The thing that annoys me most about legendary animals is that they're given solely as ways to boost the druid's smackdown ability. Can't get that dire tiger into the dungeon? No problem -- get a legendary wolf instead. As presented in MotW, they're really nothing more than bigger bundles of hit points than regular or dire animals.
IMO, a legendary animal should be just that -- legendary, and I don't mean just "super powered". At the very least, the writeup in the book should have provided some suggestions for why these animals exist in the first place. Are they incarnations of the elder spirits of the animal world? Are they agents of the gods sent to guard nature and/or exact vengeance on despoilers? Or what? As it is, there's no in-game explanation for why these animals should exist -- a metagame explanation, along the lines of "to keep the druid happy", is a piss-poor substitute.
And yes, I know the DM can always come up with an explanation suitable for his or her own campaign. That's not the point. While it's well and good for the core books to focus on technical rules, the whole point of a splatbook is to provide depth and flavour beyond what's in the core. It's no wonder that certain persons (who shall remain unnamed) keep rabbiting on about D&D's blandness.
IMO, a legendary animal should be just that -- legendary, and I don't mean just "super powered". At the very least, the writeup in the book should have provided some suggestions for why these animals exist in the first place. Are they incarnations of the elder spirits of the animal world? Are they agents of the gods sent to guard nature and/or exact vengeance on despoilers? Or what? As it is, there's no in-game explanation for why these animals should exist -- a metagame explanation, along the lines of "to keep the druid happy", is a piss-poor substitute.
And yes, I know the DM can always come up with an explanation suitable for his or her own campaign. That's not the point. While it's well and good for the core books to focus on technical rules, the whole point of a splatbook is to provide depth and flavour beyond what's in the core. It's no wonder that certain persons (who shall remain unnamed) keep rabbiting on about D&D's blandness.
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