Summary
Of all the adventuring environments a party might explore inDungeons & Dragons, forests very well might be the most common. This is especially true at low levels when an adventuring group is seeing to the safety of a small town, village, or hamlet.
While forests might be an overused adventuring environment, there’s a reason for their popularity in fantasy roleplaying games. A dense canopy of trees might hide anything beneath its leaves, and even adventurers capable of flying could easily miss something important. For example, a deadly monster ambush lying in wait.
10Wolves
Their Bite Is Bigger Than Their Bark
Thanks to their high perception and stealth modifiers, wolves are surprisingly deadly enemies for a low-level party. Monsters with these proficiencies always work best in ambush encounters, as it’s easy for them to notice and sneak up on an unsuspecting adventuring party.
Wolves are ferocious in this regard as their pack tactics feature provides them with advantage on attacks against a creature as long as they have an ally adjacent to their target. Furthermore, the wolves' bite attack has a chance to knock their target prone. This makes escape unlikely for their prey while also providing some redundancy for gaining advantage on attacks.
9Bandits
For Traps And Roleplay
This may be a classic fantasy trope, but such tropes are the best clay to mold exciting new encounters. The bandit stat block is not very exciting on its own. However, bandits are crafty enough to use traps, clever enough to be reasoned with, and provide great opportunities for roleplay with a group of potential combatants.
Bandits are especially useful in forests as they can easily use landscapes, including trees, bushes, and boulders, to their advantage. Archers in the trees, net traps connected to hanging branches, and a boulder precariously positioned on a ledge above are just a few ideas for building a great bandit encounter.
8Bugbear
Bonk
Bugbears are essentially goblins on body builder routines. These creatures have very high stealth modifiers for their challenge rating (CR), making the chances they surprise an entire party quite high or nearly inevitable if you compare passive scores.
On top of dealing an extra damage die with every attack, the bugbear also deals an extra 2d6 damage on an attack against a creature that it has surprised. In other words, a bugbear has a good chance of instantly knocking one party member out if it manages to surprise even a single character.
7Druid
And Beastly Friends
This low-level spellcaster isn’t very frightening on its own. However, when used in tandem with a menagerie of woodland creatures it is overseeing, the druid becomes a formidable opponent thanks to its control spells. Both Entangle and Thunderwave are useful spells capable of locking a character down or placing them in a hairy situation through forced movement.
Once a character has been restrained or shunted into anenvironmental hazard, the druid’s woodland allies can begin battering them with tooth and claw. Meanwhile, the druid can maintain a safe distance and hurl flames at their opponent. Even if someone does manage to close on the druid, Shillelagh offers a reliable melee option.
6Grung Elite Warrior
Beware Of Physical Contact
These poison dart frog humanoids might not be so dangerous if they spoke more than their very own grung language. Alas, the inability to properly communicate with others often leads to misunderstandings that result in inevitable combat. Owing to their slew of poisons, grung are more than well-equipped for such an eventuality.
On top of sporting attacks that have a chance to deal extra poison damage, contact with a grung’s skin can poison an enemy. Couple this with the ability to leap through a forest canopy, and you’ve got an enemy that’s very difficult to pin down. Worst of all, the grung can produce a mesmerizing chirr that has a chance to stun all enemies within 15 feet of them until their next turn.
5Lizardfolk Shaman
The Steve Irwin Of D&D
Yet another monster with perception and stealth proficiency, the lizardfolk shaman must be dealt with quickly unless your party has a desire to become crocodile food. This spellcaster has access to the powerful spell conjure animals, which can be used to summon four crocodiles twice per day.
Crocodiles are the best choice for this spell, as any attack they land automatically grapples and restrains their target. It’s pretty difficult to reach the shaman in charge of these crocodiles when you have one attached to your leg. Additionally, plant growth can make enemies suffer double difficult terrain which pretty much means they won’t ever be reaching the shaman on foot.
4Flail Snail
The Shiny Hurts
This monster was originally introduced in Tomb of Annihilation and certainly lived up to the adventure’s reputation for killing characters. First of all, the snail’s shell isa highly prized itemas its antimagic properties can be used to make powerful magic items. This gives the party a good reason to hunt the creature if they ever encounter one.
Unfortunately for them, the flail snail won’t go down so easily. Immunity to fire and poison damage often catches players by surprise, and the shell’s antimagic properties make spells extremely ineffective against it. In fact, they might even power the shell to release a burst of energy that damages the party. The snail can also stun all nearby creatures and has five tentacle attacks per turn.
3Barghest
A Wolf In Goblin’s Clothing?
This wolf in sheep’s clothing will most often be found as part of an unsuspecting goblin tribe. Barghests are fiends that impersonate goblins and devour them in hopes of being promoted by the General of Gehenna to serve as mercenaries for other fiends.
A party who thinks they are dealing with a simple goblin tribe might encounter a nasty surprise when one or more of the goblins turns out to be a barghest as these creatures are much stronger than any goblin. If the barghest feeds on the corpse of a character, it devours its soul as well preventing them from ever being resurrected.
2Shambling Mound
When Plants Bite Back
This is an old-school favorite that is sure to provide a challenge to all but the most veteran adventurers. The mound has resistance to cold and fire damage as well as immunity to lightning. If it does take lightning damage, it regains hit points equal to the lightning damage dealt. This makes it especially fearsome alongside a creature that can cause area-of-effect lightning damage.
Even by itself, though, the mound can easily take on a low-level party. The mound’s ability to appear as nothing more than a pile of detritus allows it to easily surprise unsuspecting characters, whom it can then engulf inside of itself. A creature engulfed is blinded, restrained, and takes damage at the beginning of each of its turns. Escape quickly or be consumed by the mound.
1Corpse Flower
Ain’t No Party Like A Zombie Party
The corpse flower sometimes arises from the grave of a necromancer, carrying out the evil humanoid’s desire tospread undeath. It does so by picking up corpses and placing them inside of itself, where they mature into zombies. Any creature fool enough to come close to the flower of one of its zombie minions must succeed on a Constitution save or become poisoned.
On top of three powerful poisonous tentacle attacks, the corpse flower can use a bonus action each turn to either create a new zombie or heal itself for 2d10 by digesting a corpse. Consequently, any corpse flower the party encounters is likely to already have a retinue of zombie minions at its side, with their numbers swelling every turn the flower survives. Did we mention it can climb walls?
