I remember facing off against a mindflayer that always got his psychic blast in a campaign not too long ago. Bear in mind, everyone in the party, which we lovingly dubbed the "Himbo Troupe", had a score under 10, so we were all at a disadvantage. My barbarian fighter, someone that should have been the most susceptible, kept rolling and meeting the save and wailing on the mind flayer. We played it off as him being too angry to be stupid
In 2'nd Ed, flayers were grossly over powered, and under rated. They had a 90% magic resistance just for being themselves, and couldn't be hit with non magic weapons. Even if the party was well equipped, two flayers blasting away could drop parties notably higher in level than the 7 hd the flayers have. On the other hand, they are NOT immune to poison. I had a party once saved the blowgun that I had kobolds shooting at them in a much earlier adventure. There was a knockout poison, with an easy, low difficulty save to negate. Later in the adventure, they had randomly rolled a blowgun +2... You can see where this is going, I'm sure... I built up this mysterious mastermind evil over multiple sessions. The PC's didn't know it was an illithid. However, they finally managed to track down where the strings were being pulled from, and invaded its lair. In the final showdown, the party rogue decides "Hey, I still have these kobold darts, I'll shoot him with one". My flayer rolled a natural 1 on his save from the poison, and fell unconscious.
Almost had a TPK to a shadow dragon. 2/3 lvl 10 players turned into shadows. Final character with 8 HP remaining survived only because of the assistance of his gargantuan duck companion.
Who would win? A giant shadow dragon that turns people into shadows and wipes out entire groups of legendary adventurers trying to take it down or A duck
Yeah, if I was a mind flayer, I'd keep these things around. They only do everything: - find my food; - stun my food; - keep me informed of those pesky adventurers trying to sneak on me. Intellect devourers are great.
The intellect devourer has certainly earned its spot. It can take out any level character with above average intelligence in one round. A pack of them could wreck a party.
Managed a TPK with a hydra once. Now hydra alone aren’t exactly threatening for their CR but the group decided to not bother with purchasing any alchemical fire to throw at the beast after removing a head or two, and the party setup made no users of fire magic AT ALL. It was also being used as a harder encounter as they were level 6 vs it’s CR8, and was technically avoidable as it was a wanted bounty quest. They knew ahead of time that they would be fighting a hydra and that bringing fire would be recommended, but player pigheadedness and faith in their characters to be able to brute force something can be legendary. Suffice to say, when the party creates a 9 headed hydra by the time they were TPKed they learned a little bit about how a party might need some tools to shore up their weaknesses.
The party I was in accidental went into a dragon layer at level 2. Also another party I was in had to fight 2 black dragons in a row at level 8. Some how both parties survived the encounters.
I killed four level five players with three goblins, a rug of smothering and prep time. These Goblins were absolutely galaxy-brained, by the way. Ma'ag, Krag and Thack by name; they took over an old abandoned root cellar and proceeded to wreak havoc (mild annoyance, really) on the nearby villages. They stole the occasional weapon, but mostly materials and food. And glue. Lots and lots of glue. Asinine amounts of glue. In the main hall that made up the cellar, they bisected it horizontally with thick wooden poles every foot; you would either have to squeeze under or balance on top, AND they covered them in glue. If you squeezed, there was a crossbow trap for the first person through (it also crit, coincidentally). That alone would have been bad enough, had they not also used a chest full of rocks to weigh down a Rug of Smothering in the next room. They also covered the CHEST in glue. A player touched it, and immediately assumed mimic; in their flailing they freed the rug. They were then ambushed by the goblins that had hidden in crates (that I described but they never searched). Goblins with cover, a rug and prep time.
This might sound hokey, but I had a party struggle *hugely* against a group of about 15 horse archers. Their bows were based on a Mongol design whose range was 200-300 *meters* while the go-to Fireball and Lightning Bolt spells reach out to 100-150 *feet* only. The archers would pelt the party with arrows for several rounds until the heroes started getting close, then would trot away to extend the range. Rinse and repeat. It got ... ugly. The players only survived by having the wizard go invisible and the rest of the party running away. When the archers gave chase to the rest of the party, they strayed into fireball range. Ouch!
Im really surprised you didn't include the Catoblepas. CR 5 but with a lot of HP, 14 AC which is low but they have a stench ability which forces creatures close to it to make a CON save or become poisoned, meaning disadvantage on attack rolls so less likely to hit. Then it has its Death Ray, a DC 16 CON save which deals 8d8 necrotic damage on a fail, and if you fail by 5 or more you just take a straight 64 damage, which would annihilate Wizards or Sorcerers at this level. Especially because if you are brought to 0 hp by this ray, you just die. And its a recharge 5-6 so it can do it multiple times, and even when it cant use the Death-Ray it has its tail attack which deals 5d6+4 damage and can stun a creature every time it hits. God forbid if you're fighting multiple of them.
Illithids & intellect devourers are on my "Oh hell no!" list for good reason. In a past campaign one of my characters commissioned a magic ring teleports him back to the last tavern he stayed at due to illithids. Another part member had another ring that mine would lock onto for returning to the party.
I feel like, in most scenarios, TPKs only really happen due to an ambush, the players refusing to cut their losses and retreat, or too many bad decisions in a row, or some combination of those three things. I had a homebrew boss that was pretty powerful and backed by his executives, a really deadly battle encounter that was triggered by not confronting the execs before the boss. The party was average level 10 and it was brutal, but some lucky rolls let them miraculously defeat the execs, but then the boss went stage 2. So they immediately booked it, but one player tried to attack it whilst running away not convinced they couldn't beat it, another character stayed behind to see if they could help them get away...those characters died, the rest survived. They later came back to try to fight the boss again who was incubating into a more complete form, and couldn't get past the high level minions (created from their dead comrades) to be still confident enough to face the boss, so they retreated not wanting to lose more party members. It was only on their third try that they managed to defeat it, but at the cost of their NPC party member dying. They're now on a quest to find diamonds to resurrect him before it's too late. Was I too harsh? For context this is the first large scale villain they battled.
Had a session where me and party fought a Banshee. We found an abandoned cabin in the woods and explored it finding a woman crying in the basement. The fighter and Druid went to mess with her and me the Paladin cast protection from Good and Evil on myself and was the only reason I didn't succumb to the scream. FYI I didn't know this was a Banshee all I knew was I didn't trust a woman crying in a basement with her back turned to us and I was like I need to cast something to protect myself.
i have tpk one of my parties with a wild boar back in the early 90's. they were coming out of the CAVES OF CHAOS all beat up. they saw the boar and got too close and it attacked. few rounds later the party of 6 was dead
I totally agree on the Shadow. One way I moderate the TPK is that i have them rush the strongest player each round. Usually the Barbarian first, but once he is drained to a STR score below another player, the shadows target the next player in the party with the next best STR score. That way the weakest players don't just die, because of bad die rolls.
I got instakilled by a succubus early during the first campaign I ever played, the dm thought a cr 4 creature would be fine for a group of 4 level 4 characters, drain kissed my hp enough to knock me out of bear form (moon druid) and killed me outright reducing my max hp to 0 in one turn, needless to say the dm didn't expect to roll that well or for me to fail the save...
That case is just pure fate, assuming otherwise that is probably the one time the cr system works properly lol, in theory a cr 4 monster should be a fair challenge to 4 level 4 pcs
Bullywugs. They used nets on the melee tanks, all of which had terrible ability scores for escaping grapples. Then they used spears to keep out of range of counterattack, and slowly bled the tanks one by one.
That is BRUTAL. Imagine the Banshee just knocking a couple people out and the party is like "okay, we can deal with this". Then the invisible wisps just start siphoning life from the downed PC's. Devastating.
@@DungeonDad All thanks to your awesome video. Gave me tons of inspiration. If you want brutal try adding the shadows attacks and defence onto a black pudding. A creature with lots of resistance, can squeeze through any gap. Drains your strength while hitting with corrosive damage... and splits into two if hit by certain attacks
I did experience a TPK with a random swamp encounter with 7 Will-O-Wisp's. Back in 2nd edition they had an AC of -8 which made them pretty much untouchable and they hit far harder that it may appear, also their initiative was so high that they always attacked first and breaks the concentration for the only spell that could bring them down (Magic Missiles) .
encounter idea: put black pudding in a room with spinning blade traps, or a magical lightning storm - if the blac pudding moves into one of these traps or the lightning randomly hits it, it splits!
the shadow is no joke. I've been running a 3.5 game for just over 3 years now and one of our worst near TPKs was an encounter with a room of shadows and shadow mastiffs. the party was level 11 and only 2 out of 5 of them survived and it was barely
I'm glad you put the black pudding in because I've been tpked by a single one 15 min into a campaign. We had to retcon the entire session because 6, lvl 1, characters couldn't take out a single black pudding.
Maybe this doesn’t really count since it’s a bit of a narrow circumstance and I found this out using it as a deadly encounter, but an ironscale hydra (Theros book) can get out of hand, especially against a party that happens to not use fire damage to stop the heads from growing. Granted, each regrowth only gives back 10HP, but an attack per head is nasty! Plus its xenomorph acid blood punishes melee.
Over the course of one of my campaigns, players left and came and I ran with xp and eventually became so yanky we could no longer continue. I told the party I am going to TPK them to give them a last heroic battle and that they can get a cool bad ass ending fighting against a bad ass monsters. What I did not tell the party is that I wanted to see how strong a Demi-Lich was before the actual TPK encounter where they had to fight Imix+an Adult Red Dragon+a Villian and two fire elementals. They died to the Demi-Lich which I knew they had a chance of beating but turns out they did not. One player survived and everybody loved it as she told everybody that she would earn up the money to have her closest friends resurrected.
That's what kind of surprised me at the beginning of BG3 early access, lvl 1 characters chumming around with intellect devourers. Not that it mattered, they were basically just dogs that looked like brains in BG3, with none of their abilities.
Right?! As soon as I saw the first potential enemy was an intellect devourer I was like "Oh, this is one of those game intros where you're meant to die."
in my experience, TPKs are usually more caused by enviromental hazards than individual monsters. from bards setting off indcendiary devices in granaries with the party still inside to party mages not respecting the traps in an archmage's tomb....that will typically kill parties, especially lower level ones, before most of the party even has a chance to react becasue ONE idiot got bored and ignored the GM's "you might wanna think twice" hints.
My nerds and I play 3.5 closest i ever came to a tpk, started a 3 player campaign ecl1 and I had a bad habit of having each player roll to see if they get attacked while their character is on watch, every night, two of my players wear heavy armor and don't sleep in it, they got attacked by a dire bat, knocked the ranger on watch unconscious right after he wakes the other two, it knocks the fighter out and the Paladin killed it when he had 2hp left
Ankhegs... I threw 6 of them at a medium leveled party and they all got dragged under the sand one after the other. Then the ceiling of the cave collapsed. Thats just how things went. As the DM, I was not expecting that.
Not a TPK, but I distinctly remember being in a campaign where the first storyline (lvl 3-5) was stopping a cult that could summon Shadows. Never had a problem with those despite everyone in the party having average Strength at best. Some time later I played a one-shot with other folks and I saw a player (Barbarian lvl 3) immediatly panic and run away upon the mere sight of two of these. Only then it dawned on me how dangerous those things were lol.
Intellect Devourers combined with a melee creature that can cast Darkness is nasty. Just ask the barbarian I DM for! I would give honorable mention to the raksasha. A creature immune to any spell less than 6th level is REALLY going to annoy your spellcasts. Pair it with some minions and a range weapon, and its 40 feet of movement will annoy the hell out of your players "What do you mean my level 4 magic missile did no damage?!?".
I remember using two harpies in a one-shot once. Everyone failed their save against the Harpy's song, I had to pull off a bullshit reason so it wouldn't be a TPK
In my opinion, it's a given that any monster above CR 15 are capable of a TPK, but characters are better equipped to deal with them. The monsters most likely to cause a TPK are usually the lower CRs (like the shadow or the intellect devourer) as their CR is deceitful and they are most likely to be picked by DMs as an "easy challenge" only to end in a TPK...
Quickling! They do not have any save or suck abilities, but they are sooooo fast! Multiple attack and high AC. If played correctly they can obliterate mid level characters. I was having a low stake fight with my party of 6 level 5 et quickling decimated them and killed a PC.
One for the list is the Chasme. Similar to the banshee it has a "everyone make a saving throw and if everyone happens to fail, game over". At CR6 it's less likely to happen, but I'm always wary of putting one in a game.
I’ve TPK’ed several party’s with clusters (4-6) of Displacer Beast. I have also dropped party’s with Hords of less powerful monsters because the players were being a-holes so i swarmed them with 100 goblins, or giant rats.
Had a mindflayer encounter at level 10 in 5e. Dm surrounded us with 9 mindflayers, and elder brain and 30 commoners. He said he was confident we could deal with them and he lowered their stats but I still said I good and he let us talk our way out of it. In 3.5 I remember being level 22 and a mindflayer insta killed me in one turn. That is why I'm afraid of those brain suckers.
Quick correction: Radiant damage is absolutely not rare. Anyone with ONE cleric level has access to guiding bolt, which is - incidentally - one of the best spells in the game on lvl 1 and is still insanely useful up until endgame. There is a bunch of subclasses built in a way that they deal radiant damage if needed. Paladins have access to smite, which is radiant damage, druids can deal radiant damage consistently from lvl 3 on and up, and pretty much every caster class has access to powerful radiant damage spells from level 11 or higher at the very latest. So radiant damage is really the one "rare" dmg type every party almost guaranteed has somewhere in their repertoire to varying degrees. Otherwise, great video, I agree with everything you said :) Shadows are completely broken.
I gotta say, I almost wasn't expecting to see number 1 on the list at all...and yet, at the same time, I'm not surprised. Especially since I'm PLAYING an intellect devourer. He was specifically engineered by his mind flayer masters to be immune to protection from good and evil, and was used to great effect against an invading paladin. Well, great effect for the first day or so. That's when the paladin's god started to fight against the intellect devourer, and over the next few days, it started to degrade: starting with the memories of BEING an intellect devourer. After some time, it thought it was just the paladin, kidnapped by the mind flayers, and it escaped. Eventually, THOSE memories disappeared too, and he lapsed into a coma, where he was found by a family of dwarven farmers, who nursed him back to health. So, I have an amnesiac paladin character who doesn't know what god he swore an oath to, what oath was sworn, nor why he's missing memories. We're currently hunting a mind flayer. This is going to be FUN. :>
Goblins are high on my own list. Very often I see players straight-up die to them. Also when playing Pathfinder, ghouls are very dangerous because of their paralysis. And are underestimated because of their low CR
Nothing beats the cr 3 whights of 3.5. Level drain on hit with a dc 14 charisma save. Any creature slain by a whight (level drain or no) raises as a whight. Best part was that, having been turned undead, they can can no longer be brought back to life even if the party managed to avoid the tpk. Pretty sure that cr has always been determined with a blindfolded game of darts
one monster that doesnt match its CR by any means is the catoblepas. it hits like an absolute tank dealing 5d6+4 damage, has a ton of hp for its relatively low CR with an average of 84 or 8d10+40, and has a death ray that has a DC 16 con save which is pretty high around level 5 that deals 8d8 necrotic damage. also if you fail by 5 or more then you take the full 64 damage and DIE if your hp is reduced to 0. for a CR 5 this monster is absolutely off the charts a wyvern could also be a potential candidate. its a CR 6 and has the potential to deal 18d6 if it crits on its stinger and you fail the dc 15 con save. it may only happen once in a fight but if your party is level 6 and that happens it could definitely kill a party member
Goblins, cobalts and all the tiny little monsters that work together. Those are a challenge. Yes a dragon is big and strong and makes the party feel awesome when they kill it. But 50 goblins or cobalts in their layer played properly is what results in a TPK every time. Like you said its a numbers game. 4 vs 1 the party wins. 4 vs 50 thats alot to kill
A great, well thought out list. But, I’m honestly surprised the beholder didn’t make the list. A properly player beholder will just hover out of melee range blasting the party with various devastating rays. Murderous doesn’t come close to describing it.
Fog cloud is the answer to a beholder. All of the attacks are sight based. You keep your party in the fog. If the beholder uses the anti-magic ray to remove the fog cloud that turn, he can't use his other eyes' magical attacks in the same area. Melee the beholder down if he comes into the fog (everybody is at disadvantage), ranged weapons if he doesn't.
be me: DM; run tyranny of dragons; want a fun encounter during the long journey in HoTDQ; find young red shadow dragon; think "they'll handle it" and don't read stat block; Be not me: party of 5 level 5 players and 3 NPC companions fighting the dragon; The ranger shoots arrow for 6dmg; nice.jpg; Dragon shoots breath attack; Everyone fails save DC; deal 68 dmg and kill everyone but one player; Me reading breath attacks description; Oh no.gif; Have the wizard face the dragon and 7 shades on his own after TPK; Don't be me kids, read the stat block
Rule one of DND (any version) if the DM says “You enter a cave and it seems to go deeper and deeper at a downward angle” You turn the fuck around because that’s the Underdark and there’s nothing but death and tears awaiting your party. Rule two… stay the fuck out of the Underdark. Rule three and I can’t stress this enough… look up. Nobody ever thinks just to look straight up when in a dungeon or captured and parties have perished because they didn’t look up, notice the hole in the ceiling with a rope hanging down and take the easy climb check to escape.
first PC I had was taken by an Intellect devourer, whats wild was right befiore session I was chating with my DM before everyone else got there and accuratly guessed what was happening with the NPC we were with, he'd been taken over too and we were coming up aginist a Mind Flayer. Only my PC died and the rest got out but none knew what happend, sadly the game fell apart later due to scheduling conflicts, which is the real #1 TPK reason.
Every player killed but one. He's so traumatized that he gives up being an adventurer. Restarting the campaign and a time lapse later. His total level lowered by two and the new party convinces The reluctant hero to join them. Yes he might be stronger than the others but only for the beginning. He will be paralyzed with fear running into the same species or individual monster that killed his friends. That monster or group in the last area will be stronger since it's ahead in time.
I have killed a 7th level ranger with an intellect devourer. He stood no chance. Bonus: the party ran the hell away and then got to go to the shadowfell to retrieve their comrade’s soul
Seven level 2 players, most of which have never played DND before vs three shadows in a swamp at night, immediately after fighting a boss. I’m not sure how we managed to get out of that one, although our HP points afterwards were not fun.
I should probably not forget the two spiders and one teleporting thing that was spider but died against two crits from our fighter. They showed up with the shadows.
Trolls. This is probably more to do with the ineptitude of my party, but we just did not know how to deal with the regeneration. We ended up leaving my chars corpse to be eaten, while my friends fled with low health. Lesson learned, I guess. And my cowardly party did avoid a tpk after all.
i had a party of four level 3s, all of them fairly experienced, that almost tpked to 2 bandits and a bandit captain. all because their warlock decided to be a funny guy and use prestidigitation to shit the bandit captain’s pants
Parties have the ability to TPK themselves! Due to role-playing the cleric takes lead because the fighter or rougue is being a coward.... and boom the avoidable trap or damage that the fighter could have soaked goes to the now dead cleric as things begin to degrade.
i honestly expected goblins on the list, just because they are such a common enemy especially at low levels and for new players, so they cause a lot of tpks
kobolds are probably worse since they are almost as common and are explicitly supposed to be a lot more traps-and-tactics based and very likely to have something particularly intelligent in command of the group, they aren't anything special in a straight fight but they can legitimately kill an inattentive lvl20 party...though come to think of it that might not be the case in 5 since they are one of the monsters that isn't even the same species from one edition to the next: usually either creepy nasty doggygoblins or dragon-worshiping dungeon-building miniature lizardfolk, its the scaly ones that are legitimately terrifying since their version of prepped terrain isn't just an area with a couple traps it is an entire environment designed (with varying degrees of competence) to let them kill something a lot like your party. goblins _can_ be just as bad but they aren't explicitly supposed to be acting like they are prepping and training to kill _you_ specifically. anyways, this is more about the stuff that is WAY more dangerous than you'd expect either from abilities way more dangerous than their CR suggests or from the circumstances you encounter them in, this mostly consists of stuff that is hard to engage and/or you just don't have the tools to deal with yet because that cr2 critter was supposed to be encountered later as a pack or _much_ later as a to-dangerous-to-ignore minimook in a high level encounter, anything with snowballing effects or any remotely viable quick-kill option is going to deserve at least an honorable mention, especially if it functions in an indirect/unorthodox way. case in point those stupid braindoggies are pretty much every item on that list: their most likely encounter environment is the underdark, they act in packs, they do not require line of sight, are always aware of your presence and location _in a 3dimentional cave system with lots of thin walls_ and to make everything just that much worse are most commonly encountered en-masse acting like a group of hunting dogs for a hunting party of mind flayers (y'know, that other entry on this list that they just so happen to synergize with in every way.) an encounter with these things should usually consist of getting blasted by 3 or so illithids positioned several walls away with no direct rout to them with devourers waiting in any adjacent spaces to jump into the skulls of anyone incapacitated again with no direct rout and no nonmagical way to get a trace on them.
So intellect devourer two shades and a willow the wisp working together in a place where the party is told a great wyrm is hold up, could totally ruin a midlevel party's day? Lol
i've done a TPK where the characters had ended up aiding an empire in a war to drive out so called "heretics". they end up walking headfirst into an ambush and proceed to get smacked
Universally, psionic monsters tpk-ed the party all four times, immediately. Two of them appear here, and I can't remember the names of the other ones. The gaming group perma-banned psionics and psionic monsters after that b/c the game stopped being fun. We lost one player permanently, and very nearly ended the group. We also stopped using the CR system b/c of how worthless it is.
The CR system did used to work correctly, it seems 5e has screwed it up something shocking however. All of these on this list were rated higher to MUCH higher in 3.5e.
Would definitely agree on the Solar. If you find yourself on the wrong end of their sword or bow its likely because you've made some very questionable life choices.. And your best hope of surviving is probably getting on your knees and begging and just praying that they are in a charitable mood and are feeling more "good" than they are lawful.. 🙂
I was enjoying the video until I saw the Intellect Devourer and immediately had flashbacks to the time a Mindflayer and two Intellect Devourers wiped out an entire party of six 10th level adventurers almost flawlessly. It was a randomly rolled Underdark encounter and it ended the whole campaign.
CR is a weird system. The Intellect Devourer for example has a CR of 2 which is horrifying when the Party is level 2. But the Intellect Devourer is not a monster you usually encounter at level 2. They are almost exclusively bred by Illithids in the Underdark through subjecting the brain of a creature to a ritual in which the brain transforms into an Intellect Devourer. So unless your Campaign starts in the Underdark and you really want to torture your players this is a creature you will more likely encounter 2-3 of on a slightly higher level. On a higher level the CR 2 looks more justified.
I don't know why for the life of me but, I think Intellect Devourers are just cute as buttons. I would carry one around & give it scratches under its little frontal lobes 🤣
When I read the title of your video, I immediately thought of the Intellect Devourer. This enemy is so dangerous (and so unfun for the player playing as the barbarian it will inevitably target) that I hesitate to use it at all, and outright refuse to use it unless a) there is a character in the party capable of casting greater restoration (unlikely) or b) I am 100% certain everyone in the party is well aware of exactly what this monster can do. "Congrats, you can spend the rest of the session twiddling your thumbs and steaming over what a dick your GM is" is not a recipe for an enjoyable game.
the intelect devourer is one of the most fucking nasty enemies ever. personally if i use them i would have them show up at a pretty high level, only 1 at a time, among other enemies, specifically maybe a mind flayer and their pet intelect devourer as i know they are lore connected. would probably make a decent mid game big bad. i would only ever throw multiple intelect devourers and mind flayers against a very high level party. (probably also have an npc straight up explain the threat an intelect devourer poses if they are not already aware as fighting it without metagaming is so much harder cause it doesnt actually look like a threat. sure its creepy but not a "you must kill it instantly or you are dead" type thing)
Honestly every time I have ever had a tok occur while I was GMing it was a direct result of the players choosing to engage with environmental factors while the monsters whales on them. For instance, the room has traps in it, so the whole party gathers around trying to lift up a stone door to escape the room while the squadron of archons just wails on them. The archons were glass cannons, but they never actually attacked them so how would they know that?
We had a similar encounter in Avernus. Me (cleric) and the bard were left and after each cry we had to heal someone to get them back up, so it wouldn't be a TPK. After the third it was just me and I had to cast mass healing word to get everyone up. (we were lucky that not all people with healing spells went down)
There is a 4th level spell called Phantasmal killer. Single target. Roll will and fortitude save. Fail the will but pass the fortitude, take 3d6. Fail both will and fortitude....die. instantly. Level 4 spell.
The intellect devourer is a bit overwhelming, in cases where I want to deploy them without killing the party I make weaker versions of them. Instead of devouring the brain I make them latch into the creatures head, like the head crabs in half life. Attacking them in this state will cause the character to take half damage for the intellect devourer, and they can be pulled out with a good STR check. It still makes them powerful. But more manageable at lower levels. Although the sheer fear of seeing an unchanged intellect devourer is a feeling hard to achieve in DND
These guys were actually a lot worse in AD&D (2nd Edition). In second edition, they resisted almost all damage and were immune to non magical damage to an extreme. To the point that even if you hit them with a magical weapon, you only did damage equal to the magical damage bonus on the weapon, (IE, hit them with a +2 weapon, you do 2 damage total. No str bonus or damage roll).
![DDG & G Herbo - Nosey [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I9Ra0Zc2NlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I remember facing off against a mindflayer that always got his psychic blast in a campaign not too long ago. Bear in mind, everyone in the party, which we lovingly dubbed the "Himbo Troupe", had a score under 10, so we were all at a disadvantage.
My barbarian fighter, someone that should have been the most susceptible, kept rolling and meeting the save and wailing on the mind flayer.
We played it off as him being too angry to be stupid
Love a good "Too angry to die" barbarian XD
I really enjoy the phrase "too angry to be stupid"!
😆
In 2'nd Ed, flayers were grossly over powered, and under rated. They had a 90% magic resistance just for being themselves, and couldn't be hit with non magic weapons. Even if the party was well equipped, two flayers blasting away could drop parties notably higher in level than the 7 hd the flayers have.
On the other hand, they are NOT immune to poison. I had a party once saved the blowgun that I had kobolds shooting at them in a much earlier adventure. There was a knockout poison, with an easy, low difficulty save to negate. Later in the adventure, they had randomly rolled a blowgun +2... You can see where this is going, I'm sure...
I built up this mysterious mastermind evil over multiple sessions. The PC's didn't know it was an illithid. However, they finally managed to track down where the strings were being pulled from, and invaded its lair. In the final showdown, the party rogue decides "Hey, I still have these kobold darts, I'll shoot him with one". My flayer rolled a natural 1 on his save from the poison, and fell unconscious.
I love DND stories 😃
What a game \o/
Almost had a TPK to a shadow dragon. 2/3 lvl 10 players turned into shadows. Final character with 8 HP remaining survived only because of the assistance of his gargantuan duck companion.
gargantuan... duck?
@@ultimazilla9814 yeah! Armond the Giant Duck. Someone you want in your corner.
@@JeremiahLiend 🤩
@@JeremiahLiend Fuck. Yeah.
Who would win?
A giant shadow dragon that turns people into shadows and wipes out entire groups of legendary adventurers trying to take it down
or
A duck
The really scary thing is Mindflayer often has intellect devourers as pets, and it is not uncommon to have to face both at the same time.
This, and the f*ckers live in Underdark, which in itself is not a very hospitable place to live, IMO.
Can confirm lol
Indeed, and it's typically how I work them in my games. Bad combo... for the party.
Yah mindflayers often have pets or other Frontline fighters with them that they have controlled.
Yeah, if I was a mind flayer, I'd keep these things around. They only do everything:
- find my food;
- stun my food;
- keep me informed of those pesky adventurers trying to sneak on me.
Intellect devourers are great.
I want someone to add an "Ancient Gold Shadow Dracolich" to do a light bit of tomfoolery on the party.
The fact that you often find "Intellect Devourers" and "Mind Flayers" together is bad ass.
The intellect devourer has certainly earned its spot. It can take out any level character with above average intelligence in one round. A pack of them could wreck a party.
Managed a TPK with a hydra once. Now hydra alone aren’t exactly threatening for their CR but the group decided to not bother with purchasing any alchemical fire to throw at the beast after removing a head or two, and the party setup made no users of fire magic AT ALL. It was also being used as a harder encounter as they were level 6 vs it’s CR8, and was technically avoidable as it was a wanted bounty quest. They knew ahead of time that they would be fighting a hydra and that bringing fire would be recommended, but player pigheadedness and faith in their characters to be able to brute force something can be legendary. Suffice to say, when the party creates a 9 headed hydra by the time they were TPKed they learned a little bit about how a party might need some tools to shore up their weaknesses.
Death is a good teacher in dnd
The party I was in accidental went into a dragon layer at level 2. Also another party I was in had to fight 2 black dragons in a row at level 8. Some how both parties survived the encounters.
I killed four level five players with three goblins, a rug of smothering and prep time.
These Goblins were absolutely galaxy-brained, by the way. Ma'ag, Krag and Thack by name; they took over an old abandoned root cellar and proceeded to wreak havoc (mild annoyance, really) on the nearby villages. They stole the occasional weapon, but mostly materials and food. And glue. Lots and lots of glue. Asinine amounts of glue. In the main hall that made up the cellar, they bisected it horizontally with thick wooden poles every foot; you would either have to squeeze under or balance on top, AND they covered them in glue. If you squeezed, there was a crossbow trap for the first person through (it also crit, coincidentally). That alone would have been bad enough, had they not also used a chest full of rocks to weigh down a Rug of Smothering in the next room. They also covered the CHEST in glue. A player touched it, and immediately assumed mimic; in their flailing they freed the rug. They were then ambushed by the goblins that had hidden in crates (that I described but they never searched).
Goblins with cover, a rug and prep time.
This might sound hokey, but I had a party struggle *hugely* against a group of about 15 horse archers. Their bows were based on a Mongol design whose range was 200-300 *meters* while the go-to Fireball and Lightning Bolt spells reach out to 100-150 *feet* only. The archers would pelt the party with arrows for several rounds until the heroes started getting close, then would trot away to extend the range. Rinse and repeat. It got ... ugly. The players only survived by having the wizard go invisible and the rest of the party running away. When the archers gave chase to the rest of the party, they strayed into fireball range. Ouch!
Im really surprised you didn't include the Catoblepas. CR 5 but with a lot of HP, 14 AC which is low but they have a stench ability which forces creatures close to it to make a CON save or become poisoned, meaning disadvantage on attack rolls so less likely to hit. Then it has its Death Ray, a DC 16 CON save which deals 8d8 necrotic damage on a fail, and if you fail by 5 or more you just take a straight 64 damage, which would annihilate Wizards or Sorcerers at this level. Especially because if you are brought to 0 hp by this ray, you just die. And its a recharge 5-6 so it can do it multiple times, and even when it cant use the Death-Ray it has its tail attack which deals 5d6+4 damage and can stun a creature every time it hits. God forbid if you're fighting multiple of them.
Illithids & intellect devourers are on my "Oh hell no!" list for good reason.
In a past campaign one of my characters commissioned a magic ring teleports him back to the last tavern he stayed at due to illithids. Another part member had another ring that mine would lock onto for returning to the party.
I feel like, in most scenarios, TPKs only really happen due to an ambush, the players refusing to cut their losses and retreat, or too many bad decisions in a row, or some combination of those three things. I had a homebrew boss that was pretty powerful and backed by his executives, a really deadly battle encounter that was triggered by not confronting the execs before the boss. The party was average level 10 and it was brutal, but some lucky rolls let them miraculously defeat the execs, but then the boss went stage 2. So they immediately booked it, but one player tried to attack it whilst running away not convinced they couldn't beat it, another character stayed behind to see if they could help them get away...those characters died, the rest survived. They later came back to try to fight the boss again who was incubating into a more complete form, and couldn't get past the high level minions (created from their dead comrades) to be still confident enough to face the boss, so they retreated not wanting to lose more party members. It was only on their third try that they managed to defeat it, but at the cost of their NPC party member dying. They're now on a quest to find diamonds to resurrect him before it's too late. Was I too harsh? For context this is the first large scale villain they battled.
Loved the look of the Beholder but dreaded every time I ran into it back in the 80's!
Had a session where me and party fought a Banshee. We found an abandoned cabin in the woods and explored it finding a woman crying in the basement. The fighter and Druid went to mess with her and me the Paladin cast protection from Good and Evil on myself and was the only reason I didn't succumb to the scream. FYI I didn't know this was a Banshee all I knew was I didn't trust a woman crying in a basement with her back turned to us and I was like I need to cast something to protect myself.
i have tpk one of my parties with a wild boar back in the early 90's. they were coming out of the CAVES OF CHAOS all beat up. they saw the boar and got too close and it attacked. few rounds later the party of 6 was dead
I totally agree on the Shadow. One way I moderate the TPK is that i have them rush the strongest player each round. Usually the Barbarian first, but once he is drained to a STR score below another player, the shadows target the next player in the party with the next best STR score. That way the weakest players don't just die, because of bad die rolls.
Ambushed by flying kobolds. We were a level 5 party. Stuck in a small space
I got instakilled by a succubus early during the first campaign I ever played, the dm thought a cr 4 creature would be fine for a group of 4 level 4 characters, drain kissed my hp enough to knock me out of bear form (moon druid) and killed me outright reducing my max hp to 0 in one turn, needless to say the dm didn't expect to roll that well or for me to fail the save...
That case is just pure fate, assuming otherwise that is probably the one time the cr system works properly lol, in theory a cr 4 monster should be a fair challenge to 4 level 4 pcs
Bullywugs. They used nets on the melee tanks, all of which had terrible ability scores for escaping grapples. Then they used spears to keep out of range of counterattack, and slowly bled the tanks one by one.
Always love a good ol fashion ranking
You gotta give the people what they want
@@DungeonDad this is the first time I've felt like my vote (patreon) effected real change in the world (rip my vote for ndp every election)
@@Fromaginator Yo, next time they got it for sure though
Ohh such a sexy video. Being honest putting the banshee with wisps and black puddings and adding some spells to it gives me pleasant goosebumps
That is BRUTAL. Imagine the Banshee just knocking a couple people out and the party is like "okay, we can deal with this". Then the invisible wisps just start siphoning life from the downed PC's. Devastating.
@@DungeonDad All thanks to your awesome video. Gave me tons of inspiration. If you want brutal try adding the shadows attacks and defence onto a black pudding.
A creature with lots of resistance, can squeeze through any gap. Drains your strength while hitting with corrosive damage... and splits into two if hit by certain attacks
I did experience a TPK with a random swamp encounter with 7 Will-O-Wisp's. Back in 2nd edition they had an AC of -8 which made them pretty much untouchable and they hit far harder that it may appear, also their initiative was so high that they always attacked first and breaks the concentration for the only spell that could bring them down (Magic Missiles) .
encounter idea: put black pudding in a room with spinning blade traps, or a magical lightning storm - if the blac pudding moves into one of these traps or the lightning randomly hits it, it splits!
The worst idea to invade DnD is the concept that combat is the only way to solve an encounter, and the only way to gain abstracted experience awards.
That's literally what the game was about in the earlier editions my guy
It didn't "invade D&D", the game was about that
the shadow is no joke. I've been running a 3.5 game for just over 3 years now and one of our worst near TPKs was an encounter with a room of shadows and shadow mastiffs. the party was level 11 and only 2 out of 5 of them survived and it was barely
I'm glad you put the black pudding in because I've been tpked by a single one 15 min into a campaign. We had to retcon the entire session because 6, lvl 1, characters couldn't take out a single black pudding.
Maybe this doesn’t really count since it’s a bit of a narrow circumstance and I found this out using it as a deadly encounter, but an ironscale hydra (Theros book) can get out of hand, especially against a party that happens to not use fire damage to stop the heads from growing. Granted, each regrowth only gives back 10HP, but an attack per head is nasty! Plus its xenomorph acid blood punishes melee.
And how about a Shadow dracolich? Would it work?
Over the course of one of my campaigns, players left and came and I ran with xp and eventually became so yanky we could no longer continue.
I told the party I am going to TPK them to give them a last heroic battle and that they can get a cool bad ass ending fighting against a bad ass monsters.
What I did not tell the party is that I wanted to see how strong a Demi-Lich was before the actual TPK encounter where they had to fight Imix+an Adult Red Dragon+a Villian and two fire elementals.
They died to the Demi-Lich which I knew they had a chance of beating but turns out they did not.
One player survived and everybody loved it as she told everybody that she would earn up the money to have her closest friends resurrected.
Almost tpk’d a party when I paired a banshee with some will o’ whisp
i got vored by a black pudding after my lovely DM buddie forgot about the puddin's presence for 4 total turns
That's what kind of surprised me at the beginning of BG3 early access, lvl 1 characters chumming around with intellect devourers. Not that it mattered, they were basically just dogs that looked like brains in BG3, with none of their abilities.
Right?! As soon as I saw the first potential enemy was an intellect devourer I was like "Oh, this is one of those game intros where you're meant to die."
in my experience, TPKs are usually more caused by enviromental hazards than individual monsters. from bards setting off indcendiary devices in granaries with the party still inside to party mages not respecting the traps in an archmage's tomb....that will typically kill parties, especially lower level ones, before most of the party even has a chance to react becasue ONE idiot got bored and ignored the GM's "you might wanna think twice" hints.
I believe the only two creatures that don't make attack rolls are the Marut and The Avatar of Death
My nerds and I play 3.5 closest i ever came to a tpk, started a 3 player campaign ecl1 and I had a bad habit of having each player roll to see if they get attacked while their character is on watch, every night, two of my players wear heavy armor and don't sleep in it, they got attacked by a dire bat, knocked the ranger on watch unconscious right after he wakes the other two, it knocks the fighter out and the Paladin killed it when he had 2hp left
Ankhegs... I threw 6 of them at a medium leveled party and they all got dragged under the sand one after the other. Then the ceiling of the cave collapsed. Thats just how things went. As the DM, I was not expecting that.
for some reason my players always had trouble facing goblins as level 1 adventures, especially the phandelver ones
"It can detect anything with an intelligence of three or more"
My friend's barbarian with 2 intelligence: "I don't have such weaknesses"
Kind of curious that any Golem is not on this list, but definitely agree with everything else mentioned here.
Not a TPK, but I distinctly remember being in a campaign where the first storyline (lvl 3-5) was stopping a cult that could summon Shadows. Never had a problem with those despite everyone in the party having average Strength at best. Some time later I played a one-shot with other folks and I saw a player (Barbarian lvl 3) immediatly panic and run away upon the mere sight of two of these. Only then it dawned on me how dangerous those things were lol.
Intellect Devourers combined with a melee creature that can cast Darkness is nasty. Just ask the barbarian I DM for! I would give honorable mention to the raksasha. A creature immune to any spell less than 6th level is REALLY going to annoy your spellcasts. Pair it with some minions and a range weapon, and its 40 feet of movement will annoy the hell out of your players "What do you mean my level 4 magic missile did no damage?!?".
I had to fudge rolls as a DM to avoid a tpk on session 3 with a banshee
I remember using two harpies in a one-shot once. Everyone failed their save against the Harpy's song, I had to pull off a bullshit reason so it wouldn't be a TPK
In my opinion, it's a given that any monster above CR 15 are capable of a TPK, but characters are better equipped to deal with them. The monsters most likely to cause a TPK are usually the lower CRs (like the shadow or the intellect devourer) as their CR is deceitful and they are most likely to be picked by DMs as an "easy challenge" only to end in a TPK...
Lol. I was waiting for the intellect devourer. But I didn't expect them at nr. 1. (Even if I would place them there, too.)
Quickling! They do not have any save or suck abilities, but they are sooooo fast! Multiple attack and high AC. If played correctly they can obliterate mid level characters. I was having a low stake fight with my party of 6 level 5 et quickling decimated them and killed a PC.
Having watched your video on it, I now really want to make a shadow template fang (grey) dragon to really mess someone up.
One for the list is the Chasme. Similar to the banshee it has a "everyone make a saving throw and if everyone happens to fail, game over". At CR6 it's less likely to happen, but I'm always wary of putting one in a game.
I’ve TPK’ed several party’s with clusters (4-6) of Displacer Beast. I have also dropped party’s with Hords of less powerful monsters because the players were being a-holes so i swarmed them with 100 goblins, or giant rats.
Goblins are Absolutely dangerous in mobs. As are swarms. It's not always the big monsters that can fuck you up.
Had a mindflayer encounter at level 10 in 5e. Dm surrounded us with 9 mindflayers, and elder brain and 30 commoners. He said he was confident we could deal with them and he lowered their stats but I still said I good and he let us talk our way out of it.
In 3.5 I remember being level 22 and a mindflayer insta killed me in one turn. That is why I'm afraid of those brain suckers.
A bro elder brain alone could solo a group of level 10s what the hell was he thinking
My friend poked a sleeping dragon. Or more accurately he cast fireball from a scroll on a red dragon.
He DM'S now.
The avatar of death also doesn’t roll to attack, it just hits
Quick correction: Radiant damage is absolutely not rare. Anyone with ONE cleric level has access to guiding bolt, which is - incidentally - one of the best spells in the game on lvl 1 and is still insanely useful up until endgame. There is a bunch of subclasses built in a way that they deal radiant damage if needed. Paladins have access to smite, which is radiant damage, druids can deal radiant damage consistently from lvl 3 on and up, and pretty much every caster class has access to powerful radiant damage spells from level 11 or higher at the very latest. So radiant damage is really the one "rare" dmg type every party almost guaranteed has somewhere in their repertoire to varying degrees.
Otherwise, great video, I agree with everything you said :)
Shadows are completely broken.
I had a character eat a mind flayer at one point 😹
I gotta say, I almost wasn't expecting to see number 1 on the list at all...and yet, at the same time, I'm not surprised. Especially since I'm PLAYING an intellect devourer. He was specifically engineered by his mind flayer masters to be immune to protection from good and evil, and was used to great effect against an invading paladin. Well, great effect for the first day or so. That's when the paladin's god started to fight against the intellect devourer, and over the next few days, it started to degrade: starting with the memories of BEING an intellect devourer. After some time, it thought it was just the paladin, kidnapped by the mind flayers, and it escaped. Eventually, THOSE memories disappeared too, and he lapsed into a coma, where he was found by a family of dwarven farmers, who nursed him back to health. So, I have an amnesiac paladin character who doesn't know what god he swore an oath to, what oath was sworn, nor why he's missing memories. We're currently hunting a mind flayer. This is going to be FUN. :>
16:19 note to self, for next character: max out intelligence and strength, cause I don’t wanna die to these things.
Goblins are high on my own list. Very often I see players straight-up die to them.
Also when playing Pathfinder, ghouls are very dangerous because of their paralysis. And are underestimated because of their low CR
Nothing beats the cr 3 whights of 3.5. Level drain on hit with a dc 14 charisma save. Any creature slain by a whight (level drain or no) raises as a whight. Best part was that, having been turned undead, they can can no longer be brought back to life even if the party managed to avoid the tpk. Pretty sure that cr has always been determined with a blindfolded game of darts
one monster that doesnt match its CR by any means is the catoblepas. it hits like an absolute tank dealing 5d6+4 damage, has a ton of hp for its relatively low CR with an average of 84 or 8d10+40, and has a death ray that has a DC 16 con save which is pretty high around level 5 that deals 8d8 necrotic damage. also if you fail by 5 or more then you take the full 64 damage and DIE if your hp is reduced to 0. for a CR 5 this monster is absolutely off the charts
a wyvern could also be a potential candidate. its a CR 6 and has the potential to deal 18d6 if it crits on its stinger and you fail the dc 15 con save. it may only happen once in a fight but if your party is level 6 and that happens it could definitely kill a party member
I put my party of 7th LV pcs against 6 banshees, as I’d not read their stat block carefully. That was an error.
So we fought a solar and summoned a shadow dragon which kicked it ass
Goblins, cobalts and all the tiny little monsters that work together. Those are a challenge. Yes a dragon is big and strong and makes the party feel awesome when they kill it. But 50 goblins or cobalts in their layer played properly is what results in a TPK every time. Like you said its a numbers game. 4 vs 1 the party wins. 4 vs 50 thats alot to kill
A great, well thought out list. But, I’m honestly surprised the beholder didn’t make the list. A properly player beholder will just hover out of melee range blasting the party with various devastating rays. Murderous doesn’t come close to describing it.
Fog cloud is the answer to a beholder. All of the attacks are sight based. You keep your party in the fog. If the beholder uses the anti-magic ray to remove the fog cloud that turn, he can't use his other eyes' magical attacks in the same area. Melee the beholder down if he comes into the fog (everybody is at disadvantage), ranged weapons if he doesn't.
be me:
DM;
run tyranny of dragons;
want a fun encounter during the long journey in HoTDQ;
find young red shadow dragon;
think "they'll handle it" and don't read stat block;
Be not me:
party of 5 level 5 players and 3 NPC companions fighting the dragon;
The ranger shoots arrow for 6dmg;
nice.jpg;
Dragon shoots breath attack;
Everyone fails save DC;
deal 68 dmg and kill everyone but one player;
Me reading breath attacks description;
Oh no.gif;
Have the wizard face the dragon and 7 shades on his own after TPK;
Don't be me kids, read the stat block
Rule one of DND (any version) if the DM says
“You enter a cave and it seems to go deeper and deeper at a downward angle”
You turn the fuck around because that’s the Underdark and there’s nothing but death and tears awaiting your party.
Rule two… stay the fuck out of the Underdark.
Rule three and I can’t stress this enough… look up. Nobody ever thinks just to look straight up when in a dungeon or captured and parties have perished because they didn’t look up, notice the hole in the ceiling with a rope hanging down and take the easy climb check to escape.
first PC I had was taken by an Intellect devourer, whats wild was right befiore session I was chating with my DM before everyone else got there and accuratly guessed what was happening with the NPC we were with, he'd been taken over too and we were coming up aginist a Mind Flayer. Only my PC died and the rest got out but none knew what happend, sadly the game fell apart later due to scheduling conflicts, which is the real #1 TPK reason.
Every player killed but one. He's so traumatized that he gives up being an adventurer. Restarting the campaign and a time lapse later. His total level lowered by two and the new party convinces The reluctant hero to join them. Yes he might be stronger than the others but only for the beginning. He will be paralyzed with fear running into the same species or individual monster that killed his friends. That monster or group in the last area will be stronger since it's ahead in time.
"So why is this monster dangerous? Is it strategic? Does it nullify buffs and-" "Fail this check you die" "Oh."
My 13th level fighter was killed by a shadow dragon yesterday
I don’t recognize this intellect devourer; I only refer those creatures as Pomabrainians
I have killed a 7th level ranger with an intellect devourer. He stood no chance. Bonus: the party ran the hell away and then got to go to the shadowfell to retrieve their comrade’s soul
I’ve TPKed with Goblins twice. The party always under estimates them but they’re crafty little buggers.
Seven level 2 players, most of which have never played DND before vs three shadows in a swamp at night, immediately after fighting a boss.
I’m not sure how we managed to get out of that one, although our HP points afterwards were not fun.
I should probably not forget the two spiders and one teleporting thing that was spider but died against two crits from our fighter. They showed up with the shadows.
Trolls. This is probably more to do with the ineptitude of my party, but we just did not know how to deal with the regeneration. We ended up leaving my chars corpse to be eaten, while my friends fled with low health.
Lesson learned, I guess. And my cowardly party did avoid a tpk after all.
i had a party of four level 3s, all of them fairly experienced, that almost tpked to 2 bandits and a bandit captain. all because their warlock decided to be a funny guy and use prestidigitation to shit the bandit captain’s pants
Parties have the ability to TPK themselves! Due to role-playing the cleric takes lead because the fighter or rougue is being a coward.... and boom the avoidable trap or damage that the fighter could have soaked goes to the now dead cleric as things begin to degrade.
I have killed 3 separate parties with Venomfang in LMoP. They always seem to think they can take him.
I'm honestly surprised that the Bodak isn't on this list.
Bodak. CR 2 monster that can easily kill the whole party.
Forget tpk
You want a party to really crap their pants?
Bust out a Rust Monster
I would say Perrytons belong on this list, except that they end up just killing one person before dipping.
i honestly expected goblins on the list, just because they are such a common enemy especially at low levels and for new players, so they cause a lot of tpks
kobolds are probably worse since they are almost as common and are explicitly supposed to be a lot more traps-and-tactics based and very likely to have something particularly intelligent in command of the group, they aren't anything special in a straight fight but they can legitimately kill an inattentive lvl20 party...though come to think of it that might not be the case in 5 since they are one of the monsters that isn't even the same species from one edition to the next: usually either creepy nasty doggygoblins or dragon-worshiping dungeon-building miniature lizardfolk, its the scaly ones that are legitimately terrifying since their version of prepped terrain isn't just an area with a couple traps it is an entire environment designed (with varying degrees of competence) to let them kill something a lot like your party.
goblins _can_ be just as bad but they aren't explicitly supposed to be acting like they are prepping and training to kill _you_ specifically.
anyways, this is more about the stuff that is WAY more dangerous than you'd expect either from abilities way more dangerous than their CR suggests or from the circumstances you encounter them in, this mostly consists of stuff that is hard to engage and/or you just don't have the tools to deal with yet because that cr2 critter was supposed to be encountered later as a pack or _much_ later as a to-dangerous-to-ignore minimook in a high level encounter, anything with snowballing effects or any remotely viable quick-kill option is going to deserve at least an honorable mention, especially if it functions in an indirect/unorthodox way.
case in point those stupid braindoggies are pretty much every item on that list: their most likely encounter environment is the underdark, they act in packs, they do not require line of sight, are always aware of your presence and location _in a 3dimentional cave system with lots of thin walls_ and to make everything just that much worse are most commonly encountered en-masse acting like a group of hunting dogs for a hunting party of mind flayers (y'know, that other entry on this list that they just so happen to synergize with in every way.) an encounter with these things should usually consist of getting blasted by 3 or so illithids positioned several walls away with no direct rout to them with devourers waiting in any adjacent spaces to jump into the skulls of anyone incapacitated again with no direct rout and no nonmagical way to get a trace on them.
So intellect devourer two shades and a willow the wisp working together in a place where the party is told a great wyrm is hold up, could totally ruin a midlevel party's day? Lol
Ok, hear me out, ancient solar shadow dracolich in its lair, good luck
I'm surprised you didn't include a Beholder
i've done a TPK where the characters had ended up aiding an empire in a war to drive out so called "heretics". they end up walking headfirst into an ambush and proceed to get smacked
I knew the intellect devourer was going to be on there
Universally, psionic monsters tpk-ed the party all four times, immediately. Two of them appear here, and I can't remember the names of the other ones. The gaming group perma-banned psionics and psionic monsters after that b/c the game stopped being fun. We lost one player permanently, and very nearly ended the group. We also stopped using the CR system b/c of how worthless it is.
The CR system did used to work correctly, it seems 5e has screwed it up something shocking however. All of these on this list were rated higher to MUCH higher in 3.5e.
Ha, my party's barbarian has an intelligence of 18 somehow (He only rolled 16, 17 and 18s when rolling for stats)
Would definitely agree on the Solar. If you find yourself on the wrong end of their sword or bow its likely because you've made some very questionable life choices.. And your best hope of surviving is probably getting on your knees and begging and just praying that they are in a charitable mood and are feeling more "good" than they are lawful.. 🙂
I was enjoying the video until I saw the Intellect Devourer and immediately had flashbacks to the time a Mindflayer and two Intellect Devourers wiped out an entire party of six 10th level adventurers almost flawlessly.
It was a randomly rolled Underdark encounter and it ended the whole campaign.
CR is a weird system. The Intellect Devourer for example has a CR of 2 which is horrifying when the Party is level 2.
But the Intellect Devourer is not a monster you usually encounter at level 2. They are almost exclusively bred by Illithids in the Underdark through subjecting the brain of a creature to a ritual in which the brain transforms into an Intellect Devourer.
So unless your Campaign starts in the Underdark and you really want to torture your players this is a creature you will more likely encounter 2-3 of on a slightly higher level. On a higher level the CR 2 looks more justified.
I don't know why for the life of me but, I think Intellect Devourers are just cute as buttons. I would carry one around & give it scratches under its little frontal lobes 🤣
Dracolich, part dragon, part lich, ALL PAIN.
When I read the title of your video, I immediately thought of the Intellect Devourer. This enemy is so dangerous (and so unfun for the player playing as the barbarian it will inevitably target) that I hesitate to use it at all, and outright refuse to use it unless a) there is a character in the party capable of casting greater restoration (unlikely) or b) I am 100% certain everyone in the party is well aware of exactly what this monster can do. "Congrats, you can spend the rest of the session twiddling your thumbs and steaming over what a dick your GM is" is not a recipe for an enjoyable game.
the intelect devourer is one of the most fucking nasty enemies ever. personally if i use them i would have them show up at a pretty high level, only 1 at a time, among other enemies, specifically maybe a mind flayer and their pet intelect devourer as i know they are lore connected. would probably make a decent mid game big bad. i would only ever throw multiple intelect devourers and mind flayers against a very high level party. (probably also have an npc straight up explain the threat an intelect devourer poses if they are not already aware as fighting it without metagaming is so much harder cause it doesnt actually look like a threat. sure its creepy but not a "you must kill it instantly or you are dead" type thing)
Honestly every time I have ever had a tok occur while I was GMing it was a direct result of the players choosing to engage with environmental factors while the monsters whales on them.
For instance, the room has traps in it, so the whole party gathers around trying to lift up a stone door to escape the room while the squadron of archons just wails on them. The archons were glass cannons, but they never actually attacked them so how would they know that?
"Banshees can only use wail once per day"
Suddenly, 4 banshees
We had a similar encounter in Avernus. Me (cleric) and the bard were left and after each cry we had to heal someone to get them back up, so it wouldn't be a TPK. After the third it was just me and I had to cast mass healing word to get everyone up. (we were lucky that not all people with healing spells went down)
there is a room of three banshees in DotMM
There is a spell in 3.5/pathfinder called "wail of the banshee".
Level 9.
It does 10 damage per caster level. 40ft AOE.
There is a 4th level spell called Phantasmal killer.
Single target.
Roll will and fortitude save.
Fail the will but pass the fortitude, take 3d6.
Fail both will and fortitude....die. instantly.
Level 4 spell.
@@samhall5096 >Me when I'm wearing a helm of telepathy.
>Okay, but no you.
The intellect devourer is a bit overwhelming, in cases where I want to deploy them without killing the party I make weaker versions of them. Instead of devouring the brain I make them latch into the creatures head, like the head crabs in half life.
Attacking them in this state will cause the character to take half damage for the intellect devourer, and they can be pulled out with a good STR check. It still makes them powerful. But more manageable at lower levels.
Although the sheer fear of seeing an unchanged intellect devourer is a feeling hard to achieve in DND
Makes a ton of sense. Lore-wise, this might be a juvenile state of these creatures.
Wait... "head crabs"? Where do these hell-spawned creatures live, so I can make sure never to go there?!?
@@hoi-polloi1863 Half-Life
@@liambellew1299 Thanks! I think I misread original comment as "real life" instead of "half life"... ;D
These guys were actually a lot worse in AD&D (2nd Edition). In second edition, they resisted almost all damage and were immune to non magical damage to an extreme. To the point that even if you hit them with a magical weapon, you only did damage equal to the magical damage bonus on the weapon, (IE, hit them with a +2 weapon, you do 2 damage total. No str bonus or damage roll).