Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Owlbears and Speak with Animals/ Also Speak with Spider Matriarch

After some research, I found that the vast majority of D&D players agree that an owlbear is not an animal. It is a monstrous beast. Therefore, the majority agrees that Speak with Animals and other animal-related spells should have no effect on owlbears.

This said, I think that it makes more sense to have Potions of Speak Monstrous Beasts (replacing Potions of Speak with Animals) or a magic item of Speak Monstrous Beasts that the player could use to actually have the conversation with the owlbear mother that is currently already in the game. I like the dialogue. It's fun. I don't want to remove it from the game. However, I just think the distinction should be made between animals and monsters. This also gives more value to the Potion. If druids and rangers can't even use their Speak with Animals to speak to creatures like the owlbear, and you can only speak to the owlbear using a Potion of Speak Monstrous Beast (again, replacing Potions of Speak with Animals), then the potion and/or magic item with the same spell has more value. Suddenly, even the ranger and druid might keep the Potion of Speak Monstrous Beasts in their inventory because they know that the only way to talk to the owlbear and/or the Spider Matriarch and/or the Spiders in the Goblin Camp pit, is with said potions.

SPOILERS!!! Speaking of this, I think some work needs to be done so that the players can actually talk to the Spider Matriarch. I had this idea that my Llothsworn Drow Battlemaster would actually want to try to be friends with the Spider Matriarch as opposed to fighting her and trying to kill her. So, again, it would be awesome if there was some way for PCs to gain the ability to Speak with Monsters or whatever they want to call it. Then, as my Drow makes her way through the spider's lair, maybe she could talk with the Spider Queen and her minions rather than fighting them. After all, isn't the Spider Matriarch a follower of Lloth? Therefore, shouldn't they be allies?

Tbh, I am fine with Speak with Animals working mainly because we don't have a native "Speak with Monstrosities" spell or effect.

That said, I wouldn't mind things changing and it not working, but I am not sure if a potion is the best solution. I do think it should absolutely be an option, but I am trying to think if there are any spells or effects that would allow communication with the owlbear?

Also it is very possible rule of cool overrides here, because it isn't uncommon for a DM to bend the rules like this to enable an interaction, which I can be fine with as long as it is consistent in regards to owlbears and is not a complete break expanding to other things (in other words, Speak with Animals should not let us talk to elementals or wyverns...)

In one old interview Swen litteraly tells us that they know that Owlbear is a monstrosity ... but they just decided to bend the rule, in that particular situation, bcs that opourtunity was simply too sweet to miss.
And honestly im with him in this one.

About Spider matriarch ...
Im not quite sure about minions, but herself i would LOVE to talk!
Yet im not quite sure if being Lolthsworn is enough to be honest ... i mean yes, her domain are spiders, but those are not regular spiders, they after all are not even from this dimension. O_o
I kinda expected it to be possible with my druid turned into a spider, since in Patch 4 release Panel from Hells ... we have seen a small video, where spider was runing around that particular cave, and nobody attacked it ... and that dude in Druid dress specificly told us that one of benefits of Wild Shape is that animals concider us to be one of them, as far as i remember he said (only paraphrasing) "spider will not attack you when turned into spider" ...
Yet for some reaspon i never managed to talk with any of them.
Even if that talk would be just: "You smell different, you are food, not brood!" i would be satisfied.

Technically, if Telepathy or such is implemented and it is true that the Spider used to be someone, then the spider would know languages and thus would be a target for telepathy and conversation. Which could be a cool implementation of Telepathy, that is giving us the ability to talk to things that normally can not speak but can understand common.

The owlbear and her baby are too adorable. I want to hug them both - DnD monstrosity rules be damned. :P

You will be adorable pile of flesh and bones.

Lol. I reloaded the Owlbear Cave WAY too many times trying to save the mother Owlbear with every character I had, before accepting reality.
At least I can hug the owlbear cub.
Before it grows up and probably eats me.

Ok. Rules aside. I want them to make the owlbear, cub or mom or both, an animal companion for druids and/or rangers...and more importantly, a mount. 😄

If hobgoblins can tame them and make them mounts, why can't we?

I kinda want the cub to become a non origin companion in the vein of Wilson from BG2. Could be custom or could theoretically be given a class and locked to say Barbarian so it follows player rules.

Doesn't the spell require animals to be able to communicate verbally? As far as I know, spiders are unable to talk to each other using sound.

With that order of words I would conclude that It does require you to be able to communicate verbally in general and the animal to be able to hear you. But it says nothing about the animal's ability to communicate verbally within its kind. Otherwise the spell would be quite useless, since all animals rely heavily on other ways of communication than verbal.
Plus there are other spiders in the game, with whom you can talk. So the matriarch looks more like an oversight than a design decision.