Dissecting the 5E D&D Beast Creature Type

November 3, 2021

Salutations, nerds! Are you ready to unleash the beast? Well, neither am I, but I am at least ready to unleash an examination of the beast creature type in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Beasts in 5E D&D are basically mundane animals. These are the kinds of creatures druids look to for their Wild Shape feature.

Beast creatures in 5E D&D

Everything from a fly to a house cat to a grizzly bear are beasts who represent mundane animals in 5E D&D. There’s a couple of beasts with minor magical sorts of traits (cranium rats and deep rothé from Volo’s Guide to Monsters) but otherwise they’re simply fauna. I know this sounds kind of boring compared to a lot of the other 5E D&D creatures. I only recently took a closer look at aberrations and now I’m delving into horses and junk?

The mundane beasts in your world are incredibly important for your worldbuilding because not everything can or should be steeped in magic. The beasts living in an area say a lot about what the area is like without the interference of civilizations and societies.

Oh. Also dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are beasts. I know — your inner 10 year old is completely riveted.

“Beasts are nonhumanoid creatures that are a natural part of the fantasy ecology. Some of them have magical powers, but most are unintelligent and lack any society or language. Beasts include all varieties of ordinary animals, dinosaurs, and giant versions of animals.” — from the 5E D&D Monster Manual

Things Beasts Do

Beasts do a lot of things it turns out. Think about all the different creatures you can find in the animal kingdom. Some of them exist in water and get swim speeds and some have wings and can fly quite nimbly on them. Beasts like bats get Echolocation and wolves employ Pack Tactics. Quite a few bulky beasts get the Charge trait, which gives them bonuses to their attack if they move in a straight direction for a certain distance first.

Giant fire beetles possess a trait called Illumination allowing them to shed light around themselves for a certain distance, something occurring in nature through bioluminescent creatures like anglerfish or fireflies. Spider Climb allows some creatures to just walk up walls like, well, a spider.

Have you ever looked at Mother Nature and thought, “Wow, that’s really cool” or “really scary”? Beasts are an extremely versatile creature type and a good place to try things like this out in your own 5E D&D games.

Five Beasts of Note

Giant Scorpion. One of the best Wild Shape beasts you can choose after reaching 9th level as a Circle of the Moon druid. Most druids won’t get access to it but the giant scorpion has blindsight and a high damage output in no small part thanks to the poison in its Sting, which is included along with two claw attacks as part of its Multiattack action.
Owl. A CR 0 creature I have often seen crowned with the title of Best Familiar because of the Flyby trait. Mechanically owls can fly into a space, deliver a touch spell and fly back out again without provoking an opportunity attack. Pretty cool for a critter with only 11 hit points on average.
Sahuagin Hatchling Swarm. This one’s from the Ghosts of Saltmarsh and I’m digging it out because while looking at the list it made me paus to look up whether other sahuagin are classed as beasts in 5E D&D. They are not, which makes me scratch my head a little bit because I’m pretty sure human larva aren’t beasts. This seems like a pretty weird precedent to set, to me. But adult sahuagin are amphibious and so are frogs, and frogs kind of morph from tadpoles to grown frogs over time so maybe this is one of those situations. Anyway, it’s worth mentioning because unlike anything else on the list these don’t stay beasts.
Tyrannosaurus Rex. There’s one singular higher challenge rating beast in Descent into Avernus but I’m calling special circumstances for Traxigor. The T-Rex is CR 8 and aside from the singular example ties with White Plume Mountain’s huge giant crab and Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden’s sperm whale as the highest CR beast in the game. It’s Huge — it’s a freaking dinosaur! If you ever wanted to live out your Jurassic Park dreams this is how you do so. Oh, and it has a passive Perception of 14 so probably don’t stand still.
Velociraptor. Another dinosaur and this one gives the best damage output you’re likely to get as a normal druid. Also they’re just cool. Sometimes you just have to get up and velociraptor around the house. It’s like the person version of having the zoomies. No? Just me?

Beasts! Not as interesting as 5E D&D aberrations but still a lot to unpack and play with and as always I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please tell me about what you’ve been doing with beasts in your games in the comments below, tweet @Pyrosynthesis or @Nerdarchy and connecting with us on Facebook. Go and pet your beasts for me. They work hard to love you and deserve your attention. And of course, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — A selection of beasts of note from 5E D&D — the giant scorpion, Tyrannosaurus Rex, owl, sahuagin (what those sahuagin hatchling swarms grow up to become) and velociraptor. One of our most popular creations is our own collection of fantastic beasts, which introduces five new and unique mounts ready for your game along with rules for these creatures with regards to trade goods, training and adding flavor to your campaign world. Perhaps you’ll even find druids assuming the guise of a dranther or kangoram in your game. [Composite images courtesy Wizards of the Coast]