The gas spore is a very old creature and has been around since at least 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The whole point was tricking higher level parties into thinking it was a beholder. It's not supposed to be put up against low level parties.
I had the exact opposite experience. I heard a story where our GM had used a beholder mini to represent a gas spore in a previous game. When wandering around a magical maze, he used the same exact mini, moving around a corner and I said "*whoa look a gas spore?*" and he described how eye stalks unfurled from its body to look at me and I shouted "*NOT A GAS SPORE! NOT A GAS SPORE!*" I died in that encounter!
@@rogerwilco2 Tradition mostly. Older editions had a lot of horrible save or die monsters with low hp and worth no real experience that didn't make it to 5th.
A solar is about 26 giant poisonous snakes in difficulty. I didn't actually do math, I looked at the stat block and then looked at the giant poisonous snake.
Venom is a specialized form of injection poison that is produced by animals. So technically, the term "poisonous snake" is not wrong, but "venomous snake" is more accurate.
The Quickling is the perfect monster to throw at a party that is getting too big for its britches. I sent a group of 12 against my level 8 party, and they did not disappoint.
@@yannismpa3701 you can't resurrect a corpse with the same stat lock it had in life. Your options are limited to those provided in the spell you use to resurrect it. In 5e, at least, which is the edition this video is solely focused on. Your specific dm might allow hb modifications, but you wouldn't get anything out of facing quicklings other than corpses, whether they are the quicklings' or your own.
I will soon hopefully have a party of 4 at lvl 12(unless i accidentally TPK them at lvl 11) and seeing the quickling...i have the perfect encounter planned and it is now heavily involved basically slap a bunch of fucked up weird fey into a pocket dimension they're gonna be in and shank away
My DM threw 1 at us to see how we would react during a campaign. Then our artificer and my tabaxi monk used my feature, and his spell charge to effectively make me as fast if not faster than the Quickling. And then, I 1 punched it. He told as after that he forgot we could do that lol
Video: "Players don't put too much stock into their constitution scores." Me: Not knowing what less than 14 constitution is. "People fail con saves?" For reference, I always find the squishier the character the more necessary high con is. Wizards really only need Int as their stats, so why not have 16 con?
con is helpful to just about every type of character too, if you're a caster, con is what you need for concentration spells, if you're a melee, con is needed for hitpoints
All depends on the character, and the game, and the dm In pathfinder, I really didn't care If I had a 12(granted it was my 3rd highest ability score, bad rolls) because I took things down faster than they saw me moving(monk), rocket tag, esp with a 80 ft speed, go in punch the thing to death and run faster than a horse away, heck I took an ancient black dragon from full life to 70 life in 1 turn for reference on why I say rocket tag My last 5e character I made was a hex warlock, with his 4th highest stat as con, Chris, wis, dex all higher(dm LOVES traps) and with shield and medium armor(with master) I had 20 base 25 with spell, witch makes up for low con, esp with the d10 HD Heck I can see 5e monks(at least shadow) on low prioritizing con as high movement and fast movement can make you hit and run non stop, wis dex and str priority con then dump intel and Chris
Con is actually fairly important for casters if you plan on frequently using concentration spells. It's easy to get targeted if your enemy knows your the one making the battle harder
Dude you started a D&D channel!!! I literally now have 3 reasons to come to you! First you won me with WoW as I still play, 2nd you stole me with Yugioh as I still play and 3rd you pierced my heart with D&D which I still have yet to play! Thank you !
Shoutout to that room in Rime of the Frost Maiden that had 12 fricken shadows! Luckily our dm saw how bad that would of been and only had us face 6 of them for our 5 person party. Still instantly killed me and another party member as soon as we walked into the room. If there had been another round of combat it would of been a tpk.
Never forget the classic ghouls. That paralysis can devastate a party if they're unlucky and it's made worse by the fact that ghouls tend to hunt in groups and are smart enough to lay ambushes.
The best way to defeat a quickling IMO is to form a back-to-back circle and Ready a damaging action with the trigger being the quickling entering the PCs reach. Like honestly, people always forget about things like the Ready action and cover, it's so weird. Some of these mechanics are so good they can potentially turn an entire combat encounter upside down.
The mummy lord. At an impressive CR of 15, your average party of pyromaniacs will have no issue disposing of it. Just make sure to have access to a 5th level fire damage spell and not get one shot. I placed one to scare a party of level 7 character. When I looked at the stat block, I realized they actually could beat it as it only has 97hp and vulnerability to fire... In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason it's CR 15 is because Wizards expect you to place it in a very boobie trapped pyramid and to surround it with hordes of undead to soften up your players. That, however, is what I would call a CR 15 encounter or dungeon, not a CR 15 monster.
I love the quickling. And yeah, thing is ridiculously fast. Now I kinda want to run a one-off session where everyone plays as a CR 1 fey creature doing a job for one or both of the courts.... or have an ally/enemy NPC that is like a quickling rogue.
Maybe not right away but how about top 10 abilities/spells to pick for each class, kinda like a series where u pick one class and focus on the top 10 abilities for that class to pick when playing as said class? Sorry for over use of the word class.
I havent played the games in a decade, but i watch your videos every day and over and over. Somehow they help me sleep, which i dont mean to offend by saying. Almost nothing else works but absorbing this kind of information, so thank you.
I currently have a full party of min maxers who insist on using homebrew stuff they found online but still want the combat to be "challenging". My goal is to only use published stuff and give them a run for their money so this is perfect ty ty
The funny thing is, the Choker was CR 2 in 3.5e, which generally had stronger PCs. Well, I guess the 5e choker can only use its aberrant quickness once, whereas the 3.5e one can do it every turn, but the thing was still horrifyingly strong at CR 2 so...I really don't know what they were thinking. For reference, a *pair* of chokers wrecked our level 3 characters so badly that "I check the ceiling for chokers" became a running gag for us.
I love your channel, I was sad to see you just started last year so there are not a lot of uploads but I hope you stick around and keeping on trucking! Your voice to is calming..I know kind if odd to say, but that help because i can listen to a video or 2 before going to bed and feel relaxed haha. Thank you for your videos and good luck.
Saw this video on the end card of a Duel Logs video, nice bit of cross brand promoting. Sweet idea for a new channel, so many ideas and topics to plumb :)
The original medieval description of the cockatrice was that it could just look at you, even from a mile away, and you'd die instantly haha and you could defeat it by showing it a mirror.
It's important to note that a PC *can* be surprised, even if the rest of the party isn't. So, unless all of the party has Observant or Alert, some of them can still be jumped on by sneaking or camouflaged foes.
Ok cool. Started some years ago in your wow channel for the lore, went to the yugioh one because......no idea, never played yugioh hardcore, the lists were fun though, and now a dnd channel that I loved that you started doing, would love to see your insights in it. Keep up with the awesome content hiru o/
@@lagg1e dude even the barbarian in my campaign has a 10 in her CON. I think our warlock has the highest CON score in our party which also includes a cleric.
@@aetherius6221 Clerics need Con and Wis in that order. Dex is nice to have but 14 is plenty. It's more important to never lose concentration on your party buffs and spiritual guardians than have the highest possible DC on your saves, but assuming point buy you can definitely have 16 con 16 wis at lvl 1 and take a couple half-feats later to get your wis to 18. First two feats are war caster and resilient (con) for sure, though. Then probably Telekinetic (wis), a split wis/con ASI at 12 to top off to 18/18. 16th level you can max your wis if you want to but I prefer Alert so I have a higher chance to get powerful spells off like banishment, divine word, holy aura, or position myself so that spiritual guardians slows as many targets as possible before they get a chance to act. Con is definitely more important than your primary spellcasting attribute for all spellcasters until mid/high levels, though.
@@jgalt99 14 dex 16 wis is what I usually aim for, I dislike heavy armor and finding place for con isn't easy when you want AC. I don't really find it terrible to have lower hp as d8 and medium armor is incredible on a full caster, but it's usually my third priority
Quicklings are insane. Had a game where the DM threw 6 of these fuckers at us, most of us didn't even get a turn, let alone dealt any damage before they downed all of us. He really underestimated how powerful they were. Fortunately he didn't kill us outright, as he realized his mistake pretty early on, and treated it as a lesson learned.
It should be noted that the Choker CAN attack while grappling with both tentacles, it's just that it can only attack the grappled targets. "the chocker can't use this tentacle on another target" implies that it CAN use it on the grappled target. You can think of it as it squeezing you to death. I'm more interested in how it can restrain a Large creature with one hand. That thing can RESTRAIN, a creature TWO SIZE CATEGORIES BIGGER THAN IT, with ONE. HAND.
A strong CR 1 from my experience playing against and watching others is the Animated Armor. It's AC is 18, which is pretty darn high for a low level party. It is immune to many conditions and while low damage it does have a multiattack. The thing however that can make this creature annoying besides the initial surprise of it turning alive is that DMs LOVE always using two of the things at a time, usually as guards for a treasure room or a door.
Add the fact that in a certain carnival themed adventure, when players are just level one, there is a reskinned quickling in the first section of the book that they might encounter, with possibly more in the next section.
Skulks doing 20 damage at CR 1/2 is insane. It _will_ hit every attack, because it has +6 to hit and advantage, and on a hit it does enough damage to one hit _kill_ most 1st-level characters, and it's CR 1/2??? Additionally, because it has advantage, it has a higher than normal chance to crit, for 37 damage, which instantly kills most _2nd_ level characters.
Skulks could theoretically be seen in any shiny surface, ie if your sword has a good polish you might spot it by holding your blade up and looking around you via it's surface. Depending on your GM's mood ofc :P
Seriously, who is dumping con? Spellcasters are the ones that need it most. That aside I have killed low level adventurers with both giant snakes and shadows, in fact I saw a level 12 killed by shadows.
I like this analysis. There's one but I think is worth pointing out. The skull flailer is that it's melee attack is only a +2 to hit. If players have at least 12 AC, it's only 25% to get that full 22 damage. If I were to use it as a dm, I'd definitely let the players watch it hit something first so they can observe it's destructive power before facing it as a boss. Or alternitively, as minions in a higher level encounter, as it's able to bypass frontlines and imposing disadvantage on saving throws never falls off.
How about a Top 10 best Animal Companion list you could also do a Top 10 Familiars list. This was a great list I didn't realize how deadly some of the low cr creatures are. The Horncaller seems like she'd be fun to play as/with and she'd be a good baseline for a Druid Npc or even player character.
Fun thing to do: use these low level monsters as summons from bosses or higher up bosses. For example, i made a shadow necromancer mini boss who was doing all sorts of darkness spells and poison shit to the front line, but then i made her summon 10 shadows behind the backline, where the spellcasters were (8 and 12 strength on the wizard and cleric). An easy brush off mini boss became a battle on two fronts, which really sent the party into panic mode.
Oooh no. Faerie dragon.. Specifically the violet one. That thing can cast polymorph as well as some other spells like color spray, mirror image, major image, hallucinatory terrain etc. that thing is CR 1... Who can cast 4th level spells.
I'm a little sad Magmin didn't make it into this list. They're surprisingly strong for their CR and if attacking in a group can blow up parties if they can get within melee range.
Funnily enough, had a chaos sorcerer save party in death house from like 9 of those shadows. because they wildmagic casted confusion on everyone and we had a druid with good wis save
The good news about the quickling is that it has exactly 1 magic missiles hp. So if it has been weaving in and out carving up your party, the wizard just ready actions magic missile and kills it the next time it peaks its head out
I feel like the basic hobgoblin deserves an honorable mention due to it's obscene AC for a CR 1/2, and the fact that it can dish out an average of 12 points of damage per round if it has an ally near its target.
"Most casters don't put much into their constitution score..." Uhhhh... It's literally the second most important score for a good caster? Concentration saves are super important.
On the shadow you forgot about its advantage when attacking in dim light or darkness. Since you usually fight two of them with a 4 man group its can be very dangerous for darkvision partys. If two of them gang up on the Str people they take them effectively out of the fight. Or if they gang up on the low con people its pretty much a death by damage if not str drain.
Honestly a bigger problem with the Quickling isn't just that you can't catch it to hit it, it's that _you can't run from it._ If you encounter a Quickling, you fight it to the death; you have no other choice. Sometimes, you can at least flee from an encounter if it's far too strong, but you don't have that option with the Quickling.
I feel like you're misunderstanding the point of the Skulk. That's a concept that's been used a lot in various media, the point isn't to just throw it into a random encounter. The point is for it to be an early game thing where the party, say, encounters a kid crying who says that he saw a monster that adults cant see, they do some investigation, find out how to see it, and then cautiously go explore the manor where it's located, bringing mirrors or tallow candles eith them to combat it/them. And there's tons of ways around it. Glass reflects. Water reflects. A Paladin's polished armor reflects. It isn't difficult, it's a problem solving enemy, not a "run at it and bash it" enemy. I actually think the concept is really cool for DnD.
I'm surprised no one brought up the possibility of a Horncaller summoning two more Horncallers, and for them to continue exponentially. It seems utterly broken if its abilities are used optimally.
Also, even if you could summon them and get that going. You could still put an end to it by focusing on the original Horncaller. The second it drops concentration or you kill it outright, all the others would pop back to were they came from.
In a campaign I was in, my party was fighting a shadow and I had a kobold artificer with a 5 strength. So you can imagine how terrified we all were when my strength reduced to 2. I basically ran 60 ft away and hit the guy from that far away 😂
Quickling, meet Entangle. With a -3 to STR saves, that's an extremely likely end to the Quickling. That would also eliminate the Blurred Movement, making it easier to hit, PLUS granting advantage on attacks against it. Considering how dangerous they are, very worth burning a slot to kill even one of them.
Specters can be extremely deadly. I was having my level 3 party fight 2 specters, and I crit on an attack and my player failed his con save. He was at 2 max hp for the rest of the dungeon
Almost a year later but I do want to point something out for a massive error The Horncaller does NOT have Multiattack. What it can do is EITHER: Attack with its staff using one hand for 1d6+1, attack with staff held in two hands for 1d8+1, OR use its One with the Worldsoul ability.
At our table, apparently it's a scarecrow with a rusty scythe. Went and one-shot our dragonborn paladin. The DM actually ended up re-rolling because he was like "Okay, that... Wasn't supposed to do that"
I consider the Shadow to be one of the biggest lies in D&D history...look at all those resistances and the fact that it can kill you by draining your strength lol I feel like it should easily be a cr of 2 atleast even if the hp is low and the damage is meh still 2 of these can wipe out a whole level 1 party
the thing about the shadows is that they REALLY fuck you up in groups. saw that first hand when my warlock party member walked through a door and got shanked by like 15 of em. we were level 6. we won the ensuing combat though. (but without the warlock unfortunately)
What? No Swarm of Rot Grubs (CR 1/2) from Volo's Guide to Monsters? If you are hit by it you must deal yourself fire damage before the end of your next turn or you are doomed to an unstoppable death (unless you can quickly cure disease). It also has swarm resistances, 10 feet of blindsight, and a respectable 22 average hit points. Oh, and they can climb (slowly), so they can just drop down on you from above. Enjoy.
Spellcasters don't have good con? Am i the only one who always has a 14- 16 con at level 1 on all my wizards?, might leave it odd at a 15 or 17, to round it up later when i get the resilient CON feat, my most taken feat on wizards.
I loved this list but there was 2 creatures I believed should make the list which were the measle from mordenkinens or the Zorbo from tomb of annihilation
I haven't had any confidence in WotC's ability to assign proper Challenge Ratings ever since the advent of 3rd edition. Some have CRs way to low, others way to high.
The gas spore is a very old creature and has been around since at least 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The whole point was tricking higher level parties into thinking it was a beholder. It's not supposed to be put up against low level parties.
Yeah, either Hiru's got a very evil DM or he himself is an evil DM.
I had the exact opposite experience. I heard a story where our GM had used a beholder mini to represent a gas spore in a previous game. When wandering around a magical maze, he used the same exact mini, moving around a corner and I said "*whoa look a gas spore?*" and he described how eye stalks unfurled from its body to look at me and I shouted "*NOT A GAS SPORE! NOT A GAS SPORE!*"
I died in that encounter!
Tried to use a gas spore once to increase the hype of how powerful the enemy bbeg was and it ended with a tpk.
Then why does it have a low CR if it is not supposed to be used against a low level party?
@@rogerwilco2 Tradition mostly. Older editions had a lot of horrible save or die monsters with low hp and worth no real experience that didn't make it to 5th.
Why use CR to measure a creature's power when we can just use Giant Poisonous Snakes?
A solar is about 26 giant poisonous snakes in difficulty. I didn't actually do math, I looked at the stat block and then looked at the giant poisonous snake.
As I read this, I imagined an old wizard in a council meeting yelling this and shaking handfuls of snakes.
Here to advocate for a change from CR to GPS 😂
Quickling *exists*
Caster with magic missile: "I'm about to end this man's whole career"
Not if it gets behind full cover.
@@FunnyMemes-dr3se you can prepare the attack
or you could just roll a 2 on a d4 to left it with 1 hp
@@曾華偉-k7t second readyed magic missile.
Basically all the low CR monsters hate MM.
"Look out Graham! A pooiisonnous snake!"
"Actually, it's venomous."
Venom is a specialized form of injection poison that is produced by animals. So technically, the term "poisonous snake" is not wrong, but "venomous snake" is more accurate.
@@Telsker_Sonpos If you bite it and you die, it's poisonous. If it bites you and you die, it's venomous.
@@bartonbrevis3831 Nah, I thought he was wrong too. But, it turns out he's right. Biologists list venom as a type of poison.
@@holypho6352 it is, but it's also its' own thing, like how tomatoes are both fruit and veggies
@@CorvusCorone68 it's more like how a 3 wheel car is also motorbike
The... "Shulk"? This is truly the Monado's power...
Maybe it’s gonna fight the “Bronze Sabble”.
@@deborahphillips500 Don't forget the deadly Cockathrice
Or mykrill
Morrowind seeping in lol
*laughs in levitation*
The Quickling is the perfect monster to throw at a party that is getting too big for its britches. I sent a group of 12 against my level 8 party, and they did not disappoint.
As a necromancer, rn i really want my DM to toss one at us.
@@yannismpa3701 you can't resurrect a corpse with the same stat lock it had in life. Your options are limited to those provided in the spell you use to resurrect it. In 5e, at least, which is the edition this video is solely focused on. Your specific dm might allow hb modifications, but you wouldn't get anything out of facing quicklings other than corpses, whether they are the quicklings' or your own.
I will soon hopefully have a party of 4 at lvl 12(unless i accidentally TPK them at lvl 11) and seeing the quickling...i have the perfect encounter planned and it is now heavily involved basically slap a bunch of fucked up weird fey into a pocket dimension they're gonna be in and shank away
My DM threw 1 at us to see how we would react during a campaign. Then our artificer and my tabaxi monk used my feature, and his spell charge to effectively make me as fast if not faster than the Quickling. And then, I 1 punched it. He told as after that he forgot we could do that lol
"And today kids, we learn about the Ready Action!"
Video: "Players don't put too much stock into their constitution scores."
Me: Not knowing what less than 14 constitution is. "People fail con saves?"
For reference, I always find the squishier the character the more necessary high con is. Wizards really only need Int as their stats, so why not have 16 con?
for me priority is usually main stat/stats, Dex and then Con. sometimes changes for roleplay purposes
con is helpful to just about every type of character too, if you're a caster, con is what you need for concentration spells, if you're a melee, con is needed for hitpoints
All depends on the character, and the game, and the dm
In pathfinder, I really didn't care If I had a 12(granted it was my 3rd highest ability score, bad rolls) because I took things down faster than they saw me moving(monk), rocket tag, esp with a 80 ft speed, go in punch the thing to death and run faster than a horse away, heck I took an ancient black dragon from full life to 70 life in 1 turn for reference on why I say rocket tag
My last 5e character I made was a hex warlock, with his 4th highest stat as con, Chris, wis, dex all higher(dm LOVES traps) and with shield and medium armor(with master) I had 20 base 25 with spell, witch makes up for low con, esp with the d10 HD
Heck I can see 5e monks(at least shadow) on low prioritizing con as high movement and fast movement can make you hit and run non stop, wis dex and str priority con then dump intel and Chris
@@deathblade32 except warlocks are d8 hd?
Con is actually fairly important for casters if you plan on frequently using concentration spells. It's easy to get targeted if your enemy knows your the one making the battle harder
Dude you started a D&D channel!!! I literally now have 3 reasons to come to you! First you won me with WoW as I still play, 2nd you stole me with Yugioh as I still play and 3rd you pierced my heart with D&D which I still have yet to play! Thank you !
Shoutout to that room in Rime of the Frost Maiden that had 12 fricken shadows! Luckily our dm saw how bad that would of been and only had us face 6 of them for our 5 person party. Still instantly killed me and another party member as soon as we walked into the room. If there had been another round of combat it would of been a tpk.
Yeah that room sucks and homebrew reworking is definitely a good thing with it. Also Shadows are just the bane of adventuring groups all over.
@@shadowSlayer246 Especially ones that don't have beefy classes like barbarians and fighters.
Why would someone engineer that? What logic, honestly and in good faith, could we ascribe to the design of an encounter like that?
Sadly, the Giant Poisonous Snake has a swim speed, so it's ineligible for Wild Shape until 4th level, if I remember correctly
You do
I'd probably allow wildshaing into creatures with fly and swim speeds early but they would't get the fly and swim speeds.
Never forget the classic ghouls. That paralysis can devastate a party if they're unlucky and it's made worse by the fact that ghouls tend to hunt in groups and are smart enough to lay ambushes.
Wow whoever edited this did an amazing job!
The best way to defeat a quickling IMO is to form a back-to-back circle and Ready a damaging action with the trigger being the quickling entering the PCs reach. Like honestly, people always forget about things like the Ready action and cover, it's so weird. Some of these mechanics are so good they can potentially turn an entire combat encounter upside down.
The Shulk hmmm? I am really feeling that one.
What about the reverse, what are the least deadly high Cr monsters?
The mummy lord. At an impressive CR of 15, your average party of pyromaniacs will have no issue disposing of it. Just make sure to have access to a 5th level fire damage spell and not get one shot. I placed one to scare a party of level 7 character. When I looked at the stat block, I realized they actually could beat it as it only has 97hp and vulnerability to fire... In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason it's CR 15 is because Wizards expect you to place it in a very boobie trapped pyramid and to surround it with hordes of undead to soften up your players. That, however, is what I would call a CR 15 encounter or dungeon, not a CR 15 monster.
@@SamiG96 Yeah when it comes to the mummy lord I tend to heavily reflavor it just so it's vulnerability to fire isn't obvious.
@@Business_Skeleton that won't stop the fireball train
-light cleric main
Tarrasque. Nerfed so no regeneration, no ranged attacks, can’t do anything to an aarakocra or a clay golem. CR30 (highest there is).
Its so awesome to see you start a DND channel. Came here from the duel logs but I love dnd so I will definitely be subbing.
I love the quickling. And yeah, thing is ridiculously fast. Now I kinda want to run a one-off session where everyone plays as a CR 1 fey creature doing a job for one or both of the courts.... or have an ally/enemy NPC that is like a quickling rogue.
Maybe not right away but how about top 10 abilities/spells to pick for each class, kinda like a series where u pick one class and focus on the top 10 abilities for that class to pick when playing as said class?
Sorry for over use of the word class.
Apologizing shows you are classy.
I havent played the games in a decade, but i watch your videos every day and over and over. Somehow they help me sleep, which i dont mean to offend by saying. Almost nothing else works but absorbing this kind of information, so thank you.
I currently have a full party of min maxers who insist on using homebrew stuff they found online but still want the combat to be "challenging". My goal is to only use published stuff and give them a run for their money so this is perfect ty ty
The funny thing is, the Choker was CR 2 in 3.5e, which generally had stronger PCs. Well, I guess the 5e choker can only use its aberrant quickness once, whereas the 3.5e one can do it every turn, but the thing was still horrifyingly strong at CR 2 so...I really don't know what they were thinking.
For reference, a *pair* of chokers wrecked our level 3 characters so badly that "I check the ceiling for chokers" became a running gag for us.
I was in a group where we got TPK'd from a Spector. We had a Paladin, a Samurai Fighter, and a Warlock
"Not all sunshine and rainbows for our hundred-legged friend"
Who writes this gold?
I love your channel, I was sad to see you just started last year so there are not a lot of uploads but I hope you stick around and keeping on trucking! Your voice to is calming..I know kind if odd to say, but that help because i can listen to a video or 2 before going to bed and feel relaxed haha. Thank you for your videos and good luck.
Great vid. Can't wait for the next one. It's pretty cool that you have two channels that are about tabletop
games that I enjoy.
Saw this video on the end card of a Duel Logs video, nice bit of cross brand promoting. Sweet idea for a new channel, so many ideas and topics to plumb :)
the irony is that the Horncaller is another cross-promotion with Magic the Gathering ^^
The original medieval description of the cockatrice was that it could just look at you, even from a mile away, and you'd die instantly haha and you could defeat it by showing it a mirror.
Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
It's important to note that a PC *can* be surprised, even if the rest of the party isn't. So, unless all of the party has Observant or Alert, some of them can still be jumped on by sneaking or camouflaged foes.
Just imagining the barbarian dragging the petrified character
Ok cool. Started some years ago in your wow channel for the lore, went to the yugioh one because......no idea, never played yugioh hardcore, the lists were fun though, and now a dnd channel that I loved that you started doing, would love to see your insights in it. Keep up with the awesome content hiru o/
*I always enjoy videos about low level monsters for D&D & Pathfinder .*
"Generally, players don't put too much stock into their constitution scores."
Wut.
can confirm, I have roleplayers that have all 10 constitution except the barbarian
@@lagg1e dude even the barbarian in my campaign has a 10 in her CON. I think our warlock has the highest CON score in our party which also includes a cleric.
@@Jdvalentine13 clerics need wis and Dex; con is usually 3rd, followed typically by cha or int for rp purposes. Not too much wiggle room for con
@@aetherius6221 Clerics need Con and Wis in that order. Dex is nice to have but 14 is plenty. It's more important to never lose concentration on your party buffs and spiritual guardians than have the highest possible DC on your saves, but assuming point buy you can definitely have 16 con 16 wis at lvl 1 and take a couple half-feats later to get your wis to 18. First two feats are war caster and resilient (con) for sure, though. Then probably Telekinetic (wis), a split wis/con ASI at 12 to top off to 18/18. 16th level you can max your wis if you want to but I prefer Alert so I have a higher chance to get powerful spells off like banishment, divine word, holy aura, or position myself so that spiritual guardians slows as many targets as possible before they get a chance to act.
Con is definitely more important than your primary spellcasting attribute for all spellcasters until mid/high levels, though.
@@jgalt99 14 dex 16 wis is what I usually aim for, I dislike heavy armor and finding place for con isn't easy when you want AC. I don't really find it terrible to have lower hp as d8 and medium armor is incredible on a full caster, but it's usually my third priority
Quicklings and Shadows are nasty low CR monsters. A rot grub swarm is also a ridiculous low CR monster.
Been watching your videos man. hope your channel grows. good info, easy to digest.
Quicklings are insane. Had a game where the DM threw 6 of these fuckers at us, most of us didn't even get a turn, let alone dealt any damage before they downed all of us. He really underestimated how powerful they were. Fortunately he didn't kill us outright, as he realized his mistake pretty early on, and treated it as a lesson learned.
ThNk you for making this video!!! Thank you thank you thank youuu!!!
As a guy who loves summoning things, constitution is a must
It should be noted that the Choker CAN attack while grappling with both tentacles, it's just that it can only attack the grappled targets.
"the chocker can't use this tentacle on another target" implies that it CAN use it on the grappled target.
You can think of it as it squeezing you to death.
I'm more interested in how it can restrain a Large creature with one hand.
That thing can RESTRAIN, a creature TWO SIZE CATEGORIES BIGGER THAN IT, with ONE. HAND.
A strong CR 1 from my experience playing against and watching others is the Animated Armor. It's AC is 18, which is pretty darn high for a low level party. It is immune to many conditions and while low damage it does have a multiattack.
The thing however that can make this creature annoying besides the initial surprise of it turning alive is that DMs LOVE always using two of the things at a time, usually as guards for a treasure room or a door.
It's like the CR 1 version of iron golem lol.
18 AC is very high for CR1, damn.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure kraul warriors (Ravnica) also have 18 AC, and they are only CR 1/2.
I watched thks and did not expect to hear theduellogs and was immediately invested afterwards
Who would have thought giving Sonic a knife would be busted
Add the fact that in a certain carnival themed adventure, when players are just level one, there is a reskinned quickling in the first section of the book that they might encounter, with possibly more in the next section.
Giant Centipede: "The point is, you are alive when they begin to eat you."
Skulks doing 20 damage at CR 1/2 is insane. It _will_ hit every attack, because it has +6 to hit and advantage, and on a hit it does enough damage to one hit _kill_ most 1st-level characters, and it's CR 1/2??? Additionally, because it has advantage, it has a higher than normal chance to crit, for 37 damage, which instantly kills most _2nd_ level characters.
Skulks could theoretically be seen in any shiny surface, ie if your sword has a good polish you might spot it by holding your blade up and looking around you via it's surface. Depending on your GM's mood ofc :P
Seriously, who is dumping con? Spellcasters are the ones that need it most. That aside I have killed low level adventurers with both giant snakes and shadows, in fact I saw a level 12 killed by shadows.
I like this analysis. There's one but I think is worth pointing out.
The skull flailer is that it's melee attack is only a +2 to hit. If players have at least 12 AC, it's only 25% to get that full 22 damage.
If I were to use it as a dm, I'd definitely let the players watch it hit something first so they can observe it's destructive power before facing it as a boss. Or alternitively, as minions in a higher level encounter, as it's able to bypass frontlines and imposing disadvantage on saving throws never falls off.
Clicked on this video and honestly wasn’t expecting Mr. Logs. Didn’t even know he did DnD, but neat
How about a Top 10 best Animal Companion list you could also do a Top 10 Familiars list.
This was a great list I didn't realize how deadly some of the low cr creatures are. The Horncaller seems like she'd be fun to play as/with and she'd be a good baseline for a Druid Npc or even player character.
Gas Spore is made worse by the fact that the DM can add Sidekick levels to it.
Can confirm giant poisonous snake dealt 20 damage to a level 3 rogue and knocked him unconscious on it's first turn.
Fun thing to do: use these low level monsters as summons from bosses or higher up bosses. For example, i made a shadow necromancer mini boss who was doing all sorts of darkness spells and poison shit to the front line, but then i made her summon 10 shadows behind the backline, where the spellcasters were (8 and 12 strength on the wizard and cleric). An easy brush off mini boss became a battle on two fronts, which really sent the party into panic mode.
Oooh no. Faerie dragon.. Specifically the violet one.
That thing can cast polymorph as well as some other spells like color spray, mirror image, major image, hallucinatory terrain etc.
that thing is CR 1...
Who can cast 4th level spells.
I'm a little sad Magmin didn't make it into this list. They're surprisingly strong for their CR and if attacking in a group can blow up parties if they can get within melee range.
Funnily enough, had a chaos sorcerer save party in death house from like 9 of those shadows. because they wildmagic casted confusion on everyone and we had a druid with good wis save
According to d&d beyond a sacred statue is cr 0 but deals 3d12
It always comes back to the snakes
I'm surprised Intellect Devourer wasn't mentioned
So a level 5 villain getting a squad of Quicklings, Mind whatever's and Storm callers could easily take out most towns and villages?
I got like 15 seconds into this video and then recognized the voice from all of your WoW videos
The good news about the quickling is that it has exactly 1 magic missiles hp. So if it has been weaving in and out carving up your party, the wizard just ready actions magic missile and kills it the next time it peaks its head out
scary thing is if it targets spell caster with its high stealth and high initiative
I feel like the basic hobgoblin deserves an honorable mention due to it's obscene AC for a CR 1/2, and the fact that it can dish out an average of 12 points of damage per round if it has an ally near its target.
"Most casters don't put much into their constitution score..." Uhhhh... It's literally the second most important score for a good caster? Concentration saves are super important.
On the shadow you forgot about its advantage when attacking in dim light or darkness. Since you usually fight two of them with a 4 man group its can be very dangerous for darkvision partys. If two of them gang up on the Str people they take them effectively out of the fight. Or if they gang up on the low con people its pretty much a death by damage if not str drain.
Random question for the group. How would you handle the Shadow's strength steal on a PC with Gauntlets of Ogre Power or a belt of giant Strength?
Horncaller is a good powerful enemy but it's lawful good so it wouldn't attack a party unless they were evil
You forgot Sea Hags. CR 3 but you drop to 0 hit points if you look at one and fail a DC 10 con save. Hell for everyone.
Honestly a bigger problem with the Quickling isn't just that you can't catch it to hit it, it's that _you can't run from it._ If you encounter a Quickling, you fight it to the death; you have no other choice. Sometimes, you can at least flee from an encounter if it's far too strong, but you don't have that option with the Quickling.
I was so used to listening to your yugioh vids that I was really surprised to hear your voice when I opened this one
I feel like you're misunderstanding the point of the Skulk. That's a concept that's been used a lot in various media, the point isn't to just throw it into a random encounter. The point is for it to be an early game thing where the party, say, encounters a kid crying who says that he saw a monster that adults cant see, they do some investigation, find out how to see it, and then cautiously go explore the manor where it's located, bringing mirrors or tallow candles eith them to combat it/them.
And there's tons of ways around it. Glass reflects. Water reflects. A Paladin's polished armor reflects. It isn't difficult, it's a problem solving enemy, not a "run at it and bash it" enemy. I actually think the concept is really cool for DnD.
How many Poisonous Snakes is a Beholder I wonder?
I'm surprised no one brought up the possibility of a Horncaller summoning two more Horncallers, and for them to continue exponentially. It seems utterly broken if its abilities are used optimally.
Horncallers aren't beasts so it can't summon them with conjure animals. Would be incredibly broken if it could
Also, even if you could summon them and get that going. You could still put an end to it by focusing on the original Horncaller. The second it drops concentration or you kill it outright, all the others would pop back to were they came from.
@@sleepinghermit7778 but what if you lose track of the original horncaller? It would be madness
In a campaign I was in, my party was fighting a shadow and I had a kobold artificer with a 5 strength. So you can imagine how terrified we all were when my strength reduced to 2. I basically ran 60 ft away and hit the guy from that far away 😂
I've been hearing his voice for yugioh stuff forever it feels hella weird hearing it for dnd. I'm gonna stick around tho.
Quickling, meet Entangle. With a -3 to STR saves, that's an extremely likely end to the Quickling. That would also eliminate the Blurred Movement, making it easier to hit, PLUS granting advantage on attacks against it.
Considering how dangerous they are, very worth burning a slot to kill even one of them.
If concentration is broken on Conjure Animals, those animals just disappear?
Specters can be extremely deadly. I was having my level 3 party fight 2 specters, and I crit on an attack and my player failed his con save. He was at 2 max hp for the rest of the dungeon
Almost a year later but I do want to point something out for a massive error
The Horncaller does NOT have Multiattack. What it can do is EITHER: Attack with its staff using one hand for 1d6+1, attack with staff held in two hands for 1d8+1, OR use its One with the Worldsoul ability.
At our table, apparently it's a scarecrow with a rusty scythe. Went and one-shot our dragonborn paladin. The DM actually ended up re-rolling because he was like "Okay, that... Wasn't supposed to do that"
I consider the Shadow to be one of the biggest lies in D&D history...look at all those resistances and the fact that it can kill you by draining your strength lol I feel like it should easily be a cr of 2 atleast even if the hp is low and the damage is meh still 2 of these can wipe out a whole level 1 party
the thing about the shadows is that they REALLY fuck you up in groups. saw that first hand when my warlock party member walked through a door and got shanked by like 15 of em. we were level 6. we won the ensuing combat though. (but without the warlock unfortunately)
It's the alert feat, not observant
The simple cow, it is a kinetic impactor
What? No Swarm of Rot Grubs (CR 1/2) from Volo's Guide to Monsters?
If you are hit by it you must deal yourself fire damage before the end of your next turn or you are doomed to an unstoppable death (unless you can quickly cure disease).
It also has swarm resistances, 10 feet of blindsight, and a respectable 22 average hit points. Oh, and they can climb (slowly), so they can just drop down on you from above. Enjoy.
Spellcasters don't have good con? Am i the only one who always has a 14- 16 con at level 1 on all my wizards?, might leave it odd at a 15 or 17, to round it up later when i get the resilient CON feat, my most taken feat on wizards.
You Guys Hear "Deadliest Low CR Creatures." I Hear Potential Boss Material xD
Boss? that's a wimp move. use them in random encounters.
Where are Specters? I almost TPK'd my group of three level 3s with three specters the other day.
Some of these are definitely deadly and mini boss worthy.
Swarm of Rotgrubs is pretty nasty
I loved this list but there was 2 creatures I believed should make the list which were the measle from mordenkinens or the Zorbo from tomb of annihilation
Surprised that the Rot Grubs aren't here.
I never get lucky enough throwing Shadows against my PCs.
Quickling: I'm fast as fuck boy! You're dead as fuck boy!
I too am scared of giant poisonous steaks.
Wow was not expecting to hear hirumaredx's voice
Ravnica and Theros, I see what you did there.
The Second can befriend the Druid
I haven't had any confidence in WotC's ability to assign proper Challenge Ratings ever since the advent of 3rd edition.
Some have CRs way to low, others way to high.
where them int devs at though
...oh those are CR2...but they should be much higher tbh