Eagle

An eagle is a scout, a messenger, a ranger's companion, a druid's wild shape, a paladin's totem from the god of dawn. The stat block has no actions because an eagle on the party's side is a sensor, not a combatant. AC 12, 4 HP, 60 ft. fly, Perception +6 with passive 16. Run it for what it sees, not what it hits.

In play, the fly speed is the entire utility. An eagle scouts a treeline in one round, circles a fortress in two, and brings back what it noticed to whoever it answers to. With passive Perception 16 it spots the second sentry on the wall, the patrol route along the river, the smoke from a camp the party hasn't found yet. As a ranger's beast companion or a druid's wild shape, the player narrates the report. As a non-magical bird, the GM hands back a clean fact ("a column of riders, perhaps a dozen, half a day east") and lets the party plan around it.

The eagle does not fight. It has no Talons, no Beak attack, no statted action of any kind, which means even rules-as-written it cannot meaningfully damage anything. If a player insists their eagle attack, point at the stat block. The eagle's job in a fight is to be aloft and out of the AoE, ready to carry a message to the next town if everyone dies. Walk speed is 10 ft., so on the ground it's a liability; keep it perched or in the air.

Give the eagle a name and one specific habit the players will remember. Drops feathers into the cleric's pack. Hates one specific NPC for no clear reason. The eagle is free atmosphere; let it carry a small piece of the campaign nobody else does.

A hostile eagle alone is barely a speed bump, so don't run one. Run a pair defending a clifftop nest, a flock harassed into attack by a hag, a dire eagle's lesser kin, or a swarm-of-eagles narrative beat where the actual threat is the fall, not the bird. One eagle has 4 HP and zero listed attacks; the encounter has to come from elsewhere.

Use the eagles for pressure and panic. While the party scales a cliff face, three eagles dive at the climbers, calling for Athletics or Acrobatics checks to keep their grip rather than rolling attacks the birds don't have. The fail state is the rope, the fall, the dropped pack, not HP loss. With 60 ft. fly speed and passive 16 the eagles always see the party first and pick their moment, and the party's best response is a single Hunter's Mark or a fire spell that scatters the flock.

If a druid or witch is driving the eagles, that's the actual encounter and the birds are the spell effect. Treat them as terrain hazard or living obscurement. The party kills one with any decent attack, and the rest break off when half the flock drops. Eagles defending a nest will pursue across the cliff and disengage at the treeline; eagles under compulsion fight until released or killed, and a perceptive PC should be able to tell the difference with one Insight or Nature check.

Don't roll initiative for one eagle. Resolve any single bird as a skill check or a narrated beat, and save the dice for the cliff itself.