How to get Munchlax in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

Some Pokémon are almost always a pain to obtain in any game, especially if they are some form of pre-evolution or rare encounter. 

Infamously, Munchlax was one of the hardest Pokémon to get in the original Diamond and Pearl because you could only encounter it by sheer luck using Honey Trees without getting a Snorlax from a different Pokémon game. Thankfully for players, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have made it a little bit easier to catch it.

In BDSP, there are three ways you can obtain the Big Eater Pokémon, one of which is completely new to the remakes. The other two are tried and true, carrying directly over from Diamond and Pearl with basically no changes at all. 

The newest way to encounter Munchlax is by exploring Sinnoh’s Grand Underground. Unlike the original Underground, players can find various wild Pokémon roaming specific areas labeled as Pokémon Hideaways within the caverns, with the spawns dependent on which biome you enter and how far you have progressed in the game. 

Munchlax can be found in six of the 18 different Hideaways and will start appearing once you have unlocked the ability to use Defog to clear hazards. Those spawn points are the Spacious Cave, Grassland Cave, Whiteout Cave, Riverbank Cave, Still-Water Cavern, and the Sunlit Cavern. 

Within those specific caves, you will be encountering Munchlax between the levels of 39 and 63. 

Moving onto the least reliable option, Honey Trees are back in BDSP, which means four of the 21 total interactable locations are going to be “Munchlax Trees.” 

Related: How do Honey Trees work in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl – All encounters, locations, and more

A Munchlax Tree is the term used to describe the process of encountering Munchlax when slathering Honey on a tree. Those four trees are randomly selected when you start playing the game based on a player’s unique Trainer ID and secret ID. 

Essentially, players have a 70 percent chance to get a Normal encounter, a 20 percent chance to get a Rare encounter, and a one percent chance to encounter a Munchlax if they successfully locate one of the four trees it can spawn at. There is also a nine percent chance to just not attract a Pokémon at all, and that bumps up to 10 percent at non-Munchlax Trees. 

The only other way to obtain Munchlax outside of trading is to breed a Snorlax with a compatible Pokémon at the Daycare while it is holding a Full Incense item. This will cause the Egg you receive to hatch into a Munchlax rather than a Snorlax.