Bearing It All

Our free 3D-print Wandering Monster tables have been a big hit, so we thought it would be a good idea to occasionally sprinkle in some new entries so you can swap out used monsters for new ones and keep your d20 DM roll intact! Let’s see what’s trying to devour your party today!

As we mentioned the other day, each Wandering Monster Table (Wilderness or Dungeon) has a straightforward trigger mechanism. Players request a long rest. Everyone rolls a d6. Any result of six means a roll on the table below. Twenty entries on each table was a logical number but what happens after you roll a stampede of Axe Beaks? The DM needs additional new entries to keep the d20 dice relevant. So, with that said, we’ll periodically add some optional replacements.

So, that brings us to this loveable Bear Set by a fav creator of ours, STL Miniatures. You get three mean-a$$ bears in three different strike poses for your next encounter. Details abound in these STLs! They 3D-printed like a dream.

Resident painter Kimmy Utah graced us with her brush strokes once again and we think these furry fellas are absolutely fab. We always ask her to make each monster in a group slightly different so that it’s easy for us to tell which monster is which on the initiative board.

Now, we never ask Kim to do flocked bases for us, so she will do a solid color (to match a dungeon, wilderness, or tavern theme) or a simple paint design to match the motif. The nice thing about Flock is that it can hide some extra glue clomps that help keep our mini in place on its base. We’re also starting to send her some clear bases, which she’ll probably be thrilled about. STL Miniatures, of course, includes slick bases, but we often just keep things simple with generic ones.

It’s a rather straightforward Wilderness Trek Wandering Monster scene here. You could use any of these hooks:

• Players infringed on their turf.
• The Bears smelled food.
• These predators are chasing something else!
• Momma and Poppa Bear lost their cub.

Our favorite DnD audio sound app, Fantasy+ by Monument Studios, doesn’t currently have a Bear sound in its library, so we found one online and simply uploaded it into its slick browser dashboard. Easy peasy.

For their DnD 5e Bear monster stats, the Brown Bear works perfectly: AC 11, HP 34, and multi-attack (+5 bite 1d8+4 and +5 claw 2d6+4). We have a six-member party at level 4, so we’ll probably throw in a fourth bear to make the battle a tad tougher.

DM Ben’s goal in a long rest encounter is simply to interrupt it so that everyone takes one level of exhaustion, and more importantly, they have to wait longer to regain all their HP, powers, and spells.

Now, all we need to do is update our table! DMs can use anything beyond row 20 as replacement options for existing, used-up rows.