Which officially published monsters have the highest/lowest total ability scores?

Question

In 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, every monster in the Monster Manual (as well as other source books) has a predefined Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma score in its stat block. For example:

• Commoners have 10 (+0) for every ability score, for a total of 60.
• An Awakened Shrub has a measly 48 (3 + 8 + 11 + 10 + 10 + 6).
• An Ancient Gold Dragon has an impressive 136 (30 + 14 + 29 + 18 + 17 + 28).
• A level 1 player character using the point buy system will typically max out at approximately 78 (perhaps slightly lower or higher depending on their racial bonuses).

I chose the shrub and dragon by sorting monsters by CR on Dnd Beyond, but CR doesn't perfectly correlate with ability scores. For example, the ability scores of the Tarrasque (CR 30) only add to 96, far lower than the Ancient Golden Dragon (CR 24).

So, if we consider only the sum of these six numbers, and ignore all other abilities or features a creature may have, which monster in DnD 5e comes out on top, and which is on the bottom?

This is purely to satisfy my personal curiosity, and is not part of any effort to rank the monsters for any practical purpose.

Answer 1

The smallest sum is 5+1+3+1+1+1=12 for the Gas Spore.

You can test this using websites that let you perform searches with limits on the ability scores. Since the sum is 12, you cannot beat it with any ability score being higher than 7.

The highest sum is 27+24+28+26+27+30=162 for Zariel.

This is ascertained by the following set of tests:

1. There are only four creatures with dexterity above 24: Elder tempest (28), will-o'-wisp (28), will-o'-wells (28), phoenix (26). None of these have sums comparable to Zariel's.

2. Since the maximum possible sum while keeping Dex<25 is 30×5+24=174, this means a search limit of at least 18 for each stat (30-(174-162)=18). (A creature with an 18 in one stat can only reach Zariel's sum if it has 24 in dex and 30 in the remaining stats.)

3. If we search for all creatures (and NPCs) with no stat below 18, we find only 17 candidates including Zariel:

Adult Moonstone Dragon, Ancient Moonstone Dragon, Aspect of Bahamut, Atash, Belashyrra, Dyrrn, Empyrean, Fazrian, Lesser Star Spawn Emissary, Moloch, Molydeus, Pari, Planetar, Rak Tulkhesh, Solar, Sul Katesh and Zariel.

4. None of these can beat Zariel. Aspect of Bahamut has a commendable 160 (looses to Zariel only because of Dex score of 18), while the mighty Solars (and Atash, who appears to have the same stat box as a Solar) get to 154.

Side note: Connection to D&D history and lore

After having spent a considerable effort searching and computing, it is worth noting that there might be good reasons why this purely mechanical exercise yielded Solars amongst the top contenders (and Zariel as the winner), as you can read in Why are Solars so powerful.