When was the last time you treated regular old animals with the same fear and daunting respect as that of a fantasy...

the bear gets a +1 initiative modifier

Let's be honest, that bear has advantage on initiative, has a higher reflex save, higher strength, improved, grab, and +11 to hit.

That bear could easily take out a hill giant just by grappling it.

>You ain't gonna believe me Sally, I swear.
>There was this giant fella stompin aboot in da woods 'bout as ugly as me cousin Sarah's brother.
>It gone bumpin inta trees'n'all as it a walked about, we it gon knocked a mama grizz outa a tree.
>I swear, I ain't seen non grizz as angry as that one, climbed all up on the ugly fella's back and tore into it like yer brother inta turkey on Thanksgivin.
>Next I knew, the ugly fella was flat on its' face and the moma grizz wandered on off.

That just makes Zangeif even cooler.

>Hill giant
>jump +7
don't see that

>not describing how the grizzly German Suplexed the giant into a mountain

yeah but joking aside the bear has a realistic miss chance the giant just needs to not roll a 1 ever. and can 2~3 hit the poor bear.

Not the Urisimo Maximo Grande is a bad idea. I see no downside to lucha bear

My group consistently has issues fighting normal animals. I dont know if they just underestimate them or if they dont know what to do if dispel magic isnt on the table but they are hysterically bad at it at neatly all levels:
>wizard nearly consumed by anaconda in his sleep
>monk decides to grapple a lion, hilarity does not insue
>mass panic when rogue disturbs a hornet's nest, falls from tree
>mass panic from swarm of angry fire ants, attempts to defeat with shovel ineffctive
>cliche wolf pack encounter in the snow, paladin decides to lure them away by running off by himself, IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE, ends how you expect
lets not even get started with them bother bear cubs or getting between a moose and her little one.

if it is any consolation at least the bane if your party is not an inanimate object.

my campaign just started and they have killed orcs, goblins, a gibbering mouther, wolves, inquisitors, giant spiders, faced down a cavalier 4 times their level, and all this and being level 4! but make them scale ONE FUCKING CLIFF and it ends about as well as could be expected by which I mean one dead one dying one dead pack mule, one dead(er) skeleton companion, and two at 50~60% hp...

seriously it made me consider giving a 60' tall rockface class levels and a CR so at least they would get XP.

Pretty much this. Most wild animals fear man, and will only attack if left with no other option. Really wish we'd stop using shit like wolf packs as common enemies, both because of how cliched it is as well as how behaviorally inaccurate it is for them to try and hunt intelligent prey. If we're just going to throw undeserving fodder at our murderhobos we should try widowed mothers and the town street cleaner.

...

my current party will soon have plenty of fodder enemies. early in the campaign they came across an orc who had killed a traveling bard in a misunderstanding

the orc just wants to play music. goes to listen to the bard. the bard sees an orc and in classic adventurer behavior goes to stab first question later. orc tries to make him stop trying to hurt him and go back to playing lute. accidentally kills the bard. goes oops and takes loot and begins practicing. cue party encounter. party decides orc isn't a threat and bring him along in travels as the orc knows the land better. party comes across a village several miles south of where the bard was killed. decide to stay a few days to recover from previous injuries. as party goes to leave town the village elder asks if they had seen his friend who should have been coming to visit from the south. old man describes dead bard. party goes "oh yeah he's dead sorry bye". no shit it was their exact wording.

in my setting all kingdoms on the continent recognize an organization that handles mercenary and adventuring contracts and their payment so those who could otherwise not afford to hire help can. and the kingdom the poor subjects are in has the satisfaction of knowing their lands are being maintained.

well unknown to the party the old man has been requesting bounties on the party. so that will be fun down the road.

You...don't need to give something levels
to give your players XP.

>cliche wolf pack encounter in the snow, paladin decides to lure them away by running off by himself, IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE, ends how you expect

Paladin: "Guys....I have an idea....I'll get them to chase me, you guys head that way, we'll regroup afterwards, ready?"
Bard: "Well, that's a pack of wolves you know..."
Paladin: "Dude, didn't we just get done fighting a Bearded Devil with a host of undead foot soldiers?"
Cleric: "Yea, I'm with the Paladin, this should be a piece of cake."
Bard: "Well...Okay then."
Paladin: "Heheh, I'll be back before you know it."

5 Hours later at the local Tavern

Bard: "So...How long did he say he was going to take to regroup with us exactly?"
Cleric: *looks at Bard* *looks at Sorcerer*

*cut to paladin torn to pieces by a pack of wolves gnawing on his bones*

bear dex is also higher, and cha is only 1 point off

It's a cursed land; the wolves are hungry and driven by evil omens. There might even be a vampire or a werewolf somewhere in the background. Or perhaps the local druid just got tired of tourists littering all over his forest, so he had a chat with a few alpha wolves and asked them to scare off anyone who goes off road.

There, happy?

>Most wild animals fear man, and will only attack if left with no other option

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-eater

Just because most are like that, doesn't mean they don't at all.

This morning

theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/07/tiny-meat-loving-marine-creatures-eat-teenagers-legs-at-melbourne-beach

Last night in a call of cthluhu game, a reticulated python killed one of our investigators and the week before someone else got hospitalized by another snake.
Snakes > actual monsters

>60+ years old
>over 300 confirmed kills
>weighs over 2000 lb's
>has evaded capture and death from researchers and hunters alike
>has had a documentary and a film both solely focus on him

Stat him Veeky Forums

yeah but I figure calling it a 7th level colossal Cliffside Druid sounds so much better when it TPKs the party

>implying snakes aren't actual monsters

>40 foot

I remember seeing that photo on /x/ during a crypto thread, wasn't that supposed to be at least 60 feet?

It was supposed to be a helicopter shot of an infamous giant snake somewhere in Brazil.

That night [of the 19 February 1945] was the most horrible that any member of the M. L. [motor launch] crews ever experienced. The scattered rifle shots in the pitch black swamp punctured by the screams of wounded men crushed in the jaws of huge reptiles, and the blurred worrying sound of spinning crocodiles made a cacophony of hell that has rarely been duplicated on earth. At dawn the vultures arrived to clean up what the crocodiles had left.... Of about one thousand Japanese soldiers that entered the swamps of Ramree, only about twenty were found alive.

—Bruce Stanley Wright, naturalist and soldier

Best estimate is around 40ft if real, but some people like to roll with the margin of error as an excuse to exaggerate and say it was WAY bigger. But it can't be considered any actual record or catalog since no one went down there for an exact measurement. so it COULD be 40 feet, could be a lot less. 60 though is pushing it.

-10 HP

If we are talking about D&D treatment of animals, which OP image and most posts itt seem to imply, they are literally magical fairy tale animals. If they aren't, none of the "speak with animals" type spells would work, druids and rangers wouldn't be able to talk to animals and animal companions outside of a dog or maybe a horse wouldn't exist.

So, D&D animals are magical because druids can communicate with them?

Isn't that the equivalent of saying that leather armor is make-believe fantasy because it can be enchanted?

Yeah, in terms of realistic animal behavior a predator will not attack something that it is not sure that it can easily kill. Not only is it a lot of work for a meal, but a serious injury is basically a death sentence.

This is now a spooky snek thread

>Not only is it a lot of work for a meal,

For a leopard, lion, jaguar, bear, or crocodile, no, it's really not a lot of work for a typical meal. In fact it would be less. The primary reason that these large predators don't attack and kill humans more regularly (except for Nile/Saltwater Croc's) is because they don't recognize humans as prey.

It would be like a person foraging for food and finding a pine cone. Normally you wouldn't categorize it as food, but they are actually very nutritious and not harmful at all.

Wild animals completely lack the ability to communicate on a human level. While there are several fairly intelligent species out there, a significant number are so simple minded that they're practically alien from human perspective. Most animals don't recognize their reflection, they wouldn't have the concept of death and any kind of communication beyond "food? sex?" would be beyond non-pack animals.

>Speak with Animals (3.5). You can comprehend and communicate with animals. You are able to ask questions of and receive answers from animals, although the spell doesn’t make them any more friendly or cooperative than normal. Furthermore, wary and cunning animals are likely to be terse and evasive, while the more stupid ones make inane comments. If an animal is friendly toward you, it may do some favor or service for you.

This spell implies human-like intelligence for any animal.

>Wild animals completely lack the ability to communicate on a human level.

But that's objectively wrong. Songbirds, prairie dogs, elephants, whales, bottlenose dolphins, sea lions, chimpanzees, all have complex methods of verbal communication in which they can give varying amounts of information. Dolphins especially are extremely intelligent with their communicative abilities, even more-so than chimps, as they can even understand the grammar of a human language.

Yes, those are the few intelligent and social animals. Chances are you are not being attacked by songbirds, prairie dogs, elephants, whales or dolphins.

Spell works just as well on tigers, crocodiles, snakes, horses and about 10000000 other animals that are dumb as rocks.

>Wild animals completely lack the ability to communicate on a human level.

Define a "human level", because there's a number of animals cable of communicating in ways that humans have barely been able to understand.

>a significant number are so simple minded that they're practically alien from human perspective

As they should be, because they are not human. The primary way we focus on and interpret animal communication is through the perspective of human intelligence.

>most animals don't recognize their reflection

And all of humanity doesn't know how to find their way home without the help of some form of guidance. Animals, more specifically birds, can with an almost supernatural ease, find their way back to a certain destination, even if it's more than a thousand miles away.

Besides, this is a "spell" that's being used, which is mostly due to the fault of the GM giving the animals human characteristics and not interpreting the spell as it was meant to be used, being that it was meant as a form of understanding animal communication, and having the animal in return understand you. Not that you are literally able to speak with dogs and hold long conversations.

>tigers
>crocodiles

>dumb

> Vladimir Dinets of the University of Tennessee, observed that crocodiles use twigs as bait for birds looking for nesting material
>Crocodiles are also the most vocal of all reptiles, producing a wide variety of sounds during various situations and conditions, depending on species, age, size and sex. Depending on the context, some species can communicate over 20 different messages through vocalizations alone

Should've picked a different reptile m8

When I made D&D5E stats for megatheriums.

Yes a grizzley would be stronger than an 8ft tall human this isnt news OP.

You were thinking MTG sized hill giants werent you?

When I found out needlefish should be called "living arrows"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needlefish#Danger_to_humans
>a 10-year-old Hawaiian boy, night fishing with his father at Hanamaulu Bay, Kaua'i, was killed when a 1.0-to-1.2-metre-long (3.3 to 3.9 ft) needlefish jumped from the water and pierced his eye and brain.[7] The second was a 16-year-old Vietnamese boy, stabbed through the heart by the 15 cm (5.9 in) beak of a needlefish in 2007 while night diving for sea cucumbers near Halong Bay.