Summary
A good DM is always looking for more opportunities to throw more quests and encounters into their nextDungeons & Dragonssession. Sometimes, you might have an idea of how hard you want to make an encounter, but don’t know the particulars just yet - especially if you want to build a quest around a particular creature.
If you’re looking for a monster tobuild an encounter around, it helps to know which creature types have the most powerful stat blocks. We’ve built this list with several factors in mind, such as the number of high-CR monsters a creature type might have and whether they’re capable of inflicting additional obstacles to victory.
8Undead
Necromancy Is Pretty Cool, Actually
While entire campaigns may pass without players encountering elementals or celestials, you’d be hard-pressed to find a game that never features any type of undead. With formidable creatures such as liches, vampires, and mummy lords, you can findjust about any flavor of undeadyou want.
As reliable as this creature type is, it’s also one with the most low-CR mooks to its name. Your zombies and skeletons might be a classic, but they’re not particularly powerful. That’s more or less the only thing ranking it so low, however, and undead creatures are still an indispensable part of most campaigns.
7Monstrosities
Now Representing 50 Percent Of The Monster Manual
Monstrosities are by far the largest category of creature, as they function sort of like Normal-type Pokemon: if a creature doesn’t fit neatly into any other type, it’s probably a monstrosity. As such, the group boasts several powerful creatures under its umbrella, spanning a variety of environments and flavors.
However, all this diversity comes at a price. While there’s a more diverse range of difficulty levels represented in the monstrosity group, most of the creatures in this category are somewhat simple when it comes to battle tactics. Most don’t have the ability to cast spells or inflict status effects that last more than a few turns.
6Elementals
When You Waste Your Genie Wishes On An Ass Kicking
Like the fey, elementals can be found around nature and are often tied to a specific location in the wilderness. However, there aren’t many high-CR fey creatures. Elementals, on the other hand, have a few heavy hitters that make them a more respectable foe for any adventuring party.
Although there are more than a handful of low-level elemental mooks for your players to mow down, the ratio is somewhat better than with the undead. If you want a formidable elemental to try to kill your players with, the genies and myrmidons are a great choice for just about any campaign.
5Giants
The Biggest Entry On This List
You probably aren’t too surprised to see giants among the most formidable creature types. As you can probably imagine, their large size leads to plenty of HP to plow through, as well as massive Strength scores. Giants might not pack the same action economy as other creature types, but one or two hits from a storm giant is enough to knock out even the chonkiest of adventurers.
If giants had one flaw, it’s that they’re just a little too predictable. Being big, hitting hard, and throwing rocks at unsuspecting adventurers is great, but it’s not particularly imaginative. However, Bigby’s is a great resource for any DM who wants to add more giants to their campaign without growing stale.
4Aberrations
Finally, An Excuse To Overuse The Word Eldritch
From mind flayers to beholders, there’s plenty of interesting creatures under the aberration umbrella. Aberrations are also one of the more versatile creature types out there, being equally at home in a spacefaring campaign as they are in a Lovecraft-inspired game or a trek to the bowels of the Underdark.
The aberration creature type boasts a decent number of high-CR baddies, but it truly shines when it comes to action economy and weird status effects. Your group’s barbarian will probably hate you for the amount of psychic damage your aberrations dish out, but they’ll be too mind-controlled to do much about it.
3Dragons
It’s Not Called ‘Dungeons & Humanoids’
Dragons have captured the imagination across cultures around the world for most of human history. There’s a reason the game is called Dungeons & Dragons instead of some other creature type: most other monsters don’t have the same oomph when dropped into a fantasy setting. As such, it’s a bit surprising not to see dragons as the strongest creature type of all.
Fizban’s introducesa number of exotic dragonsto the game, but the majority of dragons in the Monster Manual are more than a little underwhelming when compared to their earlier edition counterparts. Overall, this creature type is full of heavy hitters, but don’t leave much to the DM’s imagination when it comes to other effects to spice up a battle.
2Celestials
Be Not Afraid (Unless You’re In An Evil Campaign)
Your players probably won’t fight many celestials unless they’re already on the ‘evil’ end of the alignment chart. For everyone else, going toe to toe with a denizen of the upper planes is a special occasion. Fallen angels are pretty much the only reason a good or neutral-aligned party would need to roll for initiative.
That being said, the celestial creature type boasts some powerful monsters despite this narrative obstacle. The Monster Manual alone boasts a variety of angels to smite your players with (or negotiate for an ally against a common foe.) Radiant damage has never been more painful.
1Fiends
Not Knowing The Difference Between A Demon And A Devil Isn’t Great
Unlike celestials, you’ll probably have several occasions to throw fiends at your players. Fiends come in all challenge ratings and flavors, from the lawful devils to the foulest demons of the Abyss. If you want a boss fight for an interplanar side quest or a patron for your evil cultists to worship, you can’t go wrong with fiends.
Demons in particular are a tough foe, as they have the ability to summon other demons during battle.
Most of the heavy hitters for this creature type come from thedemon lords of the Abyss, but you’ll get plenty of mileage from other fiends. Rakshasas and night hags are interesting fiends that don’t fit into a neat subcategory, but the Monster Manual also contains a treasure trove of powerful demons and devils.
