Happy Halloween! It's the time of year when Monsters are on our minds, so let's look at some of the most powerful D&D monsters!
Wraiths
Like other ghostly beings, these foes are not only dangerous when they attack you, but their ethereal nature makes it extra difficult to attack back. They can't be tripped since they're floating, your weapons pass through their incorporeal bodies unless you have special magic to deal with that, and even if you do, they can disappear and reappear at will, totally phasing out to avoid you then reappearing where you least expect. While you're flailing at the air, Wraiths are perfectly happy to dole out harm with ease. With a mere touch, they can drain your Constitution, or even give you negative levels. If you thought it'd be wise to bring friends to help you tackle them, watch out for their Lingering Touch, through which they can raise even more Wraiths from the bodies of you or your fallen comrades.
Rust Monsters
What's worse than losing your limbs or your life in a dungeon? Losing your LOOT. Rust Monsters subsist on chomping down precious metals. You know ... all the material that your gear and treasure are made of. These dungeon arthropods will charge up to you and deal serious damage to your haul, to your armor, your weapons, the works! Trying to hit them back only makes it worse, as touching your metal weapons corrode on their bodies. Best to deal with these baddies from as far away as you can, though tight dungeon corridors can make this challenging. And Warforged characters and allies should be particularly wary if they get too close, as a Rust Monster can make them helpless by stunning them as they feast on their metal bits! Nothing strikes fear into the heart of an adventurer faster than the threat of losing their hard-earned rewards.
Gelatinous Cubes
These massive mindless foes are the street sweeper of the typical dungeon or wizard's lair, and a deadly encounter on multiple fronts. One wrong move and you'll find yourself paralyzed and engulfed as the giant gooey cube melts you away inside its form. Since they aren't intelligent, you can't crowd control them. Since they're quite huge, it can make it difficult to evade the Cubes in narrow hallways or when cornered in a small room with them as they relentlessly slog toward you. When perfectly still, it can take a spot check to notice one before you run face first into it and become trapped. Speaking of which, it's not unheard of for Gelatinous Cubes to be used as literal traps, dropping on an adventurer's head from above or hiding inside an innocuous looking pool of water from below. Once you fall in (or it falls on you), it's then hard to slither out from the middle of the massive form.
Eladrin
In a world filled with vile corrupted baddies to vanquish, it can be a real dungeoneering curve ball to encounter an enemy that is ... fundamentally good? These chaotic outsiders can be a challenge because not only are they resistant to attacks and spells, and not only can they heal themselves and their minions, but their godly nature often makes it tough for your average adventurer to fight back. Many excellent spells and magical abilities you're inclined to use are designed to blast down wicked foes, so such tactics are way less effective against enemies that aren't evil incarnate. It's therefore easy for adventurers to get caught off guard if they're suddenly making enemies of Eladrin and they don't have the right equipment or magic prepared to deal with them. Combined with their powerful defensive and offensive spell casting abilities, you really need to change up your strategy to survive an Eladrin onslaught. By the time the Eladrin are finished with you, you might begin to question if you're the hero of the story after all.
Mummy Lords
Mummy Lords in D&D are terrifying. Literally. Just seeing one can inflict a Despair that freezes you in place. As powerful spellcasting undead, they can quickly cut down heroes using nasty spells such as Slay Living and Cometfall. But worst of all is the special supernatural attack that Mummies can wield against you. We're all familiar with the concept of the fabled "Curse" that you hear about in those old timey horror movies and stories. Well, these enemies bring that concept to (un)life: the dreaded effects known as "Mummy's Curse" and "Mummy Rot". While the Mummy's Curse will reduce how well you can be healed up in a fight, it's the Mummy Rot that is an even bigger problem. Mummy Rot is a supernatural disease that eats away at you until either you find a cure, or you die from it. The cure isn't simple either, you have to apply - in the correct order - both Remove Disease and Remove Curse magic.
Vampires
Another infamous foe that captures the imagination of cultures around the world, Vampires hold a special threat to would be D&D adventurers. They can be very adept at spellcasting, such as spells like Force Missiles, or crowd controlling you with spells like Command and Otto's Sphere of Dancing. You need to be able to deal damage quickly to them due to their supernatural ability to regenerate health quickly. Vampires aren't afraid to deal with you barehanded, slamming and Energy Draining would-be heroes to wear them down quickly. Should you find yourself in total darkness, be wary, because that makes it especially challenging to keep track of the Vampire during a fight when it periodically goes incorporeal by dispersing into a cloud of bats, reforming nearby to strike at you again. There are also Vampires with exceptional abilities above and beyond the basics; I can't promise that you aren't going to encounter shape changing, illusions, or cursed mists (looking at you Strahd). Like the stories of old, Silver can also be helpful against Vampires. Just don't bother with wooden stakes or garlic, Light magic is your friend.
Mindflayers
Mindflayers are masters of the mind, using unusual abilities that attack your brain such as: Egowhip to drain down your Charisma; Mind Thrust, which can harm you with Force type damage; as well as Mind Blast, a wide cone-shaped blast of power that can stun anyone caught in its wake who isn't strong of Will. Don't think you can just stand back to attack, Mindflayers can choose to try and address you from afar with spells like Hold Monster (that's you in this case, to them you are the Monster with your lack of tentacles, how dare) or the spell Dominate to control their targets. Or they may control other powerful beings to help them get the upper hand in a fight against you. All of these mental control attacks have a specific purpose: a Mindflayer's aim is to make you helpless so that they can then latch their tentacles onto your head. Once they have you in such a grasp, a Mindflayer will feast on you by slurping your brain out, which instantly slays you even if you have magical death protections.
Beholders
A single Beholder is more than capable of presenting a challenge to a full party of adventurers. They have a large central eye, from which radiates an anti-magic field. After all, heroes are far easier to deal with when stripped of all their magic offenses and defenses. Worse, this is just an ambient effect that is always active in front of a Beholder. Spellcasters who are unfortunate enough to be in this anti-magic gaze are even unable to cast temporarily. Meanwhile, the rest of a Beholder's floating body is covered in eye stalks, from which a cornucopia of deadly spells can be cast, and from quite far away too. Various rays, spells that inflict negative levels, Telekinesis to throw you across the room or off a ledge, Finger of Death to kill you instantly, and Disintegrate to turn you into a pile of dust. The Beholder doesn't even have to be paying particular attention to you, they are capable of multi-directional attack, with each eye beam able to attack independently from all directions. Additionally, there can be specialized types of Beholders from different Planes of Existence, adding even more deadly abilities to try and strategize around such as being incorporeal or reducing your Armor Class with their gaze.
Mimics
The only thing worse than monsters that steal your treasure is when your treasure IS the monster! The Mimic is another creature that has gained particular infamy not only for its strong attack abilities, but for its finesse at waylaying its prey. They convincingly disguise themselves as innocuous objects, blending in with their surroundings until you're close enough for them to strike. In particular, posing as a treasure chest is a favorite Mimic tactic, because what person can resist the lure of a chest filled with riches? The sight of treasure usually pushes aside caution, as the excitement of rewards fills one's mind. This is when you are particularly vulnerable though, because as you bend to collect your hard-won treasure, you're unlikely to have your weapons in your hands, you're low to the ground, and you're distracted trying to look through your potential loot. That's exactly when the Mimic strikes. By the time you realize it's attacking you, you're already up to your elbows in Mimic Slobber. Which, by the way, is really deadly! A Mimic has an acidic slobber that functions as a Damage Over Time effect. Even worse, if the Mimic drool gets on you multiple times as it's whacking you with its tongue, the effects stack repeatedly! This deadly slobber also makes you sticky, which reduces your attack speed, your armor class, your reflexes, and your fortification. It even reduces your ability to move by a whopping 75%. Mimics are the ultimate, and most effective, ambush predators.
Demon Lords
See, you thought for sure I'd pick Dragons for the last entry, right? Make no mistake that Dragons are indeed critically powerful. I mean it is after all called Dungeons and Dragons. You know a monster is powerful when it's the headliner of the title. However, Dragons are SO incredibly infamous that adventurers have already devised many many strategies specifically for dealing with them. They have whole plans of attack and specialized equipment for such battles. An enemy that you already have a plan for how to address is slightly less of a threat. And for that reason, I wanted to instead shine the spotlight on another class of powerful D&D creatures that you need to have a plan for, particularly because you seldom are wandering in their habitat to build up the knowledge beforehand of how to deal with them. Demon Lords.
There are so many horrific flavors of Demon Lords that can wreck you that it's hard to pick just one, making it the most powerful group of D&D creatures. And there's such a diversity of enemies among Demon Lords too! There's the deadly Marilith: a huge half serpent woman with many arms full of magical scimitars to mulch you up (9 attacks at once basically!). Her massive snake form tramples you prone in an Overrun, and whatever is left she cleans up with a solid tail whip. There's the utterly towering and formidable Demon Lords like Goristros, Glabrezu, or Balors, whose sheer size alone is intimidating, much less all their special hellish attacks.
Last but not least, there's my personal nemesis, the Demon Lord Zuggtmoy. Zuggtmoy is literally known as the personification of death and decay. Just surviving standing in the room with her is an accomplishment, let alone besting her in combat. Earthquakes, stacking Damage over Time diseases, and some special room wide attacks where the only thing you can do to try and save yourself is dive for the right kind of cover. If you hesitate for even a second, she'll defeat you in an instant and happily feed on your corpse. Zuggtmoy holds the illustrious title of "DDO Monster that beat both the Producer and the Executive Producer repeatedly until they ran away." We're still so traumatized by her that mentioning her name around the office will immediately cause us to launch into a rant about how she killed us before she was even done with her opening villain monologue. She dwells in the Temple of Elemental Evil, so you're talking a really evil Demon Lord in a really canonically evil place.
That wraps up my musings about monsters. What's your nightmare fuel as a D&D player? Are there any that cause your stomach to drop as soon as you realize you've stumbled across one? Share your own favorites!
Wraiths
Like other ghostly beings, these foes are not only dangerous when they attack you, but their ethereal nature makes it extra difficult to attack back. They can't be tripped since they're floating, your weapons pass through their incorporeal bodies unless you have special magic to deal with that, and even if you do, they can disappear and reappear at will, totally phasing out to avoid you then reappearing where you least expect. While you're flailing at the air, Wraiths are perfectly happy to dole out harm with ease. With a mere touch, they can drain your Constitution, or even give you negative levels. If you thought it'd be wise to bring friends to help you tackle them, watch out for their Lingering Touch, through which they can raise even more Wraiths from the bodies of you or your fallen comrades.
Rust Monsters
What's worse than losing your limbs or your life in a dungeon? Losing your LOOT. Rust Monsters subsist on chomping down precious metals. You know ... all the material that your gear and treasure are made of. These dungeon arthropods will charge up to you and deal serious damage to your haul, to your armor, your weapons, the works! Trying to hit them back only makes it worse, as touching your metal weapons corrode on their bodies. Best to deal with these baddies from as far away as you can, though tight dungeon corridors can make this challenging. And Warforged characters and allies should be particularly wary if they get too close, as a Rust Monster can make them helpless by stunning them as they feast on their metal bits! Nothing strikes fear into the heart of an adventurer faster than the threat of losing their hard-earned rewards.
Gelatinous Cubes
These massive mindless foes are the street sweeper of the typical dungeon or wizard's lair, and a deadly encounter on multiple fronts. One wrong move and you'll find yourself paralyzed and engulfed as the giant gooey cube melts you away inside its form. Since they aren't intelligent, you can't crowd control them. Since they're quite huge, it can make it difficult to evade the Cubes in narrow hallways or when cornered in a small room with them as they relentlessly slog toward you. When perfectly still, it can take a spot check to notice one before you run face first into it and become trapped. Speaking of which, it's not unheard of for Gelatinous Cubes to be used as literal traps, dropping on an adventurer's head from above or hiding inside an innocuous looking pool of water from below. Once you fall in (or it falls on you), it's then hard to slither out from the middle of the massive form.
Eladrin
In a world filled with vile corrupted baddies to vanquish, it can be a real dungeoneering curve ball to encounter an enemy that is ... fundamentally good? These chaotic outsiders can be a challenge because not only are they resistant to attacks and spells, and not only can they heal themselves and their minions, but their godly nature often makes it tough for your average adventurer to fight back. Many excellent spells and magical abilities you're inclined to use are designed to blast down wicked foes, so such tactics are way less effective against enemies that aren't evil incarnate. It's therefore easy for adventurers to get caught off guard if they're suddenly making enemies of Eladrin and they don't have the right equipment or magic prepared to deal with them. Combined with their powerful defensive and offensive spell casting abilities, you really need to change up your strategy to survive an Eladrin onslaught. By the time the Eladrin are finished with you, you might begin to question if you're the hero of the story after all.
Mummy Lords
Mummy Lords in D&D are terrifying. Literally. Just seeing one can inflict a Despair that freezes you in place. As powerful spellcasting undead, they can quickly cut down heroes using nasty spells such as Slay Living and Cometfall. But worst of all is the special supernatural attack that Mummies can wield against you. We're all familiar with the concept of the fabled "Curse" that you hear about in those old timey horror movies and stories. Well, these enemies bring that concept to (un)life: the dreaded effects known as "Mummy's Curse" and "Mummy Rot". While the Mummy's Curse will reduce how well you can be healed up in a fight, it's the Mummy Rot that is an even bigger problem. Mummy Rot is a supernatural disease that eats away at you until either you find a cure, or you die from it. The cure isn't simple either, you have to apply - in the correct order - both Remove Disease and Remove Curse magic.
Vampires
Another infamous foe that captures the imagination of cultures around the world, Vampires hold a special threat to would be D&D adventurers. They can be very adept at spellcasting, such as spells like Force Missiles, or crowd controlling you with spells like Command and Otto's Sphere of Dancing. You need to be able to deal damage quickly to them due to their supernatural ability to regenerate health quickly. Vampires aren't afraid to deal with you barehanded, slamming and Energy Draining would-be heroes to wear them down quickly. Should you find yourself in total darkness, be wary, because that makes it especially challenging to keep track of the Vampire during a fight when it periodically goes incorporeal by dispersing into a cloud of bats, reforming nearby to strike at you again. There are also Vampires with exceptional abilities above and beyond the basics; I can't promise that you aren't going to encounter shape changing, illusions, or cursed mists (looking at you Strahd). Like the stories of old, Silver can also be helpful against Vampires. Just don't bother with wooden stakes or garlic, Light magic is your friend.
Mindflayers
Mindflayers are masters of the mind, using unusual abilities that attack your brain such as: Egowhip to drain down your Charisma; Mind Thrust, which can harm you with Force type damage; as well as Mind Blast, a wide cone-shaped blast of power that can stun anyone caught in its wake who isn't strong of Will. Don't think you can just stand back to attack, Mindflayers can choose to try and address you from afar with spells like Hold Monster (that's you in this case, to them you are the Monster with your lack of tentacles, how dare) or the spell Dominate to control their targets. Or they may control other powerful beings to help them get the upper hand in a fight against you. All of these mental control attacks have a specific purpose: a Mindflayer's aim is to make you helpless so that they can then latch their tentacles onto your head. Once they have you in such a grasp, a Mindflayer will feast on you by slurping your brain out, which instantly slays you even if you have magical death protections.
Beholders
A single Beholder is more than capable of presenting a challenge to a full party of adventurers. They have a large central eye, from which radiates an anti-magic field. After all, heroes are far easier to deal with when stripped of all their magic offenses and defenses. Worse, this is just an ambient effect that is always active in front of a Beholder. Spellcasters who are unfortunate enough to be in this anti-magic gaze are even unable to cast temporarily. Meanwhile, the rest of a Beholder's floating body is covered in eye stalks, from which a cornucopia of deadly spells can be cast, and from quite far away too. Various rays, spells that inflict negative levels, Telekinesis to throw you across the room or off a ledge, Finger of Death to kill you instantly, and Disintegrate to turn you into a pile of dust. The Beholder doesn't even have to be paying particular attention to you, they are capable of multi-directional attack, with each eye beam able to attack independently from all directions. Additionally, there can be specialized types of Beholders from different Planes of Existence, adding even more deadly abilities to try and strategize around such as being incorporeal or reducing your Armor Class with their gaze.
Mimics
The only thing worse than monsters that steal your treasure is when your treasure IS the monster! The Mimic is another creature that has gained particular infamy not only for its strong attack abilities, but for its finesse at waylaying its prey. They convincingly disguise themselves as innocuous objects, blending in with their surroundings until you're close enough for them to strike. In particular, posing as a treasure chest is a favorite Mimic tactic, because what person can resist the lure of a chest filled with riches? The sight of treasure usually pushes aside caution, as the excitement of rewards fills one's mind. This is when you are particularly vulnerable though, because as you bend to collect your hard-won treasure, you're unlikely to have your weapons in your hands, you're low to the ground, and you're distracted trying to look through your potential loot. That's exactly when the Mimic strikes. By the time you realize it's attacking you, you're already up to your elbows in Mimic Slobber. Which, by the way, is really deadly! A Mimic has an acidic slobber that functions as a Damage Over Time effect. Even worse, if the Mimic drool gets on you multiple times as it's whacking you with its tongue, the effects stack repeatedly! This deadly slobber also makes you sticky, which reduces your attack speed, your armor class, your reflexes, and your fortification. It even reduces your ability to move by a whopping 75%. Mimics are the ultimate, and most effective, ambush predators.
Demon Lords
See, you thought for sure I'd pick Dragons for the last entry, right? Make no mistake that Dragons are indeed critically powerful. I mean it is after all called Dungeons and Dragons. You know a monster is powerful when it's the headliner of the title. However, Dragons are SO incredibly infamous that adventurers have already devised many many strategies specifically for dealing with them. They have whole plans of attack and specialized equipment for such battles. An enemy that you already have a plan for how to address is slightly less of a threat. And for that reason, I wanted to instead shine the spotlight on another class of powerful D&D creatures that you need to have a plan for, particularly because you seldom are wandering in their habitat to build up the knowledge beforehand of how to deal with them. Demon Lords.
There are so many horrific flavors of Demon Lords that can wreck you that it's hard to pick just one, making it the most powerful group of D&D creatures. And there's such a diversity of enemies among Demon Lords too! There's the deadly Marilith: a huge half serpent woman with many arms full of magical scimitars to mulch you up (9 attacks at once basically!). Her massive snake form tramples you prone in an Overrun, and whatever is left she cleans up with a solid tail whip. There's the utterly towering and formidable Demon Lords like Goristros, Glabrezu, or Balors, whose sheer size alone is intimidating, much less all their special hellish attacks.
Last but not least, there's my personal nemesis, the Demon Lord Zuggtmoy. Zuggtmoy is literally known as the personification of death and decay. Just surviving standing in the room with her is an accomplishment, let alone besting her in combat. Earthquakes, stacking Damage over Time diseases, and some special room wide attacks where the only thing you can do to try and save yourself is dive for the right kind of cover. If you hesitate for even a second, she'll defeat you in an instant and happily feed on your corpse. Zuggtmoy holds the illustrious title of "DDO Monster that beat both the Producer and the Executive Producer repeatedly until they ran away." We're still so traumatized by her that mentioning her name around the office will immediately cause us to launch into a rant about how she killed us before she was even done with her opening villain monologue. She dwells in the Temple of Elemental Evil, so you're talking a really evil Demon Lord in a really canonically evil place.
That wraps up my musings about monsters. What's your nightmare fuel as a D&D player? Are there any that cause your stomach to drop as soon as you realize you've stumbled across one? Share your own favorites!