5e Monsters With The Highest Challenge Rating In DND

Summary

• Stick to using monsters with a similar challenge rating to players’ levels for balanced encounters.
• The 2025 Monster Manual offers powerful monsters like Liches, Dragons, and Solars, buffed from previous versions.
• Monsters like Tarrasque, Aspect of Tiamat, and Bahamut offer challenging encounters with high CR ratings in D&D.

A creature’s challenge rating is the Dungeon Master’s indication of how difficult a particular monster or another enemy will be for their party. The official Dungeons & Dragons rules suggest that, unless the DM is really looking to throw a challenge out there, they should stick to using monsters who have a challenge rating that’s approximately the same as their players’ levels – though the system isn’t as accurate as it should.

Officially, we have monsters that go all the way to CR 30, meaning you have quite a few heavy hitters to throw at your players and challenge them. These monsters from the official Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks are among the toughest to beat in the franchise.

Updated on February 7, 2025, by Lucas Olah: New year, new book. The 2025 Monster Manual offers both new monsters and some updated versions of old ones, balancing them quite a bit. Because high levels of play have always been notoriously easy, the new book has buffed many of the high CR creatures, meaning you have some powerful monsters that you can throw at your player characters. If they all die, send them our regards (and apologies).

21

Astral Dreadnought

Screw Your Magic

This horrible creature extends to a significant length since its lower half is actually akin to a snake’s, with scales made of tough armored plates. Its upper body features one huge eye, capable of nullifying magic wherever it’s pointed, and arms with pincers instead of hands.

The Astral Dreadnought is named for its homeland, the Astral Plane, which is a plan of existence akin to purgatory — people from the Prime Material Plane reach it through spells, magical devices, or psionic abilities.

20

Lich

Study Until You’re Dead

Liches are a powerful kind of undead magic-user (usually a wizard, but they might also be a cleric or a sorcerer under the right circumstances). They’re nearly always on the evil end of the alignment chart, but exceptions do exist.

They were once people but embraced undeath so that they could live forever and continue to attain knowledge, a pursuit that turned into an obsession and corrupted their minds. Liches received quite a few buffs with the 2025 version, so they’re quite terrifying.

19

Ancient Black And Copper Dragons

It Is Dungeons And Dragons, After All

Dragons are a key part of D&D, as the name obviously implies, and all the ancient dragons are great picks for boss battles, especially since they’re all high-level. The black dragon is one of the many chromatic dragons, often the evil dragons in D&D, and it has a powerful acid breath.

The copper dragons also have an acid breath, but they’re also metallic dragons, which are usually the good ones. In fact, they’re all known for having cozy lairs, taking care of their friends, and helping those in need.

18

Arch-Hag

Your Custom Baba Yaga

For those who like hags, you can have one as the main antagonist of your story, thanks to the Arch-Hag. They’re very powerful, you can be very creative with their lairs, and they have great roleplay opportunities to help with players – for a price that may not be really worth it.

Killing them is also challenging because they’ll curse those who kill them and return from the dead after a while. To kill them for good is a fun adventure on its own, as they are great recurring villains due to being hard to eliminate.

17

Solar

True Divine Smite

Solars are good creatures – they are angels – so unless you’re willing to tweak some details, you may need to find a good reason as to why your players and a Solar are fighting. Regardless, they’re fun monsters to use in combat.

Its bow alone can kill someone who has 100 hit points or less right away, and it can also blind creatures with its attacks. It even has some beneficial spells, such as Resurrection, making it a good ally, too.

16

Zaratan

The Walking Mountain

You can’t help but imagine the Pokemon Torterra when looking at the Zaratan. This beast is said to measure hundreds of feet in diameter and live for millennia. However, unlike the land-based Torterra, the Zaratan lives in the sea.

Unless it’s sufficiently provoked, the Zaratan is passive and does not attack people (even if it notices them); it actually crawls up into its shell, just like you would expect from your average land turtle.

15

Ancient Green And Bronze Dragons

Dungeons & More Dragons

There are a lot of dragons in this game, and we’re far from addressing all of them. The green dragon is the chromatic one associated with Tiamat, which makes it the evil one of the duo here, and its breath weapon (the main one) is poisonous.

The bronze dragon, its counterpart, is a metallic dragon, meaning it’s one of Bahamut’s dragons and thus good-aligned. They both have a challenge rating of 22. Even though they fall on opposite ends of alignment, both these dragons are aggressive when threatened or challenged.

14

Elemental Cataclysm

Wait – This Isn’t Tiamat

A fight that affects the whole environment is an epic one. With the Elemental Cataclysm, your attacks can affect the weather itself, and you have multiple elements at your disposal, giving you a good variety of damage types.

It also helps that the monster has almost all types of movement – climbing is missing, but you can fly, so who cares? No matter where your players go, you can follow them with relative ease.

13

Ancient Silver And Blue Dragons

A Few More Dragons, Just In Case

The Blue chromatic dragon and its metallic counterpart, the silver dragon, are slightly higher on the challenge rating scale, at 23. While blue dragons are infamous for the hallucinations they could induce on their enemies, silver dragons actually preferred to live among humans or elves.

They would take a humanoid form and often live in the pursuit of knowledge. When in their dragon form, silver dragons preferred to live in snowy mountains. Meanwhile, blue dragons often inhabited arid deserts.

12

Empyrean

Now With Two Types

The average D&D player won’t ever have occasion to fight — or even meet — an Empyrean. These creatures are the children of gods from the Upper Planes, who are described as the manifestation of beauty.

Empyreans are generally on the good side of the alignment chart. However, they can be corrupted. Occasionally, they might be exposed to the Lower Planes, or be cursed by an evil god; it’s at this point that they are forced to enter the Prime Material Plane, no longer at home among the other gods on the Upper Planes.

11

Kraken

Release It!!

The Kraken is a common fantasy monster, depicted or mentioned by Pirates of the Caribbean, Moby-Dick, and Clash of the Titans (among many others). They have a huge number of tentacles that crush ships and swallow their crew, and the Kraken can also use lightning attacks.

In D&D, they’re known as a reality of life on the ocean. It’s even noted that a Kraken could destroy entire island societies and force the surviving humans to be its slaves, feeding, cleaning, and otherwise tending to the beast.

10

Blob Of Annihilation

Consume Everything

If you like playing with oozes, then we have a big one. This blob is a mix of negative energies with the remains of dead deities, making it gigantic and capable of absorbing pretty much everything.

With it, you can attack and engulf people inside of it, causing damage while they suffocate, and reaching zero hit points inside the Blob is an instant death. It also has a lot of immunities, making it a complicated challenge for the players – as it should be.

9

Ancient Red And Gold Dragons

You Thought We Were Done With Dragons?

The Red and Gold dragons are the most powerful of the metallic and chromatic dragon types. Red dragons bring to mind depictions of Smaug, from Tolkien’s The Hobbit. They are fire-breathing monsters who hoard treasure with a fury unlike anything seen among mortal men.

Gold dragons may also remind players of Smaug, but only during the scene in the films where he emerges from Thorin’s smoldering lake of liquid gold. These dragons are often described as majestic and are usually lawful good. They also breathe fire but prefer to stay reclusive in stone caverns, deep beneath the earth or in the mountains.

8

Marut

The Inevitable

To change things a bit, how about throwing a construct at your players for a change? The Marut, unlike most other constructs, are actually intelligent — they were a type of ‘inevitables’ created by a greater deity named Mystra, who was trying to fulfill her role of guarding all magic.

Their alignment is truly neutral, so a Marut will only fight in self-defense, to resolve a conflict, or if someone is trying to stop them from fulfilling their duties.

7

Colossus

Blessed By The Gods

Another fun construct is the Colossus, crafted by devout followers and brought to life by a god, should they choose to bless their followers’ creation. They’re mostly found lost through the world, slumbering, but they are fun options nonetheless.

They have powerful attacks, immunity to many conditions, and surprisingly good mobility. As an extra tip, you can always let the players control one of these to fight a Tarrasque for some Pacific Rim action.

6

Archduke Zariel Of Avernus

The Fallen Angel

Archduke Zariel is the ruler of Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells. Once upon a time, she was an angel from the Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia. She believed that it was the responsibility of angels to destroy all Fiends and, as a result, protect the multiverse from the devastation caused by their wars.

Against her orders, Zariel led troops into Avernus. She was swiftly defeated and only survived because Asmodeus (the overlord of the Nine Hells) sent creatures to recover her body after the battle. As a result, she gave in to her corruption and Hell’s influence, becoming an archdevil and Asmodeus’ champion.

5

Rak Tulkhesh

The Rage Of War

Long ago, the planet of Eberron was ruled by a race called the Overlords. They’re created by Khyber, one of the three progenitor dragons that created the planar system.

However, the dragons and the couatls – which were races created by the other two progenitor dragons – rose up to exterminate the Overlords from Eberron. Only a few Overlords are still alive, trapped across Eberron, and Rak Tulkhesh is one of them.

4

Tarrasque

D&D’s Kaiju

The Tarrasque’s name strikes fear in the heart of almost anyone on the Prime Material Plane. For a long time, it had the highest challenge rating of any monster in Dungeons and Dragons, and even though more CR 30 monsters exist now, any party will still need to perfect their fighting skills in order to take it down.

The Tarrasque is even stronger than it used to be, fixing a common weakness it used to have, which was dealing with enemies it couldn’t reach. Thus, even ranged characters will have to think twice before picking a fight with this monstrosity.

3

Aspect of Tiamat

Mother Of Chromatic Dragons

There are two dragon deities who are siblings – Tiamat and Bahamut – that are locked in an eternal rivalry. This foe is an aspect of the Evil deity, Tiamat. An aspect of Tiamat or Bahamut is essentially one of their followers who has died and been brought back to life, now bound to their master forever.

Aspects differ from avatars because they are independent beings, whereas avatars are the god themself (or at least, controlled by the god themself) in another form.

2

Aspect Of Bahamut

Father Of Metallic Dragons

Bahamut is the Good deity counterpart to Tiamat. While there’s no official statblock for Bahamut himself, there is one for his aspect.

Bahamut sends aspects as emissaries, uses them as guardians, or for other critical tasks too important to be left to a mortal. Since Bahamut is the Good deity, you may worry about finding a reason to have your players fight this aspect. There’s no reason to worry, though, because Bahamut is known for testing the strength of his followers and others whom he interacted with.