Giant Badger

A giant badger ally is the realistic version of a druid's animal companion that isn't a wolf or a panther. The 5e ranger doesn't get badgers by default, but a Beast Conclave variant or a Druid wild-shaping for the day's burrow work both fit. Most often, this badger belongs to a halfling beast-tamer NPC the party hired as a guide, or to a dwarven prospector whose burrow-pet finds ore veins. Treat it as competent in one specialized task and a liability in everything else.

In combat, the badger does not flank, does not bait, does not coordinate. It charges the loudest enemy and bites until that enemy is dead or it is. Burrow 10 ft. is the headline ability: collapse a tunnel behind the party, dig the wagon out of mud, get under a portcullis the rogue couldn't pick. Outside combat, the badger is a sniffer and a digger. Have it hit on enemies the party hasn't spotted yet by pointing its snout and growling. Passive Perception 13 plus Darkvision means the badger gets the first read in most low-light scenes.

The badger refuses anything that smells wrong. Necromantic auras, fiend stink, sahuagin slime: the badger plants its feet and growls, and the party should learn to read this as a check the GM is giving them for free. If the party ignores the warning, the badger waits at the door. It is a beast and it knows what it knows.

Give the badger a name and a noise. The bard will be doing a badger voice by session three, which is exactly what you want.

A giant badger is the encounter you put in the woods when the party is level 1 and you want them bloodied without killing anyone. CR 1/4, 15 HP, AC 13, no listed actions in the SRD 5.2 stat block. The threat is not damage. The threat is that this thing has 17 Constitution, won't run, and is probably the second creature the party fights today after a wolf or two.

The badger is a beast and operates on hunger and territory. It does not ambush, but it doesn't flee either. The party will most often meet it because they walked too close to its sett, or because they corralled it during a chase scene. Run it as a guard dog with no off switch. With Burrow 10 ft. and Darkvision 60 ft., it can pop out of a hole the party didn't see, fight three rounds, and pop back into a different hole if the GM needs a clean exit. Use the burrow to make the encounter map feel three-dimensional rather than to do anything tactical, since the badger is dim enough (Int 2) that it doesn't plan multi-turn maneuvers.

Without explicit attack actions in the stat block, run the badger using the standard "Improvised Attack" rule from the rules glossary, or treat its bite as a +3 to hit for 1d4+1 piercing. Either way, the lethal moment is the round it gets adjacent to a wizard who left the formation. The Poison resistance matters in exactly one campaign in fifty: the time the druid casts Spike Growth and the badger walks across without flinching, then keeps coming. That's the moment players remember.

A giant badger fight is over in two rounds at most. Use the time to teach the party about action economy: one player feeds it iron rations as a distraction, another flanks, the wizard does anything other than Magic Missile. The badger leaves once it's Bloodied or once the food is on the ground.