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  1. - Top - End - #31
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by liquidformat View Post
    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.

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    GreenSorcererElf

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Lions and tigers and bears...

    Oh my.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ettina View Post
    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.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    hamishspence's Avatar

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darg View Post
    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.
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  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    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
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  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Batcathat's Avatar

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by liquidformat View Post
    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.
    Last edited by Batcathat; 2021-06-03 at 11:51 PM.

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Maat Mons's Avatar

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    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.

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Thurbane's Avatar

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Maat Mons View Post
    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.

  9. - Top - End - #39
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    hamishspence's Avatar

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    And only ligers (parents are male lion and female tiger) are oversized. Tigons (parents are female lion and male tiger) are not.
    Last edited by hamishspence; 2021-06-04 at 01:05 AM.
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  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Maat Mons View Post
    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.
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  11. - Top - End - #41
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    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by MaxiDuRaritry View Post
    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.
    Last edited by Gnaeus; 2021-06-04 at 08:08 AM.

  12. - Top - End - #42
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    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Batcathat View Post
    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.
    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...

  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnaeus View Post
    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, involving our military.

  14. - Top - End - #44
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    Maat Mons's Avatar

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    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.

  15. - Top - End - #45
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    PirateWench

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    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.
    Last edited by SimonMoon6; 2021-06-04 at 06:59 PM.

  16. - Top - End - #46
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    GreenSorcererElf

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by liquidformat View Post
    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.
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  17. - Top - End - #47
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    hamishspence's Avatar

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    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...ula_brown_bear

    but the average male specimen would be much smaller.
    Last edited by hamishspence; 2021-06-06 at 08:53 AM.
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  18. - Top - End - #48
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    EvilClericGuy

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by liquidformat View Post
    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.
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  19. - Top - End - #49
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by liquidformat View Post
    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.
    Last edited by Ettina; 2021-06-06 at 01:03 PM.

  20. - Top - End - #50
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    DrowGuy

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bayar View Post
    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.

  21. - Top - End - #51
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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by rel View Post
    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.
    Last edited by ericgrau; 2021-06-06 at 05:46 PM.
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  22. - Top - End - #52
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    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zombimode View Post
    Since when do lions live in jungels?
    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    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.

  23. - Top - End - #53
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    GreenSorcererElf

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by loky1109 View Post
    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.

  24. - Top - End - #54
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    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    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. 😀

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  25. - Top - End - #55
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Particle_Man View Post
    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.

  26. - Top - End - #56
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    OrcBarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ettina View Post
    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!

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  27. - Top - End - #57
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    GreenSorcererElf

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Particle_Man View Post
    Fair. Ok, try taking someone else's Siamese cats to the vet without using a cat carrier. For Science!
    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.

  28. - Top - End - #58
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    Lizardfolk

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    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??
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  29. - Top - End - #59
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    GreenSorcererElf

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tvtyrant View Post
    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)

  30. - Top - End - #60
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    Lizardfolk

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    Default Re: Why is a lion weaker than a tiger?

    Quote Originally Posted by Calthropstu View Post
    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)
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