What's to stop dedicated groups of humans from domesticating like half the monsters in the manual?

What's to stop dedicated groups of humans from domesticating like half the monsters in the manual?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo
m.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

>tfw u will never have a pet pixie to slob ur nob

Well, for one thing, a lot of them are sapient creatures that don't want to be domesticated.

You realize there are enormous amounts of animals we did not domesticate, and there is a reason for that.

Animals who are too dumb, have no defined social structure, are too violent, serve no practical purpose, or are too intelligent.

Not many animals in the monster manual make good candidates. No seriously you and find me one and I’ll tell you why it is a shit idea.

>No seriously you and find me one and I’ll tell you why it is a shit idea.

Mimics?

In order for an animal to be worth domesticating, an animal would need to:

a) Have a diet which can readily be filled in the settlements of the race that domesticated them . Pigs, for example, can literally eat our scraps and easily look for their own food otherwise. Cows eat grass (although less so with modern breeds which need far more and more specialized nutrition). Cats eat our vermin

b) Reach maturity quicky compared to its host species. This is presumably not an issue if you're an elf and can wait decades or centuries to ride your dragon

c) Be docile already. This is going to be even more of an issue with D&D monsters - you'rd need to train elite troops just to keep the monster breeding pits in line. Even with animals which fit most of these criteria, like foxes, it still takes decades to get them to the point where it is feasible to keep them around like we do more well-established species. This one is not strictly NECESSARY, but it sure as hell makes it easier.

d) Breed in captivity.

e) Have a lax temperament. It should be possible to handle them without them shitting themselves in fear.

f) Have a social hierarchy. Again, not strictly necessary, but very useful.

Note that some domestic animals, like cats, don't fit all of these, and coincidentally or not cats are sometimes considered to still be wild animals.

1-Alot of them are intelligent
2- a number of them are smarter than you
3- some of them arent even alive and will magically ONLY obey their master
4- many of them have abilities that are so absurdly dangerous that even a mid-sized town couldnt maintain a containment system (catoblepas, for instance, are camels that can death-gaze peasants all day, every day)
5- a decent number have legitimate magic in shapeshifting, blast spells, etc, which makes 4 an issue but now with fireballs
6- many have patrons or pack/family that may get pissed or complicate their capture
7- inadequate nutrition. how many cows a day would an ancient Red Dragon require?
8- lack of handlers and proper enclosures to contain the thing
9- something like a Titan, colossal elder fire elemental, tarrasque, or Lich is basically a local apocalypse in physical form or kaiju and could wreck an entire division or sack a town of 15,000 single-handidly with minimal effort.

Theres plenty of reasons OP

First off, too intelligent. While Mimics aren't brilliant, they are in possession of a greater than animal intelligence.

Then add onto that the general usefulness of what a domesticated mimic would do. Keep in mind that a mimic generally can't be used as whatever object it makes itself appear as. Plus, add onto this that mimics are adhesive. Meaning that if you tried to use whatever a mimic would turn into, it would stick to your hand and also to anything else you tried to use it on.

And finally is that mimics are predators of the things trying to domesticate it. While domesticating a predator isn't impossible (dogs being the best example), domesticating something that preys on you specifically might be a bit more difficult.

Finally is a lack of family structure. That's a big part of domestication. A subvertable family structure. To use wolves and dogs again, it was actually kind of simple: if you could assert control over the head of the pack, that dominance would carry down (not to mention that the natural structure of animal packs in the wild would make subsequent generations more likely to fall in line.) Since mimics are mostly solitary creatures, there isn't a head mimic you can assert dominance over in order to gain control over a pack of mimics. This means that every individual mimic would have to be tamed.

You could probably tame an individual mimic. Maybe even a small collection of them. But taming an animal and domesticating it are two different things, and domesticating mimics would be incredibly difficult.

what about a manticore?

along with all the great reasons ITT, you also have to remember that of the small minority that aren't smarter than you, and that dont hunt you for food, and have a family structure that you can abuse, some of them are still probably evil aligned and just inherently want to fuck shit up

Some don't have the temperament for it and can't easily be bred in captivity. Others are just too rare or violent. Something like a rust monster could be domesticated, but why the fuck would you want to, it'd be a constant risk, even if they're trained.

Nothing, you can have a pixie familiar, have fun

Where do mimics need all that brainpower for?
What do they do all they that requies more intelligence than a garden spider?

Niggers D&D is not real life, shit like dominate monster exist.

Yeah? You gonna recast it every time it wears off of each individual monster, and continually cast it for every single individual you ever capture or breed for all eternity? You gonna pay for the insurance policy that would be necessary for such a swingy and unreliable process (Because saving throws exist)?

For the purposes of domesticating monsters, Awaken is more useful, and it'd still only work if the monster has 3 or less INT. You would also probably want to do some selective breeding and such before starting to give human intelligence to monsters, because doing it after they are capable of staging a rebellion is likely not going to end well

Manticore's are probably top of the food chain predators. Poor target for domestication

Firstly, like basically all creatures in the MM, it's because mimics were a creation, they didn't evolve. Secondly, it's because they need to be smart enough to know what objects to disguise as so they don't draw suspicion.

Are dire squirrels harder to domesticate than regular squirrels?

Asking for a friend.

Nothing. That sounds like a fun campaign.

Yes, because dire animals are more aggressive (And dangerous) than their regular varieties.

There are plenty animals humans COULD domesticate but never did because it serves no purpose.

Russians have proven you can domesticate foxes, you could probably even use these bu t nobody ever bothered with it.
Just because something is possible doesnt mean anyone does it.

So you are purposely missing the point of the OP

Not him but the fact that it's a useless task is a good enough thing to stop those groups of humans.

>tfw u will never have a pet piercer to slob ur nob

The monsters are absolutely horrific and have no value aside from killing shit.

Because humans suck at everything. Now if it were a group of elves, that would be a whole different story.

I've learned recently that Owlbears are actually a pretty important domesticated animal for a few cities in the Forgotten Realms. They provide milk, fur, feathers, leather, fertilizer, and they're pretty easy to feed.

Just feed them Kenders

A faggot dm that probably also reeeee's over Sci fi and guns in a fantasy setting

But user, everyone knows that cats domesticated US!

domestication requires very specific intersections of what they can feasibly become

this guy got most of them, but aggressiveness and flightyness can be slowly bred out

>Animals who are too dumb,
Chickens are dunb as fuck
>have no defined social structure,
The ancestors of the domestic cat had basically none
>are too violent,
aurochs
>serve no practical purpose,
most of the monster manual seems p handy.
>are too intelligent.
Pigs, my dude.

Congrats, you just found your next campaign idea.

Darkmantle. Good for pest control and guarding a home. No hair, so it's less likely to cause allergic reactions. No dander.

Pteranodon. All the benefits of a hawk or falcon in a larger package.

Triceratops. About as smart as a horse or mule with the durability of a stone house and the charge of a rhino

Gryphons. Good mounts, good hunters, good protectors.

Hippogriff. Hawk and Horse all in one.

Gelatinous cube. Less domestication and more cultivation, given the lack of intelligence, but an effective garbage disposal. And there's always a 10 foot by 10 foot room for jello!

Grey ooze. Similar to above, but an excellent means for foundries and blacksmiths to dispose of undesirable slag.

Owlbears. Smart, savage, but tameable with enough effort. After that it's just 12 generations of selectively breeding the most docile ones together to effect a complete subspecies shift (that's how many it took to domesticate the russian fox, after all)

Remorhaz. Useless in warm climates, but arctic and sub-arctic dwellers could use a highly-alert house-heating guardian and hunting partner.

Rust Monsters. Again, a means for blacksmiths to dispose of failed creations and undesirable slag ores. But also effective guard dogs in the hands of the city watch. No adventurer will cause trouble if it means risking their expensive equipment to a trained attack bug.

And may I just say that for four editions running, I am still disappointed that small monkeys like capuchins are unavailable as familiars.

>"Oh look, a ladder! What a convenient means of egress!"
>grabs the first rung and looks up to climb, like everyone who uses a ladder does
>sees a giant fanged maw and two clawed hands looming over you
>nope the fuck out

This creature seems ill-planned.

>Rust Monster
>trained attack bug.

Your face when you realize rust monsters give live birth and that somehow makes them mammals.

Explain to me exactly how you would safely cage a gelatinous cube.

I always assumed the ladder-tongue was adhesive in some manner, like a Chameleon. Once your're on, it's tough enough to pull off that you can't get away in time for it to pull your into its maw.

Lets assume as soon as you touch it It reels you in. And d&d mimics are sticky, aren't they? So the hand you grabbed the ladder with aint goin nowhere fast

Obviously, it takes time. Plus pic related.

Electric fence.

I'm pretty sure it would eventually dissolve the electric fence.

I love your explanation, but if I'm not mistaken mimics were originally domestic and the random ones we see have just "gone feral" so to speak. The majority are like wizard pets.

There's a fex species who are ovoviviparous, which means the youngs grow in eggs inside the mother, and only get out at the moment of the hatching. Some sharks do that for instance.
What always buggered me were that the fucking asperii layed eggs. A fucking magical horse.

Sounds like some fun potential monster hunter shit. DM the fuck out if it, DM.

Yeah they need to just make it hide back over the wall or back from the top a bit then it'd be perfect.

they are fairly intelligent, very dangerous, and malicious. VERY bad idea. You could maybe bribe or befriend them... but it'll kill you the second it has the chance.

As a last point, you have to understand that many creatures literally have Evil on their DNA. They are ALWAYS evil.

Theres a difference between pig intelligence (maybe a 2.5-3, seeing as 3 is the minimal acceptable characteristic to play, meaning 3 is the threshold for basic sentience) and "that troll has a 5 INT and is literally an intelligent organism" and "holy shit that dragon has a 23 INT, which means it could effortlessly btfo the vast majority of the human race [PC wizards included] in a raw INT contest assuming everyone took a 10". There are plenty of creatures in the MM that aren't just on our side of sentience, but they are literally smarter than us, even by a large factor. This is a situation we have never been in, because as far as we know we are the only highly intelligent thing on the universe.

Just out of curiosity, what are the rules for quickly amputating your own hand?

A deep pit. Unlike other oozes, gelatinous cubes don't have a climb speed.

eh some deer can be tamed, but it doesn't really seem to extend to families, seeing as we have selectively bred paranoia into deer (fun fact, in some places deer are evolving to look UP more often, as in "look for tree stands").

Oh, that's clever. Now you just gotta... get it in there... without it melting you...

lay down a trail of food

Either that or just make a tunnel for it to follow. It will probably just mindlessly follow it and fall in the pit.

Now I might be pulling this out of my ass but aren't they lured by the biggest thing? Why would they eat a trail of Oreos when your big delicious ass is ten feet away?

5e MM has a suggestion

>Although an ooze lacks the intelligence to ally itself with other creatures, others that understand an ooze's need to feed might lure it into a location where it can be of use to them. Clever monsters keep oozes around to defend passageways or consume refuse. Likewise, an ooze can be enticed into a pit trap, where its captors feed it often enough to prevent it from coming after them.

>trapdoor over a 10'x10' pit containing a 10'x10' gelatinous cube.
Pesky adventurers count as garbage right?

I'd give em a reflex. And unless they have some sort of particularly flawed willpower, I'd say they have the balls to do it naturally.

While its getting shocked? Increase the voltage. Smiles are barely intelligent but they still feel pain or at least would avoid something they understand as damaging to them. Maybe a starving voracious smile would just ooze through a fence as it got shocked but if you kept your slime pet well fed I think it wouldn't have any desire to hurt itself and escape.

That's been standard dungeon ecology/architecture since second edition.

I posted this on my phone please forgive me

You bet your ass they do.

dark souls doesn't let you look up


because fuck you, dark souls

A spider needs to outwit flies to get a meal. Flies are stupid, so this is easy.

A mimic needs to outwit people with its traps.

By necessity, any successful mimic is dangerously smart. maybe not as smart as you, but smart enough to trick you.

>What's to stop like half the monsters in the manual from domesticating a dedicated groups of humans?

They weren't domestic or pets, they were constructed.

It depends entirely on type of creature and the various things talked about in .

Aberrations are basically undomesticatable. They are either one offs, alien monstrosities, things which should not exist, or the failed creations of wizards gone feral and semi-stable. Most are inimical to humans and animals and many are too intelligent (and thus is slavery instead of domestication).

Skipping animals, Constructs are artificial creations and thus literally cannot be domesticated.

Dragons are either too intelligent or too ornery and big to domesticate.

Fey are supernatural creatures that can't be domesticated due to issues with breeding, intelligence, and the nature of being fey.

Humanoids: thats slavery.

Magical Beasts are either too intelligent, too magical, or too ornery.

Monstrous Humanoids: thats also slavery.

Oozes are like insects, you don't domesticate those so much as use them in useful ways despite their organic robot natures.

Outsiders are physical souls bound in metaphysical flesh, are almost all too intelligent, and the ones that are domesticable are basically metaphysical versions of already domesticated animals. (celestial and infernal templated animals)

Plants could be domesticated, sort of. It's more botany than animal husbandry, but sometimes the plants are too ornery or dangerous to try this with.

Undead: do I have to seriously tell you why undead aren't domesticable?

Vermin are basically insects, and you don't domesticate insects, you work around their natures and exploit them.

Even putting aside the difficulty of domesticating them, what would be the point? How does owning a domesticated piercer actually benefit you?

Kenders don't exist in Forgotten Realms. In fact I think Dragon Lance is the only cannon they are native to.

Yup, you pretty much nailed it. I would also add:

g) Can live comfortably in enclosed areas. A lot of animals will develop mental issues and eventually kill themselves through starvation or self-harm if you try to keep them in small cages and pens.

Halfings then, jeez.

youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo

The human race has domesticated like 20 animals ever in all of history. It's actually really hard. There's a reason Warbears aren't a really thing, and even Indian or African empires rich and powerful enough to tame elephants and ride them into battle have never been able to domesticate them.

Horses are one of the most important advances in human history, but no one rides around on Zebras. It's not like ancient Africans never saw a guy on a horse and went "heeeeeey", it's that Zebras don't have a social structure that makes it easy to handle a bunch of them by taming the alpha the way horses do.

>The ancestors of the domestic cat had basically none
Cats were never domesticated by humans; they did it to themselves.

So more slavery than domestication?

Daily reminder that tamed and domesticated are two different things. Tame means you trained it not to eat you. Domesticated means you don't have to train it for that because they've been born fairly friendly for the last twenty generations.

Ravenloft has kender/vampire kender

What's to stop dedicated groups of humans from domesticating like half the animals in the World?

I read that the main reason humans failed to domesticate the zebra is that no matter how carefully you selectively breed them for relative docility, they still have an alarming tendency to BITE PEOPLE AND NOT LET GO UNTIL YOU KILL THEM.

which is the reason no one was going into battle on badass stripey horses in the napoleonic wars.

Nothing, it's a matter of effort vs reward, africans could have domesticated zebras is they were stubborn enough.

you're an idiot.

domesticable animals are characterised by a social structure with *one* dominant animal in the group: cows, goats, sheep, dogs, horses, pigs, chickens all have *one* dominant animal in the group in nature. humans supplant that dominant leader and become Bossman. the remaining animals in the group don't resist or try to escape because they accept that as status quo.

zebra have a social structure without a clear leader (think giant herds) and will therefore not accept dominance from anyone.

people a great deal smarter than you have spent their careers studying this shit. you're just pulling a lazy explanation directly out of your ass.

Clearly we fed them sufficient number of kenders, then.

They are not animals....the one that are of animal intellect, are not of animalistic disposition\.

Well sure, if you have a retardedly narrow definition of what domestication actually means.

>aurochs
As a guy who is very interested in the subject, aurochs were super hard to domesticate, given how all the world's cattle derive from 2 auroch cows from Syria.
As opposed to wolves and cats, which we domesticate even today, sometimes.

Nothing. Lack of trying, maybe.
We managed to domsticate humans, after all.

*some humans

Same reason zebras won't domesticate.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo

You could tame individual ones though.

>pet pixie
It's sentient. The word for those is slave.

Fucking wizards

Sorry.

>tfw you will never have a SLAVE pixie to slob ur knob

To be fair, they are closer to the donkey than the horse, so somebody would ride into battle onto of a stripey ass.

pet play dude

Nothing. There are loads of examples in DND where monsters are kept as pets, guards and domesticated animals.

>meaning 3 is the threshold for basic sentience
In 5e they bump this to 7. Apes, dolphins, skeletons, Paladin mounts, quaggoth, troglodyte, gnolls, minotaurs, and other such smart-but-not-fully-sentients are 6.

7 is "literal retard" tier and includes default orc, lizardfolk, and bullywug statblock.

8 is "as oogabooga as non retards can get" is default Kobold, Xvart, Bugbear, Thri-keen, and Tribal Warrior npc.

9 is "primitive/dim" The token dumb guy on most comedy shows. Grimlocks, mongrelfolk, npc Bezerker, and some of the mooks in elemental evil that thought fusing metal to their skin was a good idea.

1 is vermin, fish, amphibians, etc.
2 is most animals.
3 is mammalian social predators.
4 is baboons, cranium rats, and velociraptors.

>In 5e they bump this to 7
so, uh. What happens when I roll 5 int for a PC?

Your dumb as shit...but i don't think it would be possible to play a pc with his "guidelines" with 5 int

>Guns, Germs and Steel
A asspull of a book with no actual academic backing nor peer-review.

What's to stop dedicated groups of humans from domesticating lions and bears?

And no, tamed is not the same as domesticated

>Guns, Germs, and Steel
Even as a case for environmental determinism, he makes a bad one.

Did you just kink shame me shitlord?