Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

[eyebreaker7]

If a lion is "King of the Jungle" why is it weaker than a tiger?

Lion str 21, Dex 17, Con 15
claw 1d4+5, bite 1d8+2
SA: rake 1d4+2
HD 5d8+10 (32)
Feats: Alertness, Run


Tiger Str 23, Dex 15, Con 17
claw 1d8+6, bite 2d6+3
SA: 1d8+3
HD 6d8+18 (45)
Feats: Alertness, Improved Natural Attack (bite), Improved Natural Attack (claw)

[Bayar]

Because the lion is called a king due to iit's mane kinda looking like a crown or something.

Irl, lions kill by strangling it's pray to death. And they generally hunt in packs. Tigers generally hunt alone and kill pray by crushing their heads in their jaws, thus needing betterstats to be able to do that.

[InvisibleBison]

Tigers are bigger and stronger than lions, so it makes sense that their D&D stats would reflect that.

[hamishspence]

Because the longest tigers are longer than the longest lions, the heaviest tigers are heavier than the heaviest lions, and the average tiger is slightly longer and heavier than the average lion, I would speculate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cats

There's a reason why the tiger is at the top and not the lion.

[Zombimode]

If a lion is "King of the Jungle" why is it weaker than a tiger?

Since when do lions live in jungels?

The reason why tigers are represented bit stronger then lions is because the biggest tiger species are bigger then lions. On the laymen's list of "dangerous predators" tigers rank higher then lions.

For a RPG that is reason enough.

[The Glyphstone]

Lions also don't typically live in jungles. They prefer open woodlands, savannahs, and thick grass/brush.

EDIT: Ninjaed. Or...tigered? I guess?

[eyebreaker7]

I feel dumb now. Lol. I didn't know that tigers are bigger. Never had any reason to look into it.
Not sure where the saying "King of the jungle" came from but that's what I heard growing up.
Thanks for the info everyone :)

[hamishspence]

The Tarzan novels may have contributed somewhat to the misconception that lions live in the jungle.

[AntiAuthority]

Was thinking about this earlier today lol.

Anyway, yeah, the lion being the king of the beasts is pure hype. It has a "crown" and rule over lionesses, but IRL tigers have to hunt alone, have longer claws, stronger jaws and such. One man ended up firing at a tiger and missing, and the slightest king of the beasts followed him home and the poor man couldn't get help from his neighbors because they didn't want the tiger coming for them next as it would continue the chase.

In other parts of the world, the King of the Beasts belong to different animals. In some places, it was between a tiger and dragon, in others it was wolves and in some places bears were also a strong contender for king of the beasts. It mostly seems to depend on the geography of the apes predator, but lions are the only one in modern times to get recognition as the king when there are arguably more powerful animals that could fill the role (like the supernatural dragons, tigers that were rivals to said dragons or bears that can decapitate a moose and may have a person connection to Odin.)

[eyebreaker7]

Wait, was it Tarzan that's "King of the Jungle" not the lion? Have I had it wrong all these years? lol.

[hamishspence]

Tarzan's nickname is often "Lord of the Jungle" (and he sometimes has a lion sidekick). The comic book hero Phantom also had that nickname. Mowgli's was "Master of the Jungle" for a while.

Wikipedia does suggest that "King of the Jungle" is a nickname associated with lions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Jungle

[Thurbane]

Interesting fact I once heard: when the ancient Romans used to pit animals against each other in combat, bears would pretty consistently defeat big cats. Something about denser bones and more strength, I think the bears would basically crush the cats skulls.

The thought of IRL animals fighting for entertainment gives me the big sad though. :smallfrown:

[Calthropstu]

In a battle between lions and tigers the tiger usually wins 1v1. But the odds of a 1v1 in the wild are pretty slim. A tiger cannot take down prey bigger than itself as it hunts alone. Lions use pack tactics to take down the largest prey around. Lions take down elephants, hippos and rhinos. Tigers can't.

[Maat Mons]

A male lion is a much more kingly animal than a tiger or a bear. Can you imagine a king preparing his own food? Of course not, the king has people who do that for him. And so too, does the male lion simply take food that others have worked for. He takes it from the lionesses, or from other smaller species of predator.

Oh, the lionesses. That's another respect in which the male lion is more like a king than tigers and bears. He has a harem. If you're a king and you don't have a harem, you're doing it wrong.

[Thurbane]

I mean, AFAIK the Sperm Whale is the largest living predator, and the Polar Bear is the largest living land predator.

Maybe they should be crowned the King of the Seas and Tundra respectively?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

This thread suddenly makes me worried why this naming scheme left us with emperor penguins. :eek:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/kirby/images/3/34/KSA_Macho_Dedede.png/revision/latest?cb=20180111214844&path-prefix=en

[Ramza00]

Since when do lions live in jungels?


To my understanding the idiom king of the jungle is both old but also involves translation errors so it lost its literal meaning.

That said king of beasts has a different language origin in English, and associating lions with powerful people such as Kings, etc go back thousands of years such as famous statues of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and their pet lion kitties.

[Calthropstu]

Out of curiosity, I looked at videos of lions and tigers fighting each other. None of the videos resulted in death oddly enough, and in 2 of the videos both tried to get away fron each other. The tiger didn't win any of the fights I watched.

Most of these battles resulted in very aggressive action by the lion forcing the tiger to retreat. In one video, the tiger passed out due to overexertion. But all the data suggests the tiger should have an upper hand.

But, when you think of it, a lion will have FAR more experience fighting other cats. Lions are more social and thus interact more. Male lions also train more to one day attempt to take over the pride.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Out of curiosity, I looked at videos of lions and tigers fighting each other. None of the videos resulted in death oddly enough, and in 2 of the videos both tried to get away fron each other. The tiger didn't win any of the fights I watched.

Most of these battles resulted in very aggressive action by the lion forcing the tiger to retreat. In one video, the tiger passed out due to overexertion. But all the data suggests the tiger should have an upper hand.

But, when you think of it, a lion will have FAR more experience fighting other cats. Lions are more social and thus interact more. Male lions also train more to one day attempt to take over the pride.So what you're saying is, lions are shounen harem protagonists, training all the time, getting all the girls, and taking down enemies who should be far more powerful than them?

[Calthropstu]

So what you're saying is, lions are shounen harem protagonists, training all the time, getting all the girls, and taking down enemies who should be far more powerful than them?

Well, male lions stay with the pride until they feel they should lead it. They get 1 chance to take on the pride leader. If they fail, they are ejected. So they fight each other to practice for that day.

Tigers, however, only come together during mating season. So it's easy to tell which has more experience.

[An Enemy Spy]

Animals very rarely fight to the death, and they avoid fighting at all if they can. It's just not worth the risk of injury even if they're likely to win so their goal is usually to intimidate the other animal into backing down.

[Particle_Man]

Of course the true king is the Black Panther. Wakanda forever!

[An Enemy Spy]

Of course the true king is the Black Panther. Wakanda forever!

Fun fact: There is actually no such species of cat as a panther. Black and white panthers are just melanistic leopards and jaguars.

[Ettina]

Out of curiosity, I looked at videos of lions and tigers fighting each other. None of the videos resulted in death oddly enough, and in 2 of the videos both tried to get away fron each other. The tiger didn't win any of the fights I watched.

Most of these battles resulted in very aggressive action by the lion forcing the tiger to retreat. In one video, the tiger passed out due to overexertion. But all the data suggests the tiger should have an upper hand.

But, when you think of it, a lion will have FAR more experience fighting other cats. Lions are more social and thus interact more. Male lions also train more to one day attempt to take over the pride.

Lions in the wild are also more likely to survive grievous injury. Most lions live in the company of other friendly lions, either in a pride or bachelor group (several males with no female). And lions have frequently been observed protecting and bringing food to a wounded pridemate, allowing them to recover from incapacitating injuries.

Tigers, on the other hand, mostly live or die on their own power, and even a minor injury can mean guaranteed death if it prevents them from hunting successfully. Even so much as a sprained ankle could kill them from starvation.

As a result, tigers have evolved to be more cautious about fights than lions. They don't want to just win, they want to win with minimal or no injury. If they don't have a good chance of that, they'll flee if they can. The exception is a mother defending cubs.

[liquidformat]

Interesting fact I once heard: when the ancient Romans used to pit animals against each other in combat, bears would pretty consistently defeat big cats. Something about denser bones and more strength, I think the bears would basically crush the cats skulls.

The thought of IRL animals fighting for entertainment gives me the big sad though. :smallfrown:

Honestly this should be expected, bears are opportunist top predators that often predate other predator's kills. They are well designed to crush bones and often do so to get at the marrow of scavenged carcasses that other animals can not. Put in a situation like an arena where a big cat's speed is taken off the table it isn't surprising the bear would win.


I mean, AFAIK the Sperm Whale is the largest living predator, and the Polar Bear is the largest living land predator.

Maybe they should be crowned the King of the Seas and Tundra respectively?

It has always bugged me that the polar bear doesn't have higher str and con scores than the brown bear and was simply just given two more rhd.


In a battle between lions and tigers the tiger usually wins 1v1. But the odds of a 1v1 in the wild are pretty slim. A tiger cannot take down prey bigger than itself as it hunts alone. Lions use pack tactics to take down the largest prey around. Lions take down elephants, hippos and rhinos. Tigers can't.

To be fair, odds of lions and tigers even encountering each other in the wild are pretty slim since their ranges and niches don't really intersect.

Also while it is strictly true that a pack of lions could take down an elephant, hippo, or rhino; it is extraordinarily rare that it happens and in most of those cases its either lone old already dieing animals or babies that got separated from the others. In practice lions do not specifically target elephants, hippos, or rhinos as prey.


Out of curiosity, I looked at videos of lions and tigers fighting each other. None of the videos resulted in death oddly enough, and in 2 of the videos both tried to get away fron each other. The tiger didn't win any of the fights I watched.

Most of these battles resulted in very aggressive action by the lion forcing the tiger to retreat. In one video, the tiger passed out due to overexertion. But all the data suggests the tiger should have an upper hand.

But, when you think of it, a lion will have FAR more experience fighting other cats. Lions are more social and thus interact more. Male lions also train more to one day attempt to take over the pride.

It really isn't surprising that a lion would normally get the best of a tiger. Tigers while larger are ambush predators that rarely go after an animal that has already spotted them and tend to hide their kills in trees or other out of the way places so as to not be forced to defend their kills. Where as Lions are pack animals that are often forced to protect their kills.


Well, male lions stay with the pride until they feel they should lead it. They get 1 chance to take on the pride leader. If they fail, they are ejected. So they fight each other to practice for that day.

That isn't how it works at all. Male lions never stick with the pride, they are chased out by the pride leading male/s when they are still young and pose little to no threat to said male/s. After that they wander around by themselves or might form a bachelor pack while they continue to grow larger and stronger and search for a pride to try and take over. Granted I believe most of the bachelor packs are related to each other.


Animals very rarely fight to the death, and they avoid fighting at all if they can. It's just not worth the risk of injury even if they're likely to win so their goal is usually to intimidate the other animal into backing down.
'Rarely' really depends on what animals we are talking about, its not particularly uncommon for male deer and other such herding animal males to kill each other during rutting season. Similarly its not uncommon for a pack of lions to kill a few hyenas while stealing a kill, or for a pack of hyenas to kill a lone lion.

[Gnaeus]

It’s also worth noting that some ancient commenters would have been discussing the now extinct European lion, sometimes thought to be a bit larger and stronger and more likely to attack humans than modern lions.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

It’s also worth noting that some ancient commenters would have been discussing the now extinct European lion, sometimes thought to be a bit larger and stronger and more likely to attack humans than modern lions.The things that regularly attack humans tend to be driven extinct by humans. This is not a surprising turn of events.

[Ramza00]

It’s also worth noting that some ancient commenters would have been discussing the now extinct European lion, sometimes thought to be a bit larger and stronger and more likely to attack humans than modern lions.

Yep. Like someone mentioned Panther earlier and I am like that is a Latin word, and there is a similar Greek word that came before. It did exist, and I have no clue what people of Rome, Greek, and other Mediterranean cultures would call a Panther?

Would they limit it to any specific type of cat, or any big cat would get the term Panther? It is likely the Greek word is related to another word which means yellow and white.

Note in the science literature we have a genius and sub genius which uses the word Panther as a root for Panthera, a genus is a collection that is larger than a species and smaller than a family.

————

So what Gnaeus said, animals habitats change, some go extinct, and so on. Likewise language changes, and also how we see an animal changes.

This applies to Lions but also other things. Like did Dionysus have magical beast Panthers that were part dog? Who knows!

[Thurbane]

Apparently Manticores were based on exaggerated reports trying to describe Tigers to people who'd never seen them. Or so I heard once.

[Maat Mons]

Yeah, there are a lot of pretty weird-looking ancient depictions of creatures painted by people who were working off of descriptions without ever having seen the things.

[Darg]

It has always bugged me that the polar bear doesn't have higher str and con scores than the brown bear and was simply just given two more rhd.

Brown bear has a large variety of subspecies. Polar bear is basically just polar bear. Let's put it this way, according to the library of congress website the average weight of a brown bear ranges between 500-900 pounds and the average weight of a polar bear is 900-1500 pounds. However, the highest weight recorded for a polar bear was just over 2,200 lbs while the highest weight for a brown bear was over 2,500. As they don't differentiate between subspecies I think the difference is fine.

[Calthropstu]

Lions and tigers and bears...

Oh my.

[Rynjin]

Lions in the wild are also more likely to survive grievous injury. Most lions live in the company of other friendly lions, either in a pride or bachelor group (several males with no female). And lions have frequently been observed protecting and bringing food to a wounded pridemate, allowing them to recover from incapacitating injuries.

Tigers, on the other hand, mostly live or die on their own power, and even a minor injury can mean guaranteed death if it prevents them from hunting successfully. Even so much as a sprained ankle could kill them from starvation.

As a result, tigers have evolved to be more cautious about fights than lions. They don't want to just win, they want to win with minimal or no injury. If they don't have a good chance of that, they'll flee if they can. The exception is a mother defending cubs.

Male lions are also somewhat evolutionarily specialized for fighting other big cats. That mane isn't just for show, it helps prevent fatal attacks to the neck from bites.

[hamishspence]

Brown bear has a large variety of subspecies. Polar bear is basically just polar bear.

Polar bears are actually nested within the brown bear complex - they're descended from a subspecies of brown bear. Some brown bear subspecies are more closely related to polar bears than to other subspecies of brown bear.

[rel]

An easy fix is to swap the stats if you want the lion to be best.

I think there are bigger problems with the various animal entries; the descriptions often give good reasons for them to never actually attack parties of adventurers, they are usually wiser than half the party, their attack methods aren't realistic or (actually important) interesting during play

[Batcathat]

That isn't how it works at all. Male lions never stick with the pride, they are chased out by the pride leading male/s when they are still young and pose little to no threat to said male/s. After that they wander around by themselves or might form a bachelor pack while they continue to grow larger and stronger and search for a pride to try and take over. Granted I believe most of the bachelor packs are related to each other.

It just hit me that the plot of the Lion King might have been more realistic than I realized. Though I suspect the bachelor packs usually don't include meerkats and/or warthogs. :smallwink:

[Maat Mons]

Here's another fun question to ponder: "Why is a crossbreed between a lion and a tiger stronger than both of the parent species?" That's not a D&D statblock question. That's an actual thing that happens in the real world.

[Thurbane]

Here's another fun question to ponder: "Why is a crossbreed between a lion and a tiger stronger than both of the parent species?" That's not a D&D statblock question. That's an actual thing that happens in the real world.

I remember hearing once that something in the hybrid messes up the gene that controls growth, so it grows larger than either parent species.

They are often a lot more "chubby" than either parent species as well.

[hamishspence]

And only ligers (parents are male lion and female tiger) are oversized. Tigons (parents are female lion and male tiger) are not.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Here's another fun question to ponder: "Why is a crossbreed between a lion and a tiger stronger than both of the parent species?" That's not a D&D statblock question. That's an actual thing that happens in the real world.

This is a documented phenomenon called Hybrid Vigor and it occurs in a lot of cross-species pairings. From what I remember, it occurs most commonly when two phylogenetically adjacent species interbreed. Mainly because the two species are only just barely different enough to be considered separate species but still close enough that prezygotic barriers don't exist. But then again, genetics and phylogeny is a field of gray. Look too closely and everything smears together.

[Gnaeus]

The things that regularly attack humans tend to be driven extinct by humans. This is not a surprising turn of events.

In this case, they were the only non-human species to ever have the Roman army mount an entire military campaign to eradicate them. It was apparently necessary to secure Britain.

[liquidformat]

It just hit me that the plot of the Lion King might have been more realistic than I realized. Though I suspect the bachelor packs usually don't include meerkats and/or warthogs. :smallwink:

Things get worse with just the most cursory thoughts into the lion king movie, like the fact that Simba's love interest Nala is his sister and he comes back to take over the pride made up of his mother, aunts, and half sisters...

[Thurbane]

In this case, they were the only non-human species to ever have the Roman army mount an entire military campaign to eradicate them. It was apparently necessary to secure Britain.

On a vaguely related (and hilarious note): Australia once had an Emu War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War), involving our military. :smallbiggrin:

[Maat Mons]

Isn't that always the way of it? The animals you want to get rid of just keep on existing no matter how many of them you kill. And the animals you want to save from extinction refuse to breed in captivity and drop dead if the slightest of environmental factors is 1% off.

[SimonMoon6]

The "king of the jungle" nickname for a lion apparently (from what I've read online) comes from a time when the word "jungle" meant something different than it does today. It used to mean something like "uncultivated land", basically anywhere wild, so if that's what "jungle" means, then lions live in a jungle.

The meaning of the word has changed over time, in the same way that the line of the Flintsones song "We'll have a gay old time" doesn't mean the same thing now as it did back then.

[Fizban]

It has always bugged me that the polar bear doesn't have higher str and con scores than the brown bear and was simply just given two more rhd.
Ah, one of my favorite topics: the completely busted "Brown" Bear!

If you take a look at the height and weight given for the 3.x MM's brown bear which is supposedly a common grizzly, you'll find it is definitely not a common grizzly. They seem to have confused the brown/grizzly bear category with the Kodiac Bear, which might as well be a brown polar bear only found in a very small area.

My bear changes:


Black Bears gain +1 hit die (hp 26) and climb 20'.
Brown Bear stats reduced to AC 14, Str 23, and d6/d8 claws and bite [2 claws +9 (1d6+6), bite +4 (1d8+3)], with no Improved Grab. They are on the smaller end of Large, with a weight of 250-800lbs, a height of around 7.5', and their CR is reduced to 3. These are actual brown/grizzly bears.
"Brown Bear" original stats are renamed to Cave Bears. As a base statblock in MM1 they can't be entirely removed, but they're not available for companions or shapeshifting and I'm trying to jigger them out of the summon lists too.
A Kodiac Bear uses Polar bear stats wth brown fur.

[hamishspence]

D&D beasties sometimes skew to the large side.

The D&D brown bear is indeed especially large by brown bear standards - fitting more closely to Kodiaks, Kamchatka brown bears, etc. You could probably represent the largest bear of all time, the Giant Short-Faced bear, just by giving the D&D brown bear a couple of extra Hit Dice, and swapping in appropriate "speedy" feats like Dash and Run.

The Alaskan brown bear is sometimes considered "a grizzly" rather than a Kodiak, and the largest specimen on record, may have exceeded 1800 lb at peak weight:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Peninsula_brown_bear

but the average male specimen would be much smaller.

[thorr-kan]

Honestly this should be expected, bears are opportunist top predators that often predate other predator's kills. They are well designed to crush bones and often do so to get at the marrow of scavenged carcasses that other animals can not. Put in a situation like an arena where a big cat's speed is taken off the table it isn't surprising the bear would win.
I, too, remember something about bear probably winning over tiger. It was one of those "Versus" TV shows from the 00s. They simmed up a Kodiak bear and a Siberian tiger, threw the stats into their "magical combat computer," and ran several thousand iterations. The bear came out a small but significant majority of the time and was declared the winner.

Take that for what you will.

With the bear's bigger fat layers, slightly longer claws, and semi-bipedal ability, I can see the fight leaning in the bear's direction. But it's not a fight either predator would court, and it if goes the full 10 rounds, even the winner loses.

[Ettina]

Things get worse with just the most cursory thoughts into the lion king movie, like the fact that Simba's love interest Nala is his sister and he comes back to take over the pride made up of his mother, aunts, and half sisters...

To be fair, Nala might not be a sister exactly, but she's almost certainly related to him. Their mothers are most likely maternal relatives of some sort (sisters, aunt/niece, cousins, etc). Both Mufasa and Scar likely fathered kittens, since male coalition partners both get to mate, so they either share the same father, or their fathers are brothers. (Likely even Mufasa and Scar wouldn't know who fathered which cubs, since they'd likely both mate the same female in estrus. They certainly wouldn't treat the cubs any differently based on parentage.)

The only way Nala would not be related to Simba is if Mufasa and Scar aren't brothers, but rather unrelated males who formed a coalition after leaving their birth prides (which does happen) and one of their mothers was one of the few lionesses who changes prides in her lifetime. But even so, we know Simba, if he took over his birth pride, would likely mate with his mother and other relatives of his such as half-sisters and aunts.

[loky1109]

Irl, lions kill by strangling it's pray to death.

Kill - yes, but all cat's primary attack weapon are claws. All feline strike and stop they prey with forelimbs. Bite/strangle is CDG.

[ericgrau]

An easy fix is to swap the stats if you want the lion to be best.

... if you want to repeat the argument with the players. But hopefully they would just say whatever idc... unless they just beat up a tiger and were really miffed that a lion killed them.

[Biggus]

Since when do lions live in jungels?



To my understanding the idiom king of the jungle is both old but also involves translation errors so it lost its literal meaning.


While it's true that jungle originally meant "rough and arid terrain", it's relatively recently been discovered that some lions do live in (current-meaning) jungles for at least part of the year.

[Calthropstu]

Kill - yes, but all cat's primary attack weapon are claws. All feline strike and stop they prey with forelimbs. Bite/strangle is CDG.

Incorrect. It's their first attack often, but a cat will bite the paw of another cat if it is easy to do.

When fighting a much larger creature, a cat will latch on with its mouth, gnawing in order to draw blood and bleed the target to death when their claws won't do the job.

[Particle_Man]

Incorrect. It's their first attack often, but a cat will bite the paw of another cat if it is easy to do.

When fighting a much larger creature, a cat will latch on with its mouth, gnawing in order to draw blood and bleed the target to death when their claws won't do the job.

To test this theory out, try taking your cat to the vet without tricking them into a cat carrier first. 😀

[Ettina]

To test this theory out, try taking your cat to the vet without tricking them into a cat carrier first. 😀

One of my cats just stands around the car mewing and staring out the window, and continues mewing miserably as I carry him.

The other just shuts down and sits immobile, shivering with eyes like saucers.

But I get your point.

[Particle_Man]

One of my cats just stands around the car mewing and staring out the window, and continues mewing miserably as I carry him.

The other just shuts down and sits immobile, shivering with eyes like saucers.

But I get your point.

Fair. Ok, try taking someone else's Siamese cats to the vet without using a cat carrier. For Science! :smallsmile:

[Calthropstu]

Fair. Ok, try taking someone else's Siamese cats to the vet without using a cat carrier. For Science! :smallsmile:

Squirming trying to run away. They aren't trying to kill me and eat me after all. If you REALLY want to test this, try taking in a bobcat.

[Tvtyrant]

Squirming trying to run away. They aren't trying to kill me and eat me after all. If you REALLY want to test this, try taking in a bobcat.

What did I tell you about making up animals??

[Calthropstu]

What did I tell you about making up animals??

Bobcat is a real thing. It's a species of lynx common in North America. A friend of mine took in a kitten, it grew so big and eventually attacked her. Started biting at her back. She managed to throw it off and close it in a room. According to her, the police had to call animal control and they had to put it down. (Second hand story so accuracy is not guaranteed)

[Tvtyrant]

Bobcat is a real thing. It's a species of lynx common in North America. A friend of mine took in a kitten, it grew so big and eventually attacked her. Started biting at her back. She managed to throw it off and close it in a room. According to her, the police had to call animal control and they had to put it down. (Second hand story so accuracy is not guaranteed)

Am I so old that Red vs Blue references are no longer hip?

No, it is the children who are wrong.

[Darg]

Bobcat is a real thing. It's a species of lynx common in North America. A friend of mine took in a kitten, it grew so big and eventually attacked her. Started biting at her back. She managed to throw it off and close it in a room. According to her, the police had to call animal control and they had to put it down. (Second hand story so accuracy is not guaranteed)

That account sounds like the animal was abused or was very poorly socialized, trained, and entertained. Larger animals have to be trained properly because their size automatically makes them dangerous compared to a smaller animal doing the same thing. If they put it down, it's because people tend to misunderstand that the animals weren't actually being aggressive compared to being playful. It could also be the case that none of the big cat sanctuaries had room. The biggest proof that the cat wasn't trying to kill is that it likely wasn't trying to go for the jugular or break the neck.

[Calthropstu]

That account sounds like the animal was abused or was very poorly socialized, trained, and entertained. Larger animals have to be trained properly because their size automatically makes them dangerous compared to a smaller animal doing the same thing. If they put it down, it's because people tend to misunderstand that the animals weren't actually being aggressive compared to being playful. It could also be the case that none of the big cat sanctuaries had room. The biggest proof that the cat wasn't trying to kill is that it likely wasn't trying to go for the jugular or break the neck.

I don't know the whole story, but she raised it herself. She literally found it as a kitten and just raised it. It grew to about 3 times the size of a normal cat when this happened. It was literally tearing flesh from the way she told it. She showed me the scars and they looked strange... like a wide area had been ripped and then healed over slightly discolored. I no longer have access to her so I can't ask her more detail.

But maybe it was trying to climb her to get to her jugular? I remember seeing a video of a lion pride trying to take down an elephant, and they were doing something similar. They'd get in front of it as it ran from the ones chasing it, and the lion would jump on its back and begin biting, holding on with its claws.

[AntiAuthority]

What did I tell you about making up animals??

Next you'll be telling me pumas exist.

[Remuko]

Next you'll be telling me pumas exist.

or a Walrus

[Thurbane]

Fun fact: in the 1E Monster Manual, the Giant Lynx had human-like intelligence, for no particular reason.

Same with Dolphins, but that was allegedly based on outdated research showing that they had higher-than-animal intelligence levels.

https://i.imgur.com/VnDT5Uz.jpg

[Glorthindel]

This is a documented phenomenon called Hybrid Vigor and it occurs in a lot of cross-species pairings. From what I remember, it occurs most commonly when two phylogenetically adjacent species interbreed. Mainly because the two species are only just barely different enough to be considered separate species but still close enough that prezygotic barriers don't exist. But then again, genetics and phylogeny is a field of gray. Look too closely and everything smears together.

My take-away from this discussion is we have the heights, weights, and stats of Half-Elves all wrong :smallbiggrin:

[MesiDoomstalker]

My take-away from this discussion is we have the heights, weights, and stats of Half-Elves all wrong :smallbiggrin:

Hybrid Vigor is not universal. Not every hybrid is going to be better than the parent species.

[Calthropstu]

My take-away from this discussion is we have the heights, weights, and stats of Half-Elves all wrong :smallbiggrin:

...

This is now canon.

New stats for half elves: +4str, +4 dex, +2 con -4 int, -2 wis

[Rynjin]

That account sounds like the animal was abused or was very poorly socialized, trained, and entertained. Larger animals have to be trained properly because their size automatically makes them dangerous compared to a smaller animal doing the same thing. If they put it down, it's because people tend to misunderstand that the animals weren't actually being aggressive compared to being playful. It could also be the case that none of the big cat sanctuaries had room. The biggest proof that the cat wasn't trying to kill is that it likely wasn't trying to go for the jugular or break the neck.

It would have if it got far enough up.

Bobcats aren't really much bigger than housecats, but they sure are a hell of a lot meaner than the average kitty. They're just...not domesticated animals, and can't be kept as such.

[Ettina]

Same with Dolphins, but that was allegedly based on outdated research showing that they had higher-than-animal intelligence levels.

What do you mean, outdated? Dolphins are smarter than most primates.

[Squire Doodad]

There's a well-established power curve between the apex predators that figure most prominently in our minds. It's been in place since at least the early 1900s.
It goes:
Lions, then tigers, then bears. Oh my!

[Arkhios]

There's a well-established power curve between the apex predators that figure most prominently in our minds. It's been in place since at least the early 1900s.
It goes:
Lions, then tigers, then bears. Oh my!

I would argue that it continues with "then humans".

Also, here's a fun fact: fenno-ugric people, or at the very least, ancient finns believed that they were descended from the bear! Go figure, maybe there's some truth in that :smallbiggrin:

[Particle_Man]

It is canonical that a human, not any Cowardly Lion, ended the life of the Wicked Witch of the West