Large real-world fauna in general. Most people will sneer at bears in setting where owlbears exist, and similar exaggerations hold up for many other beasts, but I feel that a predator, played straight, right out of National Geographic, can be a more imposing threat than any dragon, especially since most players won't be used to take them as a serious adversary.
Animals I have used in past games account for a croocodile stalking the party up a river, a startled elephant bull, and a pack of coyotes after the party was already wounded and weakened.
Anon, heres the issue. Whatever a crocodile, or bear, or elephant, or whatever else can do? A dragon, or owlbear, or dire (inster animal here) or bullette or hydra or manticore or whatever else does infinitely more.
There are simply objectively more dangerous things out there in fictional settings.
>or owlbear
does exactly the same things as a bear. I guess it can peck at you. Same with >dire (inster animal here)
I frankly don't understand why those even exist
An owlbears advantage is it can see you at night. Most real world predators are extremely cautious and only attack if they feel certain they can kill their enemy very quickly. That's not very exciting in a game.
They are dangerous. If they're not dangerous, then be honest and downgrade all the different brigands, robbers and town guards from dying from a finger poke, because none of them could kill a hungry wolf one on one, or probably even a lynx.
Any healthy adult with any weapon, even a rock, can kill a wolf.
2 years ago
Anonymous
2 years ago
Anonymous
It's not even that. Wolves are just big dogs. If one comes at you kick it on the neck and it will go away. There's a reason why it's big news if wolves kill a person because it happens so rarely.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>There's a reason why it's big news if wolves kill a person because it happens so rarely.
It happens rarely because there are so vary few wolves left in areas with a lot of humans. And wolves, like most apex predators, don't pick fights they will have trouble with. But a wolf or large dog that matter, that has decided to frick your shit up will not be dissuaded by a kick to the neck. And that's assuming you can land your kick, which would be very surprising in itself. What's more, wolves aren't solitary animals. They live and attack in packs.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>wolves >apex predators
2 years ago
Anonymous
Big dogs kill strong, healthy man every day, big guy. Men with weapons.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Wolves are just big dogs. If one comes at you kick it on the neck and it will go away. >it one comes at you >one
Anon, do you know how wolves hunt?
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yes they go after newborn deer, harmless sheep, and sick animals 99% of the time. The remaining 1% tends to end up with a pack member eventually starving to death because a tooth was broken. It's a moot point anyway because we were talking about a singular wolf. Which as I said a healthy adult human, not a weedy homosexual who spends all day coding, is in little danger from.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Are you the anon who thinks they can fight off a hippo because they're fat, and therefore, slow?
2 years ago
Anonymous
No, a hippo is actually dangerous. Unless you just don't mess with them or hang around in waterways where they live... They don't exactly hide themselves. And they're not so fast out of water, you can zig zag away from them.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Nah m8, hippos are fast and they're faster on land then they are on water
2 years ago
Anonymous
Do you homosexuals know anything about nature? They might be fast in short straight bursts that's why when you run from one you go in zig zags so it gets tired faster and can't build up speed
2 years ago
Anonymous
They're faster than you, it'll catch you before you do your little "z" shape with your two legs unless there's already a big distance in between but in that case it probably wouldn't even start chase. Frick off with those dump life hacks to extremely unlikely scenarios, the key to surviving a hippo attack is having a big gun or not being attacked by a hippo
2 years ago
Anonymous
No anon, you're just an idiot.
Wolves don't go after humans as prey, nor seek any trouble with humans, because it's not worth the risk of getting injured. Predators in general would rather avoid any fight with any animal of their weightclass that is inclined to fight back, because any injury is pretty much a death sentence for animals that are active hunters.
If a lion corners a zebra, the zebra is gonna be a lot more brave and reckless than the lion, because to the zebra this confrontation is an occasional incident that will result in its immediate death if it doesn't fight back as hard as it can, while for the lion killing prey is a weekly occurrence and they can't take the risk of injury on something they do routinely every few days to survive, since a kick to the jaw or a broken leg may mean starvation and it's not sustainable to roll the dice on that every week.
So, similarly, a wolf will choose its prey carefully and stick to animals it knows it can both reliably kill and that will provide enough meat to be worth the energy investment and risk. And since they're smart animals, they know not to mess with humans just like they know not to mess with beehives; not because a man with a rock can reliably beat a wolf in a one-on-one fight to the death (he can't), but because it's not worth the small risk of death and the big risk of injury.
Obviously you're already in damage control mode since you've moved from your original statement
Any healthy adult with any weapon, even a rock, can kill a wolf.
>Any healthy adult with any weapon, even a rock, can kill a wolf.
, which is bullshit, to
Are you the anon who thinks they can fight off a hippo because they're fat, and therefore, slow?
>Which as I said a healthy adult human, not a weedy homosexual who spends all day coding, is in little danger from.
Which is true in that a human is in no danger from wolves, because wolves that encounter humans will run rather than fight pretty much every time. But that's a huge leap from 'a man will kill a wolf any time'. If a fight does happen, a man with a rock or crude stick dies most of the times.
2 years ago
Anonymous
There was a onions who killed a mountain lion with only his hands a few years ago. A wolf is literally just a big dog, you could kill it with a simple weapon. The real worry is if it has a pack, then you're fricked.
2 years ago
Anonymous
2 years ago
Anonymous
This anon probably things wolves are just mean golden retrievers.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I could never kill a wolf, wolves are awesome... I'd feed it dried meat from my backpack and make friends with it and have adventures together
>because none of them could kill a hungry wolf one on one
A lot of them absolutely could. Wolves are like Cr 1/2.
Or put in less gamey terms, an armed and armored man will absolutely rock the world of pretty much any given predator, let alone a small band of these armed and armored individuals. Man put himself on top of the food chain naked and with a rock, chainmail, a shield and a spear is just extravagant overkill.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>A lot of them absolutely could. Wolves are like Cr 1/2.
How did you escape a D&D rulebook?
2 years ago
Anonymous
How would you be trapped inside a D&D rulebook?
2 years ago
Anonymous
>an armed and armored man will absolutely rock the world of pretty much any given predator
This is not true. Full plate *might* be good protection against a wolf, but anything larger is strong enough to crush you inside your armour.
It's not even that. Wolves are just big dogs. If one comes at you kick it on the neck and it will go away. There's a reason why it's big news if wolves kill a person because it happens so rarely.
>Wolves are just big dogs.
This is not true. Wolves have 45% more biting power than any breed of comparable size. The only dogs that can compete with wolves in terms of threat level are Ovcharkas. With almost any dog, you can neutralize it by shoving your fist or elbow into the back of its mouth to prevent it from biting - with a wolf, the best you can hope for is that it chokes on your arm.
Yeah, I'm not sure about the anon talking about a guy killing a wolf with just a rock, I mean, It could be done but it would be hard, but these low level human npcs already have weapons and armor including bows, I'm putting my money on the bandit
>dragon
Confused iconography and variable intelligence level, players might see it as a hostile NPC, rather than a monster. >owlbear
Bound to evoke laughter at the table, with "a wizard did it" jokes. >Bullette
Goofy monster with a boring shape and an annoying tendency to disappear underground.
Of course, all of these are jokes. Still, dragons, owlbears and bullettes are definitely dangerous in any setting, and can be threatening, but they are inevitably analysed by the players under a meta lense: they are famous D&D monsters, with famous D&D behaviours, and famous D&D expectations. They can be played smart and threatening, but people expect them to be so.
Regular animals, on the other hand, are often overlooked as low level cannon fodder, but they can be played as threat as great as a dragon, just taking inspiration from afternoon documentaries and folk tales. So they are underrated, even if objectively less dangerous than the monsters you mentioned.
>are often overlooked as low level cannon fodder
Because they are, play a wolf as smart as you want, its still simply incapable of threatening a barbarian once hes above like 3 HP. They have their reputation for a reason.
>but they can be played as threat as great as a dragon
No, they absolutely objectively cannot. Everything a wolf can do a dragon can do better by orders of magnitude. There is no area in which a wolf can pose anywhere near as much of a threat or a way for it to be as dangerous in a fight.
>its still simply incapable of threatening a barbarian once hes above like 3 HP.
Maybe if you throw 2d4 wolves against the party in a square dungeon room. Throw in darkness, cold, actual pack tactics (not just their neat ability), exhaustion building up after days of harassment and chasing, and most parties up to level 7~8 will start to crack. >inb4 Tiny Hut
Your tiny hut cannot reliably contain your horses, horribly downgrades your movement capabilites, takes 10 rounds to set up, and it's generally not a strong spell as people would have you believe.
>Everything a wolf can do a dragon can do better by orders of magnitude.
Maybe, but if you read again, I acknowledge that dragons are more dangerous than wolves. I just argue that they can be as threatening. Threat is in the mind, and wolves can be a marvelous source of fright.
>Throw in darkness, cold, actual pack tactics (not just their neat ability), exhaustion building up after days of harassment and chasing, and most parties up to level 7~8 will start to crack.
No, no they wont.
Parties simply have too many ways to deal with these environmental hazards/damage over time, even ignoring that with every modifier you mentioned an unreasonably large pack of wolves will still be little more than fodder to even a single character, let alone a group.
And this is where the crux of the issue lies, because of how absolutely powerless wolves are by comparison, every strategy they may employ is absolutely futile. They attack at night? Theyre more affected by darkness than the party, given they have no darkvision and many player races do (not to mention spells or the like), they want to ambush? too bad, one guy has +9 passive perception. They want to harass? They just had 12 die before they get to act, theyre going to lose more before theyre out of range. They try and launch an attack while the healer is resting? The fighter is more than enough to fight them off while the other guy wakes up.
Literally the only way they function as a threat is if you throw the kind of numbers an orc horde would wish it had, hundreds of wolves which will eventually (maybe) grind the party down over time with nothing but brute attrition (or simply an encounter with so many enemies that bounded accuracy will eventually give you a win). But at that point you can replace "wolf" with "housecat" or "chicken" for all it matters.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Essentially, I think you operate under the misconception that "tuckers kobolds" is some universal rule, something every creature can emulate.
Thats just not true, the kobolds utilized their established skills and specific (unique) traits to their fullest in a way they normally do not, which created an absolutely brutal and punishing gauntlet. That is not something nearly every creature can hope to do because simply put most creatures dont have that unique trait to exploit or the skills to exploit them with.
Wolves don't have darkvision, this actually makes them worse
>cold
Equally bad for the wolves, worse if the party uses Create Bonfire
>actual pack tactics (not just their neat ability)
No ranged attack, no reach, must use their action to disengage. There are no "tactics" here.
>exhaustion building up after days of harassment and chasing
They can't "harass" because they can only attack in melee. They won't "chase" because the PCs will wipe the floor with them if they try to attack. And their speed is 40ft which isn't even fast for DND, rogues barbs and monks are all at least as fast and Expeditious Retreat is a level 1 spell that makes any character faster than a wolf. Firebolt has a range of 120 ft. Longbows 150 ft.
>most parties up to level 7~8 will start to crack
Not even remotely true, in fact I doubt you've ever GM'd for a level 7 party.
>Your tiny hut cannot reliably contain your horses, horribly downgrades your movement capabilites
Every horse-based PC I've seen can summon it as a spell or class feature, so they don't care. But if the party is mounted on horses the wolves are even more of a joke because now they're also slower than every single party member.
>takes 10 rounds to set up
Literally a single minute, way faster than any non-magical shelter.
>and it's generally not a strong spell as people would have you believe
One of the best utility spells in the game actually.
>Maybe, but if you read again, I acknowledge that dragons are more dangerous than wolves. I just argue that they can be as threatening. Threat is in the mind, and wolves can be a marvelous source of fright.
Again, you've never GM'd for a party of level 7 PCs. CR 1/2 wolves are completely trivial, they might as well be squirrels.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Wolves don't have darkvision
Neither did 3/4 of the party at the time, and darkness still gave wolves advantage on Stealth, and they have Keen Hearing and Smell. >cold, Equally bad for the wolves
Creatures adapted to cold climates do not need to make Constitution checks against cold, anon. >There are no "tactics" here.
If you have 6-8 miniatures against 4 party members and don't find a way to kite them around, position so that area spells would be dangerous, and abuse the fact that you can only use AoO on creatures you can see, it's up to you. >They can't "harass" because they can only attack in melee.
Three wolves arget weak party member. Maybe one attack lands. Said party member has no meelee options/is surprised, so no reactions. That sounds like harassment to me. >They won't "chase" because the PCs will wipe the floor with them if they try to attack.
If they try to attack from the front, when the party is prepared, sure. And mind me, I don't mean the party should not be able to defeat the wolves in the end, just that the wolves can pose a threat. >Literally a single minute, way faster than any non-magical shelter.
Literally 10 rounds where the wizard doesn't act, 110 rounds if they have to cast it as a ritual. Once again, you think the party will expect the attack.
To summarise, anon, your experience is valid, but not universal, and while it's obvious that dragons are stronger than wolves (nobody ever denied that), I can guarantee you that they can be perceived as a frightening threat by a mid level party, if played right.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>advantage on stealth
Which doesent matter with their pathetic +4 modifier versus the passive perception you can get. Likewise them having an advantage to smell and hearing based tests doesent matter because they have a +3 to it.
You aren't going to kite 4 party members with 8 wolves, because at level 8 even a fricking mage will mop the floor with them 1v1, trivially.
The party members are faster and remove a wolf per action, its not kiting, its just wasting time before you have red smears where wolves used to be. You don't need area spells when magic missile is overkill.
>three wolves target weak party member
And if all of them hit they still barely scratch him, he then turns around and flattens at least one and probably more.
>literally 10 rounds where he doesent act
If he tries casting it in combat, which he won't, because the combat encounter is fricking trivial and he has a myriad spells which make it even more trivial.
>they can be perceivesd as a frightening threat
Any party over like level 3 is literally incapable of being threatened by wolves, so no.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Wolves don't have darkvision
Neither did 3/4 of the party at the time, and darkness still gave wolves advantage on Stealth, and they have Keen Hearing and Smell. >cold, Equally bad for the wolves
Creatures adapted to cold climates do not need to make Constitution checks against cold, anon. >There are no "tactics" here.
If you have 6-8 miniatures against 4 party members and don't find a way to kite them around, position so that area spells would be dangerous, and abuse the fact that you can only use AoO on creatures you can see, it's up to you. >They can't "harass" because they can only attack in melee.
Three wolves arget weak party member. Maybe one attack lands. Said party member has no meelee options/is surprised, so no reactions. That sounds like harassment to me. >They won't "chase" because the PCs will wipe the floor with them if they try to attack.
If they try to attack from the front, when the party is prepared, sure. And mind me, I don't mean the party should not be able to defeat the wolves in the end, just that the wolves can pose a threat. >Literally a single minute, way faster than any non-magical shelter.
Literally 10 rounds where the wizard doesn't act, 110 rounds if they have to cast it as a ritual. Once again, you think the party will expect the attack.
To summarise, anon, your experience is valid, but not universal, and while it's obvious that dragons are stronger than wolves (nobody ever denied that), I can guarantee you that they can be perceived as a frightening threat by a mid level party, if played right.
>Throw in darkness
Wolves don't have darkvision, this actually makes them worse
>cold
Equally bad for the wolves, worse if the party uses Create Bonfire
>actual pack tactics (not just their neat ability)
No ranged attack, no reach, must use their action to disengage. There are no "tactics" here.
>exhaustion building up after days of harassment and chasing
They can't "harass" because they can only attack in melee. They won't "chase" because the PCs will wipe the floor with them if they try to attack. And their speed is 40ft which isn't even fast for DND, rogues barbs and monks are all at least as fast and Expeditious Retreat is a level 1 spell that makes any character faster than a wolf. Firebolt has a range of 120 ft. Longbows 150 ft.
>most parties up to level 7~8 will start to crack
Not even remotely true, in fact I doubt you've ever GM'd for a level 7 party.
>Your tiny hut cannot reliably contain your horses, horribly downgrades your movement capabilites
Every horse-based PC I've seen can summon it as a spell or class feature, so they don't care. But if the party is mounted on horses the wolves are even more of a joke because now they're also slower than every single party member.
>takes 10 rounds to set up
Literally a single minute, way faster than any non-magical shelter.
>and it's generally not a strong spell as people would have you believe
One of the best utility spells in the game actually.
>Maybe, but if you read again, I acknowledge that dragons are more dangerous than wolves. I just argue that they can be as threatening. Threat is in the mind, and wolves can be a marvelous source of fright.
Again, you've never GM'd for a party of level 7 PCs. CR 1/2 wolves are completely trivial, they might as well be squirrels.
>Throw in darkness, cold, actual pack tactics (not just their neat ability), exhaustion building up after days of harassment and chasing, and most parties up to level 7~8 will start to crack.
No, no they wont.
Parties simply have too many ways to deal with these environmental hazards/damage over time, even ignoring that with every modifier you mentioned an unreasonably large pack of wolves will still be little more than fodder to even a single character, let alone a group.
And this is where the crux of the issue lies, because of how absolutely powerless wolves are by comparison, every strategy they may employ is absolutely futile. They attack at night? Theyre more affected by darkness than the party, given they have no darkvision and many player races do (not to mention spells or the like), they want to ambush? too bad, one guy has +9 passive perception. They want to harass? They just had 12 die before they get to act, theyre going to lose more before theyre out of range. They try and launch an attack while the healer is resting? The fighter is more than enough to fight them off while the other guy wakes up.
Literally the only way they function as a threat is if you throw the kind of numbers an orc horde would wish it had, hundreds of wolves which will eventually (maybe) grind the party down over time with nothing but brute attrition (or simply an encounter with so many enemies that bounded accuracy will eventually give you a win). But at that point you can replace "wolf" with "housecat" or "chicken" for all it matters.
>its still simply incapable of threatening a barbarian once hes above like 3 HP.
Maybe if you throw 2d4 wolves against the party in a square dungeon room. Throw in darkness, cold, actual pack tactics (not just their neat ability), exhaustion building up after days of harassment and chasing, and most parties up to level 7~8 will start to crack. >inb4 Tiny Hut
Your tiny hut cannot reliably contain your horses, horribly downgrades your movement capabilites, takes 10 rounds to set up, and it's generally not a strong spell as people would have you believe.
>Everything a wolf can do a dragon can do better by orders of magnitude.
Maybe, but if you read again, I acknowledge that dragons are more dangerous than wolves. I just argue that they can be as threatening. Threat is in the mind, and wolves can be a marvelous source of fright.
>are often overlooked as low level cannon fodder
Because they are, play a wolf as smart as you want, its still simply incapable of threatening a barbarian once hes above like 3 HP. They have their reputation for a reason.
>but they can be played as threat as great as a dragon
No, they absolutely objectively cannot. Everything a wolf can do a dragon can do better by orders of magnitude. There is no area in which a wolf can pose anywhere near as much of a threat or a way for it to be as dangerous in a fight.
>this_is_your_brain_on_DnD.papyrus
I swear to God you fricking drones manage to take the soul out of every fricking piece of narrative you touch. Wolves are scary because they fricking incarnate the fear of the forest, you know, the fricking phobia that has impregnated human literature and mythology for millenia. From Little Red Riding Hood to Fenrir, from the Beast of Gévaudan to their mentions in the Malleus Maleficarum, wolves have shaped humanity's fear of the dark and the unknown.
You fricking idiots can keep arguing about how wolves are nerfed or not in the d20 system like they were a fricking katana all you want, but in the end, nobody cares if they are proficient in smelling poo but lack the feat chain to unlock the Instakill action.
The point of the thread is to underline how some enemies are underrated, and judging by your cringe-worthy exchange, wolves are, end of story.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Lmao, I would say "then go write a book rather than host a game", but even in a fantasy book wolves arent scary compared to actual fantasy monsters.
Newsflash dipshit, you can cry all you want about your heckin inspiratiorinos and how wolves and other predators were the basis for fiction. That doesent matter one bit in regards to how they rank up to the horrors human creativity has created within said fiction.
It also doesent matter in regards to how scary they are within roleplaying games, where the basis for fear or impact is based on the in game, and wolves are not diagetically scary.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>even in a fantasy book wolves arent scary compared to actual fantasy monsters
Citation needed, but nevermind.
>That doesent matter one bit in regards to how they rank up to the horrors human creativity has created within said fiction.
I agree. The point of the thread, however, is to share underrated monsters. Dragons are not underrated, because they are well represented as menacing enemies in most games. Wolves, on the other end, are usually limited to the role of low level fodder, as the two autists above kept arguing about. Given that the narrative background of the wolf is equal to that of the dragon in term of species-wide trauma and symbolic value, wolves are underrated, and their first underrater is the game itself, if it does not portray them as powerful enemies.
Now, a point can be made about the need to have powerful and threatening wolf enemies: it's ok to be ok with their fodder role in your story and system.
It is not ok to claim that because your favourite game makes a choice, then it's universal. With the same reasoning, a hydra isn't scary because in D&D you can easily outrun one and bombard it with fire spells until it's dead.
Since you brought diegesis into this, D&D has an awful separation about rules and flavour, but we can assume that your character can't see the wolves' statblock: how do they know they're perfectly safe from them?
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Citation needed
The citation is that you have objectively scarier and more dangerous fantasy monsters. Like lets take fenrir out of the examples you mentioned, he isnt just a wolf, hes a monstrous demigod offspring with abilities that wolves dont have by any stretch of the imagination.
Or if you want something that gets classified as "fantasy" rather than myth then try wargs from lotr, which are evil wolves but also sentient in a way.
Or you can go to the staples of dragons, daemons and the undead. Or basically anything else for that matter.
Humans being scared of animals lead to them creating things far scarier than said animals, generally by taking said animal or bits of it and then adding lots of bullshit on top.
>Wolves, on the other end, are usually limited to the role of low level fodder
Yes, because a wolf is infinitely weaker and less dangerous than a dragon.
>Given that the narrative background of the wolf is equal to that of the dragon in term of species-wide trauma and symbolic value
No, not even close. Dragons were the ultimate evil, practically satan before satan was even a thing. Chaoskampf and all that. From the golden serpent of colchys to fafnir or the monster that killed beowulf, dragons are the ultimate monster.
Meanwhile I cant think of many mythological heroes whos great accomplishment was killing a wolf.
>if it does not portray them as powerful enemies.
Then it portrays them accurately, they are rated correctly.
>how do they know they're perfectly safe from them?
For the same reason that I know a dude in armor is safe from a wolf, or that a bear is more dangerous. The capabilities of animals arent occult lore, and someone who just killed a ten foot tall monstrosity of dark magic isnt going to be scared of a large dog.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>objectively scarier and more dangerous
All games should only feature Azathoth, Culture GSVs, Maeljinn Incarnae, or the Shrike. Anything that isn't in their *objectively* top-tier weight class isn't worthy.
Even a peasant party must at *least* fight a Borg Cube.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Shrike
Not scary enough. It's Squeblor or nothing.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>this is your brain on not having a brain
If you knew anything about the game you are b***hing about you would know that you can make the wolves in your game (not that you have one) a real threat to the players.
Not technically evil, just extremely dangerous and inherently amoral.
Signers believe that they are the only real person, and all of the infinite multiverse is nothing more than fractured reflections of their own all-powerful mind. Essentially, they are the only REAL person, and everyone and everything else is just a video game NPC. A convincing facsimile, but not real and thus killing them can't be murder any more than killing someone in a dream is murder.
The problem is that Signers are a faction in Planescape, which takes place in the Great Wheel cosmology where the power of belief can make things true. And Signer's believe their own bullshit to such a degree that within a bubble around them they really do operate under different laws than the rest of the world. A narcisistic enough Signer can outright say "That didn't happen. You didn't kill me." and an entire combat encounter retroactively doesn't happen because they didn't like the outcome.
They are not infinitely powerful, there are a lot of things stronger than they are which can overpower their personal world bubble, but fighting one is always a crapshoot because game mechanics can't save you. the game mechanics are the rules YOU have to follow, not them. They are playing a narrative system.
>is to run towards a bigger animal like an elephant and hide behind it until the hippo fricks off.
Rhinos and elephants are literally the only bigger animals on land and neither is gonna be a safe bet. If you go for an elephant, it may be chill or it may just decide to obliterate you. And a rhino will 100% charge back and murder you.
I got a couple, but I am gonna mention this one since it's only mentioned in one source: Andoran, Birthplace of Freedom, so one is likely to miss it.
The Candlestone Courtier. These guys are a great hook for fey political intrigue campaigns and occult adventurers, having to chase them down, possibly through the Realm of Dreams, in order to crash the Fey Court's party. Their Fey Bargain is a unique feature and odds are someone in your party will be naive enough to bite his bait. While limited scope wise, I thought it was worth a mention as he is not found in any true Monster Manuals.
Personally, I have adapted the idea into a homebrew creature of mine, the Swefn Sidhe, but that's for another thread.
>anon immediately focuses on wolves, ignoring the true threat >Mother fricking bears.
Bears hate you and want you dead and have the means to see you that way. We have been at war with the frickers since we got to north Africa and by God we're winning but it's been a long process.
Bears are the biggest pussies in the woods. All you have to do is clap at them and they run. The only reliably dangerous animals in North America are alligators, feral pigs, moose, and venomous snakes.
Potion of mirrored eyes, the spell, protection against petrification, sending skeleton summons, or in THAT area, there is a ghoul you can make friends with and he will tank the shots.
The spell is level one. Try the Hedge place for spells. It's to the left of Beregost. Also you wanna try the Mulahey fight at least level 2 or 3. He spams hold person.
Large real-world fauna in general. Most people will sneer at bears in setting where owlbears exist, and similar exaggerations hold up for many other beasts, but I feel that a predator, played straight, right out of National Geographic, can be a more imposing threat than any dragon, especially since most players won't be used to take them as a serious adversary.
Animals I have used in past games account for a croocodile stalking the party up a river, a startled elephant bull, and a pack of coyotes after the party was already wounded and weakened.
Anon, heres the issue. Whatever a crocodile, or bear, or elephant, or whatever else can do? A dragon, or owlbear, or dire (inster animal here) or bullette or hydra or manticore or whatever else does infinitely more.
There are simply objectively more dangerous things out there in fictional settings.
>or owlbear
does exactly the same things as a bear. I guess it can peck at you. Same with
>dire (inster animal here)
I frankly don't understand why those even exist
>does exactly the same things as a bear
Except with higher stats.
Which is exactly my point, its just a bear but more dangerous.
An owlbears advantage is it can see you at night. Most real world predators are extremely cautious and only attack if they feel certain they can kill their enemy very quickly. That's not very exciting in a game.
>I frankly don't understand why those even exist
to let animals be actually dangerous for a bit
They are dangerous. If they're not dangerous, then be honest and downgrade all the different brigands, robbers and town guards from dying from a finger poke, because none of them could kill a hungry wolf one on one, or probably even a lynx.
Any healthy adult with any weapon, even a rock, can kill a wolf.
It's not even that. Wolves are just big dogs. If one comes at you kick it on the neck and it will go away. There's a reason why it's big news if wolves kill a person because it happens so rarely.
>There's a reason why it's big news if wolves kill a person because it happens so rarely.
It happens rarely because there are so vary few wolves left in areas with a lot of humans. And wolves, like most apex predators, don't pick fights they will have trouble with. But a wolf or large dog that matter, that has decided to frick your shit up will not be dissuaded by a kick to the neck. And that's assuming you can land your kick, which would be very surprising in itself. What's more, wolves aren't solitary animals. They live and attack in packs.
>wolves
>apex predators
Big dogs kill strong, healthy man every day, big guy. Men with weapons.
>Wolves are just big dogs. If one comes at you kick it on the neck and it will go away.
>it one comes at you
>one
Anon, do you know how wolves hunt?
Yes they go after newborn deer, harmless sheep, and sick animals 99% of the time. The remaining 1% tends to end up with a pack member eventually starving to death because a tooth was broken. It's a moot point anyway because we were talking about a singular wolf. Which as I said a healthy adult human, not a weedy homosexual who spends all day coding, is in little danger from.
Are you the anon who thinks they can fight off a hippo because they're fat, and therefore, slow?
No, a hippo is actually dangerous. Unless you just don't mess with them or hang around in waterways where they live... They don't exactly hide themselves. And they're not so fast out of water, you can zig zag away from them.
Nah m8, hippos are fast and they're faster on land then they are on water
Do you homosexuals know anything about nature? They might be fast in short straight bursts that's why when you run from one you go in zig zags so it gets tired faster and can't build up speed
They're faster than you, it'll catch you before you do your little "z" shape with your two legs unless there's already a big distance in between but in that case it probably wouldn't even start chase. Frick off with those dump life hacks to extremely unlikely scenarios, the key to surviving a hippo attack is having a big gun or not being attacked by a hippo
No anon, you're just an idiot.
Wolves don't go after humans as prey, nor seek any trouble with humans, because it's not worth the risk of getting injured. Predators in general would rather avoid any fight with any animal of their weightclass that is inclined to fight back, because any injury is pretty much a death sentence for animals that are active hunters.
If a lion corners a zebra, the zebra is gonna be a lot more brave and reckless than the lion, because to the zebra this confrontation is an occasional incident that will result in its immediate death if it doesn't fight back as hard as it can, while for the lion killing prey is a weekly occurrence and they can't take the risk of injury on something they do routinely every few days to survive, since a kick to the jaw or a broken leg may mean starvation and it's not sustainable to roll the dice on that every week.
So, similarly, a wolf will choose its prey carefully and stick to animals it knows it can both reliably kill and that will provide enough meat to be worth the energy investment and risk. And since they're smart animals, they know not to mess with humans just like they know not to mess with beehives; not because a man with a rock can reliably beat a wolf in a one-on-one fight to the death (he can't), but because it's not worth the small risk of death and the big risk of injury.
Obviously you're already in damage control mode since you've moved from your original statement
>Any healthy adult with any weapon, even a rock, can kill a wolf.
, which is bullshit, to
>Which as I said a healthy adult human, not a weedy homosexual who spends all day coding, is in little danger from.
Which is true in that a human is in no danger from wolves, because wolves that encounter humans will run rather than fight pretty much every time. But that's a huge leap from 'a man will kill a wolf any time'. If a fight does happen, a man with a rock or crude stick dies most of the times.
There was a onions who killed a mountain lion with only his hands a few years ago. A wolf is literally just a big dog, you could kill it with a simple weapon. The real worry is if it has a pack, then you're fricked.
This anon probably things wolves are just mean golden retrievers.
I could never kill a wolf, wolves are awesome... I'd feed it dried meat from my backpack and make friends with it and have adventures together
Excessively optimistic but I can respect that.
>They are dangerous
No, they arent.
>because none of them could kill a hungry wolf one on one
A lot of them absolutely could. Wolves are like Cr 1/2.
Or put in less gamey terms, an armed and armored man will absolutely rock the world of pretty much any given predator, let alone a small band of these armed and armored individuals. Man put himself on top of the food chain naked and with a rock, chainmail, a shield and a spear is just extravagant overkill.
>A lot of them absolutely could. Wolves are like Cr 1/2.
How did you escape a D&D rulebook?
How would you be trapped inside a D&D rulebook?
>an armed and armored man will absolutely rock the world of pretty much any given predator
This is not true. Full plate *might* be good protection against a wolf, but anything larger is strong enough to crush you inside your armour.
>Wolves are just big dogs.
This is not true. Wolves have 45% more biting power than any breed of comparable size. The only dogs that can compete with wolves in terms of threat level are Ovcharkas. With almost any dog, you can neutralize it by shoving your fist or elbow into the back of its mouth to prevent it from biting - with a wolf, the best you can hope for is that it chokes on your arm.
Yeah, I'm not sure about the anon talking about a guy killing a wolf with just a rock, I mean, It could be done but it would be hard, but these low level human npcs already have weapons and armor including bows, I'm putting my money on the bandit
>dragon
Confused iconography and variable intelligence level, players might see it as a hostile NPC, rather than a monster.
>owlbear
Bound to evoke laughter at the table, with "a wizard did it" jokes.
>Bullette
Goofy monster with a boring shape and an annoying tendency to disappear underground.
Of course, all of these are jokes. Still, dragons, owlbears and bullettes are definitely dangerous in any setting, and can be threatening, but they are inevitably analysed by the players under a meta lense: they are famous D&D monsters, with famous D&D behaviours, and famous D&D expectations. They can be played smart and threatening, but people expect them to be so.
Regular animals, on the other hand, are often overlooked as low level cannon fodder, but they can be played as threat as great as a dragon, just taking inspiration from afternoon documentaries and folk tales. So they are underrated, even if objectively less dangerous than the monsters you mentioned.
>are often overlooked as low level cannon fodder
Because they are, play a wolf as smart as you want, its still simply incapable of threatening a barbarian once hes above like 3 HP. They have their reputation for a reason.
>but they can be played as threat as great as a dragon
No, they absolutely objectively cannot. Everything a wolf can do a dragon can do better by orders of magnitude. There is no area in which a wolf can pose anywhere near as much of a threat or a way for it to be as dangerous in a fight.
>its still simply incapable of threatening a barbarian once hes above like 3 HP.
Maybe if you throw 2d4 wolves against the party in a square dungeon room. Throw in darkness, cold, actual pack tactics (not just their neat ability), exhaustion building up after days of harassment and chasing, and most parties up to level 7~8 will start to crack.
>inb4 Tiny Hut
Your tiny hut cannot reliably contain your horses, horribly downgrades your movement capabilites, takes 10 rounds to set up, and it's generally not a strong spell as people would have you believe.
>Everything a wolf can do a dragon can do better by orders of magnitude.
Maybe, but if you read again, I acknowledge that dragons are more dangerous than wolves. I just argue that they can be as threatening. Threat is in the mind, and wolves can be a marvelous source of fright.
>Throw in darkness, cold, actual pack tactics (not just their neat ability), exhaustion building up after days of harassment and chasing, and most parties up to level 7~8 will start to crack.
No, no they wont.
Parties simply have too many ways to deal with these environmental hazards/damage over time, even ignoring that with every modifier you mentioned an unreasonably large pack of wolves will still be little more than fodder to even a single character, let alone a group.
And this is where the crux of the issue lies, because of how absolutely powerless wolves are by comparison, every strategy they may employ is absolutely futile. They attack at night? Theyre more affected by darkness than the party, given they have no darkvision and many player races do (not to mention spells or the like), they want to ambush? too bad, one guy has +9 passive perception. They want to harass? They just had 12 die before they get to act, theyre going to lose more before theyre out of range. They try and launch an attack while the healer is resting? The fighter is more than enough to fight them off while the other guy wakes up.
Literally the only way they function as a threat is if you throw the kind of numbers an orc horde would wish it had, hundreds of wolves which will eventually (maybe) grind the party down over time with nothing but brute attrition (or simply an encounter with so many enemies that bounded accuracy will eventually give you a win). But at that point you can replace "wolf" with "housecat" or "chicken" for all it matters.
Essentially, I think you operate under the misconception that "tuckers kobolds" is some universal rule, something every creature can emulate.
Thats just not true, the kobolds utilized their established skills and specific (unique) traits to their fullest in a way they normally do not, which created an absolutely brutal and punishing gauntlet. That is not something nearly every creature can hope to do because simply put most creatures dont have that unique trait to exploit or the skills to exploit them with.
>Throw in darkness
Wolves don't have darkvision, this actually makes them worse
>cold
Equally bad for the wolves, worse if the party uses Create Bonfire
>actual pack tactics (not just their neat ability)
No ranged attack, no reach, must use their action to disengage. There are no "tactics" here.
>exhaustion building up after days of harassment and chasing
They can't "harass" because they can only attack in melee. They won't "chase" because the PCs will wipe the floor with them if they try to attack. And their speed is 40ft which isn't even fast for DND, rogues barbs and monks are all at least as fast and Expeditious Retreat is a level 1 spell that makes any character faster than a wolf. Firebolt has a range of 120 ft. Longbows 150 ft.
>most parties up to level 7~8 will start to crack
Not even remotely true, in fact I doubt you've ever GM'd for a level 7 party.
>Your tiny hut cannot reliably contain your horses, horribly downgrades your movement capabilites
Every horse-based PC I've seen can summon it as a spell or class feature, so they don't care. But if the party is mounted on horses the wolves are even more of a joke because now they're also slower than every single party member.
>takes 10 rounds to set up
Literally a single minute, way faster than any non-magical shelter.
>and it's generally not a strong spell as people would have you believe
One of the best utility spells in the game actually.
>Maybe, but if you read again, I acknowledge that dragons are more dangerous than wolves. I just argue that they can be as threatening. Threat is in the mind, and wolves can be a marvelous source of fright.
Again, you've never GM'd for a party of level 7 PCs. CR 1/2 wolves are completely trivial, they might as well be squirrels.
>Wolves don't have darkvision
Neither did 3/4 of the party at the time, and darkness still gave wolves advantage on Stealth, and they have Keen Hearing and Smell.
>cold, Equally bad for the wolves
Creatures adapted to cold climates do not need to make Constitution checks against cold, anon.
>There are no "tactics" here.
If you have 6-8 miniatures against 4 party members and don't find a way to kite them around, position so that area spells would be dangerous, and abuse the fact that you can only use AoO on creatures you can see, it's up to you.
>They can't "harass" because they can only attack in melee.
Three wolves arget weak party member. Maybe one attack lands. Said party member has no meelee options/is surprised, so no reactions. That sounds like harassment to me.
>They won't "chase" because the PCs will wipe the floor with them if they try to attack.
If they try to attack from the front, when the party is prepared, sure. And mind me, I don't mean the party should not be able to defeat the wolves in the end, just that the wolves can pose a threat.
>Literally a single minute, way faster than any non-magical shelter.
Literally 10 rounds where the wizard doesn't act, 110 rounds if they have to cast it as a ritual. Once again, you think the party will expect the attack.
To summarise, anon, your experience is valid, but not universal, and while it's obvious that dragons are stronger than wolves (nobody ever denied that), I can guarantee you that they can be perceived as a frightening threat by a mid level party, if played right.
>advantage on stealth
Which doesent matter with their pathetic +4 modifier versus the passive perception you can get. Likewise them having an advantage to smell and hearing based tests doesent matter because they have a +3 to it.
You aren't going to kite 4 party members with 8 wolves, because at level 8 even a fricking mage will mop the floor with them 1v1, trivially.
The party members are faster and remove a wolf per action, its not kiting, its just wasting time before you have red smears where wolves used to be. You don't need area spells when magic missile is overkill.
>three wolves target weak party member
And if all of them hit they still barely scratch him, he then turns around and flattens at least one and probably more.
>literally 10 rounds where he doesent act
If he tries casting it in combat, which he won't, because the combat encounter is fricking trivial and he has a myriad spells which make it even more trivial.
>they can be perceivesd as a frightening threat
Any party over like level 3 is literally incapable of being threatened by wolves, so no.
>this_is_your_brain_on_DnD.papyrus
I swear to God you fricking drones manage to take the soul out of every fricking piece of narrative you touch. Wolves are scary because they fricking incarnate the fear of the forest, you know, the fricking phobia that has impregnated human literature and mythology for millenia. From Little Red Riding Hood to Fenrir, from the Beast of Gévaudan to their mentions in the Malleus Maleficarum, wolves have shaped humanity's fear of the dark and the unknown.
You fricking idiots can keep arguing about how wolves are nerfed or not in the d20 system like they were a fricking katana all you want, but in the end, nobody cares if they are proficient in smelling poo but lack the feat chain to unlock the Instakill action.
The point of the thread is to underline how some enemies are underrated, and judging by your cringe-worthy exchange, wolves are, end of story.
Lmao, I would say "then go write a book rather than host a game", but even in a fantasy book wolves arent scary compared to actual fantasy monsters.
Newsflash dipshit, you can cry all you want about your heckin inspiratiorinos and how wolves and other predators were the basis for fiction. That doesent matter one bit in regards to how they rank up to the horrors human creativity has created within said fiction.
It also doesent matter in regards to how scary they are within roleplaying games, where the basis for fear or impact is based on the in game, and wolves are not diagetically scary.
>even in a fantasy book wolves arent scary compared to actual fantasy monsters
Citation needed, but nevermind.
>That doesent matter one bit in regards to how they rank up to the horrors human creativity has created within said fiction.
I agree. The point of the thread, however, is to share underrated monsters. Dragons are not underrated, because they are well represented as menacing enemies in most games. Wolves, on the other end, are usually limited to the role of low level fodder, as the two autists above kept arguing about. Given that the narrative background of the wolf is equal to that of the dragon in term of species-wide trauma and symbolic value, wolves are underrated, and their first underrater is the game itself, if it does not portray them as powerful enemies.
Now, a point can be made about the need to have powerful and threatening wolf enemies: it's ok to be ok with their fodder role in your story and system.
It is not ok to claim that because your favourite game makes a choice, then it's universal. With the same reasoning, a hydra isn't scary because in D&D you can easily outrun one and bombard it with fire spells until it's dead.
Since you brought diegesis into this, D&D has an awful separation about rules and flavour, but we can assume that your character can't see the wolves' statblock: how do they know they're perfectly safe from them?
>Citation needed
The citation is that you have objectively scarier and more dangerous fantasy monsters. Like lets take fenrir out of the examples you mentioned, he isnt just a wolf, hes a monstrous demigod offspring with abilities that wolves dont have by any stretch of the imagination.
Or if you want something that gets classified as "fantasy" rather than myth then try wargs from lotr, which are evil wolves but also sentient in a way.
Or you can go to the staples of dragons, daemons and the undead. Or basically anything else for that matter.
Humans being scared of animals lead to them creating things far scarier than said animals, generally by taking said animal or bits of it and then adding lots of bullshit on top.
>Wolves, on the other end, are usually limited to the role of low level fodder
Yes, because a wolf is infinitely weaker and less dangerous than a dragon.
>Given that the narrative background of the wolf is equal to that of the dragon in term of species-wide trauma and symbolic value
No, not even close. Dragons were the ultimate evil, practically satan before satan was even a thing. Chaoskampf and all that. From the golden serpent of colchys to fafnir or the monster that killed beowulf, dragons are the ultimate monster.
Meanwhile I cant think of many mythological heroes whos great accomplishment was killing a wolf.
>if it does not portray them as powerful enemies.
Then it portrays them accurately, they are rated correctly.
>how do they know they're perfectly safe from them?
For the same reason that I know a dude in armor is safe from a wolf, or that a bear is more dangerous. The capabilities of animals arent occult lore, and someone who just killed a ten foot tall monstrosity of dark magic isnt going to be scared of a large dog.
>objectively scarier and more dangerous
All games should only feature Azathoth, Culture GSVs, Maeljinn Incarnae, or the Shrike. Anything that isn't in their *objectively* top-tier weight class isn't worthy.
Even a peasant party must at *least* fight a Borg Cube.
>Shrike
Not scary enough. It's Squeblor or nothing.
>this is your brain on not having a brain
If you knew anything about the game you are b***hing about you would know that you can make the wolves in your game (not that you have one) a real threat to the players.
Prehistorical fauna that's not fricking dinosaurs.
Agreed.
Do mammoths count as dinosaurs?
Is this
1. A monster woman with a funny cape?
2. A monster cape with a funny woman?
In any case, the combo evil woman + evil clothes is aesthetic and underrated.
Not technically evil, just extremely dangerous and inherently amoral.
Signers believe that they are the only real person, and all of the infinite multiverse is nothing more than fractured reflections of their own all-powerful mind. Essentially, they are the only REAL person, and everyone and everything else is just a video game NPC. A convincing facsimile, but not real and thus killing them can't be murder any more than killing someone in a dream is murder.
The problem is that Signers are a faction in Planescape, which takes place in the Great Wheel cosmology where the power of belief can make things true. And Signer's believe their own bullshit to such a degree that within a bubble around them they really do operate under different laws than the rest of the world. A narcisistic enough Signer can outright say "That didn't happen. You didn't kill me." and an entire combat encounter retroactively doesn't happen because they didn't like the outcome.
They are not infinitely powerful, there are a lot of things stronger than they are which can overpower their personal world bubble, but fighting one is always a crapshoot because game mechanics can't save you. the game mechanics are the rules YOU have to follow, not them. They are playing a narrative system.
That sounds horrifying.
>Hippos are shockingly fast
True
>is to run towards a bigger animal like an elephant and hide behind it until the hippo fricks off.
Rhinos and elephants are literally the only bigger animals on land and neither is gonna be a safe bet. If you go for an elephant, it may be chill or it may just decide to obliterate you. And a rhino will 100% charge back and murder you.
I got a couple, but I am gonna mention this one since it's only mentioned in one source: Andoran, Birthplace of Freedom, so one is likely to miss it.
The Candlestone Courtier. These guys are a great hook for fey political intrigue campaigns and occult adventurers, having to chase them down, possibly through the Realm of Dreams, in order to crash the Fey Court's party. Their Fey Bargain is a unique feature and odds are someone in your party will be naive enough to bite his bait. While limited scope wise, I thought it was worth a mention as he is not found in any true Monster Manuals.
Personally, I have adapted the idea into a homebrew creature of mine, the Swefn Sidhe, but that's for another thread.
I don't think you understand how large a wolf is. They're not just wild dogs.
thanks for the schizopost anon, don't forget to take your meds.
it's true. maybe asiaticmoot was paid a few shekels to let the trannies in
>anon immediately focuses on wolves, ignoring the true threat
>Mother fricking bears.
Bears hate you and want you dead and have the means to see you that way. We have been at war with the frickers since we got to north Africa and by God we're winning but it's been a long process.
Just play dead
Bears are the biggest pussies in the woods. All you have to do is clap at them and they run. The only reliably dangerous animals in North America are alligators, feral pigs, moose, and venomous snakes.
I agree they're pretty cool. Those mirror guys that reflect spells are underrated too.
Got a name?
Flat frick, dangerous and the sprites in Baldur's Gate make them cute. What's not to love?
What's the easiest way to kill these fricks? I heard that they're useful for grinding XP.
Potion of mirrored eyes, the spell, protection against petrification, sending skeleton summons, or in THAT area, there is a ghoul you can make friends with and he will tank the shots.
How far are these from Level 1? I'm having issues with Mulahey since sleep doesn't work on skeletons or him.
The spell is level one. Try the Hedge place for spells. It's to the left of Beregost. Also you wanna try the Mulahey fight at least level 2 or 3. He spams hold person.
I've noticed. It's absurdly annoying. I managed to get him to low HP once, but we all died.