I once fought an entire party of level 7-ish characters with an awakened rat. He had a lot of holes in his boss area to utilize his hiding abilities, scurrying into the walls where he can activate an array of traps connected by wires and cords. Since he was so tiny and good at hiding, he could also bait them into areas where he seemed to be scurrying past The party eventually elected to just run past him instead of fighting him after narrowly escaping a pit he dropped them in, which had filled with acid after he activated a trap-door with a cauldron of the stuff on it
Something about a rat with human intelligence, possibly plotting a whole conspiracy in the underbelly of a city seems like a perfectly off-kilter setup for an adventure.
Imagine trying to befriend one of these. Perhaps they'd make for a nice little sidekick character for a druid, ranger, or wizard that could be used to pick locks or disarm traps, as a more inconspicuous alternative to, say, a pixie?
Got killed 10 minutes into a campaign because the goat who was guarding our prison cell got a crit on the charge. Honestly one of my best deaths and thankfully it wasn't a PC I spent hours/ days coming up with the back story for
One of the houserules at my table is that Pact of the Chain Warlocks can take any creature as their familiar that is Tiny sized and CR 1 or less. The only exception to this rule is the Chwinga. CR 0, but absolutely game breaking if put in the player's hands. Even if we ignore their ability to give out supernatural charms, they have +7 stealth, 60 feet of Blindsight, *at will* Pass Without Trace, and the ability to shelter entirely inside of a rock, living plant, or source of freshwater. These little guys just plain cannot be seen unless they want to be. They don't have a single damaging ability, but if we rank the Awakened Rat higher for having human level intelligence, then we must also rate a Chwinga higher for having a 14 intelligence and being the sneakiest sneaks. If they weren't described as shy and avoiding people, they'd be absolute nightmares.
The chwinga is pretty cool and definitely quite strong in its own way. It didn't make it into this video, of course, because it's a bolstering and exploration creature without any attacks or offensive capabilities. But yes, way too much for a familiar.
I'm confused... why are we talking about familiars? I thought this was about CR 0 creatures... the only approved species for familiars is " bat, cat, crab, frog (toad), hawk, lizard, octopus, owl, poisonous snake, fish (quipper), rat, raven, sea horse, spider, or weasel." and Imp for Warlocks, correct? That rat isnt "awakened" and has an INT of 2.
@@danielgriff2659 Not quite. Pact of the Chain Warlocks are allowed a choice of Imp, Quasit, Sprite, or Pseudodragon. However, the Player's Handbook was the first 5e sourcebook that was printed. Some monsters in future publications, such as the Gazer, say that they can be used as familiars with DM approval. Since all of these monsters are Tiny, and none exceed CR 1, I just expand the availability of familiars to any Tiny monster of CR 1 or less. But also, while your assertion that only the listed animals are allowed is technically true, it's not at all true in practice. Again, many more animals have been published since the PHB, so most DMs allow players to summon Tiny Beasts of CR 0. Awakened Rat falls under that umbrella.
Or a secret guild of spies and thieves in a major capital city..., who covertly control all major politics and economics..., and who all the people fear..., as they don't know who their secret masters are......, and it turns out to be a council of thirteen Awakened Rats..., who assassinated the secret council of thirteen wizards and witches who had been experimenting on them..., and who then covertly took their place...
Absolutely love the idea for the video. ‘Strongest Monster’ tier videos are a dime a dozen, I appreciate breaking into new territory. I’d love to see more for other low to mid CR’s!
The cr system breaks down under cr0.5. The main thing i do in dnd is make monster statblock and i can tell you without even looking that most creatures in that range have an abitrary cr and not a calculated one. Calculated cr takes into account hp ac and dpr and ab/dc. A creature with an attack bonus of 3+ and ac of 13+ is by the system's defenition incapable of being any lower than cr 0.5, even if it has 1 hp and deals 0 damage. At those ranges ac and ab/dc is mostly ignored in favor of using only the hp and dpr.
A while back, I had the idea for awakened rat(s) that were also wizards. Carrying rings or baubles that act as arcane foci, and with tiny spellbooks. So they could sneak around dungeons, casting spells through cracks in the walls. Baffling adventurers with illusions or enchantments, conjuring planar entities, animating the dead, or chucking fireballs from unexpected angles. One variant encounter would be that of a wizard rat nesting inside the torso of a suit of animated armor under the rat's control. At first, you think it's a spell-slinging knight. Obviously, a rat with levels in Wizard is going to be much stronger than CR 0. But it's a good indication of the kinds of trouble an intelligent rodent could give adventurers.
Monsters from adventures aren’t necessarily meant to be balanced for their CR because they work in the context in which they are found in the adventure. That’s why some of these monsters are so powerful for a CR 0. The best example of this is actually a monster you left out, Onyx (which is a cat from Acquisitions Incorporated, and is considered official material). She’s also a CR 0 and high points include 400 ft land speed (not a typo) and 200 ft climb, being immune to damage, and and +7 melee attack for 2d10.
This immediately made me want to run a deadly one-shot for some friends while telling them "don't worry, every creature in here is CR 0!" It also made me think of another possible angle: what are the weakest monsters with high CRs?
My brother was almost killed by a goose while we were riding our motorcycles. It plowed right into his side at 55mph, and fractured two ribs. Not sure what that equates to in an overly abstract system like D&D.
Canadian Geese are pests, their numbers have been artificially inflated since the 1920's establishment of many parks. Don't get me wrong, I like parks. But you should never feel bad about killing those things, they're like bird cockroaches.
At that speed any object of noticeable mass is going to be dangerous. You wouldn't give a soggy sack of flour a CR rating because you had one slammed into you with a lot of force, would you? :p
@@kevinsmith9013 You should feel bad about killing anything, excluding the worst parasites. A goose is still an intelligent creature that feels pain. Not its fault that it inconveniences us
This reminds me of playing Baldur's Gate back in the days. Not a monster but for fun: Young Wizard. AC 0 HP4 Attack Dagger 1D4 Magic Missile (once a day) 1D4. Starting out as a Wizard in that game was...Not easy and you had to deal with two assasins out to kill you before you could team up with an ally.
AC 0 would be very hard to hit. Pretty sure your enemies would have to roll 17 or better to hit that. No, you'd likely have 16 AC, unless you spent an hour or so rolling, where your enemies would have to roll 4. And you had even less than 4 HP. You didn't get Max HP at first level, at least not on the normal and harder difficulties. You rolled for HP at level 1, and could even roll 1 HP. Not to mention 0 HP wasn't unconsciousness. It was death. So it's even more ruthless than you're making it out to be. Though, once you get rolling, Wizards and Clerics end up the far strongest class.
@@esperthebard the "no attack = 0CR" thing is a bit of a loophole. I think there's some kind of statue creature that means with the sidekick classes (where you can of course pick a 0CR statblock to begin as), you can start the game with a huge list of resistances and immunities, and as a huge creature. I'd never expect a DM to actually go along with that, and not expect a campaign to be particularly fun if they did. But RAW it's allowed, which is kinda crazy. I think the other huge 0CR creature is some sort of giant snail with healing powers. That seems a bit potentially abusable too.
I just had a hilarious idea for a bbeg for a one-shot, so you're players start of in a large, city with a sudden decrease in food, metal and books, while the party is searching for the cause, you sprinkle in hints about a city's rat population and that the grand wizards had some dangerous books stolen from him one night, and after awhile, the party figures out that the possible criminals are hiding in the sewers. And then BOOM, big reveal that the bbeg was a awakened rat that convinced a group of cultist that he was the avatar of their God of disease, and the pulls out that all the metal and books they stole were to create a huge Gundam suit for the rat (basically a buffed up iron golem). And once they beat the rat they discover that he was awakened by the grand wizard of the near by city that was at war with the one the parties in, in order to destroyed the city from the inside out by starving them and poisoning the water supply, the suit was just a last resort.
@@esperthebard even if they couldn't you could have a band of people with no magic surviving in there not knowing how to get out and feast on who or whatever comes through
@@esperthebard Imagine a villain that collects "living spells" as minions. Somehow able to command them. Probably a wild magic sorcerer. Arcane eyes as floating spies, mobs of unseen servants, a living minor illusion acting as a messenger, dungeons guarded by Zelda-esque Bigby's Hands, etc. Not even getting into the roiling masses of elemental power from most attack spells. Okay, now I want to make this one a recurring antagonist. This is really cool.
It's worth noting that the living demiplane is encountered at high levels in Rime of the Frostmaiden, where is also already contains monsters (who are hostile). It might be CR 0, but it is used as a high level encounter in that campaign.
@@esperthebard, Heck yeah! It might also be good to have a series that arranges monsters by encounter roles: mastermind, controller/ grappler, enchanters, misdirection, tank, trapper, hit and run, blaster, ranged, debuffers, enhancers, speedsters, slow creatures, lore keepers, etc. These might make for some interesting video ideas.
Could you imagine how powerful a Living Demiplane filled with several Shadows would be? Snag a character, trapping them alone in a room with multiple creatures that'll drain their strength till they eventually die and come back as a new shadow. Shadows also happen to have some pretty decent resistances for a CR 1/4 creature.
This is a great video, my lvl 5 party of four recently took out a hit and run ambush party of underwater bugbears (can't remember I think that's cr8?) But they were faster underwater and attacked at night, so the party slept in shifts and every shift the bugbears get their surprise round bonus dmg. They broke their caravan, bombed them, used nets to incapacitate the paladin, knocked the monk out three times and the party still beat the tar out of them. Anyway, I struggle to find low lvl creatures for my very tactical group so this video is exactly what I needed for my games. Next 'abandoned' church is going to have a hoard of robed goat cultists controlled by an intelligent rat.
Hey, would you be up for doing a ranking or just talking about real world animals stat blocks in D&D? They tend to get overlooked even though they are immediately recognizable and feature in a lot of fantasy stories, especially sword and sorcery stories. Are tigers are fearsome as they are in adventure novels? Would Conan struggle against how gorillas are portrayed in 5e (cause that man fought a lot of gorillas)? How numerous did does a pack of wolves have to be before adventures have to turn tail?
Stat blocks for real world animals also make for good templates upon which to create custom monsters. In the OSR scene, a notable bit of DMing advice is "just use a bear". Which is to say, if you create a monster but don't have a stat block, use a bear stat block (black, brown, polar, even owl). They're usually well-rounded stats for their respective CRs - plenty of hit points, decent attack - and are simple enough that you can staple on any traits your custom monster requires. The monsters themselves can look however you say they do. Beast stat blocks are just collections of numbers or mechanics. So no player will notice if your badger-faced eagle with iron wings and a reptilian tail is just a bear, mechanically. All you did was give it a fly speed.
The DM who stands among the greatest legends in d&d's history does it again. You embody every single aspect of what made and will continue to make d&d itself. Genius topic Esper!
OOOOKKKK, hold person for free once per short rest?! Auto-critical from paralyzed condition and lock down. Plus other effects from curse?! This takes the cake for sure.
Top10 honorable mentions: Chimeric Baboon, Chwinga, Cranium Rat, Eagle Steel Defender, Flying Monkey, Mountain Dwarf commoner, Sacred Statue, Shrieker, Tressym, Young Griffon Out of all of these, I'd say that the Chwinga is the single most powerful CR0 monster in all of D&D ... they can give you an epic boon if they really want to.
Just a note, the Vistani are actually based off of the Romani peoples. Gipsy is a slur used for those people- that aside, I loved your analysis of these creatures. As a GM, I perfer low-magic low-level adventures, and discussing this got me thinking of some cool ideas going forward.
Yeeaahhh, still bonkers that in 2024 Hasbro is putting monster stats on racial caricatures, like TSR making separate game stats for "Cowboys and Injuns" in the 60s.@@OlieB
@@MrMalikLucius I'm not against just having stats for a generic/typical member of a race/group, but it's dangerous territory when you start classifying then all as a certain alignment or whatever. A cheat sheet for orc stats and racial abilities is good - If it starts telling me about how evil they are, bad
11:15 Well I mean a beast will generally not fight the way you described. They won't gang up on you and bring yoru down with numbers if it means they lose a lot of their members, not even wolves really do that. Animals will generally run away when they face an oponent which they risk dying by fighting. A zombie however have no sense of self preservation.
It's true. I think we DMs sometimes lose touch with that, because we feel like if a creature doesn't fight till it has used up all or almost all of its hp, then we haven't gotten enough out of it.
My first ever game of DnD, my character died to awakened rats. I was playing a wizard, and my party members wanted to explore a wall that the DM mentioned the cryptic clue of “an odd breeze can be felt through the mortar of the stone.” Being dumb, I had my character go through the doorway trying to get to the adjacent wall when several awakened rats were alerted to me. Some very bad rolls on my part (I used a single target cantrip not realizing there were 6 of them) and a bad decision had me go down on exactly turn 5 of my first game. The DM was giggling hysterically at the situation, but let me start a new character sheet. Memories, memories.
I would contest this, only on the grounds that you're describing thimgs which are dangerous. The chwinga might not be a great threat on its own, but its blessing ability is incredibly powerful.
i came back to this after your cr1 monster video and firstly the little monsters reference was adorable but also your accent for the vistani was really inspired (haha bard) but really like well done. i thought i would not enjoy your videos but you are really good at this and should keep going. best of luck in the future.
I’m a little surprised the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o didn’t get an honourable mention. It’s an artifact with a stat block because it turns into a construct-type creature when piloted. It doesn’t have a CR attributed to it but appeared as a CR 0 creature for a while on D&D Beyond until they removed the CR number altogether, one of the few creatures to not have any number at all.
In the first session of a campaign a fighter player I had rode a horse way ahead of the party into a pack of hyena and was downed and almost killed. He was cautious from that point on.
Vistani are also powerful because of their link to the land. Even their commoners are protected by the Mists, which is the most pervasive influence in the Ravenloft scenario. A Vistana can lure one into getting transported to potentially terrorizing places - since we're talking about Ravenloft - and get away unharmed. Not only that, as any feared prejudiced group, they have a strong sense of community. So, although they might have beefs with one another, they quickly unite against perceived threats from outsiders. They're really dangerous to mess with.
Honestly I can see the Vistani being a pretty great “Final Boss” of an early arc for low level player and potentially even reoccurring antagonists. Just imagine losing to such a low level but dangerous threat then training up for the rematch in the future
All i can think of is a Cabin in the Woods Purge scene or the rabbits from Blood C moment with several 0 CR creatures murdering a mid level adventurers in a darkly comedic seroes of events. The sleepy half orc barbarian killed when a horned rabbit burrows just under his bedroll and stabs his throat. The alchemist mixes an awakened shrub hastily and puts in the wrong ingredients that make the healing potion for the half orc turn into a gas potion that reacts with blood. An awakened rat puts scorpions in the articifers tool pouch while she's working on her battle bot (or w/e). Just a string of bad luck that leads to really frigged up set piece to come across.
Commoner is deadly. It seems effortless, but it IS a fully adult person. If they know ahead of the encounter that they're up against adventurers they'll do everything they can to prepare. I'm seeing a lot of comments about Awakened Rat as a dangerous foe, but that's still a RAT. If on 10 Int alone you can make a rat deadly, imagine what you can do with a determined Commoner. Raise an army, command a horde of hounds, turn their livestock against you to breed chaos during the battle, and of course the best medieval solution in history, FIRE. Edit: I made the comment before finishing the video... I KNEW IT!
Great video, can't believe I missed this one; one of my cats, Cujo enjoyed watching it a short while as well. Rat has to be the winner, however. If we agree the commoner and it are equal in their sinister potentials, a party is able to better anticipate the prior while the other... you'd probably not know the danger capable!
I was listening to this in the background while I'm working, so not seeing the creatures being referenced, and got to the Almiraj and heard "...looks kind of stupid..." I stopped what I was doing to check it out and totally snort laughed at my desk. Co-worker in the cubical next to me looked at me with a puzzled look on her face. hahahah
Rabid dog: a dog with rabies. Any humanoid the rabid dog damages in a way that describes them biting on flesh, will be afflicted by rabies. Rabies will start to show after 1 week and force the afflicted to roll ever greater will saves to drink liquids, to control biting impulses in proximity of others and after the second week, sleeping, until they die by accumilating levels of exhaustion. Rabies cannot be cured through non-magic means, or otherwise low level healing past the first 3 days. 1hit kill, perfect for your "gritty" low magic campaigns.
If you take context for the knucklehead into account it's actually legit kinda deadly since it can knock you into the frozen waters in icewind dale which can be a death sentence for low level characters...
i once used an Awakened Rat as the villain of a mystery adventure in a sewer dungeon, 3 level 4 characters were killed by its ingenious traps and even had a group of bandits under its command lmfao and it was hilarious to see the players figure out their most cunning adversary was but a mere Rat
There is a CR 1/16 that is able to potentially wipe out a party of level 10 and above without any modifications to its entry. This creature is also a type of highly specialized class. Their name is the synergist. They are able to create a special purpose construct that is just as capable as a level 5 character welding any combination of swords, axes, whips, mace, staff, and spear potentially a different one every turn. This construct mimics either a rogue, ranger, or fighter in combat but without any potential spells. The construct always has the same number of limbs the parrent creature has and looks to be an especially spindly version of it. Every limb except one is able to be used and take the form of any of the weapons listed in this comment. The construct has a number of hit points equal to the amount the main creature put up for bid multiplied by a multiplier that starts at 10 and can get as high as 250 depending on the level. The construct will regenerate one quarter of its HP every turn not every round. The level of the main body will determine what health multipliers are available. The main body gets an additional ten points of multiple to use every level and are not able to assign less than a ×10 to the construct and not less than two HP to each construct. The creater/ main body is cloaked and can be up to 120 feet away from the construct or in an adjacent room which ever happens first. The main body has only a D4 as a hit die and if their spell rebounds they will take damage equal to the total HP of all constructs they were controlling. If a construct is dispersed the main body has a single attempt at a saving throw with disadvantage that is equal to 10 plus the 1/4 the hp of the construct or the damage received by the dispersal of the construct. Any construct may be dispersed by causing enough damage to the construct or by breaking the concentration of the main body. The synergist is able to direct and see through its eyes in a way of any of their own constructs. The creater is almost immobile (limited to 5 feet) and they are cloaked which is like a lesser version of lesser invisibility or greater version of hidden where they don't need to be in a dark place or have some kind of concealment. The construct has a movement speed of 60 feet and is able to make a single attack per limb as long as a minimum of one is isn't used to make an attack. The construct is created by a ritual that attuned a special item to the main body of the creature. This item must be one of the following orb. Dagger, staff, whip, wand, or a spike. The construction of the special item determines the primary properties of the construct and can be made of any material organic or not and can be laced with any kind of toxic material without harmful effects on the original one that it is attuned to. No more than two special items can be used at any time and there is no limit on how many materials can be used in the construction of the item. The Creature must conduct a concentration check any time that anything other than their personal construct(s) or they move within a 15 foot range from them. If anything comes within the 15 foot range they must pass the concentration check that increases by an additional two per five feet towards them whatever it is gets and if the person or object passes through their square the saving through jumps an additional 4 and they are also required to pass an additional saving throw that starts at 10 and climbs by one per damage if any is caused and doubles if any thing of small size or larger passes through or stays in the square they occupy. If any player gets within 30 feet of one of them they may hear them chanting with a 15 or better on perception check hearing. The character can get a new perception check every time they move towards or away from the main creature getting stronger with every 5 feet closer to their main body. The roll needed to hear the chanting lowers by 1 for every ten feet closer to the synergist's main body. If the synergist ever loses concentration the spell will rebound on them and most likely kill them with the psychic recoil. This is explained better earlier in this comment. The cloaked ability doesn't make the main body invisible just very hard to see when More than 10 feet away. If any living creature other than the synergist ever touches the special item they must pass a 19 on reflex to keep the item from immediately and permanently bonding with their flesh before it starts to burrow into their bodies heading towards the vital organs. Thirty days later if the item isn't removed from a creature's body they will die if the immediate effects of any possibly present dangerous material doesn't kill them first. For example any and all poisonous/ toxic materials along with any kind of biological hazards that may be present. It's entirely possible that a player that touches the special item will in addition to having a vine wrapped adamant Dagger stuck through their hand be exposed to a virus that causes confusion and headaches along with a poisonous substance that causes constitution damage and a toxin that causes extreme numbness in the extremities making it nearly impossible for them to hold a weapon or anything else securely. If any potentially toxic materials are present in the item prior to the player touching it they contue to exist until the item is removed from their body or their deaths upon which the item loses all properties and crumbles into dust. The dust is a mix of all materials used to create the item in the first place but may not have enough of any single component to be valuable. Unless certain special substances are used the same goes for any specific kind of high value plants. Anti magic fields and spells don't disable the ability of the synergist to have/control/create/maintain a construct in any meaningful way unless powered by a god/goddess.
Suggestion: Rats are known to be great for being disease carriers, strictly due to the Bubonic Plague. Could take some inspiration from that, and give players a simple kill quest to clear rats out of the sewers. They go back to town two weeks later, and everyone is sick and dying because of a bloodborne illness the players released when they killed the rats.
@@Arkansym I think it was the fleas transmitting the plague, but the rats were carrying the fleas. Rats can also be trained to smell disease, including cancer. They’re amazing!
There's an idea for a future sourcebook...'Bosses with Ambition', all about how to use CR 0 but smart creatures as BBEGs for sessions or campaigns (and other weaker critters...the infamous Tucker's Kobolds come to mind...)
D&D: *lists almiraj as a CR 0 monster* Me, a mythology buff: *spit take at the nerfed CR 3 homebrew I made* Seriously I didn't know that they butchered the thing. Look up the original myths, there is a good reason my version was CR 3.
@@jacobnoelle8428 The original one was larger, was a vicious carnivorous predator, had a supernatural fear aura, was poisonous, and the recommended hunting strategy was "sorcery" (which I interpreted as resistance to non-magical weapons). I don't have a link (because it was paper notes), but it had AC 16 from its golden hide, 47 HP, the resistance I mentioned, a DC 14 Fear Effect Aura out to 30 ft as a passive ability, and a +8 horn attack that dealt 1d6+4 piercing damage and 2d8 poison damage (DC 14 half). I also gave it evasion, proficiency in perception with keen senses, 60ft movement speed, and the ability to automatically succeed on any long jump as part of its movement as long as it could cover it in one round. I also gave it a charging gore feature where if it moved at least 20 ft before attacking with its horn it dealt an additional 2d6 piercing damage with the horn attack.
@@jacobnoelle8428 Dragon Quest does that with lightning and sleep magic, though both are low level examples of such. They also got their names localized to "horn hares" for some reason.
Scorpion seems pretty accurate to irl tbh Like if the thing crawls on you it probably gets a few surprise rounds and advantage for not being seen by you and considering that normal people don't have much health the scorpion would be deadly with just 1 or 2 stabs The homunculus poison seems strong, but I'm not sure how likely it is to actually get affected by that
I think ya overlooked one Stone Giant Statue Size Huge AC 17 HP 17d12 +85. Straight up immunity to poison, psychic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren't adamantine and the condition immunity to charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned. The golem has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. The golem's weapon attacks are magical. Plus it has a strength of 22 so it's base unarmed strike it is a flat 7 damage. Though it doesn't have a weapon attack in its stat block it can still pick up a small tree and smash with a club. Weapon damage scale with size so that would be a 3d4 +6. Oh by the way all that is magical.
@@esperthebard you have a great candour and way of getting straight to the point in your videos. which I really appreciate, if the editing was a bit shinier could hold the attention span of some people XD. but cool stuff man keep it up. kudos
In the first campaign I ever ran my players ended up with a bag of ticks and they had a big big battle coming up. I had given them so many magic items that at level 3 I could pit them against a small army. They were attacking this abandoned mannor in full of mercenary soldiers. Mostly guards and bandits. Anyway they used the bag of tricks before the fight and got a goat. That goat killed 6 men. It took a cr 3 veteran to finally take him down. They also had a bear who died in the second round and killed one guy! Goats are the strongest monster in the game!!
i feel a living demiplane is very cool if it has like- stuff in its demiplane, even if it has some starving rats and other adventurers inside. Would be quite cool? means it has some offense- maybe enough to be like cr 1/2
Its going to be a bit slanted since we can assume most players will have spells, but Living Demiplane effectively has a DC 10 Dex save or die as to my knowledge there is no way out. With cantrips it should be trivial to escape but think about how lethal that thing is to most creatures. How many stat blocks have spellcasting or magic attacks? I'd postulate that it should have a CR of 1 as there is nothing stopping it from pursuing its prey and forcing that save many times, they have to roll low eventually...
Looks at the Almiraj: I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it... 10:53 - I NEEEEEEEEEEED IIIIIIIIIIIT!!! (Proceeds to make it an animal companion in my campaign)
A sufficiently experienced Awakened Rat can even take control of a human host, pulling on their hair to command them like a puppet.
Yeah but they really only wanna cook or so I've heard in the lore
So it's RATATOUILLE all over again!! =p
Sounds like recipe for success.
This is basically Sebastian from the Suicide Squad movie. Put a little backpack on him.
I saw that documentary
I once fought an entire party of level 7-ish characters with an awakened rat. He had a lot of holes in his boss area to utilize his hiding abilities, scurrying into the walls where he can activate an array of traps connected by wires and cords. Since he was so tiny and good at hiding, he could also bait them into areas where he seemed to be scurrying past
The party eventually elected to just run past him instead of fighting him after narrowly escaping a pit he dropped them in, which had filled with acid after he activated a trap-door with a cauldron of the stuff on it
You are adding more fuel to my motivation to create an adventure with an awakened rat villain.
@Esper the Bard
DO IT!
I like to picture one Wizard sending a scorpion familiar or something to delete the rat
Something about a rat with human intelligence, possibly plotting a whole conspiracy in the underbelly of a city seems like a perfectly off-kilter setup for an adventure.
Absolutely!
Agreed
I wonder if Pinky and the Brain came out before or after the Cranium rats.
When the crime boss your party is fighting is basically just a rat.
Imagine trying to befriend one of these. Perhaps they'd make for a nice little sidekick character for a druid, ranger, or wizard that could be used to pick locks or disarm traps, as a more inconspicuous alternative to, say, a pixie?
Got killed 10 minutes into a campaign because the goat who was guarding our prison cell got a crit on the charge. Honestly one of my best deaths and thankfully it wasn't a PC I spent hours/ days coming up with the back story for
You got killed by THE Goat, lol!
Brutal
Vistani Commoner: “Never piss off a witch, it makes them soggy and difficult to light.”
Seriously, though, you do not want the Vistani as enemies.
One of the houserules at my table is that Pact of the Chain Warlocks can take any creature as their familiar that is Tiny sized and CR 1 or less. The only exception to this rule is the Chwinga. CR 0, but absolutely game breaking if put in the player's hands. Even if we ignore their ability to give out supernatural charms, they have +7 stealth, 60 feet of Blindsight, *at will* Pass Without Trace, and the ability to shelter entirely inside of a rock, living plant, or source of freshwater. These little guys just plain cannot be seen unless they want to be. They don't have a single damaging ability, but if we rank the Awakened Rat higher for having human level intelligence, then we must also rate a Chwinga higher for having a 14 intelligence and being the sneakiest sneaks.
If they weren't described as shy and avoiding people, they'd be absolute nightmares.
The chwinga is pretty cool and definitely quite strong in its own way. It didn't make it into this video, of course, because it's a bolstering and exploration creature without any attacks or offensive capabilities. But yes, way too much for a familiar.
I'm confused... why are we talking about familiars? I thought this was about CR 0 creatures... the only approved species for familiars is " bat, cat, crab, frog (toad), hawk, lizard, octopus, owl, poisonous snake, fish (quipper), rat, raven, sea horse, spider, or weasel." and Imp for Warlocks, correct? That rat isnt "awakened" and has an INT of 2.
@@danielgriff2659 Not quite. Pact of the Chain Warlocks are allowed a choice of Imp, Quasit, Sprite, or Pseudodragon. However, the Player's Handbook was the first 5e sourcebook that was printed. Some monsters in future publications, such as the Gazer, say that they can be used as familiars with DM approval. Since all of these monsters are Tiny, and none exceed CR 1, I just expand the availability of familiars to any Tiny monster of CR 1 or less.
But also, while your assertion that only the listed animals are allowed is technically true, it's not at all true in practice. Again, many more animals have been published since the PHB, so most DMs allow players to summon Tiny Beasts of CR 0. Awakened Rat falls under that umbrella.
My money is on the friends you make on the way.
Equity: yep. Especially if that character has a plot armor special ability.
And they are technically useless, so that explains the 0xp!
Before watching, I bet it’s a swan. Those things are assholes
Dunno, I've been attacked by a swan and I wouldn't give it a CR of 0
really like idea of the awakened rat, used as a pet or rather a partner in crime.
Heck, make it a crime lord
After doing this video, I also have been getting some ideas about using it. So much potential there.
@@esperthebard Brown Jenkins from "Dreams in the witch house"
@@bluebird3281 That's an excellent tale from master Lovecraft
Or a secret guild of spies and thieves in a major capital city..., who covertly control all major politics and economics..., and who all the people fear..., as they don't know who their secret masters are......, and it turns out to be a council of thirteen Awakened Rats..., who assassinated the secret council of thirteen wizards and witches who had been experimenting on them..., and who then covertly took their place...
Absolutely love the idea for the video. ‘Strongest Monster’ tier videos are a dime a dozen, I appreciate breaking into new territory. I’d love to see more for other low to mid CR’s!
Indeed.
The cr system breaks down under cr0.5.
The main thing i do in dnd is make monster statblock and i can tell you without even looking that most creatures in that range have an abitrary cr and not a calculated one.
Calculated cr takes into account hp ac and dpr and ab/dc.
A creature with an attack bonus of 3+ and ac of 13+ is by the system's defenition incapable of being any lower than cr 0.5, even if it has 1 hp and deals 0 damage.
At those ranges ac and ab/dc is mostly ignored in favor of using only the hp and dpr.
A while back, I had the idea for awakened rat(s) that were also wizards. Carrying rings or baubles that act as arcane foci, and with tiny spellbooks. So they could sneak around dungeons, casting spells through cracks in the walls. Baffling adventurers with illusions or enchantments, conjuring planar entities, animating the dead, or chucking fireballs from unexpected angles.
One variant encounter would be that of a wizard rat nesting inside the torso of a suit of animated armor under the rat's control. At first, you think it's a spell-slinging knight.
Obviously, a rat with levels in Wizard is going to be much stronger than CR 0. But it's a good indication of the kinds of trouble an intelligent rodent could give adventurers.
You are a mad genius
Monsters from adventures aren’t necessarily meant to be balanced for their CR because they work in the context in which they are found in the adventure. That’s why some of these monsters are so powerful for a CR 0. The best example of this is actually a monster you left out, Onyx (which is a cat from Acquisitions Incorporated, and is considered official material). She’s also a CR 0 and high points include 400 ft land speed (not a typo) and 200 ft climb, being immune to damage, and and +7 melee attack for 2d10.
This immediately made me want to run a deadly one-shot for some friends while telling them "don't worry, every creature in here is CR 0!" It also made me think of another possible angle: what are the weakest monsters with high CRs?
Imagine getting TPKed by fucking unicorn rabbits that your DM thought would be an easy fight
DM: "and you have defeated the awakened shrub"
Players: "We smoke it"
DM: "you what now?" 😳
I'd give a temporary +2 intelligence for a few minutes but when you come down you have -2 dex until you take a short rest.
My brother was almost killed by a goose while we were riding our motorcycles. It plowed right into his side at 55mph, and fractured two ribs. Not sure what that equates to in an overly abstract system like D&D.
Canadian Geese are pests, their numbers have been artificially inflated since the 1920's establishment of many parks. Don't get me wrong, I like parks. But you should never feel bad about killing those things, they're like bird cockroaches.
At that speed any object of noticeable mass is going to be dangerous. You wouldn't give a soggy sack of flour a CR rating because you had one slammed into you with a lot of force, would you? :p
Falling damage rules mostly there.
@@kevinsmith9013 You should feel bad about killing anything, excluding the worst parasites. A goose is still an intelligent creature that feels pain. Not its fault that it inconveniences us
@@drago939393 Only feel bad if you don't cook it after. Goose meat can be quite tasty, you treat it like red meat and cook it to a medium rare.
Damn, the commoner and living demiplane are actually nuts. Can't believe those aren't higher CR!
This reminds me of playing Baldur's Gate back in the days. Not a monster but for fun: Young Wizard. AC 0 HP4 Attack Dagger 1D4 Magic Missile (once a day) 1D4. Starting out as a Wizard in that game was...Not easy and you had to deal with two assasins out to kill you before you could team up with an ally.
AC 0 would be very hard to hit. Pretty sure your enemies would have to roll 17 or better to hit that.
No, you'd likely have 16 AC, unless you spent an hour or so rolling, where your enemies would have to roll 4.
And you had even less than 4 HP. You didn't get Max HP at first level, at least not on the normal and harder difficulties. You rolled for HP at level 1, and could even roll 1 HP.
Not to mention 0 HP wasn't unconsciousness. It was death.
So it's even more ruthless than you're making it out to be.
Though, once you get rolling, Wizards and Clerics end up the far strongest class.
This kind of thing is so much more interesting than rating high level things.
I'm glad you thought so. I found this little quest quite interesting and motivating!
@@esperthebard the "no attack = 0CR" thing is a bit of a loophole. I think there's some kind of statue creature that means with the sidekick classes (where you can of course pick a 0CR statblock to begin as), you can start the game with a huge list of resistances and immunities, and as a huge creature. I'd never expect a DM to actually go along with that, and not expect a campaign to be particularly fun if they did. But RAW it's allowed, which is kinda crazy.
I think the other huge 0CR creature is some sort of giant snail with healing powers. That seems a bit potentially abusable too.
An awakened rat with a living deminplane is a combo a setting needs
I just had a hilarious idea for a bbeg for a one-shot, so you're players start of in a large, city with a sudden decrease in food, metal and books, while the party is searching for the cause, you sprinkle in hints about a city's rat population and that the grand wizards had some dangerous books stolen from him one night, and after awhile, the party figures out that the possible criminals are hiding in the sewers. And then BOOM, big reveal that the bbeg was a awakened rat that convinced a group of cultist that he was the avatar of their God of disease, and the pulls out that all the metal and books they stole were to create a huge Gundam suit for the rat (basically a buffed up iron golem).
And once they beat the rat they discover that he was awakened by the grand wizard of the near by city that was at war with the one the parties in, in order to destroyed the city from the inside out by starving them and poisoning the water supply, the suit was just a last resort.
I would use the living demi plain as a villain transport. Suck up an army of minions and release then at targets. Or face them when you are sucked in.
The potential there is tremendous, assuming the villains can control the living demiplane.
@@esperthebard even if they couldn't you could have a band of people with no magic surviving in there not knowing how to get out and feast on who or whatever comes through
@@esperthebard Imagine a villain that collects "living spells" as minions. Somehow able to command them. Probably a wild magic sorcerer.
Arcane eyes as floating spies, mobs of unseen servants, a living minor illusion acting as a messenger, dungeons guarded by Zelda-esque Bigby's Hands, etc. Not even getting into the roiling masses of elemental power from most attack spells.
Okay, now I want to make this one a recurring antagonist. This is really cool.
It's worth noting that the living demiplane is encountered at high levels in Rime of the Frostmaiden, where is also already contains monsters (who are hostile). It might be CR 0, but it is used as a high level encounter in that campaign.
I would love to see a series of this for each level. Awesome work!
0
A
I will consider it!
@@esperthebard equity: yes! Fcking awesome!
@@esperthebard, Heck yeah! It might also be good to have a series that arranges monsters by encounter roles: mastermind, controller/ grappler, enchanters, misdirection, tank, trapper, hit and run, blaster, ranged, debuffers, enhancers, speedsters, slow creatures, lore keepers, etc. These might make for some interesting video ideas.
Beware the ungodly power of the CR 1/8 Flying Snake
Could you imagine how powerful a Living Demiplane filled with several Shadows would be? Snag a character, trapping them alone in a room with multiple creatures that'll drain their strength till they eventually die and come back as a new shadow. Shadows also happen to have some pretty decent resistances for a CR 1/4 creature.
Hearing Esper refer to a hyena as a "monster" just feels weird.
Anyone who knows of someone that was mauled to death by a hyena probably would agree with the monster appellation
According to the MM anything with a stat block qualifies as a monster, thus even the humanoid NPCs are monsters.
@@nicarde88 nah I’ve seen it but humans are way worse
@@nicarde88 under-rated comment... they dont travel alone and they WILL murk a human and consume them.
This is a great video, my lvl 5 party of four recently took out a hit and run ambush party of underwater bugbears (can't remember I think that's cr8?) But they were faster underwater and attacked at night, so the party slept in shifts and every shift the bugbears get their surprise round bonus dmg. They broke their caravan, bombed them, used nets to incapacitate the paladin, knocked the monk out three times and the party still beat the tar out of them. Anyway, I struggle to find low lvl creatures for my very tactical group so this video is exactly what I needed for my games. Next 'abandoned' church is going to have a hoard of robed goat cultists controlled by an intelligent rat.
Hey, would you be up for doing a ranking or just talking about real world animals stat blocks in D&D? They tend to get overlooked even though they are immediately recognizable and feature in a lot of fantasy stories, especially sword and sorcery stories. Are tigers are fearsome as they are in adventure novels? Would Conan struggle against how gorillas are portrayed in 5e (cause that man fought a lot of gorillas)? How numerous did does a pack of wolves have to be before adventures have to turn tail?
Stat blocks for real world animals also make for good templates upon which to create custom monsters. In the OSR scene, a notable bit of DMing advice is "just use a bear". Which is to say, if you create a monster but don't have a stat block, use a bear stat block (black, brown, polar, even owl). They're usually well-rounded stats for their respective CRs - plenty of hit points, decent attack - and are simple enough that you can staple on any traits your custom monster requires.
The monsters themselves can look however you say they do. Beast stat blocks are just collections of numbers or mechanics. So no player will notice if your badger-faced eagle with iron wings and a reptilian tail is just a bear, mechanically. All you did was give it a fly speed.
The almiraj's CR 0 is because they wanted to make it a possible familiar form. I think they say it on the adventure module.
Which is weird, because pretty much every familiar is Tiny sized, but the Almiraj is small.
But I still have to wonder why they didn't make its stats follow the monster guidelines.
The DM who stands among the greatest legends in d&d's history does it again. You embody every single aspect of what made and will continue to make d&d itself.
Genius topic Esper!
OOOOKKKK, hold person for free once per short rest?! Auto-critical from paralyzed condition and lock down. Plus other effects from curse?! This takes the cake for sure.
Top10 honorable mentions: Chimeric Baboon, Chwinga, Cranium Rat, Eagle Steel Defender, Flying Monkey, Mountain Dwarf commoner, Sacred Statue, Shrieker, Tressym, Young Griffon
Out of all of these, I'd say that the Chwinga is the single most powerful CR0 monster in all of D&D ... they can give you an epic boon if they really want to.
Stone Giant Statue from Storm King’s Thunder as well.
Just a note, the Vistani are actually based off of the Romani peoples. Gipsy is a slur used for those people- that aside, I loved your analysis of these creatures. As a GM, I perfer low-magic low-level adventures, and discussing this got me thinking of some cool ideas going forward.
yeah bit of a yikes moment, especially with the controversy they faced about the Vistani in the first place anyway
Yeeaahhh, still bonkers that in 2024 Hasbro is putting monster stats on racial caricatures, like TSR making separate game stats for "Cowboys and Injuns" in the 60s.@@OlieB
@@MrMalikLucius I'm not against just having stats for a generic/typical member of a race/group, but it's dangerous territory when you start classifying then all as a certain alignment or whatever. A cheat sheet for orc stats and racial abilities is good - If it starts telling me about how evil they are, bad
11:15 Well I mean a beast will generally not fight the way you described. They won't gang up on you and bring yoru down with numbers if it means they lose a lot of their members, not even wolves really do that. Animals will generally run away when they face an oponent which they risk dying by fighting.
A zombie however have no sense of self preservation.
It's true. I think we DMs sometimes lose touch with that, because we feel like if a creature doesn't fight till it has used up all or almost all of its hp, then we haven't gotten enough out of it.
@@esperthebard Well there's also some fun balance in it because players often don't like seeing enemies get away.
My first ever game of DnD, my character died to awakened rats. I was playing a wizard, and my party members wanted to explore a wall that the DM mentioned the cryptic clue of “an odd breeze can be felt through the mortar of the stone.” Being dumb, I had my character go through the doorway trying to get to the adjacent wall when several awakened rats were alerted to me. Some very bad rolls on my part (I used a single target cantrip not realizing there were 6 of them) and a bad decision had me go down on exactly turn 5 of my first game. The DM was giggling hysterically at the situation, but let me start a new character sheet. Memories, memories.
Isn’t there one in acquisitions incorporated I think that is huge size and literally invincible?
I would contest this, only on the grounds that you're describing thimgs which are dangerous.
The chwinga might not be a great threat on its own, but its blessing ability is incredibly powerful.
i came back to this after your cr1 monster video and firstly the little monsters reference was adorable but also your accent for the vistani was really inspired (haha bard) but really like well done. i thought i would not enjoy your videos but you are really good at this and should keep going. best of luck in the future.
I’m a little surprised the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o didn’t get an honourable mention. It’s an artifact with a stat block because it turns into a construct-type creature when piloted. It doesn’t have a CR attributed to it but appeared as a CR 0 creature for a while on D&D Beyond until they removed the CR number altogether, one of the few creatures to not have any number at all.
In the first session of a campaign a fighter player I had rode a horse way ahead of the party into a pack of hyena and was downed and almost killed. He was cautious from that point on.
A pack of hyenas against a single low level character is no small challenge, that's lethal stuff!
@@esperthebard lol sure was he learned his lesson and stuck with the party from then on.
Vistani are also powerful because of their link to the land. Even their commoners are protected by the Mists, which is the most pervasive influence in the Ravenloft scenario.
A Vistana can lure one into getting transported to potentially terrorizing places - since we're talking about Ravenloft - and get away unharmed.
Not only that, as any feared prejudiced group, they have a strong sense of community. So, although they might have beefs with one another, they quickly unite against perceived threats from outsiders. They're really dangerous to mess with.
The word you used to describe the Vistani is a slur. The actual term for those people is Romani
I'm gonna make an entire dungeon run by Awakened Rats now.
there are some nonsensical npc blocks at cr 0, but outside of them, almiraj sting like kicking a nail.
Remind me to add an albino almiraj feared by all who reside near it's den. They're easily enough to slay a commoner, could be viscious killers really!
The sidekicks from Tasha's cauldron of everything require a creatures of CR 1/2 or lower, what is the best sidekick?
Pixie
Shadows a really fun weird one.
A Sage (candlekeep mysteries) is pretty nifty as well
Jacklewere is nearly invincible against most monsters.
Chwinga
Awakened shrubs sound like a good time
That's a disrespectfully low CR for a hyena.
Honestly I can see the Vistani being a pretty great “Final Boss” of an early arc for low level player and potentially even reoccurring antagonists. Just imagine losing to such a low level but dangerous threat then training up for the rematch in the future
All i can think of is a Cabin in the Woods Purge scene or the rabbits from Blood C moment with several 0 CR creatures murdering a mid level adventurers in a darkly comedic seroes of events.
The sleepy half orc barbarian killed when a horned rabbit burrows just under his bedroll and stabs his throat. The alchemist mixes an awakened shrub hastily and puts in the wrong ingredients that make the healing potion for the half orc turn into a gas potion that reacts with blood. An awakened rat puts scorpions in the articifers tool pouch while she's working on her battle bot (or w/e).
Just a string of bad luck that leads to really frigged up set piece to come across.
Commoner is deadly. It seems effortless, but it IS a fully adult person. If they know ahead of the encounter that they're up against adventurers they'll do everything they can to prepare. I'm seeing a lot of comments about Awakened Rat as a dangerous foe, but that's still a RAT. If on 10 Int alone you can make a rat deadly, imagine what you can do with a determined Commoner. Raise an army, command a horde of hounds, turn their livestock against you to breed chaos during the battle, and of course the best medieval solution in history, FIRE.
Edit: I made the comment before finishing the video... I KNEW IT!
Great video, can't believe I missed this one; one of my cats, Cujo enjoyed watching it a short while as well. Rat has to be the winner, however. If we agree the commoner and it are equal in their sinister potentials, a party is able to better anticipate the prior while the other... you'd probably not know the danger capable!
One of my early campaigns I killed a party member with rats accedentaly, now its a running joke with that group
Never mess with someone that can put a curse on you, that can banish you out of existence. XD
I was listening to this in the background while I'm working, so not seeing the creatures being referenced, and got to the Almiraj and heard "...looks kind of stupid..." I stopped what I was doing to check it out and totally snort laughed at my desk. Co-worker in the cubical next to me looked at me with a puzzled look on her face. hahahah
Party walks into an Awakened rat ambush, full of swinging spikes and acid vials stolen from markets
I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned Chwingas. They are goated!
Rabid dog: a dog with rabies.
Any humanoid the rabid dog damages in a way that describes them biting on flesh, will be afflicted by rabies. Rabies will start to show after 1 week and force the afflicted to roll ever greater will saves to drink liquids, to control biting impulses in proximity of others and after the second week, sleeping, until they die by accumilating levels of exhaustion.
Rabies cannot be cured through non-magic means, or otherwise low level healing past the first 3 days.
1hit kill, perfect for your "gritty" low magic campaigns.
Yes! I asked for this on a deadliest monsters video and lo it has come to pass!
Thank you Quincy!
If you take context for the knucklehead into account it's actually legit kinda deadly since it can knock you into the frozen waters in icewind dale which can be a death sentence for low level characters...
i once used an Awakened Rat as the villain of a mystery adventure in a sewer dungeon, 3 level 4 characters were killed by its ingenious traps and even had a group of bandits under its command lmfao and it was hilarious to see the players figure out their most cunning adversary was but a mere Rat
There is a CR 1/16 that is able to potentially wipe out a party of level 10 and above without any modifications to its entry. This creature is also a type of highly specialized class. Their name is the synergist. They are able to create a special purpose construct that is just as capable as a level 5 character welding any combination of swords, axes, whips, mace, staff, and spear potentially a different one every turn. This construct mimics either a rogue, ranger, or fighter in combat but without any potential spells. The construct always has the same number of limbs the parrent creature has and looks to be an especially spindly version of it. Every limb except one is able to be used and take the form of any of the weapons listed in this comment. The construct has a number of hit points equal to the amount the main creature put up for bid multiplied by a multiplier that starts at 10 and can get as high as 250 depending on the level. The construct will regenerate one quarter of its HP every turn not every round. The level of the main body will determine what health multipliers are available. The main body gets an additional ten points of multiple to use every level and are not able to assign less than a ×10 to the construct and not less than two HP to each construct. The creater/ main body is cloaked and can be up to 120 feet away from the construct or in an adjacent room which ever happens first. The main body has only a D4 as a hit die and if their spell rebounds they will take damage equal to the total HP of all constructs they were controlling. If a construct is dispersed the main body has a single attempt at a saving throw with disadvantage that is equal to 10 plus the 1/4 the hp of the construct or the damage received by the dispersal of the construct. Any construct may be dispersed by causing enough damage to the construct or by breaking the concentration of the main body. The synergist is able to direct and see through its eyes in a way of any of their own constructs. The creater is almost immobile (limited to 5 feet) and they are cloaked which is like a lesser version of lesser invisibility or greater version of hidden where they don't need to be in a dark place or have some kind of concealment. The construct has a movement speed of 60 feet and is able to make a single attack per limb as long as a minimum of one is isn't used to make an attack. The construct is created by a ritual that attuned a special item to the main body of the creature. This item must be one of the following orb. Dagger, staff, whip, wand, or a spike. The construction of the special item determines the primary properties of the construct and can be made of any material organic or not and can be laced with any kind of toxic material without harmful effects on the original one that it is attuned to. No more than two special items can be used at any time and there is no limit on how many materials can be used in the construction of the item. The Creature must conduct a concentration check any time that anything other than their personal construct(s) or they move within a 15 foot range from them. If anything comes within the 15 foot range they must pass the concentration check that increases by an additional two per five feet towards them whatever it is gets and if the person or object passes through their square the saving through jumps an additional 4 and they are also required to pass an additional saving throw that starts at 10 and climbs by one per damage if any is caused and doubles if any thing of small size or larger passes through or stays in the square they occupy. If any player gets within 30 feet of one of them they may hear them chanting with a 15 or better on perception check hearing. The character can get a new perception check every time they move towards or away from the main creature getting stronger with every 5 feet closer to their main body. The roll needed to hear the chanting lowers by 1 for every ten feet closer to the synergist's main body. If the synergist ever loses concentration the spell will rebound on them and most likely kill them with the psychic recoil. This is explained better earlier in this comment. The cloaked ability doesn't make the main body invisible just very hard to see when More than 10 feet away. If any living creature other than the synergist ever touches the special item they must pass a 19 on reflex to keep the item from immediately and permanently bonding with their flesh before it starts to burrow into their bodies heading towards the vital organs. Thirty days later if the item isn't removed from a creature's body they will die if the immediate effects of any possibly present dangerous material doesn't kill them first. For example any and all poisonous/ toxic materials along with any kind of biological hazards that may be present. It's entirely possible that a player that touches the special item will in addition to having a vine wrapped adamant Dagger stuck through their hand be exposed to a virus that causes confusion and headaches along with a poisonous substance that causes constitution damage and a toxin that causes extreme numbness in the extremities making it nearly impossible for them to hold a weapon or anything else securely. If any potentially toxic materials are present in the item prior to the player touching it they contue to exist until the item is removed from their body or their deaths upon which the item loses all properties and crumbles into dust. The dust is a mix of all materials used to create the item in the first place but may not have enough of any single component to be valuable. Unless certain special substances are used the same goes for any specific kind of high value plants. Anti magic fields and spells don't disable the ability of the synergist to have/control/create/maintain a construct in any meaningful way unless powered by a god/goddess.
This was great! I was not even aware of the Awakened Rat. I am totally going to use that in a game! 🐀
Right there with ya!
Suggestion: Rats are known to be great for being disease carriers, strictly due to the Bubonic Plague.
Could take some inspiration from that, and give players a simple kill quest to clear rats out of the sewers.
They go back to town two weeks later, and everyone is sick and dying because of a bloodborne illness the players released when they killed the rats.
@@Arkansym I think it was the fleas transmitting the plague, but the rats were carrying the fleas.
Rats can also be trained to smell disease, including cancer. They’re amazing!
@@alanschaub147
Yes, that's true. But the point is the rats are the ones people think about and blamed for the transmission of the disease.
There's an idea for a future sourcebook...'Bosses with Ambition', all about how to use CR 0 but smart creatures as BBEGs for sessions or campaigns (and other weaker critters...the infamous Tucker's Kobolds come to mind...)
nice Relentless Rats art
A classic ;)
I’d say you should have put the “aspect of death” in, for obvious reasons
I once had a full low level quest with Moon Rats as the main villains.
Also I think the alamriage (I know I spelled that wrong) is cr 0 so that it meets the standards for being a familer which are consistently cr 0.
D&D: *lists almiraj as a CR 0 monster*
Me, a mythology buff: *spit take at the nerfed CR 3 homebrew I made*
Seriously I didn't know that they butchered the thing. Look up the original myths, there is a good reason my version was CR 3.
What could the original one do? Also, can you link to your CR3 version?
@@jacobnoelle8428 The original one was larger, was a vicious carnivorous predator, had a supernatural fear aura, was poisonous, and the recommended hunting strategy was "sorcery" (which I interpreted as resistance to non-magical weapons).
I don't have a link (because it was paper notes), but it had AC 16 from its golden hide, 47 HP, the resistance I mentioned, a DC 14 Fear Effect Aura out to 30 ft as a passive ability, and a +8 horn attack that dealt 1d6+4 piercing damage and 2d8 poison damage (DC 14 half). I also gave it evasion, proficiency in perception with keen senses, 60ft movement speed, and the ability to automatically succeed on any long jump as part of its movement as long as it could cover it in one round. I also gave it a charging gore feature where if it moved at least 20 ft before attacking with its horn it dealt an additional 2d6 piercing damage with the horn attack.
@@KingZolem my idea for a more powerful one is giving it spells it cast with it's horn
@@jacobnoelle8428 Dragon Quest does that with lightning and sleep magic, though both are low level examples of such. They also got their names localized to "horn hares" for some reason.
3 vistani at the same initiative- hold person, vulnerability to bludgeoning, ***WHACK***
My party once got killed by a bunch of crawling claws, so before watching the video, I'd say that.
Scorpion seems pretty accurate to irl tbh
Like if the thing crawls on you it probably gets a few surprise rounds and advantage for not being seen by you and considering that normal people don't have much health the scorpion would be deadly with just 1 or 2 stabs
The homunculus poison seems strong, but I'm not sure how likely it is to actually get affected by that
an awakened rat with wizard levels sounds like a fun low level boss
I think ya overlooked one
Stone Giant Statue Size Huge AC 17 HP 17d12 +85. Straight up immunity to poison, psychic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren't adamantine and the condition immunity to charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned.
The golem has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
The golem's weapon attacks are magical.
Plus it has a strength of 22 so it's base unarmed strike it is a flat 7 damage. Though it doesn't have a weapon attack in its stat block it can still pick up a small tree and smash with a club. Weapon damage scale with size so that would be a 3d4 +6. Oh by the way all that is magical.
this is a great idea for a video. subscribed
Thanks Connor!
@@esperthebard you have a great candour and way of getting straight to the point in your videos. which I really appreciate, if the editing was a bit shinier could hold the attention span of some people XD. but cool stuff man keep it up. kudos
@@connorshaw-case6030 thank you for the feedback, I am making some efforts currently to increase the productive value of my content
would love to see an awakened almiraj
In the first campaign I ever ran my players ended up with a bag of ticks and they had a big big battle coming up. I had given them so many magic items that at level 3 I could pit them against a small army. They were attacking this abandoned mannor in full of mercenary soldiers. Mostly guards and bandits.
Anyway they used the bag of tricks before the fight and got a goat.
That goat killed 6 men. It took a cr 3 veteran to finally take him down.
They also had a bear who died in the second round and killed one guy!
Goats are the strongest monster in the game!!
Slaadi (definitely not cr0) are truly based off how you play them, they can be weak and unpredictable, or incredibly powerful.
Living DP is amazing.
Onyx is the de-facto correct answer, but I like the Vistana Commoner in lieu of "invincible gargantuan cat"
A good guid for side kicks
Just cast awaken on an Almiraj and have him be like Hamsterviel even give him a loxodon minion and reflavor him to look more whale like
I like this 👍
I have to wonder if they just assigned "commoners" at CR 0 so that players wouldnt be tempted to massacre them for experience.
i feel a living demiplane is very cool if it has like- stuff in its demiplane, even if it has some starving rats and other adventurers inside. Would be quite cool? means it has some offense- maybe enough to be like cr 1/2
Its going to be a bit slanted since we can assume most players will have spells, but Living Demiplane effectively has a DC 10 Dex save or die as to my knowledge there is no way out. With cantrips it should be trivial to escape but think about how lethal that thing is to most creatures. How many stat blocks have spellcasting or magic attacks?
I'd postulate that it should have a CR of 1 as there is nothing stopping it from pursuing its prey and forcing that save many times, they have to roll low eventually...
@@larstollefsen1236 yeah I guess like intellect devourers the lethality of the living demiplane can skyrocket in ambush encounters
Before finishing: I think it's a commoner
A commoner can be killed in one turn by 4 housecats
Well, you were half right ;)
Before finishing - four cats in a sack? (can't recall CRs but funny to mention) but, yes, problematic
I wanna make an awakened rat the bbeg of a short low level campaign all ratatouille style
It's not a creature, but I think the most powerfull thing is a locked door.
Doors can be whole encounters in and of themselves!
Looks at the Almiraj: I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it...
10:53 - I NEEEEEEEEEEED IIIIIIIIIIIT!!! (Proceeds to make it an animal companion in my campaign)
Do 1/8 next !
I think my next game setting is going to be The Secrets of Nimh.
Dozen Vestani have a chance against anyone, be it at a cost of their life
.......An awakened rat can take class levels. Awakened rat sorcerer.
Could you tame a demiplane to be a portable pocket dimension housing, letting take your home with you wherever you go.
RLM panel
Rich: Ok Esper, which is the Best of the Worst?
Haha well I already made that video, Top 10 Worst D&D Monsters 👻
Good to see shameless promotion of that Craig guy.
Hey man! Good to see you again. I hope your games are going well!
Thanks.
4-7 dmg can honestly reliably take out level 1 characters in just a few hits at +5
it can be used with squads of 8 based on its cr 10 againsta 5 player party and more again if you go above medium.
14 is listed as deadly and oh boy would it be very very deadly
Strongest cr 0 is the killer wasp from first ed. It kills you in one hit.