D&D 5E Deep Rothe -- the STRONGEST beast in D&D!

[Werebat]

File this under "I can't believe this actually came up in my campaign, but..."

Volo's Guide to Monsters has a lot of bovines in it, many of whom are basically modifications to the "Cow".

In my OotA game, players wanted to purchase some beasts of burden, and I figured that Deep Rothe would probably be available in Gracklstugh and a few other settled areas.

Now the Deep Rothe is a variant of the Rothe, which is in turn a variant of the Ox, which is itself a variant of the Cow. Each variant says that it used the stats for the variant before it, but spells out one or two modifications.

Deep Rothe are described as "stunted Underdark variants of Rothe", being Medium sized instead of Large, having fewer hit dice and hit points, and having the ability to cast Dancing Lights (as well as better Darkvision).

Rothe are described as "resembling musk oxen" (a kind of Ox) but having Darkvision.

Oxen are described as being like Cows, but with the trait "Beast of Burden", which means that they are considered to be Huge for the purposes of determining carrying capacity.

By the book, it follows that Deep Rothe are Medium sized creatures that are considered to be Huge for the purposes of determining carrying capacity!

Since they are STR 18 (the variant never mentions a change in Strength from that of the base cow), they can carry 1080 pounds!

I remember additional rules for creatures with more than two legs in previous editions of D&D, but it looks like those have been dropped.

Still, that's pretty impressive for a creature that is roughly the size of a large dog.

 

[gyor]

I don't know if Beast of Burden applies to Deep Rothe or not, but I don't think that was the intent. The deep rothe are the only cattle as well as the only beast with a cantrip that you can pick to be Ranger Beastmasters Companion.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I like it. The are like small Underdark mule-cows.

 

[Jester David]

I don't see it mentioned anywhere that rothe are a variant of the ox. According to the text they "resemble musk oxen and have darkvision". It doesn't mention that they use the ox statblock at all, so they just use the cow statblock and add darkvision. And both the Ox and Rothe entries use the same header, so even the formatting suggests they're both cow variants.
Just because they resemble musk oxen doesn't mean they use the ox statistics.

Therefore, the deep rothe is a medium cow and carries things like a medium creature and not a large, and lacks the beast or burden trait.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

Now the Deep Rothe is a variant of the Rothe, which is in turn a variant of the Ox, which is itself a variant of the Cow. Each variant says that it used the stats for the variant before it, but spells out one or two modifications.

Deep Rothe are described as "stunted Underdark variants of Rothe", being Medium sized instead of Large, having fewer hit dice and hit points, and having the ability to cast Dancing Lights (as well as better Darkvision).

Your error is in thinking the Rothe is a variant of the ox.
The Ox Rothe and Stench Kow are versions of the cow, you apply one of these templates to the cow stat block.

 

[Oofta]

Whether or not I'd rule that they have the beast of burden trait, I would treat them as large (one size bigger), not huge. So they can carry a lot, which would make sense, but not half a ton.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Oxen are described as being like Cows, but with the trait "Beast of Burden", which means that they are considered to be Huge for the purposes of determining carrying capacity.

By the book, it follows that Deep Rothe are Medium sized creatures that are considered to be Huge for the purposes of determining carrying capacity!

A similar situation occurred in an older edition. The 3.5 version of Unearthed Arcana introduced the concept of magical bloodlines, so your human or dwarf or whatever could have vampire or elemental blood that gave them cool powers as they went up in levels. One of the bloodlines was Titan, and one of the higher-level abilities was called Oversized Weapon (telling you to reference the Titan for how it worked). I'm sure that you can see where I'm going with this.

Oversized Weapon (Ex)

A titan wields a great, two-handed warhammer (big enough for Gargantuan creatures) without penalty.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Man, some of the things gamers debate about...

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

You realize this is why Deep Rothe all wear capes, right? They're all super-cattle.

 

[Parmandur]

Mules are Medium, and have the Beast of Burden trait, which means they are Large in terms of carrying capacity. It's basically just Powerful Build, but for Quadrupeds.