Hi,
I am currently running a game where one of my PCs has a medium Triceratops as an animal companion. I have looked over the starting statistics and I can only find the creatures weight as a full sized 20,000 pound animal. The full sized creature is category huge. What would a medium one weigh? I ask this because this could be a problem when dealing with any kind of hazard, that weight and size would be a challenge.
Generally speaking as a creature grows in size from one size category to the next its size doubles and its weight increases by 8 (2x2x2).Check out enlarge/reduce person and animal groweth. Working backwards 2 size categories i would say its weight is reduced by a factor of 64 (divide by 8 twice)
Thats a ballpark figure of a 300-350 pound medium animal, still pretty heavy, but thats a lot of muscle and bony armour.
Generally speaking as a creature grows in size from one size category to the next its size doubles and its weight increases by 8 (2x2x2).Check out enlarge/reduce person and animal groweth. Working backwards 2 size categories i would say its weight is reduced by a factor of 64 (divide by 8 twice)
Thats a ballpark figure of a 300-350 pound medium animal, still pretty heavy, but thats a lot of muscle and bony armour.
Thanks, that math helps a lot and looks correct.
I would suggest to make it a bit heavier than that, and have it increase in size (within the medium category) over time. This way you can prepare it for level 7 when it otherwise becomes medium and weighs 2500 lbs.
It might be too detailed to be to your liking though.
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I also refer to the text from Enlarge and Reduce Person. It's not a perfect solution for everything, though. The gargantuan T-Rex, for example, weighs less than the huge Triceratops, which makes for some wonky weights when you have a medium-sized T-Rex companion.
If it helps, you could go off of the 3.5 rules for average weight by size. A medium creature might range anywhere from 60-500 lbs, so the weight Apraham listed would work just fine. Large creatures ranged anywhere from 500-4000 lbs, and small anywhere from 8-60 lbs.
I guess a triceratops is very bulky for its size. 300 pounds is definitely heavy for a medium animal. A mini T-Rex probably has a much lighter (bird-like?) build.
"That doesn't look very scary. More like a six-foot turkey."
LoL, I think selecting a ginormous creature as a companion has some advantages, but defiantly should come with a lot of problems. I can see something like a triceratops having problems with “how do we get it down the cliff, and better yet how in heck do we get it up the cliff. Will it fit on the elevator lift, or even down the five foot corridor? For those who want the T-rex companion, what in the heck are you going to feed it every day? This should be a problem with any large animal. Was a cool idea, but comes with problems of upkeep.
Why is everybody always worrying about how to get down from a height.
Just jump and you will be down in no time .... really .... some people.
BTW did you hear that triceratops where in fact the baby form of one another dinosaur the torosaurus and did not exist as a spiecies. But the archeologist where kind with triceratops lovers and rename the adult one into triceratops instead of the other way...
it was the useless fact of the day
Its not useless, they already took little foot(not a real species) away from us, petrie isnt a dinosaur(flying reptile), now they are going after Cera!
(I tease my girlfriend about this all the time, as she went to school for paleontology, and was the one to tell me about the triceratops being a juvenile Taurasaur)
I'm still sulking at losing the Brontosaurus....
BTW did you hear that triceratops where in fact the baby form of one another dinosaur the torosaurus and did not exist as a spiecies. But the archeologist where kind with triceratops lovers and rename the adult one into triceratops instead of the other way...
it was the useless fact of the day
Actually the Triceratops was identified two years prior to the Torosaurus, so you might argue that it is the correct name.
On top of this, the is considerable disagreement on whether or not they are the same.