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Bat 5e: Stats, the Bat Familiar and Blindsight
A bat is a CR 0 Tiny beast with AC 12, 1 hit point, a 30-foot fly speed and a 1-damage bite. What sets it apart is blindsight out to 60 feet, twice the crab's and the longest of any familiar on the 2014 list: it perceives its surroundings without sight, so darkness, magical darkness and the Invisible condition don't hide anything from it inside that range. A caster who looks through a bat familiar's senses borrows that blindsight. The 2024 bat (SRD 5.2.1) keeps the blindsight, drops the 2014 Echolocation and Keen Hearing traits, and raises its bite from +0 to +4.
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Bat Stat Block (2014)
The SRD 5.1 bat.
Bat
Tiny beast, unaligned
Armor Class 12
Hit Points 1 (1d4-1)
Speed 5 ft., fly 30 ft.
STR
2 (−4)
DEX
15 (+2)
CON
8 (−1)
INT
2 (−4)
WIS
12 (+1)
CHA
4 (−3)
Senses blindsight 60 ft., passive Perception 11
Languages —
Challenge 0 (XP 10; PB +2)
Traits
Echolocation.The bat can't use its blindsight while deafened.
Keen Hearing.The bat has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing.
Actions
Bite.Melee Weapon Attack: +0 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 1 piercing damage.
Stat block from the SRD 5.1 (2014 rules) by Wizards of the Coast, licensed under CC-BY-4.0. Check an encounter with this monster in the encounter calculator.
Echolocation is a weakness: the bat can't use its blindsight while Deafened. Keen Hearing is a strength: Advantage on Perception checks that rely on hearing, which adds 5 to its passive score, so its passive Perception is 16 for anything it can hear. A 2014 bat is a superb listener with one off switch.
Stat block from the SRD 5.2.1 (2024 rules) by Wizards of the Coast, licensed under CC-BY-4.0. Check an encounter with this monster in the encounter calculator.
2014 Bat
2024 Bat
CR (XP)
0 (10)
0 (10)
AC / HP
12 / 1
12 / 1
Speed
5 ft., fly 30 ft.
5 ft., fly 30 ft.
Senses
Blindsight 60 ft., passive Perception 11
Blindsight 60 ft., passive Perception 11
Traits
Echolocation, Keen Hearing
None
Bite
+0, 1 piercing
+4, 1 piercing
The 2024 bat loses the hearing bonus (no more passive 16 for sounds) and loses the Deafened weakness along with it. As written, a Deafened 2024 bat still has full blindsight. The 2024 rules also spell out what blindsight does: within range you see anything not behind Total Cover, even while Blinded or in Darkness, and you can see creatures with the Invisible condition.
The Bat Familiar: Blindsight on Loan
Find Familiar names the bat in both SRDs. The feature that matters: both versions of the spell let you perceive through the familiar's senses and gain "the benefits of any special senses" it has. With a bat, that special sense is 60-foot blindsight centered on the bat. What you can do with it:
•Find invisible creatures. In 2024 rules, blindsight sees through the Invisible condition by name. In 2014, the Invisible condition makes a creature impossible to see without magic or a special sense, and blindsight is a special sense. Fly the bat into the room, look through it, and you know which square the invisible assassin is standing in.
•Map magical darkness. A Darkness spell defeats darkvision, including the darkvision of an owl or cat familiar. It doesn't defeat blindsight. A bat parked inside the sphere tells you exactly what's in there.
•Check behind smoke and fog. Heavily Obscured areas block sight. Blindsight ignores them inside its range.
The cost. In 2014, looking through the familiar takes your action, and until the start of your next turn you're blind and deaf to your own senses. You spend your turn spotting and shout the location for someone else to act on. In 2024, it's a Bonus Action with no stated loss of your own senses, so you can spot and still cast your spell.
What the bat can't do. It's slow: a 30-foot fly speed is half an owl's or a hawk's, and its walking speed is 5 feet. It has no Flyby, so it provokes opportunity attacks when it leaves an enemy's reach, which makes it a poor Help familiar in melee. And in 2014, anything that Deafens it, such as being inside a Silence spell, turns its blindsight off. Pick a bat for the dungeon with invisible stalkers and darkness traps, and an owl for everything else.
Bat Wild Shape, Animal Messenger and Vampires
Wild Shape. The bat has a fly speed, so in both editions a druid can't take its form until level 8. By then the giant bat (CR 1/4, blindsight 60 feet in 2014 and 120 feet in 2024, 22 hit points, fly 60 feet) does the same job better. Pick the plain bat only when being Tiny matters: a chimney, an arrow slit, a crack in a door.
In 2014 you take the bat's 1 hit point, so one hit ends the form. In 2024 you keep your own hit points plus 8 temporary ones at level 8, and you can still speak, so a bat-form druid can hunt an invisible enemy and call out where it is.
Animal Messenger. The 2014 spell text uses a bat as one of its examples of a Tiny beast messenger, and the 2024 version accepts any Tiny Beast that fails a Charisma save (a CR 0 bat is eligible). As a flier it covers about 50 miles per 24 hours. Bats suit messages that must travel at night. See Animal Messenger.
Vampires. Both SRD vampires can turn into a Tiny bat with a bat's speeds (5 feet, fly 30 feet) while keeping their other statistics. A "bat" that shrugs off a crossbow bolt is not a bat. In 2014 the vampire can also call 2d4swarms of bats or rats with Children of the Night.
How Bats Fight
They mostly don't. A 2014 bat bites at +0 for 1 damage, hitting AC 15 only on a 15 or better, 30% of the time. The 2024 bat's +4 hits AC 15 on an 11 or better, 50%, still for 1 damage.
What bats do well is notice things. A colony hanging in a cave mouth reacts to everything that moves inside 60 feet, invisible or not. Use bats as the alarm system of a lair:
•A cloud of bats bursting out of a cave tells the party something inside woke up.
•Bats circling one empty-looking spot tell a sharp-eyed party an invisible creature is standing there.
•Bats going silent and still in a vampire's crypt is a cue that their master is near.
A swarm of bats is the real encounter. It has blindsight like the single bat, bites for 2d4 (dropping to 1d4 once it's down to half its hit points), and is a single creature on the initiative tracker. Two swarms against four level 1 characters are 100 XP: half the 2024 Low budget (200 XP) for that party. Under the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide guidelines, the two swarms are 100 XP × 1.5 = 150, an Easy fight for four level 1 characters. Check your own mix in the encounter calculator.
How Players Beat Bats
•Any damage kills one. 1 hit point, AC 12.
•Silence (2014 only). A 2014 bat inside a Silence sphere is Deafened and loses its blindsight. This is how a party sneaks past a 2014 bat colony, or blinds an enemy's bat familiar.
•Total Cover. Blindsight can't see through walls. Doors and corners still hide the party.
•Distance, not darkness. Bats don't rely on light, so dousing torches changes nothing. Plan around their 60-foot range instead: stay farther than 60 feet away, or put something solid between the party and the colony.
•Area spells. Any area damage kills single bats outright and is the efficient answer to a swarm too.
Bat Encounter Ideas
The bell tower. A few hundred bats roost in a church bell tower, and they scatter whenever anyone climbs the stairs, invisible or not. The party, chasing an invisible burglar who hides in the tower, can find him by watching where the bats swirl.
The wizard's spy. A rival wizard's bat familiar has been hanging under the eaves of the party's inn for three nights. Nobody noticed because it's a bat. It's watching for the party's invisible scout, and it found her on the first night.
Bats out of the mine. At dusk a mining town watches its bat colony fly out as usual. Tonight it doesn't return. Something in the deep shafts woke up, and the bats have moved into the town's barns, where they're keeping the livestock awake and the town on edge.
Frequently Asked Questions
What CR is a bat in 5e?
A bat is CR 0 and worth 10 XP in both the 2014 and 2024 rules.
Can a bat familiar see invisible creatures?
Through its blindsight, yes, within 60 feet. The 2024 rules say blindsight sees creatures with the Invisible condition. In 2014, blindsight is a special sense, which the Invisible condition doesn't block. A caster looking through the bat's senses gains its blindsight.
What does Echolocation do on a bat?
On the 2014 bat, Echolocation means the bat can't use its blindsight while it's Deafened. The 2024 bat doesn't have this trait.
When can a druid Wild Shape into a bat?
At druid level 8 in both editions, because the bat has a fly speed. Before level 8, druids can't take flying forms.
What's the difference between a bat and a swarm of bats?
A bat is a single Tiny CR 0 creature with 1 hit point and a 1-damage bite. A swarm of bats is CR 1/4, has more hit points, bites for 2d4 and acts as one creature, which makes it the bat stat block to use when you want bats to threaten a party.
Stat blocks: System Reference Document 5.1 (2014) and 5.2.1 (2024), Wizards of the Coast, CC-BY-4.0. Tactics, encounter math and ideas are Loreify's own.
This page includes material from the System Reference Document 5.1 and 5.2.1 by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Loreify is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast.