Owlbear Mating Call

[sir_argo]

Sharing an idea and also asking for feedback/input.

Going to have a backwoods NPC offer to teach players the Owlbear Mating Call for an, as of now, undetermined price. His lessons are done in low volume as to not actually summon an owlbear. I'm not sure if this would count as a feat or skill or what. But the write up would go something like this:



Owlbear Mating Call

You have learned to imitate the mating call of a male owlbear. This ability is non-magical. As an action, when you use this ability, make a DC 15 Animal Handling check. If successful, you will summon one or more owlbears. A failed Animal Handling check can be attempted again after 10 minutes. After a successful Animal Handling check, this ability cannot be used in the same area until dawn of the next day. Male owlbears summoned will be looking to challenge rivals for mating rights. Female owlbears summoned will be looking for love.

Use the following rules for a successful Animal Handling check:


If the area does not support owlbears, none are summoned. Examples of this might be in an underwater palace, astral plane, etc.
If the area's wandering monster chart includes owlbears, use that entry to determine how many owlbears are summoned.
If the area can support owlbears, but they are not on the wandering monster chart, there is only a 5% chance of summoning 1 owlbear.
Summoned owlbears will arrive within 1-3 rounds and appear from a random direction.
Summoned owlbears are not under the character's control and will likely be hostile when they find that love is not in the air tonight.




I'm going to skip how this idea came to be. My intent is to have an area infested with owlbears and if the characters use this ability, it will summon a hoard of owlbears (thinking 2d6), all from random directions. My plan is to have the male owlbears focus on each other, while the female owlbears will focus on the characters. If the call is used while the characters are fighting some other encounter (for example a band of gnolls), then it'll be utter chaos as the owlbears attack characters and gnolls alike.

Along with feedback on the ability, suggestions on how to improve the write up, I would also be interested to know if you can see a way this could be exploited by players. I don't see how, but if there a way to do some unbalanced use of it... it'd be nice to know.

[meandean]

First of all, naturally you have to be sure the party would be able to fend off a horde of owlbears.

I also would take out the part about them attacking each other. NPCs fighting other NPCs is not necessarily fun for the players. It's one thing if they join together on the same side of the conflict (see below), but summoning a horde that fights itself is likely to be more confusing and time-wasting than interesting.

If those things are addressed, then sure, this can be an option. Not likely one I would pay any decent amount to money to acquire, as a player. Animal Handling is a relatively rare proficiency, but I guess that's not a big deal if you can keep trying it. Even so, what it gets me is summoning hostile creatures? I don't know why I want that. I suppose if I could turn the party invisible or otherwise out of the area of sight, I could get the owlbears to take care of my enemies for me. This would probably be a fun thing for the party to do and feel clever... one time. After that, the novelty would be gone.

Is there any penalty for failing the check? (Does it make noise?) Is the ability meant to be more comedy, or serious? (Maybe if it's comedy, it should be a less powerful creature.)

If it's not pure comedy, I suspect that the way I would go with this concept is to make it not an "ability" that perseveres throughout the campaign, but a MacGuffin. Instead of the Sword of Joe-the-Troll-Killing that helps you kill Joe the Troll, it's the owlbear mating call that is the best way to conquer a particular fight. If you go this route, really signpost to the players. Give it to them for free; remind them that they have it; when it's time to use it, make it as clear as possible (without handholding) that now is the time; and have it always work in that fight (and never work at any other time), where "working" means not turning on the players (either because you've crafted a situation where it wouldn't make sense for the owlbears to attack the players, or because the owlbears just don't do that.)

[nickl_2000]

I would call it a feat, but since you are training it. It really doesn't matter.

Also, this would have stealth characters drooling. Hide in a tree, call, re-hide. You have just summoned chaos into an area. You can very quietly walk away while the rest of the party breaks into the back entrance of somewhere. A bunch of owlbears looking for love or a fight would be a killer distraction.

[Kurt Kurageous]

More impressive, a bullette mating call.

Thumpity-Thump-Thump-Thump...Thumpity-Thump-Thump-Thump...lookit halfing go...Thumpity-Thump-Thump-Thump...GULP!

[KorvinStarmast]

First of all, naturally you have to be sure the party would be able to fend off a horde of owlbears. Do you? No, not really.

For the DM: the mating call ought to be something like

Bahbah-loooh-Whooo!

[Mellack]

Are there official wandering monster tables for 5e?

[Ogun]

Owlbear carcasses have to be worth something, as food, crafting material, magical crafting material, necromancer crafting material or fertilizer.
I would use it from somewhere high, a long with many pit traps.
With the right spells,magic items or class features, living owlbears might be made into minions.

I think making the lure magical words or a magical item that makes the owlbears more and more numerous,dangerous and hostile to the PC's each time they use it MIGHT stop the abuse.
Or just make it work 3 times and then quit, because magic.

[Keltest]

One thing to consider is that as currently laid out, the owlbears are implicitly within about 20 seconds (or less!) walk of the party's location. At some point somebody might ask what these owlbears were doing beforehand such that they were ignoring the party but were willing and able to respond to the mating call, but also ignored each other. These animals arent being magically summoned, and you make a point that the area needs to actually support owlbears for it to work, so this is going to have some fridge logic to it that might take people out of the fantasy a bit.

[KorvinStarmast]

Are there official wandering monster tables for 5e? Many of the published adventures have wandering monster tables tailored to the region of the adventure. IIRC, there are some guidelines in Xanathar's, but I don't have the book nearby at the moment.