Deinonychus unbalanced?

[Moe Ronalds]

Nope. They're a "pre-historical" creature, i.e. they predate recorded history by 65 million years.

You think you're right just because you've got your fancy LOGIC and your "EVIDENCE" well let me tell you something mister!...........
................................... well wait till I think of it first!

 

[Drkfathr1]

As to your original question......

Considering your campaign setting, I'd let him have it. If you're still worried about it being a little unbalanced, make him wait a few more levels.

If it does become a bit overpowered you can always kill it off!

 

[Moon_Goddess]

I would leave dinosaurs as beasts. When I first saw it I said it was wrong myself, but after consideration I have changed my mind


Beasts are defined as Non-historical, or Non-real world creatures.

Contrary to popular misconseption Dinosaurs are Non-Historical. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying they didn't exist, I'm saying they didn't exist in history. Remember History is only that period of time that humans have recorded, dinosaurs came before that. Passanger Pigeons and Dodo Birds are animals Dinosaurs and Sabertooth cats are Beasts.


As for the arguments that in a campaign world with dinos they become both historical and real world (in the context of that world) This is a good arguement, save for the fact that then so are orcs, and dragons, and demons and mind flayers all of them would be animals becuase they are historical and real to that world.


Finally, the best arguement for leaving them alone is simply, Beasts get better stats than animals, Dinosaurs were stated up to be more powerful than common animals, beasts are more powerful than common animals.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Okay, leaving the stats of this dinosaur out of it, here's my questions:

You've got a Lost World continent. The druid is from there. Is your campaign set in this Lost World? If not, then how is the druid finding his animal/beast companion?

 

[Urbanmech]

I don't think letting the player have the Deinoychus is too unbalanced. At the same level he could have a 4hd Large Dire Badger that would be just as deadly. Don't just look at the wolf for comparison.

Plus allowing the dinosaurs for the character from their land is really cool. I'd probably even allow him to have dinosaurs on his list of available forms to change into using wildshape. Or take a look at the Wilderness issue of Dragon from May or June I think. It had a lot of dinosaure themed spells. Embrace the theme!

 

[Squire James]

If you're going to keep the dinosaur stats, I'd suggest Severion's idea of a "friendship resistance" of +2 (or +4 if you think it is particularly powerful). Also keep in mind that the dino, while friendly to the druid, will otherwise act according to its type. For example, most dinosaurs would consider humans as potential food sources (and might consider gnome a delicacy... which may or may not be considered a good thing)!

It's sort of like that "charmed troll" scenario - the druid needs to be careful with these guys when the PC's go to a town for supplies!

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd say that Animal Friendship can be specialized into different forms of friendship.

Your druid from the Lost Lands? Give them Beast Friendship instead. They can get dino buddies, but they're helpless when it comes to things with fur and stuff. This means that they're probably going to be *real* protective of their beast friends, unless they can find similar things nearby.

Meh. No biggie. One of the druid's main powers is to have animals, and being a dino-lord is cool enough that it should be warranted.

 

[Moe Ronalds]

Okay, leaving the stats of this dinosaur out of it, here's my questions:

You've got a Lost World continent. The druid is from there. Is your campaign set in this Lost World? If not, then how is the druid finding his animal/beast companion?

well, due to the fact that the god of time in my campaign has gone completely and utterly mad, aspects of several time periods are sort of co-existing. On one continent, there are lush jungles, neanderthal like residents, and prehistoric animals. The other is a series of crime-overrun megametropolises, and the technology available there is the sort of stuff you'd expect to start seeing around 2050. There's one continent however, where things are more blurred. This continent for some reason has the greatest amount of imigrants from all the other continents, so just down the road from a medieval-style pub are refugees from a civil war going on in a continent with colonial-time technology. This continent is where the action takes place, though the Druid character is from the prehistoric section. Does that make more sense?