Last time we talked about this issue, it was all the way back at Handbook of Heroes #1. Taking your horse into a dungeon still prompts debate, but I think there’s a separate class of animal husbandry problems that crop up when you deal with huge-sized critters.

Whether you’ve got an elephant, an allosaurus, or a baluchitherium on staff, you’ve got some real mechanical headaches coming your way when you go adventuring with Dumbo. First of all you’ve got to dust off the old squeezing rules. Then you’ve got to remember how trample and overrun work. How big can you be if you want to occupy your oversize ally’s space? How do you count a mounted combatant’s reach? What do howdahs do again?

And let’s not even get started on the weirdness of large creatures getting pinned into tight spaces. If I had a nickle for every time I’ve seen the party arranged on the grid such that my poor dragons can’t take a legal move, I’d have like, three or four nickles. Shit comes up is what I’m saying.

But worse than the mechanics is the fictional chore list. Feeding your fantasy SUV is a constant drain on the GP. Not to mention the hassle of finding reliable stabling. Then there’s the collateral damage if it gets spooked in a thunder storm. The difficulty of travel via vehicles. The enormous poo-bags you have to carry on walks. It all adds up to a pain-in-the-butt that the mammoth rider prestige class can’t quite make up for.

So for our question of the day, what do you say we compare notes on the big fat beasts in our lives? How do you handle uncomfortably large minis on the battle mat? How about the logistics of big critters in town or down in the dungeon? Sound of with your strategies for handling inconveniently enormous mounts, animal companions, and monsters down in the comments!

THIS COMIC SUCKS! IT NEEDS MORE [INSERT OPINION HERE] Is your favorite class missing from the Handbook of Heroes? Maybe you want to see more dragonborn or aarakocra? Then check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. You’ll become part of the monthly vote to see which elements get featured in the comic next!