The River Wild(life).

[NotVeryBatman]

I'm looking at a river encounter to start off a new campaign. The PCs boat will be attacked by various wild animals and bandits. I'm looking to throw in an attack by a bull hippo. I'm wondering how to stat it. My first instinct is to reskin a brown bear, and just replace the climb speed with a matching swim speed. I'd treat the claw attack as the bite and lose the bear's bite altogether.

Is this an oversimplification? Should I just go with crocodile and call it a hippo?

[Flashy]

Nope, the bear refluff is probably what I'd do too.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Yeah, that's a good refluff. To be super nit-picky, a hippo is bigger, more aggressive and more dangerous than a bear, but the difference in D&D terms is not that big.

Fun fact: hippos cause more human deaths every year than any other mammal (except for humans). Don't mess with an angry hippo.

Additional thoughts: I hope you include merfolk. They're fun. Also, undines and sirines (though you'll have to come up with your own stats. I'd base them on dryads if I were you).

[NotVeryBatman]

Precisely why I decided on a hippo. Strength, aggression, all from an unexpected place.The first leg of the adventure ends with dryads coincidentally. But in my opinion meaningful Merrow, Merfold, Suhuagin, Kua-Toa encounters all start (or at least progress) once some mid-to-high level magic turns up. Doing it at 1st-2nd level limits how far things can go. I dunno, any other insight you could provide would be appreciated, I do plan on going hard with the Aboleths.