One thing that I absolutely love as a gamer and a game master is finding inspiration in the oddest places. Last night was a perfect example of one such instance as I stumbled on an owlbear out in a monster hunter style game.
So last night I was hanging out in Twitch watching an awesome streamer and gamer that goes by the name of Zippy_Zippo on Twitch and @gamingdotEXP on Twitter. Well, Zippy was playing the Beata of Dauntless when I swung by to hang out and watch their stream. It turns out Dauntless is an MMO Monster hunter Style game.
This caught my interest as I love some of the conversions I have seen for monster hunter out there for D&D. Zippy comments that he is going to join a group and go on a Shrike hunt. This did not really get my attention as I had no idea what a Shrike was in the game. Moments later he and the group of players round a corner and there it is the Shrike… Yet to my surprise I have known it by an entirely different name for the last 30 years.
The Owlbear!
At this point I am paying full attention as this party of four is locked in combat with a HUGE owlbear. I am loving the encounter and right at that moment when it seems that the battle will turn out to be nothing more than four players dancing around in a claw, claw bite fest to the death… the owlbear does something surprising. Something that over the years once or twice I have considered doing in my encounters as a DM. The Owlbear Stood on its hind legs let out a mighty flap of its wings and took to the air.
Instantly I thought to myself.. that would be an AWESOME Legendary Actions! As the battle continued I penciled in some of its other attacks and came up with what I would love to share with you all today that I think would make for an enjoyable Legendary Owlbear encounter.
So here ya go, I hope ya all enjoy it! Please let me know if you decide to use it in any of your 5E games. (Note: I literally pulled all of this info from watching this battle. I just used my understanding of D&D to translate this into a fun game mechanic that I hope you enjoy. I am not claiming this as my idea lol)
My intent was to make a cool slightly more difficult alpha version of an owlbear. I did not want to create a crazy CR 15 monster. Just something with a few legendary ticks up his sleeve to surprise a party.
SO there you go! Please feel free to let me know what you think about it? Or if you have any other comments about it. I slapped him up on D&D Beyond for any of you that have D&DB and would like to add this to your own homebrew collection.
Until next time!
If you enjoy my work and would like to see more of it!
Runkle Plays Games 
Cool!
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Used it and loved it, thanks man.
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