Large beast, unaligned · CR 4 · new in the 2024 rules (SRD 5.2)
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 (+5) | 7 (-2) | 15 (+2) | 2 (-4) | 12 (+1) | 4 (-3) |
Hold Breath. The hippopotamus can hold its breath for 10 minutes.
Multiattack. The hippopotamus makes two Bite attacks.
Bite. Melee Attack Roll: +7, reach 5 ft. Hit: 16 (2d10 + 5) Piercing damage.
The hippopotamus isn’t in the 2014 SRD 5.1; this is its stat block from the SRD 5.2.
A hippopotamus is worth 1,100 XP. Using the 2024 encounter budgets (SRD 5.2), this is how many hippopotamuses fit each difficulty for a party of four characters of the same level. A dash means even one would be over the budget.
| Party level | Low | Moderate | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3rd | — | — | 1 |
| 4th | — | 1 | 1 |
| 5th | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| 6th | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 7th | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| 8th | 3 | 6 | 7 |
| 9th | 4 | 7 | 9 |
| 10th | 5 | 8 | 11 |
| 11th | 6 | 10 | 12+ |
| 12th | 8 | 12+ | 12+ |
| 13th | 9 | 12+ | 12+ |
| 14th | 10 | 12+ | 12+ |
| 15th | 12 | 12+ | 12+ |
Budgets add up every monster’s XP, so you can swap some for other creatures of the same total. Try other party sizes and mixes in the encounter calculator.
Against the 15 other challenge 4 monsters in the SRD 5.1, the hippopotamus has more hit points than 7 of them, which makes it a little frailer than most at its CR. See every CR 4 monster.
| Statistic | Hippopotamus | CR 4 average |
|---|---|---|
| Armor Class | 14 | 12.7 |
| Hit points | 82 | 88 |
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