"The lion is driven by instinct, four legs, 250-300 dex and years of practice
with faster, sleeker animals."

It drives me nuts when you try to use real life examples as narrative
justification for the absurd goodies animals get for each of their levels.
Does complete immunity to all physical attack show up anywhere in this story?
Out of curiosity, are you seriously saying that the high exp lion has LESS dex
than the low exp prey? I won't believe you without some kind of confirmation,
because I don't think anyone would bother to manually set the stats from their
defaults.