What is the difference between dire creatures and megafauna?
Creative Director
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In the fossil record, there's a creature called a dire wolf; it's a megafauna version of a wolf. A prehistoric wolf.
The dire wolf has been in the game pretty much from the start, along with other megafauna, who, like the dire wolf, were referred to by their actual names; things like smilodons, wooley mammoths, and titanotheres.
With 3rd edition, the designers decided that "dire" was a good word to spread around to ALL animals to make "tougher" versions. It didn't necessarily mean "prehistoric" as much as it simply meant "tougher." As 3rd edition went on, that distinction began to blur.
With Pathfinder, I really wanted to ditch the "dire" appellation from all of those monsters save the dire wolf, but in the end, maintaining the word "dire" for a lot of them made sense from a backwards compatibility viewpoint. BUT I was able to have my cake and eat it too, and included a lot of the real-world prehistoric names along with these creatures.
With Bestiary 2, though, I wanted to see more prehistoric animals that don't really have obvious still-living creatures running around. For those creatures, we needed a word that would allow us to group them together, for the same reason we grouped the dinosaurs together—animals don't take up a lot of room, and when we group them like that, we can put more on a page. And the word we ended up with was megafauna.
In the end, there is no real game mechanic that separates dire animals from megafauna.
I personally never understood the 3e aversion to the word "giant" as an appellation to describe larger, tougher creatures... the change from "giant rat" to "dire rat" never really bothered me, I just didn't get why they bothered.
I personally never understood the 3e aversion to the word "giant" as an appellation to describe larger, tougher creatures... the change from "giant rat" to "dire rat" never really bothered me, I just didn't get why they bothered.
They dropped "Giant Rat" when they made creature types, and "giant" was one of them. Otherwise there would things called "giant" didn't follow the giant rules.
Because a giant rat can be either an enormous rodent or a 9 foot tall humanoid with a loincloth and club spilling Rogues guild secrets to the constables.
I personally never understood the 3e aversion to the word "giant" as an appellation to describe larger, tougher creatures... the change from "giant rat" to "dire rat" never really bothered me, I just didn't get why they bothered.They dropped "Giant Rat" when they made creature types, and "giant" was one of them. Otherwise there would things called "giant" didn't follow the giant rules.
true enough, but I guess that I have always just had enough faith in the reading comprehension and reasoning abilities of the gaming public at large to feel that this would have caused any sort of major problems.
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Creative Director
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I personally never understood the 3e aversion to the word "giant" as an appellation to describe larger, tougher creatures... the change from "giant rat" to "dire rat" never really bothered me, I just didn't get why they bothered.
That's mostly because the word "giant" means something specific in the game now—a giant humanoid.
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Creative Director
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Now if only Paizo had ditched the silly spiky growths on the Dire creatures...
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-Uriel
We did, for the most part. I think one or two slipped through the cracks, and that's mostly because the art came in too late for us to request changes.
We use a lot of the same artists WotC uses, and even those that don't can't help but be influenced by a decade of previous art. Some habits die hard, in other words.
In the fossil record, there's a creature called a dire wolf; it's a megafauna version of a wolf. A prehistoric wolf.
The dire wolf has been in the game pretty much from the start, along with other megafauna, who, like the dire wolf, were referred to by their actual names; things like smilodons, wooley mammoths, and titanotheres.
There are plenty of prehistoric creatures in 3.5, including those mentioned. Dire creatures became their own category of some mutant version of the non-dire animal.
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Now if only Paizo had ditched the silly spiky growths on the Dire creatures...
:|
-Uriel
We did, for the most part. I think one or two slipped through the cracks, and that's mostly because the art came in too late for us to request changes.
We use a lot of the same artists WotC uses, and even those that don't can't help but be influenced by a decade of previous art. Some habits die hard, in other words.
I know James, I was only 'funnin' you folks. Besides, I use a couple of awesome bear figs from some 'Animals of the natural World' company (name escapes me). Standing upright, about 16-20' tall...fits perfect on a Huge Base. Pure Dire Awesome! (And no granite goiters...)
Now, leaving out the Dire Weasel, well, that just makes me ever-so-sad...
Whatever will my Gnome Cavalier ride!?!
-Uriel
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Creative Director
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There are plenty of prehistoric creatures in 3.5, including those mentioned. Dire creatures became their own category of some mutant version of the non-dire animal.In the fossil record, there's a creature called a dire wolf; it's a megafauna version of a wolf. A prehistoric wolf.
The dire wolf has been in the game pretty much from the start, along with other megafauna, who, like the dire wolf, were referred to by their actual names; things like smilodons, wooley mammoths, and titanotheres.
Those mentioned (smilodon, wooley mammoths, etc.) came to the game fairly late in the show, after 3.5 began and partially due to my own influence (many of them were put into "Frostburn," a book I co-authored). They were even placed under the header "Dire Animals" in that book. And having spoken with the game designers about the philosophy for the original dire animals, I've had that confirmed from the dire horse's mouth.
So I'm pretty sure that the basic idea/theme for the "dire" creature was "prehistoric," not "mutant." At least, at the start. Today, in 4th edition, I'm not sure where that philosophy has evolved to.
In my web fiction, I put in mention of "dire dolphins," but that was because the fountain had statues of heraldic dolphins, which of course have scales, tusks, and occasionally horns, as opposed to the real dolphins, which don't. I left this ambiguous so that it could be possible that the sculptor had only heard garbled traveler's tales of dolphins and his only pictorial reference was some herald's scroll where the dolphin had been represented a sort of monstrous sturgeon. Or it could be that there are actually dolphins with armored plates, tusks, and occasionally horns (which may or may not squirt water) swimming around in the ocean, in which case they are definitely dire dolphins.
OTOH, I think bears with spiky rock epaulets look utterly silly so I ignore that. Dire bears are Kodiak bears and the like.
It's not a big deal, but I prefer that y'all stick to one of the terminologies.
The following are in the Bestiary 2.
Dire Bear
Giant Gar
Megafauna Megatherium (a big sloth)
Behemoth Hippopotamus
There are plenty of prehistoric creatures in 3.5, including those mentioned. Dire creatures became their own category of some mutant version of the non-dire animal.In the fossil record, there's a creature called a dire wolf; it's a megafauna version of a wolf. A prehistoric wolf.
The dire wolf has been in the game pretty much from the start, along with other megafauna, who, like the dire wolf, were referred to by their actual names; things like smilodons, wooley mammoths, and titanotheres.
Those mentioned (smilodon, wooley mammoths, etc.) came to the game fairly late in the show, after 3.5 began and partially due to my own influence (many of them were put into "Frostburn," a book I co-authored). They were even placed under the header "Dire Animals" in that book. And having spoken with the game designers about the philosophy for the original dire animals, I've had that confirmed from the dire horse's mouth.
So I'm pretty sure that the basic idea/theme for the "dire" creature was "prehistoric," not "mutant." At least, at the start. Today, in 4th edition, I'm not sure where that philosophy has evolved to.
I am talking about 3.5, not 4e. I can't personally think of any prehistoric megafauna where the characteristic was "Like a creature today but with odd bony plates." That was my point when I mentioned "Dire" appearing to be its own subgenre of critters rather than prehistoric megafauna.
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I personally never understood the 3e aversion to the word "giant" as an appellation to describe larger, tougher creatures... the change from "giant rat" to "dire rat" never really bothered me, I just didn't get why they bothered.
Maybe this sheds some light on the matter...
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I am talking about 3.5, not 4e. I can't personally think of any prehistoric megafauna where the characteristic was "Like a creature today but with odd bony plates." That was my point when I mentioned "Dire" appearing to be its own subgenre of critters rather than prehistoric megafauna.There are plenty of prehistoric creatures in 3.5, including those mentioned. Dire creatures became their own category of some mutant version of the non-dire animal.In the fossil record, there's a creature called a dire wolf; it's a megafauna version of a wolf. A prehistoric wolf.
The dire wolf has been in the game pretty much from the start, along with other megafauna, who, like the dire wolf, were referred to by their actual names; things like smilodons, wooley mammoths, and titanotheres.
Those mentioned (smilodon, wooley mammoths, etc.) came to the game fairly late in the show, after 3.5 began and partially due to my own influence (many of them were put into "Frostburn," a book I co-authored). They were even placed under the header "Dire Animals" in that book. And having spoken with the game designers about the philosophy for the original dire animals, I've had that confirmed from the dire horse's mouth.
So I'm pretty sure that the basic idea/theme for the "dire" creature was "prehistoric," not "mutant." At least, at the start. Today, in 4th edition, I'm not sure where that philosophy has evolved to.
I don't like the bony plates on the dire animals either, but it's too late to change that. The only creature it would actually make sense on would be the giant sloth, since they did have bony plates or knobs covering their body.
It's not a big deal, but I prefer that y'all stick to one of the terminologies.
The following are in the Bestiary 2.
Dire Bear
Giant Gar
Megafauna Megatherium (a big sloth)
Behemoth Hippopotamus
This. A thousand times this.
Unless you are going to add a giant dire mega ultra behema-sloth. In which case, nevermind, because that would be teh bombz.
So just so we're clear, no one is going to be running into anything like a Dire Tyrannosaurus Rex or a Dire Triceratops? :P