Good idea! Imagine running an encounter where those three constantly revive until the party gives each of them their heart, brain, and "courage". Maybe courage is something like leaping into the lion's mouth.
There's a rpg on the Nintendo DS that does that as part of a boss fight actually. Even has a Dorothy to lead them as a 4 enemy fight, though this one is a bomb happy thief more so then a lost girl :P
The Giant Octopus can be a bit of a troll with it's tentacle and grab combo and bonus action dash. If the Octopus grabs a player, you can basically decide that the party never sees that character ever again. Moving 60ft as a bonus action in water, 120ft movement total while still having an action to attack and grapple a player if they succeed in getting free, it's just impossible for PCs to compete with that for quite some time. The Octopus doesn't even need to do damage at that point, the PC will just drown if it just gets a couple of turns swimming away at full speed.
The biggest issue with balancing isn't how much HP a monster has or how hard it hits, its the fact that they can change the game state completely either through ailments or unique mechanics. Because a unique mechanic has no strict way of calculating how deadly it is and if its paired with a weak monster stat wise you run into problems.
A 36hp monster should not be CR1 full stop! A monster with average damage per attack equal to the Level 1 Barbarian's max HP is going to one-shot your Level 1 characters in short-order and even if it just one-shots one out of the four before it gets taken down that's rather unfair to have a guy who's just rolled up his character have to re-roll on the first encounter through sheer bad luck! We're not talking about high level characters here....We're talking about Level 1! At Level 10 HP isn't as big an issue on either side no but at level 1 it is!
That's Ghoul's 2D6+2 Bite will usually one-shot a Level 1 Sorcerer or Wizard, and has a 41% chance of one-shotting any of the D8 hit-die classes. The Ghoul's paralysis only matters for characters who take more than 2 hits to kill (where that second hit becoming an auto-crit factors in). Unfortunately, since the bite averages 9 damage, none of the classes would take more than 2 average bites to kill (unless the Barbarian is Raging). That said, the sub-optimal paralysis tactic is a good way to make the Ghouls scarier for 1st level characters while technically decreasing the odds of a TPK. Of course, the stuff at the end of your list is insane to consider CR1.
Probably closer to CR 2-ish. The problem is the DMG calculations don't take little things like 120 foot movement speed or all attack rolls against it having disadvantage into account, so the "Defensive CR" is only 1/4. But then Offensive CR is 4.
I know this is strange, but I have no friends so I don't play D&D, though I love the lore, and I binge watch your content when I'm busy working or trying to fall asleep. It's been a late night (I'm in Tokyo) and I just started cruising your playlist to fall asleep to, and noticed you uploaded a new video. Please make more 1hr plus videos. Also, is it strange I fall asleep listing to another man talk about a board game?
I'm glad you're enjoying my vids, and believe it or not, multiple people have mentioned the same thing about listening to my content while relaxing/falling asleep. I have considered making a longer video with a more calm tone. It would be interesting to experiment with.
Thanks so very much once again, Esper. It's so sad that WOTC has nerf-bat most poison in the game so hard. Either everyone is immune/resistant to it, or it's now pathetically weak even if it does hit. Whatever... Anyway, love the focus on the low-level mobs for encounters., it can be real tricky for a DM to craft intro level beasties that won't intimidate new players. These certainly help. I feel level-2 beasties would benefit from so exploiting as well, since it can be by next session some PCs have leveled at this stage, so DMs need to be quick on their feet this early. Thanks again dear Sir. :)
Esper the Bard is by far the best D&D channel on UA-cam. His videos cover interesting topics, raise compelling questions & are presented in a straight forward manner. No opinionated bloviating, just straight to the point.
The vargouile name is pronounced like gargoyle but with a V instead of a G. The French name of a gargoyle is gargouille, so the vargouille in English would be pronounced as vargoyle.
except french people don't say gar-goil...they are going to pronounce it gar-goo-wee and var-goo-wee in a way it makes sense to use the same english bastardization, but also vargooey
@apokatastasian2831 just because it is if French origin doesn't mean it's pronounced exactly like it was French lmfao.... And I've never heard anyone pronounce it anything like that despite knowing native French speakers from Canadian to Creole to Champagne, having been a culinary student and military kid
@@ConstantChaos1 why not? the dude who made it up, spelled it in a distinctly french fashion. why assume he intentionally chose to spell it Vargouile instead of Vargoyle and then also meant it to not sound french at all...thats an odd assumption to make but whatever, who really cares, it's worth adding that: var gweel, and var goil are both bastardizations so they are both as valid. so how does OP know the correct way to say it...makes no sense I just thought OP pedantically gatekeeping some made up shit without mentioning the actual french is funny
They sure are! Actually, the first D&D monsters I remember ever seeing were kobold, carrion crawler, and vargouille. They all made quite an impression on me.
Curious if you ever thought of going back and covering older editions? I started in 5th, but recently (about a year ago) moved over to 3.5 and found it to be a MUCH richer experience, for me and my players at least. 5th Edition if fine, but that's also its problem a lot of the time. It's terminally fine. Of course if anyone inevitably takes offence at that statement, this is all my opinion, you are free to have yours, and neither will I disagree with how you have your fun. But I digress. You also seem to enjoy older editions, with how often you make mention of them, and as I know it you got your start in 3E, and while I don't in anyway think you should focus on it, I'm sure the audience for that type of content is meager at best, it would be fun to see some monster rankings 3rd edition - errrr- edition.
Yes indeed I played and GM'd a ton of 3e, then a ton of 4e, then a ton of 5e. There are aspects of 3e that I dearly miss, but overall I find 5e to be a better experience. That said, I do use some house rules in 5e to make things grittier, and my GM style flavors things in its own way. I have done some videos regarding 3e monsters, but not a ton. At some point, I might do a video comparing a monster between its iterations in 3e, 4e, and 5e.
That would be a fun video, there are tons of monsters that went through a lot of changes, good, bad, and middling. Would be fun to see that. Nonetheless, despite not enjoying 5E at my table anymore, always fun to watch your videos that cover it. Cheers.
Vargouilles are the Flood. They overrun planes they are given even a tiny amount of wiggle room in. Think about it, a Commoner has +0 Charisma saves and 10 Charisma. Commoner gets cursed, dies, and at most 8 hours later a new Vargouille's joined the server. In the meantime, the original one has 8 hours to keep going to new Commoners and repeating the process. If we GENEROUSLY assume it gets maybe 5 people before some town guard or something kills it, that problem will exponentially increase in difficulty.
Vargouille used to be absolute nightmare fuel for me 😂 the idea of a cursed bite that eventually causes your head to tear itself free and fly off on its own was so disturbing as a younger player
Hey Esper! Could you provide me with anything related to an old module of yours: escape from the scarlet citadel ? Your aberration video got me quite curious! Love your work and thank you for the great videos!
Ah ... Escape from the Crimson Citadel, alas that was from before I kept my adventure notes digitally, so I only have my memories of that one. Who knows, maybe someday I'll remake it and publish it.
I put a party of 3 level six characters up against a few quicklings. it was suppose to be an easy first encounter in a dungeon but they knocked out of of the players.
As someone who has played some of BG3 ((still on first play through)), Meazels are the worst. My friend and I first encountered them at level 5 ((lower than the game suggested by the way)), and we died. We all got separated, couldn’t get back to each other, and a more dangerous enemy was attracted when we finally started defeating them. Because of course, we had the misfortune of being teleported too close. Regardless, love the game, loved the video too. Keep up the great work!
I think 5E has completely destroyed the concept of dragons. They are just big lizards with a few extra attacks now. I used to play the Original DnD, Advanced and 2E. They were far better. I hear so many people complain about 5E and how pointless it is.
@@redfaux74we Faerie Dragons are totally more than overgrown lizards with extra attacks. There is a difference between 'most powerful' and 'most deadly', after all.
Vargouilles are consistently scary. 3e ones were also no joke. Stunning shriek, curse, and poison on top of that. CR2 tho, which seems to me more appropriate.
The copper wyrmling? Here's a cool thing you can put in the dungeon, have a treasure vault or other "side chamber" that is not necessary to make it through the dungeon. It's a totally option room and has a really difficult challenge to access (crypt riddle, high DC skill tests, deadly monster guardian, etc.), but if the characters can manage to access it, they discover some great treasure, including some kind of acid resistance magic item, like acid resistance armor or potion(s). This then would help them survive the encounter with the acid-breathing wyrmling.
@@esperthebard Parents: "Why did you make a game of giving them a way to resist your acid?" Wyrmling: "It was suppose to go to a worthy companion, wasn't expecting a home intruder to answer the riddle dishonestly."
My warlock failed the save against the Vistana curse and was blinded. Fortunately, the other party members kept him alive while we continued our quest. In one encounter, a party member used his action to help my warlock aim his Eldritch Blast. Was it the mathematically optimal use of an action. No. Was it worth it? Absolutely!
I had a Kitsune player that got the Vargouille curse and... she did not handle it well lol I had to make some divine gm intervention cus they were nowhere near a way to fix the issue in time.
If done well a good session could be designed around any of them. I still hope to some day throw a group of level 1s against a Displacer Beast, in a very indirect manner.
Anything out of The Book of Vile Darkness. I know its from 3.5, but still, I hate everything in there. There was a race in there called Kython's, that had blindsignt, resist 20 (fire,elect)and immunities, (acid, ice) multiple attacks, poison that consisted of a initial and a secondary hits to your stats. CR 1 and 3, 1d6 to Con, CR 5 and 8, 1d6 to Str, CR 11 and 13, 2d6 to Str. We had to fight them throughout the campaign. The CR 1 had 11HP, 18 AC, multi atk for 2d6+1 and 1d4, each atk had a chance to poison you DC12 for 1d6 Con. So while only 9 (avg) damage and possibly 6(avg) Con, that was very very long lasting(back then). So they didn't out right kill you, they swarm and nerfed you with each encounter. Also, 0 Con= death. No healing can help you.
Hey Esper, I'm your 69 comment, Giggity! 🎉 Happy New Year 🎊 Great video, can't wait to use a copper dragon wyrmling as a pet to a pack of kobolds. Thanks Esper you have a wonderful day!
Had an encounter that should have TPK'd the party. We were 3rd level or so, and it was up against 6 Quicklings and a Dryad. Needless to say, we got stomped by round 2. I think the DM realized his screw up, and had us just go unconscious instead.
Crikey, quicklings are terrifying. Either they're fundamentally broken as a creature, martials need ways of dealing damage besides making attack rolls, or having Dexterity be so impactful in the outcome of combat encounters was a mistake on the part of WOTC, and i'm genuinely not sure which at this point.
i cant see how NOT to completely destroy a low lvl party with a quickling, if i DM them and just use lets say 2 of them, the players will die, its simple as that. Unless i deliberately choose not to play them smart, something that would make it weird since they are not supposed to be stupid. Its one of those monsters that if you DM them as they should be, you feel unfair towards your players
I once as a protest paired 8 quicklings up with a NPC level 9 twilight cleric/level 6 shepherd druid to face off vs 5 level 10 characters. It was a one sided land slide, but not for the players. They had to plead for a ceasefire and promised not to interfere in the affairs of the forest. According to Kobold fight club this would be an easy encounter
Easy really. Let the party hear about them ahead of time so they can scooby doo some traps, or stumble upon the quicklings as they're distracted decimating a different low level adventuring party.
2.00 In 5E, if you are paralyzed, completely unable to do anything, defend yourself and a Ghoul is on top of you, eating you.... you are not automatically dead? 😂😂😂 In my game, if you are paralyzed, you automatically die if you are attacked while paralyzed, asleep (unless the creature is basically mindless, randomly attacking). It seems 5E has made things as unrealistic as possible. No rolls were even needed if you could not resist at all. Ghouls are a terrifying encounter. The fact that they have some intelligence.... very creepy. A couple of them "working together" in an early campaign with a potential Zombie plague is a great way to show players the difference between orcs and undead. There should definitely be a strong difference.
Everything past the Octopus is just... No. That is NOT CR 1, and often for a specific 'why is this allowed?' reason. The Copper Dragon's breath is absolutely at least twice as damaging as it should be, just for an easy example. Quicklings are a flat tool check. Either the party has an answer and succeeds in applying it, or TPK ensues.
If these are CR1 monsters then CR is broken! How can a Ghoul be CR1? What CR is a basic Skeleton or Zombie then? And then this list gets progressively more ridiculous :) Any Monster that can literally one-shot a CR 1 Fighter or Barbarian with max hp 50% of the time {I'm not talking about an Orc with a great-axe here but even that would be iffy if you start giving that Orc strength and Proficiency bonuses} should not be considered to be CR1! Any Monster with an average HP total equalling the total HP of a 4 man level one group should not be considered CR1! 36hp is way too much for a CR1 monster!
A Scarecrow, Animated Armor, and Lion each have a CR of 1. Just in case you wanted to have a Wizard of Oz themed encounter.
Good idea!
Imagine running an encounter where those three constantly revive until the party gives each of them their heart, brain, and "courage".
Maybe courage is something like leaping into the lion's mouth.
Consider your idea stolen...I mean borrowed.
@@JamesTheKoopaTroopa Same thing really
There's a rpg on the Nintendo DS that does that as part of a boss fight actually. Even has a Dorothy to lead them as a 4 enemy fight, though this one is a bomb happy thief more so then a lost girl :P
Grazie mille, Doctor! This knowledge will be used posthaste.
To be fair, it's kind of unsurprising how strong giant octopi are considering regular-sized octopi in real life are strong enough to restrain a shark.
I doubt that’s true
@@ObscureGaruda It is lol
@@purplehaze2358 100% false
@@ObscureGaruda Don't know what to tell you other than "lol no".
@@purplehaze2358 If you don’t know what to tell me, then it’s probably better that you don’t tell me anything.
The level 1 murder hobo in your playgroup is truly the best CR1 monster, they allow for the DM to really express their better nature
I had set up a fey forest encounter where 3 quicklings and a panther killed a level 3 party of 5 people
The Giant Octopus can be a bit of a troll with it's tentacle and grab combo and bonus action dash. If the Octopus grabs a player, you can basically decide that the party never sees that character ever again. Moving 60ft as a bonus action in water, 120ft movement total while still having an action to attack and grapple a player if they succeed in getting free, it's just impossible for PCs to compete with that for quite some time. The Octopus doesn't even need to do damage at that point, the PC will just drown if it just gets a couple of turns swimming away at full speed.
The Meazel fight in the shadow cursed area in BG3 was super obnoxious. Grabbing people and teleporting them out of the safety of torch light.
That fight and the fight against the mud mephits traumatized me.
Sleet storm had the Meazels slipping and sliding everywhere.
Trivialized the encounter
Good minions to keep on ones person.
The biggest issue with balancing isn't how much HP a monster has or how hard it hits, its the fact that they can change the game state completely either through ailments or unique mechanics. Because a unique mechanic has no strict way of calculating how deadly it is and if its paired with a weak monster stat wise you run into problems.
A 36hp monster should not be CR1 full stop!
A monster with average damage per attack equal to the Level 1 Barbarian's max HP is going to one-shot your Level 1 characters in short-order and even if it just one-shots one out of the four before it gets taken down that's rather unfair to have a guy who's just rolled up his character have to re-roll on the first encounter through sheer bad luck!
We're not talking about high level characters here....We're talking about Level 1!
At Level 10 HP isn't as big an issue on either side no but at level 1 it is!
A thematic cr 1 monster gets plot armor let’s be real here
Thanks for doing what you do for us!
Thank you for watching!
That's Ghoul's 2D6+2 Bite will usually one-shot a Level 1 Sorcerer or Wizard, and has a 41% chance of one-shotting any of the D8 hit-die classes. The Ghoul's paralysis only matters for characters who take more than 2 hits to kill (where that second hit becoming an auto-crit factors in). Unfortunately, since the bite averages 9 damage, none of the classes would take more than 2 average bites to kill (unless the Barbarian is Raging). That said, the sub-optimal paralysis tactic is a good way to make the Ghouls scarier for 1st level characters while technically decreasing the odds of a TPK. Of course, the stuff at the end of your list is insane to consider CR1.
If you would count the quicklings CR with the monster cr calculator in the DMG, it would come up as around CR 3.
Probably closer to CR 2-ish. The problem is the DMG calculations don't take little things like 120 foot movement speed or all attack rolls against it having disadvantage into account, so the "Defensive CR" is only 1/4. But then Offensive CR is 4.
I know this is strange, but I have no friends so I don't play D&D, though I love the lore, and I binge watch your content when I'm busy working or trying to fall asleep. It's been a late night (I'm in Tokyo) and I just started cruising your playlist to fall asleep to, and noticed you uploaded a new video.
Please make more 1hr plus videos.
Also, is it strange I fall asleep listing to another man talk about a board game?
I'm glad you're enjoying my vids, and believe it or not, multiple people have mentioned the same thing about listening to my content while relaxing/falling asleep.
I have considered making a longer video with a more calm tone. It would be interesting to experiment with.
Thanks so very much once again, Esper.
It's so sad that WOTC has nerf-bat most poison in the game so hard. Either everyone is immune/resistant to it, or it's now pathetically weak even if it does hit.
Whatever...
Anyway, love the focus on the low-level mobs for encounters., it can be real tricky for a DM to craft intro level beasties that won't intimidate new players. These certainly help.
I feel level-2 beasties would benefit from so exploiting as well, since it can be by next session some PCs have leveled at this stage, so DMs need to be quick on their feet this early.
Thanks again dear Sir. :)
Esper the Bard is by far the best D&D channel on UA-cam.
His videos cover interesting topics, raise compelling questions & are presented in a straight forward manner. No opinionated bloviating, just straight to the point.
The vargouile name is pronounced like gargoyle but with a V instead of a G. The French name of a gargoyle is gargouille, so the vargouille in English would be pronounced as vargoyle.
Thank you
Thanks. Thinking about using it.
except french people don't say gar-goil...they are going to pronounce it gar-goo-wee and var-goo-wee
in a way it makes sense to use the same english bastardization, but also vargooey
@apokatastasian2831 just because it is if French origin doesn't mean it's pronounced exactly like it was French lmfao....
And I've never heard anyone pronounce it anything like that despite knowing native French speakers from Canadian to Creole to Champagne, having been a culinary student and military kid
@@ConstantChaos1 why not? the dude who made it up, spelled it in a distinctly french fashion. why assume he intentionally chose to spell it Vargouile instead of Vargoyle and then also meant it to not sound french at all...thats an odd assumption to make
but whatever, who really cares, it's worth adding that:
var gweel, and var goil are both bastardizations so they are both as valid.
so how does OP know the correct way to say it...makes no sense
I just thought OP pedantically gatekeeping some made up shit without mentioning the actual french is funny
*Notes for my new campaign* Those batheads (sorry its my HEADcannon name) are GREAT! Thank you
They sure are! Actually, the first D&D monsters I remember ever seeing were kobold, carrion crawler, and vargouille. They all made quite an impression on me.
After many years of using "potentially" devastating baddies as a DM, 3 weeks ago a Player's character in our group succumbed to an Intellect Devourer.
Curious if you ever thought of going back and covering older editions? I started in 5th, but recently (about a year ago) moved over to 3.5 and found it to be a MUCH richer experience, for me and my players at least. 5th Edition if fine, but that's also its problem a lot of the time. It's terminally fine. Of course if anyone inevitably takes offence at that statement, this is all my opinion, you are free to have yours, and neither will I disagree with how you have your fun. But I digress.
You also seem to enjoy older editions, with how often you make mention of them, and as I know it you got your start in 3E, and while I don't in anyway think you should focus on it, I'm sure the audience for that type of content is meager at best, it would be fun to see some monster rankings 3rd edition - errrr- edition.
Yes indeed I played and GM'd a ton of 3e, then a ton of 4e, then a ton of 5e. There are aspects of 3e that I dearly miss, but overall I find 5e to be a better experience. That said, I do use some house rules in 5e to make things grittier, and my GM style flavors things in its own way.
I have done some videos regarding 3e monsters, but not a ton. At some point, I might do a video comparing a monster between its iterations in 3e, 4e, and 5e.
That would be a fun video, there are tons of monsters that went through a lot of changes, good, bad, and middling. Would be fun to see that. Nonetheless, despite not enjoying 5E at my table anymore, always fun to watch your videos that cover it.
Cheers.
@@esperthebard That sounds like a fun video to watch, hope it's as fun to research as it sounds. (I mean, if you enjoy the research process.)
Check out the channel The Joy of Wargaming. He has good content on AD&D.
I agree on 3.5 being fuller
I can guarantee you that yes my children challenge what exactly a CR-1 encounter even is.
A perfect quote for this topic :) Yes, when your party is wiped out, 5 hours into a campaign, you know that things were excessive.
Vargouilles are the Flood. They overrun planes they are given even a tiny amount of wiggle room in. Think about it, a Commoner has +0 Charisma saves and 10 Charisma. Commoner gets cursed, dies, and at most 8 hours later a new Vargouille's joined the server. In the meantime, the original one has 8 hours to keep going to new Commoners and repeating the process. If we GENEROUSLY assume it gets maybe 5 people before some town guard or something kills it, that problem will exponentially increase in difficulty.
More like mosquitoes technically our worst enemies on regular earth. All towns would’ve developed counter measures to those pests
Measles roughed us good in act 2, small but deadly.
Love the ranking videos, Esper. Your prose are amazing.
During the Vistana Spy you say they can use Cunning Action to "dash, disengage, or dodge" but I think you meant hide not dodge.
Vargouille used to be absolute nightmare fuel for me 😂 the idea of a cursed bite that eventually causes your head to tear itself free and fly off on its own was so disturbing as a younger player
If you do this with other Crs, this will be interesting!
Hey Esper! Could you provide me with anything related to an old module of yours: escape from the scarlet citadel ? Your aberration video got me quite curious! Love your work and thank you for the great videos!
Ah ... Escape from the Crimson Citadel, alas that was from before I kept my adventure notes digitally, so I only have my memories of that one. Who knows, maybe someday I'll remake it and publish it.
I love that in BG3, the Meazel also causes Silence due to the PC being garroted xD
Deadliest low CR encounter?
Anything involving water. You want to challenge players? Give them a river to cross.
Roll for dex to not slip on the slippery stones.
Oh, you fell. 60ft away from you, a giant octopus reacts 😅
The logical endpoint to this video would be "The Least Powerful CR 30 Monsters in D&D".
LMAO Aren’t there like, 3 cr 30 monsters total?
It's the tarrasque ... while in its decades-long slumber
@@esperthebardor when facing a PC with a flying speed.
Nothing stops it from jumping @@LuxuriaU
@@Mare_Man Of knocking the flying target out of the sky with a thrown boulder.
Cheers for introducing me to some new creatures
I put a party of 3 level six characters up against a few quicklings. it was suppose to be an easy first encounter in a dungeon but they knocked out of of the players.
As someone who has played some of BG3 ((still on first play through)), Meazels are the worst. My friend and I first encountered them at level 5 ((lower than the game suggested by the way)), and we died. We all got separated, couldn’t get back to each other, and a more dangerous enemy was attracted when we finally started defeating them. Because of course, we had the misfortune of being teleported too close. Regardless, love the game, loved the video too. Keep up the great work!
No dragon should be a CR1, that's just an insult to dragons.
I think 5E has completely destroyed the concept of dragons. They are just big lizards with a few extra attacks now. I used to play the Original DnD, Advanced and 2E. They were far better.
I hear so many people complain about 5E and how pointless it is.
Original post was obviously made by a dragon. Lol.
@@redfaux74yeah I think it’s our cultural attitudes towards dragons though that’s what it’s reflecting. The post-pokemonization world
@@redfaux74we Faerie Dragons are totally more than overgrown lizards with extra attacks. There is a difference between 'most powerful' and 'most deadly', after all.
The dragon in question was definitely abusing its weight class
nice to see you a making videos keep it up.
can you pls make more 5 backgrounds for (class)
Happy new year!
Waiting for the next CR ratings!
Vargouilles are consistently scary. 3e ones were also no joke. Stunning shriek, curse, and poison on top of that. CR2 tho, which seems to me more appropriate.
thanks man i enjoyed the video
Impressive. Very nice.
Just got my boss for level 1 dungeon.
Really? Who did you pick?
The copper wyrmling? Here's a cool thing you can put in the dungeon, have a treasure vault or other "side chamber" that is not necessary to make it through the dungeon. It's a totally option room and has a really difficult challenge to access (crypt riddle, high DC skill tests, deadly monster guardian, etc.), but if the characters can manage to access it, they discover some great treasure, including some kind of acid resistance magic item, like acid resistance armor or potion(s). This then would help them survive the encounter with the acid-breathing wyrmling.
@@rachdarastrix5251 Dragon Wyrmling of course. It brings back memories of playing starter box D&D games after Christmas with my family as a kid.
@@esperthebard
Parents: "Why did you make a game of giving them a way to resist your acid?"
Wyrmling: "It was suppose to go to a worthy companion, wasn't expecting a home intruder to answer the riddle dishonestly."
@@raytheerudite5252 A game playing kid on Christmas? You already have the perfect personality for this character.
My warlock failed the save against the Vistana curse and was blinded. Fortunately, the other party members kept him alive while we continued our quest. In one encounter, a party member used his action to help my warlock aim his Eldritch Blast.
Was it the mathematically optimal use of an action. No.
Was it worth it? Absolutely!
I think we need a beast tier list. Don't want to exclude an entire enemy type, even if they ARE rather simple in action economy
I had a Kitsune player that got the Vargouille curse and... she did not handle it well lol I had to make some divine gm intervention cus they were nowhere near a way to fix the issue in time.
I imagine the meazel encounter in BG3 has ended the run for a lot of first time players in honor mode 😂
If done well a good session could be designed around any of them.
I still hope to some day throw a group of level 1s against a Displacer Beast, in a very indirect manner.
Another amazing video, thank you Esper.
But I would like to know what creature this 18:04 is?
That's just another version/photo of the quickling
Those damn "rats" in the tavern
I'm sure the quickling is considered evil based on the fact that a fight with it just feels unfair.
Anything out of The Book of Vile Darkness. I know its from 3.5, but still, I hate everything in there. There was a race in there called Kython's, that had blindsignt, resist 20 (fire,elect)and immunities, (acid, ice) multiple attacks, poison that consisted of a initial and a secondary hits to your stats. CR 1 and 3, 1d6 to Con, CR 5 and 8, 1d6 to Str, CR 11 and 13, 2d6 to Str. We had to fight them throughout the campaign. The CR 1 had 11HP, 18 AC, multi atk for 2d6+1 and 1d4, each atk had a chance to poison you DC12 for 1d6 Con. So while only 9 (avg) damage and possibly 6(avg) Con, that was very very long lasting(back then). So they didn't out right kill you, they swarm and nerfed you with each encounter. Also, 0 Con= death. No healing can help you.
Have a Quickling familiar sounds baller.
Hey Esper, I'm your 69 comment, Giggity! 🎉 Happy New Year 🎊
Great video, can't wait to use a copper dragon wyrmling as a pet to a pack of kobolds.
Thanks Esper you have a wonderful day!
Noice
Had an encounter that should have TPK'd the party. We were 3rd level or so, and it was up against 6 Quicklings and a Dryad. Needless to say, we got stomped by round 2. I think the DM realized his screw up, and had us just go unconscious instead.
Maybe the DM thought the Quicklings were normal Halflings with a cool name.
Don't let meazels take you to a second location now, y'hear?
Meazels being CR1 break my mind…
For the quickling: MAGIC MISSILE GOES BRR.
Still dangerous though if its a group of two or more.
I always thought Vargouille was pronounced similar to Gargoyle.
Crikey, quicklings are terrifying.
Either they're fundamentally broken as a creature, martials need ways of dealing damage besides making attack rolls, or having Dexterity be so impactful in the outcome of combat encounters was a mistake on the part of WOTC, and i'm genuinely not sure which at this point.
im starting my players level 1 underwater. Should the first fight be a giant octopus?
Which encounter generator is that ?
Fire snakes are a evil lil cr 1 creature. Resistance to no magical weapons, fire damage on being hit in melee and 2x attacks with fire damage.
Ooh good call, fire snakes totally could have made this list.
What dose a +3 to hit mean? Dose it mean you need to roll 3 or higher to hit them or is that the number they need to hit you?
Its a bonus added onto their attack rolls, when you roll a d20 to attack with a weapon or a spell you add 3 to the number you rolled.
i cant see how NOT to completely destroy a low lvl party with a quickling, if i DM them and just use lets say 2 of them, the players will die, its simple as that. Unless i deliberately choose not to play them smart, something that would make it weird since they are not supposed to be stupid.
Its one of those monsters that if you DM them as they should be, you feel unfair towards your players
I once as a protest paired 8 quicklings up with a NPC level 9 twilight cleric/level 6 shepherd druid to face off vs 5 level 10 characters. It was a one sided land slide, but not for the players. They had to plead for a ceasefire and promised not to interfere in the affairs of the forest. According to Kobold fight club this would be an easy encounter
Easy really.
Let the party hear about them ahead of time so they can scooby doo some traps, or stumble upon the quicklings as they're distracted decimating a different low level adventuring party.
a great reminder for dms to use their judgement instead of trusting the numbers in the official books😅
2.00 In 5E, if you are paralyzed, completely unable to do anything, defend yourself and a Ghoul is on top of you, eating you.... you are not automatically dead? 😂😂😂
In my game, if you are paralyzed, you automatically die if you are attacked while paralyzed, asleep (unless the creature is basically mindless, randomly attacking). It seems 5E has made things as unrealistic as possible. No rolls were even needed if you could not resist at all.
Ghouls are a terrifying encounter. The fact that they have some intelligence.... very creepy. A couple of them "working together" in an early campaign with a potential Zombie plague is a great way to show players the difference between orcs and undead. There should definitely be a strong difference.
Everything past the Octopus is just... No. That is NOT CR 1, and often for a specific 'why is this allowed?' reason. The Copper Dragon's breath is absolutely at least twice as damaging as it should be, just for an easy example. Quicklings are a flat tool check. Either the party has an answer and succeeds in applying it, or TPK ensues.
Naw you need some gods in the tier for posterity lol
Yeah, they should be listed as substantially higher CR's
We Faerie Dragons are obviously the strongest CR1 creatures.
💙
ua-cam.com/video/i30b8PGsVA0/v-deo.html
Nono, it's definitely punch
Nice Metallica quote
an allip can kill a tarrasque
You get a like for the Metallica reference. 😂
Lvl 1 bard
Oh yeah, my "Like" was #666 \m/ :D
•)
If these are CR1 monsters then CR is broken!
How can a Ghoul be CR1? What CR is a basic Skeleton or Zombie then?
And then this list gets progressively more ridiculous :)
Any Monster that can literally one-shot a CR 1 Fighter or Barbarian with max hp 50% of the time {I'm not talking about an Orc with a great-axe here but even that would be iffy if you start giving that Orc strength and Proficiency bonuses} should not be considered to be CR1!
Any Monster with an average HP total equalling the total HP of a 4 man level one group should not be considered CR1! 36hp is way too much for a CR1 monster!
OK How is a 3rd Level Rogue {Vistana Spy} a CR 1? That's a CR3-4!
...Wtf was that quote, why? Are people going to be putting Nikki Minaj quotes on their videos in a couple years?
CR 1 ... the song title was *One*
To whomever created the Quickling...who hurt you?