Best Plants To Use From The 2025 MM In Combat In DND

Summary

• Shambling Mounds can absorb and blind combatants, are immune to lightning and are great for separating large parties in combat.
• Violet Fungus Necrohulks absorb and graft creatures and have a Spore Bomb ability, suitable for high-level parties.
• Myconid Sovereigns have unique abilities like Pacifying Spores and Animating Spores, which are ideal for horror campaigns.

Plants can make for some of the most fun combat encounters in Dungeons & Dragons. Not only do plants, fungi, and other foliage blend into the natural environment, creating opportunities for surprise attacks, but they also tend to have creative and interesting abilities for DMs to use throughout their stat block.

Luckily, the 2025 Monster Manual has a plethora of different options for plant creatures to use in your campaign, no matter your playstyle. If you’re looking to use a plant for your next session, look no further than this list, which has the best plants available for use in the 2025 Monster Manual.

10

Shambling Mound

The shambling mound is a classic D&D monster that’s stood the test of time and can be found in many different editions. They are large creatures that can ensnare and engulf combatants with their leafy tendrils. Plus, lightning does not affect this creature and can restore its health.

The signature ability of the shambling mound is Engulf, which allows it to absorb a medium or smaller creature and grapple them, enforcing the blindness and restrained conditions on them. This makes the shambling mound a great option for DMs contending with large parties that they need to separate.

9

Violet Fungus Necrohulk

This next creature is another large plant that prays off of decay and rot. Similarly to the shambling mound, the violet fungus necrohulk can absorb other creatures during combat. The fun flavor at play here involves the necrohulk grafting the player to the body, essentially making them part of them.

The necrohulk also has a Spore Bomb ability that works similarly to breath abilities for dragons, recharging on a five or six roll. This makes this creature great for high-level parties, as it has lots of strong abilities.

8

Myconid Sovereign

Though not one of the more powerful creatures in the 2025 Monster’s Manual, the myconid sovereign has some unique abilities that make it stand out. First, it can stun enemies with its Pacifying Spores ability, and the creature can mysteriously grant telepathy to allies or enemies alike, regardless of alignment or language.

The best feature this creature has is its Animating Spores ability, which allows the myconid to reanimate corpses. This is a great combat encounter for horror campaigns and striking fear into the hearts of your players.

7

Awakened Tree

This is another classic monster encounter to run for any D&D campaign. An awakened tree is just that, a tree that’s come to life to attack the party. The best element of this monster is that you can force surprise rounds on unsuspecting players.

If your party is walking through a dense forest and hasn’t had anything to fight in some time, consider using a set of awakened trees as a random encounter. This will force your players to never take anything for granted again.

6

Gas Spore Fungus

Fungi, generally speaking, make for fun, if not low-level, encounters for your players. A gas spore fungus can prove dastardly, though, if your players don’t pay attention to certain condition immunites such as poison, blindness, charmed, and more.

The gas spore fungus can also fly and has a potentially lethal ability for low-level parties in the form of Death Burst, which allows the creature to explode with spores when it dies. Targets take 3d6 poison damage on failed saves and are poisoned for 1d12 hours, dying at the end of that time unless the poison is cured.

5

Twig Blight

The first of many blights your party might encounter, the twig blight is a classic D&D monster that’s also found its way into many different editions of the game. On their own, these creatures are not very tough to take down. But, as a mob, they can prove formidable.

Consider using twig blights in mob-based battle encounters thanks to their Pack Tactics feature. These creatures are also fantastic minions for a larger boss or creature. They might not prove hard to defeat as solo acts, but they can be very distracting to a larger party when trying to take down a big bad.

4

Vine Blight

This blight is similar to twig blights but has a few extra features to it that can make it really stand out. The most important of these features is the vine blight’s ability to constrict opponents by using its Constricting Vine ability. Without the need for a save, when this attack hits a large or smaller creature, it is immediately grappled. It can escape later on with a DC 12 roll.

Plus, vine blights have the ability to cast the entangle spell (recharging each turn on a five or six roll on a d6). This means that you can really stifle your party’s action economy if you’re using the vine blight’s abilities correctly as a DM.

3

Shrieker Fungus

Like many plants in the 2025 Monster Manual, shrieker fungi are not very tough and have a challenge rating of zero. In fact, these creatures don’t really attack at all and can’t really be used for larger combat encounters. However, there is a creative use of this creature available to DMs.

As a reaction, the shrieker fungus can let out a loud screech within 300 feet of itself for one minute when exposed to bright light or if a creature moves within 30 feet of it. This makes shrieker fungi ideal sentries for stealth encounters and can be used to turn the tables against your party in the blink of an eye.

2

Gulthias Blight

The gulthias blight is one of the harder enemies you can throw at your party, at least in the plants section of the Monster Manual. Unlike most plants, this blight actually has resistance to fire and necrotic damage. Between a series of tough physical attacks, this blight can deal a lot of damage quickly.

The toughest feature the party will have to contend with against the gulthias is its Life-Draining Root ability. This ability can grapple targets and deal necrotic damage. The worst part is that the target’s hit point maximum decreases by an equal amount to the necrotic damage, and the blight will heal for that same amount.

1

Treant

Treants are ancient and powerful beings that can act as a siege weapon all its own, thanks to its Siege Monster feature. Treants make for good boss battles for mid-level parties. The treant has multiattack and a ranged attack in the form of its Hail of Bark.

But, the best feature the treant has is its Animate Trees ability, in which it can animate up to two trees per day within 60 feet of itself. These trees then take on the treant stat block. This means that, halfway through a battle with a treant, the treant can (in a way) unleash its true final form by employing additional backup.