Reskin a dire wolf?

[Jellyburd]

Long story short, my players will be reaching a mine they were sent to investigate.
Enough time has passed to where I want some sort of scavengers to be picking at the supplies left at the entrance of the cave.
Just a quick encounter to build excitement before the dungeon crawl. I thought a pack of wolves would be perfect, tearing through crates for leftover rations and cured meats, but they are CR 1 and my players are 4 lvl 5s. Any advice on retooling? At first I thought about taking the winter wolf stats (its CR 3) and just ignoring the "winter perks" ie breath attack and camo.
Suggestions?

[Finback]

*best Dr. Weird voice*

GENTLEMEN...

I give you

THIS WEIRD DOG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inostrancevia).

(this is what I reskinned a kobold ranger to be riding in place of a wolf)

[Captn_Flounder]

Not every encounter needs to be scary/challenging. If a pack of wolves makes sense then a throw away encounter might not be a bad thing. One of my biggest peeves is when the world levels with the PCs just so it remains a challenge. It's just the old 3.5 treadmill, which is, I believe, one of the core tenants 5e is trying to move away from.

An easy encounter shows your character's progress as well as shows their true "character". Like, once they figure out they will smash these wolves like potatoes do they shoo them off? Or if the wolves break and quit the field do they let them run out do they go out of their way to kill them? Do they go so far as to to give up that AoO? Does the druid/warlock/"other animal talker" try to convince the wolves retreating is in their best interest? And what does all this say about your character's motivations and beliefs?

[Unoriginal]

Long story short, my players will be reaching a mine they were sent to investigate.
Enough time has passed to where I want some sort of scavengers to be picking at the supplies left at the entrance of the cave.
Just a quick encounter to build excitement before the dungeon crawl. I thought a pack of wolves would be perfect, tearing through crates for leftover rations and cured meats, but they are CR 1 and my players are 4 lvl 5s. Any advice on retooling? At first I thought about taking the winter wolf stats (its CR 3) and just ignoring the "winter perks" ie breath attack and camo.
Suggestions?

Nothing wrong with having a pack of ordinary dire wolves. The encounter doesn't *have* to be horribly challenging, right? It's just for flavor, from what I get, and having a bunch of them will make it still worth it.

Otherwise, you could indeed use winter wolves without the winter perks. Or Giant Hyenas.

[Joe the Rat]

Step 1: 8 generic wolves. Your party will cut through them fast enough you won't have to deal with numbers for long.
Step 2: Dire Alphas. You lead Male and Female will be bigger and buffer - if not necessarily larger. Note this brings your monster headcount to 10.
Step 3: staggered and stealthed. A portion of your pack will be away from the feeding keeping up an ear. Unless your party is sneaking in, the pack will be alerted to their presence.

Classed as a medium difficulty encounter - though only worth 800xp. This is an appetizer.

Alternative: 5-8 dire wolves (medium to hard difficulty) - the numbers are what drives this challenge - enough monsters that are just difficult enough that unless they are all gathered around the (ahem, flammable) supplies, this is at least a 2-round affair which may eat into health and casting resources.

However, Also remember that they are hungry beasts, but not so hungry as to want to fight to the death. Run off at half numbers or 25% hit points. This gives you the option to re-encounter (possibly with greater numbers) when they leave, or if they opt to camp at/near the entrance between forays.

The prior suggestions related to the potential non-combat aspects of the encounter are worth noting as well. This is a chance to really explore the options that are opening up at tier 2.

[Unoriginal]

You can also simply boost the HPs of the Dire Wolves to the maximum their HDs suggest, to make them more durable.

[Aett_Thorn]

Have it be a full pack of wolves and dire wolves. Including puppies. See what the party does. Might involve more scaring them off than trying to kill them.

[Pelle]

Lead by a werewolf or crazy shapeshifted druid?

[sophontteks]

If the wolves are finding food they probably wouldn't be aggressive unless the party get too close. They would growl and warn the party not to get close, but they wouldn't up and attack them on sight. It'd be a rather evil act. I'm sure such a large pack would have pups and such

I had mentioned my party's attitude toward animals in another thread. My party's druid wouldn't stand for an act like this. Would this cause similiar discord within your own party?

This could also turn completely on your head if such members befriend the wolves and possbly even use them to trivialize the entire dungeon.

I agree that you should not be increasing the power of the wolves. Your party is stronger and its up to them if they want to use that power to slaughter animals scavenging for food.

[Jellyburd]

I actually don't think they would attack unless provoked. They ran through a hobgoblin camp and freed the lesser goblin slaves and convinced them to flee to avoid interaction with a city their hobgoblin counterparts had made them raid. and when possible they spooked the Worgs to run rather than kill them after their riders got killed.
Also one is a ranger and another wood elf cleric so nature has a strong connection to them. I just wanted it to be semi challenging if they chose to fight.

[Mad Max]

I think that if played well, six dire wolves, which is a medium difficulty encounter, could be fairly challenging. If some of them hid and they ganged up on the non-armored characters (What wolf is going to knowingly bite into metal? Yuck!), the damage would add up, especially if they were knocking them prone and grappling them so standing up would be harder. If you're worried though, try making one into a pack leader with more HP and damage, maybe who gets to use a bardic inspiration-esque ability on the others, flavored as a powerful bark.

It's kind of important to consider whether or not the battle is supposed to be dangerous to the party members, or just a setback. If you don't plan to kill a party member with this wolf pack, medium is probably a fine difficulty. If not, maybe add some normal wolves, who are starving. This would add numbers and cannon fodder, from a tactics perspective, but also would make the pack more sympathetic.

Hope that helps!