Any ideas for creating a were-elephant?  I had a player determined to buy an elephant.  I let him roll to see if he could navigate the troll marshes with the beast.  He failed with a 4.  My next adventure is with werewolves.  I want to make the lost elephant the big bad's mount.  I'm taking liberties with werewolf lore in this story.  forgive me. 

that would be cool but i don't think elephants would use a trunk for combat because there trunks would be bad at grabbing a creature

Quote from KheldarG >>

Why doesn't the elephant have a grapple, or any trunk attack? Any include it in their game?

I do think an Intelligence of 5 or even 6 is justifiable, but the base elephant is also a 3, which I also dislike. If we consider the ape to have an Int of 6 and they can have conversations in sign language then maybe a 4?'

D&D doesn't attempt to model animal intelligence in a realistically meaningful way. For that matter, D&D doesn't model animals in a realistically meaningful fashion at all; the game has always made monsters outshine natural animals, and that's not necessarily wrong, it's a design choice. Unfortunately, that means the actual abilities of animals are hilariously nerfed - but within the context of a fantasy game, maybe that's OK. Out-wrestling bears and gorillas, fighting packs of tigers; these are the stuff of D&D.

The jumping rules mean with a 10-foot running start, an elephant can high jump 9 feet and long jump 22 feet, in case you want an elephant to squash or cannonball the party

i think its actually a disadvantage bc a lot of spells only work with shared language

Needs more intelligence. Right now it's only slightly smarter than an Ochre Jelly, and that doesn't feel right

Also you are more likely to be able to find a horse than an elephant

elephants are smarter than some people i know