power Word Kill from an unassuming rat, wearing a tophat and a monocle.
It turns out, on average, HatRats aren't very effective. The average random spell of most levels don't deal any damage, and once you know their core mechanic they're pretty easy to play around. But... That was how my players learned that the cute little magic rats they'd been encountering for weeks were actually terrifying monsters.
Holy shit this is going in my high level campaign right now, thank you, Satan.
@@empoleonmaster6709 Glad you liked it! Let me know how it goes!
Definitely stealing this, thank you.
@@rovertkralc1 Glad to hear it! Can't wait to hear stories about how that goes!
Awesome idea! I'm gonna have some fun with this while smiling behind the dm screen
I can’t believe you left off the most dangerous party killing monstrosity in all existence: Player Characters
A party of druids wearing leather and using wooden weapons would do great with some trained pet rust monsters. xD
You just(kinda) gave out the most diabolical idea in the history of diabolical ideas
Order of the Rust
Also there is iron wood. Basically wood as hard as iron. You could have a dex palidin of the ancients (for flavor) with a good sword, a monk and a wizard and make it work really well. The palidin could could also use shillegha with a feat instead.
Bring on the memes, for here comes the creature that broke my campaign:
the MIMIC.
Forget about not trusting NPC's, my players don't even trust random leaves on the ground.
Gindranis I had a dungeon with mimics, animated armor, flying swords and rugs of smothering. Add in a stone Gollum flavored as a living statue and a few mirrors that cast viscous mockery when you look into them my PC were paranoid for several weeks.
@@deanjohnson7809 Oh that mirror bit is gold. Mind if I steal it?
@@deanjohnson7809 this is perfection!!!
@@deanjohnson7809 I'm sorry, but you've been robbed of good material. I thank you for your donation.
@@deanjohnson7809 The last kick in the balls would have been to lead them into a wandering tower after all that ordeal.
www.wizards.com/dnd/files/excerpts/intheworks_20110404_3.pdf
Aaahhh Intellect Devourer .... poor Grog.
Big mood.
6 intelegence ftw
NightwinSeraph He got better though. #SaveGrog!
@@diegogelinck8665 #SaveGrog!
DM: *throws rust monsters at the party*
Druids: *laughs in druidic*
Laughs in Monk
Screams in cleric
Rages in Barbarian
Ran in to a couple of rust monster in lower level campaign: fighter and paladin went this is going to rough.
Myself (a monk) and the bow using rogue in the bow group looked at the two of them and told them to get back and we would protect them. It was hilarious watching the run around the chamber trying to avoid the critters. Me and the rogue eventually took the critters out, maybe a bit slowly because it was just too funny watching the tanks squealing kill it! Kill it!.
They decided it would be wise to carry a back up missile weapon and if I remember correctly they both took slings...
@@theolddm696 - Hilarious. :) You needed a big glass and a giant sheet of paper so you could safely pick it up and put it outside. "Ew ew ew! Kill it!" "Oh stop being a baby, it's more scared of us than we are of it."
I think you passed the lowest CR, player killer. The Rot Grub! And the Swarm of Rot Grubs
I think you should have mentioned Bone Naga and the ever popular Succubus. The Bone Naga can just shut down 2 party members and can start the encounter with an AC: 17 with Shield of Faith.
+1 for Bone Naga
Omg in my one campaign we fought a bone naga and our solution was to somehow trap it in a bag of holding. Next time that dm ran a game we immediatly asked if the bone naga bag was still floating around 200 years later. It is and we are terrified
See the mimic didn't break my campaign but my players dont trust beds now.
I threw an incubus at my party and unintentionally killed them all. The incubus itself was pretty weak, but the barbarian PC it took control of was more than a match for the other players.
Why is the bone Naga op? I remember fighting two of them on a campaign and they were pretty easy
Crocodiles hit with a 1d10+2 and auto grapple, which is brutal for a cr 1/2 monster. A pair of these happily devoured my lvl 2 warlock, grappling him and dragging him beneath the water to never be seen again.
The bayou takes another victim
get fucked on
If the rules haven't changed, and I don't remember them incorrectly, those crocodiles would be a balanced encounter for a party of level 2 characters.
So a squishy PC like your warlock should be dominated by them pretty quickly.
MrSlothJunior a perfectly balanced encounter if it’s a ‘full’ party (3-5 players depending on how tryhard their builds are) would be 3 or 4 crocs for a normal battle, 5 if it’s meant to be pretty dangerous, 7 if this is the day’s only fight but you still want the risk of them dying and force them to go all out
@@phoenixjones2569 That sounded outrageous to me, so I checked my book. I game mastered a bit in Pathfinder, which I without having checked believe has the same CR system as D&D 3.5 had.
In this system 2 CR ½ creatures would be a CR 1 -> Easy encounter for a party of 4-5 level 2 players.
3 crocs would be CR 2 -> Average encounter.
4 crocs would be CR 3 -> Challenging encounter.
6 crocs would be CR 4 -> Hard encounter.
8 crocs would be CR 5 -> Epic encounter.
So I guess you're not too far off from the game system I knew. I'm not sure though that it takes into account that having multiple creatures upsets the balance. Being outnumbered is devastating.
Fun fact, rust monsters are the exact reason that my barbarians never use metal weapons. They will have great axes that are made of chunks of wood and obsidian or greatswords that are constructed from bone or Stillwood which is a type of wood that can only really be cut with an angle grinder.
"The minute you introduce this monster to the players, the campaign might already be over, and that is-"
"The succubus?"
"-the doppelganger!"
"Oh..."
Kudos for pronouncing Coup de Grâce properly. I found that a lot of people pronounce it "Coup de Gras" which would be the French equivalent of saying "strike of fat" instead of "strike of fate"
"Strike of fat"
You people are why I love the internet so much.. XD
I'm just thankful he didn't "Daffy Duck it"... with a "Coop de Gracie" ;o)
I thought the S was silent. Like
"Coo day gra" phonetically
@@paulrudd1483 in French, when a word ends in a "soft c", it's signified by the "e" at the end, as in "Grace" giving the same enunciation as a "short s"
{a hard c is the equivalent of a "k"}
The other way to soften "c" is with that dangly tail accent, the "sediya" [phonetic spelling]
Worth pointing out that "gras" really is "fat" as in "Mardi Gras" or "Fat Tuesday".
{cheap ways to help keep it straight} ;o)
@@paulrudd1483 As I understand it, if it was the letter S, it would be - as shown above, that would be the word "gras", or fat. Since in the phrase it is spelled "grâce", it is not silent, even though it makes an S sound.
I've had to officially promise my players never, ever to use the banshee / Will-o-Wisp combo. The Banshee's wail gets a save or drop to 0 HP, or lots of psychic damage on a save. The WoW Consume Life can target a character at 0 HP and then it's save-or-die. Two failed saves takes a character from alive to stone dead, just like that. Ouch ! Any DM who does that is sending a message saying "I want to play a character next week" ;)
Adding a shambling mound makes that worse as the wisp can heal it.
@@clockworkpanda8 Jesus christ its like golem in the cube
I did a 1 shot campaign with a couple of my buddies a while ago and I had recently purchased a special edition original monster guide for original DnD and just had to use the Lurker. They sprung the empty room trap pretty easily and had to deal with trying to save their ally from suffocating, but with a series of bad rolls they just managed to stab through the monster into their ally. In the end our classic hot headed Dragonborn lit the room on fire, which prompted me to have to read how the monster floats, and sure enough it was gas. The house they were exploring exploded and that 1 shot ended pretty darn quickly. It was really fun to watch that happen though.
Abeloth: *takes control of a wizard*
Me: "I guess if you want wizards impaled by daggers, you have to do it yourself."
DM: "As you enter the large antechamber the shadows seem to dance in the tor..."
Entire party: "Nope we're out!"
My party never expected a shape changing shadow dragon with a "army" of shadows
@@TheCinderfang Oh sh*t.
Me: I dance with the shadows and accidentally entrance my party members with my hip swings.
List explained poorly:
1. Trust no one
2. Death singer of D&D
3. NOPE!
4. Toast to Grog Strongjaw
5. Armor Break
6. Lovecraft
7. Devil May Cry 4...?
8. More Lovecraft
9. Kingdom Hearts...?
10. This bonehead?
More like the list out of context. It's actually very accurate.
Remorhaz in the hands of one of my DMs has made me call them ‘Mage Killers’... That burrowing combined with the swallowing aspect makes it evil. I have lost a wizard in two rounds of combat to one of these things...
My party fled from a losing battle against shadows, right through a goblin village. Seemed to work out just fine until several months later people in the area start disappearing at night...
We found out the shadows had eventually turned the whole village (over 100 goblins) into shadows then the horde started roaming further afield for victims/food. We ended up having to recruit every priest in the valley to help us clear that village out
My god, they exist: DMs who know how to pronounce Coup de Grace!
@@Zillzbillz Not what my French teacher told me.
@@Zillzbillz can confirm. Its true. Trust me.
Wait it's not Coo-Dee-Grah? I mean yeah I dont see an H in the word... 4:03
Cup de Grass
I always said "Cou day gra" phonetically lol
Grats on your sponsorship! I see the number 8 everywhere so that's a pretty big deal. You know you've made it now Cody!
Swarm of rot grubs. Terrifying little monster with a low CR. Infests pcs fast and without fast acting, they're dead.
And if they don't have the correct spells it's game over for them 😅
We just had a Lvl 7 Eldritch knight dead cause of those little bugers!
Rot grubs are awesome!
Our warlock and paladin were both killed from those last session. None of us knew what they were and both of them went down in the same round with no way of us figuring out a weakness in time to save either of them.
This is what Burning Hands is for.
I gotta just say, I think the revenant needs more love. It's not a high CR, sure, at 5. 13 AC, 136 HP. Not super tough.
But the thing that makes them incredibly interesting is HOW they come about. Revenants exist for one purpose: to avenge their own wrongful death. "It claws its way back into the world to seek revenge against the one who wronged it." That's some truly incredible rage. They're immune to any effect that turns undead, and always knows where their target is. If your party is going full murder hobo, this is a perfect thing to throw against them. One of the NPCs who was just going about their day, in their death, becomes enraged and becomes a revenant to seek its revenge.
And low level PCs, which this would be most appropriate at, can't actually deal with the revenant once and for all. If its body is destroyed, (which is hard in the first place, since it regains 10hp every turn) it reforms and inhabits a new corpse in 24 hours. It gets one year to get its revenge. That means for 365 days, the players must deal with this undead threat that cannot be turned away, persuaded, or truly beaten (since it can only be truly stopped via a wish while the revenant is not in a body...or the death of its target). They're also intelligent, so if a full front assault fails, it can stalk and follow them, wait for them to finish fighting another foe that drains them a bit, THEN strike. And if that, in turn, fails, it also has an incredibly high charisma (18! My paladins wish it could start that high). It can convince other monsters and foes to join forces against the players, and strike with a full squad at their back.
For high level PCs, that can actually defeat the revenant with ease, that it cannot have any hope in defeating, it can employ the last tactic against them, but to a higher degree. It needs allies that are more powerful than itself. A dragon, perhaps, or a beholder. Maybe the players made an enemy of a king, and the revenant seeks out the king, and in return for his services for several months (they are incredible warriors, not going to lie), the king gives the revenant access to magic items and an army. A revenant is much harder to kill if it's donned platemail, a shield, and a vorpal sword. After all, the 13 AC is simply leather armor+dex. Who says a revenant that is forced to plan for months before striking can't get better gear?
Now, my favorite use of the revenant isn't against the PCs...but as a plot hook. They are intelligent creatures, and will seek allies to defeat their foe, if they cannot do it alone. A poor NPC who was framed and executed by a city leader, simply because he dared to court the leader's daughter? Now turned revenant, and knowing that he cannot take on an entire city guard to seek justice for himself, and now seeks the brave adventurer's assistance to clear his name, but more importantly kill the leader, likely freeing the city and his daughter from what is likely a cruel rule? Now THAT'S a hook, if you ask me.
But yeah. Played right, a revenant can destroy a low level group, and certainly a threat to a high level one, especially if given its own agency, and not treated as a mindless monster. I honestly think it's best to have as quest giver-style npc, but it's a terrifying enemy if you're it's target.
...I'm making note of this; hope you don't mind!
@@meganofsherwood3665 of course not! Revenants need to be used more.
Murderhobos should tremble in fear at the name. The good aligned party should weep for the poor soul and be motivated to help them. The good and wise party would help them after bartering and having a functionally immortal helper or scout for a few missions (You help us, we help you)
Now that's what I should've done, the guards of the city that my party burned down, or everyone who was killed by the flames, becomes an army of revanents, I do belive elven artificer would be extremely useful for creating new powerful magic items, that or there was already strong magical weapons in the rubble of the city. I would like to ask if, per say, a mid to high fey ancestry sorcerer became a revanent, would they keep their levels, the campeign of question was scrapped but I'm inquisitive.
@@faceless6709
I wouldn't say the fire would allow them all to become revenants; remember, they are souls that were killed so wrongfully and cruely that they were enraged and determined enough to *claw their way* back to the material plane to seek vengeance. Most souls would accept the afterlife. This would only be for the most wronged, the most determined.
As far as levels and such, there is a variant in the MM for spellcasters and equipment: in short, if the dm wants it, they can have any skills they had in life
13:47
The Shadow...
The Shadow.
The Shadow!
It sounded exactly as in the movie
Underrrated comment
My group refers to intellect devourers as "brain puppies".
That's basically what they are
As does mine.
Mine too! :D
Myself and everyone who has played Dragon Heist with me calls them "AAAAAAAHHHHHH! KILL IT! KILL IT!!"
Sair we refer to them lovingly as just Cats.
Will-O-Wisps. Feel insanely strong, but CR is still low. Terrifying.
They autokilled my Barbarian one time. He was revived later on but he never trusted lamps or any kind of similar light again. It became a character flaw and he'd go into a rage anytime a light like that appeared. Which sucks because the party bard loved Dancing lights
Survived the intellect devourer, got killed by hentai from a ilithid 👍
Rip
@@fawn4348 I'm sure he did...
I always thought it would be fun to introduce an archmage who's "staff of the arch mage" is actually a demi lich with a stick glued to it.
Man. I was so sure Succubus and Incubus would be on this list since you don't fight them...You fight your allies.
This happened to us last week. Our party is 9th level. The first room of a dungeon had one of those freaks inside, and she nabbed our totem warrior Barbarian on the first turn. A few (un)lucky rolls and my ranger was down from 76 to 5 hp, and couldn't hit anything unless he wanted to hit the barbarian. Somehow, we managed to survive. By the end of it, we all agreed to seal the door and retreat outside for a long rest.
@@crossguard263 Yep. That's what they do. It can easily turn the tide of battle VERY quickly and change the way your entire combat flows.
On the other hand. If your Pcs make their saves, they're immune for a while so that takes most of the challenge away....
Succubi and incubi could be dangerous. A succubus can disguise herself as a bar maid and lure the flirty guy of the party into willingly kissing her and then charm him and toy with him and have him sabotage the players.
An incubus of high standing could charm a maiden and weasel his way into power. Yet it would be terrible if a group of these fiends decided to wreck havoc in the Spine of the World region and Neverwinter.
Imagine them seducing the dwarves and using them to attack humans and the orcs from many arrows. Not only would it cause the Dwarves to violate their end of their agreement by leaving Lorgru and his subjects alone as long as they live in the mountains, but the humans would demand financial compensation. Add an ancient white dragon to the mix who is freed from a petrification spell and you got an interesting campaign and a story.
Had one hide in a crowd, and sneakily charm one of the PC's. Appearing only as a soothing voice for 18 hours, before popping out at the start of the boss fight and saying "kiss me" to the PC. He died instantly. (Level 4)
I laughed at number one, the Doppelganger... I totally threw a wrench in my game by introducing them into my game without considering the ramifications. That my coven of doppelgangers were just the front for an aboleth worshiping cult is even funnier.
Worked out worse for me. Who knew that a village made of Mimics populated by Doppelgängers would stop the players from coming to the next session
@@aliasunknown4879 you actually tried the mimic & doppel town thing?!
Itai Sprachman They were non-hostile at first, but 73 initiatives after the party attacked a table that was minding its business.
Goblins, when run well, can be absolutely deadly. We were a party of 8 1st level adventurers, and my Sorcerer got pelted with a half dozen arrows. Instant death.
When I was new I ran into a rust monster. But by utilizing lucky rolls and a big heart, I tamed it to be my companion. I love you Rusty
A Nothic that was openly trying to make a deal with a 2nd lvl party killed 2 pc’s when during said deal i heard one of my players yell “i throw my javelin at it” ofcourse its the barbarian
Did he learn his lesson, though? :^)
The catoblepus (see Volo's Guide) can be absolutely devastating. It has an aura that can poison melee PCs, a basic attack that can stun EVERY ROUND, and its Death Gaze deals a formidable 8d8 damage, or max damage if they fail a DC 16 Con by 5 or more. If that possible 64 damage didn't scare you enough, the fact that the target automatically dies if reduced to 0 HP should. All of this on a CR 5 monster.
To put that into perspective, our level 7 barbarian, with Tough, has ~82 HP, meaning Death Gaze can shave 75% of his HP IN ONE ROUND. Every other character in the party would be killed outright by that attack. Catoblepus can straight up end characters WELL above their CR
The toughest monster I put my players against was literally a huge mountain on the back of a giant lizard. My own creation, which I called Metzian. Three of the five players died in the encounter but they eventually killed it and the mountain slid off, burying a small town
I was in a game, and our group of 4 was at around 5th or 6th level. The DM sent a Remorhaz at us, the sorcerer identified it, and we immediately ran as fast as possible.
The scariest secondary thing about Shadows & Intellect is that _low-level PCs have no way to regenerate Strength or Intelligence damage that they take in that fight._ They're essentially statistically crippled even if they survive until they find a high level Cleric.
That might make for an intense campaign if the players are made aware of it so instead they are forced to minimise the amount o encounters they partake in and not murderhobo-their way trough for XP
@@viorp5267 With shadows, it makes for a really awesome way to set up a maze-like dungeon where they have to move through, and uses a lot of light-based puzzles, and rumors of many groups of strong adventurers going in and never making it out alive. It's also good to have an NPC to tag along with them who can serve as a first target for the shadows to give the PCs an idea of what they're in for.
Also from a gameplay design standpoint, it feels like it's one of those things that was initially created earlier on and not really re-considered when 5e changed a lot about how severe status effects were. There are barely any creatures that do ability drain in 5e compared to the previous editions where it was a very common debilitation to hit parties of any level, these few seem like they just never had their abilities reworked, and stat regeneration is almost forgotten for everything aside from them.
Page 131 of "Xanathar's Guide to Everything" Relaxation downtime activity can restore attributes.
Not in the core books though which is a bit of an issue as that is when those monsters were introduced. And probably not available to new players which is when these monsters are probably going to be the most unintentionally dangerous. Plus this is not that much good in a dungeon or between encounters.
So all in all it's not the best option and it kinda depends on the DM giving the player a week of downtime to relax. But it is available.
The shadows' ability says Strength recovers after a short rest. Intellect devourers don't have that stipulation in their stat block (possibly because the author didn't think it would matter since they're supposed to ambush solitary targets), but in the interest of fairness and keeping the party going I'd allow some recovery after either a short or long rest.
even at level 20, shadows attacking from surprise will drop caster or a rogue or anyone with weak strength. it just takes 1 or 2 bad rolls
Had a party fight some goblins riding on Worgs and my god it nearly killed all my party members. Had the final guy, who was late to the session and was the party monk, not arrived it would have been a tpk.
My players spotted me watching ths video.
I think they never ever will go into dungeon again))
One thing is for sure is that your haircut is very unique! The second fact is that I think you have even coloured that hair with highlights. It’s weird but cool at the same time. On to the topic at hand! Ok the Doppelgänger definitely has earned a place on this list. Banshee? Never fought one but sounds terrifying! I am only on the first three monsters on the list being at the Ramoraz, but I am counting on the Terrorask or whatever it’s called being on the list. The Terask is the size of a football field, multiple sizes larger than most dragons, and practically immortal. They heal fast and can quite literally destroy just about any dragon they encounter regardless of species and colour.
Interesting list! I only agree with about half of the monsters on your list though. I mean your list should have instead been called The Most Annoying Monsters to Wipe Your Party. Like the rust monster?! I do agree with half of them like your lich, but your liar should hav3 been called: THE MOST ANNOYING MONSTERS TO WIPE YOUR PARTY.
It’s not really a creature but pack tactics in general. I remember setting a few blood hawks on a 5 pc level 1 party and a few bad rolls later, it was a massacre.
blood hawks were even worse in a d&d , their damage was absurd
Similarly, we had a hallway fight against 4 rogues. My Bladesinger took a hot Nat 20 sneak attack with a poison knife for like 39 damage, just gently underneath an instant kill with my damaged self.
Appreciate the doppelganger being here, we encountered one at level 2, though it didn't attack us, and now we're constantly running investigation checks on our party to be sure none of them are a fake lol
I’d like to mention a creature I used lately on my campaign: the Helmed Horror. Even if it has a relatively low HP for a CR 4 monster, its solid 20 AC, summed with its resistances to non magical attacks and immunities to poison, force and necrotic damage (besides of three spells of your choice), makes it an almost unkillable enemy for low level parties. Even if it lacks of damage, combined with a hazardous environment, the Helmed Horror is a great choice if you want to see the despair in the faces of your 2-4 level party as they fight this living suit of armor.
Ah. Yes, this is an excellent list of the best races for PCs to play as. I think I shall play as a giant Ice toad warlock.
I would add the Rakasha to that list because it is completely immune to any kind of magic and its effects.
It immune to any spell of 6th level or lower if it wants to be
And they can teleport a PC into another dimension before vanishing themselves!
@@tikifreak19 Ah the triumph for arguing on RUclips. Someone chooses the wrong wording and now it is time to show how superior I am. Aren't you funny? Wow, I hope your life has gotten more meaningful now that you got that little triumph.
@@jhinpotion9230 Yes wrong wording my bad.
@@johntuck77 ...wait ... what? I literally agree with your original post ... Rakasha are game breaking because of their resistances and ability to teleport single PCs into alternate dimensions before vanishing ... sorry if that's not what you needed to hear today I guess
This is a Obscure one.
What about... Spawn of Kyuss?
It's like a troll with Rot Grubs!
I'm running Age of Worms, and just cackling internally at the thought of their first encounter with spawn of kyuss.
Danilo Soares Couto the spawn of kyuss is one of my favorite monsters. I just wish I still had the monster statblocks/magazines for the age of worms/savage tide adventure paths
I have almost killed 3 seperate parties with Spawn of Kyuss. They never realize how dangerous it is until its too late
I joked that our DM must be feeling bad about something. When asked why, I said, "Well, he's showing remorhaz..."
I got pelted with snacks and small minis.
My fighter decided to investigate an abandoned lab by herself and promptly got intellect devoured
Had a DM running doppelganger assassination attempt on 2 of us (me included) - bard fights back, guards investigate commotion, doppelgangers try to save themselves by rallying the crowd (racial tensions in the city), half of the city ends up in chaotic racial melee (humans and dwarves vs elfs and gnomes, basically a war of ears) while it went quite anticlimatically - knowing my DM as a cruel ambush fan I expected more assailants so I stunned the doppelganger, shapeshifted into an eagle (fighter/druid) and booked it into the sky.
I'm stealing the War of Ears name!
@@jgr7487 Nah, you're not stealing it, I share it myself ;)
The remorhaz in the storm kings thunder campaign ended up killing one of my player characters, the campaign eventually ended up dying along with him.
Hate when that happens, it's ruined about a dozen campaigns of my own and a few I've played in. Sucks that one player death can equal the death of a whole campaign
I think I made a mistake... My homebrew adventure has everything on this list except the rust monster..
So your saying you need to add a rust monster
I homebrewed a monster that essentially has 4 different versions of wildmagic for every action it takes. If it takes damage, I roll a table I made. If it takes an action, I roll the table. If a PC takes damage from one of its attacks, I roll the table. If something dies within range, I roll the table three times. The table has fun items on it such as "double size of one random creature within range," "heal 3d6 damage," "teleport all nearby creatures to a random point in the world" and "cast fireball at 5th level on a random creature." This creature was an incredibly chaotic feature and serves as one of my favorite memories. Ever since my players had to struggle to find each other, as they had been teleported hundreds of miles away from each other, they get very nervous when I roll a table. It's very entertaining. If they stop paying attention or get too rowdy, I pretend to roll a table and put a large, evil smile on my face that send shivers down their spines. I then look at them all and say "You don't *notice* anything strange." I only do this if they are being incredibly unruly.
Wow!
GM, im playing with for 3 years, really likes to put some Banshees and Ghosts. Multiples in the same encounter. We are starting new games time to time guess why.
Full party of light clerics nuking the underworld time?
John Vettori Call them the A-Men
a name has me ded 😂
My group and I were just tpkd a few weeks ago by 5 shadows. We were lvl 3.
F
5 is excessive for level 3. I mean, that's 5-20 STR damage and 10-60 points of necrotic damage if they all go for the same target and unless someone is really paying attention, the shadows get a surprise round so most likely someone's immediately getting not KO'd but killed outright.
That's not dnd, that's Dark Souls.
@@bitingapotato3277 It wasn't the fault of the DM. An idiot player touched a glowing orb which auto spawns I think 1d6 shadows. DM rolled a 5. Short of fudging the roll there was no save. (Idiot player literally said "I was calling his bluff")
Shadows: *creep up on a wizard*
Paladin: Allow me to introduce you to Divine Smite.
Paladin: where’s my sword
Rust monster: Gone, reduced to atoms
Gelatinous Cube, those things are savage. A weak character gets stuck in it, and it can be game over frighteningly easy.
Yeah, a party without a barbarian can be just destroyed by a Gelatinous Cube.
I hate any creature that swallows, except in real life. There’s a creature in kobald press that when the swallow you, the true polymorphs you. My party cut out a water buffalo
Oohh I need this for reasons. Do you have the creature info anywhere?
@@silversugar2140 They may be talking about this one? open5e.com/monsters/tome-of-beasts/a/andrenjinyi
I had a seizure whilst reading this :/
"Except in real life" ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
What?
It was amazing when my DM threw a Banshee at us and nearly killed all 6 of us. The thing was he threw it at us because we were not fearing death at all. Previously we were cruising through all our fights without getting close to death so we were getting cocky. It was amazing even with the risk of destroying the campaign
I think my DM saw this because we went against an intellect devourer AND doppelgänger last night, thanks for giving him the ideas 😂
Oh AND a Remorhaz/Behir last week
**Pronounces Acerak Asserik**
Me: **Confused screaming**
Glad RUclips recommended this channel. I've just gotten back into dming after a long hiatus. First session having 5 people with a full on belly laugh and cheering when an enemy was taken down reminded of what i was missing.
I know the comment is a couple weeks out of date, but the freaking star spawn mangler is ridiculous. Six attacks? Advantage?! Sends shivers down my spine.
Recently started Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and I'm very happy to see that in the very beginning you already interact with disguised dopplegangers and a brain devoured hero, when my players _inevitably_ antagonize them it's gonna be fun.
Wights can be pretty gnarly against a low level party. The life drain ability, reducing max hit points and allowing the wight to have 12 zombie thralls under its command, can absolutely shred a party.
No longer a shambling horde of CR 1/4 monsters. The zombies can now have tactics thanks to the Wight’s average intelligence of 10.
A truly underrated monster.
Adding minions is always a good way to make a star monster a whole lot worse. An Evil Wizard flavored as a necromancer with a wight lieutenant and a bunch of zombies can be a dungeon ending boss fight.
Wight's have an average intelligence of ten you say. That means that the citizens of Winterfell must have an average intelligence of, like, five
@@ParadoxNerdHLM Savage burn.
Ok. That "sponsorship" with the Count and #8 was more than enough for me to give the real sponsorship a chance. You've earned that much lol
A Revenant Elder Shadowstorm Titan: Because the 2 Empyreans weren't enough
Oh my god did soemone just correctly pronounce coup de grace? Incredible.
Checkmate Chess Channel I know thats commonly claimed. If you want confirmation just google “grâce” and look at the wiktionary article (I would link it but the comment would most likely be taken down as spam)
Started running waterdeep and the Kenku in the first lair killed a party member, turns out you shouldn't just go up and knock on the door to a bad guys lair.
We did this exact same thing.. almost ended in a TPK. 5 out of 6 party members having to roll death throws was hilarious
@@Tank1711 2/4 of the party members were rolling death saves. The last guy only survived because the Kenku are supposed to run away when there's one or two left.
Edit: 2/4 not 3/4. One died and dead people dont get death saves obvs
My rogue did that when I played that mod. Thought the other players were going to kill her for that.
@@angiemartin197 wouldnt blame them 🤷♂️
In a game I ran many years ago (3.5, I believe) I wrote a doppelganger-heavy story, with a demonic portal that transformed anything that passed through it and survived into a fiendish-templated version. The big bad was a massive orc warlord with bat wings and both wizard and cleric levels, and who had absorbed some doppelganger essence that allowed him to shapechange at will. I loved running him - he was terrifying, and the players felt a genuine sense of elation when they finally beat him (he was trying to open the portal up to enormous proportions to transform every living thing with a hundred miles into fiendish creatures, and they managed to sabotage it so it sucked him in and chopped him up like a blender). Anyway, there were three "doppelganger generals" who had been through the portal and gained the fiendish template, plus maybe a dozen mundane doppels. They were really OP, plus I wanted to add a bit of a detective drama to the mix, so I decided that in my campaign world doppels are gastropods, and they react violently to salt. It's a big silver bullet, but I also had the doppel-replaced butler sabotage the castle's salt supply so they only ended up with enough salt to test half a dozen people, and he also ripped out the page of the sailor's journal in the castle library that described how they react to salt, so they also had to track down the missing page to learn about the silver bullet in the first place. That was a FUUUNNNNN game...
This was the same game where I had private one-on-ones with each of the players to tell them about a possibly prophetic dream they were having, except for one player who I explained had been kidnapped and locked in a secret dungeon under the castle, and from that point on they would be playing a doppelganger duplicate of themselves. That was a fantastic reveal - the player LOVED it.
Vargouille is one for the list. Nothing like having to fight your buddies head as it flies around
I think problems come from playing most of these intelligently (in character of course). The intellect devourer being a good example of how this can go awry. Of course the little bugger doesn't have to sneak around and pick an opportunity most advantageous to it, but thats kinda how you image this little stalking predator acting.
Had a party with high stealth that would constantly sneak around, being very careful and choosing battles. One night the watcher fails his perception and they are ambushed very throughly by highwaymen... They didn't like this as I didn't "give them a chance" to react before they were set upon by these guys (says the party that gets miffed if a guard has the audacity to actually make a perception check).
Almost like others can sneak too
This list came at the perfect time for my game coming up at GrandCon.
I was running a lvl 12 oneshot for a 5e. The objective was to take out a mindflayer colony, after a slog through sewers, as well as plenty of traps, puzzles and combat encounters, they fought the elder brain, several mind flayers, and one intellect devourer I threw in just for fun. I ended up having to break narrator character and flat out tell them they should focus on the harmless seeming brain with legs before it killed them all.
Rust monsters are a personal favorite. A Horror story retold over and over by folks that were part of one of my earlier games was a group that entered a set of caves and tunnels occupied by orcs. Given that they were a higher-level group (lvl 9) they didn't consider them a challenge. Party was a Paladin, a Fighter, A cleric, a rogue and a Sorcerer. The first three all wearing plate mail. As they approached a tunnel deep in the cave system there was a sign in orcish above it. None of them could read it and the sorcerer didn't have comprehend languages so they traveled on. As they went deeper I started asking for strength checks from those in metal Armor. The deeper they got the higher the DC became until all three failed and were suddenly pulled against the floor and walls.. the Tunnel was lined with thick deposits of Lodestone. As they struggled to move the Orc patrol arrived with a Shaman controlling a pair of rust monsters, the orcs all have stone weapons and leather armor. The sign basically said "No Metal Beyond this point."
Wasn't a TPK, but the closest I've ever had to one. Of course the group lost about 75% of their gear in the process.
Well, Hell hounds can definitely destroy a 3 player party if they're unlucky. They got the paladin instantly downed with 54 damage breath weapon (two of them at once and the DM rolled really well) and the barbarian was only at a fourth of its hitpoints in the surprise round( after succeeding both Dexterity Saves). Not to say more than 50 HP is not easy to kill for a 4th level character.
Slight pet peeve: I am annoyed about the advice of "never the party". Fundamentally as long as the PC's can expect to have some table downtime and have the expectation that the encounter's aren't gonna change just because they spilt up, it's fine. Honestly, some of the best moments are when the PC's are spilt up and have to draw upon their less explored skills, often to some hilarious consequences. Of course I feel there are some situations where you shouldn't spilt the party, but that isn't the same as "never."
I agree I have recently prepared a campaign that is meant to split the party over and over. Just because things sometimes get to slow or blocked up when 5 people are on the same monster. Plus there are always skills never used by certain characters cause they are not as confident as their partners. Gotta let them explore that.
A bullette killed our party wizard outright because he was the only elf in the party and apparently they love the taste of elves more than anything else. Que an hour break so that player could roll another character.
Not even mentioning the lore.
a beholder can not be surprised and will always have solutions to any trick the party may pull.
from a lore perspective, beholders are almost impossible to beat
I had a party deal with a Demilich by sneaking up on it and throwing a bag of devouring over it.
I was playing a warforged barbarian in a campaign where each and every one of us managed to build a character single handedly capable of destroying the DMs campaign. He threw a beholder at us at level 12, and that was nothing to us due to our insane characters. That was, until the beholder rolled petrify 4 times and got me and our fighter both petrified. Our lore Bard and thief rogue barely pulled a win through, but they had to spend a lot of money to find someone to cast greater restoration twice. Took a while as well because it was an invisible moon beholder, but still.
What the hell is an invisible moon beholder?
@@empoleonmaster6709 I can't really explain (without many many paragraphs) why we were on the moon, wierd call on the DMs part, but as for the invisibility part that was just the wizard we were trying to fight who booped it invisible and ran. It was, *terrifying*
@@kaseybennett7415 Holy shit that's what I can throw at my high level players (they'll be level 17 by the time they face this) if I run out of ideas, a beholder with a Cloak of invisibility that was expecting the players. Unless they have detect magic or blind sight, it gets a surprise round! *laughs in evil DM*
@@empoleonmaster6709 one logic inconsistency (that our DM refused to acknowledge) is that the beholder's eye is visible unless it closes it's eye because of the antimagic cone. Could make for an interesting dynamic though, they get mere glimpses of the beholder when it goes to disable some magic.
@@kaseybennett7415 The anti-magic cone can go if it means the beholder is permanently invisible.
My naked Halfling Barbarian with AC22 and carrying a +2 wooden shield and a bone club:
Rust Monster: Am I a joke to you?
Halfling: Yes.
I put a third level party in a trial by combat against a basilisk in 3.5e. The gnome was turned to stone second round. On a funny note, the party gave the gnome statue to the evil lord as a gift to win his favor. The gnome was later turned normal by the lord and set loose upon the disloyal party for months of fun.
I paired a shadow with an intellect devourer. My party still has nightmares :D.
I'm going to have nightmares just thinking about that.
Shadows nearly wiped my level 2 players in the Death House (Curse of Strahd). The sorcerer left that fight with 4 strength.
We had to deal with rust monsters quite early on in our campaign, around levels 3-5. Our DM had us go through some abandoned mines, which in addition to having some basilisks deep inside, were inhabited by rust monsters.
A few sessions later and we were begging the DM to please never have us encounter another rust monster. We had no armor left on any frontliner. We had no weapons left other than the druid's magic stick. Low on spell slots with very few places to safely rest... We beat a basilisk by mass punching it to death at the end.
I've used almost half of them.
But the intellect devourer were used basically as doppelgagner, since they were replacing NPC.
And the remorarz was defeated with the "banishment & run" they even used polymorph and druid transformation to transform half the party in mounts.