overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
As does a healthy dose of don’t care it’s too fun and funny not to do.
D&D 5E (2024) Seeking input re: Dwarves Riding Bears.
- Thread starter JPL
- Start date
Mad_Jack
Legend
Since we're assuming a unit of trained bear cavalry and not some drunken rednecks-in-tin-cans that said, "Hold my ale..." and tried to go all "8 seconds" on wild bears, and also that these troops are headquartered (and possibly trained at this place), there's probably been generations of war-bears raised and trained as battle mounts...
Hell, one dwarf could have raised and ridden eight generations of bears from the same line into battle.
You could go full Game of Thrones and have these guys be part of an organization like the Night's Watch, an Order of Rangers riding around the mountains keeping the orcs at bay and protecting travelers... If they're operating out of Deadsnow, you should probably have a small keep and stable beside it for the Order of Bear Riders and have the monastery operating a side hustle catering to the needs of the local travelers since they're dedicated to the God of Wanderers.
As for the bears' stats, you might want to look at the sidekick rules as mentioned for things like giving them decent AC and HP, etc. Maybe they have a small suite of actions they're trained to take on their own if not being ridden or otherwise commanded by their rider - attack the same target as their rider, use a help action, drag their unconscious rider out of the fight, etc....
Some adventure ideas...
- Maybe there's an ancient magical pact between the bears and their riders - there's an ancient noble line of bears (smarter than your average bear, lol) that has willingly sworn themselves to the same cause as the dwarves that ride them...
Something could threaten that pact:
- maybe the orc hordes have taken possession of some magical whichamawhatsit related to the pact and the party needs to get it back before the orcs (and whoever is helping them) can destroy it and bring about the downfall of the Order.
- maybe the orcs have seized control of the bears' ancient hidden breeding grounds, or the "long-lost" citadel where the order was founded...
- maybe the half-dozen party members are the last of the far-fallen Order, and need to reach one of the above places or achieve some other goal in order to begin rebuilding the Order or otherwise restore it to glory...
Hell, one dwarf could have raised and ridden eight generations of bears from the same line into battle.
You could go full Game of Thrones and have these guys be part of an organization like the Night's Watch, an Order of Rangers riding around the mountains keeping the orcs at bay and protecting travelers... If they're operating out of Deadsnow, you should probably have a small keep and stable beside it for the Order of Bear Riders and have the monastery operating a side hustle catering to the needs of the local travelers since they're dedicated to the God of Wanderers.
As for the bears' stats, you might want to look at the sidekick rules as mentioned for things like giving them decent AC and HP, etc. Maybe they have a small suite of actions they're trained to take on their own if not being ridden or otherwise commanded by their rider - attack the same target as their rider, use a help action, drag their unconscious rider out of the fight, etc....
Some adventure ideas...
- Maybe there's an ancient magical pact between the bears and their riders - there's an ancient noble line of bears (smarter than your average bear, lol) that has willingly sworn themselves to the same cause as the dwarves that ride them...
Something could threaten that pact:
- maybe the orc hordes have taken possession of some magical whichamawhatsit related to the pact and the party needs to get it back before the orcs (and whoever is helping them) can destroy it and bring about the downfall of the Order.
- maybe the orcs have seized control of the bears' ancient hidden breeding grounds, or the "long-lost" citadel where the order was founded...
- maybe the half-dozen party members are the last of the far-fallen Order, and need to reach one of the above places or achieve some other goal in order to begin rebuilding the Order or otherwise restore it to glory...
GMMichael
Guide of Modos
Agreed, but that kind of thinking could open the floodgates. I rue the day that one of my PCs says, "I want my next character to be a bullywug with a walrus mount. Anything can be a mount, right?"
AKA the Grin and Bear It Lodge?
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Not me. I’d rather the players do something creative for a change. That sounds great.
MarkB
Legend
Couldn't resist
To actually contribute something useful, maybe there's a logistical reason for using bears in the region - like, maybe a lot of medium predators, such as wolves, that horses would be panicked by, but are in turn unlikely to try to take on multiple bears.
Or maybe there are some terrain elements that the bears can struggle through, but would be impassable to horses.
Gorck
Prince of Dorkness
This made me think of my Dwarf Hunter I had in WoW back in the day. He had an Ice Bear from Dun Morog as his animal companion and I named it Orr, both as a play-on-words with “ore” (which Dwarves like to mine) and as a reference to Bobby Orr (one of the greatest Boston Bruins to ever play the sport of hockey).
TaranTheWanderer
Legend
Personally, I like dwarves riding Warpigs. And then pairing that up with some Black Sabbath.
A lot of good thoughts.
I'm glad to hear the minis give you Large bears. So that means brown bear stats, but I think I'm assuming Ysgardian ancestry for these here bears, so they came here to eat salmon and kick ass, y'know?
Brown bears are CR 1, so that puts them above the CR 1/2 cutoff for the sidekick rules, but I'm leaning toward using those rules anyway, just to juice up those bears.
On the fence about whether this crew is devoted to Haela Brightaxe (in which case they are sort of CG Klingon biker gang monster slayers) or Marthammor Duin (more NG wilderness rescue).
Now either way, I have a notion that most of these guys are fighter (champions). My reasoning is that for a one-shot, a mechanically straightforward character is best, and adding the bears and the mounted combat rules is already enough to worry about. But there's a cleric for sure.
Probably fighting a white dragon in the ruins of a fallen frontier keep.
I'm glad to hear the minis give you Large bears. So that means brown bear stats, but I think I'm assuming Ysgardian ancestry for these here bears, so they came here to eat salmon and kick ass, y'know?
Brown bears are CR 1, so that puts them above the CR 1/2 cutoff for the sidekick rules, but I'm leaning toward using those rules anyway, just to juice up those bears.
On the fence about whether this crew is devoted to Haela Brightaxe (in which case they are sort of CG Klingon biker gang monster slayers) or Marthammor Duin (more NG wilderness rescue).
Now either way, I have a notion that most of these guys are fighter (champions). My reasoning is that for a one-shot, a mechanically straightforward character is best, and adding the bears and the mounted combat rules is already enough to worry about. But there's a cleric for sure.
Probably fighting a white dragon in the ruins of a fallen frontier keep.
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