Cr 20 animal?

[Shades of Eternity]

more of a thought experiment

Is it a possible to build an animal type that is a cr 20 encounter?

I don't just mean statting one up, but a real cr 20 animal encounter that feels like one.

Is their already one in the game?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Can you build an animal encounter at CR 20? Yes. There are a few templates that won't change type, and you can advance core animals a ton of hit dice. There are dire and legendary animals that easily get up there by the book.

Can you build an encounter that actually challenges 20th level characters who can teleport/disintegrate/etc.? It's really tough. I always found it amusing that the epic "devastation vermin" could be killed by a flying 6th level warlock because he can hover overhead without being hit and just blast them to death. Even with flying animals, other problems arise. They can't see invisibility, for instance, and they have no magic items so all their basic stats aren't competitive.

One idea would be to either enhance an animal beyond animalness (give it magic items, templates that change its type) as a minion of X bad guy. Another would be to have the animals attacking something other than the PCs. Protecting 1st level commoners from raging dire bears is an epic challenge indeed!

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

That would be tough if you restrict to just "animals", I think. But it's an intersting thing to think about!

With a quick glance, it seems the only SRD animal that can advance even close to CR20 is giant squid, which technically tops out at CR17-ish, I think (and, caveat, I might be grossly overestimating that, since I'm not actually looking at advancement rules!). Maybe it could be toughened into a "dire" squid with lots of extra HD and natural armor, and maybe extra arms to put it up to CR20? But it's still an animal, without all the magic and feats/abilities of other CR20 creatures--and therefore prolly not really CR20! At that point, may as well just use a kraken

More straightforward might be a EL20 encounter of several lesser animals. An advanced dire tiger I think tops out around CR15-ish? I guess a handful of those would be nasty, especially if they have some sort of template making them smarter and giving immunities/DR/SR/etc.

Or, a herd of advanced elephants or rhinos maybe? If you want to throw on the fiendish template, it might be doable... and possibly still dangerous to high-level PCs. If an advanced elephant tops out at CR9-10ish, somehow make it "dire" or fiendish, to CR11. Then a herd of 12 or 16 would be pushing EL20. Give them all some sort of rage ability to put them over the top?

Of course, the encounter locale can account for a lot, as well. Put the squid is fight near an underwater volcano, with lots of random plumes of steam and explosions that can throw/stun/deafen PCs. The tigers might be encountered in a jungle ruin, with falling masonry/columns and vines of near-unbreakable, damage-dealing "adamanthorn flowers". Make the herd of elephants mastadons, and the environment is slushy, semi-melted tundra with lots of quicksand/quickslush, in a driving sleet storm.

If nothing else, I understand head-mounted lasers is a good way to make animals a respectable threat!

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Another would be to have the animals attacking something other than the PCs. Protecting 1st level commoners from raging dire bears is an epic challenge indeed!

And this is a fantastic idea. Good call!

It always amazing how much a bunch of helpless commoners can complicate things for practically epic PCs.

 

[Ahnehnois]

That would be tough if you restrict to just "animals", I think. But it's an intersting thing to think about!

With a quick glance, it seems the only SRD animal that can advance even close to CR20 is giant squid, which technically tops out at CR17-ish, I think (and, caveat, I might be grossly overestimating that, since I'm not actually looking at advancement rules!).

You're right about the squid, but there are some dire animals and dinosaurs that can go reasonably close to 20 (and I'd advise using several CR 17-19s for an EL 20 rather than one animal). The legendary animals, while epic, are also technically in the SRD. Some moderately powerful animals exist in various supplements that can be legally advanced into at least the upper teens.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

I'm kinda curious

if you use magical resistant to an animal, say as part of the evolution process...would it still be considered an animal or would it be classified as a magical beast, even if all it's other abilities are natural.

My concept is magically resistant megafauna at around cr 10 or so, so that this category might be valid after the sweet spot.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'm not sure I understand the question. Spell Resistance is typically an extraordinary ability, but to give it to an animal "by the book" you'd have to either cast a spell on that animal or give it a template (any template that grants SR would likely change the animal's type). Intuitively, it seems to me like animals wouldn't naturally be resistant to magic. If you wanted to simply give an animal spell resistance without otherwise changing it for whatever reason, that's your purview as DM of course.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

It's kinda funny, but my thought was that in a high magic environment, those animals that would survive would get more resistant to such effects.

 

[Ahnehnois]

That reasoning does make some sense, particularly if your world has a lot of magic.

 

[Ugulu the Barbarian]

In one of the Dragon Magazines, it has expanded Dinosaurs. Both the Leopluridan and Gigantosaurus, (Don't have the mag with me for spelling) have CR's above 20.