A campaign with no (few) dinosaurs?

[Thurbane]

Just a quick question for discussion. It seems that in the "default" D&D settings, dinosaurs are a natural part of the ecosystem, seemingly as common as bears and deer.

If I decide to rule that in my homebrew, dinos only exist in remote "Land of the Lost" type sections of the campaign world, or rule them extinct altogether, would this have too big an adverse effect on things like druid's selection of companion, or creatures on the summon lists?

...basically I want an encounter with a dino to be a rare and wondrous experience, but I don't want to mangle the rules too much to achieve this.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

As I said on the other dinosaur thread: I like to keep the old dinosaurs mysterious and faraway in a Lost World setting. It just suits them better IMO. Haven't played with many Druids (mine or others) in 3rd ed. but I can't say as the lack of dinosaurs has negatively impacted on anyone's fun.

I also run summon spells different from RAW. The critters basically have to make their own way to the fight (taking a round or 2 to show up basically) and thus must be from the local area. No celestial dire badgers in my games. Nor dinosaurs unless the characters happen to be in a dino neighbourhood either. No-one's complained yet. In fact I can't imagine anyone I play with complaining. They wouldn't really expect dinosaurs to just "be there."

 

[Klaus]

No problem whatsoever. The dinosaurs are there as alternatives to having a more advanced lesser animal.

But, say, a pteranodon won't be much of awe-inspiring if the druid has a dire bat, dire eagle, etc, as an animal companion.

 

[frankthedm]

...basically I want an encounter with a dino to be a rare and wondrous experience, but I don't want to mangle the rules too much to achieve this.

Remove dinos from the summon monster lists and replace them with some other monster of comparable power. So the same for the Animal companion list.

Just a quick question for discussion. It seems that in the "default" D&D settings, dinosaurs are a natural part of the ecosystem, seemingly as common as bears and deer.

Dinos in D&D are a very old Legacy Issue. Back when this game was first starting up, the monster assortment was small and monster minis were basically unheard of. So without a lot to work with, the bags of plastic dinos made in Hong Kong probably were drafted to represent both themselves and other big hungry monsters. And as it happened there were a couple ‘dinos’ in those bags that were not real animals, but they became real threats to D&D characters as soon as Gygax got a hold of them.

 

[shilsen]

If I decide to rule that in my homebrew, dinos only exist in remote "Land of the Lost" type sections of the campaign world, or rule them extinct altogether, would this have too big an adverse effect on things like druid's selection of companion, or creatures on the summon lists?

Not at all. The druid list of animal companions and options for SNA are very substantial even without the dinosaurs included, especially since they aren't the most powerful options anyway.

 

[blargney the second]

I like my D&D with no few dinosaurs.

It probably won't change much if you just remove dinos from the list of default player options altogether. Call it a house rule, and I find most people just accept it and move on.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

I'm fine with dino summons, and if a druid in my game REALLY wanted a dino animal companion, I would probably allow it. Players aren't going to just run into dinosaurs in my world, though. They're cool beasties, I just don't care for the flavor in my setting.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I have never used dinos. They do not fit in the settings that I run.

If I were to run Eberron I would use them, as a 'Lost World' aspect seems to fit the feel of the setting. (I really like Eberron, and I really wasn't expecting to. Some day, some day....)

The Auld Grump, who shamelessly took advantage of retailers dumping 3.X Eberron stuff cheap...

 

[Tonguez]

You guys do realise that technically (cladestically) Dinosauria includes the Avians

which means that by having no or few dinosaurs you deny the ability of kobolds to raid chicken coops - I'm not sure bunny coops has quite the same feel to it...

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Chickens are dinosaurs? Suddenly I'm worried about them eating me!!