Giant Eagle 5e: Stats, Riding Rules and the 2024 Celestial Eagle

A giant eagle is a CR 1 Large creature with AC 13, 26 hit points, a 10-foot walking speed and an 80-foot fly speed. It's intelligent (Intelligence 8), neutral good, understands Common, and is big enough to carry a Medium rider. In a fight it makes two attacks for about 16 damage if both hit. The 2024 rules change what it is: the giant eagle is now a Celestial, not a Beast, with resistance to necrotic and radiant damage and radiant damage on its Rend attacks. That one change decides whether a druid can turn into one, whether Polymorph works, and which spells can charm it.

Table of Contents

• •Giant Eagle Stat Block (2014)
• •The 2024 Giant Eagle Is a Celestial
• •Riding a Giant Eagle
• •How Giant Eagles Fight
• •Running a Giant Eagle Encounter
• •How Players Beat Giant Eagles
• •Wild Shape, Polymorph and Conjure Animals
• •Giant Eagle Encounter Ideas
• •Frequently Asked Questions

Giant Eagle Stat Block (2014)

This is the 2014 giant eagle from SRD 5.1, a Large Beast.

The numbers that matter most are the speeds. Fly 80 feet matches a griffon, beats a hippogriff's 60, and is more than twice a human's walking speed. Walk 10 feet means an eagle on the ground is nearly helpless. Everything about using one, as an ally or an enemy, comes back to keeping it in the air.

Keen Sight gives it Advantage on sight-based Perception checks. With Perception +4, that's a passive Perception of 19 for spotting things (passive scores get +5 with Advantage). It's the best lookout a low-level party can get.

It speaks its own language (Giant Eagle) and understands Common and Auran but can't speak them. It can follow your plan; it can't tell you what it saw unless someone speaks its language.

The 2024 Giant Eagle Is a Celestial

The 2024 giant eagle (SRD 5.2.1) keeps the AC, hit points, speeds, ability scores, alignment, CR and XP.

The damage is the same on paper, but the type changed. Part of every hit is radiant, which matters against creatures that resist slashing but not radiant. Necrotic resistance makes it a good ally against undead.

The type change is the bigger deal. Rules that care about Beasts no longer touch it, and rules that care about Celestials now do:

• •Animal Friendship and Dominate Beast target Beasts only in 2024, so they fail. (In 2014, Animal Friendship also fails, because the eagle's Intelligence is 4 or higher.)
• •Speak with Animals lets you talk to Beasts. It works on a 2014 eagle, not a 2024 one. To hear a 2024 eagle's answer, someone needs to speak Celestial.
• •Detect Evil and Good senses Celestials, so a 2024 eagle shows up on it.
• •Wild Shape and Polymorph only produce Beast forms, so the 2024 eagle is off the list (more below).

Riding a Giant Eagle

A giant eagle is the classic low-level flying mount, and both rulesets support it with a few catches.

Who can ride. A mount must be at least one size larger than its rider, so a Large eagle carries Small and Medium creatures. Its carrying capacity is 480 pounds in both editions (Strength 16 × 15, doubled for Large), which covers any Medium character with gear.

Getting on. Mounting or dismounting costs half your Speed, once during your move.

Controlled or independent. You can only control a mount that's trained to accept a rider. A controlled mount takes your initiative and can only Dash, Disengage or Dodge. A giant eagle is a free, intelligent creature that agrees to carry you, which makes it an independent mount: it keeps its own place in initiative and acts as it chooses. (The 2014 rules say outright that intelligent creatures act independently.) That's good news at the table. An independent eagle still makes its two attacks on its own turn.

What independence costs. The eagle moves on its turn, not yours. You can't fly 40 feet, attack, and fly 40 feet back in your own turn. Plan the route with the eagle's player (or the DM) before initiative.

Opportunity attacks. The giant eagle has no Flyby trait. If it flies out of an enemy's reach, it provokes an opportunity attack. In the 2014 rules the attacker can choose to hit the rider or the mount.

Falling. This is the risk players forget. A flying creature that can't hover falls if it's knocked Prone or has its Speed reduced to 0, and in 2024 also if it's Incapacitated. The eagle can't hover. A falling creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning per 10 feet, up to 20d6. At 100 feet up, the eagle and its rider each take about 35 damage on landing. The eagle has 26 hit points, so a Fireball (8d6, 28 on average) that fails its save also brings the rider down with it.

Rules of thumb for eagle travel:

• •Fly low over the battlefield and high over the journey. Thirty feet up is 3d6 if things go wrong; 200 feet up is 20d6.
• •Have a backup for a fall (a Feather Fall caster, or a rule that nobody flies over the enemy army).
• •For overland trips, use the travel time calculator with the eagle's 80-foot speed to plan distance.

How Giant Eagles Fight

Giant eagles are neutral good, so they rarely start fights. When they do fight, it's because something threatened their nest, their territory, or their friends.

Damage per round. Against AC 16, the eagle's +5 hits on an 11 or higher, 50% of the time. Two attacks averaging 8 each mean about 8 damage a round. It's a CR 1 creature: it can take down a wolf or a goblin, not an ogre.

Hit and climb. An eagle's best pattern is to dive, attack, and climb back out of reach. Without Flyby it takes one opportunity attack when it leaves, so smart eagles attack targets that can't make good opportunity attacks (casters, archers) or that are busy with someone else.

End the turn high. A creature 40 or more feet above the ground can't be hit by most melee attacks. Make the party use bows, spells and javelins. With 26 hit points and AC 13, a few ranged hits drop an eagle fast, so a flock should spread out.

Fight as a team. A flock of three or four eagles targets one creature at a time. Two eagles diving at the same wolf have a better chance of finishing it before it bites back.

Run when hurt. At about 10 hit points an eagle flies away at 80 feet a turn. Nothing on the ground catches it.

Running a Giant Eagle Encounter

A giant eagle is 200 XP. Using the 2024 per-character budgets for four characters:

Our encounter difficulty calculator applies the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide guidelines: two eagles against four level 2 characters are 600 adjusted XP with the ×1.5 multiplier, which is Hard, and three eagles become 1,200 adjusted XP, past the 800 Deadly threshold.

The XP math misses two things. Flyers that end their turns 40 feet up shut out the party's melee characters entirely, and eagles that run at low hit points don't die, so the fight can end with no XP-worthy kill at all.

Most of the time a giant eagle encounter shouldn't be a fight:

• •As allies. Eagles who owe the party a favor (or hate the same orcs) can carry them past a ravine, scout a valley, or fly a message to a distant ally.
• •As a test. Eagles guard their eyries fiercely. A party that climbs to a nest uninvited should get a warning first, then a fight.
• •As a reward. An eagle that agrees to be someone's mount is a big change to a low-level game. It makes walls, rivers and chasms irrelevant. Decide in advance where it won't go and how long it will stay.

How Players Beat Giant Eagles

The eagle has no saving throw proficiencies: Strength +3, Dexterity +3, Constitution +1, Intelligence −1, Wisdom +2, Charisma +0.

• •Ground it. A flying eagle that is knocked Prone falls. Command's "Grovel" does it on a failed Wisdom save, and a 2014 eagle understands Common, so the language requirement is met. Under the 2024 rules Command has no language requirement at all.
• •Ranged attacks. AC 13 and 26 hit points is fragile. Two or three solid arrow hits or a Magic Missile at 2nd level (four darts, about 14 damage) drop an eagle to half.
• •Area spells over the flock. Shatter and Fireball both target Constitution or Dexterity saves the eagle makes at +1 or +3. A clustered flock loses most of its hit points to one spell.
• •Talk. Every giant eagle understands Common. They're good-aligned and clever. A party that explains itself, or offers to deal with whatever is threatening the nest, often doesn't need to fight at all.
• •Know your edition before casting charms. Animal Friendship never works on a giant eagle. Dominate Beast works on the 2014 eagle only. Charm Person needs a Humanoid, so it fails in both.

Wild Shape, Polymorph and Conjure Animals

The giant eagle is the best-known flying Beast form in 2014 D&D, and the 2024 type change removes it from every one of these lists.

Under 2014 rules, Polymorph on a willing ally is a strong escape plan: the ally becomes a giant eagle with 26 hit points and an 80-foot fly speed and can carry one Medium friend. Under 2024 rules the same trick needs a real Beast with a fly speed. For druids, the 2024 SRD lets you pick Beast forms from other sources with the DM's permission. The giant owl made the same switch as the eagle: a Beast in 2014, a Celestial in 2024.

Giant Eagle Encounter Ideas

The broken wing. The party finds a giant eagle on the ground with a crossbow bolt through its wing, unable to fly (its walking speed is 10 feet). Poachers are coming back for it. It can't speak Common but it understands it, and it will remember who helped. Healing it earns a ride later in the campaign.

The eyrie toll. A pair of giant eagles nest above the only safe path through a mountain pass, and they've started attacking caravans because hunters stole one of their eggs. The eagles aren't evil. The hunters are in the town at the bottom of the pass, selling the egg to a collector.

The race. A rival adventuring party has hired eagles to fly them to a ruin three days' walk away. The players have a day's head start on foot. Eighty feet a round is a lot faster than walking, so the players need a shortcut, a bargain with the same eyrie, or a way to get the rivals grounded.

Eagles that owe the party a favor are worth writing down. Loreify can record your sessions and keep notes on NPCs and creatures so the favor is still on the record when the party needs a ride.

Frequently Asked Questions

What CR is a giant eagle in 5e?

A giant eagle is CR 1 and worth 200 XP in both the 2014 and 2024 rules. It has AC 13, 26 hit points, a 10-foot walking speed and an 80-foot fly speed.

Can you ride a giant eagle in 5e?

Yes, if it agrees. A Large giant eagle can carry a Small or Medium rider and up to 480 pounds. Because it's intelligent and not trained as a mount, it acts as an independent mount: it keeps its own initiative and makes its own attacks.

Is a giant eagle a beast or a celestial?

In the 2014 rules it's a Large Beast. In the 2024 rules it's a Large Celestial, which means Wild Shape, Polymorph, Animal Friendship and Dominate Beast no longer work on it.

Can a druid wild shape into a giant eagle?

Under 2014 rules, yes, from druid level 8, when Wild Shape allows CR 1 forms with a fly speed. Under 2024 rules, no, because the 2024 giant eagle is a Celestial and Wild Shape only allows Beast forms.

How fast is a giant eagle?

It flies 80 feet per round, or 160 feet when it takes the Dash action. On the ground it walks only 10 feet.

What's the difference between a giant eagle and a griffon?

A giant eagle is CR 1 with 26 hit points, intelligent and good-aligned. A griffon is a CR 2 Monstrosity with 59 hit points and the same 80-foot fly speed. The griffon is unaligned and has no language, so it's an animal to tame, not a creature to bargain with.

Stat blocks: System Reference Document 5.1 (2014) and 5.2.1 (2024), Wizards of the Coast, CC-BY-4.0. Tactics, encounter math and ideas are Loreify's own.