Need large herbivores

[VoxRationis]

I'm trying to come up with an ecology for my 5e setting and I'm running into the problem where there are numerous large predator species, which typically come about in order to hunt large herbivores (like carnosaurs v. sauropods in our world), but I can't really think of any notable large herbivores of that scale in the MM. Am I just forgetting them?

[Shining Wrath]

Mammoths are pretty large. I think they've got at least one herbivore dinosaur. The back of the book mentions horses and cattle in the beasts appendix.

That being said, maybe bacon cheeseburgers rain from the sky. Homer voice Mmmmm ... cheeseburgers!

[Mr.Moron]

I'm trying to come up with an ecology for my 5e setting and I'm running into the problem where there are numerous large predator species, which typically come about in order to hunt large herbivores (like carnosaurs v. sauropods in our world), but I can't really think of any notable large herbivores of that scale in the MM. Am I just forgetting them?

Why not just make your own? The mm doesn't cover these things because one does not typically see fights agains littlefoots mom as exciting fantasy battle fooder.

[Safety Sword]

Brontosaurus!

Secondary function as a slippery dip!

[Kane0]

Now i'm imagining vegetarian Bulettes.

[Broken Crown]

The mm doesn't cover these things because one does not typically see fights agains littlefoots mom as exciting fantasy battle fooder.

Have they never heard of Cape buffalo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_buffalo)? Rudyard Kipling must be spinning in his grave.

To their credit, the authors of Sandstorm at least gave the hippopotamus its due.

[Sredni Vashtar]

Why not just make your own? The mm doesn't cover these things because one does not typically see fights agains littlefoots mom as exciting fantasy battle fooder.

Hey man, Littlefoot's Mom held her own against Sharptooth. One should not underestimate the power and fury of a 15 ton, 72' long protective mother.

[Kane0]

Bears, giant/dire animals, elephants/mammoths, rhinoceros, triceratops, yeti?, sphinxes, basilisks, gorgons, giffons/hippogriffs, minotaur?, xorn, chuul?, otyugh?

Many of those are omnivorous, but they could still function as prey creatures.

[Sredni Vashtar]

Also, carnivores can and will eat other carnivores. They just prefer not to, likely because carnivores can put up a better fight in general.

[Mr.Moron]

Hey man, Littlefoot's Mom held her own against Sharptooth. One should not underestimate the power and fury of a 15 ton, 72' long protective mother.

Well it's less that these creatures are not dangerous so much as they're not the baddies. Neutral alignment or reality aside big carnivores tend to get cast as either violent things that attack you, or the noble warriors of nature to be conquered. You can probably imagine a community of small-sized fuzzy cute humanoids living on the back of 200ft tall tortoise, flying whale, or elephant and think "Oh yeah, that's a thing someone would do as I setting. I totally know what that sort of thing is" whereas with a Raptor, Shark or Wolf it'd be more "That's kind of weird, wouldn't it be the avatar of some angry god?"

[Sigreid]

Well it's less that these creatures are not dangerous so much as they're not the baddies. Neutral alignment or reality aside big carnivores tend to get cast as either violent things that attack you, or the noble warriors of nature to be conquered. You can probably imagine a community of small-sized fuzzy cute humanoids living on the back of 200ft tall tortoise, flying whale, or elephant and think "Oh yeah, that's a thing someone would do as I setting. I totally know what that sort of thing is" whereas with a Raptor, Shark or Wolf it'd be more "That's kind of weird, wouldn't it be the avatar of some angry god?"

Nothing really has to be evil when you're hungry and they're a combination of dangerous and delicious.

[Nu]

Hey, brachiosaurs don't mess around. ...at least if you're using Final Fantasy for inspiration. That'd be my excuse to homebrew a big, dangerous herbivore.

[Joe the Rat]

Go to the Animals section.

Look under "Giant." There's a few options right there.

To make more, Compare the [animal], and Giant [animal] stats. Use this as a scaling tool. Every Large Herbivore ends up Huge at Giant size... and anything Huge gets ridiculous (Giant Mammoth, anyone?).

[hamishspence]

I think the Columbian Mammoth tops out at around 16 tons - which was the minimum for Gargantuan in 3rd ed. Maybe it's the same in 5e - so 16 ton Gargantuan mammoths aren't that implausible?