World's fastest animal is...

[lukelightning]

And then you can awaken it and it can take monk levels and go FASTER than light. Bwahahaha!

 

[werk]

But the cheetah has the sprint ability which makes sense as the cheetah can only run really fast for a short while.

Vraister

Interesting tidbit, the cheetah can only sprint in short duration because it overheats, not because it gets tired. Their hot environment just exacerbates the problem. There are cases where observers have seen a (desperately hungry) cheetah die from heat stroke following a too-lengthy, though successful, chase.

I think I got that from the Discovery Channel or National Geographic.

 

[Klaus]

Since Peregrine Falcon is not on the list, what's stopping you from running that way? Or has WotC published them somewhere?

Races of Stone has the goliath PrClass Peregrine Hunter, who gets a peregrine falcon as an animal compaion, and it uses hawk stats.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Most all animals run into the heating problem, all that fur and few sweat glands. In the heat a person in good shape can wound a prey animal and jog along following its trail. So long as you stay close enough it realizes it's still being chased it'll run itself to death and keel over with a heatstroke.

Now the real king of flying speeds for RL are swallows. The peregrine makes 200+mph in a short diving attack. Swallows have been clocked migrating traveling at speeds of more than 100mph for hours at a time. In D&D though none of them can equal the Dragon, true dragons=150ft to start and go up from there.

 

[Dross]

So what is the speed of an unladen swallow?

 

[Simm]

African or European

 

[DarkKestral]

African or European?

 

[Moon-Lancer]

i dont kn..... AHHHHH

 

[awayfarer]

I found this list of fast animals. I was looking for the speed of black mamba which I thought could catch a horse

Am I the only one who laughed heartily at the "mongolian wild ass"? Frankly that sounds like a brand of really cheap whiskey.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I can almost see the ad campaign, featuring a guy dressed like a pimp saying "Have you had some Mongolian Wild Ass lately?"