Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast.

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Tigers are real animals and have been part of the game since its beginnings. They’re some of the only animals whose “mundane” version was considered worthy of a monster stat block at this point in the edition.

The Lore

The book describes tigers as powerful and cunning predators that can be found in “rugged natural environments”. Let’s elaborate on that a bit, shall we?

According to Wikipedia “rugged natural environments” means mostly flat or hilly forests, but those can range from cold Siberian taigas to temperate forests to tropical jungles. A tiger requires a large amount of territory, which allows it to range far and hunt its prey (usually large herbivores). Tigers are “solitary but social”: they hunt alone but might nest together, with their range areas overlapping.

The Monster Manual 2 does add a bit of interesting fantastic lore by saying tigers are sometimes domesticated by ogres of all people to serve as guard and hunting animals.

A wild D&D tiger is not shy about including adventurers in its menu. If they run across a battle while hunting, they might stalk its edges and pounce on any combatant that gets separated from the rest.

Dire tigers are as usual larger, stronger and spikier. They’re bolder and less opportunistic, directly stalking prey that seems to be alone and weaker than them. Their behavior is a lot closer to that of the tiger in The Jungle Book than that of a real-world animal.

The Numbers

Both mundane and dire tigers are Large Natural Beasts with low-light vision, a ground speed of 8, and a climb speed of 4. Their signature ability is Feral Surge, an encounter power that allows them to take a move action as a minor action.

Tiger

“Mundane” tigers are Level 6 Skirmishers with 73 HP. Their basic attack is a bite that does immediate and ongoing damage.

During a fight, the tiger always wants to be moving and charging, as being on the move makes it much more dangerous. If forced to choose between a static fight and running away, it will likely take the second option every time.

The traits that make it want to move are Blur of Fur, which gives it +4 AC against opportunity attacks in any turn where it moves 2 or more squares; and Charging Pounce, which gives it bonus damage on charge attacks and makes it so charging doesn’t end its turn. So it could use its standard action to charge, and then either a move action or Feral Surge to move away immediately.

Dire Tiger

Dire Tigers are Level 8 Soldiers with 89 HP. Their bites are stronger, and they’re much more likely to accept the challenge of a stand-up fight. Even then they’ll try to single out the weakest available target and kill it first.

Hunter’s Instinct is an ability that helps then with that. It works exactly like the Hunter’s Quarry ability of a PC ranger. The tiger spends a minor action to make the nearest enemy its quarry, which lasts until the end of the encounter or until it uses this ability again. The quarry takes extra damage from all of the tiger’s attacks.

The dire tiger can also use a Leaping Pounce as a reaction whenever its quarry is within 5 squares. It allows the creature to shift to a space adjacent to the quarry and bite it. Since this is a leap, the tiger can cross enemy spaces during the shift.

Marking the right quarry requires some clever positioning, but once that happens it will be hard for the other players to protect the victim from the tiger’s leaps.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

These tigers have some cool mechanics to them, which is better than the generic bags of HP I remember them being in previous editions. They also feel pretty different from each other! I still would hesitate a bit before placing wild tigers as opposition to my PCs, what with them being endangered in reality and all.

We have two sample encounters here:

  • Level 7: A couple of ogre savages taking their two pet tigers and their pet macetail behemoth out for a stroll. Shrek and Fiona?

  • A weretiger running with a pack/harem of three dire tigers. The fact that you have tigers running in packs should be a hint that there’s something unnatural going on.