14 Mighty Medium Monsters of 5E D&D

Not too long ago I followed up a beefy post about the chonkiest bois in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons with 7 Small Scaries of 5E D&D. Ever a sucker for a series since there’s more size categories in the game I’m compelled to cover them all. In fact the post where this all began isn’t technically limited to the most mammoth creatures in 5E D&D at least where physical size is concerned. Eventually this series will grow into the gargantuan creatures but for now we’re only at the midpoint with Medium creatures. Let’s get into it.

5E D&D’s middle-of-the-road-sized monsters

Crunching numbers to theorize the most effective monsters in combat isn’t the focus of these posts. Instead I’m looking through all the official Medium sized 5E D&D creatures with an eye towards the standouts who make a major impact. These might punch above their weight, possess unusually impressive features, hold significance to me or demonstrate another definitely subjective perspective.

At the moment there’s 1,101 Medium creatures among official 5E D&D sources, which is a huge amount — way more than any other size and close if not more than all the others combined. The selection includes a tremendous number of individual NPCs found throughout different adventures and for the purposes of this post I’m ignoring all of them. Instead I’m looking at the broad strokes for stat blocks representing a grouping of creatures rather than unique individuals. Since there’s so many Medium creatures for this post I’m narrowing things down and choosing one from each creature type, presented here in alphabetical order by that metric.

Gibbering Mouther

One of my absolute favorite monsters in all of D&D gets things started. A single one of these aberrations can really give a low level party a tough time through a combination of battlefield control, debuffing and a devastating Bite. In my experience their incredibly slow speed actually benefits a Dungeon Master because adventurers (and players!) usually feel a healthy dose of dread with a composite of eyes, mouths and liquefied matter of its former victims creeping after them. In multiple gibbering mouthers turn any scenario into one of abject horror. For some really nasty twists on this fantastic monster I came up with some tweaks to their stat block in a post you can find here.

Swarm of Cranium Rats

Just about all the beasts in 5E D&D represent mundane animals whether they’re the kind you could find in the real world or fantasy equivalents. But there’s a handful of beasts who stretch the limits of the creature type and of those it doesn’t get much cooler than cranium rats. They’re rats with exposed brains and psychic power! Clearing out the vermin in the basement takes on a much different tone when the quest is offered in the Underdark or anywhere these psionic energy bombarded rats scurry about. A swarm of cranium rats boasts some impressive mental power and the interplay with rats who separate from the swarm is literally giving me adventure hook ideas as I type this. A low level party discovering their first big villain as a undulating mass of psychic brain-exposed rats sounds pretty darned memorable to me.

Ashen Rider

Often my preferences lean towards tier one and two content. It’s my favorite space to play and run 5E D&D but once this creature from Mythic Odysseys of Theros caught my eye I couldn’t see anything else. The illustration is gorgeous for one thing but what really impresses me are the Aura of Silence and Mount traits. Silence and the deafened condition are powerful effects and ones rarely deployed in my experience. In fact the first time I’ve ever seen silence cast is when my warlock Tabitha used it during our Dungeons & Delving campaign. This isn’t to say tons of players out there encounter it all the time but I play D&D quite a lot so it’s notable to me. The Mount trait isn’t incredibly powerful although it could certainly make a big difference in combat, but if I’m honest I think it’s super cool to see a stat block with mounted combat incorporated into the mechanics.

Animated Armor

I’ve heard stories of a single one of these constructs taking down a party of 1st level adventurers. I’ve been in some of those parties. I’ve deployed them myself, mashed them up with other creatures, used them to complicate a battle against a much more powerful foe and more. It’s safe to say this simple suit of magically moving armor gets a lot of mileage. All things considered it’s like a T-800 that can’t be bargained or reasoned with, doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear and absolutely will not stop until you are dead. One of my favorite video series is the Monster BFF ones and there’s a really cool one involving animated armor, flying swords and flesh golems. Check it out for just one of the many fun twists you can try with these ironically flexible construct creatures.

Red Dragon Wyrmling

No contest. There’s wyrmlings of every color and a few drakes and despite the new fangled gem dragons from Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons I’ve got to give the nod to this iconic dragon. Keep in mind the closest contender was the amethyst dragon wyrmling with its Singularity Breath and if you know anything about me you’ll note it’s a big deal not to gush over the one with the cosmic sounding power. For my fantasy taste the red dragon rules the roost of all dragonkind and this goes for their Medium sized versions too. Never one to put dragons on a high shelf only to be used in the rarest circumstances I go 180 degrees and advocate dragons all the time. There’s a reason for all the age categories y’all.

Invisible Stalker

With passive Stealth of 20 and permanent invisibility this elemental can really freak players out. Only the most perceptive adventurers have a chance to detect the presence of an invisible stalker before it strikes. The flavor text accompanying the stat block indicates their sole purpose is hunting down creatures and retrieving objects for its summoner so they’ve got a built-in purpose to engage characters too. There’s quite a lot of inspiration for these creatures in the entry based on the contentious relationship they share with their summoner. The interplay between the mechanics, lore and the function they serve makes invisible stalkers terrific adversaries because the mystery surrounding their presence can point to all sorts of unseen antagonists targeting the party. Are they sent after a specific individual, to retrieve a particular object in the adventurers’ possession or something else entirely?

Bheur Hag and Dusk Hag

Fey creatures and themes hold great appeal for me and the relatively small selection of 5E D&D fey creatures shrinks even more when limited to Medium sized creatures only. Among them a significant number are hags. Incorporating these mysterious, unfathomable and dangerous entities into a 5E D&D game ups the ante considerably. Settling on a single variety of hag proved really difficult! I’m noting two here because of my experiences with both. In the case of the bheur hag we did a Monster BFF video a few years ago featuring one and it really had an impact on me. I designed a scenario for a convention one shot expanding on that video and the accompanying post here on the website. I really wanted to make Maddening Feast hit home hard so the premise is the party guarding a caravan through an arctic environment is caught in an avalanche and begins the adventure in the aftermath with a point of exhaustion to discover the bheur hag feasting on a fallen merchant. As regards the dusk hag my campaign setting includes one named Thessaly Threefaces who travels between the Waking World (Material Plane) and Dreaming World (Feywild) on a shrouded four-poster bed. Players react with great apprehension whenever they’ve encountered Thessaly. I love concepts like dreams and nightmares in my RPG experiences and dusk hags are all about that life.

Merrenoloth

There’s a lotta fiends waiting on the other side of the planar divide to wreak infernal or abyssal evil in the material world. I’ve got to give it up for the merrenoloth though for a few reasons. A very low CR creature with a lair makes things exciting especially when the lair is the small ferry boat they operate. Evocative of Charon and the River Styx daring adventurers who delve deep beneath the waves near the coastal starting town in my setting may encounter one and bargain for a ride. This particular merrenoloth is missing an eye and a hand too, and although no characters have as yet tried to fight and defeat the fiendish ferryman they’ve all been very nervous and apprehensive the whole time. Not too shabby for a relatively low challenge creature! Because there’s so many Medium sized fiends in 5E D&D I’ll give a special shoutout to the relentless slasher from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. Serial murderers terrify us and in the Domains of Dread these remorseless mortals can enter into pacts with beings of the Lower Planes to become true fiends themselves. The entry also includes guidance for creating unique Relentless Killers with an origin and methods. Relentless slashers can also boast about being the lowest CR legendary creature that’s not unique, which is a pretty cool distinction. Also they remind me a lot of our own Flesh Render CBG so they score some points for this too.

Cloud Giant Child

Bit of a cheat on this entry because there’s only a single Medium giant creature in all of 5E D&D. Found in Storm King’s Thunder there’s nothing too special or noteworthy here except to reinforce the giantness of giants because what’s essentially a toddler correlates to a tall, powerfully built human. I can’t find where in the adventure this appears to gain some greater context. Do you know? Is it one of those moral quandaries adventurers run into where they’re confronted with the notion of slaying the offspring of monsters they battle?

Warlord

Remember I mentioned how there’s so many Medium sized creatures in 5E D&D? The majority of them are humanoids and even without considering the individual NPCs there’s a lot to choose from. I’m going with warlord because it’s super versatile, great to mashup with other creatures and offers an excellent example of a higher CR creature with mundane features and traits. I often mention how creating higher CR creatures without magical abilities presents a design challenge and the warlord serves as a terrific example of how to do so well. Their legendary actions cover a great range of options and they prove a creature needn’t be flashy with all sorts of bells and whistles if they do what they do incredibly well — in this case a steel hard battlefield commander.

Medusa

One of the rare few 5E D&D monsters with a spin on save-or-suck mechanics certainly makes this list. Protip: make it clear to players their characters have the option to avert their eyes, which greatly influences how encountering this monstrosity goes down. Features, spells and the like indicating targets you can see, disadvantage on attacks and various other circumstances all come into play. When adventurers in one of my campaigns stumbled upon a medusa crime lord whose secret exit they discovered it led to a pivotal situation for the entire campaign. Medusae possess a quality I look for in all my RPG experiences too — relatability. Everyone knows what a medusa is from our own world’s Greek mythology, which helps sell the sizzle.

Slithering Tracker

It’s no secret I absolutely love oozes and outside the oblex family and this one ooze creatures are basically mindless blobs. Like the invisible stalker there’s a malevolent purpose driving these squishy monsters. Dripping with insidious opportunity a creature like this gives adventurers a hard time mostly due to their incredible ability to remain undetected. In a white room combat, sure they almost certainly get smoked posthaste. For a slithering tracker their purpose to exist, innocuous and insidious nature, relentless pursuit and ability to slip away pave the path to draw characters deeper into intrigues.

Wood Woad

Many years ago now when I first began contributing to Nerdarchy the Website a group of writers decided to create a module to share for free in celebration of International Tabletop Day. Arbor Jade isn’t the most polished piece of content but I am very proud of my contribution to the product. A corrupted wood woad poses a dangerous skill challenge in the scenario. This is another creature packed with evocative lore around which to layer some amazing storytelling potential. On the mechanical side for a singular creature they’ve got a lot going for them so even a combat against a single wood woad can be really dynamic.

Shadow

There was never any question here. Despite a staggering 123 Medium sized undead creatures in 5E D&D none of them pose an existential threat like the good ol’ shadow. What more can I say that I haven’t expressed many times in videos, posts and elsewhere? Unless your campaign world is populated by a vast majority of evil humanoids it’s teetering on the edge of shadowpocalypse.

*Featured image — There’s nothing middle of the road about the perils presented by Medium sized 5E D&D monsters. These 14 creatures stand out among others of their type for a variety of reasons. Some punch well above their challenge rating, some feature powerful and unusual traits, some offer terrific storytelling inspiration and some represent impactful moments from my own experiences. [Composite images courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

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