D&D 5E What are the most UNDER/OVER CRed Monsters in the Monster Manual?

So in your experience, what are the monsters that are laughably weak for their CR? What are the monsters that are a surprising threat at their CR, and maybe underestimated?

For Over-CR, having used one recently....is the Mummy Lord hands down (CR 15). It is geared as a somewhat melee oriented legendary monster, but its AC and hitpoints are ridiculously low for its CR. Even if you max its hitpoints per hit dice, it is still too weak imo. The mummy lord can be taken down by a single party member let alone the group. Its offense is geared towards a fear effect that most parties of that level has immunity to, disease that takes too long to be a concern, and a one use harm spell that is still not that impressive to 15th level characters.

I think this monster would be weak even as a regular monster....it is not even close to a legendary of that CR 15.

For under-CR, my vote goes to the Githzerai Zerph (CR 6). The very definition of CR is that you need a party of this level or higher to deal with its abilities. Parties beneath that CR may really struggle against its effects.

The Githzerai stats are pretty tame for the most part, until you see.....Plane Shift 1/day. Plane Shift is a monster spell for even a high level party to deal with. A 6th level party has no chance if this effect goes off. This one monster can completely derail a campaign, as suddenly the party goes from whatever adventure they are on to having to conscript planar travel help and goes off to find their lost friend (assuming they even know where to look). It is far easier for a party to deal with a character death (revivify...3rd level spell) than it is a plane shift.

Really the Githzerai just needs a change to say "Plane Shift 1/day (SELF ONLY)" and it would then be just fine.


What monsters have you seen where the CR just doesn't cut the mustard?

Under CRed is the intellect devourer, which I think has a better chance of killing a high level player than a mind flayer does. Especially considering how many characters use intelligence as a dump stat.

Over CRed, I've found Dragons don't quite have enough tricks up their sleeves for characters once they have access to flight.

Really it depends on DM and setting up the situation. The CR are off some on many creatures, but it's rather easy to go from UP to OP if the situation is set up right for the monster


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Shadows, if encountered outside of sunlight are really dangerous. Absurdly more dangerous than the CR 1/2 might suggest. A wizard who dumped STR might literally die from 2 hits.
Combined with the numerous damage resistances, and even 2 immunity, and hiding as a bonus action, makes it a handful.

Similarly, swarm of Rot grubs, while possessing an impressive +0 to hit, if they do hit and the players don't know their secrets, its basically a death sentence.

Really most creatures with "tricks" to defeating them are universally over or under CR, depending on the ability to perform such tricks.

Werewolves are unstoppable for those unprepared, similarly trolls could easily wipe a party unable to deal with regeneration.

Flesh Golem can be unstoppable for a low level party.

Most spell casters are over CR if they are caught in the open or the like.

A campaign specific example is I think Baba's Hut is under its actual CR. It deals an average of 30 damage per each of its three +12 to hit attacks. 90 damage a round puts it at offense CR 14 (its +12 to hit bonus is standard for CR 24!!!), while its HP puts it at defensive CR 13. It is listed as CR 11 though.. For comparison, a level 11 cleric might have ~75 hp. Meaning that it will can knock out a level 11 person in a single turn.

Flame Skull - the low level TPK king. Fireball at CR 4 can wipe a party, by itself. Add in a few other creatures, and the fact it has 40 flying speed so you can't escape. Add in the fact it has blur AND shield so it is potentially a fairly difficult to hit target as well.

Underrated:

For a moderately optimized party, there isn't really anything I'd view as underrated in the base MM. If we look elsewhere, Iron Ghouls (from ToB) were the first monster to give them issues.

Overrated:
Ogres. Vampires. Dragons if you choose not to use spellcasting variants or if you choose not to buff their hps. My basic belief is that any legendary monster as written in the MM needs their hps maxed (at least).

jimmytheccomic said:

Under CRed is the intellect devourer, which I think has a better chance of killing a high level player than a mind flayer does. Especially considering how many characters use intelligence as a dump stat.

Over CRed, I've found Dragons don't quite have enough tricks up their sleeves for characters once they have access to flight.

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I'm missing how flying PC's are so significant for killing dragons. Dragon speed is 80, all forms of flying that I can think of that the PCs might get are slower, many much slower. If the PCs are using fly spells, concentration flying is not something you want to be doing in a fight, especially against something with a AOE range attack.

I would think access to other spells is more important (wall spells, protection from energy, spells to ground the dragon and keep it there)

Thugs and Bandit Captains are pretty brutal for their CR ratings.

I remember a really long discussion when 5e came out one this board (I think it was here...) about whether the thug should be CR 1 or not.

Anything with a high damage nova that gets to go first (which is pretty obvious, I guess). The aforementioned flameskull is one.

Anything with two+ attacks can be a problem. Yesterday I had the party meet a half-orc and his two mountain lions (from module UK2). The sabre-toothed tiger is CR2 and so is the polar bear, but the polar bear has two attacks. Mixing the two to create the mountain lion and giving the lion two attacks made a huge difference. A party of 2 5th level and 4 3rd level were almost wiped out by them. The half-orc was configured as an assassin and got surprise. With a 1d6 short sword, 3d6 sneak attack, and 1d6 from savage attacks, a hit of any kind during surprise is a 10d6 hit. Luckily, the character attacked had the highest AC and the half-orc missed twice.

Under: Gnolls at CR1/2 longbows are brutal. Hp 22, AC15 with shield
Over: Cult Fanatic at CR2 has CR just for spells I think Hp 22, AC13 save DC is 11

Over CR: Anything over CR ~11 or so with Damage Resistance overcome by magic weapons, especially demons and most undead.

We had a party of five and a half level 13 characters take out two Balors (CR 19) in two encounters on the same day without much difficulty. We did have the advantage of being martially focused and only having one arcane spellcaster (Magic Resistance is a real beating for spellcasters) but other than they went down in two or three rounds and had no chance to get away. The fact that it has misty step 120' as an action instead of literal teleport really neuters these creatures.

It's one thing for the game to "not assume the PCs will have magic items." It's quite another to stat out end game monsters like nobody's ever going to find a +1 weapon or gain access to magic weapon at any point in 13 levels. Did the devs ever look at their own treasure tables? "Oh, but they're assuming you're not using them." I'm sorry, but that's stupid. Why wouldn't the devs design monsters around all the default rules for character progression that they themselves outlined? I've never seen a game go past level 6 where the martial characters didn't have at least a +0 magic weapon to give to the Fighter. "Well, that's just the way you play." No, it's the way the published adventures are written and the way the default rules tell you to play. There are no publish adventure paths that have zero magic weapons. The default rules tell you to roll for magic items. It's unlikely that you'll fail to find a magic weapon before level 10 if you're playing with the rules as presented unless your DMs is modifying something. So why does CR assume you're modifying something? Players shouldn't expect an item treadmill a-la the 4e parcel system where you get consistent and increasing rewards, but the game also shouldn't expect that that we're playing in the Hyborian Age. Even Middle Earth gave the protagonists several magic weapons. I mean, Forgotten Realms is the default setting, but the monsters are built around the assumption that the PCs won't have magic weapons? Come on....

Simply put, Balor should say: "CR 15 (CR 19 if the party cannot overcome non-magical defenses)" or "CR 15 (+50% XP if the party cannot overcome non-magical defenses)".

Hydra