#dire ape

[dwollsadventures]

Daily D&D Monster: Dire Ape

And we've gotten to the dire animals! I'm a bit curious about Dungeon and Dragon's use of 'dire' since from what I've seen it basically means a bigger version of a normal animal. Some entries use extinct species to differentiate them from the giant animals category, but end up just being bigger versions of the animals. The definition for dire animals I'm using is similar to the dinosaurs we did previously: extinct animals that appeared suddenly because magic and adapted to the current environment. However, whereas the dinosaurs showed up relatively recently, the dire animals have been around for thousands of years. Because of this civilizations mistook them for monstrous versions of normal animals, even if they're entirely unrelated. Archaeoindris is the first of these, confusing the hell out of people since 2500 BC.

[critrolestats]

Monster Analysis: Dire Ape

The dire ape was just a corpse by the time Vox Machina got to it (killed by Aldor’s party, presumably eaten by the hydra), but in the interest of logging ALL creatures in the world of Critical Role, we’ve logged the stats of the textbook ape, then customized them to make them DIRE. Edit: @thebidbagboogie reminded us that Giant Ape is in the MM, negating the need for custom stats. Here’s the stats for Giant Ape, compared next to that of a standard ape. Thanks!

First Appearance: 17 Hubris

Armor Class 13 (12 for ape)

Speed 40 ft, Climb 40 ft (30 ft, 30 ft climb for ape)

Giant Ape Multiattack: (3d10+6)x2 bludgeoning

Ape Multiattack: (1d6+3)x2 bludgeoning

Giant Ape Average/Max HP: 30, 48

Ape Average/Max HP: 19, 30