Dinosaurs!

[Amiel]

Dinosaurs were always among my favorite animals growing up.
Perusing the Monster Manual, I always found the dinosaurs therein to be rather lacking, so here's some revised ones and maybe some new ones.

Hope you like/love dinosaurs!:smallbiggrin:

Tyrannosaurus Rex (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6512319&postcount=1)
Deinonychus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6518637&postcount=13)
Triceratops (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6531100&postcount=32)

http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs9/i/2006/057/f/d/Tyrannosaurus_Rex_by_NathanRosario.jpg
By Nathan Rosario (http://nathanrosario.deviantart.com)

Tyrannosaurus Rex
Gargantuan Animal
Hit Dice: 18d8+126 (207 hp)
Initiative: +5 (+1 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative)
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)
Armor Class: 16 (-4 size, +1 Dex, +9 natural), touch 7, flat-footed 20
Base Attack/Grapple: +13/+41
Attack: Bite +24 melee (4d6+20)
Full Attack: Bite +24 melee (4d6+20)
Space/Reach: 20 ft./20 ft.
Special Attacks: Crushing bite, frightful roar, improved grab, swallow whole
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +19, Ref +13, Will +8
Abilities: Str 34, Dex 12, Con 25, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +0, Listen +19, Spot +19, Survival +10
Feats: Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Run, Snatch, Track, Weapon Focus (bite), Weapon Specialization (bite)
Environment: Any terrain barring glacial
Organization: Solitary or pair
Challenge Rating: 10
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 19-36 HD (Gargantuan); 37-54 HD (Colossal)
Level Adjustment: —

Tyrannosaurus rex (L. tyrant lizard) ranks among the largest of all land carnivores. Scholars have speculated from both observation and skeletal remains that it may have measured up to 42 feet long and weighed up to a massive 7 tons; and is generally regarded as an apex predator. However, despite its enormous size and massive bulk, tyrannosaurus appears to have been a fast runner. This notwithstanding, evidence suggests that tyrannosaurus would have willingly consumed carrion, relying on its incredible constitution to protect itself from harmful bacteria and diseases.

Measurements taken from deceased remains applied with liberal applications of gentle repose have yielded skull lengths of up to 6 feet and wickedly serrated teeth; the longest measuring up to 12 inches. Scholars theorise from studying the creature at length that it possesses unusually good binocular vision.

Scholars believe that tyrannosaurus has the single most powerful bite of any terrestrial creature, that its teeth alone could exert a crushing force of more than 3,000 pounds. This indicates that its bite is so staggeringly powerful that it can impact bone; as evidenced in indentations left on the skeletons of consumed prey.

Combat

Crushing Bite (Ex): Any time that a tyrannosaurus successfully wins a grapple check against an opponent, it may deliver it's staggeringly powerful bite on its victim. A tyrannosaurus deals triple bite damage on a critical hit and its bite is strong enough to ignore the hardness of objects. The crushing bite exerts such immense force that it resolves as a melee touch attack.

Frightful Roar (Ex): A tyrannosaurus is capable of unleashing a thunderous roar every 1d4 rounds up to a radius of 60 feet, its very sound unsettling foes. Opponents with fewer HD than it and who fail a Will DC 24 check may become frightened for 4d6 rounds.

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a tyrannosaurus must hit an opponent of up to one size smaller with its bite attack. It can then start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it grapples its foe, it can attempt to swallow the creature the next round.

Swallow Whole (Ex): A tyrannosaurus can try to swallow a grabbed opponent of up to two sizes smaller by making a successful grapple check. The swallowed creature takes 2d8+8 points of bludgeoning damage and 8 points of acid damage per round from the tyrannosaurus' gizzard. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 25 points of damage to the gizzard (AC 14). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out.

A Gargantuan tyrannosaurus' gizzard can hold 2 Large, 8 Medium, 32 Small, or 128 Tiny or 512 Diminutive or smaller opponents.

Skills
A tyrannosaurus has a +8 racial bonus on Listen and Spot checks.

[Debihuman]

I think you've captured the T.Rex a bit better than did the MM; especially since this seems to reflect what I read on Wikipedia.

:cool:

Debby

[GreatWyrmGold]

Yep. Spinosaurus (MM2) is way bigger than Big T? No way. See if you can do more.

[hamishspence]

Spinosaurus is bigger (longer, heavier) just not "way bigger".

Size categories are a bit wide- T-rex can justifiably be put in both Huge and Gargantuan.

(weight-wise, being comparable to a big elephant which is Huge,
length-wise, comparable to a fairly large whale (Gargantuan).

4th ed "rex equivalent" the Huge drake in MM2, has Roar and tail strike- maybe a tail strike would fit here?

[Debihuman]

I don't think a T-Rex can use its tail to attack. It has to use its tail to balance with -- especially since it has an oversized head. That's what keeps it from being a non-flying dragon.

Debby

[GreatWyrmGold]

I don't think a T-Rex can use its tail to attack. It has to use its tail to balance with -- especially since it has an oversized head. That's what keeps it from being a non-flying dragon.

Debby
Agreed. And I thought I was the only person who remembered dino trivia from his/her youth. (More or less.)


Spinosaurus is bigger (longer, heavier) just not "way bigger"
Never disagreed. Also, proper punctuation is nice.

[hamishspence]

Yes it is. :smallamused: But occasionally, one forgets full stops when putting separate sections up.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Yes it is. :smallamused: But occasionally, one forgets full stops when putting separate sections up.

Fair enough. Forgiven, ye whose avatar is also lawful.

[Jergmo]

I toughened up my T-Rexes as well to be a bit more realistic. Increased the damage die to 4d6 for Huge, gave them a natural threat range of 18 for bite, improved critical(bite) as a bonus feat with a x3 crit. Also, a creature that's two size categories smaller or more is affected by Frightful Presence (DC 10 + 1/2 racial HD + Cha modifier), 5 HD or lower panicked for 4d6 rounds, higher than 5 shaken. Thoughts on this?

Also, you might want to tweak the crushing bite thing. Yes, T-Rex could bite through a car, but if it were to bite an adamantine car...

Edit: Actually...

Tyrannosaurus
Size/Type: Huge Animal
Hit Dice: 18d8+108 (198 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 50 ft. (8 squares)
Armor Class: 18 (-2 size, +1 Dex, +9 natural)
Base Attack/Grapple: +13/+31
Attack: Bite +22 melee (4d8+15)
Full Attack: Bite +22 melee (4d8+15)
Space/Reach: 15 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Improved grab, swallow whole, Deadly bite
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +17, Ref +12, Will +8
Abilities: Str 31, Dex 12, Con 23, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Hide -2, Listen +14, Spot +14
Feats: Alertness, Improved Natural Attack (bite)B, Improved Critical (bite)B, Run, Toughness (3), Track, Weapon Focus (Bite)
Environment: Warm plains
Organization: Solitary or family (1 plus 1-3 offspring)
Challenge Rating: 10
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 19-36 HD (Huge); 37-48 HD (Gargantuan)
Level Adjustment: —

Despite its enormous size and 6-ton weight, a tyrannosaurus is a swift runner. Its head is nearly 6 feet long, and its teeth are from 3 to 6 inches in length. It is slightly more than 30 feet long from nose to tail but can grow up to 40 feet.

Combat
A tyrannosaurus pursues and eats just about anything it sees. Its tactics are simple—charge in and bite.

A tyrannosaurus' bite attack has a natural threat range of 18-20 x3.

Deadly bite (Ex): A tyrannosaurus's bite attack has the same effect as a Wounding weapon, dealing 1 Constitution damage from blood loss per successful attack. Critical hits do not multiply this damage.

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a tyrannosaurus must hit an opponent of up to one size smaller with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can either maintain the hold, dealing additional bite damage the next round and each round it maintains the hold, or try to swallow the foe the following round.

Swallow Whole (Ex): A tyrannosaurus can try to swallow a grabbed opponent of up to two sizes smaller by making a successful grapple check. The swallowed creature takes 2d8+8 points of bludgeoning damage and 8 points of acid damage per round from the tyrannosaurus's gizzard. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by using a light slashing or piercing weapon to deal 25 points of damage to the gizzard (AC 12). Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out.

A Huge tyrannosaurus's gizzard can hold 2 Medium, 8 Small, 32 Tiny, or 128 Dimunitive or smaller opponents.

Skills: A tyrannosaurus has a +2 racial bonus on Listen and Spot checks.

Without Improved Natural Attack, the core T-Rex would be doing a pathetic 2d6 with its bite. I increased the base damage to 1d10, which is 3d8 for Huge, 4d8 for Gargantuan. A Gargantuan T-Rex would be upgraded to a 6d8 bite.

They have a 50 ft. movement speed because with the addition of my method of calculating speed (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118527), it ends up being very close to the maximum speed a Tyrannosaurus was able to move based on research, up to 19 mph.

As a side note, I noticed your Tyrannosaur's skills are a little funky. It has 21 skill points, and if it were Gargantuan, it would have a -12 Hide modifier. As is, your dino has 43 skill points.

[Debihuman]

I think its bite it a bit too much at 4d8; that's tougher than a dragon's bite for the same size. Comparatively speaking, dragons should still be bigger and badder than dinosaurs.

Debby

[Jergmo]

I think its bite it a bit too much at 4d8; that's tougher than a dragon's bite for the same size. Comparatively speaking, dragons should still be bigger and badder than dinosaurs.

Debby

Aha, but there were bigger dinosaurs than the Tyrannosaurus, and their PSI didn't come close.

Tyrannosaurus: 40-50,000 PSI
Gigantosaurus: 18,000 PSI

Plus, dragon's have higher natural armor, flight, better reach, natural spellcasting, damage reduction/magic...five natural attacks per round on a full attack...if it wanted to, the dragon could also take Improved Natural Attack(Bite)

[Amiel]

I think you've captured the T.Rex a bit better than did the MM; especially since this seems to reflect what I read on Wikipedia.

:cool:

Debby

Thanks, Debby! :)

Yeah, I wanted these stats/mechanics and any following stats of other dinosaurs to reflect facts collated from scientific dissertations and discussion.


Yep. Spinosaurus (MM2) is way bigger than Big T? No way. See if you can do more.

Actually, as hamishspence said, Spinosaurus is indeed bigger than Tyrannosaurus. Incidently, science seems to support the 'way bigger' position. In fact, the smallest spinosaurus would probably have had the same measurements as the largest tyrannosaurus; give or take.

The longest theropods are as follows:
1 Spinosaurus: 14.3-18 m (46.9-59.1 ft)
2 Carcharodontosaurus: 12-13.2 m (39-43.5 ft)
3 Giganotosaurus: 12.5 (41 ft)
4 Tyrannosaurus: 12-13 m (39.3-42.6 ft)
and so on and so forth

I would actually like to complete other dinosaurs; with the dinosaurs in the MM preceding any new ones.


Size categories are a bit wide- T-rex can justifiably be put in both Huge and Gargantuan.

All books, and cross-checking with scientific papers, I've read indicates the smallest tyrannosaurus began length measurements at 33 feet thereabouts, which is within the Gargantuan size category; Osteology of Tyrannosaurus rex, a research paper, instead begins length measurements at 39 feet. If one were to factor degree of error, conservative estimates, and such into the equation, 33 feet seems to be a nice nadir.

A footprint imprinted on terrain that was once vegetated wetland mudflat yielded measurements of 83 centimetres (33 in) long by 71 centimetres (28 in) wide.

You know, I actually believe WotC chose to purposely chumpify the tyrannosaurus and the other dinosaurs in the MM.


(weight-wise, being comparable to a big elephant which is Huge,
length-wise, comparable to a fairly large whale (Gargantuan).

If a Gargantuan bipedal predator weighs as much as an equivalent herbivore quadruped or a fairly large whale, or even an elephant, there'd be something seriously wrong :p. Tyrannosaurus seems to have been built for speed foremost, which underpins the 'predators need to run - exert physical effort - to hunt their prey, while plant-eaters can remain relatively stationary for extended periods of time.' In other words, a bipedal predator or even quadrupedal predator need not and should not weigh similarly to a quadrupedal herbivore of equivalent size.


4th ed "rex equivalent" the Huge drake in MM2, has Roar and tail strike- maybe a tail strike would fit here?

Debby answered this one nicely. A tail strike or tail slap is going to unbalance it, especially since its forearms are so ridiculously short as to be next-to-useless; their only use seems to be to support itself upright from a horizontal position.


I toughened up my T-Rexes as well to be a bit more realistic. Increased the damage die to 4d6 for Huge, gave them a natural threat range of 18 for bite, improved critical(bite) as a bonus feat with a x3 crit. Also, a creature that's two size categories smaller or more is affected by Frightful Presence (DC 10 + 1/2 racial HD + Cha modifier), 5 HD or lower panicked for 4d6 rounds, higher than 5 shaken. Thoughts on this?

I agree with Debby that 4d8 bite damage is a bit too much, especially for a Huge creature; it was the force of the bite rather than the base damage of the bite that was so overpowering. Were it Gargantuan, perhaps 4d8 would be appropriate for inclusion; with 4d8 you're looking at the equivalent of a Colossal dragon.

Regarding the frightful presence, I would actually tie that in with another ability/quality. It's not the physical presence or (frightful) actions of dinosaurs, and tyrannosaurus in particular, that make them frightening, it's that thundering, tremendous roar.

Despite Jurassic Park being unrealistic in its portrayal of dinosaurs, you may note that tyrannosaurus did not inspire dread or fear through force of presence alone, it was its roar that set them fleeing.


Also, you might want to tweak the crushing bite thing. Yes, T-Rex could bite through a car, but if it were to bite an adamantine car...

There was a program that compared the various attributes of various dinosaurs, and it was discovered that T-Rex could chomp through the solid metal frame of a car. And heh, it was an attempt to duplicate the crushing force of its bite. Perhaps ignoring ten points of hardness of adamantine objects as opposed to fully ignoring hardness?


Without Improved Natural Attack, the core T-Rex would be doing a pathetic 2d6 with its bite. I increased the base damage to 1d10, which is 3d8 for Huge, 4d8 for Gargantuan. A Gargantuan T-Rex would be upgraded to a 6d8 bite.

I would definitely think that 6d8 bite damage for a Gargantuan tyrannosaurus is definitely too much.
Were you so inclined, you could say that since its bite exerts so much force, Improved Natural Attack is not needed but base damage would be the same number if it had Improved Natural Attack. This way, you could spend the feat on something else and duplicate its crushing bite :)


They have a 50 ft. movement speed because with the addition of my method of calculating speed (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118527), it ends up being very close to the maximum speed a Tyrannosaurus was able to move based on research, up to 19 mph.

The Run feat nets you a five multiplier increase to run speed; which for your tyrannosaurus would be: 250 feet. O_O. Did it actually run that fast?


As a side note, I noticed your Tyrannosaur's skills are a little funky. It has 21 skill points, and if it were Gargantuan, it would have a -12 Hide modifier. As is, your dino has 43 skill points.

Heh, yeah. I found the penalty of negative Int to skill points rather silly. The skill points were calculated according to a modifier of +0.
Alternatively, I could give T-Rex a +8 racial bonus to Listen and Spot.

[Amiel]

http://fc09.deviantart.com/fs9/i/2006/061/c/6/Deinonychus_by_jigoku_no_son.jpg
By jigoku-no-son (http://jigoku-no-son.deviantart.com/)

Deinonychus
Large Animal
Hit Dice: 4d8+16 (34 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares)
Armor Class: 18 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +7 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 19
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+13
Attack: Bite +8 melee (2d6+6)
Full Attack: Bite +8 melee (2d6+6) and 2 claws +3 melee (1d4+3)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Improved grab, pounce, rake
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +6, Will +2
Abilities: Str 23, Dex 15, Con 23, Int 3, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +10, Jump +28, Listen +10, Move Silently +10, Spot +10, Survival +10
Feats: Run, Track
Environment: Warm forests, floodplains, open plains or savannah
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (3-6)
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 5-8 HD (Large), 9-12 HD (Huge)
Level Adjustment: —

Deinonychus (L. terrible claw) is a deceptively agile predator. Belying its great size - scholars contend that deinonychus grew to a length of at least 10 feet or more - increasing evidence from field observation suggests that deinonychus was capable of ambushing prey with a remarkable lightness of tread and frightening speed; and willingly accelerating to chase down prey in the event of any failed ambuscade.

Considered by sages to possess a greater intelligence than most dinosaurs, deinonychus appears to greatly favor stalking runs and stealthy ambushes.

One of the most terrifying examples was the ordeal suffered by a druid loremaster who sought to study these creatures in their native environment.
This venerable sage was shadowed for an age to determine any weakness before being subjected to an ambush. He asserts that the attack came not from the front but from the side, two simultaneous powerful charges from opposite directions onto the one target. He firmly believes that the spearhead, the only visible dinosaur was a decoy, a lure to distract and to deceive.

It is precisely this tactic that scholars accept as the greatest evidence of deinonychus working in packs, going so far to suggest that like wolves, deinonychus depended on and was rewarded by functioning as a group. Combining its intelligence and capability of teamwork, this would made deinonychus a frighteningly dangerous predator.

Combat

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a deinonychus must hit an opponent with its bite attack. It can then start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it grapples its foe, it can attempt to rake the creature the following round. Unlike other instances of improved grab, a deinonychus may use this ability against foes of up to two sizes larger.

Pounce (Ex): If a deinonychus charges, it can make a full attack, including two rake attacks.

Rake (Ex): A deinoncycus that pounces onto a creature can make two rake attacks with its strong, wickedly curved sickle claws. Attack bonus +8 melee, damage 2d6+3.

Skills
A deinonychus has a +8 racial bonus on Hide, Jump, Listen, Move Silently, Spot, and Survival checks.

[hamishspence]

Wizards downgraded it to Medium size in errata to 3.5 MM. I think, in this case, they were focussing on weight and height, rather than length.

[Amiel]

Hmm, that does seem remarkably strange; the majesty of dinosaurs is in their length and size rather than weight and/or height. I mean if going by weight, nearly all bipedal predators would be at least one size category or more smaller. If by height, deinonychus would be assumed to be smaller, when at 10 feet long is simply not true. :smallconfused:

Not to mention rather silly; Wizards do give length measurements after all...
If as you say they were focussing on height and weight, they've also shot themselves in the foot as T-Rex could comfortably be considered a Large animal; going by biped's height (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#bigandLittleCreatu resInCombat) with HD advancements into Huge. It would not be Huge off the bat, as it were.

Do you or others agree with designing dinosaurs according to height and weight specifications as opposed to length? Or disagree.

My position is that, unlike extant animals, dinosaurs, even bipeds, should be built with length in mind rather than height. The main reasoning is that all bipeds would be considered smaller than what their length would indicate; as their heights in no way approach what they measure length-ways. Nor do other bipeds have an integral support anchor in the form of a tail of such length.

[Debihuman]

However, the T-Rex in the Monster Manual is not Large, but Huge and it is clear that they are measuring by length because they mention it being "over 30 feet long."

The WotC chart says to use height for bipeds and length for quadrapeds, but obviously they made an exception here. I think that makes sense. I also think that giving the T-Rex a crushing bite and fearful roar are good additions for a more cinematic version of the T-Rex. The Jurassic Park movies certainly brought the T-Rex and other dinosaurs to life and I think Amiel's version captures that quite well. I admit, that is the picture in my head when I think of T-Rex.

Realistically, what we know about "living" dinosaurs is all speculation and even the experts don't agree. The Wikipedia article says that the T-Rex "may have been" an apex predator, but there is also indications that it was a scavenger. There's no guarantee that T-Rex could roar either.

Debby

[Bhu]

Perchance have you seen the Dino threads at EnWorld and the Wizards Boards?

[hamishspence]

Evidence for it being an apex predator- healed tooth marks on the bones of prey animals, matching those of T. rex- showing it not only atacked living prey, but sometimes the prey got away.

I think they use all 3 key features- height, weight, length, and pick the size that they think works best.

(they also downgraded the 20-odd ft Megaraptor to Large in the same errata.)

[AceofDeath]

I also got to admit that putting Dienonychus as a large target is pushing it. It might be three meters long but not more then human size al in all, weigt about 60-70 kilogram, that's not more then humans. Why is this creature large target?

Oh by the way, love that you have given the Dienonychus A little more flavour by giving them higher Int. Sure Animals Aren't suppose to have higher then 2, but this thing is more of an in between animal and more intelligent creature. Nice touch!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Hmm, that does seem remarkably strange; the majesty of dinosaurs is in their length and size rather than weight and/or height. I mean if going by weight, nearly all bipedal predators would be at least one size category or more smaller. If by height, deinonychus would be assumed to be smaller, when at 10 feet long is simply not true. :smallconfused:

Not to mention rather silly; Wizards do give length measurements after all...
If as you say they were focussing on height and weight, they've also shot themselves in the foot as T-Rex could comfortably be considered a Large animal; going by biped's height (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#bigandLittleCreatu resInCombat) with HD advancements into Huge. It would not be Huge off the bat, as it were.

Do you or others agree with designing dinosaurs according to height and weight specifications as opposed to length? Or disagree.

My position is that, unlike extant animals, dinosaurs, even bipeds, should be built with length in mind rather than height. The main reasoning is that all bipeds would be considered smaller than what their length would indicate; as their heights in no way approach what they measure length-ways. Nor do other bipeds have an integral support anchor in the form of a tail of such length.

Yeah, agreed.

Edit: The following part is seperate from the former.

If you ask me, an encounter with a dinosaur should be different from one with a more "mundane" animal.

[AceofDeath]

And the size makes a different feeling?

Sure an encounter with a huge roaring animal is different from the little stealthy one. But whatever the creature has scales, furs or feathers, it's really how it is being presented, not the size category that matters.
I feel that dienonychus is actually more interresting as a medium creature, since that would make it feel very different from the large lion or the huge tyrannosaurus. Given it it's own touch as the small yet agile, smart and quick dinosaur as it might had been:smallwink:

[GreatWyrmGold]

And the size makes a different feeling?
I should have made it more clear that those two parts were separate.

[Amiel]

However, the T-Rex in the Monster Manual is not Large, but Huge and it is clear that they are measuring by length because they mention it being "over 30 feet long."

The WotC chart says to use height for bipeds and length for quadrapeds, but obviously they made an exception here. I think that makes sense. I also think that giving the T-Rex a crushing bite and fearful roar are good additions for a more cinematic version of the T-Rex. The Jurassic Park movies certainly brought the T-Rex and other dinosaurs to life and I think Amiel's version captures that quite well. I admit, that is the picture in my head when I think of T-Rex.


Yeah, some of WotC's design decisions do seem...rather odd. Why they decided to build the stegosaurus in Serpent Kingdoms as a Gargantuan creature is anyone's guess, and we'll probably never know the reason why...
Something else that rather confuses people is why they gave the T-Rex a strength that is equivalent to a bear, effectively relegating its prime stat to 'low ability score infamy', when in reality, it would have been much, much stronger.

There does seem to be somewhat of a(n apparent) disconnect between the stats of some dinosaurs and what their real-world counterparts would have 'looked like'; going by their given reasons and following their design 'mandates,' there really shouldn't be any need for T-Rex to be anything more than Large, they are measuring vertical height after all

And thank you for kind words, Debby! :)
By the by, I've gone ahead and edited bits of T-Rex's statblock; replacing Alertness with Snatch, modifying the skill bonus to +8, and adding deals triple damage on a critical and that it resolves as a melee touch attack; hope that's not too much.


Realistically, what we know about "living" dinosaurs is all speculation and even the experts don't agree. The Wikipedia article says that the T-Rex "may have been" an apex predator, but there is also indications that it was a scavenger. There's no guarantee that T-Rex could roar either.

Debby

Agreed on all counts.
I reckon that nearly all successful predators would have been 'alpha' predators and scavengers in a bid to boost survivability and survival rates. They'd be predators in periods of abundance and scavengers and consumers of carrion in lean times. Fortunately, that also explains why they were so darn successful, existing for millions of years.
And in my heart of hearts, I really, really wish the real T-Rex could produce resonating, frightening roars.


Perchance have you seen the Dino threads at EnWorld and the Wizards Boards?

I'm only familiar with the Dino thread on the Wizards boards in passing; never did do a full perusal, the dinosaurs look pretty neat though.
Would the dinosaurs perchance be in the Creature Catalogue over at EnWorld? Never seemed to find the thread...


I also got to admit that putting Dienonychus as a large target is pushing it. It might be three meters long but not more then human size al in all, weigt about 60-70 kilogram, that's not more then humans. Why is this creature large target?

Proportionately, it's larger than a human; standing fully erect it'd also be larger.
Since they're not biped humanoids, and hence have a tail rather than lack one, even their height should include the length of said tail; which when all considered is actually/really the horizontal length, or just length in other words. Not to mention, some dinosaurs lack height measurements altogether (not surprising considering their length is really height including tail); the dinosaurs in the hadrosaur group being 'prime offenders.'
And being 3 metres long, it's going to present more surface area to inflict damage on.
Otherwise, you're going to end up with some very funky situations; Utahraptor is a prime example.

Utahraptor, according to Wiki, is 6.6 ft tall (which would place it in the Medium size category) and 21 feet long (ie Huge).
That's a rather large (no pun intended) discrepancy right there.
There is no conceivable way it's a Medium animal, yet if we're designing per WotC's rules, that'd be exactly what it is.

Since dinosaurs are evolved reptiles and/or devolved dragons (YMMV), when designing them the focus should be on length (as if they were quadrupedal); generally, if length trumps height, length takes priority in designing critters.


Oh by the way, love that you have given the Dienonychus A little more flavour by giving them higher Int. Sure Animals Aren't suppose to have higher then 2, but this thing is more of an in between animal and more intelligent creature. Nice touch!

Thank you kindly, sir! :)


Yeah, agreed.

If you ask me, an encounter with a dinosaur should be different from one with a more "mundane" animal.

The majesty of dinosaurs is more awe-inspiring than the average, regular animal.


And the size makes a different feeling?

Sure an encounter with a huge roaring animal is different from the little stealthy one. But whatever the creature has scales, furs or feathers, it's really how it is being presented, not the size category that matters.
I feel that dienonychus is actually more interresting as a medium creature, since that would make it feel very different from the large lion or the huge tyrannosaurus. Given it it's own touch as the small yet agile, smart and quick dinosaur as it might had been:smallwink:

Dinosaurs are generally larger than equivalent creatures; they differ in a rather significant way because they possess a tail, something that adds an increased measurement and more importantly proportion to their bodies.

I agree that portrayal is most important, but deinonychus as a large, deceptively agile, quick, and intelligent dinosaur would be greatly terrifying (boot-quaking, knee-quivering fear) and as interesting, perhaps even moreso if it had been smaller. Incidently, deinonychus would have been a lot larger than a lion, yet the lion is large while it is medium...:smallconfused: This does not mean it would've been heavier, which is a different kettle of fish.

And I believe you're thinking about velociraptor rather than deinonychus ;)

[hamishspence]

Thats probably why compromise sizes are probably best.

7 ft tall, 21 ft long (Utahraptor)- Large (but should probably have a lot of reach)

4 ft tall, 12 ft long- (Deinonychus)- Medium
(fully upright is not a position it would usually have taken).

(Note that both of these are post-errata rather than pre-errata).

T. rex? 13 ft tall at the hips, 40 ft long- Huge at minimum.

(primarily because Large bipedal creatures range from 8 ft tall (half-ogre) to 12 ft tall (pit fiend) whereas T. rex has legs much longer than those of any Large creature)

(Velociraptor was 6 ft long, but only 33 pounds at most- upper end of Small might work, or lower end of Medium)

also, Dragon Magazine 318 went with Huge rather than Gargantuan for Stegosaurus.

While hip height might not work for all animals (snakes?) I do think it makes a good place to start for bipeds.
Doing it this way would probably place Utahraptor at the top end of Large (legs about twice as long as those of human),
T. rex at the top end of Huge (legs nearly four times as long as those of a human,
Deinonychus comfortably in Medium, and Velociraptor comfortably in Small.

[Amiel]

Thats probably why compromise sizes are probably best.

Oh, I wanted to say that I agree with you on T-Rex being an apex predator...but the boards did something.

However, I'm a little iffy on the choosing best compromise out of height, weight and length.

As already said, dinosaurs, both bipedal and quadrupedal differ in a rather significant way to humanoids of equivalent size; namely they possess a tail, which is going to increase proportion and length to their bodies.
IMHO, a dinosaurs' height should really include their tail, which for all intents and purposes is basically its length.


7 ft tall, 21 ft long (Utahraptor)- Large (but should probably have a lot of reach)

Utahraptor, as with all other dinosaurs, should be designed IMHO as if they were quadrupedal. Otherwise, you're going to be creating something that doesn't do the inspiration justice.
Utahraptor is going to 'look small' if it were designed as a Large creature.


4 ft tall, 12 ft long- (Deinonychus)- Medium
(fully upright is not a position it would usually have taken).

Remember, Deinonychus is larger than a lion, yet the lion is Large, while it is Medium.


(Note that both of these are post-errata rather than pre-errata).

Thank you for the heads-up!


T. rex? 13 ft tall at the hips, 40 ft long- Huge at minimum.

(primarily because Large bipedal creatures range from 8 ft tall (half-ogre) to 12 ft tall (pit fiend) whereas T. rex has legs much longer than those of any Large creature)

I'm not sure an ogre, or any other equivalently sized humanoid is an 'appropriate' comparator, primarily because it is going to lack a tail.
For a biped humanoid-esque creature, 'what you see is what you get,' its height begins at its head and terminates at its feet.
With a dinosaur, it's a different bag of chips, it's height should begin at its head and terminate at its tail, in other words, what we are measuring is its length.


(Velociraptor was 6 ft long, but only 33 pounds at most- upper end of Small might work, or lower end of Medium)

As I said earlier, weight for a hunting predator is always going to be relatively lighter than what its size would indicate, otherwise you're going to end up with a creature that can't move due to its bulk and will die due to a flaw in evolutionary design.


also, Dragon Magazine 318 went with Huge rather than Gargantuan for Stegosaurus.

Whew, that is definitely a nice and warranted change.

[hamishspence]

Whew, that is definitely a nice and warranted change.
That particular issue slightly predates Serpent Kingdoms- two different sources both picking sizes, and one (arguably) getting it wrong.

Dragon also went with Medium pteranodons, whereas Eberron and SK preferred Large (and capable of lifting people)

I was suggesting Height for size-determining purposes beginning at head- continuing to hips, then going straight down to feet- in an L-shape.

Primarly because the tail doesn't really come into play, and using the tail effectively "exaggerates" the real bulk of the creature- especially when, in the case of dromaeosaurids, it was very long and thin.

Deinonychus may have been longer than a lion, but bulk-wise it was a lot less bulky.

Velociraptor was much smaller than a human- weight wise it was comparable to a 3.5 ed halfling.

T. rex could probably be put in either Huge or Gargantuan without much trouble.

I also notice that space, for anything long in the tail, tends to concentrate on feet- Diplodocus (Dragon 318) was 90 ft long, but had only a 30 ft space- because, its long tail and neck were very slim, so don't really count, for size.

MM2 Seismosaurus (120 odd feet) had a heftier 40 ft space.

I think Size is always going to be tricky, with multiple factors coming into play- height, weight, expected reach, etc.

Lions are pretty small in most ways, yet they have the Large size- possibly because here, they focussed pretty firmly on weight (and probably used the largest recorded lions as a baseline)

[hamishspence]

While I like the notion of D&D versions of prehistoric creatures, sometimes it's difficult to find a close counterpart to the D&D creature.

Just as, weightwise, the MM Deinonychus is closer to a small Utahraptor (or Achillobator) than the real animal, so the MM Dire Wolf is considerably heftier than Canis dirus.

Argentavis is probably the closest to the Sandstorm Dire Vulture (big enough to qualify for Large, vulturish enough to fit.

Harpagornis probably fits the MM2 Dire Hawk.

Unfortunately, there is nothing big enough and eagle-like enough to fit the Races of Stone Dire Eagle.

[Lord Loss]

Neat ! I really like them. Might throw them at my PCs soon...

[hamishspence]

Probably the oddest example of D&D dinosaurs not fitting their real counterparts, is Ceratosaurus vs Allosaurus.

MM2 Allosaurus has less Hit dice than Serpent Kingdoms Ceratosaurus.
Definitely something odd there, given Allosaurus was both longer and heavier.

Stormwrack's decision to introduce a Plesiosaurus even larger and heavier than MM Elasmosaurus or MM2 Cryptoclidus is another oddity.

"Terror birds" (Phorusrhacos) might be a good basis to compare Utahraptor and Deinonychus to- similar pose, if slightly more upright, bipedal, avian- and twice the weight and height of Deinonychus. Size in Fiend Folio- Large.

[Amiel]

That particular issue slightly predates Serpent Kingdoms- two different sources both picking sizes, and one (arguably) getting it wrong.

Dragon also went with Medium pteranodons, whereas Eberron and SK preferred Large (and capable of lifting people)

Given the track record, why is that not particularly surprising? :smalltongue:


I was suggesting Height for size-determining purposes beginning at head- continuing to hips, then going straight down to feet- in an L-shape.

Primarly because the tail doesn't really come into play, and using the tail effectively "exaggerates" the real bulk of the creature- especially when, in the case of dromaeosaurids, it was very long and thin.

The problem with this reasoning and approach is that it does ignore the holistic animal and imposes some arbitrary restrictions upon the creature.
Were the animal completely without a tail, then yes, what you are suggesting would work well, but the tail is as much part of the dinosaur as is the shell on a turtle. One is nothing without the other.
The tail does not exaggerate the real bulk of the creature, especially as you refer to it being very long and thin in some dinosaurs (which is seems to be a contradiction), what would be a real exaggeration is claiming it does :p.

What you are suggesting is to ignore a fundamental aspect of the animal, and were it any other biped humanoid-esque I would agree, but it is a dinosaur. No dinosaur has no tail.

Even more complicated is, what you are suggesting will imbalance the length-size ratio in favor of the sauropods and so forth. Both bipedal and quadrupedal dinosaurs have tails. When you decide to design one set with tails in mind and another without, you're going to end up with a heap of inconsistencies.


Deinonychus may have been longer than a lion, but bulk-wise it was a lot less bulky.

Lions are pretty small in most ways, yet they have the Large size- possibly because here, they focussed pretty firmly on weight (and probably used the largest recorded lions as a baseline)

Not only longer but taller too.
If it were as bulky as a lion, it's never going to run as fast it could nor would it survive long, as the possibility of it not moving at all is there, and thus starving to death. Hence, weighing as much as a lion would be a rather substantial evolutionary flaw.


Velociraptor was much smaller than a human- weight wise it was comparable to a 3.5 ed halfling.

T. rex could probably be put in either Huge or Gargantuan without much trouble.

I believe weight should be taken with some measure of reserve if considered or used for comparison; a bipedal predator is never to compete weight-wise with a quadrupedal herbivore or even quadruped predator. Heck, a biped predator is probably not going to compete favorably with another biped that leads a more sedentary lifestyle, ie your half-ogres for example; ie a biped predator of equivalent size is always going to weigh less than one who leads a less active existence, probably as much as one size category less.


I also notice that space, for anything long in the tail, tends to concentrate on feet- Diplodocus (Dragon 318) was 90 ft long, but had only a 30 ft space- because, its long tail and neck were very slim, so don't really count, for size.

MM2 Seismosaurus (120 odd feet) had a heftier 40 ft space.

In some dinosaurs, space/feet should really measure which feet or spaces it actually threatens. So, it makes no sense for the head to threaten any feet or space, but with the tail slap, it should always threaten feet with its tail.


I think Size is always going to be tricky, with multiple factors coming into play- height, weight, expected reach, etc.

It is only ever complicated if you intend it to be so.
IMHO Dinosaurs should be designed with one over-riding measurement, length, both because they are an advanced offshoot of reptiles, that weight measurements should be taken as a guideline only (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#bigandLittleCreatu resInCombat), and because designing otherwise is going to bring in a lot of internal contradictions and inconsistencies.


While I like the notion of D&D versions of prehistoric creatures, sometimes it's difficult to find a close counterpart to the D&D creature.

Just as, weightwise, the MM Deinonychus is closer to a small Utahraptor (or Achillobator) than the real animal, so the MM Dire Wolf is considerably heftier than Canis dirus.

Argentavis is probably the closest to the Sandstorm Dire Vulture (big enough to qualify for Large, vulturish enough to fit.

Harpagornis probably fits the MM2 Dire Hawk.

Unfortunately, there is nothing big enough and eagle-like enough to fit the Races of Stone Dire Eagle.

Actually, would you say that WotC probably didn't design with a real-world prehistoric equivalent in mind when they built these dire versions of the base animal?


Neat ! I really like them. Might throw them at my PCs soon...

Thank you kindly, sir! :)

Be sure to tell us how that went! It'd be definitely worth hearing, not to mention of great help (in critiquing CR and all that)


Probably the oddest example of D&D dinosaurs not fitting their real counterparts, is Ceratosaurus vs Allosaurus.

MM2 Allosaurus has less Hit dice than Serpent Kingdoms Ceratosaurus.
Definitely something odd there, given Allosaurus was both longer and heavier.

Stormwrack's decision to introduce a Plesiosaurus even larger and heavier than MM Elasmosaurus or MM2 Cryptoclidus is another oddity.

"Terror birds" (Phorusrhacos) might be a good basis to compare Utahraptor and Deinonychus to- similar pose, if slightly more upright, bipedal, avian- and twice the weight and height of Deinonychus. Size in Fiend Folio- Large.

Heh, well, bear in mind, this is the same company that gave us a Gargantuan stegosaurus :P

[hamishspence]

What you are suggesting is to ignore a fundamental aspect of the animal, and were it any other biped humanoid-esque I would agree, but it is a dinosaur. No dinosaur has no tail.


Excepting some avian ones :smallsmile:



In some dinosaurs, space/feet should really measure which feet or spaces it actually threatens. So, it makes no sense for the head to threaten any feet or space, but with the tail slap, it should always threaten feet with its tail.


True- but the sheer length of the tail, is effectively treated as irrelavent for working out the Space- Diplodocus is very long, for its 40 ft Space.



Actually, would you say that WotC probably didn't design with a real-world prehistoric equivalent in mind when they built these dire versions of the base animal?


Probably not- its more an "If I wanted to (crudely) represent prehistoric fauna using D&D animals, which ones would I use?" question.

If one places a Deinonychus's feet roughly in the centre of a 5 ft base, does it look too big for the base? I'd say not. If anything, it would look pretty compact, with only its tail sticking some way out.

I know that for some animals (crocodiles especially) the tail is a big part of its bulk. But I'm not so sure this is the case with dromaeosaurs like Deinonychus and Utahraptor.

(Which is probably why WoTC errataed them in the first place.)

Point I was trying to make is, if you sat a Terror Bird and a Deinonychus next to each other (they are similar in configuration in most ways except for the tail) the bird would be much larger than the dinosaur- its head could reach much further forward from above its feet, etc.


Heh, well, bear in mind, this is the same company that gave us a Gargantuan stegosaurus

I've seen an upper limit for Stegosaurus length as 12 m in Walking with Dinosaurs book- that might explain it. In practice though, Huge is better.

I think, at least in the case of T. rex and Utahraptor, its a case of being very close to the border between sizes. Both are exceptionally long, tall at the hips, and heavy, for their (post errata) sizes (Large for Utahraptor, Huge for T. rex. Yet both are small compared to most creatures in the larger size category.

Question might be "If this was a mini, correctly scaled to WOTC models, would it look tiny, comfortable, or really tightly fitting, on its listed base?"

(T. rex would probably be a tight fit- the fiendish T.rex miniature, slightly smaller than the real thing would be, looks awfully cramped)

However, I think "Megaraptor" and certainly Deinonychus, would fit rather more comfortably.

[Amiel]

http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs21/i/2007/249/d/3/Triceratops_by_adventurevisual.jpg
By Adventure Visual (http://adventurevisual.deviantart.com/art/Triceratops-64278019)

Triceratops
Huge Animal
Hit Dice: 16d8+128 (200 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 20 (-2 size, +12 natural), touch 8, flat-footed 20
Base Attack/Grapple: +12/+31
Attack: Gore +21 melee (3d8+16)
Full Attack: Gore +21 melee (3d8+16) and slam +19 melee (2d6+6) and 2 stamps +19 melee (2d6+6)
Space/Reach: 15 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Powerful charge, trample 2d12+16
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +10, Will +7
Abilities: Str 32, Dex 10, Con 27, Int 1, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Listen +15, Spot +15, Survival +10
Feats: Awesome Blow, Endurance, Improved Initiative, Improved Natural Armor, Improved Natural Attack (gore), Multitattack
Environment: Flood plains, temperate plains, warm plains
Organization: Solitary, pair, or herd (5-8)
Challenge Rating: 9
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 17-32 HD (Huge); 33-48 HD (Gargantuan)
Level Adjustment: —

Triceratops (L. three-horned face) bears the distinction of being one of the most recognisable dinosaurs in existence. In depictions of art throughout much of the world, triceratops is always popularly portrayed as being locked in ferocious combat with a tyrannosaurus. A minority of scholars have moved to question these perceptions, arguing that such illustrations would be considered anachronistic, citing their own testimony of having failed to view the two ever interacting let alone fighting to the death. That the neck frills and horns served ceremonial display and courtship ritual purposes.

Other loremasters dismiss these claims as indications of failed studies, claiming knowledge for the sake of presenting knowledge. They point to numerous treatises and grimoires that explicitly detail battles between these two titans, that tyrannosaurus would have dined on if not exclusively preyed on triceratops, that triceratops bears armarments designed specifically to deny large carnivores as tyrannosaurus, as well as the shared environments in which they inhabit.

Sages have evaluated the ponderously looking dinosaurs of measuring up to 30 feet in length, 10 feet in height and weighing up to an incredible 12 tons. Remarkably, its skull is among the largest of all land animals, growing to well over 7 feet in length and appears to be a fused mass of solid bone. Triceratops bore three horns, one of its snout and a pair of wickedly sharp horns, each measuring 3 feet long above each eye.

Combat

Powerful Charge (Ex): When a triceratops charges, its gore attack deals 5d8+21 points of damage.

Trample (Ex): Reflex half DC 29. The save DC is Strength-based.

[hamishspence]

Pretty good version. I wonder what the full list of 2nd ed dinosaurs was, and which of these would have helped to fill out a 3.5 ed prehistoric ecosystem?

Also, Awesome should probably be Awesome Blow. Though a feat called Awesome would be fun. :smallamused:

I can vaguely remember seeing Trachodon and Styracosaurus on the list.

Which of the various dinosaurs in D&D sourcebooks do you think is the most misrepresented by the rules?

[hamishspence]

I toughened up my T-Rexes as well to be a bit more realistic. Increased the damage die to 4d6 for Huge, gave them a natural threat range of 18 for bite, improved critical(bite) as a bonus feat with a x3 crit. Also, a creature that's two size categories smaller or more is affected by Frightful Presence (DC 10 + 1/2 racial HD + Cha modifier), 5 HD or lower panicked for 4d6 rounds, higher than 5 shaken. Thoughts on this?

Also, you might want to tweak the crushing bite thing. Yes, T-Rex could bite through a car, but if it were to bite an adamantine car...

Edit: Actually...

A tyrannosaurus' bite attack has a natural threat range of 18-20 x3.

Deadly bite (Ex): A tyrannosaurus's bite attack has the same effect as a Wounding weapon, dealing 1 Constitution damage from blood loss per successful attack. Critical hits do not multiply this damage.


This is in fact very close to the Dragon Giganotosaurus- CON damage, triple damage crit, improved threat range (but that version has 2 pts CON per bite, though only 19-20 threat range).

Seems like a good idea.

I wonder how Troodon would work? A deinonychosaur, same length as Velociraptor, but a lot bigger (3 ft tall to Velociraptor's 1.5 ft, 90 lb compared to Velociraptor's 30 lb). Dragon 318 stats it out as a 1 HD Medium creature.

Come to think of it, it might have been interesting if they'd picked generic names (tyrannosaur, ceratopsian) left the advancement in, and said "The largest tyrannosaur can be Tyrannosaurus, the smallest Gorgosaurus, the largest ceratopsian Triceratops, the smallest Centrosaurus" and so on.

[AceofDeath]

Dinosaurs are generally larger than equivalent creatures; they differ in a rather significant way because they possess a tail, something that adds an increased measurement and more importantly proportion to their bodies.

I agree that portrayal is most important, but deinonychus as a large, deceptively agile, quick, and intelligent dinosaur would be greatly terrifying (boot-quaking, knee-quivering fear) and as interesting, perhaps even moreso if it had been smaller. Incidently, deinonychus would have been a lot larger than a lion, yet the lion is large while it is medium...:smallconfused: This does not mean it would've been heavier, which is a different kettle of fish.

And I believe you're thinking about velociraptor rather than deinonychus ;)

No I am indeed talking about the Deinonychus, the guy the wrongfully mistakes for a velociraptor in Jurassickpark:smallconfused: For some weird reason....?

Anyway! I guess if you would take in count that the tail is rather long and would make it fill another sqaur, perhaps it might be able to be placed as a large target. I'm really just saying that the tail is half the size of this creature, Putting Deinonychus as a large target seems to me like putting a man wearing a long pike as a large target. See what I mean?
It's not that big, just a bit long when it's tail is pointing out like that, but it's intire body ain't bigger then a human, actually a little smaller.
But I guess the size of a creature really is up to the Dm to define, I think it might be acceptable to place it in both categories, when I take you conclusion in mind:smallwink:

[hamishspence]

The Jurassic Park beast was midway in bulk between Deinonychus and Utahraptor. (at the time, they were considering reclassifying Deinonychus as a member of the Velociraptor genus, going by Wikipedia, but didn't)

And Velociraptor is an itty-bitty little 30 pound animal- 1/3 the weight of Troodon, which is the same length, but taller and heavier. Length can be misleading.

The main reason I tend to leave the tail out of size calculations is, its long and thin, and the animal itself is much more compact than its tail would indicate- as light as a medium sized man, and about as long in the leg.

also, Large creatures, as a rule, can carry creatures one size smaller. Somehow, I can't imagine a Deinonychus carrying a Medium creature, whether as light as an elf or as heavy as a half-orc.

30 pound halfling, yes. 60 pound gnome, maybe. 140 pound man- not likely.

[AceofDeath]

The Jurassic Park beast was midway in bulk between Deinonychus and Utahraptor. (at the time, they were considering reclassifying Deinonychus as a member of the Velociraptor genus, going by Wikipedia, but didn't)

And Velociraptor is an itty-bitty little 30 pound animal- 1/3 the weight of Troodon, which is the same length, but taller and heavier. Length can be misleading.

The main reason I tend to leave the tail out of size calculations is, its long and thin, and the animal itself is much more compact than its tail would indicate- as light as a medium sized man, and about as long in the leg.

also, Large creatures, as a rule, can carry creatures one size smaller. Somehow, I can't imagine a Deinonychus carrying a Medium creature, whether as light as an elf or as heavy as a half-orc.

30 pound halfling, yes. 60 pound gnome, maybe. 140 pound man- not likely.

Agreed, Deinonychus simply doesn't got enough mass to be place like a large target. But of course it's all realative, why is a lion a large target? (Why Am I saying Large target, it's atleast month since I played Warhammer and I played Dnd some days ago???) Though I really never thought so much about before now, Guess it just seems like more.

Isen't a common dog small size, just to make it sure, I'll say velociraptor is about that size...

[Amiel]

Excepting some avian ones :smallsmile:
Do you mean feathered dinosaurs or the pterosaur group?
All feathered dinosaurs had tails, while those in the pterosaur group were not dinosaurs. Related to dinosaurs yes, within the same class, ie reptilia, yes, but were distinct from dinosaurs.


True- but the sheer length of the tail, is effectively treated as irrelavent for working out the Space- Diplodocus is very long, for its 40 ft Space.

Which is the wrong way of going about things. Designating the tail as irrelevant is the same as saying neck length is irrelevant too. The creature in question is not merely going to threaten with its body. The creature is the sum of its parts, it is going to threaten with the entirety of its length. It also has to maneuver this length, and ambulate this mass when moving; a diplodocus is going to have an easier time of turning and so forth than a dragon, due to said irrelevancy, which is simply untrue.

If we're talking about diplodocus, it seems to be the exception to the space/reach rule; it threatens a greater distance than would be possible for a colossal creature. It's space is 40 ft., while the 'normal' colossal critter has a 30 ft. space. Even the largest of the dragons, the gold dragon has a space of 30 ft., and according to the Draconomicon can grow to a length of 120 ft.; in other words, it's longer than diplodocus.


Probably not- its more an "If I wanted to (crudely) represent prehistoric fauna using D&D animals, which ones would I use?" question.

As you said, the dire animals poorly represented the prehistoric equivalent.


If one places a Deinonychus's feet roughly in the centre of a 5 ft base, does it look too big for the base? I'd say not. If anything, it would look pretty compact, with only its tail sticking some way out.

I know that for some animals (crocodiles especially) the tail is a big part of its bulk. But I'm not so sure this is the case with dromaeosaurs like Deinonychus and Utahraptor.

(Which is probably why WoTC errataed them in the first place.)

Deinonychus is going to look rather squashed because you are forgetting proportion; and no, the tail is not to stick some way out, it's going to stick a lengthy ways out.

When comparing anatomically, the tails of crocodiles constitute as much bulk to the creature as the tails of dinosaurs contribute to their mass.


Point I was trying to make is, if you sat a Terror Bird and a Deinonychus next to each other (they are similar in configuration in most ways except for the tail) the bird would be much larger than the dinosaur- its head could reach much further forward from above its feet, etc.

Which terror bird though? There are many that have been discovered, all with differing heights.
Since the terror bird is a biped with no tail, evolution is going to design it with this mind. With no capacity to evolve lengthways, it's only going to ever grow taller. Incidently, we really need to see what an ostrich looks like.
And since the measurements given in the MM span across different feet, ie 4 to 8 feet for Medium, it is going to tell you that one creature may sit at one end of the scale, while another occupies a different position. There is leeway for the creature to be in the size category and occupy the lower end of the scale spectrum, it's not going to be always at the maximal limit ever time. That's simply untrue.


I've seen an upper limit for Stegosaurus length as 12 m in Walking with Dinosaurs book- that might explain it. In practice though, Huge is better.

The way that they should have designed this is to have a HD advancement scale that takes it into account. The upper limit should tell you its the absolute maximum HD that the creature can have. It does not make sense for the dinosaur to be designed with this at the outset.


I think, at least in the case of T. rex and Utahraptor, its a case of being very close to the border between sizes. Both are exceptionally long, tall at the hips, and heavy, for their (post errata) sizes (Large for Utahraptor, Huge for T. rex. Yet both are small compared to most creatures in the larger size category.

They are both going to look proportionately smaller for a creature of its size category.


Question might be "If this was a mini, correctly scaled to WOTC models, would it look tiny, comfortable, or really tightly fitting, on its listed base?"

(T. rex would probably be a tight fit- the fiendish T.rex miniature, slightly smaller than the real thing would be, looks awfully cramped)

However, I think "Megaraptor" and certainly Deinonychus, would fit rather more comfortably.

I can't answer this one, because I don't have minis and I'm not familiar with them.


Pretty good version. I wonder what the full list of 2nd ed dinosaurs was, and which of these would have helped to fill out a 3.5 ed prehistoric ecosystem?

Thanks, mate!

I dunno, although it would be good/nice to have something like that in front of you.


Also, Awesome should probably be Awesome Blow. Though a feat called Awesome would be fun. :smallamused:

Yes, consider that to be the ungodly hour or the boards eating it on purpose...yeah, that's it...


I can vaguely remember seeing Trachodon and Styracosaurus on the list.

Which of the various dinosaurs in D&D sourcebooks do you think is the most misrepresented by the rules?

Well, T-Rex for one, as well as deinonychus. The others not so certain, primarily because of unfamiliarity. Wait, stegosaurus of course :P.


No I am indeed talking about the Deinonychus, the guy the wrongfully mistakes for a velociraptor in Jurassickpark:smallconfused: For some weird reason....?


Given it it's own touch as the small yet agile, smart and quick dinosaur as it might had been

Sounds more like velociraptor to me :P

Jurassic Park is really not a good source for realistic or reliable facts. They really applied the embellishment paintbrush quite liberally.


Anyway! I guess if you would take in count that the tail is rather long and would make it fill another sqaur, perhaps it might be able to be placed as a large target. I'm really just saying that the tail is half the size of this creature, Putting Deinonychus as a large target seems to me like putting a man wearing a long pike as a large target. See what I mean?
It's not that big, just a bit long when it's tail is pointing out like that, but it's intire body ain't bigger then a human, actually a little smaller.
But I guess the size of a creature really is up to the Dm to define, I think it might be acceptable to place it in both categories, when I take you conclusion in mind:smallwink:

Following your reasoning, that tail is half the size of a creature, the D&D dragons have tails vastly overshadowing their other measurements. Compare the length of a gold dragon's tail, 54 ft. to its body length 33 ft. In fact, its tail alone approaches half its total body length.

The argument involving a man wearing a long pike is misleading, primarily because the pike is artificial, it can be dropped, that the base creature is always going to be medium-size. It will only ever modify space/reach never the size category.

Are you sure you are talking about deinonychus? because it was large as human if not larger. Proportionally, it was larger than a lion.


The Jurassic Park beast was midway in bulk between Deinonychus and Utahraptor. (at the time, they were considering reclassifying Deinonychus as a member of the Velociraptor genus, going by Wikipedia, but didn't)

I disagree, I believe the Jurassic Park beast (JP I and III) showed deinonychus rather than velociraptor; they probably decided to go with velociraptor because its name sounded better?


And Velociraptor is an itty-bitty little 30 pound animal- 1/3 the weight of Troodon, which is the same length, but taller and heavier. Length can be misleading.

Again, as stated many times, a real-world biped predator is not going to weigh nearly as much as an equivalently sized creature. It's simply not going to happen, it may be light, but that's to maximise its chance of survival and hunting success. These dinosaurs were tremendously successful, if they weighed as much as any equivalent creature, they'd died out long, long ago.

Length is not misleading, in fact, D&D seems to be quite clear in this regard as defined here: "d20 SRD: Biped's height, quadruped's body length (nose to base of tail)." Effectively meaning that if it has a tail, measurement should be as a quadruped's body length.


The main reason I tend to leave the tail out of size calculations is, its long and thin, and the animal itself is much more compact than its tail would indicate- as light as a medium sized man, and about as long in the leg.

As above, the dragon probably should be something to be taken into consideration.


also, Large creatures, as a rule, can carry creatures one size smaller. Somehow, I can't imagine a Deinonychus carrying a Medium creature, whether as light as an elf or as heavy as a half-orc.
30 pound halfling, yes. 60 pound gnome, maybe. 140 pound man- not likely.


Guidelines rather than fact, and only quadrupeds rather than bipeds, which you are omitting. Capacity/capability for carrying capacity can be misleading.


Agreed, Deinonychus simply doesn't got enough mass to be place like a large target. But of course it's all realative, why is a lion a large target? (Why Am I saying Large target, it's atleast month since I played Warhammer and I played Dnd some days ago???) Though I really never thought so much about before now, Guess it just seems like more.

Isen't a common dog small size, just to make it sure, I'll say velociraptor is about that size...

A rather pertinent example of this is the tarrasque. The tarrasque is bipedal usually, is 70 feet long and 50 feet tall. Yet is Colossal rather than Huge, which it should be because following your reasoning, it's not going to present as much as a target as a Colossal creature, and because the tail in relation to the body is long and thin when the body is more compact than the tail would indicate.

The lion is large because as a quadruped, lengthwise it fits within the Large size category.

I would actually argue that velociraptor is equivalent in size to a jackal et al, and believe that coyotes, jackals, and African wild dogs should be designed as medium creatures rather than small.

[hamishspence]

length is relevant, but to rely on length alone can be misleading- witness Troodon and Velociraptor. Both deinonychosaurs, both 6 ft long, but 1 is about 2 ft tall and one is just over 3 ft tall- one 30 pounds, one 90 pounds.

Tarrasque is borderline quadruped- arms reach the ground. (In 4th ed it was made completely quadrupedal)

Modern birds (avian dinosaurs) usually have very, very short tails, bone-wise. Like apes in that respect.

Deinonychus may be longer than a lion (shorter than a big tiger) but, because it is shorter, lighter, and bipedal, I think thats why they errataed it as smaller. (Would a peacock count as one size larger merely because it has a long tail?)

I think of Deinonychus as closer to wolf niche, than lion- it was swift (although not very swift) light, and quite small.

Velociraptor is even smaller- close to smaller wild dogs- maybe the dhole rather than the wolf.

Note that the pre-errata MM version of Deinonychus was much heavier than the real version.

[AceofDeath]

It's aperently a so so think with the size categories for creatures. You seem to be making a point of the size of Deinonychus shooud be made because of it's long tail, Being half the size of the creature. How about let's say, Lizard folk, They're about 7 feet tall with a tail that is 3 to 4 feet long, though this creature is medium sized, eventhough it's very much is the size of deinonychus, it even seems to weigh more and therefore have a higher mass.


Sounds more like velociraptor to me :P

Jurassic Park is really not a good source for realistic or reliable facts. They really applied the embellishment paintbrush quite liberally.

I'm talking about the 10-12 feet long Theropoda, Tetenurae, Deinonychysaurian, which, even though Jurrasick park is a fictional story with not much true data about the actual dinosaurs, still was the prototype for the raptor.
I just don't see it as large size xD


I would actually argue that velociraptor is equivalent in size to a jackal et al, and believe that coyotes, jackals, and African wild dogs should be designed as medium creatures rather than small.

But since they are stated as small there would be no reason for me to think of velociraptor otherwise...:smallwink:
Wouldn't say that thoes canines should be more then small either...

[Amiel]

length is relevant, but to rely on length alone can be misleading- witness Troodon and Velociraptor. Both deinonychosaurs, both 6 ft long, but 1 is about 2 ft tall and one is just over 3 ft tall- one 30 pounds, one 90 pounds.

Yet, one can turn that argument on its head. For dinosaurs, height is relevant, but to rely (solely) on height is misleading, even moreso if one were to rely on length; especially so when dinosaurs are discussed.
To disregard length or make it into something minor that does not contribute alot/much to the dinosaur is going to mean the dinosaur will always be lacking a vital component, and is going to mean the dinosaur will not approach what its overall size would indicate. Where dinosaurs are concerned, its length denotes overall size, in that it gives proportion.
Incidently, as said, WotC does seem to indicate that if a creature has a tail, measurement should be as per a quadruped.
Another reason why length must be taken into consideration is that in some instances, the heights of some dinosaurs are not given.
How are you going to design a hadrosaur then? It's length is vastly longer than its height. Its vast size/bulk, and hence proportion, is always attributed to its overall length, rather than its height, yet, it was as much a biped as a quadruped.

Velociraptor and troodon can be designed as medium creatures, remember, on the lower end of the scale spectrum, with advancements along/within the same size category. Otherwise, they're going to be pushing Tiny. Even if they're roughly the same, a compromise between the three is not going to work. Witness the following:
Velociraptor weight is as Small, height is as Small, length is as Medium.
Troodon weight is as Medium, length is as Medium, height is as Small.


Tarrasque is borderline quadruped- arms reach the ground. (In 4th ed it was made completely quadrupedal)

However, borderline does not make it so.


Modern birds (avian dinosaurs) usually have very, very short tails, bone-wise. Like apes in that respect.

Really, to label modern birds as avian dinosaurs is misleading. They may come from the same family tree and all that, but they aren't extant dinosaurs; same as the reason why reptiles wouldn't be considered extant dinosaurs. Incidently, there appears to be relict dinosaurs existing to this day within the Congo and such areas in the form of cryptids.
Same with apes, they are distinct from monkeys, who do have tails. To lump them within the one category is misleading.
And there are lots of modern birds with long tails; doves, pigeons, cuckoos, parrots, falcons, eagles, hawks, gruiformes, pheasants, chickens, turkeys, gulls, haotzin, nightjars, trogons, woodpeckers, sparrows, mousebirds. The list goes on. That's like, what? more half the extant species of birds?


Deinonychus may be longer than a lion (shorter than a big tiger) but, because it is shorter, lighter, and bipedal, I think thats why they errataed it as smaller. (Would a peacock count as one size larger merely because it has a long tail?)

Note that the pre-errata MM version of Deinonychus was much heavier than the real version.

Actually, deinonychus is as long as a tiger; deinonychus averages 10 feet, with some discovered to measure up to 13 feet, as large as the biggest tiger, the Siberian.

I'm not exactly confident that WotC should be held up as the measure of design flawlessness, especially given the track record, as evidenced by what we have written.

And really, verisimilitude is most important, especially given the simulationist nature of 3.5e, otherwise you're going to end up with some really odd specimens and some funky designs.


I think of Deinonychus as closer to wolf niche, than lion- it was swift (although not very swift) light, and quite small.

Velociraptor is even smaller- close to smaller wild dogs- maybe the dhole rather than the wolf.

Deinonychus can comfortably fill the lion niche, save that it hunted on two legs rather than four, was a swift and relatively silent hunter and was exceedingly dangerous. In fact, it's much more interesting that way.


It's aperently a so so think with the size categories for creatures. You seem to be making a point of the size of Deinonychus shooud be made because of it's long tail, Being half the size of the creature. How about let's say, Lizard folk, They're about 7 feet tall with a tail that is 3 to 4 feet long, though this creature is medium sized, eventhough it's very much is the size of deinonychus, it even seems to weigh more and therefore have a higher mass.

Or how about the troglodyte for that matter, a humanoid similar to your lizardfolk example; it even lacks measurement for its tail.
With the lizard folk, their tails do not add as much length to their size as the tails of dinosaurs do and hence will not mean the creature is proportionately larger/bigger; there is an argument to be had to make them Large, although I suspect the real reason for them to remain at their current size is to function as playable characters.

If we're also taking deinonychus into consideration, there seems to be a disconnect between its given mass as per the SRD or MM, being 600 pounds and the size category it occupies; 600 pounds is going to place it in Large. I'm not sure what WotC were thinking.


I'm talking about the 10-12 feet long Theropoda, Tetenurae, Deinonychysaurian, which, even though Jurrasick park is a fictional story with not much true data about the actual dinosaurs, still was the prototype for the raptor.
I just don't see it as large size xD

Let's think of it another way. If the creature in question was a quadruped 10 feet to 12 ft long, would you see it as Large?


But since they are stated as small there would be no reason for me to think of velociraptor otherwise...:smallwink:
Wouldn't say that thoes canines should be more then small either...

IMHO, a major point is/should be that WotC's designs should be taken with a grain of salt in some cases and should not be blindly followed:smallwink:, especially where dinosaurs and even some animals are concerned. The solidity of the presented evidence remains, as the odd and inexplicable design choices show; stegosaurus as Gargantuan, T-Rex with a Str 28, ceratosaurus statted as larger than allosaurus, pleisosaurus introduced to be even larger and heavier than elasmosaurus et al.


I wonder how Troodon would work? A deinonychosaur, same length as Velociraptor, but a lot bigger (3 ft tall to Velociraptor's 1.5 ft, 90 lb compared to Velociraptor's 30 lb). Dragon 318 stats it out as a 1 HD Medium creature.

Sorry, I missed this.
That's a good question. Especially when they are nearly exactly the same in measurement/s. By the by, velociraptor is 1.6 ft at the hip while troodon is 3 ft tall, this means roughly the same height, not a lot bigger as you put it.

How accurate are the stats in #318 when considered from a realistic and verisimilitude viewpoint?
If troodon is Medium, then there is no reason that velociraptor should not be medium.
To further this, if troodon, and by extension velociraptor, were medium with those measurements, should deinonychus be Medium?


Come to think of it, it might have been interesting if they'd picked generic names (tyrannosaur, ceratopsian) left the advancement in, and said "The largest tyrannosaur can be Tyrannosaurus, the smallest Gorgosaurus, the largest ceratopsian Triceratops, the smallest Centrosaurus" and so on.

What is somewhat tricky about such a method is even within the same family, there's bound to be differences in prey hunting, biomechanics et al, this'll mean that there would be slight differences in stats across the board within the same size category.

[Amiel]

Oh, re diplodocus and tail length, hamishspence, you are wrong in assuming that sheer length of tail is effectively treated as irrelevant for working out the space a creature threatens; also, nearly all colossal creatures, regardless of length or height have a space of 30 feet.

I've managed to get a copy of #318, flipped to diplodocus. It has a tail slap attack and tail sweep. You are probably mixing up tail sweep with its space, which is 30 ft.

Now, when diplodocus sweeps, it threatens a semicircle with a radius of 40 ft.; as normal for a Colossal creature. Since this as per the rules, we can (rightfully) assume that its tail slap is going threaten 80 ft thereabouts (as going off the expanded space and reach chart in the Draconomicon); since you choose half of the area it threatens with its tail slap.
In other words, length of tail has already been factored into consideration.



Variant Rule: Size by Dinosaur Type
Amphicoelias: An amphicoelias' (perhaps the largest animal ever) exceedingly long tail increases its tail slap reach and tail sweep radius by 50%, to 60 feet for a Colossal dinosaur and 75 feet for a Colossal+ dinosaur.
Baryonyx: A baryonyx's relatively long neck increases its bite reach to 20 feet for a Huge dinosaur.
Diplodocus: A diplodocus' extremely long tail increases its tail slap reach and tail sweep radius by 50%, to 60 feet for a Colossal dinosaur.
Mamenchisaurus: A mamenchisaurus' relatively short tail decreases its tail slap reach and tail sweep radius, to 45 feet for a Colossal dinosaur.
Et al

[hamishspence]

If we're also taking deinonychus into consideration, there seems to be a disconnect between its given mass as per the SRD or MM, being 600 pounds and the size category it occupies; 600 pounds is going to place it in Large. I'm not sure what WotC were thinking.


The MM 600 pound version was pre-errata. A 600 pound predator is comfortably Large. A 160 pound predator- the "real" deinonychus? Medium may fit better.

The Wikipedia pic showing it next to a man illustrates the point- its not a big animal.

I'm not sure how tall Velociraptor was, but given that Dromaeosaurs were proportionally quite a bit shorter in the leg than Troodontids, I think it wouldn't be much more. Similarly, when it said "3 ft tall" how high above the hips is its head?

Also- vis Diplodocus- it will look very cramped on a 30 ft base, with a lot of tail and neck sticking out either side, but that sometimes happens.

In 3.5, there are few exceptions to the 30 ft rule, but they do exist- several of the biggest creatures in the Epic handbook have a 50 ft space (with the 3.5 online update) and the advanced Aspect of the Leviathan is even bigger- with a 60 ft space.

[Froogleyboy]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Largesttheropods.svg/300px-Largesttheropods.svg.png I think someone should see this

[Szilard]

Just wondering, if I were to make a compsognathus, would tiny be the right size?

[AceofDeath]

Let's think of it another way. If the creature in question was a quadruped 10 feet to 12 ft long, would you see it as Large?

If half it's size was tail, just like deinonychus, most likely yes. It's of course different with a 3 meter long animal where the lenght actually is the body of the animal, as let's say a horse. In this case I defeantly would define it as being large...


Just wondering, if I were to make a compsognathus, would tiny be the right size?

I would say, very likely, the small jurassick teropoda was about 1 meter(3ft) long, though I just looked at the size of a kobold and MM seems to indicate that they are 2 feet tall and still being only small.
But besides from it's tail compsognathus would have been on the size of a chicken or a house cats, which I believe are tiny sized creatures.

[hamishspence]

the Dragon 318 version certainly is. 3 kg, 3 ft long- cat sized- tiny sounds about right.

(MMIII also has a Swarm version- to DMs who want to recreate the Jurassic Park 2 compy scene, only with their players :smallamused:)

On Misleading Length- the the Komodo dragon compared to the other big monitor lizards is perfect example- they are all about the same length, but because the others have long thin tails and the Komodo a short thick tail, its a lot bigger.

sure, Deinonychus maxes out at 12-13 ft long. But compare it to a 12 ft crocodile- the croc, by virtue of its solid build and thicker tail, weighs 5 times as much (800 pounds to the Deinonychus's 160)

[Szilard]

(MMIII also has a Swarm version- to DMs who want to recreate the Jurassic Park 2 compy scene, only with their players :smallamused:)
That's exactly what I wanted...
Now I have to go find a friend who has the MMIII.

[AceofDeath]

That's exactly what I wanted...
Now I have to go find a friend who has the MMIII.

How could I miss that last time I read trough that book?!:smalleek:
Compsognathus attack!! Gonna be awesome!

Excuse me, while I go stealing the book from one of my friends who has the book....

[hamishspence]

the precise name is Needletooth swarm- they are CR 6. (there is an optional poisonous version which is CR 7.)

[AceofDeath]

Needletooth swarm, got it!

[hamishspence]

Compy familiar (and Rhamphorhychus familiar) are in Dragon 318.

Though it might be possible to retroengineer one by comparing Rat to Rat swarm (or some other appropriate animal statted out in both normal and swarm form) and using this as a baseline to stat out a single Needletooth.

[GreatWyrmGold]

60 pound gnome, maybe.
:smalleek: That's one fat gnome!


Do you mean feathered dinosaurs or the pterosaur group?
Actually, he means birds. They're dinos, too, because dinosaurs are every desendant of the most recent common ancestor of Iguanodon and Megalosaurus (chosen because they were discovered before, say, T-rex and Triceratops).
Wow, I am a dino geek.

[AceofDeath]

Actually, he means birds. They're dinos, too, because dinosaurs are every desendant of the most recent common ancestor of Iguanodon and Megalosaurus (chosen because they were discovered before, say, T-rex and Triceratops).
Wow, I am a dino geek.

Naah, no worries. it's quit common knowledge that megalosaurus and Iguanadon was the first dinosaurs to be sceintific descriebed and that birds are indeed a memeber of the small theropods.:smallwink:

[GreatWyrmGold]

Naah, no worries. it's quit common knowledge that megalosaurus and Iguanadon was the first dinosaurs to be sceintific descriebed and that birds are indeed a memeber of the small theropods.:smallwink:

The exact definition of dinosaur? Probably not so much. Same with the fact that some people want to classify all living things in a similar way.

[hamishspence]

:smalleek: That's one fat gnome!



Good point, Underdark chitines are a bit closer. The point was intended to be that a Medium creature is supposed to be able to carry Small creatures, and few Small playable races exceed 60 lb.

[Woodsman]

Needletooth swarm with poison?

Boy, somebody watched Jurassic Park II. Or read the actual book.

[AceofDeath]

With the needle tooth Swarm I'm now one step closer to my number one scenerio idea. Jurassick park, the Campaign!!!!!!! Duhn Duhn Duuhnnn!!!:smallbiggrin:

Any Ideas for a palaeontologist class? How about Archeologist? :smalltongue:

[hamishspence]

Factotum in Dungeonscape is described as "Indiana Jones for D&D, only with a little magic instead of a gun"

Every skill is a class skill. Might fit.

[Amiel]

The MM 600 pound version was pre-errata. A 600 pound predator is comfortably Large. A 160 pound predator- the "real" deinonychus? Medium may fit better.

The point rather, was that WotC was/seemed inclined to design the dinosaur as a Large creature; as evidenced by the weight category its stated mass occupies. The interesting thing about this is, they also seemed to break away from their own rules, precedent and conventions when designing. Now whether this is a result of miscommunication, intention or anything else is anyone's guess.
Errata is irrelevant here. The intent was there to begin with. This is actually an example of retconning rather than errata.

And you seem to be side-stepping my question about how one should go about designing hadrosaurs.


The Wikipedia pic showing it next to a man illustrates the point- its not a big animal.

The image seems to be fallacious in this regard. Deinonychus is at least 6 ft. tall (going off the hip height of 2.85 ft., and stated measurements in dinosaur books); which makes it at least as tall if not taller than the man. Also, conclusions should not be made based on images alone, you need the full weight of the facts to make any worthwhile assessment. And the eyes can be fooled and deceived :smallwink:


I'm not sure how tall Velociraptor was, but given that Dromaeosaurs were proportionally quite a bit shorter in the leg than Troodontids, I think it wouldn't be much more. Similarly, when it said "3 ft tall" how high above the hips is its head?

If you're not sure how tall velociraptor was, then how can you make the comment that 'troodon is taller than it'? :smallconfused:
And can you back up your claim that dromaeosurs were "proportionally quite a bit shorter in the leg than troodontids"? I've actually found nothing that supports this assertion.

Generally, anatomically, hip height is roughly 1/2 the height of one's body.

Let's take a look at dromaeosaurus, who belongs to the dromaeosaur family we were discussing. It had a similar size to velociraptor and troodon, and was the size of a wolf (a medium creature). That then should tell you something about the size of dinosaurs and the ones in this thread in particular.


"Dromaeosaurus was a small carnivore, the size of a wolf, about 2 m (6 ft) in length and 15 kg (33 lb) in weight."


Also- vis Diplodocus- it will look very cramped on a 30 ft base, with a lot of tail and neck sticking out either side, but that sometimes happens.

The same argument can be made vis-a-vis with dragons. As per my above example, the gold dragon is longer than the diplodocus yet still occupies a 30 ft. space. I think the same question can be asked, will it look very cramped on a 30 ft base? If so, then the problem is not limited solely to dinosaurs, it may be that it exists across the board.

Was wondering, how are you measuring whether it does look very cramped on a 30 ft base and what equivalency are you measuring it with?


In 3.5, there are few exceptions to the 30 ft rule, but they do exist- several of the biggest creatures in the Epic handbook have a 50 ft space (with the 3.5 online update) and the advanced Aspect of the Leviathan is even bigger- with a 60 ft space.

Really, it's not a good idea to compare MM creatures with those in the ELH, for rather obvious reasons. Namely that the ELH critters are not built with core in mind and their mechanics are that much beyond what is achievable within 20 levels. Generally, you should only measure monsters within the MM to other creatures within the same book, otherwise you're going to gather lots of wild, conflicting data.

And I think there will always be exceptions to the rule. However, the creatures dinosaurs most resemble, dragons (and the monsters you really should be comparing dinosaurs to) do not belong in the 'exception rather than norm' set.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Largesttheropods.svg/300px-Largesttheropods.svg.png I think someone should see this

Heh. Um...I'm not sure who you are directing this comment to...or is it to the general audience?


Just wondering, if I were to make a compsognathus, would tiny be the right size?

Tiny does seem to be the appropriate size, although looking at it, perhaps designing it as a small creature may be another idea? It definitely wasn't as small as the Jurassic Park movies seemed to suggest; it's probably roughly the same size as a cat if that's helpful.


If half it's size was tail, just like deinonychus, most likely yes. It's of course different with a 3 meter long animal where the lenght actually is the body of the animal, as let's say a horse. In this case I defeantly would define it as being large...

Sorry, I'm sure not what you are trying to argue here...you are saying that the length is actually the body of the animal yet are disinclined or inclined to agree that this would be the size of the animal?


I would say, very likely, the small jurassick teropoda was about 1 meter(3ft) long, though I just looked at the size of a kobold and MM seems to indicate that they are 2 feet tall and still being only small.
But besides from it's tail compsognathus would have been on the size of a chicken or a house cats, which I believe are tiny sized creatures.

Heh, I'm not sure JP should be used to compare relative size(s) of theropods; Dilophosaurus anyone? :smallbiggrin:


On Misleading Length- the the Komodo dragon compared to the other big monitor lizards is perfect example- they are all about the same length, but because the others have long thin tails and the Komodo a short thick tail, its a lot bigger.

Actually, not so, and the komodo dragon is not the perfect example to highlight misleading length, as the below illustrates.
The Nile Monitor has a larger, thicker and longer tail than the komodo dragon, but can grow as large as the komodo if not larger in some freak specimens.
The Rock Monitor has a tail roughly as proportionate to the komodo in that its tail and body is of equal size but is smaller.
The Savannah Monitor has a shorter, thicker tail than the komodo dragon yet is a lot smaller.
The Crocodile Monitor has a tail as much as 210% longer than the body length yet can also approach the komodo dragon in size.
The Sand Goanna (monitor to you non-Aussies) has as short and thick a tail as the komodo yet is smaller.


sure, Deinonychus maxes out at 12-13 ft long. But compare it to a 12 ft crocodile- the croc, by virtue of its solid build and thicker tail, weighs 5 times as much (800 pounds to the Deinonychus's 160)

Again, you should not be comparing weight of a quadruped with a biped's weight. It's not feasible and is fallacious. You should really compare a biped's weight with another biped's weight within the same size category.


Actually, he means birds. They're dinos, too, because dinosaurs are every desendant of the most recent common ancestor of Iguanodon and Megalosaurus (chosen because they were discovered before, say, T-rex and Triceratops).
Wow, I am a dino geek.
Naah, no worries. it's quit common knowledge that megalosaurus and Iguanadon was the first dinosaurs to be sceintific descriebed and that birds are indeed a memeber of the small theropods.:smallwink:


Really, to label modern birds as avian dinosaurs is misleading. They may come from the same family tree and all that, but they aren't extant dinosaurs; same as the reason why reptiles wouldn't be considered extant dinosaurs. Incidently, there appears to be relict dinosaurs existing to this day within the Congo and such areas in the form of cryptids.
Same with apes, they are distinct from monkeys, who do have tails. To lump them within the one category is misleading.


The point was intended to be that a Medium creature is supposed to be able to carry Small creatures, and few Small playable races exceed 60 lb.

The point, rather, is that a Medium quadrupedal creature is supposed to be able to carry Small creatures, not bipedals.


With the needle tooth Swarm I'm now one step closer to my number one scenerio idea. Jurassick park, the Campaign!!!!!!! Duhn Duhn Duuhnnn!!!:smallbiggrin:

Any Ideas for a palaeontologist class? How about Archeologist? :smalltongue:

Hamishspence's suggestion of factotum is a good idea. Also, archivist.
Additionally, if you want to really parallel the palaeontologist and/or archeologist, might I suggest levels in Expert and Rogue?

[AceofDeath]

Tiny does seem to be the appropriate size, although looking at it, perhaps designing it as a small creature may be another idea? It definitely wasn't as small as the Jurassic Park movies seemed to suggest; it's probably roughly the same size as a cat if that's helpful.


Heh, I'm not sure JP should be used to compare relative size(s) of theropods; Dilophosaurus anyone? :smallbiggrin:



Hwo is comparing JP sizes, Compsognathus was about 1 meter long. When did I say anything about JP?:smallconfused:

[hamishspence]

And cats are (in D&D) Tiny.

Deinonychus wouldn't be 6 ft tall unless it reared back. The pics are pretty clear- it was about 4 ft tall in normal standing pose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deinonychus-scale.png

Clawfoot (Medium) in Eberron is able to carry Small halflings.

Large version of Deinonychus (Arms and Equipment Guide) could carry Medium creatures. Bipeds have no trouble carrying creatures 1 size smaller, therefore.

If the D&D deinonychus is 4 times the weight of the "real one" then it's pretty clear, that it's not a "normal deinonychus"

Concerning the Komodo dragon, the longest lizards are longer than it, but much lighter, because they have long thin tails.

David Attenborough's Life On Earth:
While other monitors have tails taking up 2/3 of their length, in the Komodo this proportion is only about 1/2. So a Komodo dragon is much bulkier and heavier than another monitor of the same length.

for "bipeds within the same size category" Deinonychus's legs are as long as a human's, body is as heavy as a humans- it fits better with Medium, not Large. Terror birds are "bipeds in the Large size range"- avian body type- and are much heavier than the 160 pound deinonychus.

So, if we are statting out a "real" deinonychus, rather than the oversized Jurassic Park "velociraptor" version (midway between Deinonychus and Utahraptor) medium is probably going to work better. I can't imagine a 160 pound animal comfortably carrying a Medium creature on it's back.


If you're not sure how tall velociraptor was, then how can you make the comment that 'troodon is taller than it'? :smallconfused:
And can you back up your claim that dromaeosaurs were "proportionally quite a bit shorter in the leg than troodontids"? I've actually found nothing that supports this assertion.


http://www.wvup.edu/ecrisp/d026.gif

Couldn't find any good pics on Wikipedia- this is the closest. For comparison, Velociraptor pic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vraptor-scale.svg

Wikipedia: Troodontid
Troodontids were a group of small- to medium-sized theropods (~1-100 kg) with unusually long legs compared to other theropods, with a large, curved claw on their retractable second toes, similar to the "sickle-claw" of the dromaeosaurids.

As for the hadrosaurid, as quadrupeds (or at least, semi-quadrupedal), weight, and length, both play a part. Dragon 318 went with Huge for Parasaurolophus- seems reasonable.

[hamishspence]

Also, I think, in JP, the "compys" are actually based on the Triassic dinosaur Procompsognathus- indicated by the "triassicus" species name.

[Amiel]

Hwo is comparing JP sizes, Compsognathus was about 1 meter long. When did I say anything about JP?:smallconfused:

The compsognathus featured in the (second) film were not as minuscule as the movie franchise seems to suggest. Another great example is how the film portrayal of velociraptor greatly diverged from its real-world counterpart. Also, as joked about in my comment about JP was Dilophosaurus (you didn't say anything about JP, it was a joke intended as an extension of my prior comment :)). That's three examples of comparing JP sizes.

Some (useless) trivia. Procompsognathus was around 1.2 metres (4 ft) length, while Compsognathus was slightly smaller at 1 m (3 feet).


And cats are (in D&D) Tiny.

Yes, a cat is tiny in D&D, but one can also build the (pro)compsognathus as small creatures based on its length measurements. I said roughly the same size of a cat, as some cats can grow quite big; relatively speaking.

Incidently, a cat is tiny simply because it is not as large overall as the aforementioned dinosaurs. Measuring at 1.6 feet compared to the aboves' 3-4 feet.


Deinonychus wouldn't be 6 ft tall unless it reared back. The pics are pretty clear- it was about 4 ft tall in normal standing pose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deinonychus-scale.png

I'm not sure how this relevant....as this same misleading comment and the fallacious ilustration can be made for all dinosaurs. The perfect example is the above diagram displaying the carnivore group with T-Rex. It's simply not true; why you probably shouldn't take the images at face-value:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Largesttheropods.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Allosaurus_size_comparison.svg
Et al
You'll note none of the dinosaurs are rearing up.

And I'm confused how or why normal standing pose has any bearing at all on its overall height or is relevant...For example, your preferred comfortable position may be a slouch that removes quite a bit of height, or you could have something along the lines of not being able to reach what you should be able to when standing normally.

And no, the images are not pretty clear. They are actually wrong. The illustration should have deinonychus standing at roughly the same height as the man.


Clawfoot (Medium) in Eberron is able to carry Small halflings.

Large version of Deinonychus (Arms and Equipment Guide) could carry Medium creatures. Bipeds have no trouble carrying creatures 1 size smaller, therefore.

The ECS also diverged from precedent by designing their dinosaurs differently to those presented in the MM.

Heh, incidently, that's two indications of wanting to design deinonychus as a Large creature.


If the D&D deinonychus is 4 times the weight of the "real one" then it's pretty clear, that it's not a "normal deinonychus"

Wait, are you sure you want to be discussing 'normal' in a world where wizards hurl fireballs, there are alignment exemplars and dinosaurs exist side-by-side with medieval fantasy civilisations? :smalltongue:


Concerning the Komodo dragon, the longest lizards are longer than it, but much lighter, because they have long thin tails.

David Attenborough's Life On Earth:
While other monitors have tails taking up 2/3 of their length, in the Komodo this proportion is only about 1/2. So a Komodo dragon is much bulkier and heavier than another monitor of the same length.
:smallconfused:Uh...that's not what you previously wrote:

the the Komodo dragon compared to the other big monitor lizards is perfect example- they are all about the same length, but because the others have long thin tails and the Komodo a short thick tail, its a lot bigger.

And this is what I replied in turn
Actually, not so, and the komodo dragon is not the perfect example to highlight misleading length, as the below illustrates.
The Nile Monitor has a larger, thicker and longer tail than the komodo dragon, but can grow as large as the komodo if not larger in some freak specimens.
The Rock Monitor has a tail roughly as proportionate to the komodo in that its tail and body is of equal size but is smaller.
The Savannah Monitor has a shorter, thicker tail than the komodo dragon yet is a lot smaller.
The Crocodile Monitor has a tail as much as 210% longer than the body length yet can also approach the komodo dragon in size.
The Sand Goanna (monitor to you non-Aussies) has as short and thick a tail as the komodo yet is smaller.


for "bipeds within the same size category" Deinonychus's legs are as long as a human's, body is as heavy as a humans- it fits better with Medium, not Large. Terror birds are "bipeds in the Large size range"- avian body type- and are much heavier than the 160 pound deinonychus.

The design principle is generally that if the creature is longer than it is tall, length is used rather than height; otherwise you're going to end up with some pretty funky critters. This design principle makes far more sense where designing dinosaurs are concerned.


So, if we are statting out a "real" deinonychus, rather than the oversized Jurassic Park "velociraptor" version (midway between Deinonychus and Utahraptor) medium is probably going to work better. I can't imagine a 160 pound animal comfortably carrying a Medium creature on it's back.


Wikipedia: Troodontid
Troodontids were a group of small- to medium-sized theropods (~1-100 kg) with unusually long legs compared to other theropods, with a large, curved claw on their retractable second toes, similar to the "sickle-claw" of the dromaeosaurids.

Thanks for the information!
Perusing it though, as you pointed out with your previous comment, this'll only come into effect if the animal reared back (on its hind limbs) and the images are pretty clear in that regard in that it'd not usually do so. Using your own argument, this'll mean differentiation in leg height becomes somewhat less of a determinant of size and therefore irrelevant by association.


As for the hadrosaurid, as quadrupeds (or at least, semi-quadrupedal), weight, and length, both play a part. Dragon 318 went with Huge for Parasaurolophus- seems reasonable.

Hmm, I don't have the magazine in front of me, but could you please list some stated weights of the hadrosaurs? Thank you.

As for designing them...it's good both their length and weight usually fall into the appropriate categories. I see that you don't mention height in this instance :smallwink:
While height is important, generally if the creature measures longer than what it's height would indicate you would build the critter according to length. And while weight is likewise important, the d20 SRD also specifies the categories assumes the creature is roughly as dense as a regular animal, while favoring quadrupedal rather than bipedal with tail critters.


Also, I think, in JP, the "compys" are actually based on the Triassic dinosaur Procompsognathus- indicated by the "triassicus" species name.

Which one?
The first JP novel had procompys, the first JP movie had none.
The second JP novel had procompys, while the second film had compys.



The Dinosaur thread...now with pictures! :smallbiggrin:

[AceofDeath]

Neat pictures, yet now we can begin to discuss why artist always have a thing for giving Tyrannosaurus three toes, instead of it's actual 2 toes... Guess it's the same deal why comic character often got four fingers instead of five.:smallbiggrin:

[hamishspence]

And no, the images are not pretty clear. They are actually wrong. The illustration should have deinonychus standing at roughly the same height as the man.


Can you show us some "canon" illustrations that show this- maybe deinonychus skeletons with persons standing adjacent to them?

Because, if every Wikipedia dino comparison pic contradicts your opinion, which is more likely- that wikipedia have drawn every dinosaur wrong, or not?



The ECS also diverged from precedent by designing their dinosaurs differently to those presented in the MM.


How, exactly? General rule, for both Eberron and A&EG, is Bipeds can carry creatures one size smaller.

Interestingly, TV tropes descriptions of Eberron all refer to "halflings riding deinonychuses" suggesting that the clawfoot is considered equivalent to the real-world deinonychus.



The design principle is generally that if the creature is longer than it is tall, length is used rather than height; otherwise you're going to end up with some pretty funky critters. This design principle makes far more sense where designing dinosaurs are concerned.


Length to base of tail, not tip. So, whether you judge Deinonychus as a biped or a quadruped, that long tail does not enter play.

EDIT:
D&D sizes can be a bit tricky- the shortest and lightest female Half-Ogres (Races of Destiny), despite being Large, are lighter and shorter than the largest male Varags (MM IV) which are Medium humanoids without the Powerful Build trait. Though an average female half-ogre is bigger than an average male Varag.

7 ft 6 inches, 340-353 pounds for average female half-ogre.
7 ft 0 inches, 321 pounds for average male Varag.

[hamishspence]

And I think there will always be exceptions to the rule. However, the creatures dinosaurs most resemble, dragons (and the monsters you really should be comparing dinosaurs to) do not belong in the 'exception rather than norm' set.


If you say Deinonychus should be compared to quadrupeds, and dinosaurs are closest to dragons, lets look at the records:

Draconomicon:
All medium dragons are between 4 and 5 ft "standing height" (thats at the back, shoulders, etc- not counting neck) 16 ft long, and weigh 320 pounds.

(For comparison, small dragons are all 8 ft long- between 2 and 2.5 ft "standing height" and 40 pounds.)

Suddenly, next to a 16 ft, 5 ft high at the back, 320 pound Medium green dragon, 13 ft, 4 ft high, 160 pound Deinonychus being Medium looks quite reasonable.

As does 6.5 ft, 33 pound, 2 ft high Small Velociraptor, next to 8 ft, 40 pound, 2.5 ft high Small Green Dragon.

Finally, compare 4 ft long, 1 ft high, 5 lb Tiny dragons, to 3 ft long, 1 ft high, 6 pound Compsognathus.

(R.E Jurassic park 2- the "compys" in the movie look very like miniaturized versions of Coelophysis in Walking with Dinosaurs- and Procompsognathus is a coelophysid. So I'm not clear if they intended to represent the animal, whatever its name, as a coelophysid, or a compsognathid)

My guess on sizes is- for most dinosaurs, including the post-errata Deinonychus, they took estimated sizes for all 3- height, weight, and length, and averaged them out:

Length 13 ft- Large. Height 3.5 to 4 ft- Small. Weight 160 pounds- Medium.

Dragons are, if anything, slightly heftier than normal for their size categories, whereas dinosaurs are not. (wings may make up a little of their weight, but not much.)

Just for luck, lets compare Large and Huge dragons to Utahraptor and Tyrannosaurus.

Large dragon- 2500 pounds, between 7 and 9 ft standing height, 31 ft long.
Utahraptor- 1500 pounds, 8 ft standing height, 21 ft long.

Huge dragon- 20000 pounds, between 12 and 15 ft standing height, 55 ft long.
Tyrannosaurus- 16000 pounds approx, 13-14 ft standing height, 42 ft long.

(so Allosaurus, at 3000-4000 pounds and 33 ft long, just scrapes into Huge (assuming dragons represent upper limit of their size categories) and Ceratosaurus really should have been Large.


EDIT:
Concerning your question on hadrosaurs,
Parasaurolophus was 31 ft long and 2.5 tonnes,
Anatotitan 43 ft and 4 tonnes,
and the immense Shantungosaurus 48 ft and 16 tonnes.

Probably use a similar function to dragons, with the extra weight and chunkier build (no long neck) justifying a larger size.

[Amiel]

Neat pictures, yet now we can begin to discuss why artist always have a thing for giving Tyrannosaurus three toes, instead of it's actual 2 toes... Guess it's the same deal why comic character often got four fingers instead of five.:smallbiggrin:

Thank you kindly :)
As for its three toes, I thought all theropods possessed that three-toed foot (hence its name), among the features linking them to birds; which you pointed out that birds are indeed members of the small theropods. I'm actually confused why the big T should have two toes instead of three :smalltongue:


Can you show us some "canon" illustrations that show this- maybe deinonychus skeletons with persons standing adjacent to them?

Because, if every Wikipedia dino comparison pic contradicts your opinion, which is more likely- that wikipedia have drawn every dinosaur wrong, or not?

No worries, mate, can do :). Here are some deinonychus size-comparison images (and they're probably not 'canon' per se, but they do a better job of illustrating the comparable/real size of the dinosaur):
http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/deinonychus_scale.jpg
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0128701/Pictures/deinonychus.jpg
http://www.studiooxmox.com/bilder/gaby_raptor.jpg
And here's one from our state's (Victoria, AUS) museum (meaning it's probably very scientifically rigorous and factual)
http://museumvictoria.com.au/pages/8748/mm-deinonychus-size.jpg

And I'm not exactly qualified to say whether the other dinosaur pictures on wikipedia contradict my opinion (since some may be factual), but I do know that the wiki image of deinonychus has been left rather short changed, if you will.


How, exactly? General rule, for both Eberron and A&EG, is Bipeds can carry creatures one size smaller.

Well you did say in a previous post that they designed the Eberroni(sp?) dinosaurs differently to how they envisaged the dinosaurs in other publications.


Interestingly, TV tropes descriptions of Eberron all refer to "halflings riding deinonychuses" suggesting that the clawfoot is considered equivalent to the real-world deinonychus.

Um, how is 'halfling riding deinonychuses' suggesting that the clawfoot is considered equivalent to the real-world deinonychus? To the D&D deinonychus perhaps, which may be your point, but we actually don't know enough about either deinonychus or other real-world dinosaurs to make such judgments (since what is left is mostly mineral bone matter). This is the same reason we're unsure whether T-Rex or other dinosaurs actually roared or not, we can speculate but it's uncertain whether they actually did.


Length to base of tail, not tip. So, whether you judge Deinonychus as a biped or a quadruped, that long tail does not enter play.

While this is the stated rule, and yes is in the d20; note I never said this wasn't the case, only that the general rule is if the creature is longer than is tall, length is used. This really should be true insofar for creatures where the tail does not constitute a major body part and hence re-evaluates proportion accordingly.
So, in a lion this makes sense, however, it does not make sense where crocodiles are concerned. We can then conclude from this that this, and the weight specification rule presented in the MM, are to be used as guidelines rather than as a fixed rule.


EDIT:
D&D sizes can be a bit tricky- the shortest and lightest female Half-Ogres (Races of Destiny), despite being Large, are lighter and shorter than the largest male Varags (MM IV) which are Medium humanoids without the Powerful Build trait. Though an average female half-ogre is bigger than an average male Varag.

7 ft 6 inches, 340-353 pounds for average female half-ogre.
7 ft 0 inches, 321 pounds for average male Varag.

Heh, would you consider this to be another example of internal contradiction?
7 ft 6 in is roughly ~7.5 feet which still should be within the Medium size category, and the female half-ogre's weight means it should slot comfortably within said size. Meaning they should be Medium rather than Large as they are erroneously designed to be.


If you say Deinonychus should be compared to quadrupeds, and dinosaurs are closest to dragons, lets look at the records:

Well, the sauropods should really be compared with dragons, since they are both quadrupedal and exceed a prodigious length. I suppose deinonychus can also be compared in this way.


Draconomicon:
All medium dragons are between 4 and 5 ft "standing height" (thats at the back, shoulders, etc- not counting neck) 16 ft long, and weigh 320 pounds.

(For comparison, small dragons are all 8 ft long- between 2 and 2.5 ft "standing height" and 40 pounds.)

Suddenly, next to a 16 ft, 5 ft high at the back, 320 pound Medium green dragon, 13 ft, 4 ft high, 160 pound Deinonychus being Medium looks quite reasonable.

As does 6.5 ft, 33 pound, 2 ft high Small Velociraptor, next to 8 ft, 40 pound, 2.5 ft high Small Green Dragon.

Finally, compare 4 ft long, 1 ft high, 5 lb Tiny dragons, to 3 ft long, 1 ft high, 6 pound Compsognathus.


The Draconomicon seems rather interesting that it doesn't use overall length to calculate the mechanics and statistics of the dragon; rather it uses a combination of body length and tail length or neck length.

The length you are referencing is the overall length of the creature and is not accounted for in the design. Which is very odd since dragons can be tremendously large critters. That's probably more the case of WotC wanting to preserve differentiation between the size categories and not wanting to run out of size category when they chose to design the great wyrms.

This is further compounded by the variant size by type rule; where the reach of the tail sweep and tail slap is extended. This becomes meaningless if the length of the creature still sits at its assumed size.

What is more strange is that some of the numerical combinations do not make much sense.
The given overall length of the gargantuan white dragon is 85 ft., and lengths for body, neck and tail are 23, 22 and 35 ft respectively; which adds up to 80 ft not 85 ft. Where's the missing 5 ft?
Or that if the designers did indeed calculate the size category based off obtained measurement, a few of the dragons get tangled into funky size situations.


(R.E Jurassic park 2- the "compys" in the movie look very like miniaturized versions of Coelophysis in Walking with Dinosaurs- and Procompsognathus is a coelophysid. So I'm not clear if they intended to represent the animal, whatever its name, as a coelophysid, or a compsognathid)

Going by the name alone, it seemed the intent was feature compys on film, whether they actually succeeded or not is another matter entirely :smallbiggrin:


My guess on sizes is- for most dinosaurs, including the post-errata Deinonychus, they took estimated sizes for all 3- height, weight, and length, and averaged them out:

Length 13 ft- Large. Height 3.5 to 4 ft- Small. Weight 160 pounds- Medium.

This is only true if you can do such a thing. You can't obtain an average weight for a single creature based on height and length both in terms of real-world measurements nor can you do this using the D&D chart. It doesn't make sense, as it is complicated by the fact that weight, height and length ranges across a considerable scale within Large, Medium and Small.


Dragons are, if anything, slightly heftier than normal for their size categories, whereas dinosaurs are not. (wings may make up a little of their weight, but not much.)

If measuring by overall length, as you seem to be doing, they aren't slightly heftier than normal for their size categories. They are actually too light for what their real size categories are.


Just for luck, lets compare Large and Huge dragons to Utahraptor and Tyrannosaurus.

Large dragon- 2500 pounds, between 7 and 9 ft standing height, 31 ft long.
Utahraptor- 1500 pounds, 8 ft standing height, 21 ft long.

Huge dragon- 20000 pounds, between 12 and 15 ft standing height, 55 ft long.
Tyrannosaurus- 16000 pounds approx, 13-14 ft standing height, 42 ft long.

(so Allosaurus, at 3000-4000 pounds and 33 ft long, just scrapes into Huge (assuming dragons represent upper limit of their size categories) and Ceratosaurus really should have been Large.

Remember you are using overall dragon length; which the designers didn't consider when slotting the dragons into their size categories. They weren't designed with overall length in mind.

Further to that, may I present the dromaeosaurus, it was about 6 ft long, weighed 15 kg and was about the size of a wolf (according to Wiki), a medium creature. If going by your argument of using averages, the result would be something Small, which is definitely not the size of a wolf.


EDIT:
Concerning your question on hadrosaurs,
Parasaurolophus was 31 ft long and 2.5 tonnes,
Anatotitan 43 ft and 4 tonnes,
and the immense Shantungosaurus 48 ft and 16 tonnes.

Probably use a similar function to dragons, with the extra weight and chunkier build (no long neck) justifying a larger size.

Thanks a ton (no pun intended), mate :smallsmile:

Actually, with what we've discussed, shouldn't they be built with averages rather than with just weight and length considerations? From what you've argued, this probably isn't going to justify the larger size.

[hamishspence]

I've checked your pics- first pic is way oversized, the last 3 are a bit closer. Though I'd like to see a person standing next to a skeleton- haven't seen any decent online pics.


If measuring by overall length, as you seem to be doing, they aren't slightly heftier than normal for their size categories. They are actually too light for what their real size categories are.

How do you figure that?

320 pounds- quite heavy for Medium, not too light (Medium: 60 to 500 pounds)
2500 pounds- quite heavy for Large, not too light (Large: 500-4000 pounds)
20000 pounds- quite heavy for Huge, but not badly so (Huge: 4000-32000 pounds)

And so on.

(MM, apparently, doesn't use overall length either, but length from nose to base of tail- dragons would fit MM perfectly if every one was exactly half as long from nose to base of their tail as they are from nose to tail tip)

Dragons are always a bit odd. If anything, they are bigger than their overall length would indicate- a 16 ft Medium dragon is 11 ft from nose to tail, for example. So, using dragons as a baseline is positively conservative. (T. Rex is quite a bit shorter and lighter than a typical Huge dragon)


Heh, would you consider this to be another example of internal contradiction? 7 ft 6 in is roughly ~7.5 feet which still should be within the Medium size category, and the female half-ogre's weight means it should slot comfortably within said size. Meaning they should be Medium rather than Large as they are erroneously designed to be.

My guess is half ogres were calculated using the adult male average size- 8.0 ft. Plus the adult female can exceed 8 ft. Thus, they just scrape into minimum size for Large.

For Long bipedal dinosaurs- maybe check both the bipedal height (with head raised reasonably high) and length from head to base of tail, as if it were a quadruped.

Tyrannosaurus can be surmised from Tarbosaurus in Wikipedia- 16.5 ft head height, roughly 20 ft from head to base of tail, maybe 25 ft at most. Since Huge creatures start at 16 ft high or 16 ft from nose to base of tail, T-rex is comfortably Huge. Throw in its weight (more than 2 tonnes, less than 16 tonnes) and there are no obvious contradictions in making it Huge.

Deinonychus: 5 ft head height, 6 ft long from head to base of tail, 160 pounds- all consistant with Medium. Even if you assume that as a light-boned creature its half normal weight for its bulk, doubling its weight still puts it in Medium Biped ballpark- average male Varag is 7 ft tall and 320 pounds in weight.


Further to that, may I present the dromaeosaurus, it was about 6 ft long, weighed 15 kg and was about the size of a wolf (according to Wiki), a medium creature. If going by your argument of using averages, the result would be something Small, which is definitely not the size of a wolf.

"The size of a wolf" is very misleading- it means the length of a wolf, and the weight of the smallest, jackal-sized wolf (an average adult female wolf is 60 pounds or more- heavy enough to be Medium). Since jackals are Small, Dromaeosaurus, like its similarly sized cousin Velociraptor, should also be small.

For biped raptor-type comparison, MMIII's Fleshraker (7 ft tall, 300 pounds, Medium) and Swindlespitter (3 ft tall, 30 pounds, Small) seem pretty illustrative.


Well, the sauropods should really be compared with dragons, since they are both quadrupedal and exceed a prodigious length. I suppose deinonychus can also be compared in this way.

Sauropods are much, much lighter than dragons of the same length. Using the basic quadruped formula, Colossal is 64 ft from nose to base of tail- only the biggest sauropods, such as Sauroposeidon, qualify. Amphicoelias is both long enough and heavy enough, but most of the others are well below Colossal in size.

And Diplodocus (assuming Diplodocus carnegii rather than Diplodocus hallorum AKA "Seismosaurus") is much lighter and quite a bit shorter than Colossal would indicate. 20 tonnes compared to 125, roughly 50 feet from nose to base of tail, not 64 feet.



Well you did say in a previous post that they designed the Eberroni(sp?) dinosaurs differently to how they envisaged the dinosaurs in other publications.


The difference is only between Eberron Pteranodon and Dragon Magazine Pteranodon- which can be accounted for by the fact that the real ones also came in different sizes. Glidewing can be Pteranodon sternbergi, Dragon one can be one of the smaller species.


So, in a lion this makes sense, however, it does not make sense where crocodiles are concerned. We can then conclude from this that this, and the weight specification rule presented in the MM, are to be used as guidelines rather than as a fixed rule.

The biggest lions and tigers can just about squeeze into the minimum length and weight (8 ft and 500 pounds) for a Large quadruped, which is why I don't complain about their size.

Same probably applies to crocs- an 11 ft long Medium croc (5 ft from nose to base of tail) should weigh very slightly less than 500 pounds. (though crocodilian weight can vary a bit)

Though I'd agree that the only crocs that fit both length and weight are the ones at the low end of the Medium length scale- 4 to 5 ft from nose to base of tail.

(what's really odd is the medium croc doesn't have Large on its size advancement- there are only Medium and Huge crocs in the MM.)


Actually, with what we've discussed, shouldn't they be built with averages rather than with just weight and length considerations? From what you've argued, this probably isn't going to justify the larger size.

on Hadrosaurs- looking at MM sizes- should be 32 ft from nose to base of tail and 16 tonnes for a Gargantuan one. Shantungosaurus or Lambeosaurus probably fit. Compare 16 ft and 2 tonnes for a Huge one- Parasaurolophus fits.

[hamishspence]

My summary of changes I would make to existing D&D dinosaurs, to make them more realistic:

Dragon Magazine 318:
Clarify Diplodocus as Diplodocus hallorum- its the only Diplodocus species long enough (just about) to be Colossal.

Downgrade Liopleurodon to Gargantuan (possibly rename it Pliosaurus macromerus as well).

Downgrade Giganotosaurus to Huge.

Possibly rename Pteranodon, or clarify it as one of the smaller species.

Monster Manual 2:
Either upgrade Cryptoclidus to Huge or rename it- maybe Plesiosaurus. Since it was not 10 ft long but 26 ft and 8 tonnes- big enough to be Huge.

Seismosaurus name is defunct- rename Seismosaurus- probably as Sauroposeidon or Supersaurus- they are among the few both longer from nose to base of tail, and heavier, than Diplodocus hallorum.

Spinosaurus is just about long enough to get away with being Gargantuan, despite being underweight.

Monster Manual:
Use the errataed versions of Deinonychus and Megaraptor- rename Megaraptor as Utahraptor since the real Megaraptor was not a dromaeosaur.

Eberron Campaign setting:
Downgrade Clawfoot (Velociraptor) and Fastieth (Othnielia) to Small- at 30 pounds and 22 pounds they are both too light (and short) to be Medium.

Clarify Glidewing as Pteranodon sternbergi.

Serpent Kingdoms:
Remove Stegosaurus.

Downgrade Ceratosaurus to Large.

Stormwrack:
Rename Plesiosaur as Mauisaurus.

Archelon stays Huge, but only because of weight.

Does this look like an OK summary?


Wait, are you sure you want to be discussing 'normal' in a world where wizards hurl fireballs, there are alignment exemplars and dinosaurs exist side-by-side with medieval fantasy civilisations?

Main reason to try and get them as close as possible- for D20 Modern campaigns, and D20 Call of Cthulhu ones, especially ones "out of time."- so that there are no glaring size or weight errors.

[Amiel]

I've checked your pics- first pic is way oversized, the last 3 are a bit closer. Though I'd like to see a person standing next to a skeleton- haven't seen any decent online pics.

The first image isn't actually oversized when you consider proportion; overall tail length-body length in relation to overall size. This is the reason why the other images more or less illustrate a similar size.
Deinonychus actually did manage to evolve to the size as illustrated in the diagrams. Further to that, we also have evidence wherein scientists uncovered dinosaur specimens that were in fact juveniles rather than fully-grown adults; meaning they had to recalculate their initial data.


How do you figure that?

320 pounds- quite heavy for Medium, not too light (Medium: 60 to 500 pounds)
2500 pounds- quite heavy for Large, not too light (Large: 500-4000 pounds)
20000 pounds- quite heavy for Huge, but not badly so (Huge: 4000-32000 pounds)

And so on.

I mean these weight measurements actually would not represent their real size categories, since your statement included overall length rather than what the designers were using; that is, body and/or tail or head length.
If one was to use overall length, then they are one size category smaller than normal, as per the SRD .


(MM, apparently, doesn't use overall length either, but length from nose to base of tail- dragons would fit MM perfectly if every one was exactly half as long from nose to base of their tail as they are from nose to tail tip)


I always found this rule rather odd, and greatly limiting, as it only is true insofar cases where the tail does not extend either proportion or overall length; lions, chimpanzees, hyenas et al.
For example, this rule doesn't make any sense at all if one were designing whales, dolphins, sharks, crocodiles et al.


Dragons are always a bit odd. If anything, they are bigger than their overall length would indicate- a 16 ft Medium dragon is 11 ft from nose to tail, for example. So, using dragons as a baseline is positively conservative. (T. Rex is quite a bit shorter and lighter than a typical Huge dragon)

Actually, if measuring by length they are stopping at the base of the tail, would mean they are ignoring overall length. In other words, overall length does not come into consideration at all.


My guess is half ogres were calculated using the adult male average size- 8.0 ft. Plus the adult female can exceed 8 ft. Thus, they just scrape into minimum size for Large.

Which means this is an example of designer laziness. Further evidence of this is how they gave all primal elementals the same natural armor bonus, the same feats.
Since the adult female can exceed 8 ft like you said, they could have easily built the female as Medium with HD advancements into Large. In other words, no thought went into their development.


For Long bipedal dinosaurs- maybe check both the bipedal height (with head raised reasonably high) and length from head to base of tail, as if it were a quadruped.

With long bipedal, you could just design it as a long bipedal dinosaur.
For some dinosaurs, they couldn't raise their heads high at all, due to oxygen deprivation.


Tyrannosaurus can be surmised from Tarbosaurus in Wikipedia- 16.5 ft head height, roughly 20 ft from head to base of tail, maybe 25 ft at most. Since Huge creatures start at 16 ft high or 16 ft from nose to base of tail, T-rex is comfortably Huge. Throw in its weight (more than 2 tonnes, less than 16 tonnes) and there are no obvious contradictions in making it Huge.

Except that tarbosaurus was considerably smaller than T-Rex; per Wikipedia.
The fact that the largest tarbosaurus were only the same size as the smallest T-Rex, even if that, renders it an obvious contradiction.
This means you are making the point that you could conceivably build tarbosaurus as Huge while the T-Rex is going to be bigger. The no obvious internal contradiction can then be extended to making the T-Rex Gargantuan while keeping the tarbosaurus Huge.


Deinonychus: 5 ft head height, 6 ft long from head to base of tail, 160 pounds- all consistant with Medium. Even if you assume that as a light-boned creature its half normal weight for its bulk, doubling its weight still puts it in Medium Biped ballpark- average male Varag is 7 ft tall and 320 pounds in weight.

A question regarding your measurements, how do you know the head to base of tail length? In no dinosaurs is such a measurement given; in real-world animals, yes, but for no dinosaurs.
Conceivably, the head to base of tail length may actually be shorter than standing height.


"The size of a wolf" is very misleading- it means the length of a wolf, and the weight of the smallest, jackal-sized wolf (an average adult female wolf is 60 pounds or more- heavy enough to be Medium). Since jackals are Small, Dromaeosaurus, like its similarly sized cousin Velociraptor, should also be small.

You are seeing errors where there are none, and making erroneous comments that it is misleading when it is not. This makes it pretty clear that you are also twisting the factual statements to support your own point.
It actually does mean what it means; that is, the size of a wolf. If it actually did wish to imply/state the smallest, jackal-sized wolf then it would have specifically said so, but it did not. So no, dromaosaurus should not be small.


For biped raptor-type comparison, MMIII's Fleshraker (7 ft tall, 300 pounds, Medium) and Swindlespitter (3 ft tall, 30 pounds, Small) seem pretty illustrative.

Actually, for biped raptor-types, the Eberron dinosaurs were the most illustrative and 'realistic.'


Sauropods are much, much lighter than dragons of the same length. Using the basic quadruped formula, Colossal is 64 ft from nose to base of tail- only the biggest sauropods, such as Sauroposeidon, qualify. Amphicoelias is both long enough and heavy enough, but most of the others are well below Colossal in size.

Only a proportion, diplodocus for one, while the others can be much, much heavier than dragons of the same length...if they were designed as dragons; brachiosaurus, apatosaurus, seismosaurus, amphicoealis, argentinosaurus, barosaurus, paralititan.
Although I'm curious why you would be comparing the weight of fantasy creatures like dragons to a real-world animal like the dinosaur; the d20 SRD also specifies the categories assumes the creature is roughly as dense as a regular animal, while favoring quadrupedal rather than bipeds with tails.
If the dinosaur weighed as much as an equivalent dragon, it would have imploded on itself long ago. It's just as not feasible as comparing bipedal weight to the weight of a quadruped.


And Diplodocus (assuming Diplodocus carnegii rather than Diplodocus hallorum AKA "Seismosaurus") is much lighter and quite a bit shorter than Colossal would indicate. 20 tonnes compared to 125, roughly 50 feet from nose to base of tail, not 64 feet.

The case for seismosaurus being lighter is the assertion that it belongs to a subgroup of diplodocus. To date they have not given any weight specifications for this dinosaur, although it can be assumed that its bones are relatively light based off the known information that diplodocus' bones were hollow.
A similar question though, how would one be measuring head to base of tail? since such a measurement actually isn't given.


The difference is only between Eberron Pteranodon and Dragon Magazine Pteranodon- which can be accounted for by the fact that the real ones also came in different sizes. Glidewing can be Pteranodon sternbergi, Dragon one can be one of the smaller species.

Except this argument can be broadened out to encompass all dinosaurs. However, it'd still mean that designing stegosaurus as Gargantuan does not make any sense.


The biggest lions and tigers can just about squeeze into the minimum length and weight (8 ft and 500 pounds) for a Large quadruped, which is why I don't complain about their size.
With or without the tail though?
Lions and tigers have tails that don't actually equate to increased proportion unlike some animals, say crocodiles for example.


Same probably applies to crocs- an 11 ft long Medium croc (5 ft from nose to base of tail) should weigh very slightly less than 500 pounds. (though crocodilian weight can vary a bit)
Though I'd agree that the only crocs that fit both length and weight are the ones at the low end of the Medium length scale- 4 to 5 ft from nose to base of tail.

(what's really odd is the medium croc doesn't have Large on its size advancement- there are only Medium and Huge crocs in the MM.)

Female saltwater crocodiles, the largest species of crocodiles, can have body lengths of 7 to 11 feet.
What they really should done with crocodiles and like animals is design with a length of head to tip of tail rather than base as the tail itself is a rather large aspect of the animal.


on Hadrosaurs- looking at MM sizes- should be 32 ft from nose to base of tail and 16 tonnes for a Gargantuan one. Shantungosaurus or Lambeosaurus probably fit. Compare 16 ft and 2 tonnes for a Huge one- Parasaurolophus fits.

Actually, how do you know they should be such and such from nose to base of tail?
Measuring total length, we get the following
"The composite skeleton of a medium-sized shantungosaurus[...]measures 14.72 metres (48.3 ft) in length," and would've just scrapped in with its weight; this is still comfortably within the Gargantuan size category. While lambeosaurus measured 50 ft, still within Gargantuan.
Overall length of parasaurolophus is 31 ft and its weight sits at 2.7 tons.
What we can conclude from this, is the fact that we haven't used the SRD's head to base of tail measurement, we have used overall length and still come up with a similar result.
Based on observation however, the argument can be made that the tails of the hadrosaurs do add a rather considerable length to the dinosaur in question, and that if we were assuming a measurement based on head to base of tail, we may be arriving at a shorter measurement and size category overall.


My summary of changes I would make to existing D&D dinosaurs, to make them more realistic:
Does this look like an OK summary?

Nice summary, mate :)

However, regarding the previous size categories, there actually shouldn't be a reason to downgrade them nor should there be much reason to rename any based on real-world descriptives.
With the size category, they were actually okay where they sat, barring some glaring errors, stegosaurus at Gargantuan. I see you only wish to remove stegosaurus rather than downgrade it, which is very odd.

Could you please give the reasons why you wish these changes to be made? That'd help in understanding your reasoning :)


Main reason to try and get them as close as possible- for D20 Modern campaigns, and D20 Call of Cthulhu ones, especially ones "out of time."- so that there are no glaring size or weight errors.

But even then, with those dinosaurs, to make them too realistic kinda defeats the purpose of their appearing in fantasy games. And I'm not sure you can cite realistic in the same sentence as Call of Cthulhu, for obvious reasons, and d20 Modern.
You would need to completely overhaul the mechanics and the system if you wished this. And if you wished to try and get them as close as possible, you wouldn't design with the SRD monster guidelines in mind, otherwise the dinosaurs wouldn't be as close as possible to the real-world version at all; which is odd why you are arguing for realism and would want to use the SRD monster design guidelines :smalltongue:.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Also, I think, in JP, the "compys" are actually based on the Triassic dinosaur Procompsognathus- indicated by the "triassicus" species name.
The book confirms this. Yay, reading! It's a shame they take 4d6+18 points of damge when I'm not careful...)


Neat pictures, yet now we can begin to discuss why artist always have a thing for giving Tyrannosaurus three toes, instead of it's actual 2 toes... Guess it's the same deal why comic character often got four fingers instead of five.:smallbiggrin:
Unless you mean its "fingers", they DO have 3 toes, plus one in back. Or maybe you mean raptors, who left two-toed footprints because their killer claw was raised off the ground. Dino geek, I am.


Which means this is an example of designer laziness. Further evidence of this is how they gave all primal elementals the same natural armor bonus, the same feats.
Since the adult female can exceed 8 ft like you said, they could have easily built the female as Medium with HD advancements into Large. In other words, no thought went into their development.
Except...they're a PC race.
If I desinged it, I would have probably made it Medium with Powerful Build.

[Amiel]

Unless you mean its "fingers", they DO have 3 toes, plus one in back. Or maybe you mean raptors, who left two-toed footprints because their killer claw was raised off the ground. Dino geek, I am.

Actually he means tyrannosaurus; since he mentioned the dinosaur by name.


Except...they're a PC race.
If I desinged it, I would have probably made it Medium with Powerful Build.

Primal elementals aren't a PC race though, and yet the half-ogre still seems to have been developed from the same school of game design.

As for it being a PC race...the fire giant could conceivably be a PC race since it has a LA, and is Large. Lamias are Large. Trolls are Large. It actually makes sense for these creatures to be Large, not so for female half-ogre...which apparently used the Large male as base...
The PC race 'card' should not be used as an excuse for poor design and poor design choices.

[hamishspence]

Although I'm curious why you would be comparing the weight of fantasy creatures like dragons to a real-world animal like the dinosaur.

because you yourself suggested it, for size:


Well, the sauropods should really be compared with dragons, since they are both quadrupedal and exceed a prodigious length.

For nose to base of tail I have been looking online at body length and neck length- with one of the longest being Supersaurus- body about 19 ft long- neck up to 44 ft long- head around 1 ft long. Result? 64 ft long- minimum length for Colossal.

For comparison, Diplodocus carnegii: neck length 22 ft long, body length 13 ft- head a foot or so long- result- 36 ft- close to low end of Gargantuan. Combine that with its 16 ton weight (low end estimate) and its hard to justify it being Colossal.

Liopleurodon- much smaller than the oversized Walking With Dinosaurs concept- as it is, if we want a Gargantuan pliosaur, we need the 15 metre long Pliosaurus (a bit more than 32 ft from nose to base of tail, just behind rear flippers)

Stegosaurus was removed because Dragon Magazine already has stats for a Huge stegosaurus. (though, if we used your "length only for creature with big tails" idea- they would work- longest known stegosaurus was estimated at 40 ft.)

Tarbosaurus is only a few feet shorter than Tyrannosaurus- they are so close in size, that the fact that Tarbosaurus is close to the minimum length for Huge (nose to base of tail) and minimum Height for huge biped, is relevant.

Spinosaurus- Can be justified as Gargantuan on length- longest estimates are 60 ft- assuming its tail is just a fraction shorter than half its length, we have roughly 32 ft from nose to base of tail- the minimum for Gargantuan.

Nose to tail formulae have the flaw of overestimating size significantly. Even the heavier 8 ft crocodiles are not as heavy as 500 pounds- an 8 ft croc cannot be justified as large.

Correspondingly, the Deinonychus, much lighter and less bulky than an 8 ft croc, cannot be justified as Large either. 11 ft is the length according to Wikipedia- combine that with its weight, height, the lack of bulk to its tail, and it simply doesn't fit as a Large creature.

Most marine creatures have some form of rear limbs (fins) and even whales have a place where the rear legs would be. Thus, the "nose to base of tail" rule can be used for most things (snakes being one of the few exceptions)

Really big Great White- 23 ft from nose to tail tip, roughly 16 ft from nose to pelvic fins- 2 tonnes- Huge.

Orca: similar- 25 ft from nose to tail tip but probably just over 16 foot from nose to vent, 4 tonnes (heavier, but still well short of the 16 ton minimum for a heavily built Gargantuan animal.)

Megalodon- 55 ft long- a bit more than 32 ft from nose to pelvic fins- 70 tons- comfortably Gargantuan.

And so on. Because practically nothing (aside from a snake) has a tail making up enough of its body weight to justify using nose to tail tip for size measurement. Even crocs would be lighter than any normal creature of their size category.

Basically, if I see a creature designed as Medium, and sitting next to it is another creature, supposedly Large, yet as light or lighter, shorter in height, or shorter from nose to base of tail, it looks too odd.

If I'm playing in a D20 system, then I use D20 guidelines for size- if dinosaur is man weight, less than man height, etc, its the size of a man- Medium. If its toddler-weight, barely toddler height, its Small.

Thats the main reason I think they were right in errata-ing the Deinonychus, and leaving the T-Rex where it is.


You are seeing errors where there are none, and making erroneous comments that it is misleading when it is not. This makes it pretty clear that you are also twisting the factual statements to support your own point.

Since the wolf varies in weight from 30 pounds to 160+ pounds, I do not think my comment is erroneous- Dromaeosaurus is not the size of a large wolf, the way D&D stats them out, and when whoever wrote that particular article said "the size of a wolf" we have no idea what they were actually looking at.


I would actually argue that velociraptor is equivalent in size to a jackal et al, and believe that coyotes, jackals, and African wild dogs should be designed as medium creatures rather than small.

Since you have stated it is jackal-sized, rather than wolf-sized, I don't see the complaint in making it Small. (30 pounds is much too small for a Medium biped or quadruped)


So, I believe I am right in surmising, that they were looking at the length, or possibly the height, rather than the real weight.

And Dromaosaurus is longer in the leg than Velociraptor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dromaeosaurus_skeleton.JPG

as compared to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Velociraptor_28-12-2007_15-06-24.jpg

I feel that the Wikipedia pics of Deinonychus, Utahraptor, Velociraptor, etc do not "short-change" them- they are pretty fair representations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vraptor-scale.svg

This is not what I would call a Medium creature.

Either we use length to base of tail, or we use height (but not stretched up ridiculously the way T-rex used to be portrayed, with its back at a 45% angle)

But generally, unless there is a very good reason to, we do not use length to tip of tail- because WoTC doesn't. Not even for crocs- 11 ft long, Medium.

[Amiel]

because you yourself suggested it, for size:

No, I suggested and specified (overall) length rather than weight.


For nose to base of tail I have been looking online at body length and neck length- with one of the longest being Supersaurus- body about 19 ft long- neck up to 44 ft long- head around 1 ft long. Result? 64 ft long- minimum length for Colossal.

For comparison, Diplodocus carnegii: neck length 22 ft long, body length 13 ft- head a foot or so long- result- 36 ft- close to low end of Gargantuan. Combine that with its 16 ton weight (low end estimate) and its hard to justify it being Colossal.

Liopleurodon- much smaller than the oversized Walking With Dinosaurs concept- as it is, if we want a Gargantuan pliosaur, we need the 15 metre long Pliosaurus (a bit more than 32 ft from nose to base of tail, just behind rear flippers)

Not to gainsay you, but how positive are you with the measurements, mate?
Most scientific dissertations, journal articles, or even books are concerned with overall length, hip height or overall height; they don't actually mention the length from the head to base of the tail, and in some cases not even tail length or neck length.


Stegosaurus was removed because Dragon Magazine already has stats for a Huge stegosaurus. (though, if we used your "length only for creature with big tails" idea- they would work- longest known stegosaurus was estimated at 40 ft.)

Although, generally if a magazine and supplement publishes similar or the same material, it is usually the supplement that trumps the magazine; it's the same with editions, usually 3.5e will trump 3e and so on.


Tarbosaurus is only a few feet shorter than Tyrannosaurus- they are so close in size, that the fact that Tarbosaurus is close to the minimum length for Huge (nose to base of tail) and minimum Height for huge biped, is relevant.
A few feet shorter in this case however, constitutes an entirely different size category, as tarbosaurus is at the termination of Huge and T-Rex is on the nadir of Gargantuan.
Similarly, how do you know the nose to base of tail measurements of the dinosaurs? Or is it assumption on your part?


Spinosaurus- Can be justified as Gargantuan on length- longest estimates are 60 ft- assuming its tail is just a fraction shorter than half its length, we have roughly 32 ft from nose to base of tail- the minimum for Gargantuan.

Could you please cite sources and/or examples; for spinosaurus and the dinosaurs you mentioned?
My books have the following information:
Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs 40 ft.; The Dinosaur Handbook 49 ft; Predatory Dinosaurs of the World 49 ft; A Field Guide to Dinosaurs 36-66 ft.
From the wikipedia article; IPHG 1912 VIII 19 estimated to have been 46 ft long; MNHN SAM 124 estimated to have been 46 ft long; MSNM V4047 estimated to have been 52 to 59 ft in length; "More recent estimates, based on new specimens, list Spinosaurus at 16 to 18 metres (52 to 59 ft) long and 7 to 9 tonnes (7.7 to 9.9 short tons) in weight."

And in most cases, tails are actually not a fraction shorter than half the length of a creature; it will vary widely depending on the creature, and this is one of the reasons why the rule isn't a very good one.
You said yourself that some birds lack tails.


Nose to tail formulae have the flaw of overestimating size significantly. Even the heavier 8 ft crocodiles are not as heavy as 500 pounds- an 8 ft croc cannot be justified as large.

Correspondingly, the Deinonychus, much lighter and less bulky than an 8 ft croc, cannot be justified as Large either. 11 ft is the length according to Wikipedia- combine that with its weight, height, the lack of bulk to its tail, and it simply doesn't fit as a Large creature.

Not so, especially not so when considering the overall proportion of the creature, otherwise you're going to end up with a very funky little thing; metaphorically speaking.

And just as bipeds are considerably lighter than a similarly equivalent carnivorous quadruped, quadrupedal carnivores are considerably lighter than herbivore quadrupeds.


Most marine creatures have some form of rear limbs (fins) and even whales have a place where the rear legs would be. Thus, the "nose to base of tail" rule can be used for most things (snakes being one of the few exceptions)

You are confusing the pelvic fin, a homologous structure, with legs, which are analogous rather than homologous with tails. Marine creatures have no rear limbs, their tails essentially are their legs. Even the 'legs' of seals and sea lions are modified tails.
As for whales and dolphins, their rear limbs have devolved to the point where they are completely internal and serve no ambulatory or useful purpose whatsoever.


And so on. Because practically nothing (aside from a snake) has a tail making up enough of its body weight to justify using nose to tail tip for size measurement. Even crocs would be lighter than any normal creature of their size category.

Actually, not true. Fish, marine mammals; seals, sea lions, elephant seals, whales, dolphins et al have tails that make up the majority if not the entirety of their body weight.


Basically, if I see a creature designed as Medium, and sitting next to it is another creature, supposedly Large, yet as light or lighter, shorter in height, or shorter from nose to base of tail, it looks too odd.
Well, let's take a look share we? :smallsmile:
Air Elemental; medium 8 ft height, 2 lb weight, Large 16 ft height, 4 lb weight
Astral Deva; medium 7-1/2 ft height, 250 lb
Babau; medium 6 ft tall, 140 lb
Avoral; 7 ft tall, 120 lb or less
Planetar; Large 9 ft tall, 500 lb
Marilith; Large 9 ft tall, 4,000 lb
Balor; 12 ft tall, 4,500 lb
Pit fiend; 12 ft tall, 800 lb
Tyrannosaurus; Huge, 30 ft long, 12,000 lb
Nalfeshnee; Huge 20 ft tall, 8,000 lb
Athach; Huge 18 ft tall, 4,500 lb
Triceraptops; Huge 25 ft long, 20,000 lb
Et al


If I'm playing in a D20 system, then I use D20 guidelines for size- if dinosaur is man weight, less than man height, etc, its the size of a man- Medium. If its toddler-weight, barely toddler height, its Small.

However, you are arguing for realism, which the d20 system can't handle; simulationism, yes; realism, no.


Thats the main reason I think they were right in errata-ing the Deinonychus, and leaving the T-Rex where it is.

As you said, they errated the weight of the deinonychus rather than the size of the dinosaur. This was but one of two directions they could have gone with.


Since the wolf varies in weight from 30 pounds to 160+ pounds, I do not think my comment is erroneous- Dromaeosaurus is not the size of a large wolf, the way D&D stats them out, and when whoever wrote that particular article said "the size of a wolf" we have no idea what they were actually looking at.

The animals in D&D are generalised and averaged from different species, which the reason why we have the d20 crocodile sitting at where it is. Similarly, it is the reason why the other animals are where they are. The wolf stats are not for the timber or gray wolf, which does not exist within D&D but for the 'common wolf.' Which does make your comment erroneous.
As for your other comment, scientists make such comparisons all the time, and those studying anatomy, zoology, biology et al would definitely have an idea of what they are talking about.

Speaking of wolves, the timber wolf is designed as a Large bipedal creature 8 ft long, standing 4-1/2 high at the shoulder, and weighing 450 pounds; 50 pounds short of falling within the Large size category. Per your arguments, it should not be Large at all.


Since you have stated it is jackal-sized, rather than wolf-sized, I don't see the complaint in making it Small. (30 pounds is much too small for a Medium biped or quadruped)

What about the winter wolf? Does it mean that it is wrongly placed within the Large size category?


So, I believe I am right in surmising, that they were looking at the length, or possibly the height, rather than the real weight.



And Dromaosaurus is longer in the leg than Velociraptor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dromaeosaurus_skeleton.JPG

as compared to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Velociraptor_28-12-2007_15-06-24.jpg

You shouldn't make comparisons where one skeleton has legs that are extended and the other where they are flexed. It taints the comparison. To ensure that it is scientifically rigorous and free of bias, the images should have both dinosaurs with either the legs flexed or extended, not one and the other.


I feel that the Wikipedia pics of Deinonychus, Utahraptor, Velociraptor, etc do not "short-change" them- they are pretty fair representations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vraptor-scale.svg

This is not what I would call a Medium creature.

Actually, they did, considerably. As shown by the pictures I dug up; no pun intended.


Either we use length to base of tail, or we use height (but not stretched up ridiculously the way T-rex used to be portrayed, with its back at a 45% angle)

T-Rex was apparently 13 ft tall at the hips, if hips at more or less half the overall height, then T-Rex would have been ~26 ft tall, give or take. Length of tail may add or subtract to this length.
T-Rex is tricky, as all dinosaurs are, because its tail constituted a large percent of its mass, size and was extremely critical and vital in balancing the creature.


But generally, unless there is a very good reason to, we do not use length to tip of tail- because WoTC doesn't. Not even for crocs- 11 ft long, Medium.

"Because WotC doesn't" is not a good argument. It is the same as asking the following "If Timmy (your most excellent friend) jumped off a bridge, would you?" One should not blindly follow.
Under WotC, one could make Pun-Pun. Under WotC, it is generally agreed that Core is broken.

[AceofDeath]

Unless you mean its "fingers", they DO have 3 toes, plus one in back. Or maybe you mean raptors, who left two-toed footprints because their killer claw was raised off the ground. Dino geek, I am.

I was actually pretty sure Tyrannosaurus only got the same amount of toes as fingers:smallconfused: Guess it was something I just found most reasonable... but now when I think about it that logic doesn't necessarly need to be true, when I think about Tyrannosaurus isen't the only creature with an un-even amount of fingers compared to toes. I believe Tapirs also got five toes on back legs and four on the front legs. Now I have to admit That I could find anything on the two toes thing anywhere, maybe I mistoke it for another dinosaur, Maybe Carnotaurus or some other abelisaurids who perhaps only got two feets. Which I might could at the moment I read it mistoke for a Tyrranosaurus. Which is quit likely compared to that this myth for my really was something I read when I was 8 or something.....
Now when I think about the recontructed Tyrannosaurus in the Natural Museum in London thoes have three toes... Or maybe it doesn't... Would someone go check for me?:smallsmile:

Now if we start talking about size I'm still in the Deinonychus Medium size pool. I was out with my dog yesterday meet some horses. Yay, more animal companions, and that made me think that these guys would be what I would put as amoung the smallest large size in my mind, smaller would just be to close to human to justify the bonuses (and penalties) large size grants...

[hamishspence]

Timber wolf? If you mean Winter Wolf- is that 8 feet inclusive of tail? It doesn't say.

If 8 ft long means length to base of tail- as Length does in descriptions of leopards and the like- minimum for Large- being a few pounds short of minimum weight is justifiable- being less than half the weight however, would be a problem.


The wolf stats are not for the timber or gray wolf, which does not exist within D&D but for the 'common wolf.'

And if we are using averages, we don't default to the minimum size. the smallest wolves are coyote sized- but when we say "as big as a wolf" we generally wouldn't be referring to a coyote-sized one.


Air Elemental; medium 8 ft height, 2 lb weight, Large 16 ft height, 4 lb weight
Astral Deva; medium 7-1/2 ft height, 250 lb
Babau; medium 6 ft tall, 140 lb
Avoral; 7 ft tall, 120 lb or less
Planetar; Large 9 ft tall, 500 lb
Marilith; Large 9 ft tall, 4,000 lb
Balor; 12 ft tall, 4,500 lb
Pit fiend; 12 ft tall, 800 lb
Tyrannosaurus; Huge, 30 ft long, 12,000 lb
Nalfeshnee; Huge 20 ft tall, 8,000 lb
Athach; Huge 18 ft tall, 4,500 lb
Triceratops; Huge 25 ft long, 20,000 lb
Et al


And, aside from the air elemental (for obvious reasons) and the balor, all of these are within the listed height and weight categories.

Some creatures do fall outside the usual weight categories, but most of them can be accounted for in some way- the roc, for example, is incredibly light for its size (8000 pounds) because its a flying avian. The balor is unusually heavy, but it is still short enough to be Large.

There will always be gray areas (300 pound 8 ft high Large bipeds- the Bigfoot and Yeti in D20 Modern, which uses the same size categories, for example) But T-rex and Deinonychus are a long way short of the gray areas- less than half the weight needed to be Large and Gargantuan, a lot shorter than would be needed for Large and Gargantuan.


Marine creatures have no rear limbs, their tails essentially are their legs. Even the 'legs' of seals and sea lions are modified tails.

Pelvic fins (not fin) was where the legs would evolve in later tetrapods- its where the pelvic region (hips on a tetrapod) is, and the vent. Its a point of reference.
And seals, and sea-lions, do not have long tails- their rear flippers are modified hind legs.



And in most cases, tails are actually not a fraction shorter than half the length of a creature; it will vary widely depending on the creature, and this is one of the reasons why the rule isn't a very good one.


Mostly going by comparison pics, and statistics online. The Wikipedia 59 ft length for spinosaurus, for example. Similarly- the artwork- some shows it with a tail slightly less than half its length.

Diplodocus (and some others) have more detailed descriptions- like "22 ft neck, 13 ft body, 50 ft tail" for example.

They errataed both the weight, and the size, for Deinonychus.

Several of your pics of Deinonychus are old ones- one appears to be based on Charles Knight artwork. Early pics showed it with a non-horizontal spine- enlarging it significantly.

The photos are the best I could find online- and the shins are visibly shorter next to the upper legs, in the case of Velociraptor.

Deinonychus is a fairly funky little thing- it's hips were held roughly 3 feet off the ground, its upper body appears the size of a man's or very slightly longer, with a neck and head not adding all that much to it.



Now if we start talking about size I'm still in the Deinonychus Medium size pool. I was out with my dog yesterday meet some horses. Yay, more animal companions, and that made me think that these guys would be what I would put as amoung the smallest large size in my mind, smaller would just be to close to human to justify the bonuses (and penalties) large size grants...

If you placed it next to a pony (Medium) the pony would appear at least as big or slightly bigger.

Similar with Utahraptor- if you placed it next to a shire horse.

T-rex is not really near the cusp of gargantuan- not by weight, not by upper body height either. If with its spine at the vertical above its hips, it came to over 32 feet, I could understand- but it doesn't, not near. Put it next to an Eldritch Giant (25 ft tall) and it looks like a leopard next to a man.

The smallest described Tarbosaurus would be near minimum length for huge, but when they say "Up to 16.5 ft tall" that would suggest they are referring to the largest, 40 ft long animals- middle of Huge and right next to T-rex.


T-Rex is tricky, as all dinosaurs are, because its tail constituted a large percent of its mass, size and was extremely critical and vital in balancing the creature.

Still a lower percentage than a crocodile.

Aside from the Colossal dragons, most of the dragons are fairly appropriate weights for their dimensions- 80 tons for an 85 ft long, short tailed, short (compared to a sauropod) necked, big bodied dragon is quite reasonable.

Place a Diplodocus next to a gargantuan dragon (especially the Gargantuan Green Dragon), and the dragon will appear at least as big or bigger than the sauropod.

To sum up:

T-rex, is too short, and light, to be Gargantuan. Compare it to Indricothere in Fiend Folio- and look at actual measurements on Wikipedia- 26 ft from nose to base of tail, 25 ft high, 18 ft high at the shoulder, estimated weight between 10 and 20 tons. Using 15 tons as an average- its as big as a Huge creature gets, and much bigger than T-rex.

Spinosaurus can be justified as Gargantuan on length, though not weight (Spinosaurs are slimmer than most of the other giant dinosaurs, so its low weight can be justified this way)

Diplodocus is much too short and light to be Colossal.

Deinonychus is too short and light to be Large- it's Man-sized- its Medium.
Utahraptor- too small to be Huge- its the size of a big horse- its Large.
Velociraptor- too small to be Medium- its size of a jackal or a lynx- its Small.

These are my assessments based on WoTC size tables, and precedents set by comparable terrestrial D&D animals.


I was actually pretty sure Tyrannosaurus only got the same amount of toes as fingers:

there was a fairly recent discovery that it actually had the bones for 3 fingers, but the third was vestigial and would have been buried in the hand.

[AceofDeath]

there was a fairly recent discovery that it actually had the bones for 3 fingers, but the third was vestigial and would have been buried in the hand.

Yeah, maybe that's where I got confused:smallbiggrin:

[hamishspence]

Given the amount of thread derailment, maybe I should put up a separate post- Deciding Size of creatures in D20.

EDIT: Done- and in it is a rough approximation of "How big is a Huge T-rex compared to a mid-range Huge humanoid" and "how big is a gargantuan T-rex compared to a Gargantuan humanoid"

To sum up- next to a Gargantuan humanoid, it looks like a Velociraptor does next to a Medium humanoid, in length, height, weight equivalent, though slightly shorter.

The same would apply to Utahraptor next to a Huge Humanoid,
or Deinonychus next to a Large one.

Conclusion- these 3 should not be Gargantuan, Huge, and Large respectively, they should each be the size smaller- at least, based on the assumption that coyote/turkey sized creatures, should be Small rather than medium.

Concerning "wolf sized" if we look up Saurornitholestes, Velociraptor, and Dromaeosaurus- they are all:

1:Dromaeosaurs:
2:between 6 and 7 feet long.
3:Weight roughly 33 pounds (weight of Saurornitholestes isn't listed on Wikipedia, but it is elsewhere- just search Saurornitholestes Weight)

And they are:

"Turkey sized" (Velociraptor)
"Coyote sized" (Saurornitholestes)
"Wolf sized" (Dromaeosaurus)

So, I take "wolf sized" with a pint of salt, given the sizes described for other dromaeosaurs of the same weight and length.

[hamishspence]

For comparison- 11 ft long and 6 ft tall- ornithomimid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Archaeornithomimus_2.JPG

When one looks at the ornithomimids (about as long as Deinonychus, and starting at 6 ft tall, and typically 4 ft or more at the hip) it's pretty clear that this much shorter-legged, shorter-necked dromaeosaur, simply cannot reach that height without rearing up to a ridiculous extent.

[Amiel]

I was actually pretty sure Tyrannosaurus only got the same amount of toes as fingers:smallconfused: Guess it was something I just found most reasonable... but now when I think about it that logic doesn't necessarly need to be true, when I think about Tyrannosaurus isen't the only creature with an un-even amount of fingers compared to toes. I believe Tapirs also got five toes on back legs and four on the front legs.

All theropods either have three or four toes; with three-toes predominating. No theropods ever has toes that number less than three.
However, some can and will have two fingers or fore-claws, T-Rex being the most (in)famous example. Really, though, they're all claws. This may have been confusing you.


Now if we start talking about size I'm still in the Deinonychus Medium size pool. I was out with my dog yesterday meet some horses. Yay, more animal companions, and that made me think that these guys would be what I would put as amoung the smallest large size in my mind, smaller would just be to close to human to justify the bonuses (and penalties) large size grants...

Do you think this (http://museumvictoria.com.au/pages/8748/mm-deinonychus-size.jpg) is medium-sized?


Timber wolf? If you mean Winter Wolf- is that 8 feet inclusive of tail? It doesn't say.

Oops, sorry, yes, the winter wolf; yet another example of WotC not following their own rules perhaps?

Since WotC seem to advance length and height measurements as absolute numerics, in other words, the maximal length or height of the creature, this 8 feet would be inclusive of tail.


If 8 ft long means length to base of tail- as Length does in descriptions of leopards and the like- minimum for Large- being a few pounds short of minimum weight is justifiable- being less than half the weight however, would be a problem.

It most definitely wouldn't be referring to length to base of tail; considering that is a rather large break from convention. If 8 ft long does mean length to base of tail, then all other entries should likewise be modified and calculated accordingly.

It seems that WotC aren't even following their own rules...


And if we are using averages, we don't default to the minimum size. the smallest wolves are coyote sized- but when we say "as big as a wolf" we generally wouldn't be referring to a coyote-sized one.

Uh...you are contradicting yourself there. You were the one wanting to push coyote-sized as the norm. Yet, you're arguing for something completely different here...


And, aside from the air elemental (for obvious reasons) and the balor, all of these are within the listed height and weight categories.

So, what about your previous post? "Basically, if I see a creature designed as Medium, and sitting next to it is another creature, supposedly Large, yet as light or lighter, shorter in height, or shorter from nose to base of tail, it looks too odd."

It seems rather odd that the examples given do reinforce the various oddities of heights, weights, lengths, and all within their 'claimed' size categories no less.
A pit fiend at 800 lb and a balor at 4500 lb does not strike you as somewhat odd? The balor is five times heavier than the pit fiend.
And since the measurements given in the MM span across different feet, ie 4 to 8 feet for Medium, it is going to tell you that one creature may sit at one end of the scale, while another occupies a different position. There is leeway for the creature to be in the size category and occupy the lower end of the scale spectrum, it's not going to be always at the maximal limit ever time. That's simply untrue.

Also, bear in mind that all listed save the last two are fantastical creatures, they should not follow real-world precedent/convention.

Also, to conduct a salient and rigorous comparison, you cannot discount that which is 'deemed to not belong' willy-nilly, all must be considered.


Some creatures do fall outside the usual weight categories, but most of them can be accounted for in some way- the roc, for example, is incredibly light for its size (8000 pounds) because its a flying avian. The balor is unusually heavy, but it is still short enough to be Large.

There will always be gray areas (300 pound 8 ft high Large bipeds- the Bigfoot and Yeti in D20 Modern, which uses the same size categories, for example) But T-rex and Deinonychus are a long way short of the gray areas- less than half the weight needed to be Large and Gargantuan, a lot shorter than would be needed for Large and Gargantuan.

Which really supports my position that the weight, height and length specifications should be used as guidelines only. Indeed, WotC is clear in this regard that it should be used thus.

Also, bear in mind the importance of verisimilitude rather than realism in D&D. D&D as a system cannot handle realism in a real-world sense.


Pelvic fins (not fin) was where the legs would evolve in later tetrapods- its where the pelvic region (hips on a tetrapod) is, and the vent. Its a point of reference.
Again, pelvic fins are homologous, not analogous. It is only corresponding similarly in position not structure. The tail is essentially their 'legs.'


And seals, and sea-lions, do not have long tails- their rear flippers are modified hind legs.

Their rear flippers are feet actually, not legs. In any case, they do not have legs at all, they only have tails. Flippers rather, but they aren't legs.


Mostly going by comparison pics, and statistics online. The Wikipedia 59 ft length for spinosaurus, for example. Similarly- the artwork- some shows it with a tail slightly less than half its length.

Citation needed please; especially for length to base of tail et al. I want actual sources, books used, scientific journals quoted, otherwise, anybody can make up that stuff, it wouldn't be too difficult :smallwink:.


Diplodocus (and some others) have more detailed descriptions- like "22 ft neck, 13 ft body, 50 ft tail" for example.

Citation needed.


They errataed both the weight, and the size, for Deinonychus.

No, they didn't. Deinonychus was medium and continues to be medium pre- and post-errata.


Several of your pics of Deinonychus are old ones- one appears to be based on Charles Knight artwork. Early pics showed it with a non-horizontal spine- enlarging it significantly.

The Museum of Victoria's images are not old. If we are using that argument however, I could similarly say that you showed us old pics as well :smalltongue:. Although, really, given the extent of discovery and so on, we're only at the tip of the iceberg, as it were. In fact, for some dinosaurs what they are found are not the adult specimens at all, but, rather juvenile or adolescent/young adults. This of course means that they needed to reconsider and recalibrate 'average' sizes accordingly.


The photos are the best I could find online- and the shins are visibly shorter next to the upper legs, in the case of Velociraptor.

You really need to find comparison pictures, skeletons do not tell us very much if they are not next to something that can be used as a comparator.


Deinonychus is a fairly funky little thing- it's hips were held roughly 3 feet off the ground, its upper body appears the size of a man's or very slightly longer, with a neck and head not adding all that much to it.

Only when flexing and extending, ie ambulating.


If you placed it next to a pony (Medium) the pony would appear at least as big or slightly bigger.

:smallconfused:Where in the world did you get that idea? Deinonychus is at least as tall as a human, the pony would look puny compared to it.
Incidently, WotC designed the pony as a Medium animal yet say the following "The statistics presented here describe a small horse, under 5 feet tall at the shoulder." Hmm...


Similar with Utahraptor- if you placed it next to a shire horse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Utahraptor_size_estimate_chart.svg
Yet this disagrees with you.


T-rex is not really near the cusp of gargantuan- not by weight, not by upper body height either. If with its spine at the vertical above its hips, it came to over 32 feet, I could understand- but it doesn't, not near. Put it next to an Eldritch Giant (25 ft tall) and it looks like a leopard next to a man.

And the roc shouldn't be gargantuan at all. Nor should the roc be gargantuan based on length, it is after all "30 feet long from the beak to the base of the tail," yet it is; there is especially no reason for it to be gargantuan since the 30 feet is to base of its tail. How does one explain that?


The smallest described Tarbosaurus would be near minimum length for huge, but when they say "Up to 16.5 ft tall" that would suggest they are referring to the largest, 40 ft long animals- middle of Huge and right next to T-rex.

This'll be another SK stegosaurus. It doesn't need to be designed as Huge, it should however have HD advancements into Huge. Near minimum length for Huge does not equate to Huge.
The creature can be designed with a HD advancement scale that takes this into account.


Still a lower percentage than a crocodile.

The same percentage; crocodiles are quadrupedal.


Aside from the Colossal dragons, most of the dragons are fairly appropriate weights for their dimensions- 80 tons for an 85 ft long, short tailed, short (compared to a sauropod) necked, big bodied dragon is quite reasonable.

However, you used overall length, which means their weights would not measure up to what their sizes indicate. By doing so, their weights are inappropriate for their mass, being too light.


Place a Diplodocus next to a gargantuan dragon (especially the Gargantuan Green Dragon), and the dragon will appear at least as big or bigger than the sauropod.

Yes, especially when the colossal gold dragon has the exact length measurements as the diplodocus.


To sum up:
These are my assessments based on WoTC size tables, and precedents set by comparable terrestrial D&D animals.

T-rex, is too short, and light, to be Gargantuan. Compare it to Indricothere in Fiend Folio- and look at actual measurements on Wikipedia- 26 ft from nose to base of tail, 25 ft high, 18 ft high at the shoulder, estimated weight between 10 and 20 tons. Using 15 tons as an average- its as big as a Huge creature gets, and much bigger than T-rex.

Why are you comparing a biped to a quadruped again?


Spinosaurus can be justified as Gargantuan on length, though not weight (Spinosaurs are slimmer than most of the other giant dinosaurs, so its low weight can be justified this way)

Its low weight can be justified to be Gargantuan?


Diplodocus is much too short and light to be Colossal.

It's a real-world animal not a fantastical creature.


Deinonychus is too short and light to be Large- it's Man-sized- its Medium.
Yet the roc is gargantuan. Proportionally, deinonychus was larger than a lion, yet the lion is Large.


Utahraptor- too small to be Huge- its the size of a big horse- its Large.

Is a horse that big? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Utahraptor_size_estimate_chart.svg)

Velociraptor- too small to be Medium- its size of a jackal or a lynx- its Small.
Dromaeosaurus, smaller than it, is the size of a wolf.


For comparison- 11 ft long and 6 ft tall- ornithomimid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Archaeornithomimus_2.JPG

When one looks at the ornithomimids (about as long as Deinonychus, and starting at 6 ft tall, and typically 4 ft or more at the hip) it's pretty clear that this much shorter-legged, shorter-necked dromaeosaur, simply cannot reach that height without rearing up to a ridiculous extent.

Skeletons by themselves tell us nothing at all regarding comparable size; you need another skeleton of a different creature next to it.

Also, FYI, deinonychus is 11 ft long, and should be 6 ft tall and weighs 161 lb compared to Archaeornithomimus' 11 ft, 6 ft height and 110 lb weight.
What is pretty clear is that you seem to be/are igorning scientific evidence (http://museumvictoria.com.au/pages/8748/mm-deinonychus-size.jpg).

[hamishspence]

What is pretty clear is that you seem to be/are igorning scientific evidence (http://museumvictoria.com.au/pages/8748/mm-deinonychus-size.jpg).

That pic looks oversized. Every description of Deinonychus I've seen puts it at considerably less than 6 ft tall in normal position. Where did it come from?

And that pic's not "scientific evidence". "Scientific evidence" is pics or photos from museums or textbooks, or paleontologist sites (or those of people involved in scientific reconstructions), with either scale bars or objects that show the real size.


Also, FYI, deinonychus is 11 ft long, and should be 6 ft tall.

http://www.dinosaur-museum.org/featheredinosaurs/show.htm

Take a look at pictures 6, 16, and 20- all show it compared to a person- and even in pic 6, with it rearing quite steeply, it is quite noticably shorter than the person. And these are official models for the museum.

The point of the mention of the ornithomimosaur- is that they have, proportionately, much longer legs and neck than dromaeosaurs. If you need to be an 11 ft ornithomimosaur to be 6 ft tall, an 11 ft dromaeosaur, logically, will be less than 6 ft.


Dromaeosaurus, smaller than it, is the size of a wolf.

How exactly is Dromaeosaurus smaller than Velociraptor? They are the same length, and weight.


Its low weight can be justified to be Gargantuan?

Creatures which are both exceptionally large and exceptionally slim, can be justified as being "larger" than their weight would allow for. But when it is less than half, and the creature is not a flyer, this justification is iffy.



And the roc shouldn't be gargantuan at all. Nor should the roc be gargantuan based on length, it is after all "30 feet long from the beak to the base of the tail," yet it is; there is especially no reason for it to be gargantuan since the 30 feet is to base of its tail. How does one explain that?

Flyers can be justified as bigger than their weight would allow for (see MM2 Quetzalcoatlus- Huge, but the real weight is much less than Huge normally is). And when the creature is sufficiently large, being a couple of feet shorter than the minimum (in the case of the Roc) isn't too much of a disaster.



No, they didn't. Deinonychus was medium and continues to be medium pre- and post-errata.

My copies of 3.0 and 3.5 MM put Deinonychus as Large, the 3.5 errata puts Deinonychus as medium:

Pre errata:
Deinonychus
Monster Manual, page 60
Large Animal
Hit Dice: 4d8+16 (34 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares)
Armor Class: 16 (-1 Size, +2 Dex, +5 natural), touch 11, flatfooted
14
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+11
Attack: Talons +6 melee (2d6+4)
Full Attack: Talons +6 melee (2d6+4) and 2 foreclaws
+1 melee (1d3+2) and bite +1 melee (2d4+2)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Pounce
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +6, Will +2
Abilities: Str 19, Dex 15, Con 19, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +8, Jump +26, Listen +10, Spot +10,
Survival +10
Feats: Run, Track
Environment: Warm forests
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (3–6)
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 5–8 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment: —

Megaraptor
Monster Manual, page 61
Huge Animal
Hit Dice: 8d8+43 (79 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares)
Armor Class: 16 (–2 size, +2 Dex, +6 natural), touch
10, flat-footed 14
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+19
Attack: Talons +9 melee (2d8+5)
Full Attack: Talons +9 melee (2d8+5) and 2
foreclaws +4 melee (1d4+2) and bite +4 melee (2d6+2)
Space/Reach: 15 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Pounce
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +4
Abilities: Str 21, Dex 15, Con 21, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +5, Jump +27, Listen +12, Spot +12,
Survival +12
Feats: Run, Toughness, Track
Environment: Warm forests
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (3–6)
Challenge Rating: 6
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 9–16 HD (Huge); 17–24 HD (Gargantuan)
Level Adjustment: —

Post errata:
Dinosaur, Deinonychus
Monster Manual, page 60
Medium Animal
Hit Dice: 4d8+16 (34 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares)
Armor Class: 17 (+2 Dex, +5 natural), touch 12, flatfooted
15
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+7
Attack: Talons +7 melee (1d8+4)
Full Attack: Talons +7 melee (1d8+4) and 2 foreclaws
+2 melee (1d3+2) and bite +2 melee (2d4+2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Pounce
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +6, Will +2
Abilities: Str 19, Dex 15, Con 19, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +12, Jump +26, Listen +10, Spot +10,
Survival +10
Feats: Run, Track
Environment: Warm forests
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (3–6)
Challenge Rating: 3
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 5–8 HD (Medium)
Level Adjustment: —

Dinosaur, Megaraptor
Monster Manual, page 61
Large Animal
Hit Dice: 8d8+43 (79 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 60 ft. (12 squares)
Armor Class: 17 (–1 size, +2 Dex, +6 natural), touch
11, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+15
Attack: Talons +10 melee (2d6+5)
Full Attack: Talons +10 melee (2d6+5) and 2
foreclaws +5 melee (1d4+2) and bite +5 melee (1d8+2)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Pounce
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +4
Abilities: Str 21, Dex 15, Con 21, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10
Skills: Hide +9, Jump +27, Listen +12, Spot +12,
Survival +12
Feats: Run, Toughness, Track
Environment: Warm forests
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (3–6)
Challenge Rating: 6
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 9–16 HD (Large); 17–24 HD (Huge)
Level Adjustment: —
Check MM 3.5 and Wizards Errata to MM 3.5 if you don't believe me.


Is a horse that big? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Utahraptor_size_estimate_chart.svg)

Aside from the long (and light) tail, horses do indeed get that big- up to 7 ft high at the shoulder. Add in the extra height of the neck, and a horse looks at least as big as Utahraptor, and bulkier. (a normal shire horse is 6 ft tall at the shoulder)



Yes, especially when the colossal gold dragon has the exact length measurements as the diplodocus.

The colossal dragon may be as long as some variants of Diplodocus possibly, but its body is much, much bigger. (its actually longer than the most commonly seen skeleton, which is 105 ft long, to the gold dragon's 120 ft)


Why are you comparing a biped to a quadruped again?

I compare biped to quadruped, because both are considered suitable mounts for a creature one size smaller.

as for "juvenile" we have confirmation that this is not the case for Deinonychus- it stopped growing at 11 ft long. For T-rex, Sue is the largest discovered, was apparently at the end of her life, and was not more than 43 ft long.

Check wikipedia for all of these- and if you aren't satisfied with those, check elsewhere.

[hamishspence]

To sum up:

I place Deinonychus as Medium because it is no taller than a typical man (estimate 5 ft tall based on hip height, with spine held in the horizontal position), no heavier than a man, no longer than a Medium sized croc, which is listed as 11-12 ft long, no taller at the backbone than a pony, and it looks like it would be out of the question for a Medium person of normal weight to ride it without it crumpling up under them.

Online figures (Zoomdinosaurs.com) give it as 4 ft tall at the shoulder, 5 ft tall total. (given that its 3 ft at the hips, this is reasonable. 6 ft for resting pose is less reasonable).

A possible explanation: early maximum figures gave it as 4 m long, 6 ft tall. Later information caused them to revise it downward to 3 m long, 4.5 to 5 ft tall- and the Jurassic Park "Velociraptors" are based on the early figures.

This was where I found that explanation:

http://onomatopoeia.pinkgothic.com/article/beating-a-dead-horse-jurassic-park-raptors

So if you are assuming its 6 ft because the Jurassic Park ones were, this needs to be taken into account. It should not be 6 ft tall, and the vast majority of online descriptions of it place it as less.

And Deinonychus is decribed as "wolf-sized" online- suggesting that, even if it was longer than a lion, it was physically smaller.

Same for Dromaeosaurus and Velociraptor as Small (33 pounds- turkey sized)

Utahraptor as Large- its about as tall at the back as a horse, as heavy as a horse (1500 pounds) as tall at the head (with spine held horizontally) as a tall horse, etc.

T-rex as Huge (less than 18 ft tall using the Wikipedia pics of old mounts with it in "kangaroo pose") less than half the minimum weight for Gargantuan, etc.

Diplodocus as Gargantuan (it is mostly very slim neck and very slim tail, its near the minimum weight for Gargantuan (16 tons), its body is really compact- no bigger than the body of a Gargantuan dragon, and much lighter. Plus, using the original Wikipedia figures for body and neck length (22 ft neck, 13 ft body) its well below the minimum length to base of tail for a Colossal quadruped (64 ft) even if you add a 2 ft skull to this.

The longest figure I've seen is 26 ft neck- still too low for Colossal - neck + body + head: 26+13+2 = 41 ft.

When you are using a terrestrial animal in a game as a mount, you can't really get away with it being vastly lighter than its rider.

Spinosaurus as Gargantuan is based only on length, and it is only "borderline" (and only because I figure having a Gargantuan theropod will fill out the size scale, and its close enough in length to justify) I could see a 5-6 ton Huge giant sitting on a heavily modified saddle on it. But only just.

For evidence- Sauropod length, height, body length, etc: one of the better sites for depicting them:

http://skeletaldrawing.com/sauropods/sauropods.htm

For Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, Spinosaurus:

http://skeletaldrawing.com/psgallery/gallery.htm

For Deinonychus- and why, even rearing back as far as it will go, its closer to 5 ft than 6 ft (assuming its 11 ft long from tip of nose to tip of tail, stretched out):

http://skeletaldrawing.com/artgallery/artgallery.html

[Amiel]

That pic looks oversized. Every description of Deinonychus I've seen puts it at considerably less than 6 ft tall in normal position. Where did it come from?

Why are you dismissing as credible a resource as the Museum of Victoria? Unlike the other miscellaneous websites, Wikipedia included, the museum actually employs paleontologists, scientists and researchers.


And that pic's not "scientific evidence". "Scientific evidence" is pics or photos from museums or textbooks, or paleontologist sites (or those of people involved in scientific reconstructions), with either scale bars or objects that show the real size.

Which leads me to suspect that you are discounting it because you find it unpalatable to your position and because it invalidates your argument. It is obvious from the hyperlink that the site belongs to the Museum of Victoria; an institution known for scientific rigor in critical review parlance.


http://www.dinosaur-museum.org/featheredinosaurs/show.htm

Take a look at pictures 6, 16, and 20- all show it compared to a person- and even in pic 6, with it rearing quite steeply, it is quite noticably shorter than the person. And these are official models for the museum.

But what is the length of this dinosaur?
The illustration on the museum's website is the most realistic comparison that I've seen, if we were to discount the other pictures that exaggerate or diminish size; I wouldn't rely overly so on wikipedia, it is a resource that is able to be edited after all.


The point of the mention of the ornithomimosaur- is that they have, proportionately, much longer legs and neck than dromaeosaurs. If you need to be an 11 ft ornithomimosaur to be 6 ft tall, an 11 ft dromaeosaur, logically, will be less than 6 ft.

And the point that I was making of ambulation applies to this as well. The skeleton shows the bird mimic in a stationary upright position. Most illustrations display a hunting deinonychus. Were deinonychus positioned similarly to the bird mimic, you're going to garner the same result.

Also, could you cite sources where they say that ornithomimosaurs are proportionally much longer in the legs and neck than dromaeosaurs?


How exactly is Dromaeosaurus smaller than Velociraptor? They are the same length, and weight.

The Dinosaur Handbook, pg 98 "It is assumed that dromaeosaurus was similar to, but smaller than, Velociraptor and Deinonychus at just under 7 ft long."


Creatures which are both exceptionally large and exceptionally slim, can be justified as being "larger" than their weight would allow for. But when it is less than half, and the creature is not a flyer, this justification is iffy.

But how would you justify length? The roc is 30 feet long from its beak to the base of its tail, which is firmly place it within the Huge size category and not Gargantuan. Its wingspan is extraneous and does not determine its size if the SRD and MM is anything to go by.
What about the balor then? It is exceptionally large and is a flyer but is also exceptionally heavy.


Flyers can be justified as bigger than their weight would allow for (see MM2 Quetzalcoatlus- Huge, but the real weight is much less than Huge normally is). And when the creature is sufficiently large, being a couple of feet shorter than the minimum (in the case of the Roc) isn't too much of a disaster.

Yet you are arguing that the T-Rex shouldn't be within a certain size category due to the exact reason, that it is short a couple of feet than the minimum and as such there is no justification for its inclusion.

I see you've argued yourself to my position: that the specifications included in the MM should be used as guidelines rather than as solid limits and design ceilings.


My copies of 3.0 and 3.5 MM put Deinonychus as Large, the 3.5 errata puts Deinonychus as medium:

Check MM 3.5 and Wizards Errata to MM 3.5 if you don't believe me.

Ah, of course, the SRD uses the errata'd deinonychus. My bad. Could you please list the post-errata weight of the dinosaur again please?
The SRD still places it at 600 lb. Weird.


Aside from the long (and light) tail, horses do indeed get that big- up to 7 ft high at the shoulder. Add in the extra height of the neck, and a horse looks at least as big as Utahraptor, and bulkier. (a normal shire horse is 6 ft tall at the shoulder)

Are you perhaps confusing height with girth?
"Shire horses average around 17.2 hands (178 cm) tall at maturity (measured at the withers, with the breed standard being at least 17 hands, although a Shire horse was recorded reaching over 21.2 hands (220 cm). The girth of a Shire horse varies from 6 feet (1.8 m) to 8 ft (2.4 m). Shire stallions weigh, on average, between 144 st (910 kg; 2,020 lb) and 176 st (1,120 kg; 2,460 lb)."
And the neck is not much longer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ShireDraftHorse.jpg), certainly not as long as a dinosaurs' may grow to. Now compare that the image with utahraptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Utahraptor_size_estimate_chart.svg), and we can see that utahratpor is proportionally larger than the shire horse.
IMHO, a shire horse would still occupy the same Large size category as a normal horse.


The colossal dragon may be as long as some variants of Diplodocus possibly, but its body is much, much bigger. (its actually longer than the most commonly seen skeleton, which is 105 ft long, to the gold dragon's 120 ft)

The diplodocus can reach a length of up to 115 ft., the gold dragon similarly can reach up to 120 ft.; give or take calculation errors, estimates and size variations and we have two creatures that are roughly within size of each other.
The measurements considered and listed for the dragons in the MM and Draconomicon are for the maximal size within that category, in other words, the measurements given are also to denote 'up to.'
The gold dragon has a neck length of 33 ft. and diplodocus has a neck that is 20 ft long. The gold dragon stands at a height of 22 ft, while diplodocus may browse up to 33 ft from the ground. This also suggests similarly sized creatures.


I compare biped to quadruped, because both are considered suitable mounts for a creature one size smaller.

It is erroneous to do so, especially when the two are completely different to each other. You'd be better off comparing within the same ambulation mode, ie biped to biped, quadruped to quadruped. Since by doing so, you don't end up with odd correlations.


as for "juvenile" we have confirmation that this is not the case for Deinonychus- it stopped growing at 11 ft long. For T-rex, Sue is the largest discovered, was apparently at the end of her life, and was not more than 43 ft long.

Largest discovered rarely translates to largest confirmed though.
Also, you are taking what is a possibility and dictating it as a reality. The scientific discussions suggests that "28 years old, an age which may have been close to the maximum for the species," it is virtually unknown whether she was at the end of her life or if she would be able to increase in size had not something ended her life prematurely, extinction event etc.

"Over half of the known Tyrannosaurus rex specimens appear to have died within six years of reaching sexual maturity, a pattern which is also seen in other tyrannosaurs and in some large, long-lived birds and mammals today. These species are characterized by high infant mortality rates, followed by relatively low mortality among juveniles. Mortality increases again following sexual maturity, partly due to the stresses of reproduction. One study suggests that the rarity of juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex fossils is due in part to low juvenile mortality rates; the animals were not dying in large numbers at these ages, and so were not often fossilized. However, this rarity may also be due to the incompleteness of the fossil record or to the bias of fossil collectors towards larger, more spectacular specimens."
And would be true for nearly all dinosaurs. We can only guess and extrapolate, we probably may never know for certain.


Check wikipedia for all of these- and if you aren't satisfied with those, check elsewhere.

I'll be wary of relying on wikipedia, since anyone may edit that site :smallwink:


Also, mate, don't worry about off-topicness, this discussion is good; hope you're enjoying it too :)


To sum up:

I place Deinonychus as Medium because it is no taller than a typical man (estimate 5 ft tall based on hip height, with spine held in the horizontal position), no heavier than a man, no longer than a Medium sized croc, which is listed as 11-12 ft long, no taller at the backbone than a pony, and it looks like it would be out of the question for a Medium person of normal weight to ride it without it crumpling up under them.
The Museum of Victoria website may disagree with you there.

You should not be comparing bipeds with quadrupeds; they have entirely different methods for locomotion and grow in entirely different directions, one vertically, one horizontally. It is misleading to do so.
In working out a reasonable size, should you be comparing a medium crocodile with a man? Should you be comparing a dog with a halfling?


Online figures (Zoomdinosaurs.com) give it as 4 ft tall at the shoulder, 5 ft tall total. (given that its 3 ft at the hips, this is reasonable. 6 ft for resting pose is less reasonable).

Is that website a credible resource or does it market to an audience moreso for entertainment purposes?


A possible explanation: early maximum figures gave it as 4 m long, 6 ft tall. Later information caused them to revise it downward to 3 m long, 4.5 to 5 ft tall- and the Jurassic Park "Velociraptors" are based on the early figures.

This was where I found that explanation:

http://onomatopoeia.pinkgothic.com/article/beating-a-dead-horse-jurassic-park-raptors

So if you are assuming its 6 ft because the Jurassic Park ones were, this needs to be taken into account. It should not be 6 ft tall, and the vast majority of online descriptions of it place it as less.

More credible resources may be helpful; how scientifically credible and rigorous is it?


And Deinonychus is decribed as "wolf-sized" online- suggesting that, even if it was longer than a lion, it was physically smaller.

Where is this from?


Same for Dromaeosaurus and Velociraptor as Small (33 pounds- turkey sized)

You seem to be confusing deinonychus with dromaeosaurus. It was dromaeosaurus that was described as being wolf-sized, which certainly invalidates your small turkey-sized argument.
Also, at 6 feet in length is not turkey sized. If by using your own argument of comparing quadrupeds with bipeds, at 6 ft, the two you mentioned are at least the size of a human. And therefore, Medium not Small.


Utahraptor as Large- its about as tall at the back as a horse, as heavy as a horse (1500 pounds) as tall at the head (with spine held horizontally) as a tall horse, etc.

It is remarkably larger than a horse. If a horse can grow as large as an utahraptor, there's something seriously wrong with the horse.


T-rex as Huge (less than 18 ft tall using the Wikipedia pics of old mounts with it in "kangaroo pose") less than half the minimum weight for Gargantuan, etc.

How are you calculating height? You shouldn't be basing a height off the kangaroo pose, it's rather misleading.
No height is given, it apparently was 13 tall at the hips, and anatomically the hips more or less sit at the midpoint of the body. The T-Rex is at least 26 ft tall, give or take.


Diplodocus as Gargantuan (it is mostly very slim neck and very slim tail, its near the minimum weight for Gargantuan (16 tons), its body is really compact- no bigger than the body of a Gargantuan dragon, and much lighter. Plus, using the original Wikipedia figures for body and neck length (22 ft neck, 13 ft body) its well below the minimum length to base of tail for a Colossal quadruped (64 ft) even if you add a 2 ft skull to this.

The longest figure I've seen is 26 ft neck- still too low for Colossal - neck + body + head: 26+13+2 = 41 ft.

Which lends further weight to the position that the MM guidelines only work insofar as some creatures and do not at all for others.
Also, the elephant has the exact strength score as the T-Rex.


When you are using a terrestrial animal in a game as a mount, you can't really get away with it being vastly lighter than its rider.

What about an elephant with a balor?
A riding dog with a human?
A bison with a balor?

[hamishspence]

For T- rex height- the Wikipedia photograph of the dinosaur display model, shows clearly that, even in steepest possible kangaroo pose, it wasn't that tall. Conclusion- in normal pose, it must be even less tall.

For Deinonychus as wolf-sized- just one example:
http://museum.ceu.edu/ut-rap.htm
There are more out there.

For roc- 30 ft to base of tail, is 2 ft shorter than the 32 ft minimum for Gargantuan The bigger the creature, the smaller 2 ft is relative to it.

Whereas, Deinonychus, at maximum of 6 ft tall rearing really really steeply (Skeletaldrawings.com picture) is proportionately much less than the minimum for Large- hence, harder to justify.

The errata online doesn't provide weights, that was an error on my part. SRD is compilation of MM and errata- the fact that they didn't update the weight shows either that they weren't paying attention, or that their dinosaurs are not closely based on the real ones.

Riding dogs aren't ridden by humans anyway, but Small creatures like gnomes and halflings- 200 pound dog, 40 pound rider. this is reasonable.

Whereas for Diplodocus- 20 ton Colossal dinosaur, 40 ton Gargantuan 48 ft tall rider (roughly the equivalent of a 200 pound 6 foot tall human, for Gargantuan) is less reasonable.

For animals and riders- you use the "average height" and "expected average weight" for a generic rider. Yes, there are outliers like the balor. But a generic large humanoid should be 12 ft tall, and 8 times the weight of an average 6 ft tall humanoid (if 200 pounds is treated as average, generic Large rider should be 1600 pounds.)

If you compare quadruped length to base of tail with biped length to base of tail (quite reasonable when tail is thin and light) both Dromaeosaurus and Velociraptor are around 3 ft long, not 6. Throw in their light weight (33 pounds is the most common figure) and they fit better in Small than Medium.

[Amiel]

For T- rex height- the Wikipedia photograph of the dinosaur display model, shows clearly that, even in steepest possible kangaroo pose, it wasn't that tall. Conclusion- in normal pose, it must be even less tall.

Why does the same entry give a hip height of 13 ft?
You are arriving at a conclusion from misleading evidence, and basing it on your own interpretation.
The so-called kangaroo pose strikes the viewer as one of a horizontal nature. Indeed, it is obvious that the dinosaur is not standing upright at all, but is slouching forward to a ridiculous degree. If it were standing normally, it would be taller still.


For Deinonychus as wolf-sized- just one example:
http://museum.ceu.edu/ut-rap.htm
There are more out there.

This seems divergent from other sources. Would the wolf-sized deinonychus be a juvenile?


For roc- 30 ft to base of tail, is 2 ft shorter than the 32 ft minimum for Gargantuan The bigger the creature, the smaller 2 ft is relative to it.

From the specifications point of view, minimum is still the minimum. It does not sit within the minimum specifications and should not be within said size category.
Where did you arrive to the conclusion that the bigger the creature, the smaller 2 ft is relative to it? There is the question of overall proportion. Unless you want your creature to look mutated, that's probably what it may end up like :P


Whereas, Deinonychus, at maximum of 6 ft tall rearing really really steeply (Skeletaldrawings.com picture) is proportionately much less than the minimum for Large- hence, harder to justify.

Who does the drawings for sketetaldrawings?
Actually, the best possible justification for inclusion in any given size category is evidence presented by scientifically accurate resources, in this case, that which is provided by museums.


The errata online doesn't provide weights, that was an error on my part. SRD is compilation of MM and errata- the fact that they didn't update the weight shows either that they weren't paying attention, or that their dinosaurs are not closely based on the real ones.

No worries, mate. What did you provide as a reasonable weight?
If WotC are not basing their dinosaurs too closely on the real ones and there are known inconsistencies within their rules and designed creatures, should we be too?


Riding dogs aren't ridden by humans anyway, but Small creatures like gnomes and halflings- 200 pound dog, 40 pound rider. this is reasonable.

This was more to address your point "When you are using a terrestrial animal in a game as a mount, you can't really get away with it being vastly lighter than its rider."

Does this mean that since the riding dog is lighter than a human, that its entry within a certain size category is wrong?


Whereas for Diplodocus- 20 ton Colossal dinosaur, 40 ton Gargantuan 48 ft tall rider (roughly the equivalent of a 200 pound 6 foot tall human, for Gargantuan) is less reasonable.

A nightcrawler comes in at 55,000 lb; although no creature in their right mind would want something like that riding them :smallwink:
Otherwise I can't find anything else that is biped that will weigh as much and will be a problem.


For animals and riders- you use the "average height" and "expected average weight" for a generic rider. Yes, there are outliers like the balor. But a generic large humanoid should be 12 ft tall, and 8 times the weight of an average 6 ft tall humanoid (if 200 pounds is treated as average, generic Large rider should be 1600 pounds.)

Your above example seems not to do so; an expected average weight for a Gargantuan creature would be within the vicinity of 16 to 25 tons. Anything else and they wouldn't need a mount, since their weight cannot support it all, one size category above or no.


If you compare quadruped length to base of tail with biped length to base of tail (quite reasonable when tail is thin and light) both Dromaeosaurus and Velociraptor are around 3 ft long, not 6. Throw in their light weight (33 pounds is the most common figure) and they fit better in Small than Medium.

How would you reconcile this with the description that dromaesaurus, one of the smaller dromaeosaurs was apparently the size of a wolf?

[hamishspence]

I figure that whoever wrote Deinonychus as wolf-sized was basing it on weight, body bulk, etc, whereas whoever wrote Dromaeosaurus as wolf-sized was basing it on length to tail tip (6 ft- as long as a fairly long wolf)

The picture showing two Tyrannosauruses standing over a carcass, one rearing up incredibly high- still puts it at around 18 ft tall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AMNH_rex_mount.png

A riding dog, according to MM, represents anything from huskies to collies to St Bernards (the 3.0 picture of riding creatures in PHB closely resembles a St Bernard, the Halfling Outrider in Complete Warrior appears to be riding a mastiff). These kind of big dogs ranges from around 60 pounds to over 200 pounds- perfect for a Medium sized creature.

the equivalent of 60 pounds, for gargantuan creatures (minimum expected weight) is 16 tons. The maximum, equivalent of around 500 pounds, is 125 tons. Suggesting a mid-range Gargantuan rider (equivalent of a 200 pound human) should be over 40 tons.

For Huge bipeds, the range runs from Cloud Giants (18 ft tall, 2.5 tons) to Titans (25 ft tall, 7 tons) to the MM3 Geriviar (30 ft tall, 12 tons) with middle of the height range being the Titan (equivalent to a 6 ft 3 inch human)

For Gargantuan bipeds, the shorter ones are around 40 ft tall (elemental monoliths, the Walking Statues of Waterdeep) medium sized ones 50 ft tall (Dalmosh in MM V) the largest 60 ft (Ithaqua in Call of Cthulhu d20.)

For weight, the ice and ooze elemental monoliths in Dragon 347 are closest to flesh density- 50 tons compared to the 75 ton magma elemental monolith.

I could see a 16-20 ton Diplodocus carnegii being ridden by a Huge biped of 7 tons. I couldn't see it being ridden by a 30-40 ton Gargantuan biped.

The artist is called Scott Hartman- who was a member of the assembly team for Supersaurus vivianae, and a specialist in dinosaur assembly and skeletal artwork.

as for the whole "is it measured to base of tail or tail tip" question, it at least some cases in MM, its clearly to base of tail. Lion- 5 to 8 ft. Looked up lions- it says 5' 7" to 8' 2", not counting tail.

Leopard- 4 ft. Looked it up- is between 3 ft and 6 ft, not counting tail, and up to 200 pounds.

Tiger- 9 ft. Looked it up- is maximum of around 9 ft long, and has a 3 ft tail on top of that.

[hamishspence]

there are exceptions- the roc, despite being almost long enough to be gargantuan, is far lighter than it should be.

But as a general rule, if a Large creaure is much lighter than a Medium creature, something is screwy.

Which is the problem behind Large Deinonychus or Medium Velociraptor, or Colossal Diplodocus- they are all a tiny fraction of the average weight of other terrestrial creatures of their size class.

A 160 pound Large biped (Deinonychus) only 6 ft tall (at most, when rearing up) seems off, as does a 33 pound Medium biped only 3 ft tall (Velociraptor).

Which is why I size them as Medium (consistant with the errata) and Small respectively.

The 130 ton tarrasque is at the low end of the Colossal weight scale, which begins at 125 tons, not the high end.

The 16-20 ton Diplodocus is at the low end of the Gargantuan scale (and some scientists put its weight at even less than 16 tons)

the 514 ton Colossal Gold Dragon, is fairly normal weight for Colossal.

the 80 ton, 85 ft Gargantuan dragon is a reasonable weight for Gargantuan.

the 10 ton, 55 ft Huge dragon is a reasonable weight for Huge.

And so on.

Given that most sauropods weigh 80 tons or less, and rarely exceed 85 ft long (the exceptions are diplodocids, which all have excessively long tails and necks for their size) I figure the closest approximation to a normal large sauropod of the Brachiosaurus, Sauroposeidon, Paralititan, Argentinosaurus range (excepting Amphicoelias) is the Gargantuan green dragon- high back, long neck, big body, heavy weight.

The same is true of the big carnosaurs like T-rex and Giganotosaurus- the Huge green dragon is as tall as they are, even standing on four legs, and as long or longer, and as heavy or heavier.

[Amiel]

I figure that whoever wrote Deinonychus as wolf-sized was basing it on weight, body bulk, etc, whereas whoever wrote Dromaeosaurus as wolf-sized was basing it on length to tail tip (6 ft- as long as a fairly long wolf)

The statement that deinonychus was wolf-sized fails in a couple of areas. The gray wolf, the largest member of the wolf family, measures 4.5 to 6.5 feet from nose to tip of tail and may weigh up to 55 - 85 lb; the rarely encountered, extreme specimens of wolves may weigh up to 170 lb.
Deinonychus, on the other hand, measures up to 11.1 feet and weighs in at 161 lb; considerably longer and heavier than the largest wolf.
Now, whether there is discrepancy in these figures or whether that person was comparing the wolf with a juvenile is possible, but going off rough data, the comparison is wrong.

Dromaeosaurus at 6 ft long, and 30 lb is roughly the size of the largest wolf, by length, if not by weight. Now, if dromaeosaurus, one of the smaller dinosaurs and considerably smaller than deinonychus, is roughly the size of the largest wolf (and that which is empirically confirmed) and we have a statement that contradicts this by suggesting that the deinonychus is roughly the size of a wolf, we know that one statement is incorrect and very misleading.


The picture showing two Tyrannosauruses standing over a carcass, one rearing up incredibly high- still puts it at around 18 ft tall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AMNH_rex_mount.png

You are mistaken in assuming that it is rearing up incredibly high, that is its high right posture. That is how it should normally present itself. The models and the pose you mentioned earlier is not its standing pose.
Further evidence that T-Rex would be normally that tall,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MUJA_04.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Field_fg05.jpg
"Sue," in this picture is not standing upright, but rather slouching forward in a predatory posture. You shouldn't be confusing the two.


A riding dog, according to MM, represents anything from huskies to collies to St Bernards (the 3.0 picture of riding creatures in PHB closely resembles a St Bernard, the Halfling Outrider in Complete Warrior appears to be riding a mastiff). These kind of big dogs ranges from around 60 pounds to over 200 pounds- perfect for a Medium sized creature.

But you dismissed this earlier by saying "you use the "average height" and "expected average weight" for a generic rider." Of course, the possibility for such a scenario and example would always be present.
However, as the dog itself isn't 'very long,' the image that no doubt be comical.


the equivalent of 60 pounds, for gargantuan creatures (minimum expected weight) is 16 tons. The maximum, equivalent of around 500 pounds, is 125 tons. Suggesting a mid-range Gargantuan rider (equivalent of a 200 pound human) should be over 40 tons.

How are you doing the math?
For something over 40 tons, no terrestrial animal will be able to support that much weight, even if it were Colossal+


For Huge bipeds, the range runs from Cloud Giants (18 ft tall, 2.5 tons) to Titans (25 ft tall, 7 tons) to the MM3 Geriviar (30 ft tall, 12 tons) with middle of the height range being the Titan (equivalent to a 6 ft 3 inch human)

All of these are within the weights I specified, none of these have tonnages approaching within 20 tons let alone the exaggeration that is 40 tons; especially as they are Huge rather than Gargantuan.


For Gargantuan bipeds, the shorter ones are around 40 ft tall (elemental monoliths, the Walking Statues of Waterdeep) medium sized ones 50 ft tall (Dalmosh in MM V) the largest 60 ft (Ithaqua in Call of Cthulhu d20.)

What are their weights?
And you are not seriously considering a golem as a comparison are you? Golems are known for occupying the upper-most extreme of any weight category.


For weight, the ice and ooze elemental monoliths in Dragon 347 are closest to flesh density- 50 tons compared to the 75 ton magma elemental monolith.

Elementals are composed entirely of their element and do not correlate nor should they compared with a flesh entity. You did dismiss the air elemental as a aberrant example.


I could see a 16-20 ton Diplodocus carnegii being ridden by a Huge biped of 7 tons. I couldn't see it being ridden by a 30-40 ton Gargantuan biped.

Which one is a 30-40 ton biped? A golem?


The artist is called Scott Hartman- who was a member of the assembly team for Supersaurus vivianae, and a specialist in dinosaur assembly and skeletal artwork.

Is he a scientist? And is he intimate with anatomy?


as for the whole "is it measured to base of tail or tail tip" question, it at least some cases in MM, its clearly to base of tail. Lion- 5 to 8 ft. Looked up lions- it says 5' 7" to 8' 2", not counting tail.

Head and body length is 170–250 cm (5 ft 7 in – 8 ft 2 in); the tail length is 90-105 cm (2 ft 11 in - 3 ft 5 in).
7 ft and 11 ft, from smaller to largest. All within the Large size category, and appropriate within HD and HD advancement given in the MM.
Also, which leopards, which lions, which tigers. There is incredible diversity and many subspecies.

Unfortunately, the lion, leopard and tiger do not have tails that constitute proportionally as much to their bodies as the tails of dinosaurs do.


there are exceptions- the roc, despite being almost long enough to be gargantuan, is far lighter than it should be.
Almost long enough to be Gargantuan does not equate to should be Gargantuan, otherwise you can retract your argument that T-Rex should not be Gargantuan.


But as a general rule, if a Large creaure is much lighter than a Medium creature, something is screwy.

Not unless its a real-world animal.
If some of those did weigh as much as you think they should, they would've collapsed under the weight of gravity long ago and became extinct due to a fatal evolutionary flaw.
We have a balor that can weigh as much as 4,500 lb at 12 ft tall and Large and we have the treant at 30 ft tall and at 4,500 lb. Is there something screwy?
Or how about the behir at 40 ft long and weighing 4,000 lb. Something must be terribly screwy there.


Which is the problem behind Large Deinonychus or Medium Velociraptor, or Colossal Diplodocus- they are all a tiny fraction of the average weight of other terrestrial creatures of their size class.

Terrestrial creatures that includes supernatural entities, that includes dragons, that includes undead, that includes golems. Are you sure you want to comparing them to all of these?


A 160 pound Large biped (Deinonychus) only 6 ft tall (at most, when rearing up) seems off, as does a 33 pound Medium biped only 3 ft tall (Velociraptor).

Which is why I size them as Medium (consistant with the errata) and Small respectively.

But it does not give you a renewed weight; although it would be something that is not as ridiculous as 600 lb.


The 130 ton tarrasque is at the low end of the Colossal weight scale, which begins at 125 tons, not the high end.

The 16-20 ton Diplodocus is at the low end of the Gargantuan scale (and some scientists put its weight at even less than 16 tons)

That's because if it would have weighed as much as a tarrasque then it would have already collapsed under the weight of its own fail.


the 514 ton Colossal Gold Dragon, is fairly normal weight for Colossal.

~580 tons actually or 640 short tons.


the 80 ton, 85 ft Gargantuan dragon is a reasonable weight for Gargantuan.

the 10 ton, 55 ft Huge dragon is a reasonable weight for Huge.

And so on.

Given that most sauropods weigh 80 tons or less, and rarely exceed 85 ft long (the exceptions are diplodocids, which all have excessively long tails and necks for their size) I figure the closest approximation to a normal large sauropod of the Brachiosaurus, Sauroposeidon, Paralititan, Argentinosaurus range (excepting Amphicoelias) is the Gargantuan green dragon- high back, long neck, big body, heavy weight.

Note they are dragons and not real world creatures. These reasonable expectations fall apart when you consider gravity and the like.

[hamishspence]

2000 pounds = 1 ton (1 short ton- the figure used in D&D, since 4000 pound maximum for large is listed as 2 tons for minimum for huge.)

Weight of Colossal Dragon- 1280,000 pounds.

This corresponds to: 514 tons 640 tons.

Amphicoelias (based on scaling): Weight 135 short tons- well into Colossal. Length- 85 ft from nose to base of tail, using Wikipedia estimates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphicoelias

So, there were, in fact (if the limited evidence on Amphicoelias is treated as valid) dinosaurs both long and heavy enough to be Colossal, given that the minimum is 125 short tons.

[Amiel]

2000 pounds = 1 ton (1 short ton- the figure used in D&D, since 4000 pound maximum for large is listed as 2 tons for huge.

Weight of Colossal Dragon- 1280,000 pounds.

This corresponds to: 514 tons.

Amphicoelias (based on scaling): Weight 134 short tons- well into Colossal. Length- 85 ft from nose to base of tail, using Wikipedia estimates.

So, there were, in fact (if the limited evidence on Amphicoelias is treated as valid) dinosaurs both long and heavy enough to be Colossal.

Correction, 1 pound = 0.00045359237 metric tons; already placed in a previous post as an FYI for you. 1 pound = 0.0005 short tons.
1 metric tons = 2,204.62262 pounds; 1 short ton = 2000 pounds.

4000 lb equals to 1.81 metric tons; 2 short tons.
1,280,000 lb equals to 640 short tons, not 514. Check your math again.

Wikipedia goes on to say Amphicoelias was between 131 to 196 ft and weighed as much as 122 metric tons or 135 short tons. Still falling short of the blue whale at a massive 190 short tons or 172 metric tons.
Also, do note, that some weights given in the wikipedia dinosaur entries use metric rather than short tons.

This may interest you.
"While A. fragillimus was relatively thin, its enormous size still made it very massive. Weight is much more difficult to determine than length in sauropods, as the more complex equations needed are prone to greater margins of error based on smaller variations in the overall proportions of the animal."

[hamishspence]

sorry about that- miscalculation.

Still, the figure was based on scaling up an 11 ton Diplodocus- here's the article discussing it:

http://www.hmnh.org/archives/2007/01/13/resizing-amphicoelias/

and it makes it clear, that (if length is right) its a conservative estimate.

Dromaeosaurs, in all the artwork, and descriptions, have very slim tails. If a crocodile's tail is not used to justify a larger size (11 ft croc is medium) I hardly think its justified for dromaeosaurs, either.

Metric tonne is preferred to be expressed as tonne- there are 3, the Metric tonne, the short ton, and the long ton, and enough are given in "short tons" for me to do the comparisons.

The 40 ft statue has a listed weight of 1000 tons. Obviously we wouldn't use that as a rider- however, 40 tons for a 48 ft tall, humanoid, flesh-and-blood creature is quite reasonable.

If I was doing a Colossal Sauropod statblock in D&D, I'd choose Amphicoelias, for the length and the weight.

I would not choose Diplodocus, because its so much smaller, that based on weight and length to base of tail alone, it only fits Gargantuan, and not an especially big Gargantuan at that.

Given the scaling listed (every size category is double the previous size category) I figure that a 85-90 ft 16 ton sauropod, next to a 48 ft Gargantuan creature, will look no longer than an 11-12 ft croc next to a 6 ft medium creature. And be a lot lighter. And not much taller at the back.

The figures for Diplodocus Carnegii vary, but most cluster around 85 to 90 ft long- the longest I've seen was 105 ft for "Dippy" the skeleton in the Natural History Museum, and 115 ft is more "Seismosaurus" in its early estimates, later resized.

Supersaurus, which is longer, is listed as 112 ft on the Skeletaldrawings.com site (the people who assembled it would be expected to know) and there are recent articles online listing Mamenchisaurus as 115 ft long and the longest reliably known dinosaur.

[Amiel]

sorry about that- miscalculation.

No worries, mate :)


Still, the figure was based on scaling up an 11 ton Diplodocus- here's the article discussing it:

http://www.hmnh.org/archives/2007/01/13/resizing-amphicoelias/
Thanks, probably will look at it some other time. It's already quite late over here.


and it makes it clear, that (if length is right) its a conservative estimate.

Could you please give a summary of what the length may be? Thank you


Dromaeosaurs, in all the artwork, and dreciptions, have very slim tails. If a crocodile's tail is not used to justify a larger size (11 ft croc is medium) I hardly think its justified for dromaeosaurs, either.

This actually may have more to do with the direction that WotC has taken monster or creature design, by not considering whether or not a particular creature justifies a larger size, and more importantly by not designing creatures based on overall size. This is especially evident in that by doing so, WotC essentially lumped all creatures, all monsters, regardless and irrespective of proportion of body, length, thickness/thinness that the tail would constitute into the same situation.
This may be a breakdown of the rules themselves.


Metric tonne is preferred to be expressed as tonne- there are 3, the Metric tonne, the short ton, and the long ton, and enough are given in "short tons" for me to do the comparisons.

Yes, there are three tons; the dinosaur wikipedia entries sometimes have tons, metric tons that is, followed by short tons in parenthesis while other times, it only gives metric tons rather than short tons.


The 40 ft statue has a listed weight of 1000 tons. Obviously we wouldn't use that as a rider- however, 40 tons for a 48 ft tall, humanoid, flesh-and-blood creature is quite reasonable.

I would love to see one of those things sit on something.
There is too much variance within single size categories to be able to call it quite reasonable as you put it.
The pit fiend and balor, both 12 feet tall, and should weigh roughly the same, are 800 and 4,500 lb respectively. The balor is at least 6 times as heavy as the pit fiend; and this is for creatures that should be the same height.

[hamishspence]

Human beings vary a lot even within the same height- a 6 ft man could be anything from 120 pounds if very slim, to 600 pounds.

The pit fiend should be described as lanky and thin, the balor overmuscled and fat (or its weight cut), but they don't need much more than that.

I don't see it as a breakdown, at least for terrestrial creatures, to focus more on length to rump, or height, than length to tip of tail- very few creatures are big enough in the tail to be problematic. Even dinosaurs.

For birds and pterosaurs, however, the weight guides tend to be chucked out entirely. And for length, at least in the case of the roc (picture in MM shows it with a very long tail relative to its body though) it appears that falling short by a foot or two can be ignored.

also: Amphicoelias summary
My initial estimate of the size of A. fragillimus was made by comparing Cope’s reconstruction of the type vertebra to the vertebrae of local giant Seismosaurus hallorum (properly Diplodocus hallorum at this point, but more on that later). Scaling up a Seismosaurus to fit Cope’s estimate of a 6 to 7 foot tall A. fragillimus vertebrae results in an animal about 50 meters (160 feet) long.

As it turns out, Cope may have significantly underestimated the height of the vertebra of A. fragillimus. Carpenter compared Cope’s drawing of the Amphicoelias fragillimus specimen with material known from another, more reasonably-sized species of Amphicoelias, A. altus. Scaling an A. altus dorsal to fit the A. fragillimus material results in a whopping 2.7 meter (8.8 foot) tall bone!

Carpenter scaled up a Diplodocus to fit this new super-sized vertebra, and his Amphicoelias fragillimus measures a full 58 meters (190 feet) from snout to tail.



It is remarkably larger than a horse. If a horse can grow as large as an utahraptor, there's something seriously wrong with the horse.

For the big horse:

The Shire horse holds the record for the world's biggest horse; Sampson, foaled in 1846 in Toddington Mills, Bedfordshire, England, stood 21.2½ hands high (i.e. 7 ft 2½ in or 2.20 m at his withers) by the time he was a four year old, when he was re-named Mammoth. His peak weight was estimated at over 3,300 lb (approx 1.5 long tons).

For the man who rode on the big horse (I've seen his chair in the museum, and a painting of him on the horse)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Lambert

For an Utahraptor pic comparable in hip height to the big horse, though I think the Deinonychus pic was recycled from it, or vice versa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Giantbirds.png

For ordinary shire horses:

Shire horses average around 17.2 hands (178 cm) tall at maturity (measured at the withers), with the breed standard being at least 17 hands. Shire stallions weigh, on average, between 144 st (910 kg; 2,020 lb) and 176 st (1,120 kg; 2,460 lb).

Compare to Utahraptor:

Up to 6.5 m (21 ft) long, 2 m (6.6 ft) tall, and 700 kg (1,500 lb) in weight, Utahraptor would have been a formidable predator.

If that's height at the backbone, or height at the shoulder, its still around the same size, maybe a few inches taller. If its height at the head, the big dinosaur is slightly smaller than the horse.

As for T- rex:



You are mistaken in assuming that it is rearing up incredibly high, that is its high right posture. That is how it should normally present itself. The models and the pose you mentioned earlier is not its standing pose.
Further evidence that T-Rex would be normally that tall,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MUJA_04.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Field_fg05.jpg
"Sue," in this picture is not standing upright, but rather slouching forward in a predatory posture. You shouldn't be confusing the two.


This does not fit with outlines on how T-Rex couldn't walk like that- with its spine held at 45 degrees- it would dislocate its hips. Sue is walking the way a T. Rex would normally walk- the mating posture is not one it would have stood in for any length of time:

Wikipedia:
Like many bipedal dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex was historically depicted as a 'living tripod', with the body at 45 degrees or less from the vertical and the tail dragging along the ground, similar to a kangaroo. This concept dates from Joseph Leidy's 1865 reconstruction of Hadrosaurus, the first to depict a dinosaur in a bipedal posture. Henry Fairfield Osborn, former president of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, who believed the creature stood upright, further reinforced the notion after unveiling the first complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in 1915. It stood in this upright pose for nearly a century, until it was dismantled in 1992. By 1970, scientists realized this pose was incorrect and could not have been maintained by a living animal, as it would have resulted in the dislocation or weakening of several joints, including the hips and the articulation between the head and the spinal column.

Also, here, a similar pose to the "rearing T. rex" model is described as anatomically impossible:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specimens_of_Tyrannosaurus

Its not the only source- just the most detailed one. If 18 ft tall is T. rex height in this posture, how are you getting figures like 26 ft? Only way to get this is to have the legs completely straight, and the spine vertical (with the neck bent to bring the head forward).

A normal T. rex could never have stood in anything like this position- its legs are not designed like human legs- no kneecaps- were always held in a flexed position.

Even then, if 24 ft is the equivalent, for Huge creatures, of a 6 ft creature, thats still not much above what would be expected for Huge biped. (since a Huge biped can be anything from 16 ft tall to 32 ft tall.)

Concerning the size and capabilities of a Jurassic Park Velociraptor (Novel version):
Page 57: when speaking of "Velociraptor antirrhopus"-
About 200 pounds, the size of a leopard.

Page 107- when identifying the dinosaur in the hatchery:
"Velociraptor mongoliensis," Wu said, nodding.

Page 115: when speaking of "the velociraptors"
Quick and strong, but small for dinosaurs- just a hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds each.

Page 116-118:
The head was two feet long.

Grant had a blurred impression of powerful, six foot tall bodies.

"Cheetah speed," Malcolm said. "Sixty, seventy miles an hour."

Page 349:
Tim couldn't believe it. The big animal had jumped ten feet straight up. More than ten feet. Their legs must be incredibly powerful.

Page 374:
"It's a chameleon," Lex said.
"The other animals couldn't do that. Muldoon said, frowning. This wild animal must be different."


So, at least in the novel- we are looking at a 300 pound animal, 6 ft tall, with a two ft head, the ability to jump 10 ft up, 60 mph running speed, and possible chameleon ability.

Rather different from Deinonychus, with a weight of 161 pounds at most, head length at most 16 inches, height of around 5 ft tall when leaning back somewhat, and a whole lot slower.

The size of the movie ones is harder to estimate- I've seen references to their heads being larger, height taller, and their tails shorter, than a Deinonychus, but I haven't seen any movie props (the closest is the "life-sized trophy" which is 28 inches long, and the head roughly two feet long):

http://www.coated.com/the-jurassic-park-velociraptor-trophy-head/

[hamishspence]

Citations:

Deinonychus posture- why it didn't usually rear up, and what its normal height is- pages 192 and 193:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9w5vKz-Mx7kC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=Deinonychus+vertical+posture&source=bl&ots=p6T1tVFvJN&sig=P0VX9dDjJGKkZIGaVxMMj2tw3Z0&hl=en&ei=NGaVSsONB4KZjAfXkpzwDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=Deinonychus%20vertical%20posture&f=false

Jurassic Park "Velociraptor" being bigger than Deinonychus:

http://www.thescelosaurus.com/dromaeosauridae.htm

Tyrannosaurus- shown both standing in a slightly raised posture, and walking, with a person for scale. This one is 40 ft long- largest gracile T. Rex discovered.

http://www.bhigr.com/store/product.php?productid=46

Tyrannosaurus (and other theropods) having a centre of mass slightly forward of hips:

http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Essays/WWD/default.html

Further details on T.rex centre of mass being forward, and knees bent- page 321. (note that this page may take a while to load)

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5WH9RnfKco4C&pg=PA321&lpg=PA321&dq=tyrannosaurus+vertical+posture&source=bl&ots=058KV-2FKt&sig=ljUpWha9fCP1rbpkvth1krtJcR0&hl=en&ei=c9-XSvrQCt2MjAfUl-W7BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=tyrannosaurus%20vertical%20posture&f=false

Dromaeosaurus being coyote-sized:

http://my.execpc.com/~dschaeff/raptors.htm

Dromaeosaurus being larger than Velociraptor:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Galaxy/8152/photosdromaeosaurus.html

Velociraptor as turkey-sized- just one of many:

http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2007/9/21/3243600.html

Maximum recorded weight for a turkey:

http://www.nwtf.org/all_about_turkeys/new_turkey_look.html

Maximum normal height for a turkey:

http://www.gunnersden.com/index.htm.shooting-hunting-turkey.html

Finally, heights and lengths to bases of tail for "small canids like coyotes" which is what Monster Manual defines Small Dog statblock as representing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_jackal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhole

Given that theropods usually walk in a horizontal posture, that Velocirapor's hip-height is usually given as up to 1.6 ft and weight as up to 33 pounds, and length as up to 6 ft 8 inches, and given that its tail was slightly longer than the rest of its body, compare the size of the Velociraptor with the size of these three.

Do these satisfy some of the "Citation needed" requests?

[Amiel]

Human beings vary a lot even within the same height- a 6 ft man could be anything from 120 pounds if very slim, to 600 pounds.

This can be quantitatively adjusted as a HD advancement. I'm not so sure how this is relevant though, as we've been discussing inter-species rather than intra-species.

Pit fiends and balors are completely different, to the extent they are alignment exemplars for widely different ideals.


The pit fiend should be described as lanky and thin, the balor overmuscled and fat (or its weight cut), but they don't need much more than that.

No, this is your opinion; that is not fact. Even with the weights as listed, the imagery of the pit fiend and the balor is remarkably similar.
Compare the pit fiend (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG57.jpg) to the balor (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG41.jpg); it should be the balor rather than the pit fiend that should be described as per above.
Even in earlier editions was the weight discrepancy and image similarity present.


I don't see it as a breakdown, at least for terrestrial creatures, to focus more on length to rump, or height, than length to tip of tail- very few creatures are big enough in the tail to be problematic. Even dinosaurs.

The selection of the creatures in the MM is not a great indicator of the majority of terrestrial creatures where the tail extends outward from the body, whereby it adjusts proportions accordingly.
Even with the selection, we can already see a breakdown within the mechanics that indicates the designers didn't think this through.
The problem, however, does not only localise itself to one grouping, namely dinosaurs but to also monsters as well.


For birds and pterosaurs, however, the weight guides tend to be chucked out entirely. And for length, at least in the case of the roc (picture in MM shows it with a very long tail relative to its body though) it appears that falling short by a foot or two can be ignored.

Even with chucking out the weight guidelines, the roc should not be within the size category it is in based on length measurements. Thus we can see that the problem lies not even within one mechanic but two.

Even by your logic that falling short by a foot or two can be ignored, why bother with mechanic rules at all? If that were the case, that we can rule as prescribed, the majority of dinosaurs should be bumped up a category not down as they all fall within the 'can be ignored' criteria.


also: Amphicoelias summary

Thanks, mate :). I'll have a perusal of that.


For the big horse:

The Shire horse holds the record for the world's biggest horse; Sampson, foaled in 1846 in Toddington Mills, Bedfordshire, England, stood 21.2½ hands high (i.e. 7 ft 2½ in or 2.20 m at his withers) by the time he was a four year old, when he was re-named Mammoth. His peak weight was estimated at over 3,300 lb (approx 1.5 long tons).

For the man who rode on the big horse (I've seen his chair in the museum, and a painting of him on the horse)

Yes, I already mentioned this in an earlier post; thanks for the re-cap though.
Measurements like that though, would be for extreme specimens at the far end of the weight, height and length index. Contrast this to the average measurements for dinosaurs.


For ordinary shire horses:

Shire horses average around 17.2 hands (178 cm) tall at maturity (measured at the withers), with the breed standard being at least 17 hands. Shire stallions weigh, on average, between 144 st (910 kg; 2,020 lb) and 176 st (1,120 kg; 2,460 lb).

Compare to Utahraptor:

Up to 6.5 m (21 ft) long, 2 m (6.6 ft) tall, and 700 kg (1,500 lb) in weight, Utahraptor would have been a formidable predator.

You are confusing the weight issue again; real world quadrupeds are by design and necessity a lot heavier than bipeds. Even considering the shire horse at its maximal size, it only approaches an 'average' utahraptor.


If that's height at the backbone, or height at the shoulder, its still around the same size, maybe a few inches taller. If its height at the head, the big dinosaur is slightly smaller than the horse.

The head of a horse does add any extra length to the height. If you take a look at the pictures, you can see that height already includes a fair chunk of neck, even if we take withers (the highest point on the back of an upright animal) into consideration.
Also, the illustration as provided also sets a great comparison. The shire horse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ShireDraftHorse.jpg) simply does not dwarf the human as the utahraptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Utahraptor_size_estimate_chart.svg) does.


This does not fit with outlines on how T-Rex couldn't walk like that- with its spine held at 45 degrees- it would dislocate its hips. Sue is walking the way a T. Rex would normally walk- the mating posture is not one it would have stood in for any length of time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specimens_of_Tyrannosaurus

Speculation, and only speculation. Similar to the debate of whether dinosaurs actually roared or whether they actually had scales.
Dinosaurs, and in particular, carnivores would not have stalked their prey across terrain as per the posture you linked to; it's not conducive to survival nor is it stable, nor is it anatomically viable. The dinosaur, especially with its ponderous and massive head would have toppled over long ago.


Its not the only source- just the most detailed one. If 18 ft tall is T. rex height in this posture, how are you getting figures like 26 ft? Only way to get this is to have the legs completely straight, and the spine vertical (with the neck bent to bring the head forward).

As I said, the hip joint generally sits at the midpoint of the body; this is true for nearly all vertebrates. Thus, if 13 is at the midpoint, the entire length is 26 to put a conservative measurement.
Now, when I say midpoint, I mean the entire length of the body, including the tail.

The above illustration fails in that the heads are too close to the ground; thus, they would not have provided the stability needed to keep the head aligned and off the ground.


A normal T. rex could never have stood in anything like this position- its legs are not designed like human legs- no kneecaps- were always held in a flexed position.

Do you know anything about this? How can you be sure that the T-rex or other dinosaurs always held their legs in a flexed position?
Also, how can you be sure that evolved tetrapods like dinosaurs, unlike primitive tetrapods like living amphibians and reptiles, never had kneecaps?
That's a great deal of assumptions on your part.


Even then, if 24 ft is the equivalent, for Huge creatures, of a 6 ft creature, thats still not much above what would be expected for Huge biped. (since a Huge biped can be anything from 16 ft tall to 32 ft tall.)

How are you measuring that? Without the tail? If so, don't forget you are neglecting proportion. The overall size of the creature in question is going to look extremely odd.


Concerning the size and capabilities of a Jurassic Park Velociraptor (Novel version):
[spoiler]Page 57: when speaking of "Velociraptor antirrhopus"-
About 200 pounds, the size of a leopard.

When they didn't know much about it; remember, Jurassic Park was published in 1990, and being a story no less, the series would have being prone to embellishment. Also, no one really places much credence to the descriptions of the dinosaurs in the novel, there's too much artistic license.


Citations:

I'll need to peruse them in-depth, however some of them are quite old; also, we can already tell there is a fair bit of contradictory evidence, assumptions and hear-say involved. In fact, some of what you cited directly contradicts what is written in other documents.


Do these satisfy some of the "Citation needed" requests?

Thank you for the citations! :)
I'll need to find you some as well; apart from what I've posted earlier.

[hamishspence]

Most of it is fairly recent- post 2000. The details on T.rex's horizontal waking posture are far more recent than the idea of a steeply sloping back, and they are supported by biomechanical studies.

Using the horizontal posture, Utahraptor is comparable in backbone height to the horse (certainly in bulk) and Deinonychus comparable to a large dog, and Velociraptor to a turkey or a coyote.

Bipeds may be lighter than quadrupeds, but not that much lighter. When the weights are half the minimums for the size categories you have suggested or less:

(Medium Velociraptor, Large Deinonychus, Huge Utahraptor, Gargantuan T.rex)

then it seems that it just doesn't work. Sure, Utahraptor dwarfs a man, but not the way an elephant does, but the way a rhino does (MM puts rhinos as Large). Sure, Deinonychus is longer than a man, but it is shorter, and no bulkier. More like a leopard than a lion.

For comparison- the Abrian in Fiend folio- an ostrich with arms instead of wings, is Medium.

We have an animal shorter than a Medium crocodile from nose to tail (which is11-12 ft, according to MM) which is much less bulky in the tail than any crocodile- leg length comparable to a dog- spine held horizontally like a dog- weight appropiate for a dog- it just isn't hefty enough to justify a Large size.

Same applies to Utahraptor for Huge, or Rex for Gargantuan.

Yes, ideas of how T. rex walked are speculation, but they are well supported speculation- better by far than older theories. Such as those that hold that it walked with straight legs- when more recent research suggests its knees would be in grave danger of dislocating.



Even with chucking out the weight guidelines, the roc should not be within the size category it is in based on length measurements. Thus we can see that the problem lies not even within one mechanic but two.

Even by your logic that falling short by a foot or two can be ignored, why bother with mechanic rules at all? If that were the case, that we can rule as prescribed, the majority of dinosaurs should be bumped up a category not down as they all fall within the 'can be ignored' criteria.


And very few of them (nose to base of tail) fall into the "close enough" category.

Deinonychus- approximately 5 ft- much shorter than minimum of 8 feet for Large.

Utahraptor- approximately 11 ft compared to 16 ft minimum for Huge.

T. rex- between 20 and 25 ft nose to base of tail- 32 ft is minimum for Gargantuan.

Spinosaurus, however, is a good candidate for having been "bumped up"- longest length estimates are 60 ft- length to base of tail (just beyond pelvic bones is around 30 ft or so- like the roc, it could be a case of "bumping up".

Whether judging as a biped or a quadruped, generally, the listed sizes (and errated ones for Deinonychus and "Megaraptor") are fine as they are- they are consistant with the vast majority of other monsters, and the size guidelines.

So- Huge T. rex, Large Utahraptor, Medium Deinonychus. Unless there is very good evidence to suggest otherwise.

A good photo of a Utahraptor skeleton reconstruction compared to a person- while the person is standing behind the dinosaur, it is clear that the backbone is the same height as the person- the skeleton is the bulk of a large horse.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dinocasts.com/images/products/Utahraptor150.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.dinocasts.com/prod_catalog5.asp%3FLabel%3DDromaeosauridae%26quer y%3DqueryProductsAndLabels&usg=__8WZ2TDp-4vVSn1mGh4YQyhlamww=&h=187&w=150&sz=8&hl=en&start=16&um=1&tbnid=uPLKedhC-xtQ0M:&tbnh=102&tbnw=82&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dutahraptor%2Breconstruction%2Bphoto%2 6hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GFRC_enGB208GB208%26um%3D1

[hamishspence]

As for the horizontal posture vs the steep, close to vertical "jackknife" posture, this is one of the more recent sources that explains why it simply wouldn't work:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Mr16gm7VRCAC&pg=PA238&lpg=PA238&dq=theropod+horizontal+posture&source=bl&ots=xw1yxWSpeb&sig=c8CXRRLTGddrTR5HXapIxYyTfqA&hl=en&ei=5Ku3SorIIeKg4AaEsPl8&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=theropod%20horizontal%20posture&f=false

Pages 240-241.

David Carrier's "jackknife" theory:

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/204/22/3917?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=hindlimbs&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=40&resourcetype=HWFIG

simply doesn't work- based on more recent analysis of the theropod leg musculature.

[imp_fireball]

I think your deinonychus should have a claw attack that involves its feet, as clearly the sickles on its feet are about twice as large and curvy as that of its forelimbs. Perhaps it only uses its feet in a grapple or on a pounce, though (since it'd be awkward to lash out with its feet without grappling/grabbing... even in JP, that's awkward). It'd also make sense if it grappled creatures larger than it rather than grabbed... that's pretty how the animal is after all, it's been assumed that it survives by hunting larger prey.

Also, did velociraptors in MM have the ability to open doors, etc.?

[hamishspence]

it didn't say. Savage Species shows a picture of an awakened Deinonychus trying to hold a sword, unsuccessfully. The hands do look pronated in the picture, which is not correct- dromaeosaurs did not have wrists that could twist in that fashion.

There is a lot of debate on how Deinonychus actually attacked its prey- the more recent theories suggest that it may have used its long toe claws to grip its prey, rather than slash it, since it did not have sharp edges along the inside of the claws- only pointed tips.

On the other hand, neither do cats- and they can slash with their claws- just not deeply.

There was a documentary on the subject- raising the theory that the Fighting Dinosaurs fossil (Velociraptor and Protoceratops) was an example of the Velociraptor using its claws as stabbing weapons on the other dinosaur's neck, rather than slashing at the belly.

for statting out the dromaeosaurs, modified from the WOTC versions, I think the speed and Jump modifiers should probably be reduced- dromaeosaurs are quite short-legged compared to other theropods, and their leg muscles were not that large.

As mentioned earlier, WOTC revised Deinonychus down to Medium, which I agree with- its length, height, and weight are all consistant with various Medium creatures.

(length- 11 ft- Medium Crocodile, Backbone height held horizontally, as a riding creature, 3 ft- similar to Riding dog, donkey, or pony, rearing bipedal height of around 5 ft tall when stretching- similar to elf, weight of 161 pounds- comparable to a man or a leopard)

Similarly Velociraptor should probably be Small, if we stat one out.

[GreatWyrmGold]

It's been a while.
Wow, I'm suprised that the dino size debate hasn't died down.
Anyhoo.
Some ideas for more unique dinos:

Rotten Bite: Carnivorous dinosaurs don't brush. Filth fever or similar.
Long-Distance Communication: All dinos of that species can be in contact by taking a swift action each turn. This contact is general, but means that all of them in contact must be flanked or flat-footed for one of them to be.
Inteligence: Maybe give raptors and similar Int 3+?

[hamishspence]

yes- I don't think its going to be resolved- we seem to be proceeding from different assumptions.

What's your opinion on what I have said about size and posture of theropods- and the evidence I have cited to back it up?

Concerning Int 3 dromaeosaurs- Unless the intelligence chart gets significantly revised, I wouldn't go with Int 3- since the "dromaeosaurs were smarter than primates" idea is Jurassic Park only- and is highly implausible.

filth fever idea is an interesting one- it was done for Dragon 318 Compsognathus- might be extended from there to other theropods.

[GreatWyrmGold]

yes- I don't think its going to be resolved- we seem to be proceeding from different assumptions.

What's your opinion on what I have said about size and posture of theropods- and the evidence I have cited to back it up?
I havn't read all of it, but from what I know and remember, T-Rex is probably Gargantuan, Deinonychus is Medium, and Velociraptor is Small.


Concerning Int 3 dromaeosaurs- Unless the intelligence chart gets significantly revised, I wouldn't go with Int 3- since the "dromaeosaurs were smarter than primates" idea is Jurassic Park only- and is highly implausible.
It was thought of as different, not plausible. How plausible is magic? dragons? almost everything in D&D?

[hamishspence]

so far, Amiel appears to have been saying that Wizards revising Deinonychus down to Medium was a mistake- and that it should have stayed Large.

Also, that Wizards made a mistake in making T-rex Huge (despite its height as a biped, length from nose to base of tail, and weight all being consistant with Huge).

Which I have been disagreeing with.

If dromaeosaurs were given Int 3, apes would have to be given Int 4 or high- since they have larger cerebral hemispheres.

My view on sizes was:

T. rex- Huge.
Utahraptor- Large.
Deinonychus- Medium.
Velociraptor & Dromaeosaurus- Small.

[GreatWyrmGold]

If dromaeosaurs were given Int 3, apes would have to be given Int 4 or high- since they have larger cerebral hemispheres.

So, orcs are smarter than halflings? They have bigger heads! Heck, the only thing smarter than orcs must be ogres!

See the problem with your argument yet? No? Then I'll go on.

Whales must be way smarter than gray elf wizards!
Grigs must be numbskulls!
Ogres must be the best wizard race!

(I hope you get it now.)

[Sudduth]

So, orcs are smarter than halflings? They have bigger heads! Heck, the only thing smarter than orcs must be ogres!

See the problem with your argument yet? No? Then I'll go on.

Whales must be way smarter than gray elf wizards!
Grigs must be numbskulls!
Ogres must be the best wizard race!

(I hope you get it now.)

I think you misunderstand the meaning of Cerebrial Hemispheres.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I think you misunderstand the meaning of Cerebrial Hemispheres.

No. A cerebrial hemisphere is half of a brain. (Basically.) I was pointing out that brain size isn't everything. If it was, we'd be cavemen compared to whales (once they got opposable thumbs).

[hamishspence]

Apologies- I was intending to refer to the cerebral cortex- the grey matter- the part of the brain that is enlarged in primates, whales, elephants, humans.

Dromaeosaur brains (based on the limited evidence available) were probably more like those of birds.

Obviously big brains do not equate to higher intelligence, if the brain doesn't have a significantly enlarged cerebral cortex. T. rex's brain is bigger than ours- and no-one thinks it was more intelligent- because its brain structure does not suggest this.

Now, one could bring up parrots and the claims that they were vastly more intelligent than other birds, and theorize that dromaeosaurs were more like parrots- but that's another topic entirely.

[AceofDeath]

Generally I much better like the int stats for animals in Gurps. Bieng from 1 to 5, apes have 5 int. In D&D I guess it's really just because a character can have a theoreticly 5 or lower as int, which in that case would mean he was an animal. (Personally I think it could be rather fun having characters that is on animal intelligence:smalltongue:)
Anyway it's 65 million years since the last dromeosaurs and dienonychusia have existed, maybe these have evolved?!? Dun DUN DUUUNNN!!!!
I really just think it's silly argueing raptors int score:smallbiggrin: What does it actually matter game wise?

[hamishspence]

it probably is silly :smallamused:

but if I'm statting out a creature- and writing its description, I want to get it as accurate as I can within the limits of the gaming system.

I'm not as concerned with ability scores though (which are abstractions anyway) as I am with getting length, height, and weight (and correspondingly, size) right.

If I'm describing a Deinonychus to the players, I feel that saying it is 11 ft long and 4 ft tall, and Medium, is "more accurate" so to speak. And if they've killed it and are hauling it home to cook, I will say it is 160-odd pounds in weight, for the guy who is stuck carrying the thing.

Things like its walking, hustling, and running speed are trickier.

[Amiel]

Just a quick reply, and apologies for belatedness, I've been rather busy.
I think we may have to agree to disagree, Hamish, although I would like to continue this discussion (which I will when I have more time).

I'm not sure you can portray realism or even a simile of realism within the d20 context and framework. It simply isn't possible; this is further compounded by some of the nonsensical rulings within the core text.
What breaches our lens of realism can be found in the following: maximum damage will ever be 20d6 from high, when realistically, it could instantly kill most people; outsiders; spells shooting out of the tips of arcanists; magic items; magical beasts; Ints of animals; RAW versus RAI; just off the top of my head.

What doesn't help is the internal inconsistency where the measurement guidelines are concerned. Take the dinosaurs for example, Elasmosaurus is a dinosaur-esque creature with not much tail, yet it is pigeon-holed within the Huge size category. The assertion of "including a tail half as long as its entire body" is patently untrue and blatantly false.

Also, Pathfinder has their tyrannosaurus as gargantuan (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/dinosaur.html#dinosaur-tyrannosaurus).


but if I'm statting out a creature- and writing its description, I want to get it as accurate as I can within the limits of the gaming system.

If you are only measuring a creature to the base of its tail, then this become a null objective. You cannot provide as accurate a description within the gaming system with measurements that only take the length from head to base of tail into account; hilarity ensues when the creature comes out wrong.

Will write more tomorrow.

[hamishspence]

length vs reach:

Centre of Mass, rather than Base of Tail- may be a slightly more accurate method of gauging what size category an animal should be in.

For example- Elasmosaurus- Length 14 m- length to base of tail- about 11 m or so. Yet, it is far lighter, and smaller bodied, than a Gargantuan creature would be.


What doesn't help is the internal inconsistency where the measurement guidelines are concerned. Take the dinosaurs for example, Elasmosaurus is a dinosaur-esque creature with not much tail, yet it is pigeon-holed within the Huge size category.

Assuming that thanks to its long neck, it has a longer reach than most Huge creatures- it still falls slightly high- with its body inside a 15 ft base, but its head reaching more than 15 ft out of a 15 ft miniature base.

However- if it's centre of mass is above the fore-flippers- as described in the articles suggesting it was somewhat front-heavy- and if it is mounted on a flying base in this fashion- with the stem set in the centre of the base- its excessive Reach is reduced- so it would probably qualify as a Huge (long reach) creature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasmosaurus

(Unfortunately- this is a bit lacking in confirmation)- Still- the point is sound- that sometimes, creatures are on the long side, for their actual "size" )

Or- you could just take the Pathfinder option- and give it 20 ft reach.


Pathfinder has their tyrannosaurus as gargantuan.

Pathfinder places Deinonychus as Medium, and Megaraptor (as a modified Deinonychus) as Large- and Velociraptor (Deinonychus with Young template added), as Small, too.

About the only thing Pathfinder and I differ on- in terms of dino-size- is T.rex.

the MM2 3.5 update, gives the two theropods (allosaurus and spinosaurus) reach appropriate for a Tall creature of their size.

If your theropod, body held out and head extended, with its centre of mass exactly above the centre of the miniature base, does not exceed the Reach given for a creature of its size, it probably is in the right size category.

This would also explain why bipeds tend to have a longer reach- their centre of mass is further forward on the base- so to speak. Their hindlimbs placed in the centre.

Whereas a quadruped would have its hindlimbs and forelimbs either side of the centre of the base- thus reducing its reach (even if its body length discounting tail is the same) considerably.

Using this- if the distance from the tip of the snout, to above the hips, is less than the Reach + half the base width- its not oversized.

For a Huge base- and Biped reach- this would be 15 ft + 7.5 ft : 22.5 ft.

How long is an average T-rex- to the centre of mass?

I think- a bit less than that.

Compare to 20 ft base, 20 ft reach- this would mean it ought to be extending nearly 30 ft forward, from the centre of mass.

The longest known T-rex skeleton is 42 ft long- much closer to Huge than Gargantuan, by this method. The biggest T. rex skull known is 6.5% bigger than that of the 42 ft rex.

http://www.fieldmuseum.org/sue/about_vital.asp

http://palaeoblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/new-biggest-t-rex-skull.html

This may be one reason why, despite the longest allosaurus being almost as long as T. rex- they appear much smaller- because they have long thin tails, and the bulky bit of the creature, is much smaller.

See here for a diagram showing this:

http://www.gavinrymill.com/dinosaurs/carnivores/

So: reasons to think T. rex should be Huge (long reach) rather than Gargantuan (long reach) - as Pathfinder has it- (or, for that matter, even Gargantuan (short reach)):


Leg length- 13 ft- roughly 4 times that of a 6 ft man- middle of the expected range, for Huge bipeds.

Height- 16 ft (minimum for a Huge biped)

Weight- 7 tons- less than half the maximum normal value for Huge.

http://www.fieldmuseum.org/sue/about_vital.asp

Height when rearing to maximum- my estimate is 24 ft- middle of the range for Huge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MUJA-Tyrannosaurus.JPG

Whole body-length falls within the circle defined by Space + Reach- Yes- circle is 45 ft in diameter.

Length compared to other creatures in the game with a similar hip height and biting reach- Huge dragons- which are 55 ft in length.

there are a lot of reasons.

[hamishspence]

To sum up- most of the problems with "oversized" or "undersized" creatures go away- once you translate the creature to the board- and compare it to other creatures in it's size class.

Elasmosaurus- a little long for a Huge creature. But if you were to scale it down, and place it next to a Huge miniature (or a photo of a Huge miniature) it will look positively average in bulk.

Roc- a little short (nose to base of tail, or height) for a Gargantuan creature.

But if you were to take a pic of a surrogate bird of similar proportions: possibly a Wedge-tailed Eagle, which also has a long, narrow, pointed tail- and scale it so that, in game size, it is 30 ft long to base of tail,

you would find that standing on a 20 ft base, next to the few other Gargantuan creatures (white, black, blue dragons) it does not look small at all.

Finally- T. Rex. A 42 ft long model of Sue, scaled down to the same scale as the D&D stuff- placed on a 15 ft base- would it look oversized?

Not next to Bahamut, and definitely not next to the Eldritch Giant.

By contrast- on a 20 ft base, it would look horribly tiny.

The same would apply to a 21 ft long Utahraptor (the upper size estimate) on a 15 ft base.

That might actually be a rather fun way of comparing the size of the creature to the size on the board- cut out 5 ft, 10 ft, 15 ft, 20 ft circles (Scaled down, of course) of card, cut out a similarly scaled profile picture of the creature in question- in card- glue it to the base in such a way as to ensure that it will stand up.

Then compare to other creatures done in the same way, to see if one dwarfs another.


I think we may have to agree to disagree, Hamish, although I would like to continue this discussion (which I will when I have more time).

While we may have to agree to disagree on the whole size issue- Pathfinder provides some interesting precedents:

That a creature with a long thin appendage (tail, in the case of the Tarrasque, neck, in the case of Elasmosaurus) can have a Reach exceeding the length of its space- in the case of the tarrasque, double.

And that a big sauropod with a long tail (Brachiosaurus) is Gargantuan rather than Colossal:

How does a 16 ton, 20ft Space Diplodocus with a 40 ft Reach Tail Slap sound?