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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 5005163" data-attributes="member: 57383">Quite, that fits in with my proposed rule-of-thumb of a 20 foot Huge shark, 40 foot Gargantuan shark, which assumes it's a fairly thick-bodied shark.Speaking of thick bodied sharks, that reconstruction of megalodon as a '<a href="http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/evolution/reconstruct_megalodon.htm" target="_blank">monster shark</a>' with an oversized head and jaws you linked to was quite interesting. I'm wondering whether the slimmer estimates I came across wandering around the 'net were based on the "<a href="http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/evolution/megalodon_as_sandtiger.htm" target="_blank">Giant Sandtiger</a>" model, since sandtiger-type lamniform sharks are more slender than great whites, as a rule.  No disagreement there, they're all over the place. Although in the case of the Elsewhale at least it's consistent with the SRD sperm whale (the cachalot), which has the same HD and size.I suspect that particular problem was caused by the 2nd edition AD&D monster manual's whale entry, which has common whales as Gargantuan creatures with 12-35 HD. If you read the small print it implies the 12 HD variety is a calf as little as 10 feet long, so presumably a "typical" 50-60 foot whale is more in the middle (24 HD?).You could start by using a SRD Dire Shark advanced to Gargantuan size - 33 HD and a 3d8+15 bite. That'd still leaves it with a measly 31 Strength. Sure, why not. If we can't have huge, ship-eating sharks in a fantasy game, I don't know what's the world coming to! Yes, that'd work. Assuming a 20 foot orca is 3-3.5 tons and the 16 foot one has identical proportions it would weigh 3440-4014 lbs (long tons) or 3383-3946 (metric tonnes), which is pretty close to the Large/Huge boundary.</blockquote>

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