Where did the animals go?

[Klaus]

Are you sure the list you saw was right? There are bears, bats, beetles, boars, crocodiles, horses, hounds, hyenas, panthers, rats, snakes, scorpions, spiders and wolves in the MM.

The only "real" animals included are:

Bear
Wolf, Gray
Horse, Riding
Horse, Warhorse

 

[valeren]

That's just sad.

I know some of you guys don't use animal encounters that much in your games but without them forest, jungle, and water based adventures are just not the same as it was before.

I would have traded pages of the more exotic monsters for more basic encounters.

(Or maybe animal minutures would simply not sell as much as minitures of those type of monsters.)

Am now really starting to dislike 4e. It's great for players but I'm thinking it's going to be a lot harder for DMs

 

[Tuft]

Wonder if SPCA complained?

 

[jdrakeh]

I was just noticing earlier today that the old Basic D&D books had few entries for normal, non-giant, animals (Holmes D&D has only an entry for "Horse", for instance, while OD&D just has generic entries for "small" and "large" animals). I wonder if this is a kind of back to basics approach where animals are basically considered as props (i.e., scene dressing).

 

[Zinovia]

They were going to include animals, but then the lawyers told them they couldn't use the required "No animals were harmed in the production of this game system" statement if they did. After all, if it's in the Monster Manual, it's gonna get beat up.

 

[thundershot]

Now see, I was just about to post this:

Chris

 

[Lord Mhoram]

With all the comments about animal companions and druids being in the #2 wave of core books, I expect to see a fair amount of animals in the MM2.

 

[hong]

They were going to include animals, but then the lawyers told them they couldn't use the required "No animals were harmed in the production of this game system" statement if they did. After all, if it's in the Monster Manual, it's gonna get beat up.

What about orcs? Orcs are animals too!

 

[Kunimatyu]

I'm not a huge fan of having stats for small window-dressing-type animals, or even for fifty billion Dire varieties.

The only somewhat odd thing is that there are no lions/tigers. Every other common combat animal is there. There are also no centipedes, despite that we have one in Dungeons of Dread.

I will say that I would have appreciated having a few more dinos, specifically a T-Rex, Triceratops, and Deinonychus, but I do get that most people aren't huge fans of them.

 

[Orcus]

Our Tome of Horrors 4E will have an appendix of animals. We will scale them from 1st to 10th level or so with some template-style abilites for each animal type so you can make them quickly. Some for normal vermin style animals like giant spiders and snakes and scorpions and such.

We got you covered.

Animals are a HUGE part of my campaigns. Always have been. And they are a core part of fantasy play in old school gaming, in my view. Heck, look at Conan for example. I cant count how many cats and apes and snakes and spiders he fought. And our old school JG Wilderlands campaign has tons of animals.

So, yes, Scott Greene and I immediately noticed there were not enough animals and we will fix that. There arent really any plants or classic fey either.

Clark