D&D (2024) Seeking input re: Dwarves Riding Bears.

[JPL]

I really don't get to play that often anymore, but I just got offered to guest DM a one-shot in a few months.

So then I happen to see these miniatures. And I think, obviously, this one-shot should be about a crew of bear-riding dwarves.

My further thought is that this is a crew devoted to Marthammor Duin, the dwarf god of wanderers, and that in turn suggests that they could be riding out of Deadsnows, home to an abbey devoted to Marthammor, but I'm trying to decide if that's rugged enough territory to warrant six guys riding around on bears and kicking ass.

These minis look like Medium bears, but they'd have to be Large bears, am I right?

So is there a subclass geared toward a mounted ranger? Seems like a fairly obvious niche. I suppose you could allow for a feat or a house rule that let you do a large character as a beast master companion, or a "medium-plus" that you can ride.

Marthammor is also a god of lightning, so good chance for a tempest sorcerer or a storm cleric. Might do a valor bard.

Admittedly, the super hardcore approach here would be a bunch of oath of glory paladins, because then they can summon celestial bear mounts as needed, and bear summoning is just a great addition to the character sheet, isn't it?

So anyone wants to brainstorm Dwarves Riding Bears, this thread is where that is happening.

 

[JPL]

Come to think of it, Oath of Ancients Paladin might be better. A little more naturey and ranger-adjacent.

 

[Stormonu]

No need to restrict yourself to a subclass wrapped around a mount, perfectly fine to just buy one, be given one or train one yourself.

I'm not fond of 5E's mount rules and depending on the level of the PCs, giving the mounts a Reaction to reduce damage, Evasion and possibly more HP or AC bonuses (possibly via barding) might be warranted.

And, you may ask, who will they fight? Why Barbarians riding dinosaurs, of course!

 

[Voadam]

Oath of glory riding bear mounts sounds good for a one shot to me.

My pc Viking oath of glory rode into a dream meeting on the back of a flying hammerhead shark. Go big with glory.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

They're large bears. Look their skulls. They're four times bigger than the dwarves. If those bears were to stand on their hind legs they'd be over eight feet tall. The dwarves look bigger and more intimidating because they're mounted on curse-word bears!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Some questions you might want to consider:

• Are you providing them with bears, or is it on them to acquire the bears in play? Having the first few levels be "befriend these bears" might be pretty impactful, but you also might just want to give them free bears.
• Are you running them through dungeons? The game usually assumes a Medium creature, but if you maximize bear time, your party's usually going to be Large. This puts a bit of a damper on dungeon crawls, trap-filled warrens, abandoned crypts, and the like. The bears might have to stay outside in those instances. Which can be fine, but, y'know, something to consider. It's part of why paladins now summon their mounts - you can mount up when it makes sense, but you can also translate that slot into a smite if it doesn't make sense to mount up.
• Are the bears "controlled" mounts, or "independent" mounts? Controlled mounts don't contribute to damage, but are pretty good for mobility. Independent mounts can do their own thing and add damage, but it's not much at higher levels.
• Starting level? Are you starting before paladins can summon mounts? Because that might impact how your party selects their classes.
• Mount Fragility. RAW, mounts are pretty juicy targets most of the time - low AC's, HP's that aren't too big, some bad saves (an illusionist will wreck every bear you rode in on). Clerics, paladins, battle masters, and (to a certain degree) rangers can all mitigate this, since mounts are allies and can be buffed and healed, but a lot of resources can be spent trying to keep those bears alive if they don't advance on their own a bit. Paladin summoning will mitigate that, since the critter scales.
• Melee or ranged? RAW, there's not great options for ranged mounted characters - the rules assume you want to charge into melee with a lance, not take potshots from range with a longbow like a Khan. This might lead to a melee preference for your characters.
• Encounter balance & pacing. Depending on if you let the bears take their own actions, you could have DOUBLE the PC turns if every bear gets an attack. At low levels, this will make fights easier and increase fight duration. At high levels, this might just be tedious.

 

[aco175]

Horn of bear summoning: Similar to horn of Valhalla but a bear comes along and you can ride it for 8 hours a day or summon it to help fight until it dies.

 

[Stormonu]

Horn of bear summoning: Similar to horn of Valhalla but a bear comes along and you can ride it for 8 hours a day or summon it to help fight until it dies.

Also works as Figurines of Wondrous Power. Or for coolness factor, a mantle (cloak) that when spread out, turns into a bear.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

These minis look like Medium bears, but they'd have to be Large bears, am I right?

Looking at their page on MyMiniFactory it looks like the default size for these is approx 50x50mm (so large). If not, you can usually just scale the size up or down in your slicer without too much difficulty.

Also there's no real reason that Large creatures HAVE to be 2x2 on the map. I often modify rules as written for map grid sizes to make large, huge, gargantuan monsters smaller than RAW because printing and storing enormous minis is a pain

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

No need to restrict yourself to a subclass wrapped around a mount, perfectly fine to just buy one, be given one or train one yourself.

I'm not fond of 5E's mount rules and depending on the level of the PCs, giving the mounts a Reaction to reduce damage, Evasion and possibly more HP or AC bonuses (possibly via barding) might be warranted.

And, you may ask, who will they fight? Why Barbarians riding dinosaurs, of course!

View attachment 389837

I have a copy of this thing, stored in plastic bins along with all of my other 70s -> 4E stuff. Wow... I had completely forgotten about this boxed set.