Dissecting the 5E D&D Monstrosity Creature Type

Salutations, nerds! Today I’m turning my attention to the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons creature type crossing the line from ordinary to extraordinary and stops druids from Wild Shaping into owlbears — the monstrosity! These 5E D&D creatures are monstrous, hence the title, and are massively varied so this should be a fun one.

Monstrosity creatures in 5E D&D

By definition monstosities were never entirely natural and instead the results of magical mayhem, wicked curses or accidents of one sort or another. Monstrosities are also often described as a category for creatures that just don’t fit anywhere else.

Monstrosities have a tendency to be more aggressive than regular beasts, often hunting just for the sake of it rather than for nourishment. If you want a guilt free combat then a lot of monstrosities are what you’re going to want to reach for because they aren’t really animals for the most part.

You’ve got things like tressym and owlbears that are basically just animals but have the monstrosity type for the sake of not being a valid Wild Shape for example. Meanwhile you have things like basilisks and griffons coming right out of mythology.

“Monstrosities are monsters in the strictest sense — frightening creatures that are not ordinary, not truly natural, and almost never benign. Some are the results of magical experimentation gone awry (such as owlbears), and others are the product of terrible curses (including minotaurs and yuan-ti). They defy categorization, and in some sense serve as a catch-all category for creatures that don’t fit into any other type.” — from the 5E D&D Monster Manual

Things Monstrosities Do

Monstrosities do so many things. From the rust monster’s ability to rust metal to the basilisk’s ability to petrify with its stare to a plethora of elemental and psychic abilities there doesn’t really seem to be a limit to the capabilities of a creature with the designation monstrosity.

Many of them have poisons, a lot have acid attacks or inherent magic. All kinds of abilities show up in the stat blocks of monstrosities. There are also a lot of intelligent monstrosities. For example the minotaur in the 5E D&D Monster Manual is a monstrosity but if you’re playing one at the table suddenly it’s humanoid. Then you have the sphinx, which I just looked up to look at its Intelligence score and got distracted by the stat block of because it can just mess with the flow of time apparently and that’s incredibly cool.

Five Monstrosities of Note

1. Mimic. Ever try to open a treasure chest, get stuck to it and then have it try to eat you? Mimics like to turn into other things to try and capture prey. Listen — they’re just hungry. If what it has to do to get you to get in its mouth is become a door then so be it.
2. Owlbear. A staple of the D&D world. Half owl, half bear, all grump. Woe be unto the adventurer who stumbles unwittingly onto the nesting grounds of the owlbear for they are dangerous and willing to hug you to death. They’re also adorable and I believe the community has decided their babies are called chubs. Ah, the eternal struggle between “this could kill me but also I want to pet it.”
3. Purple Worm. Famous for its poison, this Underdark worm is gargantuan and burrows. One of those creatures that doesn’t navigate through sight the purple worm secretes pheromones to signal their territory to other purple worms. Drow use those same pheromones to mark their cities to keep the worms out.
4. Sphinx. Straight out of mythology the sphinx is intelligent and full of magic. They’re all spellcasters and have lair actions allowing them to age the adventureres up or down if they fail a saving throw as well as move everyone forward and backward through time.
5. Tarrasque. Yeah, this guy is a monstrosity. Everyone’s heard of it — the world-destroyer. Challenge rating 30, almost 700 hit points and a penchant for swallowing adventurers. It’s no wonder there’s a point in almost every game where someone asks, “Are we fighting the tarrasque?” If you’re lucky the answer is no.

Given the nature of what they are it’s hard to imagine a 5E D&D campaign with no monstrosities. They are many and varied and the things you talk about usually when discussing dangerous things you find in the dungeon. But almost every tabletop gamer I know has at least a good story about the time they found a mimic somewhere they didn’t expect and I would love to hear about it! And of course, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — A selection of monstrosity creatures from 5E D&D. [Composite images courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

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