Scenario: A party of 8 is travelling through a swamp and are surprise attacked by a group of desperately hungry giant frogs. There are 3 small characters in the party and there are 2 medium size frogs and 5 small size frogs. The small frogs have a higher initiative score than the medium size frogs.
Given that the frogs have an intelligence score of 1 I believe they would be largely instinctual, to that end:
Q1: Would the small frogs wait for the 2 larger frogs or go as soon as they saw an opportunity?
- Is there dominance in the frog family/army?
- Would the ambush be triggered as soon as one party member was in range or would they wait?
Q2: How would you decide which frog attacked which party member?
- Would larger frogs attack the same target as smaller frogs?
- Would smaller frogs attack the same target?
- Would a weaker frog (size then HP to determine) cede prey to a larger frog, or would they attack together or would they fight each other for the prey?
Q3: If a party member that was too big to be swallowed whole was killed what would the frog do?
- Would it leave it's meal and attack a new one or consume it's prey there and then or drag it's meal to a safe distance and then eat it?
Q4: How would you adjudicate it eating a creature it couldn't swallow whole?
- I would take biting off and swallowing a chunk as a full round action similar to a coup de grace and provoking AoO from others. A small frog could bite a tiny chunk, with there being 2 tiny chunks to one small chunk and two small chunks to a medium chunk.
Q5: What would other frogs do if one was eating a meal that was too big for it?
- Would they try and take the whole meal for themselves or would they share?
- Would they disengage from their current target to eat the easy meal?
- If they have already eaten would they keep eating new prey?
Q6: What would change if frogs were vermin, with an intelligence of 0 instead of animals?
Q1 - Frogs will be frogs, no matter their size. Any frog will attempt to grab and swallow whatever looks like a nice morsel of food within their reach. In general I would expect frogs to wait until they are able to easily snatch their prey, which would probably mean not at their extreme range but before they are spotted.
Q2 - See Q1. Each frog will go for the closest possible meal.
Q3 - See Q1. Each frog will go for the closest possible meal. They would not ignore a meal just because it stopped moving a couple seconds ago.
Q4 - Frogs don't generally bit off chunks of their prey. They are very much a "swallow whole" sort of creature. Their mouths are huge so they can swallow meals their size. I've seen actual frogs die trying to swallow snakes that are too big to swallow. If there is a swallow whole option available, that's what the frog will go for. If they have to gang up on a larger target they will, I suppose, eventually pull off chunks, but that would be after it's dead.
Q5 - Frogs don't share. Not intentionally.
- See Q1 - they will go for whatever they can swallow
- If they have room in their gut, they'll swallow again.
Q6 - Well, they wouldn't be frogs then.
Just in general frogs are among the most voracious and opportunistic predators on the planet. They will attempt to swallow just about anything that their tiny brains identifies as potential prey.
To the OP- Are the giant frogs hunters? Then they'd have hunters instincts. Going for the weak, last in the pack, etc. Otherwise, they're going to attack whatever's nearest and small.
In reply to Timothy Hanson- This opens up an entirely different avenue. The encounter could be played for comedic affect.
"You're being attacked by giant frogs!"
"Ack!"
"The Frogs attack with their tongues! They... steal your rations!"
"...what?"
"The Frogs attack again! They attempt to swallow the druid's wolf whole!" *Rolls* "The wolf makes it's reflex! They are now chasing the wolf around the swamp!"
*Que one stealthed frog that sneaks up behind the smallest member of the party and attempts to swallow him. The party looks back to see him bent over with his head in a frog's mouth, but otherwise unharmed.*
My take is that any of the frogs would attack the first character that came into range.
The best way to play it would probably be as if it were a minefield; to have one character attacked, then as the rest of the PCs moved to help have the other frogs attack as the characters came into their personal attack range.
Unfortunately I think you are looking for realism and will stumble across two problems.
1) I am pretty sure real frogs are not like this at all.
Well, having hunted and gigged frogs, the way I describe them is how the ones I used to hunt behave.
2) If they were that hungry the larger frogs would just eat the smaller frogs.
In my experience frogs of the same species typically don't eat each other, but bullfrogs would eat any other frog that hopped by.
Thanks for the feedback so far. The encounter is based on a memorable 1e encounter that I've converted into Pathfinder and a general interest in trying to play different creature types differently so that encounters are more interesting.
From what I'm getting so far it seems to be the popular opinion that although they are together, each will attack from ambush when prey is in their range. If nothing is in range they will wait until something is.
Prey is defined as something it can swallow whole, so whilst a medium frog might wait for a small creature to be in range, the small frogs would try and steal items off of the characters and eat those and they will keep eating until there is nothing left.
Hugo, yeah, basically, except it is not beyond the realm of possibility for a small frog to try to eat a small creature, especially if the creature is a small, small creature. (Halfling vs gnome, for example).
And even if they can't successfully swallow one, they might grapple it for a few rounds TRYING to swallow one.