Intellect Devourers are crazy. I lost a level 6 Fighter to one attack from one. Definitely top of my list.
Banshees are outright silly, although it's less about CR and more just that their ability is dumb. I have a party of level 9 characters, and considered putting in a banshee. There's just a possibility that they all roll badly on their Con save, and it's a TPK.
Most monsters after about CR4 are too weak for their CR, and need double hit points to stand up for 2 turns.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Going by CR assigned to it alone, the most underrated monster in the monster manual is an Adult White Dragon in its lair. The CR calculation from the DMG gives it 18 CR whereas the Monster Manual says 13 CR. In an unfair blow to the Adult White Dragon's ego, the Adult Copper Dragon has less hp and deals less damage (White deals additional elemental damage with bite and Copper doesn't) but was given 14 CR.
Scarecrow's might be my other suggestion, despite being CR 1, 3 of them caused a TPK of our 4 level 8's party thanks to their save or suck abilities.
Also agree with the above, Kobold's in their warrens are little sh*t's if done properly.
Given that they are small creatures, they don't need to create medium sized tunnels and passages. PCs, for the most part, have to Squeeze through them to travel in the warren and in their chambers. They use traps and have been known to combine attacks with said traps. While your PCs are trying to free themselves from the quicksand, the kobolds are taking pot-shots with slings to harass the PCs trying to save their party members. Pack tactics grants them advantage to attacks while there is an ally adjacent to the target, so they send one or two in to take the dodge action within 5 ft of the target and the rest pelt away with sling stones from range. They use seemingly annoying contraptions to deliver conditions that can further hinder the party. They reproduce like the Zerg. There are generally 10 or 15 of them left running around the warren, even after the PCs have cleared it out.
I've run DMDave's Kobold Tunnels for a party of 5-3rd level PCs and a couple dropped before they hit the boss. No deaths, but unconscious happened and potions were needed. There's another titled Clash at Kobold Cauldron that's designed for 10th level parties. I'm having trouble finding a direct link to access the product, apologies.
Kobolds can be like viscous rats or cockroaches that will wear a party down.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Given that they are small creatures, they don't need to create medium sized tunnels and passages. PCs, for the most part, have to Squeeze through them to travel in the warren and in their chambers. They use traps and have been known to combine attacks with said traps. While your PCs are trying to free themselves from the quicksand, the kobolds are taking pot-shots with slings to harass the PCs trying to save their party members. Pack tactics grants them advantage to attacks while there is an ally adjacent to the target, so they send one or two in to take the dodge action within 5 ft of the target and the rest pelt away with sling stones from range. They use seemingly annoying contraptions to deliver conditions that can further hinder the party. They reproduce like the Zerg. There are generally 10 or 15 of them left running around the warren, even after the PCs have cleared it out.
I've run DMDave's Kobold Tunnels for a party of 5-3rd level PCs and a couple dropped before they hit the boss. No deaths, but unconscious happened and potions were needed. There's another titled Clash at Kobold Cauldron that's designed for 10th level parties. I'm having trouble finding a direct link to access the product, apologies.
Kobolds can be like viscous rats or cockroaches that will wear a party down.
Ah, I see. I was taking the question to mean that they were underpowered for their CR. All the things you describe are true and make for fun encounters, but none of these are things that affect their CR or whether they're underrated. Everything you say here about Kobolds, with the exception of Pack Tactics, is also true of Goblins which hit harder, have more hit points, and can Disengage or Hide as a bonus action, and any intelligent humanoids can build traps or live in an environment that's difficult for PC races. The real threats of the traps are the traps themselves, not the kobolds - a bit like saying that a Mage is underrated because they could live in a house that's heavily protected by magical traps.
My main experience of fighting Kobolds was as an Eldritch Knight who had chain mail, a shield and the Heavy Armour Master feat which could also be renamed "Invulnerable to kobold attacks" feat.
A better argument on this basis might be for Drow who have Darkvision to 120ft, vastly outranging most PC's darkvision and light sources, leaving them able to shoot from complete darkness with their 120ft hand crossbow range. However, this is again entirely circumstantial since fighting them in sunlight makes them much weaker, or even in close quarters negates the advantage completely.
Scarecrow's might be my other suggestion, despite being CR 1, 3 of them caused a TPK of our 4 level 8's party thanks to their save or suck abilities.
4 level 8 PCs lost to 3 Scarecrows? The dice gods must have been intent on killing them that day, or else the PCs were already on their last legs. Even if the PCs are all frightened then I don't see how they can lose if they are even on 1/3 health from the beginning of the fight, and even their ability to make a target paralyzed costs them their action. A single level 8 PC should be able to easily handle them alone (a single fireball will kill all three, even if they pass their saves due to their vulnerability to fire!) especially if they just declare they're closing their eyes and fighting blind.
I had a party of level 3 characters beat 2 Scarecrows and a Dryad so I guess I have never seen them as threats. It must have really upset the players to lose their characters to that!
If you go on the basis of 'Overpowered for their CR', this mostly applies to Dragons, especially Dragons in Lairs. Supposedly this is a result of WotC decreasing the CR of all dragons to make DM's more likely to throw them at lower level party's, resulting in epic and terrifying encounters.
Other creatures that could be considered to have too low CR's are: * Couatl - Whilst not necessarily overpowered in terms of the damage they deal, defensively they are probably one of the toughest creatures below 5 CR. Immunity to non-magical melee, 90ft flying speed, shield and attacks that restrain and knock creatures unconcious. * Flying Snake - Another winged serpent considered overpowered, especially when in swarms. The cheesy druid strat where you summon loads of these to swarm enemies is proof of how underrated they are. Pretty much all the poisonous snakes can be lumped into this category, for they can be the bane of those who dump con. * Kuo-Toa Archpriest - The fish people aren't exactly known for being difficult, but the archpriest can prove a real pain if not dealt with quickly. If allowed to get away with it, they can have 5th level Spirit Guardians, 4th level Spiritual Weapon and 2 staff attacks dealing 20 damage each. Mass Cure Wounds also helps keep the fodder protecting it alive. The DMG CR calculation actually gives this creature an offensive CR of 14, which although based on the flawed assumption that a creature without proficiency in Con saves would manage to maintain concentration for 3 rounds, is still quite astonishing.
Scarecrow's might be my other suggestion, despite being CR 1, 3 of them caused a TPK of our 4 level 8's party thanks to their save or suck abilities.
4 level 8 PCs lost to 3 Scarecrows? The dice gods must have been intent on killing them that day, or else the PCs were already on their last legs. Even if the PCs are all frightened then I don't see how they can lose if they are even on 1/3 health from the beginning of the fight, and even their ability to make a target paralyzed costs them their action. A single level 8 PC should be able to easily handle them alone (a single fireball will kill all three, even if they pass their saves due to their vulnerability to fire!) especially if they just declare they're closing their eyes and fighting blind.
I had a party of level 3 characters beat 2 Scarecrows and a Dryad so I guess I have never seen them as threats. It must have really upset the players to lose their characters to that!
The whole thing got voided cause it was probably down to poor strategy, unfortunate luck and the Scarecrows getting a surprise round (DM said they all rolled above 18 on their stealth, but we think he may have fudged it to make the encounter 'more interesting'). Paralyzed the Wizard, every attack against it was an automatic crit, they rolled high, downed before the surprise round ended. Scarecrows got higher in initiative, paralyzed the healer then frightened the other two who got incredibly bad luck on their rolls. Healer gets downed, scarecrows proceed to paralyse another, start wailing on them. Eventually it was the fighter against the two remaining scarecrows, missed his attacks due to disadvantage, paralyzed, then downed again.
I suppose they're not THAT overpowered, but if you go through something like that you end up remembering it.
Scarecrow's might be my other suggestion, despite being CR 1, 3 of them caused a TPK of our 4 level 8's party thanks to their save or suck abilities.
4 level 8 PCs lost to 3 Scarecrows? The dice gods must have been intent on killing them that day, or else the PCs were already on their last legs. Even if the PCs are all frightened then I don't see how they can lose if they are even on 1/3 health from the beginning of the fight, and even their ability to make a target paralyzed costs them their action. A single level 8 PC should be able to easily handle them alone (a single fireball will kill all three, even if they pass their saves due to their vulnerability to fire!) especially if they just declare they're closing their eyes and fighting blind.
I had a party of level 3 characters beat 2 Scarecrows and a Dryad so I guess I have never seen them as threats. It must have really upset the players to lose their characters to that!
The whole thing got voided cause it was probably down to poor strategy, unfortunate luck and the Scarecrows getting a surprise round (DM said they all rolled above 18 on their stealth, but we think he may have fudged it to make the encounter 'more interesting'). Paralyzed the Wizard, every attack against it was an automatic crit, they rolled high, downed before the surprise round ended. Scarecrows got higher in initiative, paralyzed the healer then frightened the other two who got incredibly bad luck on their rolls. Healer gets downed, scarecrows proceed to paralyse another, start wailing on them. Eventually it was the fighter against the two remaining scarecrows, missed his attacks due to disadvantage, paralyzed, then downed again.
I suppose they're not THAT overpowered, but if you go through something like that you end up remembering it.
Holy smokes, yeah I guess that's a pretty sick way of doing it!
I have some sympathy for the poor old DM here, they probably didn't imagine that they'd manage quite such a brutal sequence out of it but that Surprised condition sure changes things. I have been toying with a banshee encounter recently but even with my party at level 9, there's always just this brutal chance that they all fail their saving throw and it's a TPK.
Holy smokes, yeah I guess that's a pretty sick way of doing it!
I have some sympathy for the poor old DM here, they probably didn't imagine that they'd manage quite such a brutal sequence out of it but that Surprised condition sure changes things. I have been toying with a banshee encounter recently but even with my party at level 9, there's always just this brutal chance that they all fail their saving throw and it's a TPK.
I dropped a banshee on a level 7 party, three of five down instantly. Luckily the life cleric with mass healing word and channel divinity: preserve life wasn't one of those three.
They have access to spells like Polymorph, Dispel Magic, Phantasmal Force, Confusion, Fly, Entangle, and Detect Thoughts. They can turn invisible. They have resistance against magic. They have maxed out Dexterity. And they're mischievous little buggers. Get a little posse of pixies together and they can screw with even high level characters for a while.
Given that they are small creatures, they don't need to create medium sized tunnels and passages. PCs, for the most part, have to Squeeze through them to travel in the warren and in their chambers. They use traps and have been known to combine attacks with said traps. While your PCs are trying to free themselves from the quicksand, the kobolds are taking pot-shots with slings to harass the PCs trying to save their party members. Pack tactics grants them advantage to attacks while there is an ally adjacent to the target, so they send one or two in to take the dodge action within 5 ft of the target and the rest pelt away with sling stones from range. They use seemingly annoying contraptions to deliver conditions that can further hinder the party. They reproduce like the Zerg. There are generally 10 or 15 of them left running around the warren, even after the PCs have cleared it out.
I've run DMDave's Kobold Tunnels for a party of 5-3rd level PCs and a couple dropped before they hit the boss. No deaths, but unconscious happened and potions were needed. There's another titled Clash at Kobold Cauldron that's designed for 10th level parties. I'm having trouble finding a direct link to access the product, apologies.
Kobolds can be like viscous rats or cockroaches that will wear a party down.
I’m unfamiliar with Tucker’s Kobolds, but just imagine a whole pack of koboldhyena riders or a flock of koboldvulture riders. Brutal. Like Tippi Hedren style, but with kobolds.
Oh, aboslutely wonderful! They have a cavalry and an air corps! Now nowhere is safe to hide.... kobold inventors mounted on vultures dropping green slime pots, while the koboldhyena riders sweep past the party with sling stones as they are busy scraping off slime. I can see me using this already.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
A very fun monster i introduced to my players in a haunted house lately was a Carrionette!
So much for funny moments when a character was hit by the needle and then soul swapped, ending trapped in the item. The player accepted to secretly play the spirit controlling its character's body without its knowledge, speech ability and powers. Since we play online, i was able to secretly set this up so it was not immediately apparent that it occured. But they eventually realised something was odd with their ally! He's currently tied up, and they're investigating it but so far identify revealed nothing since its torment aren't caused by a spell. They are taking him to the local temple of St-Cuthbert for a second opinion.
Which monsters, in your opinion, are the most underrated (by the quality of the monster and stats deemed good or bad by DMs, NOT BY CR)
NO HOME BREW
everything else is okay.
Define underrated? Most excessive for their nominal CR is probably intellect devourers.
Kobolds
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Intellect Devourers are crazy. I lost a level 6 Fighter to one attack from one. Definitely top of my list.
Banshees are outright silly, although it's less about CR and more just that their ability is dumb. I have a party of level 9 characters, and considered putting in a banshee. There's just a possibility that they all roll badly on their Con save, and it's a TPK.
Most monsters after about CR4 are too weak for their CR, and need double hit points to stand up for 2 turns.
By the Gods, Sposta beat me to it...
Kobolds by far.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Why?
Going by CR assigned to it alone, the most underrated monster in the monster manual is an Adult White Dragon in its lair. The CR calculation from the DMG gives it 18 CR whereas the Monster Manual says 13 CR. In an unfair blow to the Adult White Dragon's ego, the Adult Copper Dragon has less hp and deals less damage (White deals additional elemental damage with bite and Copper doesn't) but was given 14 CR.
Scarecrow's might be my other suggestion, despite being CR 1, 3 of them caused a TPK of our 4 level 8's party thanks to their save or suck abilities.
Also agree with the above, Kobold's in their warrens are little sh*t's if done properly.
Given that they are small creatures, they don't need to create medium sized tunnels and passages. PCs, for the most part, have to Squeeze through them to travel in the warren and in their chambers. They use traps and have been known to combine attacks with said traps. While your PCs are trying to free themselves from the quicksand, the kobolds are taking pot-shots with slings to harass the PCs trying to save their party members. Pack tactics grants them advantage to attacks while there is an ally adjacent to the target, so they send one or two in to take the dodge action within 5 ft of the target and the rest pelt away with sling stones from range. They use seemingly annoying contraptions to deliver conditions that can further hinder the party. They reproduce like the Zerg. There are generally 10 or 15 of them left running around the warren, even after the PCs have cleared it out.
Ever heard of Tucker's Kobolds?
I've run DMDave's Kobold Tunnels for a party of 5-3rd level PCs and a couple dropped before they hit the boss. No deaths, but unconscious happened and potions were needed. There's another titled Clash at Kobold Cauldron that's designed for 10th level parties. I'm having trouble finding a direct link to access the product, apologies.
Kobolds can be like viscous rats or cockroaches that will wear a party down.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Ah, I see. I was taking the question to mean that they were underpowered for their CR. All the things you describe are true and make for fun encounters, but none of these are things that affect their CR or whether they're underrated. Everything you say here about Kobolds, with the exception of Pack Tactics, is also true of Goblins which hit harder, have more hit points, and can Disengage or Hide as a bonus action, and any intelligent humanoids can build traps or live in an environment that's difficult for PC races. The real threats of the traps are the traps themselves, not the kobolds - a bit like saying that a Mage is underrated because they could live in a house that's heavily protected by magical traps.
My main experience of fighting Kobolds was as an Eldritch Knight who had chain mail, a shield and the Heavy Armour Master feat which could also be renamed "Invulnerable to kobold attacks" feat.
A better argument on this basis might be for Drow who have Darkvision to 120ft, vastly outranging most PC's darkvision and light sources, leaving them able to shoot from complete darkness with their 120ft hand crossbow range. However, this is again entirely circumstantial since fighting them in sunlight makes them much weaker, or even in close quarters negates the advantage completely.
4 level 8 PCs lost to 3 Scarecrows? The dice gods must have been intent on killing them that day, or else the PCs were already on their last legs. Even if the PCs are all frightened then I don't see how they can lose if they are even on 1/3 health from the beginning of the fight, and even their ability to make a target paralyzed costs them their action. A single level 8 PC should be able to easily handle them alone (a single fireball will kill all three, even if they pass their saves due to their vulnerability to fire!) especially if they just declare they're closing their eyes and fighting blind.
I had a party of level 3 characters beat 2 Scarecrows and a Dryad so I guess I have never seen them as threats. It must have really upset the players to lose their characters to that!
Managed to think of some more:
If you go on the basis of 'Overpowered for their CR', this mostly applies to Dragons, especially Dragons in Lairs. Supposedly this is a result of WotC decreasing the CR of all dragons to make DM's more likely to throw them at lower level party's, resulting in epic and terrifying encounters.
Other creatures that could be considered to have too low CR's are:
* Couatl - Whilst not necessarily overpowered in terms of the damage they deal, defensively they are probably one of the toughest creatures below 5 CR. Immunity to non-magical melee, 90ft flying speed, shield and attacks that restrain and knock creatures unconcious.
* Flying Snake - Another winged serpent considered overpowered, especially when in swarms. The cheesy druid strat where you summon loads of these to swarm enemies is proof of how underrated they are. Pretty much all the poisonous snakes can be lumped into this category, for they can be the bane of those who dump con.
* Kuo-Toa Archpriest - The fish people aren't exactly known for being difficult, but the archpriest can prove a real pain if not dealt with quickly. If allowed to get away with it, they can have 5th level Spirit Guardians, 4th level Spiritual Weapon and 2 staff attacks dealing 20 damage each. Mass Cure Wounds also helps keep the fodder protecting it alive. The DMG CR calculation actually gives this creature an offensive CR of 14, which although based on the flawed assumption that a creature without proficiency in Con saves would manage to maintain concentration for 3 rounds, is still quite astonishing.
The whole thing got voided cause it was probably down to poor strategy, unfortunate luck and the Scarecrows getting a surprise round (DM said they all rolled above 18 on their stealth, but we think he may have fudged it to make the encounter 'more interesting'). Paralyzed the Wizard, every attack against it was an automatic crit, they rolled high, downed before the surprise round ended. Scarecrows got higher in initiative, paralyzed the healer then frightened the other two who got incredibly bad luck on their rolls. Healer gets downed, scarecrows proceed to paralyse another, start wailing on them. Eventually it was the fighter against the two remaining scarecrows, missed his attacks due to disadvantage, paralyzed, then downed again.
I suppose they're not THAT overpowered, but if you go through something like that you end up remembering it.
Technically, a dragonborn commoner remains CR 0 -- and has a 2d6 breath weapon.
Holy smokes, yeah I guess that's a pretty sick way of doing it!
I have some sympathy for the poor old DM here, they probably didn't imagine that they'd manage quite such a brutal sequence out of it but that Surprised condition sure changes things. I have been toying with a banshee encounter recently but even with my party at level 9, there's always just this brutal chance that they all fail their saving throw and it's a TPK.
I dropped a banshee on a level 7 party, three of five down instantly. Luckily the life cleric with mass healing word and channel divinity: preserve life wasn't one of those three.
Pixies.
They have access to spells like Polymorph, Dispel Magic, Phantasmal Force, Confusion, Fly, Entangle, and Detect Thoughts. They can turn invisible. They have resistance against magic. They have maxed out Dexterity. And they're mischievous little buggers. Get a little posse of pixies together and they can screw with even high level characters for a while.
“Underrated” had nothing to do with CR. I meant underrated and underused by DMs.
Extra Clarification: Underrated in the quality, rather than power level or challenge rating, of the monster.
I’m unfamiliar with Tucker’s Kobolds, but just imagine a whole pack of kobold hyena riders or a flock of kobold vulture riders. Brutal. Like Tippi Hedren style, but with kobolds.
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Oh, aboslutely wonderful! They have a cavalry and an air corps! Now nowhere is safe to hide.... kobold inventors mounted on vultures dropping green slime pots, while the kobold hyena riders sweep past the party with sling stones as they are busy scraping off slime. I can see me using this already.
Thanks Sposta!
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
A very fun monster i introduced to my players in a haunted house lately was a Carrionette!
So much for funny moments when a character was hit by the needle and then soul swapped, ending trapped in the item. The player accepted to secretly play the spirit controlling its character's body without its knowledge, speech ability and powers. Since we play online, i was able to secretly set this up so it was not immediately apparent that it occured. But they eventually realised something was odd with their ally! He's currently tied up, and they're investigating it but so far identify revealed nothing since its torment aren't caused by a spell. They are taking him to the local temple of St-Cuthbert for a second opinion.
Happy to help. Don’t forget that the rider and mount proc each other’s Pack Tactics too. 😉
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