Yes, it might be something of a clickbait title, but it is accurate. Dungeons & Dragons is a game we don't often discuss on here, even when we do delve into RPGs. The main is simply that we often focus far more on the outings relating to Warhammer 40,000 and Shadowrun than anything else, and D&D was one which I was introduced to far later than most. However, even with that being said, it's easy to pick out the popular ones on here. Even if a person has never played the game, they will still recognise a Beyonder, a Mind Flayer or the Tarrasque. Well, that and the Mimic, of course. Still, there are many which are just overlooked due to their generic nature, but none that have been quite so overlooked as today's example.
Now, this is one that you may or may not have heard of. However, you will definitely have seen it. This is an incredibly dangerous monster, arguably one of the single worst things that anyone could walk across. It's capable of being enraged beyond all rational means, and will actively fight to the death against almost any intruder. Oh, and it exists in real life:
No, this is not a joke. It's a Hippo, specifically one of the Dire variety. This thing is something few to no campaigns ever bother to use, and something that more than a few parties laugh at if it shows up as a threat. You might be able to see why at first as, as big as their mouths are, they are somewhat comical looking. Then you might start to notice certain things, like how in real life their skin is tough enough to easily shrug off attacks from multiple lionesses, or how they can crush a watermelon in a single bite. Or these stats:
You can find the original sheet for this here if you don't believe me. But, to break this down, this thing has even more HP than a Fire Giant, Yithian or Dragon Turtle. It has a natural AC which allows it to walk through most DPS attacks from parties of munchkins hellbent upon min-maxing their tanks, and enough sheer speed to match most characters who aren't riding horses. It's damn near impossible to knock down at the level you are supposed to encounter them at, while its reach means that if you're just a little too close, it's going to take your leg off.
Keep in mind, this isn't a lumbering beast either. Its Dexterity might not be fantastic, but it's a damn sight better than more than a few creatures intended to tank a few hundred sword-blows at that level, and it has bonuses to make up for that. Things like Improved Initiative ensures that it has a +4 bonus on initiative based checks, and it's Perceptive enough that it will find just about anything it's looking for. Really, it's +22 on a basic roll before you even get into things like the Skill Focus bonus of +3 to boost that up just a bit further. Run to the water? You're just playing into its (completely metaphorical) hands! There's no point in hiding from this thing, it's the Liam Neeson of the animal world. It will find you, and it will kill you.
Still, none of this is getting into just what it does if it ends up attacking you. Long story short, you're going to be upright for about three turns at the most. This Pacman of the aquatic world is hitting at 4d6+12 with a bonus to critical rolls which gives them both a doubled threat range and a base attack bonus of +8. That's an average roll of 14, meaning that this hippo from hell is going to be taking chunks out of an unprepared character even with plate armour. Oh, sure, you can dodge, but it's going to typically stay upright long enough to get at least one good bite in, at which point your Rogue is going to be wondering where his legs went.
Combine this with a brutal Strength of 27, Constitution of 24, and a remarkably high Wisdom of 16, and it's going to cause all sorts of hell for a party which doesn't take this seriously. Really, even if you're saving the fantastical stuff for a proper boss, two of these things would be the miniboss of nightmares. A proper herd of five would likely cause a total party kill unless the players are min-maxing their creations.
So, why isn't this better known? Probably for the same reason that people tilt their head and wonder if you're joking when you say that hippos are genuinely dangerous animals. They look a little cartoonish compared with the likes of lions, crocodiles or even rhinos, and they lack the same typical menace. You're lucky if you can ever find Tarzan fighting one on screen and I can't think of a film (well, besides Jumanji) which has truly used one as a threat. Combine that with the fact that this is a game where basilisks, griffins, hydras and dragons show up throughout the plot, and it can be a little hard to build up the enthusiasm to take this creation seriously.
Still, that just makes it all the more of a shock when you decide to drop it on a group of adventurers, or need to keep a few murder hobos in line.
Hippos in general are so hard to take seriously. They're incredibly dangerous but they look like a living stuffed animal, and unless you've got a good narrator I doubt that'll change for most D&D groups, regardless of how threatening they can actually turn out to be. I think it could work if they happened to just come across it on a quest that looked like it was just a joke quest, similar to Monty Python's rabbit but with a hippo instead. Play it off similarly and you could have a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteI do think it'll be easier to take seriously than some other monsters though. I know a guy who'll defend nearly any D&D monster to the death, with only a few exceptions such as the Wereshark. Those are something I think should never have been made, and I've never found somebody interested in defending them, even the ones who like aquatic creatures always use something else instead.
... You know, I might well have to try that suggestion now with a new adventuring group if they end up pushing things a bit too far. It could be a fun alternative to the likes of dragons or the bizarrely agile dire elephants.
DeleteAs for your point about them not being threatening, yeah, I'll agree with you on the stuffed animal point. It's like how some bears or elephants are creatures that some people can't take seriously, despite them both having resulted in various fatalities over the decades and being very hard to kill. It's probably the body shape which does it.
Also, Weresharks I do have a bit of a soft spot for. It's both due to my love of DC Comics, and the fact a GM used one as an amazingly well delivered twist in a murder mystery style campaign. As a direct monster, i'll agree they leave a bit to be desired in the visual threat factor though.