BX Monsters A to Z: Bear

 Is it just me, or are normal animals really underutilized in D&D? Case in point: Bears. "Bears are well-known to all adventurers," says the Basic Set, but are they really? I can't recall using bears at all in my games, except when one of my brothers was running a mountain-man fighter and tamed a grizzly bear as a companion animal. And that's a shame, because bears can make for some interesting and varied encounter possibilities. 


Bear expert.

In the single entry for bears, we get four different types, ranging from 4 to 7 Hit Dice. In escalating order of HD and aggressiveness, they are black, grizzly, polar, and cave bears. Black bears are described as unlikely to attack adventurers unless cornered or defending their cubs. Grizzly and polar bears are moderately likely to attack, while cave bears are noted to be fond of humans as prey. Their defenses are medium-weak, with AC 6 (5 for cave bears.) All bears are given a claw/claw/bite attack sequence, with black bears doing 1-3/1-3/1-6, grizzlies 1-4/1-4/1-8, polar bears 1-6-/1-6/1-10, and cave bears topping out at 1-8/1-8/2-12. Additionally, if both paw attacks hit the same target, the bear "hugs" (i.e. mauls) for an additional 2-16 points of damage, regardless of type. These stats, in my opinion, seem a little underpowered -- more on that later.

Not only are bears potentially challenging encounters for Basic to low-Expert level characters, they add some nice real-world flavor to a fantasy setting. They can be used to keep players on their toes in wilderness crawls. The monster description says black bears may raid camps in search of food, but there's no reason why grizzlies or even polar bears wouldn't do the same. 

(Side note: When my uncle used to take us camping in the Cascade Mountains, he told us it was important to either keep food safely shut inside the car or secured high off the ground by a rope over a tree branch, or you're basically inviting bears to steal it. And definitely, DEFINITELY do not keep food in the tent with you, unless you want to tempt a very scary nighttime encounter!) 

Bears might make their dens in the entrance caverns of dungeon complexes, posing a challenge to low-level parties looking to mount forays into the depths. A curious or territorial bear or two along a woodland path might prompt PCs to consider going off through the underbrush instead. Even signs of bear activity nearby (e.g. claw marks on trees, scat) might serve to make players nervous.

As with the example of my brother's character above, bears could also make excellent pets or sidekicks for woodland and mountaineer-type characters and intelligent monsters. Pixies who befriend bears by feeding them honey? Absolutely! A forest-dwelling hermit with a pet black bear? Sure! Dwarven scouts patrolling the paths of their mountain realm on trained grizzlies? Hell yeah!

Except in the cases of specially trained bears and of sows protecting cubs, PCs could likely appease most bears with food, which poses an interesting choice if you carefully track rations during an expedition. 

As I mentioned above, I think bears are underpowered relative to characters and other monsters in D&D. For starters, I'd acknowledge the protective quality of their thick, dense pelts by improving their AC a point, to AC 5 (4 for cave bears), but the most important change involves their damage range. It's super weird to me that a grizzly bear claw does the same amount of damage as an average human with a club or dagger, and it also doesn't square with the damage given for the owlbear, another 5 HD monster that is explicitly bearlike. Even the mighty cave bear, a full 2 Hit Dice bigger than the owlbear, only has four more points of potential maximum damage. You could say a bear's real heavy-hitting damage comes from the "hug" bonus attack, but the owlbear has a hug also, so that doesn't fly either. Given my general disdain for differentiating multiple attacks in a system of abstract combat, I'd just give bears 3 undifferentiated attacks per round, with the hug activating if any two attacks strike the same target, as follows:

Black bear: 1d6/1d6/1d6, hug 2d6

Grizzly: 1d8/1d8/1d8, hug 2d8 (exactly the same as the owlbear)

Polar: 1d10/1d10/1d10, hug 2d8

Cave: 1d12/1d12/1d12, hug 2d10

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