Bears: Huggy or Swatty?

How do you stat a bear?

  • Huggy

    Votes: 4 10.0%
  • Swatty

    Votes: 36 90.0%

Dausuul

Legend
So, here's an interesting question. Let's say you're writing up combat stats for a bear.

Bears have a reputation for crushing people to death by "hugging," to the extent that bears are often given a hug or grab attack in RPGs. However, hugging bears seem to be entirely fictional. Bears do not hug*. They swat, the way people swat flies, and with similar results.

Keeping in mind that grab-type attacks are always tricky to do mechanics for (in other words, swatty bears are easier to stat out than huggy ones), do you go with the real-world version? Or the fictional version everyone expects to see?

[size=-2]*Except for trees; a bear will wrap its arms around a tree trunk to climb it. So maybe bears should have grab attacks that only work on treants.[/size]
 

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Bears chase, swat, knock down or slow down, then bite and drag with their teeth while occasionally swiping apart the prey's flesh.

I was researching how polar bears kill for my LOST game.
 

Bears are usually already statted out, so I just use those stats for the most part. If I'm actually statting the bear, I'll go with whatever the situation demands. I put "huggy" but I'll use either.

And if I wan't "extra-huggy" bears, I'll add tentacles; while "extra-swatty" bears get big, heavy iron boxing gloves. And a little hat.

It's all good.
 




Having spent some time with NA black and grizzly bears I'm going with swatty hands down. When a bear hugs it isn't to squish the victim like an anaconda, it's to keep it still while the bear bites.

Be mean, if the bear grapples give it a flurry of bites or some sort of rip a large piece off ability. That will shake the players up and make for a different encounter.
 


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