D&D 5E Advanced Grimlocks for 5e?

[gfrobbin84]

Awesome CapnZapp sounds like a cool encounter. This will just be the second session for my guys they were 0 level last session but got recruited into a private monster hunter company and are being trained up to 3rd level between sessions. It is a modern game, think monster hunters international or men in black for magic and monsters, so they have firearms which will help them but no healing classes so a little concerned and hoping to recruit another player or 2 hopefully that will play bard or cleric, as druid and barbarian aren't allowed.

 

[Flamestrike]

Hey I am planning an adventure centered around Grimlocks for an upcoming session of my 5e game. The characters are going to be fresh 3rd levels. The thing is there are no stats for Grimlock Chieftains or Shamen or any advancements of the standard Grimlock. So I was wondering if anyone had homebrewed any or had any suggestions of abilities and what not to give them.

Thanks in advance.

Just use the Orc chieftan, Orog or Hobgoblin captain (or similar) and add:

Condition Immunities: blinded
Senses: blindsight 30 ft. or 10 ft. while deafened (blind beyond this radius)

Your players wont know the difference.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

My go-to transformation...

Speaking of transforming...

At some point they need to announce -- in unison -- to the PCs, "We grimlocks, SMASH!"

Just sayin'...

 

[Tormyr]

You can also look at the grimlocks in my conversion of The Three Faces of Evil, the second chapter of the Age of Worms AP. Part III is a grimlock dungeon. The basic grimlocks are beefed up to CR 1/2 just so you don't need as many. There are then examples of a grimlock kennel master, barbarian, shaman, and chief. Each is a minor change of a different creature in the monster manual.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1254

EDIT: Okay, I lied. The shaman got a full stat block.

 

[S'mon]

My go-to transformation for "Elite" creatures is:
- double hit points
- double attacks or double damage dice (or some combination, like go from 2 to 3 attacks and 2 to 3 damage dice)
- Legendary Resistance 1/day
- double XP

I like it because it can all be done on-the-fly pretty easily.

Should probably be more than double XP, I'd say treble - it looks about equal to 3 regular
critters.

 

[77IM]

Should probably be more than double XP, I'd say treble - it looks about equal to 3 regular
critters.

You are probably right. In theory, Double HP + Legendary Resistance 1/day, is roughly the equivalent of 2 creatures already (doubling damage is unnecessary because the Elite is already going to last twice as long as a regular creature, so over the course of the battle it'll wind up dealing twice the damage). So increasing the damage too should be worth more XP.

 

[S'mon]

You are probably right. In theory, Double HP + Legendary Resistance 1/day, is roughly the equivalent of 2 creatures already (doubling damage is unnecessary because the Elite is already going to last twice as long as a regular creature, so over the course of the battle it'll wind up dealing twice the damage). So increasing the damage too should be worth more XP.

Two creatures initially do twice as much damage as 1 creature, so they are a bigger threat than 1 creature with twice the hp. But then one dies, so they are not as threatening as 1 creature with twice hp & twice the DPR.