If you watched the Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves trailer, you likely spotted the iconic owlbear, a monster that’s been part of D&D since its earliest editions. It's a curious creature that mashes together—you guessed it—a bear with an owl. Though ferocious, these monstrosities can occasionally be trained. They also present Dungeon Masters with interesting opportunities for encounters.
Here’s a look at the owlbear, from their established lore to how to use them in combat. We even discuss whether druids should be allowed to Wild Shape into them.
Owlbear Lore in D&D
The origins of the owlbear are shrouded in mystery. Long-lived elves claim that owlbears have called the Feywild home for ages, while other folk believe owlbears are the result of a wizard’s curious experiments. No one truly knows what is truth and what is myth.
The original concept for the owlbear was created by Gary Gygax, co-creator of D&D. He was inspired by a plastic toy when he created the creature for the game. Today, owlbears are a staple in D&D and can typically be found in forests. They make their homes in ruins or caves. Visit an owlbear in their lair and you may find your bones padding their bed! These vicious carnivores will hunt just about anything.
Although they spend most of their lives alone, owlbears can be found traveling in mated pairs. Once their young hatch (yes, I said hatch!) and are able to care for themselves, however, the pairs will disband.
Owlbear Variants
Fifth edition D&D has a few variants of the owlbear. The snowy owlbear was introduced in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden while the adventure Infernal Machine Rebuild, written for Extra Life, introduced the skeletal owlbear and the two-headed owlbear. Finally, appearing in the Dead in Thay adventure from Tales From the Yawning Portal is the reduced-threat owlbear.
Using an Owlbear in Your Campaign
If you’re a Dungeon Master and want to roleplay through an owlbear encounter, you’re going to need to think like an owlbear.
Owlbears are aggressive, territorial, and direct. They’re likely to attack the first target they spot with their keen senses and only switch targets if someone hits them hard enough to make them mad. An owlbear will likely run if badly wounded. Corner them or threaten their young, though, and you can expect them to fight to the death.
Magically charmed or trained owlbears, of course, may behave less bestially. A standard owlbear has two attacks, one with their beak and another with a claw. These deal piercing and slashing damage, respectively. Their Keen Sight and Smell trait give them advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks requiring either of these senses. That makes it difficult to sneak up on an owlbear—or get past one unnoticed.
Training an Owlbear
Savage companions, owlbears have been trained as mounts, guards, and even bred for competition such as racing.
According to Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos, owlbears learn best by watching their trainers. Want your owlbear to leap through a burning ring? You first! In order to account for their poor disposition, the book recommends that the trainer provide the owlbear with a treat. Muffins and cupcakes can help quiet the creature’s naturally upset digestion.
Can a Druid Turn Into an Owlbear? Yes, With DM Permission!
The trailer for Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves shows off a druid using Wild Shape to turn into an owlbear. A strict application of fifth edition D&D rules, however, would prevent your standard druid from being able to Wild Shape into an owlbear. This is because an owlbear is categorized as a monstrosity—not a beast—and is therefore not a valid option for the class feature.
However, allowing a player to Wild Shape into an owlbear is a totally acceptable judgment call. The owlbear’s stat block isn’t overly better than that of beasts at the same challenge rating. Even then, you may opt to use the stats for the reduced-threat owlbear for the purposes of Wild Shape. So, if a player gets inspired by the movie trailer and asks if they can build an owlbear-focused druid, there’s probably nothing wrong with allowing it.
Michael J. Karr (@mikeyjkarr) is an elvish wizard trapped in the body of a human screenwriter. When they aren't trying to will magic into existence, they're busy creating stories through movie magic. You can often find them traversing the planes with their friends, but barring a very complicated spell of summoning, social media should work just fine.
I can definitely say that these are the face of Dungeons and Dragons
Eh, I feel that the Beholder is a better choice for that role. I mean, the Owlbear is definitley a reconizable D&D monster and is one of the og's.
I guess it's up to debate, 'cause I'm biased towards the Beholder.
really? I couldn't tell from your pfp of a beholder.
Really? I could.
Make owlbears beasts in One D&D!
Guys, the face of D&D is a Dragon. i mean it is called Dungeons and Dragons after all
Should be obvious, but
species*
One of my players is an Owlin druid who favors wildshaping into a bear, after a while I decided to just let him become an owlbear because it was already so fitting!
The party in my campaign were hired to track and kill an especially large owlbear that was leading whatever the collective noun for owlbears is - a sleuth? a parliament? a sleuthiment? - and harrassing local farms. They fought this legendary beast in its lair, triumphing despite tough odds, and then immediately set about finding and smashing any eggs so that the party's druid couldn't add one to her monstrous menagerie.
Fortunately for the druid - who indeed now uses Owlbear as one of her wildshapes - one other PC was willing to support her interests and secured an unbroken egg.
Hoot! Growl! Hoot! Growl! Go Aguefort!
Nice to see some mention of the Druid thing. Since the trailer, I've been wondering if allowing Druids to wildshape into owlbears or similar creatures would create any imbalance.
Mechanically, an owlbear just continues the ursine escalation - black, brown, cave/polar, owl - because it has no supernatural attributes. It's just another bear, with slightly more hit points and stopping power, and the bite reskinned as a beak.
I can't believe I missed 'bearscalation.' So obvious.
I'm Team Ilithid, but I also see a case for the gelatinous cube.
Why do I see kili from the hobbit but black next to the dwarf chest
I don't think the black dragon's breath weapon looks devastating enough
Illithids are sick
species is the term that replaces 'races', not 'beasts'. Although I personally think that it should be lineages or ancestries.
But those are already a type of sub-species, as told I'm VRgtR
*as told in