Awaken giant ape

[Dmdork]

Do you think it's overpowered to have a 9th level Druid be able to cast Awaken Animal and awaken a giant ape (CR7, huge)?

[Ignimortis]

Do you think it's overpowered to have a 9th level Druid be able to cast Awaken Animal and awaken a giant ape (CR7, huge)?

If they can use the awakened creature to obtain more than 1k GP spent on the Awaken, and if they can get their hands on several of high-CR beasts (like mammoths or hulking crabs) - then yes, probably it is. Giant ApesMost beasts are quite good melee brutes for their CR, and if you get a pack of those which aren't outclassed too much, then it's bad news for your enemies.

P.S. Casters doing weird stuff which plays whack with balance unless you take precautions as a DM to stop that? Gee, and here I thought 5e had it finally reigned in a bit.

[Mellack]

Do you think it's overpowered to have a 9th level Druid be able to cast Awaken Animal and awaken a giant ape (CR7, huge)?

It doesn't work. Giant Ape starts with an INT of 7, above the spell's max of 3.

[KnotaGuru]

It doesn't work. Giant Ape starts with an INT of 7, above the spell's max of 3.

This. You could do a T-Rex though, INT of 2 ;)

[hymer]

This. You could do a T-Rex though, INT of 2 ;)

And let's also note that for the money spent on Awaken (and the trouble you go to in order to find the suitable beast), you could just spend that money to hire some merc, with much the same mechanical (if less cool) effect. And that merc could probably fit into dungeons and towns better than most awakened, high-CR stat blocks.

[Lord8Ball]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93B072j-E3I