D&D General Tyrannosaurs were pack hunters. Stay away from the Isle of Dread.

[grimslade]

Ok, so after a few hours of paleontology specials I feel more up to date.
Sue the T-Rex has been given a new fleshed-out body and is on tour. It gives an even better view of what an absolute terror a T-Rex would be.
Fleshy the T-Rex

 

[Umbran]

It's plausible I don't think we had any large dinos but it was also cut off and far from prime fossil locations.

New Zealand hasn't always been isolated. The Tahora formation in New Zeland has yielded remains of nodosaurs and titanosaurs, among others.

 

[RangerWickett]

Doesnt that tell you something about the expectations on the abilities of Martials in DnD?

The game assumes they can take one down with a pointy stick. Heck a single 11th level battlemaster could take one down with a sword inside of 6 seconds.

Back in, oh, 2006 or so, I played in a Conan d20 game where our party was attacked by a two-headed tyrannosaur. It won initiative, bit our biggest warrior, and swallowed him whole. The rest of the party went, shooting arrows, hacking at its shins, all kinda fruitlessly.

The warrior went last in initiative and proceeded to roll a crit from inside the gullet, using a greatsword. The GM ruled that he literally decapitated the rex from within. He plopped to the ground covered in blood.

Then the rex's turn came around again, and the other head bit him and swallowed him whole again.

 

[Jaeger]

Doesn't that tell you something about the expectations on the abilities of Martials in DnD?

The game assumes they can take one down with a pointy stick. Heck a single 11th level battlemaster could take one down with a sword inside of 6 seconds.

LOL for sure!

But it's D&D, the Medieval Superhero's game.

Except it's totally not a supers game, no sir!

In fact there is a thread floating around here referring to it as vanilla fantasy.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Looking at the MM, and 5e woefully under powers dinosaurs. I think 1e had it much closer. I mean, only a DC 14 str save to avoid getting knocked prone when a brontosaurus hits you? That like saying you have a great chance staying standing when a house lands on you. For a regular dude, not some Uber level 20 hero.

 

[humble minion]

I follow paleontology fairly closely (as an amateur), and one thing that I learned a while back is that many big carnivores like T-rex not only hunted in packs, but actually had different ecological roles based on their age. Younger animals grew fast but were much lighter and leaner, while full-grown adults (like the Sue skeleton belonged to) were enormously robust and powerful. So you had the younger ones acting as sheepdogs almost, herding prey, rounding them up and nipping at their heels and hamstrings, while the big brawny adults closed in for the kill.

Which would be complete overkill for human-sized prey of course! But you could easily justify different stat line variants for the different age groups, perhaps one with 10ft more speed and one with a higher Str...

 

[Sacrosanct]

I follow paleontology fairly closely (as an amateur), and one thing that I learned a while back is that many big carnivores like T-rex not only hunted in packs, but actually had different ecological roles based on their age. Younger animals grew fast but were much lighter and leaner, while full-grown adults (like the Sue skeleton belonged to) were enormously robust and powerful. So you had the younger ones acting as sheepdogs almost, herding prey, rounding them up and nipping at their heels and hamstrings, while the big brawny adults closed in for the kill.

Which would be complete overkill for human-sized prey of course! But you could easily justify different stat line variants for the different age groups, perhaps one with 10ft more speed and one with a higher Str...

So you're saying giant reptiles in DnD should have...age categories?

 

[Zardnaar]

New Zealand hasn't always been isolated. The Tahora formation in New Zeland has yielded remains of nodosaurs and titanosaurs, among others.

True we had some stuff survive the asteroid as well. Theoretically it should have been frozen here. The South Island isn't that much larger than the IoD and supported the last avian megafauna in the world.

It's plausible the Isle if Dread could support some T-Rex.

Finis absolutely up to L size in D&D terms.

 

[Mind of tempest]

True we had some stuff survive the asteroid as well. Theoretically it should have been frozen here. The South Island isn't that much larger than the IoD and supported the last avian megafauna in the world.

It's plausible the Isle if Dread could support some T-Rex.

Finis absolutely up to L size in D&D terms.

Trex could not live in a jungle for the more practical reason of it not having sufficient prey and if it ran fast the fallen logs could kill it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Trex could not live in a jungle for the more practical reason of it not having sufficient prey and if it ran fast the fallen logs could kill it.

Maybe but not all of the isle is jungle either.

Mammoth managed to survive on Wrangell Island for tens of thousands of years after the rest died out.

That island is tiny relative to the Isle of Dread.

It's why I said it's plausible or ruins my sense of immersion. Wrangel Island and NZ are real life examples of something kinda similar.