The Owlbear, as it is known, epitomizes the issue with modern TTRPGs. Unnecessary, superfluous, redundant. It contributes nothing to encounter design that a regular bear does not already provide. Its sole function is cosmetic, a real-world animal wearing another real-world animal's face, bolted together so the setting can gesture at being fantastical without the tedious work of actually being so. The Owlbear doesn't expand the fantasy of its world, it highlights its absence.
>>98356920
Have you tried not shitting up the board with dnd?
>>98356920have you tried killing yourself?
>>98356920>Unnecessary, superfluous, redundant.imagine using the word redundant in a sequence of words that are redundant
Honestly, I just wish everything after the early editions didn't go so literal with the design. The original is clearly some kind of dinosaur that they just called that because it's a bear-sized predator with a beak. I dunno, maybe its a copyright thing because a lot of the old monsters were copied from bootleg Ultraman toys.
>>98356920Yeah, but that's just, like, your opinion, man.
>>98356920It's a dumb whatever addition that Gary Gygax came up with because he thought that a toy looked funny in Japan. It was never meant to be a staple of the setting.
>>98356920a wizard did it
>>98356920How did this affect your last game night?
I dunno, I kind of like the backstory that they're the descendants of creatures created by wizards in magi-tech genetic experiments that escaped and went feral. It feels like the sort of thing that would happen in a world where magic exists on an industrial scale, like they're a really fucked up introduced species or a kind of "pollution" caused by humans tampering with the natural order.
>>98356920>fantasy game has... fantasy?
>>98357242>"yeah bro my world has so much fantasy in it, you know dogs, right? well in my fantasy world they all have...blue fur. pretty fantastic, right? your mind is probably spinning just trying to comprehend what living in a fantastic world like that would even look like."
>>98356977A number of the original monster designs were just copied from a dime store bag of prehistoric animal toys
>>98356920>This monster with its stat block is identical to a monster with a different stat blockThat's wrong and not a clever thing to say but for some reason you felt the need to say it.
>>98357281>>98356920i get your point but it's still a lot less boring than using "direwolves" and "direbears" which are just wolves++ and bears++
>The Owlbear doesn't expand the fantasy of its world, it highlights its absence.You retards have got to get better at recognizing LLMslop.
>>98357306The fact that you think bears need more points in the deadliness meter shows how stupid you are. It's no wonder all your fantasy worlds feel so non-fantastical, you people don't know the first thing about the one you're living in.
>>98357295who's this nigga?
>>98356920i'm pretty sure everyone agrees that owlbears are boring and stupid. i've never run one in my games and none of my friends have either, yet we don't usually think about it or make threads about it. are you autistic perchance?
>>98356920>>98357321I get that this is bait but you're not even going to provide a counterexample of what an actual "fantastical world" is? I'm going to guess the answer is "it's obvious if you are well read like me, no I won't tell you!"
>>98357306that would make sense if the setting he's talking about didn't have both owlbears and direbears lmao.
>>98357334i'm glad you asked. the displacer is a neat example. it's main method of confrontation is something you don't really see in the real world and it provides a fun and unique challenge that you can't really replicate by swapping it out with a real life animal.
>>98356920y'all mind if I fucking scream
>>98357281who are you quoting?
>>98357323That's a Methadillo. You see them around the Florida panhandle all the time.
>>98356920>The Owlbear, as it is known, epitomizes the issue with modern TTRPGs.That people like cool shit?>Unnecessary, superfluous, redundant. Technically TTRPGs as a hobby are all of those things. You don't NEED to have TTRPGs, you WANT them. They aren't food, water, or reproduction, and so they aren't required.>It contributes nothing to encounter design that a regular bear does not already provideIt's a Monstrosity, not a Beast. It's Large instead of Medium. It's faster when climbing or on land. It does more damage. It's a bear, but for a party that's stronger than any mundane bear could ever be. It's also weird ecologically, because it canonically lays eggs, which gives you quest opportunities that you can't have with a bear, like stealing it for some noble to make an omelette with or stealing it back from the noble's couriers to return to the nest for a druid or any number of other more interesting things than just "kill a bear".>The Owlbear doesn't expand the fantasy of its world, it highlights its absence.On the contrary, it absolutely highlights it through how fucked up and weird it is. It's fantastical by its very design, such a creature cannot exist IRL. It's a fucked up little abomination of a thing that is also not a hideous freak like a Beholder or Illithid.TLDR, you have no whimsy in your heart (if you have one at all), and you don't understand what fantasy as a genre is or ever was. Go back to your historicals you boring old man.
>>98357366It's literally just a panther with tentacles. It's the same shit as an owlbear but even lazier.
>>98357407Why even engage if you have no idea what i'm talking about? It takes less than 5 seconds to look up what the displacer beast is.
>>98356920I can smell you from by screen. Take a shower.
>>98356920>>98357402In editions before 3.X, the Owlbear and the Brown Bear fulfilled roughly the same role: "big dangerous animal you might run into in the woods." The Brown Bear was slightly tougher (5d8+5 hp vs the Owlbear's 5d8+2) but the Owlbear was harder to hit (equivalent of AC 16 vs AC 15), had a nastier bite (2d6 vs 1d8) and was more intelligent (Low (5-7 Int) rather than Semi (2-4 Int)). The main reason the Owlbear existed was to sign post that a wizard is or was fusing animals together to make chimeric monsters.In 3.X the Owlbear ended up weaker than the Brown Bear even though they had the same CR due to the monster creation rules favoring Animals over Magical Beasts. this is also the point that the Owlbear started getting treated less as random experiment and more as a random fantastic creature. 5e just made the Owlbear a stronger version of the Brown Bear.What was once a wizard's low int guard animal was gradually turned into a fantasy animal.
>>98356920>Monster that has been in the game since the beginning >"Modern"If anything it's more of a case of a sacred cow
>>98357715Maybe there should be a "hybrid animals" category which would include the owlbear and similar critters to bring back the "early warning sign a crazy mage is nearby", kind of like wandering undead are.
