this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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To be fair if you don't make it clear to the party that they can't take the creature or some other kind of warning there's no way for them to know if they can handle it without metagaming.
I the player know a level 2 can't take on a giant, but does my character know that
If you're playing a character that foolhardy to see a creature anywhere from 2x to 10x their size and think tbey can fight it, then let them die. It's not metagaming to see something large and make the reasonable assumption that it could crush you.
Can you beat an orca in a fight? How can you assume that without metagame knowledge of its stats?
Edit: quite a few people have very low opinions of a reasonable person's self-preservation instincts. Or assume every PC is the type of internet person that says they could fight a lion mano-a-mano.
If I was a magic robot that could throw fireballs or kill something by simply touching it IRL, probably.
You are making the mistake of setting your fantasy character up against a normal animal.
You as a real life human would be fighting the orka, not your fantasy character. They would be fighting a Chimera. Which can do all those things you mentioned as well.
And if you think your fantasy character can beat a Chimera with their weapons and magic, that would be the same as you thinking you can beat an orka with your bare hands.
Unless you are some elite high level special ops in the military, you will not win against an orka.
Let's say as a party you've taken down a few monsters already. Without knowing the proportional strength of a chimera to the monsters you've already faced how would you know?
Like let's say I did kill an Orca on my own. Then I see a polar bear, the Orca was a lot bigger so seems reasonable.
Now living in the age of technology, not a fantasy setting, I personally know that a polar bear would be a lot harder to beat. But how's an adventurer supposed to know that? They don't have wikipedia and national geographic in most fantasy settings. It's not unreasonable to believe when encountering a creature that no one in the party is familiar with it at all.