Wyvern 5e: Stats, Stinger Damage and Flying Tactics

A wyvern is a CR 6 Large dragon with AC 13, 110 hit points, an 80-foot fly speed and a tail stinger that does most of its damage. Each turn it bites and stings, both at +7 with 10-foot reach in the 2014 rules. The stinger deals 11 piercing damage plus 24 (7d6) poison, with a DC 15 Constitution save for half the poison. The 2024 wyvern (SRD 5.2.1) removes that save: a Sting that hits deals 35 damage on average and leaves the target Poisoned. It has no breath weapon, no spells and Intelligence 5, so it plays like a flying predator, not a dragon.

Table of Contents

• •Wyvern Stat Block (2014)
• •Wyvern in the 2024 Rules
• •How Wyverns Fight
• •How Much Damage Does the Wyvern Stinger Do?
• •Running a Wyvern Encounter
• •How Players Beat Wyverns
• •Wyvern Encounter Ideas
• •Frequently Asked Questions

Wyvern Stat Block (2014)

The SRD 5.1 wyvern, identical to the 2014 Monster Manual.

Three lines carry this stat block:

• •Multiattack is one Bite and one Stinger. While flying, it can swap either one for Claws (+7, reach 5 feet, 13 slashing). Claws hit harder than the Bite, but only at 5 feet.
• •Reach 10 feet on both the Bite and the Stinger. A wyvern can attack from a square away and never stand next to anyone.
• •AC 13 and no resistances. For a CR 6 creature it is easy to hit and takes full damage from everything. Its 110 hit points are its only defense.

Wyvern in the 2024 Rules

The 2024 wyvern is sturdier and nastier.

What changes at the table:

• •No save on the poison. If the Sting hits, the target takes all 35 points on average. Proficiency in Constitution saves and lucky d20s no longer help. Armor is now the only defense against the poison.
• •Critical hits get scary. Because the 7d6 is part of the hit, a critical Sting doubles all nine dice: 18d6 + 4, an average of 67 damage. In 2014 a crit only doubles the 2d6 piercing; the poison still comes from a save.
• •Poisoned for a round. A stung creature has Disadvantage on its attack rolls and ability checks until the start of the wyvern's next turn, which covers the target's own turn. The fighter it just stung swings back at Disadvantage.
• •Shorter Bite. The 2024 Bite only reaches 5 feet. A 2024 wyvern that wants to use both attacks has to come close; one that stays 10 feet away can only Sting.

How Wyverns Fight

A wyvern is an animal with a very good weapon. It doesn't plan, but it does hunt, and its stat block rewards a few habits.

Stay in the air. On the ground it moves 20 feet (30 in 2024) and loses its Claws option. In the air it moves 80 feet a turn, more than double almost any character's speed. Start the fight with the wyvern diving out of the sky, not standing in a clearing.

Attack from 10 feet up (2014). Both 2014 attacks have 10-foot reach. A wyvern hovering at a height of 10 feet above a character can Bite and Sting them while a sword-and-board fighter on the ground can't reach it at all. Because it never enters that fighter's 5-foot reach, flying away never provokes an opportunity attack from them. Only reach weapons, ranged attacks and spells answer it.

Choose distance each turn (2024). The 2024 Sting still reaches 10 feet, the Bite doesn't. At 10 feet the wyvern deals about 19 damage a round and the melee characters can't touch it. At 5 feet it adds about 7 more from the Bite and lets everyone in melee hit back. A smart-animal wyvern hovers and stings the toughest-looking target, then closes in when its prey looks weak.

Pick on the isolated. It has Perception +4 and darkvision (120 feet in 2024). It sees the scout who wandered ahead and the wizard standing alone on the hilltop. An 80-foot fly speed lets it reach almost anyone on the battlefield every turn.

Grab and drop, if you want a house rule. The wyvern has no grapple rule in its stat block. Wyverns snatching prey and dropping it from 60 feet is a popular image, but it is not an SRD ability. If you add it, treat it as a homebrew and warn your players: falling deals 1d6 bludgeoning per 10 feet, so a 60-foot drop is 6d6 (21) on top of the Sting.

Retreat when hurt. No intelligence to speak of, no loyalty. Below about 40 hit points, have it fly off to its lair. A wounded wyvern returning the next night, with the party's tracks to follow, makes a good second session.

How Much Damage Does the Wyvern Stinger Do?

The target is a typical level 6 front-liner: AC 17 and a Constitution save of +3 (Constitution 16, no proficiency). The wyvern's +7 hits AC 17 on a 10 or higher, 55% of the time.

Where those numbers come from: the 2014 save needs a 12 on the d20 with +3 against DC 15, so it fails 55% of the time. The expected poison on a hit is 0.55 × 24 + 0.45 × 12 = 18.6. A character proficient in Constitution saves (+6 at level 6) only trims the 2014 stinger from about 16 to 15 a round, because the 11 piercing and the half damage on a success still land. In 2024 that proficiency doesn't help at all.

The swing matters more than the average. A single 2024 Sting averages 35 and can roll up to 58. A level 5 wizard with Constitution 14 has about 32 hit points. One hit can drop them from full.

You can check any of these with our damage calculator, or roll a 2024 Sting directly with the dice roller.

Running a Wyvern Encounter

A wyvern is worth 2,300 XP. Under the 2024 SRD XP budgets for four characters:

The 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide guidelines, which our encounter calculator uses, rate one wyvern against four level 5 characters as Medium (2,300 XP against a 2,000 Medium threshold). A pair of wyverns counts as 6,900 XP after the ×1.5 multiplier, Deadly at level 5 and level 7 and Hard at level 9.

Fitting it to your table:

• •Level 5-6: one wyvern is the right "first big monster" fight. Expect one character to go down if they fight in the open.
• •Level 7-8: one wyvern plus something on the ground, like a manticore or a few orcs that ride or tame it (an original idea; the SRD doesn't describe wyvern riders).
• •Level 9+: a mated pair, or a wyvern circling a fight against something else. Even when it isn't a threat alone, a 35-damage Sting on the party's healer changes the fight.

Don't use one below level 4. The 2024 SRD budget for four level 4 characters tops out at 2,000 XP (High), and a single average Sting drops most level 3 characters from full hit points.

How Players Beat Wyverns

With AC 13 or 14 and no resistances or immunities of any kind, the challenge is keeping it where you can hit it.

• •Ranged attacks. It has no ranged attack of its own. Archers, Eldritch Blast and Guiding Bolt hit AC 13 often (a +7 attack hits 75% of the time).
• •Ground it. A flying creature that becomes Prone or has its fly speed reduced to 0 falls. The wyvern can't hover. In the 2024 rules, Command ("Grovel") knocks it Prone on a failed Wisdom save, and the wyvern's Wisdom save is only +1. A wyvern Commanded from 40 feet up falls, takes 4d6, and has to spend half its movement to stand up. The 2014 Command has no effect on a creature that doesn't understand your language, and a wyvern understands none.
• •Banishment. Its Charisma save is −2. Against a DC 15 Banishment it fails 80% of the time and spends up to a minute incapacitated in a demiplane. That's often long enough to deal with whatever else is on the field.
• •Protection from Poison. This 2nd-level spell gives resistance to Poison damage for an hour, which halves the stinger's 24 poison. Cast it on the front-liner before a known wyvern fight.
• •Area spells. Fireball and Lightning Bolt deal full damage, and Lightning Bolt's 100-foot line can catch it mid-dive.
• •Fight under cover. Forest canopy, a cave mouth or a ruined building makes its 80-foot fly speed worthless. A wyvern in a narrow ravine is just a big target.
• •Don't count on Hold Person. It's a Dragon, not a Humanoid.

Harvesting the poison. In the 2024 SRD, a character can harvest poison from a dead or incapacitated venomous creature: 1d6 minutes, then a DC 20 Intelligence (Nature) check with a Poisoner's Kit. Success yields one dose. Failing by 5 or more exposes the harvester to the poison. Wyvern Poison sells for 1,200 GP per dose and forces a DC 14 Constitution save for 24 (7d6) poison damage, half on a success. The 2014 SRD lists the same poison (DC 15, 1,200 gp) and says it must come from a dead or incapacitated wyvern, but leaves the harvesting procedure to the DM.

Wyvern Encounter Ideas

The shepherds' high pasture. A village pays to stop a wyvern taking sheep from a meadow above a cliff. It dives in at dawn, takes a sheep, and flies off to a ledge 200 feet up the cliff face. The party can wait in ambush in a stand of pines at the meadow's edge (cover against a diving attacker), or climb to the ledge, where a fight happens on a 15-foot-wide shelf with a long drop on one side.

The poison contract. An apothecary offers 600 gp for an intact dose of wyvern poison, half the market price, and will lend a Poisoner's Kit. The wyvern is nesting in an abandoned watchtower. The twist is the DC 20 harvesting check: the party may need several attempts across two wyverns (the second is out hunting and returns mid-fight), and a badly failed attempt poisons the harvester.

The courier route. A mountain fortress uses a tamed wyvern to carry messages across a pass, ridden by a veteran in an exotic saddle. The party has to stop one message. They can shoot the rider, ground the wyvern, or arrange a landing at a waystation. If they kill the wyvern, the fortress knows something went wrong within a day.

Frequently Asked Questions

What CR is a wyvern in 5e?

A wyvern is CR 6 and worth 2,300 XP in both editions. The 2014 wyvern has AC 13 and 110 hit points; the 2024 wyvern has AC 14 and 127 hit points.

How much damage does a wyvern stinger do?

In 2014, the Stinger deals 11 (2d6 + 4) piercing damage on a hit, then 24 (7d6) poison damage on a failed DC 15 Constitution save or 12 on a success. In 2024, a Sting hit deals 11 piercing plus 24 poison with no save (35 on average) and leaves the target Poisoned until the start of the wyvern's next turn.

Is a wyvern a dragon in 5e?

Yes, wyverns are Large creatures of the Dragon type in both the 2014 and 2024 rules. They have no breath weapon, no spellcasting and Intelligence 5, and the SRD 5.1 describes them as distantly related to true dragons.

Can a wyvern be used as a mount?

Its stat block doesn't forbid it: it's Large and, under the mounted combat rules, a willing creature one size larger than its rider can be a mount. A wyvern only works as a controlled mount if it has been trained to accept a rider, and riding a flying mount requires an exotic saddle. Taming one is a DM decision; the SRD has no rules for it.

Is a wyvern harder than an owlbear?

Much harder. An owlbear is CR 3, deals about 24 to 28 damage if both of its attacks hit, and can't fly. A wyvern is CR 6, deals 22 to 26 a round, flies at 80 feet and has a stinger that can drop a caster in one hit. Running a wyvern fight next session? Loreify records it and keeps track of who got stung.

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.