the (actual) strongest monster in D&D

[@mutinoustater2896]

The strongest monster is that 1 one homebrew that the dm insisted was perfectly balanced

[@rossthemoss6827]

Or the good old “surprise monster” “So she is looking very injured it seems like you might be able to take her out, but you hear a noise behind you. You see the high level Paladin from before” Me “….” *looking at my 7 hp and 2 level 1 spell slots left “huh…..”

[@okgut2033]

Ya mean the spaceduck? XD

[@redghost433]

I’ve got a home brew with 1hp that is also immortal.

[@guga5708156]

I have a pretty good story about how a overpowered monster was made, taking a cougar and everyone talking how it sneak attack the team and did so much damage and the dm making it giant and invisible

[@scientist368]

Yeap.

[@benjaminwilliams4301]

A meme from an age long past gave the point I think you're trying to make. "It's easy to kill your players. It's harder to ALMOST kill your players."

[@Daylight.0]

Comes from an old engineering quote: Anyone can design a bridge that stands. It takes an engineer to design a bridge that barely stands.

[@Dr4g0nR4wr]

@@Daylight.0 Ngl that seems backwards

[@Daylight.0]

@@Dr4g0nR4wr give me 50 million dollars and I'll build a bridge for you. But an engineer knows what actually needs rei for cement and all that, and can do it for the minimum cost

[@kennajin3390]

@@Dr4g0nR4wr Basically what the quote is implying is that building a bridge is easy. If you had infinite money. Engineers are given a budget or told to make the cheapest bridge possible which would barely stand

[@baitposter]

@@Dr4g0nR4wr Maybe, but it's not. It's a difference in efficiency. You can probably jury-rig any kind of bridge that gets the job done if cost and material acquisition were not issues, but because they are, it takes an engineer with efficiency-conscious methodology to get it done in the real world, using a minimum of material and cost.

[@gaminreasons8941]

Yeah, personally I give the Tarrasque a "Boulder" attack, this is like the Giant's signature "Rock" attack. Basically "yeah this isn't as good as my normal damage but at least you can't entirely cheese me by just flying and using ranged attacks."

[@fluffius5436]

I do that too but I just say, "The tarrasque smacks the top of a church and sends boulders flying towards you. Roll Dex saving throw.

[@devin5201]

Frankly you can give the Tarrasque a Godzilla style beam attack, it's pretty on point with its Kaiju esthetic.

[@inigop.d.1270]

Same. Last game I had this Ettin as an encounter for my players, and at one point I realized they could just kill her at a distance, making the encounter a "simply press A" situation. I just had her take a big rock and throw it to one of the players (who coincidentally was spiderclimbing, and I rolled a critical hit, and knocked her unconscious, and the fall gave her one death save failure, but that is another story)

[@knowital3925]

I give it a beam that increases in damage the further away you are, meaning players who try use the standard fly and/or attack from range realise they need to consider cover and positioning

[@devin5201]

@@inigop.d.1270 oh god that sounds like an insane moment, I'm guessing the table went wild there.

[@Mockthenerd]

Being a DM is like being a good action movie writer and director. You want your characters to have a tough time but ultimately you want them to be victories.

[@somedouchemcbag987]

Except for the fact that your actors don`t know about the script/don`t follow it and you have to constantly change to the point that you think that making a script is counterproductive and you just wing most of time

[@johnymustacio]

i don't.

[@mrosskne]

If there is no peril in the task, there can be no glory in its accomplishment.

[@oomree]

@@johnymustacio the risk of death is the best spice possible. if you show your players that their actions can in fact lead them to an early grave they will act with more care

[@juangalton999]

I make it fair, but I also drop some context clues about some monsters being incredibly dangerous or the party possibly being out numbered. I did get one encounter that would've absolutely ended in a TPK if the party didn't flee the fight.

[@BODELTOTE]

Lvl 20 Barbarian: "I fear no man" Intellect devorer: *exists* Barbarian: ..."But t-that thing scares m-me"

[@Daile0303]

At least they put the humanoid restriction. Otherwise an intellect devourer could run up to The Tarrasque and ask him if he has time to talk about our lord and saviour, Elder brain

[@AxxLAfriku]

Do you have any idea who is replying to your comment right now? It's the FUNNIEST MAN ALIVE! Me funny (!!!) vids are so extremely funny, if you don't cry tears of laughter, you are allowed to thumb down me XTREMELY FUNNY vids! Do you think me funny (!!!) vids are funny, dear agu

[@splitmango8629]

There's no intellect to devorer tho...

[@benjimaxbobjohn]

@@AxxLAfriku omfg of course you're here too.

[@makaramuss]

@@Daile0303 to be honest, lore wise there are non humanoid creatures that are intellect devoured :D

[@rawr3060]

When my party steamrolled everything, I threw a party of simulacrums of themselves at them. They stil won but it revealed some major weaknesses that I would never have noticed if the party didn't exploit them to beat their copies.

[@TheNaturalnuke]

That’s actually an excellent idea, often the players themselves know what their own weaknesses best

[@AmityvilleFan]

clever

[@7F0X7]

Ya a good ol' Dark Link is always great as both a combat encounter and narrative device.

[@Shadowswolf9666]

@@7F0X7 where is he?

[@7F0X7]

@@Shadowswolf9666 When you grin at yourself in the mirror in the dark, that's him.

[@TheRealBot001]

The true answer is obviously an inanimate mundane chair located in the middle of a ransacked room.

[@Tmsmdfcrcls]

How many legs on this chair? 🤔

[@justroi5406]

*Tenets of Chairism*

[@williamvalorious4403]

Imagine a sort of greater mimic that can become any object within range or sight

[@devinward461]

@@Tmsmdfcrcls Four. ...Like a chair.

[@matthewletexier]

I understood that reference

[@AlterationA]

"Second love of my life" I could almost hear the chain audibly grind on that backpedal.

[@iafozzac]

"love of my life" *looks at ring and realizes he doesn't want to sleep on the couch* "second love of my life"

[@WireMosasaur]

I feel like the Big Bag 'o Hit Points And Resistances enemies like a Tarrasque work much better as a world-affecting or time limit type challenge (something I feel like the DMG tries to push a little). Like, the Tarrasque is making its way towards a city the players care about, so they only have x amount of time to grind away those HP or distract it or SOMETHING before it starts going Godzilla on shit

[@richardwhaler8717]

The hit points are kinda too low for that. IMO the way to do a really scary tarrasque is to have it be already attacking a city. "Go ahead and strafe from the sky, but that cute little puppy is dead now because of you."

[@IchigoShinagami]

@@richardwhaler8717 The moment when it doesn't work, because the party is a bunch of murderhobos who would've killed the entire city anyway.

[@Skrighk]

Agreed. You can have the party see a Tarrasque at level 1. It just shouldn't target them. It's targeting the city they're in. Only damage they should take is debris and falling buildings. Which, could be fatal for sure. It's an escape sequence

[@devin5201]

What you are describing is Lao Shan Lung and I'm all for it.

[@xanderroth]

Had a great fight that was the party essentially playing keep-away from the tarrasque (I gave it some gloamwings as air support)

[@DrelvanianGuardOffic]

"Could Titivilus take on a party of over powered adventurers?" "He could certainly try."

[@marcosantonio-hj7vp]

"Animate Objects, Polymorph, Find Familiar, Conjure Animals or some other form to summon/make a creature with blind perception to reveal your position and I WILL DESTROY YOU!!!!"

[@GravityAP]

@@marcosantonio-hj7vp he’s probably faster than animate objects

[@Zalied]

@@marcosantonio-hj7vp a faiery fire spell thats a prettyyyy low level spell

[@marcosantonio-hj7vp]

@@GravityAP if he runaway the combat is over, the Object will be a problem if he chooses to fight. So you will fight?

[@yorukage5926]

I love how the Tarrasque used to be considered a literal apocalypse and a legit threat that was impossible to defeat and could only be defeated by wishing it away

[@2ndGenBen]

Not since the Gygaxian days as the Tarrasque been any sort of threat. Its not that the tarrasque has gotten weaker its that ever since Wizards took over and made 3e players have become one man armies and the tarrasque just hasnt caught up

[@mrosskne]

@bensama players have nothing to do with it. the tarrasque can be killed by an allip. it has never been particularly threatening.

[@TheOnceMoreGaming]

It's more than that. The RPGA got involved and forced TSR to make a rule change by eliminating Negative THAC0. The RPGA is a blight on gaming and should be wiped out. Before Negative THAC0 was removed, it required a critical fumble to hit a Tarrasque. @@2ndGenBen

[@LoarvicLoarvic]

And yet an aaracokra with a magical bow could solo it. Not even going to talk about clay golem. No ranged weapon attacks, no Magical Weapons trait, just a big chunk of meat.

[@samadams8533]

An important note for dealing with greater invisibility: the old find their square and toss a bag of flour trick does not cost a spell slot. So every adventurer of any level should always have a 3 pound sack of flour

[@gmkgoat]

A sack of flour, 10 foot pole, 50 ft of rope, and a bag of caltrops can solve a lot of problems.

[@kathryngooden892]

That much flour should cause damage

[@williamnixon3994]

Once it stops being the flour-man's turn though, the demon would then teleport to a different location, where there isn't a bag of flour under his feet

[@mightyphantom4383]

I once cast light on a crossbow bolt and then fired it at the invisible enemy (at Lvl 5). It didn't work :(

[@Istalrison]

@@williamnixon3994 he would still be covered in flour though

[@johncameron1935]

Generally speaking, the strongest encounters are the ones where the enemies are intelligent and have access to most of if not all of the same tactics the players are fond of using. Players hate it when their own broken tactics get used against them. They hate it with a passion. ...Which is why I love to use them so much.

[@youshouldntadidthat7691]

Or you can be like my DM and throw 12 goblins, an orc, and an ogre at the party of 3 level ones. We only managed to win because me and the Druid started a massive forest fire with firebolt and control flame.

[@Freekymoho]

@@youshouldntadidthat7691 sounds like fun that he let you mcguyver your way out of that one

[@jamesbrooks9321]

I ran a campaign where the party mostly fought against enemies with PC levels near their own. You have a buttload of awesome abilities and repertoire of world altering spells? Cool, so do the guys you're fighting.

[@red-havic9123]

@@jamesbrooks9321 Yo, my DM does the same with his important encounters too. Both nerve wracking and fun to fight, actually

[@youshouldntadidthat7691]

@@red-havic9123 yeah. Scariest BBEG is a level 17 wizard when you’re a level 13 party.

[@johnny_mar]

The stronges monsters: "I'm Invisible" Party: "Oh no, what we gonna doo" The Dumb Barbariann: **Sprays a Bag of Flour everywhere** AHA!!! You cannot decieve me

[@LucanVaris]

Target has flying.

[@matthhiasbrownanonionchopp3471]

@@LucanVaris dc 19 investigation check to use movement of flour to tell his location in the air.

[@rdizzy1]

@@matthhiasbrownanonionchopp3471 Lol, yep, a flying invisible creature with flour on them would be dropping flour all over the place, revealing where he is.

[@gooseteeth5455]

That's... not a bad idea actually

[@LucanVaris]

@@rdizzy1 Gotta hit him WITH the flour, and hope he didn't just throw his voice into that corner instead.

[@derHermann]

High-Level D&D is not about threatening the Player Characters. It's about threatening the innocent people, cities, the world! Sure. If it's just a matter of time till the party can kite the Tarrasque to death, it's lame. But if every single turn means that more and more people are in danger of being crushed, eaten or both?! Then players have to become creative

[@CptnJaymz]

THIS!

[@tiggerk2392]

But what if the PCs don't care about innocents 😅?

[@derHermann]

@@tiggerk2392 Even if they care just about themselves. Anything that's big enough to require High-Level PCs, will cause harm to things that will affect them. If there are no people to worship them or to trade with or to even serve them, then they will have to do menial tasks themselves. "It's going to destroy the planet!" -"So what?!" "That's where all your stuff is.." -"But I love my stuff! We have to stop it!"

[@DerMoerpler]

@@tiggerk2392 After reaching the high levels, the players will have something they care about - if it's not innocents, it's something else. Every character has a weak point.

[@matheoc.m4550]

@@tiggerk2392 "oh no, the magic items will be crushed!" You will have a wave of min/max players going to get between the loot and the enemy

[@EldestSon98]

"The paladin brings down the power of the sun". Meanwhile Zariel is just vibing with her resistance to radiant damage and regeneration that only get stopped by radiant damage.

[@kirkfogg8366]

That's because zariel praised the sun.

[@Nishom0926]

That sounds like Esconor

[@marcosantonio-hj7vp]

Or... Chill Touch rsrsrs

[@seigeengine]

@@marcosantonio-hj7vp Let me introduce you to the hottest new ability for all regenerating monsters: Can't touch this.

[@Balstasar]

My dm forgot that zariel had resistance to radiant, we were lvl 13, but a double crit from the paladin still hurts. So we killed zariel in like 3 turns, at least he gave Haruman resitance to magic dmg, i don't blame the DM, everybody makes mistakes sometimes.

[@christopherclubb9167]

Jacob: "Here is the real most challenging monster" Jacob, some time later: "So, my party killed him with a gun..."

[@fivesARC--5555]

What damage did it do

[@hearforthemusic9814]

@@fivesARC--5555 157 in total from one characters turn

[@fivesARC--5555]

@@hearforthemusic9814 holy shit

[@leahbeah1585]

@@fivesARC--5555 Should also mention the character was level 8, it was a crit with some pretty busted homebrew but still lol

[@fivesARC--5555]

@@leahbeah1585 aah

[@Daile0303]

The one creature that no adventurer is able to kill: The flumph

[@wellfolks9096]

Yeah, because you won't be a player anymore once you start attacking my squishy boys

[@jamesfreeman3617]

Laughs in murder hobbo

[@AdMerIin]

I ran a campaign and the second enounter was a group of Flumph. Not great damage, but the party kept missing and being made stinky which made up for them slaughtering the first encounter. Also they went right to turn in the quest instead of washing first so they got paid less for being smelly

[@sirflapfla97]

false its that one kobold that are entire party gets consistent nat 1s on no matter what

[@forgerofsouls9126]

My Wild Sorc accidently summoned a bunch flumphs into a battle we were in...right into an area enclosed with Sickening Radiance...needless to say, the DM described their telepathic screams of terror really well.

[@YamadaJisho]

The best way to use the Tarrasque I've found is encapsulated in the movie Godzilla. The 2000 Matthew Broderick Godzilla. No, I'm not kidding. I ran the Tarrasque this way once and it was some of the most fun we've ever had. There's a large island city in my homebrew world, and when the Tarrasque came, it was loose in this city. When it got injured too badly by the party, it ran away through buildings, creating a ton of difficult terrain and impassible rubble and promptly disappeared, causing the party to start playing smart, trying to locate where it nested, attempted to corner it, used their sizable skills and resources (they were level 19 at the time and had an airship). The entire encounter became a puzzle rather than just a fight.

[@Pandaemoni]

"So annoying." The words every DM dreams of hearing from his players. They are second only to "F&%$ this guy."

[@tysoncarver5181]

I've shouted both of those before. Thx for the memories.

[@mr.equity1120]

That's usually a sign of bad Dming

[@Andre-vt4np]

@@mr.equity1120 why?

[@blackwell4701]

@@mr.equity1120 Depends on context, if they're laughing, it's totally good.

[@mr.equity1120]

@@Andre-vt4np Because you don’t want your players to have a bad time, if they’re having a bad time then why are we playing D&D at all. Like someone said below if they enjoy the challenges and are having fun then it’s really not bad Dming. It’s a story that you’re building with your party it’s really not the DM vs the players.

[@martaneon5310]

The strongest monster: a noble! Party: "That's no fair! You sent a group of adventurers to kill us!" Noble: "Screw the rules I have money!"

[@januscircus1287]

Lol

[@Eisenwulf666]

Or pay some famous bards to make fun of them everywhere they go. Every time they enter a tavern the people there will pretend not to see them and laugh when they're not looking. Soon nobody is hiring them and kids are following them in the streets, calling them names and laughing at them.. Not saying it's a fun thing to rp, just saying it's a way to punish a party of murderhobos

[@Drekromancer]

@@Eisenwulf666 This is a masterstroke of worldbuilding and game balance. How do you make your players really *hate* a villain? Simple. Just get the villain to ruin their power fantasy by dashing their reputation. Then they've got the strongest motivation for violence: *revenge.*

[@P4rz1va1]

@@Eisenwulf666 this video isn't about upsetting your players and taking their fun away. It's about giving them a challenging encounter.

[@bagofbones4257]

This fails the moment the party gets to like level 7, has a bard and/or took the noble background. Like even in normal games you end up swimming in enough gold to buy a small kingdom and I don't even need to go into what a bard can do to a noble. Honestly using nobles that just go out of their way to make a party miserable and constantly get away with it is just going get every noble in the kingdom killed and/or the party to refuse to have you DM for them anymore.

[@Pasakoye]

Answer: The random creature the party made a pet. They will bend over backwards to rescue or enrich it, leading to many side adventures that cause just enough of a delay for the world to end while they are distracted.

[@MadameCorgi]

That is evil

[@luizcribas]

Uni, is that you?

[@agenthyena4752]

This is the beautiful, same lesson that Tucker’s Kobolds gives the world of us DMs. A powerful party’s most diabolical weakness isn’t massive stats, it’s *TACTICS* Don’t try and get into a slugging match with a high level dnd party, it ends up either too easy or boring. They’re Mike Tyson at that point. What makes it challenging is making them fight someone who knows how to dodge. Someone who put a knife in the glove. Someone who suddenly disrupts the ring and puts in spikes everywhere. A challenge for a high level party isn’t a slapping competition, it’s a duel with no rules.

[@splitmango8629]

"Love of my life" Scene cuts and looks at his ring "Second Love of my life" PURE GOLD Edit: guys I'm saying the bit was hilarious not that the ring was made of gold lol

[@ВолодимирМайко-п7р]

i was laughing my ass out because of this moment

[@IronWarhorsesFun]

First was Lolth🤯

[@witchlock2897]

I hope not, gold rings are expensive!

[@studentofsmith]

When you know your wife watches your KZbin videos...

[@AngelShadowheart]

I was just listening to it so I had to stop rewind and actually watch what happened it was hilarious

[@DarthSidian]

Or, consider the following: Vampiric Half-Ancient Red Dragon Dracodemilich Tarrasque.

[@poilboiler]

Not fiendish?

[@kryptonianguest1903]

Is half-ancient like middle age for dragons?

[@IndigoIndustrial]

Kryptonian Guest I think it might mean 'dual heritage'.

[@dragonheart1236]

@@kryptonianguest1903 I think it's half dragon, and that dragon half is ancient

[@kryptonianguest1903]

@@dragonheart1236 Pretending not to realize that allowed me to make a crappy joke :P

[@Jagonath]

Not going to lie: "The TAVERN ITSELF turns out to be a dungeon!" is such an absurdly, elegantly brilliant idea for a quest that I CANNOT believe I haven't come across this "trope" before!

[@STWear1]

You can raise the level if you make the tavern an "ancient mimic". Technically, mimics can grow indefinitely if they aren't killed, and can adapt to take any shape that attracts many people

[@thecactusman17]

This is literally the concept for the first 3 episodes of Acquisitions Incorporated: The C Team if you want to see a good example.

[@greyngreyer5]

Uhhh Blackrock Depths

[@BYERE]

I have an idea for making a tavern as a side quest for a campaign. The party is sent to a highway road where people keep disappearing. They come across a roadside tavern (which would often be seen as pitstops for travellers, so it wouldn’t seem strange to see). The party spend the night, talking to the innkeeper and other people who have stopped there. If they don’t find anything, you have another residence disappear by morning, etc. The trick is that either: A: The innkeeper is actually a sadistic beastmaster, and is using the inn to raise pet mimics, and the people who disappear are being used as food for said mimics Or B: The tavern is a giant Queen Mimic, and all the furniture inside are its young. The innkeeper is used as a lure (in the same manner an angler fish), and the party have to venture deep inside it to destroy its heart.

[@ungogdansk]

I actually run a campaign with a sidequest inside a tavern. In my world, there was a war 50 ish years ago, and some buildings have secret hideouts that was used by both spies and rebels angry at the king for going to war. In one tavern they got in, I had made their exact thing for a party. The dwarf was called "big guy" and bought drinks. The goliath was invited to an interesting contest and free ale. The warlock saw a handsome, rich looking man who flirted with her first. Only the dwarf made his save, and noticed a sweet smell. To make an extremely long story short, they have found the secret hideout in the tavern and it is being used by vampire to set something up. This has been homebrewed quite a bit, but it's easy to adapt if you wanna.

[@cinnabarmanx4214]

That image of a Tarrasque fighting an Ancient Black Dragon makes me think of so many cool encounters you can have. Like maybe a lower level party has to help evacuate a city while these giant monsters duke it out, or a higher level party has to break up the fight before they cause too much damage.

[@T1J]

my strategy for high level parties is to let them steam roll normal encounters and try to make bosses ridiculously overpowered (which doesn't even work half the time)

[@potatoprist3210]

Dam tj dint expect to se you here

[@elf-lordsfriarofthemeadowl2039]

I think Epic Level is more about outsmarting the players. Epic evil Wizards should target the party's weaknesses, not so much as to instaTPK them but to force the party to think. Some DMs may just put monsters with certain immunities to force the party to fight them only in the way the DM wants, but that's not fun and not very clever. Instead to make your players think the DM can employ misdirection, difficult choices, moral quandaries, and within those scenarios place occasional ridiculously overpowered monsters.

[@elf-lordsfriarofthemeadowl2039]

@@ejedwards1678 How is a Mimic having the strength to launch someone faster than the sound barrier possible? It has a Strength of 17. You do know that D&D damage does not directly correlate to Neutons of force, right? It sounds like you just read the description of the Mimic to imagine a monster physically stronger than its stat block.

[@sherrysicle]

wow i love your videos didn’t know you played d&d

[@WookieChef]

Oh snap, T1J is here!

[@BrendanDonnelly51395]

"Aboleth goo doesn't have a counter" Ran an Aboleth as the final boss of my first ever campaign. When my paladin entered the waters and I described how when he failed the saving throw he grew gills, my players looked on in horor. Then the paladin player asked " wait is this a disease? I'm immune to those thanks to being a paladin" I was quite devastated

[@jasonfurumetarualkemisto5917]

No worries, you can just use the Enslaved feature on him, or on the nearest Barbarian so they can proceed to Whack him while underwater. Or yunno, the Aboleth could swim away, its the perfectly reasonable response to Aquatic Paladins. ..... *I have advice on running Aboleths if its OK with you* ..... Aboleths always seem weak compared to their description cause they tend to be used bare bones. However they are ancient and powerful creatures, older than gods and more knowledgeable than Liches. They also mind control beings weak enough to fall into their grasp. In a fight an Aboleth would never battle alone. It has several multitudes of minions gathered over eons that live and due for its sake. It has its native Chuul (and a lot of them) to aid it, but then several influential or powerful humanoids on the material plane. Owing to its connection with the plane of water it could also have several Elementals under its employ. Another thing to note, is Aboleths are smart, stupid smart, if an Aboleth has survived (or not) even one Arcane/Divine caster they will begin preparing for the next time they encounter one. They would gather magical items (they have stupidly high history and arcane skill so expect them to know the locations of even legendary items) and use them in a fight (or gift to minions), enslave the odd wizard or so, manipulate demonic cultists and others that hate gods, and deal with powerful planar/abyssal/demonic/primordial entities. Basically, play an Aboleth like a Mastermind, and not a Final Boss. The act of getting to the Aboleth in itself should be a challenge, and when accomplished the resulting army its built up will then meet the players head on, while the Aboleth stands back while attempting to either slink away (it can always rebuild) or fight to the death ( deep speech: "LMAO imagine dying").

[@cristiaolson7327]

My BBEG is a mutated, insane aboleth. He has an entire cult of frenzied worshippers and a lvl 20 caster at his disposal, the ability to cause madness, and can flesh-craft creatures into his service. My players are terrified to meet him.

[@ZvelHaj]

That is a bummer for you, but on the flip side, this is probably the only time being immune to disease will EVER come up in that campaign.

[@joeystuart2949]

@@jasonfurumetarualkemisto5917 OK You aren't wrong, but a ton of this stuff falls flat in front of some players who just stare and go "wuh" or complain because the Aboleth is actually strong or whatever.

[@Scaevola9449]

He deserved that, seeing as disease immunity is worthless like 90% of the time.

[@adambrewer6564]

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” ― Sun tzu, The Art of War

[@johnes4882]

"All warfare is based

[@switjive17]

Technoblade, is that your alt account?

[@mythrandyr5595]

any one quote Sun tzu's, The Art of War; Knows their chariot to archer ratios! And get my follow. "Just take my $!"

[@johnymustacio]

not really... all quotes have situations they are usefull in that makes them sound more important than they really are. for example, all modern wars are about technological advantage. it doesn't matter if you know the enemy tanks ar3 there if you don't have anything that can penetrate their armor

[@codrincx]

@@johnymustacio It does, though, it means you know there's an unbeatable force in that location and to strike at a different one. Or find a way to lure this one out of position ; even the most modern tank can be dragged into a tarpit, if the ambush is laid well enough. We haven't evolved past "spear pit trap" in concept, we just increased its necessary size.

[@Jordan-kq3qw]

Jacob: The tarasque has no ranged attacks. The community some time later: So a level one Aaracocra with a longbow.

[@davidcarroll5683]

Make them an Artificer so you don't have to worry about ammo.

[@declanbowley4578]

Owlin wizard, fire bolt or owlin warlock, eldritch blast

[@davidcarroll5683]

@@declanbowley4578 *Reflective Carapace has entered chat*

[@declanbowley4578]

@davidcarroll5683 I deny your reality in place of my own, I will refuse to admit to you being correct not because I dislike you, but because I am a stranger who has nothing better to do at the moment than argue, this is nothing against you but I will remain stubborn as I am an unintelligent human who is bored and will start saying stupid things now even if I know they wouldn't work. So I reply to your "carapace" with counter spell :]

[@LasloVisionary]

i actually think nothing really stops a tarrasque from throwing a whole house at you while you fly. i know it doesn't have a throw attack, but it just makes sense and any creature with a hand or paw flexible enough to hold something can do it. It could even throw the house (or just a huge stone...) hitting it with the tail. Or maybe just make a tall building fall on you, or spread rocks at high speed hitting the side of a stone wall. You can get very creative even if it doesn't fly.

[@hn1368]

I have to introduce you to the most OP lvl 1 spell, "faerie fire"

[@bassettehound]

I see your faerie fire and raise you guiding bolt.

[@Talonidas7403]

Faerie fire is my favorite spell =)

[@hn1368]

@@bassettehound you can't see invisible people with guiding bolt, can you? You can't even make the ranged attack while he is invisible. BUT if you land a faerie fire on this BBEG, all of his arsenal will render useless

[@robertbeach71]

With greater invisibility, ventriloquism and counterspell, good luck. Oh. And advantage on magic because he's a devil

[@NoriMori1992]

@@hn1368 Not all of it! He can still Teleport, can still cast Major Image, still has advantage on saving throws against spells and magical effects, still has legendary actions, etc.

[@_PannieCake_]

I have a homebrew creature with a reverse AC. You have to hit below its AC to hurt it. I watched my party be confused for 2 hours. It only has 20 HP

[@christophertidwell2422]

Ohh that's mean

[@EJFreelancer]

So basically to hit it the ranger has to aim at the other side of the room?

[@christophertidwell2422]

@@EJFreelancer that dm would have to be real cool for that to work lol

[@ambrokekw]

@@EJFreelancer or just use magic missile xdd

[@BlackRainRising]

this is so trolly I love it, may I steal the idea for... scientific study? :D

[@S.A.M-MK3]

"As you grasp the second orb, the ground begins to shake" "And up from the earth rises a tarrasque!" "But this is no ordinary tarrasque" "This is a winged metal-skinned tarrasque" "WITH A GUN" "ROLL FOR INITIATIVE MOTHERF*CKERS"

[@ultracross9405]

That's Metal Rasque!? It's already active!

[@Levyathyn]

The DOOM Slayer: "This again?"

[@jaketorres2388]

:) my level 20 bear totem barbarian/ moon Druid says hi enjoy a raging fire elemental who takes half damage to damn near absolutely everything

[@S.A.M-MK3]

"metal-skinned" that means fire immune

[@demilung]

Heavy metal starts playing

[@darkemperor95]

This reminds me when my players were doing Dragon of Icespire Peak and ran into an invisible stalker. Never have I seen the party be so desperate to save themselves until that point. Cleric was low on hp and almost out of spellslots, monk and wizard were unconscious, Bear Totem barbarian was on like 10 HP. They only managed to survive because the barbarian rolled a nat 20 when trying to break the magic weapon that summoned the stalker.

[@paddlesawtactic9788]

My players also had an interesting time with that stalker. For some reason, they split up, 2 went back to town for supplies while 2 went to Dragon Burrow to get that sword they heard could defeat Cryovain. The two that went managed to sneak past the traps and Will-o-Wisps, but obviously summoned the Invisible Stalker when they grabbed the sword. The Ranger got banged up a bit, but he and the Monk managed to escape the dungeon and rode their horse for miles back to town, with the Invisible Stalker chasing them the whole time, because that is literally its job. They reconvened with the other two, and luckily the Bard had Faerie Fire, so they were able to actually fight the thing.

[@dynawesome]

I have a level 20 barbarian with 345 hp, and is a bear barbarian, effectively giving him 690 hp. That’s more hp than a Tarrasque.

[@StarstormHUN]

Yo, I literally just start playing the exact same build

[@hijixincorperad]

Nice

[@mrscechy8625]

Imagine if your DM makes you fight mind flayers

[@houndoomdude2]

Well if you are just going by effective hit points, a tarrasque has other damage immunities and a ton of spell resistance so you could argue its effective hp is higher than 676 by comparison.

[@isaacmartinez2359]

Why do you hate your DM lmao

[@josephmitchell6077]

You can feel Spencer's stare when Jacob says "love of my life" and quickly changes it to "second love of my life."

[@blackandwhitecats4243]

I rofl so hard after he looked at his finger!

[@loka7783]

@@blackandwhitecats4243 You just know at that moment he thought "Oh Sheet! My wife is gonna see this video and then I will get in TROUBLE, Unless!!!" :)

[@blackandwhitecats4243]

@@loka7783 He would be sleeping on the couch if he didn't say the "UNLESS!" excuse.

[@anarcho_cyber9119]

@@blackandwhitecats4243 same

[@johnymustacio]

@@blackandwhitecats4243 unless his wife is in on the joke... i doubt he saod it while recording and didn't remove it while edditing the video, without knowing that it wouldn't be a problem for him

[@pixelink1027]

the actual ACTUAL strongest monster in dnd is the fabled "adventurer"

[@mondaysinsanity8193]

Lol have them fight a party of mercs hired by the bbeg thats a mirror of the party lmao

[@itwasidio1736]

"meh, my players are mary sues because they're interested in the story I've made and do things stated in their classes together" - You.

[@ohwowitsthatguy9154]

Y'all know how they stated Gods (and important NPCS) in 1st and 2nd edition? They gave them class levels. No level cap. Hit 20th level in a class? Give them levels in other classes.

[@jjh5852]

Lol true

[@onlinepanic2036]

@@itwasidio1736 what are you talking about?

[@derHermann]

Instead of exploiting the weaknesses of the Player Characters I sometimes try to turn their strengths against them. The Fighter has a million melee attacks per round? Remorhaz with "on hit"-effects or Mephits with "on death"-effects, are a great challenge for the players. They are forced to think outside of their usual moves

[@MayHugger]

So what does the fighter do without feeling like they're just being singled out? If an enemy heals when hit by fire, a Wizard can just cast something other than Fireball, but the Fighter doesn't have that luxury.

[@dokkabaerpg7896]

@@MayHuggeruse a bow? Lol

[@MayHugger]

@@dokkabaerpg7896 Then you’re not challenging them or changing anything if using a bow works fine.

[@burgernthemomrailer]

@@dokkabaerpg7896Another nerf to melee? Genius!

[@lockwoan01]

Strongest monster is a little old lady with a walking stick - watch as she chasses those pesky adventurers off her lawn, with the help of her dogs Fluffy, Rex, Pongo, Duke, King, and a bunch more (who are all secretly Ancient Dragons of different colors that like to help out this confused old lady.)

[@kaelang12]

God forbid she has a chancla or wooden spoon

[@lockwoan01]

@@kaelang12 Chancla is sandal, right?

[@kaelang12]

@@lockwoan01 ye. its power is limitless, and can take on any foe

[@lockwoan01]

@@kaelang12 That's because it is a +5 weapon that reduces the foe's AC by 10, and deals 2d20s worth of *each* type of damage - cutting, bludgeoning, piercing, fire, cold, poison, psychic, lightning, thunder, force, radiant, necrotic, (and so on), plus Strength Modifier, which is actually a +7, as she's a Level 20 Barbarian.

[@kaelang12]

@@lockwoan01 barbarian granny with vorpal chancla; dear god...

[@poryucontent]

The most challenging foe a party I DM in my home brew dnd was a shapeshifter that replaced one of the players, and even the replaced player didn’t knew. They had to remember all traps in the doungeon to discover who had been replaced .

[@michaelpeele5739]

I had a PC be duplicated. I got the player to play as the dupe. The party was totally freaked out. But, since the dupe also was a dupe of the mental parts (e.g. tenets, background), the dupe was not evil, and actually quite helpful. But, totally freaked everyone out. Tons of fun.

[@bloky5556]

how did you get the replaced player to not know about the shapeshifter?

[@poryucontent]

@@bloky5556 it was quite dificult because the character that was replaced had died, and I gave him a second chance at life with a profecy. But the profecy was 8 parts long.

[@gregortheoverlander4122]

@@michaelpeele5739 Yeah, that's always fun. a DM of one of my games basically had one of our characters cursed and possessed. Gave the player his own abilities plus some shit that a barbarian could never have like invisibility and some other spells. Then told the player to try his best to tpk the party. Dude had a blast and nearly downed all of us, but we got him just in time.

[@jahnukainen_8912]

"Zariel, Archduchess of Avernus. Love of my life" *looks at his ring* "Second Love of my life" *Couch avoided successfully*

[@emmetpbyrne]

Our DM used our previous characters to bolster Zariel's forces for the final battle. Turns out the forge cleric runeknight fighter I made was damn near impossible to kill. The clerics and wizards we lost became a nightmare and sweet Jesus a zealot barb who can't die all the while that flaming fallen angel was forcibly lavaboarding us made for an epic conclusion!

[@funnyswangoosething5088]

The strongest monster in dnd is the fucking plant from Storm King’s Thunder that is somehow CR 0.

[@DrugsAreForWinners]

My DM must have skipped that monster. Please explain

[@funnyswangoosething5088]

Wild Walnut in the book there’s an awakened tree called Lifferlas, if I remember it’s basically a friendly NPC so that’s probably why it has 0 challenge rating. The comment is a joke that the tree is paradoxically powerful.

[@DrugsAreForWinners]

@@funnyswangoosething5088 Ooooh. Fair enough

[@Daile0303]

Everyone always says "Shambling mound is strong". Do you guys know what a corpse flower does? What about the tri-flower fond, gas spore, wood woad, assassin vine, mantrap... There is a reason why plants are underused monsters... It's because if your DM is making you fight a plant, HE WANTS YOU TO DIE!

[@potatobrain8379]

Which chapter is it in?

[@GigidyGigidy234]

5:43 "Second love of my life." You can't fool me Jacob. Spencer has been Zariel archduke of Avernus all along!

[@emilysmith2965]

Have YOU ever seen them in a room at the same time? Of course not! Suspicious… 🤨

[@perrygrosshans8537]

Best advice I ever heard for single monster vs party encounters is to "bend" the action economy of the vanilla monsters and give them bonus actions, reactions, and "villain" actions (lesser forms of Legendary actions). Matt Colville and the Dungeon Coach have great videos about it. Makes even the weakest monster super interesting and has the party scrambling for ideas! :) I've used this homebrew rule in my game for the last few years and it is super fun modifying monsters this way, doesn't make them unkillable (they still usually only last 3 to 4 rounds), but it makes the combat last beyond 1 round!

[@starshinewindlord2716]

and terrain that impairs some types of actions.

[@firerulezz116]

Sometimes you want a group of wolves or knights to each get an attack in, and other times you just want one who does everything by themselves. I certainly prefer this to being forced to add minions to *every* boss encounter.

[@oblivion715]

Titivilus: *turns invisible* My Fighter/Wizard multiclass, literally called "The Spellblade": Cheeky blighter, innit? *casts Locate Object on his sword.* Vile Tiddies: Oh fuc- Spellblade: *Action Surges an Arkham Combo on the devil himself*

[@clarkside4493]

At some point, I'm going to adapt the 4e Tarrasque to 5e, because it looks a lot more interesting by comparison: basically it has its own field of gravity that keeps flying creatures within 200 feet of it close to it, it ignores resistances, it has an attack it can only use while at half health or less (so a pseudo second phase), and some other neat stuff. So that'll be fun!

[@randomcat1015]

we do NOT talk about 4e!

[@haerdalis84]

@@randomcat1015 but 4e had lots of good stuff in it 🤔

[@milkman4407]

Whats 4e

[@haerdalis84]

@@milkman4407 4th edition of D&D

[@nephilimshammer9567]

Drop a 2nd edition tarasque in

[@elecampane]

That's because 5e for some reason made the Tarrasque a weaksauce. Maybe they did because it's an iconic monster and people wanted to actually use it in games -- notice how Sul Khatesh is specifically imprisoned and her statblock is hypothetical. But yeah, despite 3.5 Tarrasque being CR20 (whereas 5e is CR30) it was impossible to kill without a 17th level wizard or cleric. Not only did it have damage reduction 15/epic (i.e. all incoming physical damage is reduced by 15 unless it's inflicted by +6 or better weapons), spell resistance 32 (meaning each time you cast a spell on it you have to roll d20, add your level and beat 32 to attempt to affect it), regeneration 40 (meaning each round it regained 40 hp). The real kicker was that all damage it received was nonlethal and it was immune to effects that kill; the only way to kill it was to reduce it to 0 hp and cast a wish or miracle (wish's divine counterpart) to make it stay dead. I mean, obviously damage reduction and spell resistance are obsolete mechanics for 5e, but why on earth would they remove regeneration? Even vampires have it, surely a big fat chunk of meat famously resilient monster should have it too.

[@crowsenpai5625]

I know. Like the Tarrasque’s most unique lore feature has always been it endlessly regenerates from any wound, but in 5e it doesn’t have actual hp regeneration? Like what the hell!?

[@BreadDestroyer]

There were plenty of ways to kill 3.5e Terrasque without a 17th level wizard or cleric. The fun ones include things like Magic Jar shenanigans, but also there's also simple stuff like just throwing it in lava which deals more damage per round than it can recover (20d6 per round!). Technically it's not "dead" but it's at negative a million hp and not going to bother anyone ever again. Only the shittiest of DMs would call that anything but defeating the terrasque. 3.5e, with all its supplements, was a shitshow. Be thankful for what we have with 5e.

[@crowsenpai5625]

@@BreadDestroyer do you think due to its Earth Glide ability, and Lava is just molten earth, the Tarrasque could just pass though lava fine?

[@elecampane]

@@BreadDestroyer I mean, lava deals fire damage, and 3.5 Tarrasque is specifically immune to fire. Regardless, I didn't say there was no way of containing it (a simple plane shift to the plane of, say, water is much easier than any magic jar shenanigans, and it's a 5th level spell for a cleric), I said it was impossible to _kill_ without a 9th level spell. And assuming the DM didn't just build a world where Tarrasque always wandered the countryside, it got released at some point, and if it was done by some nefarious actor, like a cult or a lich, they could undo whatever containment the party came up with. tl;dr: yes, you could contain it without 9th level spells, but containment only creates ticking time bomb until someone undoes it. Certainly don't need being told what to be thankful for. 5e is more neat and streamlined (so far), but also far less diverse and at later level less epic. And a lot more in 5e falls to the DM, as they just removed some rules and left it up for the DM to judge.

[@AmiriTheGrey]

How is no one talking about 3.5 hecatoncheires? CR: 57

[@seraaron]

I honestly think one of the toughest encounters you can pit against the PCs is a rival party of adventurers. Take a bunch of other fully-statted, fully-equipped, level-equivalent characters and let them wreak havok...! But it's an absolute headache to set up and run, especially for new GMs.

[@matthewporter7871]

D&D was not balanced for PvP. One or two fights like this is alright, but I had a DM who did it like six times and it got old fast. You really have to be careful though. Paladins and fighters have far more burst that you imagine. Generally monsters can’t oneshot PCs, but PCs most certainly can which isn’t really all that fun.

[@labibsaud8064]

Why not send the Inquisition after them with a party of Paladins, clerics to smite the ever living daylights out of them along with a Guild of Assassins and the tax collectors ?

[@thisislame2207]

@@matthewporter7871 They mean a rival party as a rival NPC party of adventurers, my DM has done this before in his homebrew world. It was fun.

[@matthewporter7871]

@@thisislame2207 I know but I believe the implication was that these NPC adventurers used PC stats, as in like a lvl 5 fighter which is what I was addressing.

[@samziegelman1835]

I helped a friend pull this in a Rise of Tiamat game where the rival party was the cults 2nd strike team. It was a bunch of classes the party had never seen and they got fuckin stomped, and only survived because they had one of their party members nuke the area they were fighting in

[@wordsofpower9684]

Great video. Thanks for the ideas. In 2nd edition Monstrous Manual there was a creature called a Living Wall, which took on the stats of the monsters that had become trapped inside of it. So the most challenging encounter I ever ran (which should still work in 5e) was a vast cavern where the 4 walls where each vast living walls with all manner of nasty stuff trapped into it. The only escape from the room was to kill all 4 walls and then decompose the remaining material to reveal the exit door.

[@heroicvileplume7184]

Yeah, agree with pretty much everything here. Low level dnd is about making your players feel special by feeding them monsters that their characters have advantages against (ie: send treants at your pyromancer, slow things at your rogues and monks, and enemy spellcasters at that one dude who took Mage slayer for some reason. High level dnd is where you realize that anything short of an encounter designed around the ridiculous people in your group will fall flat on its face and die instantly, so you have to be a lot more rude with the monsters you use. As an alternative to this cool demon dude I will be stealing for my own games, I encourage y’all to look into Tucker’s Kobolds if you haven’t already. They shred players of any level

[@arikaaa69]

Is Tucker's Kobolds an actual monster or a method for encounter design?

[@heroicvileplume7184]

Hoodie X Design method.

[@masterfreeman117]

I have never seen anyone pull of Tuckers Kobolds in 5E convincingly. They either give the Kobolds virtually infinite resources or magic items or buff them a whole lot. A high level party with casters just has so many ways of bypassing any trap that normal kobolds could even conceive of let alone create. You cannot really replicate the original Tucker's Kobolds, because it is from a much older edition with very different rules, unless you cheat and just ignore the premise of normal kobolds challenging or even killing a high level party.

[@omerbl1996]

My DM almost slapped my high level group with intellect devourers inside ettins. I borrowed his idea on how to use intellect devourers and ramped it up by a thousand. The players will discover this quite later in the campaign though...

[@theman6422]

Here’s a fun one: you know scp-939? It’s a canine like creature that can mimic the voices it hears. Put some of those in a magical darkness room and see how your players do when they hear “hello?” And they get a nice bite attack of 2d6 + the dog’s strength

[@srdustin]

There is a creature similar, called a Leucrotta I believe. They have the mimic ability. Used a pack of them in my one of my players villages, were using it to hunt children and stragglers of hunting parties. Can totally see the Alpha of a pack using a form of the darkness spell.

[@Daile0303]

I did something like this, but i used velociraptors, because they have a reputation in popular media. I literally just gave them the kenku's mimicry trait and increased their intelligenc a little. When i described that litte feathered lizard, with blood all over his face from a previous prey, imitating the voice of a player and running to the forest, they had a collective internal scream

[@Jason-pj3xh]

my answer to this was to create a new mechanic I call it kill conditions, one example is a vampire to kill it you need a called shot to the heart with a wooden piercing weapon (spear, arrow, eta.). Using this method even a weak monster can be an interesting fight because the players have to figure out how to kill the monster.

[@ryankunst668]

I mean, doesn't that already exist? That's what regeneration does, and is how vampires work normally. They regenerate hp every turn unless they are in sunlight or you stake them in the heart. Even if they go down they just get back up next turn.

[@CronicasDeGisthia]

How do you even balance that or make it work? I mean players could just say "yeah I just use all my attacks to pierce that mf in the heart"

[@Jason-pj3xh]

@@ryankunst668 regeneration only work if the vampire has 1 or more hit points, with kill conditions, you can't drop it to 0 without using the correct method in this case a wooden piercing weapon.

[@Jason-pj3xh]

@@CronicasDeGisthia that would work on most humanoids ( I don't mean the type) , most humanoids don't have kill conditions, but some monsters that have kill conditions like a kraken for example that wouldn't work, the Kraken's kill conditions was that you have to kill it from the inside my players did this by tricking it into swallowing some explosives. Every monster is different and many don't have a kill condition it something I thought of to make some fights more interesting.

[@CronicasDeGisthia]

@@Jason-pj3xh That's fucking rad. Stealing it.

[@mrquackadoodlemoo]

I can add one word to the Tarrasque that would make people shit themselves: "Winged"

[@Gut_Simpson]

Was so hyped to see Titivilus mentioned in this because he is such a slept-on Archdevil! I'm currently playing a Warlock who used to be under him, working with him for years and years, gaining enough trust (I guess as much "trust" as there can be between a Warlock and their Patron) that I started getting little jobs that undermined Dispater, but helped Titivilus. Anyway, long story short, Warlock snitched to Dispater the first chance he got and is now dealing with the consequences of his treachery. Very neat to see someone talk about a villain so near and dear to me!

[@JottoHearthStone]

Playing monsters smart is just as important as CR, I will say that there are two monsters that are worthy of the level 20 party killing mantle, namly Tiamat at CR 30, and my personal favourite, Sul Khatesh from eberon at CR 28 which is truly terrifying xD

[@ifidio2]

Sul Khatesh is my favorite as well. Three 9th level spells and a half meteor swarm/half anti-magic field that she's immune to? Yes please.

[@bud389]

A regular dragon should be able to TPK. Tiamat shouldn't be statted in the first place since she's a literal god.

[@chrisnewfield4853]

It's arguable whether or not this is official, but it comes from Adventurers League - Shargrailar from Wings of Death will give any party a run for their money

[@scottrauch1261]

@@bud389 but they are a god that actively aren't worshipped by those that they rule over, from my understanding, this puts them on the lowest tier of gods and it's not the actual Tiamat but a avatar of Tiamat and is substantially weaker then the god form. Also lv 20 adventures are the apex of mortals who are on the edge of reaching into the realm of gods. But I dont have a lot of first hand experience with lore just what others have told me is lore.

[@P4rz1va1]

@@bud389 she's a literal god that you can fight though. Hence stats.

[@immortalmonk2891]

My DM's answer to this question last campaign was a custom two-headed legendary adult dragon that had a twin soul one half was undead, and had 1500 hit points. He threw this at us after a dungeon of 300 undead Orcs. We were level 12, needless to say we killed all of them and the dragon. If you're wondering how, the dragon was killed because of a 9th level spell scroll for heat metal, which was used on a sword which was stabbed into the base of the neck of the dragon. The dragon then retreated with a party member, so myself and the other Aasimar used our daily flight ability to follow, and while following we put every single alchemist fire, vial of gunpowder, oil flask, and any other flammable object we could find in our inventory sheet into a a backpack and then dropped the barbarian along with it on the dragon blowing it up. The barbarian lived as he was raging and I gave him a necklace of fire resistance prior to that. We leveled like four times. The DM said we were supposed to retreat.

[@cookedrice6318]

I did something similar for my group of first time players. I did a homebrew Herobrine from Minecraft as their first major boss XD he could teleport around his boss room nearly freely, and could spawn temporary lava on the ground at random that would spread out and dissipate over the span of 3 turns (also teaches special awareness). At lv 3 (his hp were around 100 and there was 7 of them) they were forced to use their brains as he teleported the more he got hurt and lava’d the more he got hurt. When they finally emerged victorious about an hour later their eyes were filled with such joy knowing they beat this supposed unstoppable force. Of course I revealed it was only a fraction of his soul that now defeated will return to him to make their next encounter with him even stronger, but the fact they could stop this fraction and without losing anyone lead to well earned confidence

[@ruki4929]

So what I'm hearing from this is that just like most war against a powerful foe, you need to start using guerilla tactics. Maybe instead of using invisibility and whatever else, you can just use good old fashioned secret tunnels and traps. Overpowered players? Have them face batman.

[@sci7zo]

That's a fair point. Players being level 15 doesn't mean bandits stop terrorizing small villages. But the ones who try to use numbers to beat these level 15 demigods will lose. Smart ones will use traps, hit and run, and maneuverability/home field advantage to wear the party down until the retreat, or a group of 10+ CR 1/4 bandits somehow stand a chance at defeating high level adventurers. Hell, toss in a berserker or 2 to add some beef to the lineup.

[@karlmbeal]

you just described Tucker's Kobolds

[@uriel005]

kobolds are excellent for this. Its hilarious when the higher level parties encounter a large settlement warded against teleportation and scrying magic filled to the brim with traps and they just charged headlong into it without scouting because they deemed kobolds to not be a threat. 5 entered two left and they never actually encountered a single kobold. The kobolds weren't even home and weren't actually evil. Got to play with two expectations there both don't run face first into a lawnmower and also stop trying to solve everything like a murderhobo. The kobolds returned the bodies for resurrections afterwards but kept the loot for their hoard.

[@talkingbirb2808]

"he doesn't have ranged attacks" - not with my DM! When I was flying and shooting a troll he casually picked up a rock, threw it. Of course, it hit me and I fell down

[@jjstcase]

that actually makes sense

[@talkingbirb2808]

@@jjstcase kinda. By the rules Rock can be regarded as improvized weapon and thus it will have pretty small range (20 feet or something like this), but its just the rules

[@yoni5919]

@@talkingbirb2808 even if you say he can throw it further cause he's a strong boi or something, he cant throw it 80ft. straight up. if your DM says he can then i hope it matters to the plot

[@SaryM29]

@@yoni5919 Well... to be fair, depending on the size of the rock, I'm pretty sure even a standard real-life human could throw a rock 80ft into the air, so... yeah... I don't really see it as being that much of a stretch

[@yoni5919]

@@SaryM29 but he said the rock hit him and he fell down, so that would mean the rock had to be pretty heavy. Also, im assuming most people dont have training throwing rocks and would not be able to hit a human-sized target 80ft. Above them aim-wise.

[@dennisbruhn8532]

Having intelligent AND invisible foes are really challenging. I used some druegars in Forge of Fury who set up an ambush, even with a somewhat low CR it was challenging!

[@sirderp2343]

The tried and true Tucker method.

[@alexv1154]

With the Release of Fizbans, Crystal Dragons are actually terryfying. they can teleport at will, making them impossible to coordinate strategy around

[@mrosskne]

dimensional anchor.

[@bugejoahshowalter3747]

@@mrosskneNot a spell in 5e

[@mrosskne]

>playing 5e LMAO

[@bugejoahshowalter3747]

@@mrosskne Well you’re responding to a comment talking about crystal dragons from 5e, so I figured I’d just let you know.

[@mrosskne]

lol cope

[@shishisei]

Personally, I always told my players "don't fear STR 30. Fear INT 18." I found out that a Worthy opponent is made outside of battle. Just like the PCs can cast divinations, gather info, prepare themselves, so can the enemy. When I want to challenge them, I just bring an element of necessary strategy into the battle, so that it can't be resolved by the rogues moving to the sides and just dealing 10d6 of sneak attacks damage each and healing wounds turn after turn.

[@koreanbbq6253]

Another thing to note: The rules as written in the PHB for counterspell requires the caster to be able to see the creature casting a spell. Thus, if you were playing completely raw the players could not counterspell anything this guy throws at them while invisible.

[@Faircrow]

also raw they know where he is without stealth but it's a common mistake soo, don't know

[@nathanschultz7950]

Isn't invisibility a concentration spell? So you can't cast spells while you're invisible? Including counter spell?

[@enigma7ic]

@@nathanschultz7950 you can cast other spells wishlist concentrating. But you if you cast a second concentration spell, it drops the first one

[@Hikikodere]

@@nathanschultz7950 Yes you can? Who told you that?

[@louiesatterwhite3885]

@@nathanschultz7950 Invisibility automatically ends when you attack or cast a spell unless it's greater invisibility. Not because it's concentration but because of the nature of the spell

[@natezabinski5615]

Oh, I love Titivilus! I remember staring at his stat block and trying to figure out a setup strategy. Because whoa nelly, his sword attacks are expensive.

[@randomyoutuber4189]

0:35 Oathbreaker Paladin raising his hand from the corner

[@Nienmamnicku20]

So a funny thing, I discovered that lately myself. My low level party was fighting off bunch of were-creatures and they just steamrolled werewolf and jackalweres. But the wererat had crossbow and she just kept popping out of different doors, shooting, running back, luring players into traps, waiting in corridors to use its reaction to shoot. And it was the most fun I had, DMing a creature.

[@tiamatmichellehart6821]

Thank you for spreading awareness early on that the scariest thing about dragons is that *they're freakin' FIGHTER-BOMBERS!* (J.R.R. Tolkien even compared the Nazgul's dragon-birds to WWII German Stukas....)

[@segevstormlord3713]

Sudden realization as he talks about hordes of strong things with a picture of the Terrasque behind him: the Terrasque looks disturbingly like a zergling.

[@inkheart4866]

There supposedly is a planet with billions of these things like Zerglings. Now there's a thought.

[@GiftOfKnowledge-np9vg]

You know, if you wanna make the Tarrasque more interesting; one thing it can apparently do in its lore is…what’s the term? Earth shift? It can phase through earth and rock, and that’s actually where it comes from and where it goes when it’s not hungry; it sleeps in large subterranean boulders. Like actually phased inside them. I don’t know why they don’t include that in his stat block, maybe they retconned it away (or maybe I was just fed bad info. Always possible); but you could totally incorporate it into some challenging abilities. Like if more damage seems a waste of a legendary action, maybe have the Tarrasque simply sink into the ground to dodge damage and jump out on the otherwise of the party.

[@Shadowspd35]

"What level spell he has greater restoration" "5" "Counterspell." "Counterspell." "N I C E" Fr doe, this sounds like me and my dm when we were going up against a wizard and I was playing a wizard

[@ST1mAPB]

You can't counterspell counterspell from invisible enemy

[@Shadowspd35]

@@ST1mAPB It just happened in his game so dunno what you're talking about-

[@Silamon2]

@@ST1mAPB He said counterspell was the one action that revealed where the monster was, so I assume they had different rules at their table than you do.

[@Shadowspd35]

@@Silamon2 also as mentioned in the invisible condition "The creature's location can be detected by any noise it makes or any tracks it leaves" I would _assume_ since counterspell is a Verbal component, you can counterspell their counterspell

[@brandond2768]

@@Shadowspd35 Counterspell's casting time 1 Reaction "which you take when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell". If you can't see your enemy casting you can't counterspell

[@dabinbuh]

I feel like the strongest monster for dnd is always going to change depending on the party layout, certain parties are going to have easier or harder times with different types of enemies On a side note im going to rant about how it seems every dm that runs Tarrasque plays them like a big dumb lizard and not a immortal being with good instincts wrought to bring chaos to wherever it awakens. The party shouldn't even be in a direct fight with the thing most of its hp, it should be focused on disrupting whatever order is in its vicinity, if you set up the Tarrasque to appear in a big empty area its going to be boring. The party by the time a Tarrasque appears if they're on the positive side of alignment should be known protectors of the realm, people that are called on for exact moments like when a Tarrasque appears, they should be focused on controlling it's movement, saving lives, civilization, and preferabley leading the creature away from said civilization before getting into the actual fight to avoid it reviving in the same city couple hundred to thousand years down the line. The Tarrasque should feel like an ancient reocurring threat that has to be handled by groups of crazy strong individuals because otherwise entire cities would be destroyed in the process of killing it.

[@420mralucard]

I think people still do that because the earlier editions did have it act like a big dumb lizard in lore, but that's back when it was an immortal force of nature by RAW because it still had its infinite regeneration, and enough immunities and resistances to make it a bitch and a half to kill without being torn to bits.

[@jasonbrose6743]

This is why it's easier to have monsters that synergize, like healers and buffers and a demonic bard that assist the now-flying tarrasque to kick the opponent's collective butt. There's a reason the challenge rating is supposed to be equal to a party's combined level, after all.

[@tehesprite502]

Challenge Rating is supposed to be (roughly, and there's definitely exceptions) equivalent to a party of four of the same level.

[@TippleCreations]

CR is supposed to be average player level. So if you have 10 people at 6, 17, 4, 15, 12, 3, 10, 6, 9, 13; the CR should be a 9.5

[@priestesslucy]

@@tehesprite502 not equal. CR is roughly equivalent to Character Level. A party is intended to fairly easily beat an equal CR encounter. Like if they were ganging up on a solo PC

[@tehesprite502]

@@priestesslucy They are meant to beat an equal CR encounter, but not nearly as easily as you imply. CR's based on a party of four.

[@priestesslucy]

*EDIT:* I'm sorry, my experience is entirely 3rd edition and Pathfinder. I probably just made a fool of myself assuming it's the same lol _Adding NPCs: Creatures whose Hit Dice are solely a factor of their class levels and not a feature of their race, such as all of the PC races detailed in Races, are factored into combats a little differently than normal monsters or monsters with class levels. A creature that possesses class levels, but does not have any racial Hit Dice, is factored in as a creature with a CR equal to its class levels -1_ _"You can significantly increase or decrease the power level of an NPC with class levels by adjusting the NPC's gear. The combined value of an NPC's gear is given in Creating NPCs on Table: NPC Gear. A classed NPC encountered with no gear should have his CR reduced by 1 (provided that loss of gear actually hampers the NPC), while a classed NPC that instead has gear equivalent to that of a PC (as listed on Table: Character Wealth by Level) has a CR of 1 higher than his actual CR."_ *Conclusion:* A PC with level appropriate wealth has a CR equal to their level.

[@zerx9926]

It's really tricky sometimes to find a line between challenging and straight up hating my players. But as a DM I found out that giving easy victories is much less harmful then not giving one at all.

[@MordBirb]

I’ve always found it fun to make a creature they don’t know if they want to kill. In many ways it can lead to them conflicted with each other over how far to go with this fight and how to finish it. It brings a similar sense of tension as fighting a powerful enemy and they seem to really enjoy it

[@frostie279]

Let's just make this more "challenging" give a tarrasque titivilus's abilities

[@vaeshethblade931]

He doesn't need it, if the DM is worth his salt.

[@matthewwells2520]

...but if the DM isn't worth their salt (or their pepper), then the DM could take the 10 most powerful creatures they can find, combined all their abilities into one creature, with all their stats being 30(+10)...and make them invisible. ...also the phrase "worth his salt" comes from how people used to be paid for jobs in salt, hence the word "salary".

[@pixbo9133]

Take the tarrasque, give it tentivilus's abilities, more hit points, expand his attack range and make him fly. Seems pretty balanced to me.

[@mailcs06]

But the tarrasque is a bigger target so it will be easier to find it

[@Neutral_Tired]

The best way to challenge or kill a party is intelligence Step 1: fly out of range Step 2: focus the healer Step 3: focus the ranged DPS At this point you've won

[@About67Crabs]

if i was put somewhere in the official minimum requirement to play the game...i'd say i would have the power of about 67 crabs combined...which is horrifying to think of fighting 67 crabs all at once

[@dreki-niu2868]

My DM tried to do this to us (I'm a drow assassin) so I cast fairy fire (the DM also used the counterspell idea) but then the wizard counterspelled his counterspell, then the fighter proceeded to crit on 3 of his 8 attacks, and as previously mentioned I'm an assassin so instant crit and death strike

[@karlinngustafinn]

sorry to be that guy! but he cant counterspell a creature he can't see.

[@seandobbins2231]

Unless the wizard was already able to see the enemy, they wouldn't be able to see him, which is a requirement for Counterspell.

[@zinogrevz7389]

@@seandobbins2231 wizard had prolly see invisibility

[@seandobbins2231]

@@zinogrevz7389 it's possible, but wasn't mentioned in the comment, plus this is the reason why I stated "unless the wizard was already able to see the enemy".

[@lil_fox0585]

Me: Imma do my first ever one shot! Friend: I want to play this (shows powerful multiclassing build) Me: (Remembers this video)

[@Noobie2k7]

If it's just a one shot then let them. It's not hurting anything and one shots are the best place to try all the fun and overpowered builds. It's what I do with my group. We run one shots every now and again so my group can try out all these busted combos and silly things without that stuff infesting actual campaigns or adventures I run.

[@mrosskne]

multiclassing is the worst thing you can do for optimizing lmao

[@MayHugger]

@@mrosskne Tell that to Sorcerer/Warlock and Rogue/Paladin.

[@mrosskne]

@@MayHugger absolute garbage lol

[@MayHugger]

@@mrosskne No tf they're not lmao XD

[@BaseSteve]

This aged like the milk I left in my car twenty years ago.

[@KingofChaos93]

The repeated return of "the power of the sun!!!" Joke always makes me laugh.

[@Zedrinbot]

One mob we fought in a high level game, which was crazy considering it had 6 players and 12 party members (long story), was a single creature from Kobold Press, some undead jester. He had numerous 1d6-recharge abilities, one of which was a "Save or die" type move (which are kinda gimmicky). He lured us in with the promise of talk, and then told a killing joke when we were close enough. Fail the initial wisdom save and you go prone, stunned, and have to succeed 1d4 consecutive con saves or drop to 0 hit points. (Kinda annoying to be out of combat for that many turns.) He also had the ability to, if you failed a charisma save, he swapped places with the target, and swapped appearances, as well as suppress their voice. This resulted in the whole party attacking one and downing one of our fighters unknowingly, at least until the damage was done. (This was easier to manage cause it was a VTT game, but I can see this being tough to get across in an in person game.) And finally, he had another ability that let him as a reaction, turn healing into damage. So when we tried to healing word our one fighter back, he turned it into a failed death save, which killed him. On top of this he had invisibility-at-will and illusion spells, so he was hard to track. He lasted longer and gave us a harder time than the lich he was protecting, or some of the other bosses we faced. We only were able to finish him off thanks to the gimmicks of Force Cage.

[@walcorn.]

Ah, the Grim Jester. I, too, have been unfortunate enough to be dropped to 0 from his terrible joke about scientists turning themselves into pickles. Funniest shit I ever heard.

[@matthiasmortier3627]

That shit is pure evil

[@nexim6]

I have successfully used a court of these jesters to really have my players think. There was a court of 5 coloured jesters, each of which summoned a Motley Fool (Just a really really weak version without any of the crazy abilities, but with heat metal and knives). The party met the first one, and after losing a party member to delayed blast fireball, he and his court of undead jesters became a central focus of the campaign for a really long time. The players also loved the "can only die if the death god finds its death funny" clause because it gave them a chance to get back at me for my pages and pages of terrible jokes, getting to tell their own absolute zingers as they kill them. Made for an amazing campaign

[@juntarhenogu]

The one spell I think of to deal with an invisible enemy is actually a second-level spell: Mind Spike. Basically, if the enemy fails a Wisdom save, you know its whereabouts all the time if it's on the same plane of existence as you AND it does not benefit from invisibility. Ooooof course, this would mean you'd have to be able to hit him with Mind Spike first, but if you get a successful hit you should be as good as gold!

[@TheRedAzuki]

Concentration and you would have to be able to see them to cast it. great idea, if you ever manage to remove his invisibility.

[@joshuahendershot196]

Titivilus seems incredibly powerful, unless he gets hit with branding smite, faerie fire, or sickening radiance before he turns invisible.

[@suchasymp]

I’ve never played this game and I’m learning to finally join the community but “I talk to god and he told me his weakness is his left pinky toe” made me cry laughing

[@johnymustacio]

imagine if the plauer talked to god and the dm said "i'm the god, i've been helping you this whole time but i am done". amd i'm taking half your items hehehe bye.

[@heatherhanlon2799]

Haven't finished the video yet, but I'm expecting the wizard. It's always the wizard

[@rowansjet]

And now that you've finished the video?

[@heatherhanlon2799]

@@rowansjet it wasn't the wizard, for once

[@Capt.Thunder]

Technically you are aware of his location unless he is hidden from you, you just can't see him. That's how invisibility works. Most spells require line of sight, and you have disadvantage on attack rolls against him, and he has advantage against you, and he can attempt to hide anywhere (unless you have blindsight or truesight), but players still have passive perception as a minimum and can also make active checks to perceive to try and roll higher. If you want to run him like Jacob did, give him bonus action hide. Simple.

[@Faircrow]

yep this, and darkness/fog cloud common use(no diseadvantage or advantage for anyone) is one of the rules most dnd players have no Idea about, everyone uses grids for visual reference, so no one considers that every d&d character that is not hidden is considered to be making enough noise so that it has the location easily assumed "by sound you coul'd tell that they are more or less somewere in that 5 ft square"

[@Harab_Serapel]

I feel like Jacob stumbled onto something but then kind of missed the point at the end. The most challenging monster will of course be different from party to party, and perhaps even from group to group. Every party is going to have different compositions that will make it better and worse at certain things. The best way to challenge your players is to force them to rethink how they approach something, but how to do that depends on how they approach things in the first place. Because of that there is no singular strongest monster, just the strongest monster to use against your party. The most important part in creating a challenging encounter is having an intimate knowledge of your player's characters and their abilities, and knowing when and how to prey on their weaknesses.

[@lagg1e]

Yeah. A party doubling down on killing power will have a tough time with Titivilus. I don't think anyone will have an easy time with him, but use of things like counter spell, faerie fire, true seeing will help, or the forbiddance spell if you know 10 minutes in advance where you will fight him. You could also just dust the area with water vapor, or explode a big bag of flour to counter invisibility. Another one would be a successful Mind Spike, which gives you the ability to always know where your target is for an hour. I think teleport pretty much has no counter. Teleport also counters most things that require a strength saving throw, Titivilus worst save. His second worst is intelligence, which is rarely targeted. You have Feeblemind and the other ones don't seem too good.

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@lagg1e I mean, remember that players can prepare their attacks and set a trigger for when Titivulus shows up, unless it keeps refreshing the invisibility and NEVER shows his face But yeah, as soon as he shows up he can get fucked by everyone at the same time

[@Schmeethe88]

@@rompevuevitos222 I dunno. A minute is a long time, and he can cast any spell or launch any attack he wants without losing his invisibility. Even if he only cast greater invisibility twice, that's potentially hours of IRL combat where you can't see him.

[@christinepowers2282]

One of the only encounters I ever ran that genuinely terrified and challenged my party was one where they fought a white dragon on a heavily obscured foggy mountain. Most of their abilities relied on line of sight and they were rolling really poorly on perception so... they beat it eventually but it forced them to actually use strategy

[@nightsong81]

Soo... you're saying my inclination as a player to ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS waste a spell/slot/magic item on See Invisibility is justified.

[@delroland]

if you're level 15 and don't have some form of truesight in the party, you done f*ed up

[@sneakyking]

The strongest monster were the friends we made on the way

[@trappyboi8678]

Nothing is stronger than friends and family outside of backstories.

[@Spikeba11]

Those betrayal story arcs are a doozy.

[@ZerkMonsterHunter]

I think this is a good example of how a DM's strategy that they employ increases the challenge rating of the monster significantly. Your example with titivulus is perfect for this. You looked at his lore, realized he was supposed to be the smart 4D chess guy and then proceeded to role-play that through combat by using his abilities in a way that is smart, clever, and sustainable. Playing the monster smart will always challenge your players. I see way too many DMs just have their dragons stand in one spot and let them get hit by melee PCs because the DM is afraid of opportunity attacks; not realizing that one opportunity attack from the paladin is going to do less damage to the dragon than having it stand there and get hit by 3 divine smites with haste. We get too caught up these days on how DND can be used to weave amazing stories and we forget its roots are in War Games like chainmail. Bringing some of that wargaming back, like you did with titivulus really makes the combat system tick.

[@phoenixpills]

Honestly this kind of shit is what I need to do more of, but employ physics as well, like the Dragon throwing out a sweeping attack before it flies away, trying to knock people over, fire breath over large areas giving my players an opportunity to react to it and AGI check out of the way, etc. Make your combat dynamic, but as a new DM it's difficult to get good still

[@firetarrasque4667]

If a dragon willingly lands to fight you then it has failed as a dragon.

[@jbj1130]

Well that opportunity attack was sentinel, so good luck with that.

[@rmo9808]

One of my favorite games was splitting up a high level party and having them inadvertently working against each other. There comes a point where you have to rely on writing more than a monster of the week/session. If you have some lore built up send your party back in time Quantum Leap style and have them try and fix something they screwed up. Have them replay an old favorite encounter with a twist. A trickster god decides to switch everyone's abilities or randomizes their power or AOE etc etc.

[@Emanemoston]

We ran into a rust monster once, that is what I remember being the most feared monster in all the games I played.

[@seigeengine]

"Get your Rust Powder to coat all your minions in! Guaranteed to ruin some trespassing lowlifes day!"

[@Ouvii]

My DM: yeah greater invisibility doesn't work, I used it once against my players and now they always have something prepared for it. If your players aren't paranoid, two mages that cast fly and greater invisibility on a BBEG and then teleport away to keep concentration is a good trick.

[@starshinewindlord2716]

At a far lesser CR, as long as darkness or shadows are available, Meazels can pull off the teleport and a free hide option. I mean, their teleport doesn't necessarily refresh - and the garotte attack as described is able to be fought off. So a big question is, does getting garotte'd prevent verbal spells or yelling for help?

[@Em3.14re]

Definitely! The purpose of a garotte is to silently kill someone by cutting off their air and crushing their throat. You can’t talk while that’s happening to you.

[@WolfXStatic666]

funny that he looked at the ring as if it was starting to heat up from "Heat Metal" before he corrected himself xD