THE most powerful monster?

[13_CBS]

Ive never played D&D, but by looking at the d20.org website, it seems as if THE strongest monster is an ancient wyrm force dragon at a 59 challenge rating.

In your opinions, what is the most powerful monster that a balanced party of people could face? Powerful can mean anything from higtest CR to whatever.

Edit: "Monster" = any being excluding Gods, Lords of Hell, unique lords of the Abyss (although to my knowledge they're mostly Gods anyway), etc.

Basically, anything you'd find under the Monster or Bestiary section in a book, once again excluding any Gods, Lords of Hell, etc.

[Roland St. Jude]

Ao?Extra text

[13_CBS]

Ah, I shall rephrase:

Any monster NOT including unique folks (Asmodeus, the Lords of Hell, Gods, etc).

[Assassinfox]

Hecatoncheire.

[Jasdoif]

An atropal, perhaps? Negative levels and free undead abound.

[greenknight]

Ever since 3.0e, it's been fairly routine to customize a moster by Hit Die advancement, character class levels and templates. So no matter how powerful a particular creature is, it's usually possible to make it more powerful in some way.

[Behold_the_Void]

Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon, by CR, 66.

[Ominous]

I believe the Slayer's Guide to Giants has the Land Giant monster with a CR of 1,000. It sticks out in my mind, as I had never seen a CR over 66 before that.

[Bears With Lasers]

Nothing can have a CR of 1000. CR becomes meaningless much, much, much, much, MUCH earlier.

Incidentally, note that the Great Wyrm Prismatic is still just as vulnerable to dex drain as any other dragon.
(Well, not really, it can defend against it much, much better. Like with Epic Spellcasting.)

[The Orange Zergling]

Didnt someone on Wikipedia make a 1,000,000+ CR turtle that was the size of a planet?

[JadedDM]

I thought the Tarrasque was always the most powerful monster in D&D lore.

[JaronK]

Heh, that dragon still goes down to a Maximized Shivering Touch delivered with a Spectral Hand.

Anyway, any monster can be made better by just adding templates. Not many people want to fight a Half Celestial, Half Gold Dragon, Half Silver Dragon, Half Copper Dragon, Half Bronze Dragon, Half Amethyst Dragon, Half White Dragon, Half Red Dragon, Half Black Dragon, Half Blue Dragon, Half Green Dragon, Half Black Dragon Terrasque, for example. And yes, that critter is silly, but by Raw it's also legal (and really smart!).

JaronK

[Extra_Crispy]

This may seem counter to the CR 66 dragon but one of the most powerful monsters I saw was from the Warcraft RPG, a CR 1 spider. Easy to kill, like 10 HP, and AC of like 14, and it did little damage on its only attack, a bite attack, like d4+1 or something. The two dirty thing were 1) they traveled in packs, 5 was common. And the dirtiest -- their bite did a perminate energy drain, (and they were not undead) not of 1 level or 1 stat point NO, 1d4 levels per bite with a save of around 14 (I think)

In other words a challange rating 1 critter could bite a 4th level fighter and kill him outright, and they traveled in packs! When I ran the game for a few sessions to see how it played I dumbed down the monster ALOT, as in the PC's lost 1 level with a lower save and another save after 24 hours to get the level back. Just think a 4 person party of 4th level characters would face like 16 of these things to make it a CR 4 encounter, on average a level 4 party may have a AC of 16-18 which means that this spider, which I think had a +2 to hit would hit about 40% of the time with 16 attacks that 1 hit has a good chance kill a party member out right, and on average 2-3 hits would kill a person.

The CR 66 dragon is very nasty but that means it faces a party of 4, 66th level characters. At that level the characters are basically gods and have ways of dealing with the dragon. but at 1st level facing that spider let alone a pack of them.....

[Ninja Chocobo]

Heh, that dragon still goes down to a Maximized Shivering Touch delivered with a Spectral Hand.

Anyway, any monster can be made better by just adding templates. Not many people want to fight a Half Celestial, Half Gold Dragon, Half Silver Dragon, Half Copper Dragon, Half Bronze Dragon, Half Amethyst Dragon, Half White Dragon, Half Red Dragon, Half Black Dragon, Half Blue Dragon, Half Green Dragon, Half Black Dragon Terrasque, for example. And yes, that critter is silly, but by Raw it's also legal (and really smart!).

JaronK

More templates!
Celestial Fiendish Half-Celestial Half-Fiend Half-Giant Half-Troll Half-Illithid Ti-Khana Chimeric Tauric Voidmind Titanic Lich Vampiric Were-Everything [What JaronK said] of Legend.

[Maryring]

The most powerful monster in DnD? The DM of course.

[Jack Mann]

I thought the Tarrasque was always the most powerful monster in D&D lore.

Not even in Core. A great Wyrm Gold, I believe, is the highest CR in the MM (27). The Tarrasque is either very easy, or very difficult to defeat, depending on your level of preparation, and expertise. It's not even that hard for its level. A cleric commanding a few allips can take it out in a couple of rounds, especially if he has them attack from under ground (making sure it can't make more than one attack on them each round).

[Penguinizer]

More templates!
Celestial Fiendish Half-Celestial Half-Fiend Half-Giant Half-Troll Half-Illithid Ti-Khana Chimeric Tauric Voidmind Titanic Lich Vampiric Were-Everything [What JaronK said] of Legend.

Dont forget pseudonatural and paragon.

[Attilargh]

So... A Pseudonatural Celestial Fiendish Half-Fiend Half-Giant Half-Troll Half-Illithid Ti-Khana Chimeric Tauric Voidmind Titanic Lich Vampiric Half-Celestial, Half Gold Dragon, Half Silver Dragon, Half Copper Dragon, Half Bronze Dragon, Half Amethyst Dragon, Half White Dragon, Half Red Dragon, Half Black Dragon, Half Blue Dragon, Half Green Dragon, Half Brass Dragon Were-Tarrasque Paragon of Legend?

That's about... 850% of creature.

Who wants to do the math for abilities and whatnot?

[Saph]

I've never really liked templates. Class levels are much more fun. And the Draconomicon has a bunch of PrC's for dragons . . .

A Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon Ascendant would probably do the job. I can't remember if they've got any weaknesses whatsoever by the time they finish the Dragon Ascendant PrC, but I doubt it.

Although seriously, why bother? It's a lot faster and has the same result just to say "You die, roll up new characters."

- Saph

[Kiero]

The GMPC. Any monster in which the GM is so heavily invested that the powers of fiat bend time and space around it.

[Belkarseviltwin]

Didnt someone on Wikipedia make a 1,000,000+ CR turtle that was the size of a planet?

Great A'Tuin. CR 84,431,558, actually...

[OOTS_Rules.]

Anything that can go Pun-Pun. Nothing can beat a Pun-Pun. Except for Orlies and Macro Cats.

[Catch]

Anything that can go Pun-Pun. Nothing can beat a Pun-Pun. Except for Orlies and Macro Cats.

Godwin's law. Thread over.

[Emperor Demonking]

What level is pun-pun, I've forgot.
But yes the loads of half templates is how to make it powerful but would it be better to have a base creature of great wrym prismatic dragon than a tarrasque.

[The Glyphstone]

I think they got it down to 3rd....

[OOTS_Rules.]

Add all of that to a Pun-Pun A'Tuin and you win the thread.

[The Orange Zergling]

Great A'Tuin. CR 84,431,558, actually...

Ah, thank you for the link and correction.

[Neo]

Terrasques are immune to ability damage and drain, which I thought would have been noticed in the old thread about it.

[Bears With Lasers]

Terrasques are immune to ability damage and drain, which I thought would have been noticed in the old thread about it.

It's immune to ability damage and energy drain. It's not immune to ability drain.

[Bears With Lasers]

Great A'Tuin. CR 84,431,558, actually...

And you can disable it with one second-level spell!