Simbo

This entry is different than the phb. The phb says, for the pounce feature, "If the lion moves at least 20 feet straight toward a target right before hitting it with a claw attack, the target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone."

🦁

Quote from innerbeard >>

This entry is different than the phb. The phb says, for the pounce feature, "If the lion moves at least 20 feet straight toward a target right before hitting it with a claw attack, the target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone."

Looks like the MM changed the wording for creatures' pounce and charge features from "right before hitting" to "on the same turn." Ideally we would see the PHB updated via errata to match the MM, but that may or may not ever happen.

Say a lion was awakened, and a player wanted to play it, could we assume that if it took the standard array for Ability scores that they get a +2 STR and a +1 DEX? Also, since they're technically a 4th level character, would they get the 4th level ASI upon being awakened?

Quote from Falimore >>

Say a lion was awakened, and a player wanted to play it, could we assume that if it took the standard array for Ability scores that they get a +2 STR and a +1 DEX? Also, since they're technically a 4th level character, would they get the 4th level ASI upon being awakened?

You would have to homebrew a lion race. The racial ASI's sound good, but you'd need to come up with something to beef up their other racial abilities in order to bring them up to the power scale of other races. I wouldn't instantly make them a level 4 character though.

Alternatively, you could just use the tabaxi race for mechanics and flavor it as a tabaxi that was not born into a humanoid form (or something to that effect). Then if you want to modify the racial ability score increases to be strength/dex, you could do that too.

That said, playing as a lion will have some pretty limiting playstyle choices for the player. Such as not being able to choose classes that have spellcasting and not being able to wield weapons. On top of not having a language.

Why is a Lion a CR 1, while elephants, their natural prey, is CR 5?

Quote from Starzone >>

Why is a Lion a CR 1, while elephants, their natural prey, is CR 5?

 Because Lions do not hunt elephants alone. 1v1 a lion stands no chance against an elephant. 

A pack of lions, on the other hand, can handle it. 

The only thing i'm sad about is that lions are not even proficient in intimidation skill. They should be, or even Expert in it, to account for their roar. 

Quote from Starzone >>

Why is a Lion a CR 1, while elephants, their natural prey, is CR 5?

 pack tactics

I think a lion should have a climb speed because, brown bears have a climb speed, and lions have higher DEX, and they are both size large.

Ridable.

"Fetch the lion barding."

big kitty

Lions aren't particularly proficient at climbing irl, even though they are capable of it (like humans, and the human race has no climbing speed). Brown bears, on the other hand, are quite good at climbing irl. This is likely due to the differences in habitat, as the lion doesn't have much reason to excel at climbing in the savanna, whereas the brown bear in the woods has reason to learn to climb. Also, brown bears have a higher STR, which is probably more applicable than DEX when it comes to climbing, at least for a Large, heavy animal.

Honestly, brown bears are quite scary and powerful, and in real life instances of head-on fights between a brown bear and a lion, the brown bear usually wins (the lion may be a better predator, but it gets a lot of advantages from being good at ambush, and those can't be used in a head-on fight). These fights (probably) only happen in zoos or circuses, since they don't naturally live near each other. It's rare, but it's happened before.

They make great pets if you can tame one.

Never mind a pride they need 20+ lions to kill a subadult elephant and a full-grown adult is well above their pay grade unless very ill. To the lions credit 2 lionesses or one male can kill a young calf but the fact that a child can't be killed by a lone lioness is telling. 

This has happened as their ranges used to overlap in the ice age. Europe had lions and still has brown bears (just far fewer of them). North Africa had the atlas bear and barbary lion (both extinct) and north America had their own lion now extinct. The only places where these species may meet in the wild today are in the middle east with the Syrian brown bear and very rare lions of the region and if stretching it the lions of Gur forest in India do cohabitate with sloth bears and tigers. 

Pack tactics 

Me like lions

No darkvision. Confused.

Why have separate stats for a lion and a tiger and not have separate stats for jaguars cougars and leopards