animals and monsters

[random11]

What's the difference between animals and monsters?

The line usually crosses at real and unreal creatures, but for the characters, both groups are real yet some are effected with monster related spells, while others are considered as animals.

[AslanCross]

In game terms, an animal is a creature with the animal type. Monster is a catch-all for anything, be it humanoid, outsider, aberration, or animal. I'm just taking that from how the charm spells work. Charm Animal only works on something with the animal type. Charm Person only works on Humanoids. Charm Monster works on anything that has a mind.

[random11]

Will "charm animal" work on non-humanoid creatures like a manticore, griffin and stuff like that?

[AtomicKitKat]

Will "charm animal" work on non-humanoid creatures like a manticore, griffin and stuff like that?

No. Only anything whose type is "Animal".

[random11]

No. Only anything whose type is "Animal".

Which is exactly the problem I'm facing, how do I define in character terms, what is a type "animal".

If someone lives in a forest of the D&D world, he will consider a griffin the most natural thing in the world, while considering the elephant as a monster.

[daggaz]

Not without a lenient DM. By RAW, charm animal works only on creatures with the animal subtype. So look the creature up in the MM, and check its type. If it says anything other than just animal, the spell wont work, by RAW. This includes magical animals, aberrations, fey, and many other types that include animal-looking creatures.

Basically, the spell only works on animals that exist in RL. Deer, rhino's, squirrels, sharks, eagles, etc, etc,... but NOT vermin (so no rats, bats, spiders, scorpions, or centipedes).

Edit: Here is the griffon for example: (my emphasis)

Griffon

Size/Type: Large Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 7d10+21 (59 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares), fly 80 ft. (average)
Armor Class: 17 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +6 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +7/+15
Attack: Bite +11 melee (2d6+4)

Its type is Large magical beast... large is for size, beast means its basically like an animal, but it is magic as well, so no the spelldoesnt work. It needs to just say animal in the type entry for charm animal to work.

[UserClone]

Ah, but you are confusing the real life uses of the words with the MM usage. Just go to pp 305-306 of your MM (or someone else's) and you will find the Criteria for tha Animal Type.:smallwink:

[AslanCross]

Yeah, monster statblocks should tell you if a creature is an Animal-type or otherwise. A Griffon would be a Magical Beast, while a Beholder would be an Aberration. General guidelines for Animal-types are that they are generally of below humanoid intelligence (typically 3 or less) and are basically animals we'd see in our world. There may be some fantastical animals (such as Dire animals), but they're not much more than very large and ferocious variations of mundane animals. Like the previous poster said, go take a look at the Monster Manual.

[Tempest Fennac]

Magical beasts often have magical powers and/or strange apperances and behavious while animals (for some reason) aren't classed as sentinet or capable of culture (Magical Beasts often have more then 2 Int points).

[Psionic Dog]

In general, all creatures with an intelligent of 1 or 2 are animals provided they do not have strange powers or anatomies.

So, dogs, cats, dire bats, rocs, and triceratops are animals.

Griffin and Manticore are too intelligent to be animals.

Hydras, owlbears, and basilisks are too bizarre to be animals or have special powers that disqualify them.

[Blanks]

If someone lives in a forest of the D&D world, he will consider a griffin the most natural thing in the world, while considering the elephant as a monster.
And he will know (maybe), that there are 2 types of animals in his world, those that are affected by "charm animal", and those that aren't.

Maybe he will rationalize it somehow in connection with the source of his spells (griffons are sacred to my god so they can't be charmed)?


EDIT:
Ninjaed is the expression i believe?
See the post above mine for rationalizations that the character could see ingame :)

[random11]

In general, all creatures with an intelligent of 1 or 2 are animals provided they do not have strange powers or anatomies.

So, dogs, cats, dire bats, rocs, and triceratops are animals.

Griffin and Manticore are too intelligent to be animals.

Hydras, owlbears, and basilisks are too bizarre to be animals or have special powers that disqualify them.


Intelligence? Maybe. But as for bizarre, our natural world contains even weirder stuff.
An animal that uses smell to repel predators, another that regenerates it's tail, worms hat can be cut to two and both parts will become active live worms, a chameleon that changes it's color, things like web are taken for granted although it's a very complex "magic"...

[InkEyes]

Intelligence? Maybe. But as for bizarre, our natural world contains even weirder stuff.
An animal that uses smell to repel predators, another that regenerates it's tail, worms hat can be cut to two and both parts will become active live worms, a chameleon that changes it's color, things like web are taken for granted although it's a very complex "magic"...

None of that's magic though, it's natural biology. Skunks (I'm assuming that's what you meant) have glands below their tail that will expel a foul-smelling chemicals when muscles around the glands contract (these are just specially developed scent glands and are found in many members of the Mustelidae family).

Lizards will split the vertebrate in their tail to escape from predators, and afterwards it simply regrows like skin around a cut (except there is no bone in the tail anymore, just cartilage).

It's a common misconception that you'll get two worms if you cut one in half. At most you'll get a live one that regrows its tail and a dead tail of that worm.

A chameleon's skin cells simply shift pigmentation around, it's not like its casting a Change Self spell to blend in with its surroundings.

Webbing is pretty, sure, but it's not magic as defined by D&D. It's a more poetic magic like love or hope. Wizards in D&D don't dedicate their lives to spinning beautiful webs that they use to capture their food (the web spell aside) they deicate their lives to finding out the best ways to warp reality and make huge fiery explosions.

Animals aren't "Magical" in nature like magical beasts and other monsters. The best way to separate animals from everything else is that animals can occur naturally in nature. We can explain exactly how every species of animal came to be without saying "A Wizard did it." If there weren't any meddling Wizards in the D&D world would we ever have creatures like the Owlbear? Or Griffons? Or Dragons? No, because all of those creatures rely heavily on magic to be created and therefore aren't natural.

[Lord Tataraus]

Remember that magic is defined by overarching definitions that may or may not be understood by the user. Magic has its own rules, so it may consider somethings animals that you do not, but that is because of the magical connection so as long as you follow the rules you're fine.

[Chronos]

Intelligence? Maybe. But as for bizarre, our natural world contains even weirder stuff.Whenever I'm contemplating weird SF or fantasy creatures, I always remember that there's a critter right here on Earth that uses its nose as an arm and hand (and a very competent one, too). If elephants didn't already exist, there's no way we'd come up with one on our own.

None of that's magic though, it's natural biology.Sure, but a carrion crawler's paralyzing poison is just its natural biology, too. While some monster abilities are clearly magical (a dragon can't breathe fire in an antimagic field), some aren't, and some monsters don't have any supernatural abilities at all.

[Weasel2007]

I'm with the OP here, it seems like a very abitrary division 'in-game' and I would be hard pressed as a druid to understand why it works on apes and elephants but not girallons.

[Kantolin]

It does seem reasonable that, in an in-game setting, that some people are just plain' immune to certain things. People would pick up on what's what, and move on.

For example, sleep is a spell which works on humanoids. It then, for no particular reason, doesn't work on elves. People would pick up on this pretty quickly, and would just accept 'sleep works on humanoids, but not elves'.

I mean, you can come up with a billion explanations as to why that is, some more justifiable than others, but none of it matters so much as people will not use sleep on elves, since it doesn't work.

So charm animal works on a majority of animals, but if you consider other creatures 'animals', then it doesn't necessarily work on them. You learn how the spell works, and simply will be aware that 'charm animal' works on this subset of creatures.

Personally, I think you're being too general with your statement of 'animals'. If you want to say 'creatures of the woods', then there are a ton of those it doesn't work on - it doesn't work on vermin, for example, and I can see someone classifying (say) elves as creatures of the woods.

So yes, you can see a griffon as just as natural as an elf who is itself just as natural as a bear, and the magic spell 'charm animal' only works on the last of the three - maybe you'd even call it something else, or would jokingly mention in camp, 'Odd how Charm Animal doesn't work on a lot of things I'd call animals', but could accept that that's how the spell worked, for whatever reasons.

(Kind of like a pair of giant wizards wondering why on earth Enlarge Person doesn't work on them. I mean, they likely consider themselves people, after all)

In addition, however, one would assume someone who lives in the woods can find a very strict difference between 'animals' and 'not animals'. Sure, both exist in the woods... but via 'favored enemy', for example, you learn that all animals do this, all animals do that, all animals have this trait... and griffons don't have any of the above.