How to survive bear attacks?

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

Not all bears are the same. Brown bears are roughly 40% faster than black bears which makes you extremely unlikely to outrun them (brown bears have 0.55 speed, black bears have 0.4). You are most likely to be chased down and killed, and if you manage to get away from a brown bear, it's either because you got really lucky, or you had a pre-prepared trap to lure him into. Here's a mod that makes brown bear speed identical to black bear speed, which makes them acceptably challenging to battle in melee while not being crazy overpowered, even when unarmored and only using flint spears: https://mods.vintagestory.at/slowerbrownbears

Edited December 12, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[Teh Pizza Lady]

On 12/5/2025 at 4:24 PM, William Unsicker said:

Poke it with a spear and run out of mele distance, preferably furthur. 

It may be wise to equip a spear to slot number one. 

just make sure you run in a straight line and don't try to change directions mid air while jumping. I saw a video on youtube the other day where this dude tried that with a loaded inventory on permadeath instead of just going home and instead of following him, the bear triangulated his new position and two-shot him. 3 hours of playtime down the drain 'cause he poked the bear.

if you have to turn while running, make a large circle so the bear still has to chase you instead of cutting the corner to close the gap. Remember the hypotenuse of a triangle is always shorter than the sum of its sides.

[dakko]

On 12/9/2025 at 6:26 AM, Broccoli Clock said:

"it has to be an intentional choice, as the Wiki is implicit and as the Wiki is not publicly editable then that means one of the dev team updated it".

(emphasis mine)

This is incorrect, unless the policy has changed recently and that change has not been noted on the wiki homepage.

Anyone can request access to modify the wiki:

Edited December 12, 2025 by dakko
clarification

[Teh Pizza Lady]

45 minutes ago, dakko said:

(emphasis mine)

This is incorrect, unless the policy has changed recently and that change has not been noted on the wiki homepage.

Anyone can request access to modify the wiki:

this is correct. I am a wiki editor.

[Broccoli Clock]

12 hours ago, dakko said:

(emphasis mine)

This is incorrect, unless the policy has changed recently and that change has not been noted on the wiki homepage.

Anyone can request access to modify the wiki:

First off apologies for that, thanks for the correction. The confusion comes because I initially thought it was an open wiki and went to create an entry for rammed earth. It seems a shame it's missing as it has several textures and is nice to build with at the start. I was unable to register to edit it, went and asked on here if it was possible and either got no response or a "no" in reply. This was ages ago, and I am sure that screenshot you shared had different text back then, but I can't be sure. If it explicitly says "ask in discord" I would have asked in discord, and the fact I didn't suggests either my memory is shot (a possibility) or there was different text previously.

12 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

this is correct. I am a wiki editor.

..then put in an entry for rammed earth!  I wouldn't mind being a wiki editor, although I feel I'd need to have a connection to someone in the dev team, or a greater visibility of the codebase, to really do that job justice. Official wikis are really important in building trust with your player. If it, the player's own experience and the handbook don't all line up perfectly, it can affect the overall trust in the game. It shouldn't, but it does, and I've seen it in other games.

 

 

In summary though, while I do appreciate the correction, it's actually a bit moot as we know there is a bug report in about this, and in turn it's been flagged as needing fixed (and by implication, not intended) irrelevant of what it says in the Wiki.

 

 

[dakko]

@Broccoli Clock Your memory is probably accurate; the invitation to edit used to link to these forums.

[zimt]

I always try to avoid them by only exploring in daytime. If it's not possible to avoid them (such as when running through dense forests), having a higher tier armor really helps when you are being attacked. In addition to that, having maximum possible health points by eating a variety of food (fruit, vegetable, grain, portein and dairy) gives you more room to withstand hits. In my current world, I am able to successfully fight bears using a bow/spear, iron falx and bronze brigandine armor, even when it's not always easy and sometimes a close-call.

I also observed that if bears follow you into water (e.g. into a lake), they tend to drop down below water surface and if that happens, you can attack them without them being able to attack you. They seem to struggle into water during a fight. I do not know if this is intentional or maybe just caused by the game mechanics itself, but you can make use of that.

Edited December 14, 2025 by zimt