What are "temperate hills?"

[VoxRationis]

When looking at monster entries for environments, it occurs to me that the distinctions between certain terrain types aren't quite clear. Chiefly, certain environments in the listings are defined by vegetation, while others are defined by topography. This means that overlap is possible, which makes it difficult to conceptually separate certain terrain types (such as "forest" and "hill"). So what is a pure "hill" environment, as far as the intent of the MM writers is concerned? Is it lightly forested? Is it made of scrubby badlands? Does it have water sources? What sort of real-life environments does it correspond to?

[awa]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/wilderness.htm#hillsTerrain

looks like a hill covered in trees would fall under forest not hill

[BowStreetRunner]

You may be overthinking the problem. If you have a creature that can live in Temperate Hills, than any environment that is both Temperate and Hilly should suffice.

Wooded hills with temperate climate? Check! Arid hills with temperate climate? Check! Hilly urban center with temperate climate? Check!

As long as the creature finds what it needs (in this case hills and a temperate climate) then it can thrive there. One creature may need certain vegetation, while another needs certain temperatures, while another needs wet or humid condtions, while another needs something else.

[VoxRationis]

Right, and I get that way of looking at things, but a lot of creatures have "hills" listed as their environment, and that makes me wonder what's so special about hills that creatures might live there, but not in otherwise-similar environments that don't have hills. What's so attractive about slopes that dire weasels live in hills but not other places? Why does a bronze dragon care (it can fly, for heaven's sake—how much can it care about terrestrial topography)?

[ExLibrisMortis]

https://rwandastomp.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/rwanda_thousand-hills.jpg

That's Rwanda, apparently.

Hills have, very basically, consequences for sunlight and water, and thus for flora and fauna. It's easier to find shadow and cover near hills, and there will rarely be soggy ground on top of a hill. Plus there's the view, and hills can provide easy launch points for large flying creatures.

[Eladrinblade]

A "pure" temperate hills environment would be just grass and rock, mostly. You could have areas of trees, just not too many. Just like plains, except hills.

You can have overlap with terrains, so temperate forest hills, or cold desert hills. Some can't be overlapped; plains for instance have to be on their own (I could see desert plains, maybe).

[Belzyk]

They are where bad bad things happen to adventurers who are not careful.

[snowblizz]

Why does a bronze dragon care (it can fly, for heaven's sake—how much can it care about terrestrial topography)?

Spoken by someone not in real estate sector clearly. Location, location, location. Obviously bronze dragons like a nice view from their cave.:smallbiggrin:

[Telok]

I chalk it up to trying to use a limited vocabulary to quickly give a shorthand description of wildly varying terrain. As far as the MMs are concerned you pretty much just have flat, hilly, and mountainous for describing elevation changes. Everything else is climate or vegetation related.

Basically they went with "if it's not flat and it's not mountains then it's hills."

[Segev]

Things which live in "hills" as opposed to "plains" are things which might be intended for shorter encounter-distances, and for aerial maneuverability to be more important but less overwhelming of an advantage. With hills, you can have things appear as you come around or go over them (or as they do the same), and you're more likely to have places to take cover from more angles of the sky.

It also is a terrain where height advantage can be significant, allowing for literal uphill battles and for the tops of the hills to be sufficiently above the bottoms that it can impact range of things like a giant's thrown rocks.

The valleys are an inherent association with the hills, as well, and can channel movement of creatures and WILL channel movement of water and other free-flying debris (like those aforementioned giant's rocks).

Creatures that live in hills are either going to benefit from these terrain features, or have their CR reduced from what it could be in another environment because the hills would inhibit them in some way.

[Fouredged Sword]

Right, and I get that way of looking at things, but a lot of creatures have "hills" listed as their environment, and that makes me wonder what's so special about hills that creatures might live there, but not in otherwise-similar environments that don't have hills. What's so attractive about slopes that dire weasels live in hills but not other places? Why does a bronze dragon care (it can fly, for heaven's sake—how much can it care about terrestrial topography)?

They like the food choices provided and the fact that hills provide little sky-blocking cover but plenty of spaces even a huge dragon can hide from distant threats.