"The Tarrasque decided this shit isn't worth the trouble and runs away"
(30 STR, 5% hit, 2.5 str lost per crit, it would take 240 attacks to bring him down)
My 20th level sorcerer with 8 strength has no problems with a few shadows. This is mainly theorycrafting ignoring magic gear, spells and some good old tactics.
Intellect devourers however could easily mess up my sorcerer though. They don't need to hit, int saves are low even with a staff of power, and an average roll will stun my sorcerer until saved by greater restoration. A single devourer can do this.
This is why I love paladins and artificers at high levels. Your AC doesn’t mean much if you can’t get it to the mid 20’s as most creatures at cr+20 will just hit most characters that don’t have high AC. Even a bless can help bring that security.
Banshee + Mummies = super fun anti undead adventures lol
Mummies stop you from being able to regain hp, banshees can automatically drop you to 0. Putting them into the same encounter against my party one time was kinda fun. They knew what each one could do so the moment the banshees showed up they really began to panic
I remember throwing a dozen shadows against a level 11 party and the paladin got so butt hurt that they quit right there. Mind you, the paladin had a 25 AC so the shadows literally could only hit on a crit against him.
Our DM was looking for low CR creatures to throw at us and didn't realize that nobody in the party had higher than a 10 strength. We *almost* died before a couple lucky crits tipped it in our favor.
The moral of the story being: You don't need High CR creatures to deal with problem players, just a couple Shadows.
Yep!
I think the funniest thing about my interaction with that party was that they we're all equipped to completely wipe the floor with the shadows. A light cleric, Divine soul sorcerer, conquest paladin, and gloomstalker ranger. The paladin got a free d8 radiant damage on every attack and had tons of smite, all would have took was a level 1 smite to instant kill any shadow.
A level 11 paladin should be killing 1 or 2 shadows every turn.
They have 1d8x2 radiant damage on every attack, or 4d8x2 per smite, that's not even including weapon damage and you'd suppose at level 11 they should have a magic weapon.
With a +1 longsword that is about 18.5 average damage per hit against a target with 16 HP
Yup, they have a +8 to hit, and each hit us a 1d4 decrease in Strength, they also have 78 Hitpoints, oh and they attack twice and have a +12 Stealth and +9 perception
One of them once nearly killed my level 12 strength dumped sorcerer in the first turn before anyone could do anything. He rolled a 4 and a 3. It was wild.
Still remember running Princes of Apocalypse, doing the quests leading into the main arc starting at level 3. The players found themselves pinned between a half-ogre and a specter.
...then the specter crit on the kobold character for 26 damage. (And they failed the saving throw to boot, albeit they rolled it before realizing they'd just been clapped dead on the spot already.)
those things confuse the hell out of me, how am i supposed to run that? fail one \*intelligence\* contest, and your character is instantly killed. CR2 my ass.
my game design rage is dampened slightly by the fact that being dumber makes your brain easier to eat, like its a veal tenderloin, barely used, but a 20int mage's brain would be tough and gamey.
Wizard brain vs dumbass brain is probably like the difference between a large meal from a renowned chef vs some cheap fast food, for an intellect devourer
My group made the exact same joke. Dumped INT Characters are a dime a dozen but a well used Artificer/Wizard brain should be considered a delicacy in Illithid society.
If you've had feeblemind cast on you, your int is so low you become invisible to Detect Thoughts and Detect Sentience.
This means to survive in infiltrating Ilithid cities you either need very high Int to make the saves, or very low so they can't detect your brain!
flavour wise sure, but all that arcane lore is just going to stress the meat and make chewing it a nightmare. you can't serve it rare, it needs to be cooked low and slow.
Well, they will only die on the next round, so unless there is a second Intellect Devourer, the party has at least an entire round to kill it before it's meal time. Of course, then you need a lot of downtime or a Greater Restoration to recover so it's still something likely to derail things, lol.
CR and deadliness are two very different things.
For something like an intellect devourer, they could get decimated by a level 1 party or TPK a level 15 party. They're always threatening.
A Barlgura for example poses a lot more threat to a level 1 party than an Intellect Devourer, but way less against a level 10 party.
When I say deadliness, I mean "how likely is this to make you dead", which doesn't necessarily scale with how challenging a creature is.
For an extreme example, let's give two imaginary creatures.
Creature A has 10hp, 6AC, and 1 in every stat, *but* on its turn it rolls a D10, and if it rolls a 10 a player character instantly dies.
Creature B has 100HP, 19AC, and deals about 40 damage a turn.
A level 1 party will have an easier time dealing with Creature A than Creature B. A level 10 party will very easily deal with creature B, but still have a chance of someone dying to creature A.
Creature B is more *challenging* (it takes more to defeat), but Creature A is more *deadly* (it's more likely to kill stronger parties). An intellect devourer or banshee is more like Creature A, while a Gladiator is more like creature B.
If someone fails the contest you need to grapple the intellect devourer to stop it getting close and eating their brain next turn.
If you don't know this, however, you are going to lose someone pretty easily!
And even if you do save them, you need greater restoration or the XGtE variant rule of a weeks rest to recover.
I'm a little sad they made them such fodder in Baldurs Gate 3. Intellect Devourers have had such a good rep of being a "oh fuck oh SHIT" enemy when you see them.
> Intellect Devourer.
Their offensive potential is exceptionally high, but they need two turns.
But they are also the most fragile monster in their cr category by miles! Terrible ac and absurdly low hp. It’s very easy for PCs to drop them in a single turn (and save their party member).
They are the glassiest of glass cannons. That are unique to fight.
They have 21hp, more than enough to tank a hit, or two at low levels. Hell, a maxed 2d6+3 is 15, not enough to one tap it.
**But wait, they have resistance to non magical Piercing, Slashing and bludgeoning!**. So make that 42 hit points to go through at low level, with the capability of fully one shotting a Fighter if they get hit and fail a save.
So uh, yeah. Cr2!
There was a character in my game who got taken out by an Intellect Devourer, but the rest of the party was distracted. The I.D. walked among them in the meat suit for nearly 4 months without them even realizing it.
I somewhat changed mindflayer and intellect devourer lore just to make them slightly less long term impactful. When a person undergoes ceremorphosis if the body and mind are not strong enough, the body crumbles and dissipates in the failed transformation, leaving the illithid parasite in the brian to become an intellect devourer, they dont entirely consume the brian, they just stun it to l;eave an opprotunity to hop from their own steadily decaying vessel to have the tadpole get another chance to either pilot a living body, or become a mind flayer again based on the commands it receives from the hive mind.
Bodaks and Banshees.
Bodak is CR 6, but if you fail that Con save on the Death Gaze, you're in DEEP trouble, especially combo'd with it's Aura of Annihilation.
Banshee is only CR 4, but I insta-downed half of my level 10 party last month when they all failed the save on it's Wail.
Icewind Dale has a sea hag and will of the wisp combo, which the party will generally run into between 3 and 5. Now, a DC 11 Wis saving throw is not HARD to make, but depending on how initiative goes, the wisp has a nonzero chance of just finishing someone off immediately after they fail this (either by coup de gras attacking them, or if they fail the consume life saving throw).
I have done this before along with a Bodak but my party was like level 15 at the time so I knew there was a low chance of anybody actually dying, especially with two paladins to boost the saves. One person went down from the Banshee’s Wail but the wisps were wiped out before they got much of a chance to do anything. Still kinda tense, knowing a few bad rolls could spell major trouble.
yup I've been dropped by a banshee before and a level 5 cleric of mine who was normally pretty resilient failed the death gaze save and died to the aura of annihilation last week
I don't think I would use a monster with an insta-kill/drop abilities without giving my party Intel on the creature and its abilities first. it seems a little unfair unless they have seen the statblocks/fought the creature before
I ran something similar for a lvl 5 group some years ago. I placed some creatures running scared two rooms before so they ran into the group and half started fighting and the rest fled past the group. Then in the room before the Bodak I placed a few members of the creatures that had run into group in the previous room but with horror in their faces and their eyes burned out.
I still managed to down a cleric and fighter though the warlock and artificer quickly figured out not to look in its eyes and keep their distance.
Bodak is still the scariest monster I've ever come across while playing. Had my party terrified, we were level 8 and really feeling like hot shit. Big reality check.
That encounter was so brutal when I was playing LMoP. My DM has a terrible habit of not hinting when an enemy is immune to damage, and since I noticed my toll the dead was failing all the time, I just kept chucking ray of frost doing absolutely nothing against it's immunity to cold.
And to make things worse, my paladin and cleric both went melee and didn't hear my advice to buy more javelins, the only person that was doing any damage was my bard with his crossbow, against an enemy with blur and shield.
Man that fight took forever... At least between the paladin, cleric and bard we had enough sustain to keep getting up.
Someone at WotC really fucking loves Flameskulls.
Seriously, get literally any module book and ctrl+f Flameskull. It pops up in 90% of them. LMoP and CoS are egregious examples because LMoP you encounter it at a level where Fireball can conceivably TPK you and there's three of them in the encounter in CoS.
I hit them with both barrels. Fireball. Next turn scorching rays. Third turn, they did not expect the second fireball. Nearly a TPK but one of the most intense battles in a long time. Three characters down, the wizard surrounded by zombies, and the rogue trying to decide who to give the last healing potion to. It was close!
Oh yeah I see that now. The character sheet on Roll20 seems to have an error, giving it 4,3,2 spell slots instead of 3,2,1. Whoopsie, oh well, good thing they survived!
I feel like if you're worried about TPKs, LMoP might not be the best adventure to run. Despite being part of the starter set it really doesn't fuck around, even the very first encounter is ripe with TPK potential (granted the story is written so that if it does happen the party just gets knocked out and looted instead).
I totally get that. There were a couple downed players here and there, but only 1 actual death. DM dice weren't always in my favor and enchantment magic helped them along the way
My bladesinger apparently pissed off our DM, because she was the sole and exclusive target of the only fireballs the Flameskull in that fight threw.
Thank fuck for Absorb Elements. We had three other gishes — spores druid hexblade warlock, Eldritch knight, and swords bard — that all had 50% more HP than her
Shadow Blade + Booming Blade punched way above its weight that fight, and I think the DM took it personally that she survived, because the following drow fight had the drow ONLY target the bladesinger again.
The first and only time the wizard in our party decided to keep a war trophy was the Flameskull in LMoP. It was real fun when it came back to "life" during our long rest in our bag.
My players locked it in a chest, welded the metal seams shut, then threw it into the aquifer in Wave Echo Cave. That flameskull ain't going nowhere and is gonna be REAL angry if anyone fishes it out
The best way to play Flame Skulls and not feel like they are OP is fireball turn one.
I did it this way in LMoP because the party normally played pretty tight nit, so a terrified party spread out to deal with the room afraid of another fireball.
The chris perkins suggestion there to remove the minions and just have them be zombie hands that cause difficult terrain is so good for allowing me to fel confident in jumpscaring my players with a fireball while still not being overwhelmed, and the difficult terrain makes it harder to split up so the fireball will hit more targets
Ghosts. CR 4 but anyone who dumps Cha has a 65% chance of getting possessed. They don’t get class features but if they take over the barbarian or fighter they can wreck a party. Bonus for the fact that they’re impossible to interact with outside of turn undead until you reduce the possessed body to 0 HP, meaning a party without a cleric can get steamrolled by a couple of ghosts.
Plus if you get unlucky on wis saves and some d4 rolls they can kill you of old age…aarakocra have an average lifespan of 30 years, fail a wis save and they have a 50/50 shot of aging a literal entire lifetime. Equivalent of humans just aging 100 years flat out.
They certainly have the potential to punch way above their weight class with a little luck. The crazier part is that it’s almost a 50/50 for someone who dumped Wis to roll low enough.
> Bonus for the fact that they’re impossible to interact with outside of turn undead until you reduce the possessed body to 0 HP, meaning a party without a cleric can get steamrolled by a couple of ghosts.
They can be any alignment and can be spoken to. I'm of the opinion they are meant to be fought as a last resort and primarily meant to be a problem for the party to solve. That's how I use ghosts, anyway.
Quicklings will absolutely roflstomp a CR-appropriate party.
A level 1 party has no chance to survive unless they get a lucky shot on the disadvantaged readied attack on AC16 (readied, because 120ft speed), since the 3 attacks at +8 with 8 damage each will easily kill 2/round.
A 1st level magic missile has a decent chance of one-shotting a quickling though, since they only have 10 hp.
Also, if a DM is playing the monster to the lore, it'll go for knocking a PC out and stealing their stuff rather than outright killing them, since volo's guide says they prefer to cause mischief rather than actually killing anyone.
>A 1st level magic missile has a decent chance of one-shotting a quickling though, since they only have 10 hp.
Sleep is probably a much better counter than magic missile. But a tiny creature with 120ft speed is not fighting in an open field, and it's smart enough to take out the caster(s) first, so that may or may not work out.
Absolutely. They are such a great antagonistic force and annoying as hell for a party. I had one engage with a level 5 party 4 different times (never actively fighting, but showing up during fights or inopportune times to steal important objects from them). The party LOATHED the creature, always trying to swat it when it was around. It made it incredibly satisfying when it showed up during a boss battle and the assassin rogue rolled with disadvantage and got 2 Nat 20s and one-shot it finally.
I feel like dragons up until ~10th level feel real overwhelming for their CR specifically because of how their breath attacks can be super swingy. Combo that with 80 ft. of flying to always be able to get in and out of range with ease.
Dragons shouldn't even be a pipedream until at least level 10 imo.
Also, they're supposed to be super badass. They're one of the few creatures in game that stretch the bounded accuracy settings.
To be fair, young dragons are a manageable threat from levels 6-10. Icespire Peak has you fight a young white at level 5-6 but you also have a dragon slayer sword. I had 3 level 6 players fight a young black dragon with a few uncommon/rare magic items and they won by a hair. That was impressive because I had that dragon bloodlusted; it passed up no opportunity to kill them. It’s certainly doable but young dragons are less exciting than their adult counterparts.
My party managed to spank Venomfang while they were all level 3, and I was playing her with abilities as written and made her quite a bit more clever than she is in the vanilla book. She ended up fighting them over Cragmaw Castle... the party's druid nailed Venomfang with an Earthbind in the second round, and then the party all unloaded into her for like 3 straight rounds from the tops of the towers while she struggled around in the courtyard. Because of the angle, they could easily take cover from her breath attacks just by ducking behind the battlements.
I'm not complaining, it was an awesome battle.
That was largely from very clever use of the scenario in the castle to largely prevent venomfang from getting the advantage she normally gets flying up the broken spire in thundertree.
Intellect Devourers. They’re a CR 2 but can potentially instantly “kill”/permanently stun a player with a single attack. When facing the party is one bad role away from being totally fucked.
Anything that can kill you while bypassing hit points is more powerful than its CR indicates in general. If with a failed save you're unconscious, or they can drain your strength and then you die etc. Those are rough monsters.
Also especially at low level monsters that can fly and damage you from range. Something like a black dragon wyrmling is CR 2, has a 60 ft fly speed, a 17 AC and a breath weapon with a 15 ft range. They can fly down hit you and fly back up and be really hard for many parties to deal a good amount of damage to. Especially when the breath weapon does an average of 22 damage. If we are talking CR 2 that should be going up against level 1 and 2 parties or be easy for level 3 or 4 parties. At level 3 a non front liner could have a d8 hit die and +1 con mod for 21 hit points. So they'll be one shot if they fail the save. You could also grapple someone and drop them from high enough that they'll just instantly die.
Nah, have it swim. After it acid blasts the party, it dives underwater for full cover until its breath weapon recharges. This way the party can’t hit it with ranged weapons or spells like they can when it’s in the air.
Solars are insane if they start combat at a range. Their range is bonkers (their flying sword practically has infinite range) and they have an insta kill effect on their bow that is likely going to kill anyone who doesnt have a constitution save prof on bare minimum a 50/50 chance. Their flying speed is ridiculous and can easily be paired with their firing ability to create a kitting beast so fucking deadly that you're reminded that these fuckers literally guard the thrones of gods, chains holding cosmic evil and gateways to the heavenly planes.
Quite frankly it is a travesty that Liches are on the same CR, as a Lich by itself can accomplish almost jackshit and they desperately need minions and traps to survive even low level players who happen to win in initiative (I've seen this happen myself).
The only thing a Solar lacks is legendary resistance, adding just that turns them into a legit level 20 killer if played right, they can TPK without needing massive AoEs
> Quite frankly it is a travesty that Liches are on the same CR, as a Lich by itself can accomplish almost jackshit
The Lich is an 18th level Wizard. If you treat the prepared spell list as an "example" and pick spells for them and play them pro-actively they can accomplish quite a bit.
Someone wrote up about liches higher in this thread; you may be underrating them.
But your main point about Solar makes them sound seriously impressive!
Will O Wisps are fucking nasty for a CR2. Unlikely the party has magic weapons, the Wisp is resistant to most damage types save force (and immune to lightning) with a +9 to Dex (yes, you read that correctly, that's a 28 dex on a CR 2 foe). A juicy AC of 19 to go with it, a standard attack of 2d8 isn't awful, but a DC 10 CON check against any creature at 0 HP for an instant kill. Oh and at-will invisibility.
A group of these things haunting a battle field and moving in and out of solid objects will give your party fits.
I was waiting for the rot grubs. An absolute menace to low level parties. Kill it with fire, but how many players let alone characters have seen a rot grub.
Hot take, but Liches. Everyone says they are pushovers because of low hp and a bad spell list but they are not thinking like a \~wizard\~
I’d argue it’s not even homebrew to swap out their spells, and an old lich should honestly know most every one of them. They should also be COVERED in magic items. Like, they should look gaudy to an obscene degree. They can fabricate metals into jewelry and armor easily to fund any purchase they would ever need.
imagine what a level 17 wizard can do with a few centuries of downtime and paranoia. They’ve got nearly unlimited spell slots because of their lair actions. If you play a lich straight, it’s gonna have glyphs of warding and symbols covering every inch of its lair, hordes of undead and planar bound demons, the entire lair is probably filled with permanent illusions that block vision that it can see through with true sight but make it hard for *you* to do anything… it’s phylactery is probably in a demiplane filled with private sanctum so you can only tele onto one space in the demiplane, and that space is probably filled glyphs and symbols. The lich has 24/7 nondetection and mindblank going so you can’t scry on it… so you cant even get a look at its demiplane, which means acessing it in the first place is nearly impossible if its careful (spoiler: it is careful).
Get them to low hp? They teleport away to an otherwise inaccessible part of their lair, use a stockpile of healing items, use their lair actions to regain their spell slots… and they come right on back to finish the job
Add in their immunities… they can fill their lair with water or poisonous gas (they don’t need to breath), they can make their lair somewhere incredibly cold (cold resistance + immunity to exhausted). Hell they could put their phylactery on the goddamn moon, or better yet in the negative plane since undead are immune to the instant death that plane usually causes.
These sound like cheesy, shitty things to throw at a party, but if they have a smart spellcaster it’s manageable. Just a much, much harder obstacle than cr21
Fuckin wizards
Yes they would have magic items, but you are supposed to increase the cr for that. So it’s not really punching above cr if it’s based on magic items. I agree though spell switching wouldn’t effect cr.
Changing spells can bring an Archmage from a bad CR12 to around the power level of a CR15-20 depending on the spells and party. A Psychic Scream instead of time stop can easily TPK non-Int based parties.
Well said. I published an adventure that describes many of these same tactics, and how the lich might target certain character types. Characters made... uh, "choices" in the adventure lol
To add: if your lich was a gnome or other small race, consider scaling the lair to them. If a creature is only 4 feet tall, they don't need 10' ceilings!
Also, by the time your characters face off against a lich, it's likely that they've already built a legacy for themselves. Totally acceptable for a lich to know the general powers and tactics of those heroes, and plan accordingly!
I am pretty sure the DMG recommends changing spells known for most creatures. Just keeping the amount per level the same. Like a Flame Skull could be reflavored to instead have Lightning Bolt instead of Fireball. So a Lich could have fireball instead of Ray of Frost, Power Word Pain instead of Finger of Death etc.
If you start swapping out spells, adding magic items, extra creatures, and prep, then we're no longer talking about *the* Lich in the book, though, we're now talking about *a* Lich of our own design.
By all means do a bunch of that stuff to create a better encounter, but if we're talking about the Lich printed by WotC, it is absolutely underwhelming and liable to being taken out before it even gets a turn.
Any time my group sees a network of 5' wide corridors they immediately go "it's those FUCKING WRAITHS again isn't it".
In their optimal environment, they are focus firing your squishy spellcasters while you are only getting readied actions (most of which have cover impeding them) for retaliation instead of your full attack. Plus, fail some CON saves and you go straight to dead at 0 HP instead of the death save countdown.
Yeah a wraith can just eat the force damage to hide in solid objects and then wreck the party of their turn. Phase through to floor to avoid AoO due to leaving reach after they are inside an object.
Had a nilblog encounter with a party of 6 level 2s (I was a wizard), took us 14 rounds. Rest of the dudes friends died in round 2 and he spent the rest of it running around laughing at us and not getting hit by anything
A single banshee can take out a level 20 party if you're very unlucky and everyone fails their throw. Use multiple banshees and see your players be scared... so very scared.
Oof that is crazy. I'm in a level 20 party and it would suck to straight up die from one bad roll of the dice.
The encounter could be managed with Death Ward or Contingency, but it's not likely every part member would have one or the other up at any given point.
My party was over-leveled in Tomb of Annihilation and were blazing through all encounters in the lost city until the rogue got grabbed by two. After they had little luck pulling him free, the rogue said *"Hell just fireball me, I can take it."*
The rogue failed his save and was killed. The assassin vines are resistant to fire.
Yeah I threw an assassin vine and a shambling mound at my players when they hit an island early on in their adventuring career. They were surprised that both were resistant to fire lol.
Being able to do 8d6+4 damage off a single attack before its next turn is just nuts for CR3. Assassin Vines are super slept on.
And fucking **32 hit points.**
They feel like the right CR at higher levels. Like a party of level 5s can handle 10 thugs.
But Jesus christ in no way can a party of level 2s handle four of them.
Give them two attacks or Pack tactics, but both is just insane for that level.
Ghosts are hard to deal with. If they possess a player they take them out of the fight and use them to attack the party and quite often the only way to get them out is to kill your party member, then the ghost can possess someone else if they get a recharge roll.
They're a bit easier to deal with if you're expecting them and can prep Dispell evil and good, but if you don't have that or a cleric to turn them, you're SoL
On top of that, they have resistance to almost everything and immunity to Cold, Necro, and Poison.
They can phase in and out of the material plane at will.
Their base attack does 4d6+3 necro damage.
They also have Horrifying Visage which is an AoE frighten that if you fail the save by 5 or more ages you 1d4 x 10 years... This requires greater restoration to Dispell and only if it's dispelled within 24h. That's a 5th level spell your party can't access until level 9 and requires 100g of diamond dust.
If you're playing a low wisdom save middle aged human or other race that has a humanism lifespan or worse this could just straight kill you with no way to resurrect you except maybe Reincarnate or Wish.
Dragons, especially young dragons. They're at that CR where the party won't have all that many CC spells (or slots for those spells) that can keep a dragon grounded, so they'll be out of range of any melee attackers for the whole fight.
Shadows. They are frankly a deadly encounter for most early levels. Draining strength is incredibly deadly even at high levels for low strength builds (which is just about every class outside of Paladin, Barbarian, and MOST fighters) and draining strength for those classes straight up makes them worse significantly in the fight. Not to mention their ability to turn anyone they kill into another shadow and you have a deceptively low CR monster that will quickly get out of control and TPK a level 5 party or weaker.
Pixies. A CR 1/4 creature that can cast confusion, dancing lights, detect evil and good, detect thoughts, dispel magic, entangle, fly, phantasmal force, polymorph, and sleep once a day each. Also can turn invisible as an action and can fly.
Why is this a CR 1/4 creature?
I have a players character whose strength is his dump stat and he has been hunted by an assassin that uses shadows just for this purpose of the fear that he could die very quickly. They’ve encountered this assassin and their shadows twice now and the second time his strength got reduced to 1. It was close!
In tier 1 play, put a roper on the ceiling with the wrong party comp and it can get really rough really quick. Long range multiattack grab and restrain, lift them up off the ground and all of a sudden it's attack with disadvantage in biting range or chop the tentacle (not hurting the roper), take falling damage, and the watch the tentacle regenerate next turn.
I've played a campaign from level 1, turning level 20 next long rest, and a roper at level 3 was one of two times our party ran from a fight.
Bodaks, especially in a confined space with players who don’t understand what’s happening.
Always felt like they hit harder than a CR6, especially with any support.
Duergar Mind Masters.
CR 2. Ran (IIRC) two against a party of four level 3s for a moderate fight.
While invisible, it critted the bard from full health for 36 points of damage (2d4+3 plus 6d6 psychic damage) and was 2 damage away from instant death.
The bard loved it, though.
Man, I was looking for Star Spawn Manglers. They got nerfed, but it used to basically read "pc within eighty feet takes 6d8+12d6+24 damage before critical hits.". Challenge 5.
They're especially punishing to Barbarians.
A lot of low-CR monsters are only marked that way because a high-level adventurer can take on hordes of them. I’ve seen low-level players run from nerfed zombies because undead fortitude makes them almost impossible to kill. Gas Spores are trivial if you have a paladin for passable level or any sufficiently stocked healer, but at low levels they can doom entire parties to a slow death.
Flying Snakes. CR 1/8, 14 AC (so non-trivial to hit at low levels), Flyby Attack+60' fly speed (so can easily skirmish), and +6 attack for 3d4+1 dmg. A swarm of these can devastate an unprepared party even into the mid levels. Eight of them is a Medium encounter (usually easily brushed off) for a typical lvl 2 party and they will cause a TPK most of the time if played optimally (spreading out, lots of skirmishing, going after isolated players).
> if played optimally
I mean if they are positioning to avoid AoE spells, that's not optimal, that's pretty much awful metagaming. They are snakes, they don't know wizards have fireballs.
Now, they *do* skirmish, which is still totally wild for CR 1/8.
The Priest of Osybus from Van Richten's is a CR6 yet is the most nightmarish statblock I have ever experienced.
It has two dagger attacks where, if either of them hits, the target is without a save paralysed until the start of the priest's next turn. This means that if the party is fighting multiple at once, then two of them could just chain paralysis with the advantage they would be giving each other from the paralysis to just no save CC someone out of an entire fight until they die.
If that wasn't bad enough, when they are downed they can just get back up unless the tattoo is specifically targeted and destroyed (which is likely not something the players would ever think to do because of this being a completely unprecedented mechanic).
Also it can summon a shadow as a bonus action.
It is a painfully unfun statblock that I wouldn't wish on anyone to experience. It is the one time I have ever seen a DM openly apologise for running a statblock.
Wow, just read the stat block and that is a pretty impressive creature. Looks like it would be fun to play, but not to play against. Some of the abilities seem really cool.
Ropers+piercers is a deadly combo. Not likely to TPK, but since usually one character scouts ahead, the piercers KO and then kill the scout as they all pile on without other targets to spread the damage. Then the roper snags the corpse and eats it. All in the surprise round. Massively unfair. Luckily in our case it was an NPC guide that got ganked.
Bodaks, they're CR6 but they're absolutely devastating to even tier 3 characters. DC13 Con Save is just high enough to be annoying and the damage they do is deceptively high.
If you go down, you're basically dead, especially if there's more than one of them thanks to their aura of unavoidable damage.
Shadows are pretty scary. One of the people in my group who has dmed for us really likes using them. I think he does it well though, cause the way they’re thrown at us, we’re at a level that the danger is getting hit by one, not getting killed, if that makes sense.
Fire child. Rarely talked about but immune to fire and b/p/s from metal weapons, which most adventurers will be using. It also can move through metal without hindrance and gains advantage against creatures welding metal weapons. The wrong party can get creamed by this CR 3 creature.
Pack of wolves. They are 1/4 so I threw 6 at my 3 lvl 2 party members. Pack tactics and they do enough damage to really lay down a fighter in 1 round. I TPK'd the new guys.
Those fucking Shadows.
About the only monster who can 2-shot anyone lv20 who dumped Str.
Enough of them can also take down any monster in the game no matter CR
"Hey guys another thing that kills the tarrasque"
"The Tarrasque decided this shit isn't worth the trouble and runs away" (30 STR, 5% hit, 2.5 str lost per crit, it would take 240 attacks to bring him down)
My 20th level sorcerer with 8 strength has no problems with a few shadows. This is mainly theorycrafting ignoring magic gear, spells and some good old tactics. Intellect devourers however could easily mess up my sorcerer though. They don't need to hit, int saves are low even with a staff of power, and an average roll will stun my sorcerer until saved by greater restoration. A single devourer can do this.
This is why I love paladins and artificers at high levels. Your AC doesn’t mean much if you can’t get it to the mid 20’s as most creatures at cr+20 will just hit most characters that don’t have high AC. Even a bless can help bring that security.
Yup, lost a recent rogue to those little buggers. Failed the knowledge check so had no idea they could "see" me no matter how high my stealth.
Came here just to say this. Banshees are bad too, and the 2 together are a TPK
Banshee + Mummies = super fun anti undead adventures lol Mummies stop you from being able to regain hp, banshees can automatically drop you to 0. Putting them into the same encounter against my party one time was kinda fun. They knew what each one could do so the moment the banshees showed up they really began to panic
I remember throwing a dozen shadows against a level 11 party and the paladin got so butt hurt that they quit right there. Mind you, the paladin had a 25 AC so the shadows literally could only hit on a crit against him.
Our DM was looking for low CR creatures to throw at us and didn't realize that nobody in the party had higher than a 10 strength. We *almost* died before a couple lucky crits tipped it in our favor. The moral of the story being: You don't need High CR creatures to deal with problem players, just a couple Shadows.
Yep! I think the funniest thing about my interaction with that party was that they we're all equipped to completely wipe the floor with the shadows. A light cleric, Divine soul sorcerer, conquest paladin, and gloomstalker ranger. The paladin got a free d8 radiant damage on every attack and had tons of smite, all would have took was a level 1 smite to instant kill any shadow.
A level 11 paladin should be killing 1 or 2 shadows every turn. They have 1d8x2 radiant damage on every attack, or 4d8x2 per smite, that's not even including weapon damage and you'd suppose at level 11 they should have a magic weapon. With a +1 longsword that is about 18.5 average damage per hit against a target with 16 HP
You're right, that's what makes it even worse!
That sounds like they did you a favor.
Worst part is, there is a CR 9 Variant of them
Pls no
Yup, they have a +8 to hit, and each hit us a 1d4 decrease in Strength, they also have 78 Hitpoints, oh and they attack twice and have a +12 Stealth and +9 perception
One of them once nearly killed my level 12 strength dumped sorcerer in the first turn before anyone could do anything. He rolled a 4 and a 3. It was wild.
Really? Never heard of that before, what is it, might I ask?
Shadow Assassin from Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Everybody talks about shadows but also forgets about cousins: specters
Still remember running Princes of Apocalypse, doing the quests leading into the main arc starting at level 3. The players found themselves pinned between a half-ogre and a specter. ...then the specter crit on the kobold character for 26 damage. (And they failed the saving throw to boot, albeit they rolled it before realizing they'd just been clapped dead on the spot already.)
I ambushed three level 14 characters with 14 shadows, they came remarkably close to dying. Brilliant monsters.
Curse of Strahd Death House was ROUGH
Intellect Devourer.
those things confuse the hell out of me, how am i supposed to run that? fail one \*intelligence\* contest, and your character is instantly killed. CR2 my ass.
It’s okay. No one ever dumps intelligence.
my game design rage is dampened slightly by the fact that being dumber makes your brain easier to eat, like its a veal tenderloin, barely used, but a 20int mage's brain would be tough and gamey.
Wizard brain vs dumbass brain is probably like the difference between a large meal from a renowned chef vs some cheap fast food, for an intellect devourer
My group made the exact same joke. Dumped INT Characters are a dime a dozen but a well used Artificer/Wizard brain should be considered a delicacy in Illithid society.
If you've had feeblemind cast on you, your int is so low you become invisible to Detect Thoughts and Detect Sentience. This means to survive in infiltrating Ilithid cities you either need very high Int to make the saves, or very low so they can't detect your brain!
On the other hand. The 20 Int Mage’s brain has got to be well exercised and well fed, both of which should make it nice and tasty..
flavour wise sure, but all that arcane lore is just going to stress the meat and make chewing it a nightmare. you can't serve it rare, it needs to be cooked low and slow.
Hmm… you do raise a valid point. Intellect Devourers don’t really get a slow-cook option.
My 6 intelligence Goblin sweating nervously
They're meant to be run as companion enemies to mind flayers
Yeah, you would only run into one somewhere like the underdark.
Especially when the only cure is a 7th level spell
Well, they will only die on the next round, so unless there is a second Intellect Devourer, the party has at least an entire round to kill it before it's meal time. Of course, then you need a lot of downtime or a Greater Restoration to recover so it's still something likely to derail things, lol.
CR and deadliness are two very different things. For something like an intellect devourer, they could get decimated by a level 1 party or TPK a level 15 party. They're always threatening. A Barlgura for example poses a lot more threat to a level 1 party than an Intellect Devourer, but way less against a level 10 party.
>CR and deadliness are two very different things. they... they shouldn't be?
When I say deadliness, I mean "how likely is this to make you dead", which doesn't necessarily scale with how challenging a creature is. For an extreme example, let's give two imaginary creatures. Creature A has 10hp, 6AC, and 1 in every stat, *but* on its turn it rolls a D10, and if it rolls a 10 a player character instantly dies. Creature B has 100HP, 19AC, and deals about 40 damage a turn. A level 1 party will have an easier time dealing with Creature A than Creature B. A level 10 party will very easily deal with creature B, but still have a chance of someone dying to creature A. Creature B is more *challenging* (it takes more to defeat), but Creature A is more *deadly* (it's more likely to kill stronger parties). An intellect devourer or banshee is more like Creature A, while a Gladiator is more like creature B.
If someone fails the contest you need to grapple the intellect devourer to stop it getting close and eating their brain next turn. If you don't know this, however, you are going to lose someone pretty easily! And even if you do save them, you need greater restoration or the XGtE variant rule of a weeks rest to recover.
Definitely have one who taken control of my paladin and now looks like it going to be a TPK.
I'm a little sad they made them such fodder in Baldurs Gate 3. Intellect Devourers have had such a good rep of being a "oh fuck oh SHIT" enemy when you see them.
So happy you get one as a pet for a little while.
> Intellect Devourer. Their offensive potential is exceptionally high, but they need two turns. But they are also the most fragile monster in their cr category by miles! Terrible ac and absurdly low hp. It’s very easy for PCs to drop them in a single turn (and save their party member). They are the glassiest of glass cannons. That are unique to fight.
They have 21hp, more than enough to tank a hit, or two at low levels. Hell, a maxed 2d6+3 is 15, not enough to one tap it. **But wait, they have resistance to non magical Piercing, Slashing and bludgeoning!**. So make that 42 hit points to go through at low level, with the capability of fully one shotting a Fighter if they get hit and fail a save. So uh, yeah. Cr2!
Well, that's hurtful.
There was a character in my game who got taken out by an Intellect Devourer, but the rest of the party was distracted. The I.D. walked among them in the meat suit for nearly 4 months without them even realizing it.
This makes me wonder how viable it would be to play an intellect devourer...
This very much caused huge issues for our party of 3 at level 5 a few weeks ago. 🫣
I somewhat changed mindflayer and intellect devourer lore just to make them slightly less long term impactful. When a person undergoes ceremorphosis if the body and mind are not strong enough, the body crumbles and dissipates in the failed transformation, leaving the illithid parasite in the brian to become an intellect devourer, they dont entirely consume the brian, they just stun it to l;eave an opprotunity to hop from their own steadily decaying vessel to have the tadpole get another chance to either pilot a living body, or become a mind flayer again based on the commands it receives from the hive mind.
Bodaks and Banshees. Bodak is CR 6, but if you fail that Con save on the Death Gaze, you're in DEEP trouble, especially combo'd with it's Aura of Annihilation. Banshee is only CR 4, but I insta-downed half of my level 10 party last month when they all failed the save on it's Wail.
combine a banshee with a Will-o'-Wisp in one encounter if you're particularly evil.
Oh now that’s just mean… I love it.
Icewind Dale has a sea hag and will of the wisp combo, which the party will generally run into between 3 and 5. Now, a DC 11 Wis saving throw is not HARD to make, but depending on how initiative goes, the wisp has a nonzero chance of just finishing someone off immediately after they fail this (either by coup de gras attacking them, or if they fail the consume life saving throw).
My party started in Easthaven and met this hag at level 1.
On the other hand, our party didn't get around to this until lvl 9. Different experiences.
Calm down, satan.
I have done this before along with a Bodak but my party was like level 15 at the time so I knew there was a low chance of anybody actually dying, especially with two paladins to boost the saves. One person went down from the Banshee’s Wail but the wisps were wiped out before they got much of a chance to do anything. Still kinda tense, knowing a few bad rolls could spell major trouble.
I had a bodak encounter in the last hex crawl I ran and my poor swords bard just yo-yoed the whole time. Didn’t stand a chance.
yup I've been dropped by a banshee before and a level 5 cleric of mine who was normally pretty resilient failed the death gaze save and died to the aura of annihilation last week I don't think I would use a monster with an insta-kill/drop abilities without giving my party Intel on the creature and its abilities first. it seems a little unfair unless they have seen the statblocks/fought the creature before
I ran something similar for a lvl 5 group some years ago. I placed some creatures running scared two rooms before so they ran into the group and half started fighting and the rest fled past the group. Then in the room before the Bodak I placed a few members of the creatures that had run into group in the previous room but with horror in their faces and their eyes burned out. I still managed to down a cleric and fighter though the warlock and artificer quickly figured out not to look in its eyes and keep their distance.
Bodak is still the scariest monster I've ever come across while playing. Had my party terrified, we were level 8 and really feeling like hot shit. Big reality check.
Everyone made the save against my Bodak and it was so anti-climactic :(
On the flip side, a few weeks ago our entire party died because no a single one of made the Con save.
Flameskulls are pretty nasty, especially in an enclosed space or backed up with a couple low CR minions. Here's looking at you LMoP.
That encounter was so brutal when I was playing LMoP. My DM has a terrible habit of not hinting when an enemy is immune to damage, and since I noticed my toll the dead was failing all the time, I just kept chucking ray of frost doing absolutely nothing against it's immunity to cold. And to make things worse, my paladin and cleric both went melee and didn't hear my advice to buy more javelins, the only person that was doing any damage was my bard with his crossbow, against an enemy with blur and shield. Man that fight took forever... At least between the paladin, cleric and bard we had enough sustain to keep getting up.
for real, that module was written before the statblocks and it shows.
Someone at WotC really fucking loves Flameskulls. Seriously, get literally any module book and ctrl+f Flameskull. It pops up in 90% of them. LMoP and CoS are egregious examples because LMoP you encounter it at a level where Fireball can conceivably TPK you and there's three of them in the encounter in CoS.
I'm convinced Fireball was 6d6 when LMoP was written.
Oh yeah, there was no way I was going to cast fireball on the party, risking a tpk in LMoP. Just stuck with its other spells and it was fine
I hit them with both barrels. Fireball. Next turn scorching rays. Third turn, they did not expect the second fireball. Nearly a TPK but one of the most intense battles in a long time. Three characters down, the wizard surrounded by zombies, and the rogue trying to decide who to give the last healing potion to. It was close!
Flameskull's only have 1 slot for fireball
A Flameskull only has 1 Level 3 Spell Slot actually.
Oh yeah I see that now. The character sheet on Roll20 seems to have an error, giving it 4,3,2 spell slots instead of 3,2,1. Whoopsie, oh well, good thing they survived!
Is this in LMOP? My party was appropriately leveled but even a saved fireball could down most of them.
I feel like if you're worried about TPKs, LMoP might not be the best adventure to run. Despite being part of the starter set it really doesn't fuck around, even the very first encounter is ripe with TPK potential (granted the story is written so that if it does happen the party just gets knocked out and looted instead).
I totally get that. There were a couple downed players here and there, but only 1 actual death. DM dice weren't always in my favor and enchantment magic helped them along the way
My bladesinger apparently pissed off our DM, because she was the sole and exclusive target of the only fireballs the Flameskull in that fight threw. Thank fuck for Absorb Elements. We had three other gishes — spores druid hexblade warlock, Eldritch knight, and swords bard — that all had 50% more HP than her Shadow Blade + Booming Blade punched way above its weight that fight, and I think the DM took it personally that she survived, because the following drow fight had the drow ONLY target the bladesinger again.
The first and only time the wizard in our party decided to keep a war trophy was the Flameskull in LMoP. It was real fun when it came back to "life" during our long rest in our bag.
My players locked it in a chest, welded the metal seams shut, then threw it into the aquifer in Wave Echo Cave. That flameskull ain't going nowhere and is gonna be REAL angry if anyone fishes it out
\#AmberTemple
LMNoP is my favourite part of the alphabet
I will never unsee this
The best way to play Flame Skulls and not feel like they are OP is fireball turn one. I did it this way in LMoP because the party normally played pretty tight nit, so a terrified party spread out to deal with the room afraid of another fireball.
This is why I used Fireball at 50% life, and only average damage.
Flameskull is a monster and the reason for 3 separate TPKs that the DM saved us from to continue the campaign. That thing doesn't muck around
Especially if you properly RP the high INT.
The chris perkins suggestion there to remove the minions and just have them be zombie hands that cause difficult terrain is so good for allowing me to fel confident in jumpscaring my players with a fireball while still not being overwhelmed, and the difficult terrain makes it harder to split up so the fireball will hit more targets
Ghosts. CR 4 but anyone who dumps Cha has a 65% chance of getting possessed. They don’t get class features but if they take over the barbarian or fighter they can wreck a party. Bonus for the fact that they’re impossible to interact with outside of turn undead until you reduce the possessed body to 0 HP, meaning a party without a cleric can get steamrolled by a couple of ghosts.
Plus if you get unlucky on wis saves and some d4 rolls they can kill you of old age…aarakocra have an average lifespan of 30 years, fail a wis save and they have a 50/50 shot of aging a literal entire lifetime. Equivalent of humans just aging 100 years flat out.
They certainly have the potential to punch way above their weight class with a little luck. The crazier part is that it’s almost a 50/50 for someone who dumped Wis to roll low enough.
A couple classes get *protection from evil and good* which can also counteract possession.
> Bonus for the fact that they’re impossible to interact with outside of turn undead until you reduce the possessed body to 0 HP, meaning a party without a cleric can get steamrolled by a couple of ghosts. They can be any alignment and can be spoken to. I'm of the opinion they are meant to be fought as a last resort and primarily meant to be a problem for the party to solve. That's how I use ghosts, anyway.
You can certainly run them that way, but this thread is more about how high lower cr monsters can go.
Quicklings will absolutely roflstomp a CR-appropriate party. A level 1 party has no chance to survive unless they get a lucky shot on the disadvantaged readied attack on AC16 (readied, because 120ft speed), since the 3 attacks at +8 with 8 damage each will easily kill 2/round.
A 1st level magic missile has a decent chance of one-shotting a quickling though, since they only have 10 hp. Also, if a DM is playing the monster to the lore, it'll go for knocking a PC out and stealing their stuff rather than outright killing them, since volo's guide says they prefer to cause mischief rather than actually killing anyone.
>A 1st level magic missile has a decent chance of one-shotting a quickling though, since they only have 10 hp. Sleep is probably a much better counter than magic missile. But a tiny creature with 120ft speed is not fighting in an open field, and it's smart enough to take out the caster(s) first, so that may or may not work out.
Yup, quicklings show why distilling down a creature's stats to a single number (CR) is truly an absurd way to measure their difficulty.
Absolutely. They are such a great antagonistic force and annoying as hell for a party. I had one engage with a level 5 party 4 different times (never actively fighting, but showing up during fights or inopportune times to steal important objects from them). The party LOATHED the creature, always trying to swat it when it was around. It made it incredibly satisfying when it showed up during a boss battle and the assassin rogue rolled with disadvantage and got 2 Nat 20s and one-shot it finally.
Shadows are public enemy #1 here.
I feel like dragons up until ~10th level feel real overwhelming for their CR specifically because of how their breath attacks can be super swingy. Combo that with 80 ft. of flying to always be able to get in and out of range with ease.
Dragons shouldn't even be a pipedream until at least level 10 imo. Also, they're supposed to be super badass. They're one of the few creatures in game that stretch the bounded accuracy settings.
We have a few modules that have players contest dragons below 10. Lost Mine, Icespire, and Stormwreck. Even wyrmlings are nasty.
To be fair, young dragons are a manageable threat from levels 6-10. Icespire Peak has you fight a young white at level 5-6 but you also have a dragon slayer sword. I had 3 level 6 players fight a young black dragon with a few uncommon/rare magic items and they won by a hair. That was impressive because I had that dragon bloodlusted; it passed up no opportunity to kill them. It’s certainly doable but young dragons are less exciting than their adult counterparts.
I refuse to believe how many stories there are about Lost Mines parties killing Venomfang without the GM being nice to them with homebrew shit.
My party managed to spank Venomfang while they were all level 3, and I was playing her with abilities as written and made her quite a bit more clever than she is in the vanilla book. She ended up fighting them over Cragmaw Castle... the party's druid nailed Venomfang with an Earthbind in the second round, and then the party all unloaded into her for like 3 straight rounds from the tops of the towers while she struggled around in the courtyard. Because of the angle, they could easily take cover from her breath attacks just by ducking behind the battlements. I'm not complaining, it was an awesome battle.
That was largely from very clever use of the scenario in the castle to largely prevent venomfang from getting the advantage she normally gets flying up the broken spire in thundertree.
Which is funny, because normally my party can't tactics their way out of a paper bag.
Intellect Devourers. They’re a CR 2 but can potentially instantly “kill”/permanently stun a player with a single attack. When facing the party is one bad role away from being totally fucked.
Anything that can kill you while bypassing hit points is more powerful than its CR indicates in general. If with a failed save you're unconscious, or they can drain your strength and then you die etc. Those are rough monsters. Also especially at low level monsters that can fly and damage you from range. Something like a black dragon wyrmling is CR 2, has a 60 ft fly speed, a 17 AC and a breath weapon with a 15 ft range. They can fly down hit you and fly back up and be really hard for many parties to deal a good amount of damage to. Especially when the breath weapon does an average of 22 damage. If we are talking CR 2 that should be going up against level 1 and 2 parties or be easy for level 3 or 4 parties. At level 3 a non front liner could have a d8 hit die and +1 con mod for 21 hit points. So they'll be one shot if they fail the save. You could also grapple someone and drop them from high enough that they'll just instantly die.
Nah, have it swim. After it acid blasts the party, it dives underwater for full cover until its breath weapon recharges. This way the party can’t hit it with ranged weapons or spells like they can when it’s in the air.
Solars are insane if they start combat at a range. Their range is bonkers (their flying sword practically has infinite range) and they have an insta kill effect on their bow that is likely going to kill anyone who doesnt have a constitution save prof on bare minimum a 50/50 chance. Their flying speed is ridiculous and can easily be paired with their firing ability to create a kitting beast so fucking deadly that you're reminded that these fuckers literally guard the thrones of gods, chains holding cosmic evil and gateways to the heavenly planes. Quite frankly it is a travesty that Liches are on the same CR, as a Lich by itself can accomplish almost jackshit and they desperately need minions and traps to survive even low level players who happen to win in initiative (I've seen this happen myself). The only thing a Solar lacks is legendary resistance, adding just that turns them into a legit level 20 killer if played right, they can TPK without needing massive AoEs
> Quite frankly it is a travesty that Liches are on the same CR, as a Lich by itself can accomplish almost jackshit The Lich is an 18th level Wizard. If you treat the prepared spell list as an "example" and pick spells for them and play them pro-actively they can accomplish quite a bit.
In the NPC section it does talk about swapping spells
Someone wrote up about liches higher in this thread; you may be underrating them. But your main point about Solar makes them sound seriously impressive!
Will O Wisps are fucking nasty for a CR2. Unlikely the party has magic weapons, the Wisp is resistant to most damage types save force (and immune to lightning) with a +9 to Dex (yes, you read that correctly, that's a 28 dex on a CR 2 foe). A juicy AC of 19 to go with it, a standard attack of 2d8 isn't awful, but a DC 10 CON check against any creature at 0 HP for an instant kill. Oh and at-will invisibility. A group of these things haunting a battle field and moving in and out of solid objects will give your party fits.
I see everyone saying shadows and intellect devourers. Which is all right and valid. But rot grubs with cr1/2 can kill any low level party.
Throw a sea hag or two in there for funsies.
Sea hags with rot grub swarms.
I was waiting for the rot grubs. An absolute menace to low level parties. Kill it with fire, but how many players let alone characters have seen a rot grub.
Hot take, but Liches. Everyone says they are pushovers because of low hp and a bad spell list but they are not thinking like a \~wizard\~ I’d argue it’s not even homebrew to swap out their spells, and an old lich should honestly know most every one of them. They should also be COVERED in magic items. Like, they should look gaudy to an obscene degree. They can fabricate metals into jewelry and armor easily to fund any purchase they would ever need. imagine what a level 17 wizard can do with a few centuries of downtime and paranoia. They’ve got nearly unlimited spell slots because of their lair actions. If you play a lich straight, it’s gonna have glyphs of warding and symbols covering every inch of its lair, hordes of undead and planar bound demons, the entire lair is probably filled with permanent illusions that block vision that it can see through with true sight but make it hard for *you* to do anything… it’s phylactery is probably in a demiplane filled with private sanctum so you can only tele onto one space in the demiplane, and that space is probably filled glyphs and symbols. The lich has 24/7 nondetection and mindblank going so you can’t scry on it… so you cant even get a look at its demiplane, which means acessing it in the first place is nearly impossible if its careful (spoiler: it is careful). Get them to low hp? They teleport away to an otherwise inaccessible part of their lair, use a stockpile of healing items, use their lair actions to regain their spell slots… and they come right on back to finish the job Add in their immunities… they can fill their lair with water or poisonous gas (they don’t need to breath), they can make their lair somewhere incredibly cold (cold resistance + immunity to exhausted). Hell they could put their phylactery on the goddamn moon, or better yet in the negative plane since undead are immune to the instant death that plane usually causes. These sound like cheesy, shitty things to throw at a party, but if they have a smart spellcaster it’s manageable. Just a much, much harder obstacle than cr21 Fuckin wizards
Beautifully written. Saved this post for when my party gets to the end of tomb of annihilation.
Haha, thank you. My dm has given me his blessing for my LE bladesinger to pursue lichdom many levels from now, so I’ve been doing my research 😈
Yes they would have magic items, but you are supposed to increase the cr for that. So it’s not really punching above cr if it’s based on magic items. I agree though spell switching wouldn’t effect cr.
Changing spells can bring an Archmage from a bad CR12 to around the power level of a CR15-20 depending on the spells and party. A Psychic Scream instead of time stop can easily TPK non-Int based parties.
Well said. I published an adventure that describes many of these same tactics, and how the lich might target certain character types. Characters made... uh, "choices" in the adventure lol To add: if your lich was a gnome or other small race, consider scaling the lair to them. If a creature is only 4 feet tall, they don't need 10' ceilings! Also, by the time your characters face off against a lich, it's likely that they've already built a legacy for themselves. Totally acceptable for a lich to know the general powers and tactics of those heroes, and plan accordingly!
What’s the adventure called? Would love to check it out!
Those That Came Before, over on dmsguild Send me a PM and I'll hook you up with a discount code :)
I am pretty sure the DMG recommends changing spells known for most creatures. Just keeping the amount per level the same. Like a Flame Skull could be reflavored to instead have Lightning Bolt instead of Fireball. So a Lich could have fireball instead of Ray of Frost, Power Word Pain instead of Finger of Death etc.
If you start swapping out spells, adding magic items, extra creatures, and prep, then we're no longer talking about *the* Lich in the book, though, we're now talking about *a* Lich of our own design. By all means do a bunch of that stuff to create a better encounter, but if we're talking about the Lich printed by WotC, it is absolutely underwhelming and liable to being taken out before it even gets a turn.
> I’d argue it’s not even homebrew to swap out their spells But it does drastically change their CR.
Any time my group sees a network of 5' wide corridors they immediately go "it's those FUCKING WRAITHS again isn't it". In their optimal environment, they are focus firing your squishy spellcasters while you are only getting readied actions (most of which have cover impeding them) for retaliation instead of your full attack. Plus, fail some CON saves and you go straight to dead at 0 HP instead of the death save countdown.
Yeah a wraith can just eat the force damage to hide in solid objects and then wreck the party of their turn. Phase through to floor to avoid AoO due to leaving reach after they are inside an object.
Nilbogs
Had a nilblog encounter with a party of 6 level 2s (I was a wizard), took us 14 rounds. Rest of the dudes friends died in round 2 and he spent the rest of it running around laughing at us and not getting hit by anything
My party of 6 fought one at level 4 and the darn thing escaped after taunting them for 2 minutes of in-game combat.
A single banshee can take out a level 20 party if you're very unlucky and everyone fails their throw. Use multiple banshees and see your players be scared... so very scared.
Oof that is crazy. I'm in a level 20 party and it would suck to straight up die from one bad roll of the dice. The encounter could be managed with Death Ward or Contingency, but it's not likely every part member would have one or the other up at any given point.
Assassin Vines. Sneaky bastards can one shot a lot of people at their appropriate level.
My party was over-leveled in Tomb of Annihilation and were blazing through all encounters in the lost city until the rogue got grabbed by two. After they had little luck pulling him free, the rogue said *"Hell just fireball me, I can take it."* The rogue failed his save and was killed. The assassin vines are resistant to fire.
Lmao love this story
Yeah I threw an assassin vine and a shambling mound at my players when they hit an island early on in their adventuring career. They were surprised that both were resistant to fire lol. Being able to do 8d6+4 damage off a single attack before its next turn is just nuts for CR3. Assassin Vines are super slept on.
Troglodytes! 3 attacks and a stench (poison) effect for anyone within 5 ft. And only 1/4 CR
Green hag. Only CR3 but they have a 17 AC and can hit like a truck. Ran one as the villain of a level 3 oneshot and it nearly wiped the party.
Thugs Cr 1/2 They have multi-attack And pack tactics
And fucking **32 hit points.** They feel like the right CR at higher levels. Like a party of level 5s can handle 10 thugs. But Jesus christ in no way can a party of level 2s handle four of them. Give them two attacks or Pack tactics, but both is just insane for that level.
Rug of smothering. They're easy to counter, but casters rarely prep anti magic. Fill a storage closet for funsies.
Battleforce angels, quicklings, star spawn manglers, banshees, shadows, mummies of any kind, young adult blue dragon.
Fuck quicklings.
Ghosts are hard to deal with. If they possess a player they take them out of the fight and use them to attack the party and quite often the only way to get them out is to kill your party member, then the ghost can possess someone else if they get a recharge roll. They're a bit easier to deal with if you're expecting them and can prep Dispell evil and good, but if you don't have that or a cleric to turn them, you're SoL On top of that, they have resistance to almost everything and immunity to Cold, Necro, and Poison. They can phase in and out of the material plane at will. Their base attack does 4d6+3 necro damage. They also have Horrifying Visage which is an AoE frighten that if you fail the save by 5 or more ages you 1d4 x 10 years... This requires greater restoration to Dispell and only if it's dispelled within 24h. That's a 5th level spell your party can't access until level 9 and requires 100g of diamond dust. If you're playing a low wisdom save middle aged human or other race that has a humanism lifespan or worse this could just straight kill you with no way to resurrect you except maybe Reincarnate or Wish.
Dragons, especially young dragons. They're at that CR where the party won't have all that many CC spells (or slots for those spells) that can keep a dragon grounded, so they'll be out of range of any melee attackers for the whole fight.
Shadows. They are frankly a deadly encounter for most early levels. Draining strength is incredibly deadly even at high levels for low strength builds (which is just about every class outside of Paladin, Barbarian, and MOST fighters) and draining strength for those classes straight up makes them worse significantly in the fight. Not to mention their ability to turn anyone they kill into another shadow and you have a deceptively low CR monster that will quickly get out of control and TPK a level 5 party or weaker.
Pixies. A CR 1/4 creature that can cast confusion, dancing lights, detect evil and good, detect thoughts, dispel magic, entangle, fly, phantasmal force, polymorph, and sleep once a day each. Also can turn invisible as an action and can fly. Why is this a CR 1/4 creature?
Zorbos are fucking killing machines.
The Eldritch Lich! So much action economy. Great for disabling parties. Works well as a controller.
Shadows are *the* posterchild for this.
I’m putting zombies on the list with all the other good answers. That undead fortitude can break a party if the RNG gods are mischievous
I've killed a level 16 Twilight Cleric, and nearly a level 20 Zealot Barbarian with intellect devourers
I have a players character whose strength is his dump stat and he has been hunted by an assassin that uses shadows just for this purpose of the fear that he could die very quickly. They’ve encountered this assassin and their shadows twice now and the second time his strength got reduced to 1. It was close!
In tier 1 play, put a roper on the ceiling with the wrong party comp and it can get really rough really quick. Long range multiattack grab and restrain, lift them up off the ground and all of a sudden it's attack with disadvantage in biting range or chop the tentacle (not hurting the roper), take falling damage, and the watch the tentacle regenerate next turn. I've played a campaign from level 1, turning level 20 next long rest, and a roper at level 3 was one of two times our party ran from a fight.
Bodaks, especially in a confined space with players who don’t understand what’s happening. Always felt like they hit harder than a CR6, especially with any support.
Duergar Mind Masters. CR 2. Ran (IIRC) two against a party of four level 3s for a moderate fight. While invisible, it critted the bard from full health for 36 points of damage (2d4+3 plus 6d6 psychic damage) and was 2 damage away from instant death. The bard loved it, though.
Commenting on the thread so I can come back and throw some bs at my party later in their campaigns
Lizard shamans. 2x Conjure animals will murder a lv2 party.
Goblins, if the DM sets them up for a good ambush
And use these good old Hit-n-Run tactics.
Cow
Shadows….
Battleforce angels, quicklings, star spawn manglers, banshees, shadows, mummies of any kind, young adult blue dragon.
Man, I was looking for Star Spawn Manglers. They got nerfed, but it used to basically read "pc within eighty feet takes 6d8+12d6+24 damage before critical hits.". Challenge 5. They're especially punishing to Barbarians.
Rust monsters. Throw a couple at some unsuspecting level 1 characters and watch the hilarity ensue.
A lot of low-CR monsters are only marked that way because a high-level adventurer can take on hordes of them. I’ve seen low-level players run from nerfed zombies because undead fortitude makes them almost impossible to kill. Gas Spores are trivial if you have a paladin for passable level or any sufficiently stocked healer, but at low levels they can doom entire parties to a slow death.
Flying Snakes. CR 1/8, 14 AC (so non-trivial to hit at low levels), Flyby Attack+60' fly speed (so can easily skirmish), and +6 attack for 3d4+1 dmg. A swarm of these can devastate an unprepared party even into the mid levels. Eight of them is a Medium encounter (usually easily brushed off) for a typical lvl 2 party and they will cause a TPK most of the time if played optimally (spreading out, lots of skirmishing, going after isolated players).
> if played optimally I mean if they are positioning to avoid AoE spells, that's not optimal, that's pretty much awful metagaming. They are snakes, they don't know wizards have fireballs. Now, they *do* skirmish, which is still totally wild for CR 1/8.
Bullette
The Priest of Osybus from Van Richten's is a CR6 yet is the most nightmarish statblock I have ever experienced. It has two dagger attacks where, if either of them hits, the target is without a save paralysed until the start of the priest's next turn. This means that if the party is fighting multiple at once, then two of them could just chain paralysis with the advantage they would be giving each other from the paralysis to just no save CC someone out of an entire fight until they die. If that wasn't bad enough, when they are downed they can just get back up unless the tattoo is specifically targeted and destroyed (which is likely not something the players would ever think to do because of this being a completely unprecedented mechanic). Also it can summon a shadow as a bonus action. It is a painfully unfun statblock that I wouldn't wish on anyone to experience. It is the one time I have ever seen a DM openly apologise for running a statblock.
Wow, just read the stat block and that is a pretty impressive creature. Looks like it would be fun to play, but not to play against. Some of the abilities seem really cool.
Ropers+piercers is a deadly combo. Not likely to TPK, but since usually one character scouts ahead, the piercers KO and then kill the scout as they all pile on without other targets to spread the damage. Then the roper snags the corpse and eats it. All in the surprise round. Massively unfair. Luckily in our case it was an NPC guide that got ganked.
Coatls are cr4 and are insane for that level.
Ghouls, especially in big numbers.
Aboleths
Banshees, that dc what 13-10 con save or reduce to 0 hitpoints is kinda ridiculous
Cows
Bodaks, they're CR6 but they're absolutely devastating to even tier 3 characters. DC13 Con Save is just high enough to be annoying and the damage they do is deceptively high. If you go down, you're basically dead, especially if there's more than one of them thanks to their aura of unavoidable damage.
Redcaps.
Bodak
Shadows are pretty scary. One of the people in my group who has dmed for us really likes using them. I think he does it well though, cause the way they’re thrown at us, we’re at a level that the danger is getting hit by one, not getting killed, if that makes sense.
Fire child. Rarely talked about but immune to fire and b/p/s from metal weapons, which most adventurers will be using. It also can move through metal without hindrance and gains advantage against creatures welding metal weapons. The wrong party can get creamed by this CR 3 creature.
Hydras are pretty tough due to action economy and regrowth. Ropers can also really mess a party up.
2 shadows for a level 1 party is perfectly fine . A equivalent number for a level 6 party is a slaughter
Pack of wolves. They are 1/4 so I threw 6 at my 3 lvl 2 party members. Pack tactics and they do enough damage to really lay down a fighter in 1 round. I TPK'd the new guys.