D&D 5E Sell me on 5th…

[Parmandur]

Hmmm.

What got me thinking about how 5th handles the furry angle was a bit of wordplay that turned into a seed of a PC idea: “The Bear of Bad News” (character NAME as yet undecided).

Said anthro-ursine PC is a “Jonah” or “Cooler”. A character whose shtick is cursing others, in the various ways D&D historically allows- debuffs, luck manipulation, actual curses, etc., class as yet unknown, for obvious reasons.

Further, the character would prefer using a club as his melee weapon of choice, and thrown spheres for ranged combat…

(And besides all that, some of the prior unplayed designs might also be feasible.)

Kobold Press has a Bearfolk in several of their supplements, but for strict WotC D&D...I'd day re-flugfing (as it were) a Goliath might fit here.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

This is sounding like a Bard with the Vicious Mockery cantrip as well as other curses. Just be aware that high level monsters are pretty curse resistant.

That was one of my initial thoughts, as were Warlocks or even Hexblades (if those still exist).

 

[pukunui]

That was one of my initial thoughts, as were Warlocks or even Hexblades (if those still exist).

Hexblade is a subclass of warlock.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That was one of my initial thoughts, as were Warlocks or even Hexblades (if those still exist).

Hexblade is either a Pact of the Blade Warlock (which is getting a deserved tune-up in the 2024 rules) or the Hexblade warlock subclass (which was mostly created as a patch for the Pact of the Blade but is used for multiclassing fodder from the other charisma-classes, especially paladin).

 

[Voadam]

Have gnolls not gotten a WotC player option? I know they were not in the monster PC options in Volo's Guide to Monsters where they had kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, and orcs, but that was a while ago and there has been a bunch of stuff since then.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Have gnolls not gotten a WotC player option? I know they were not in the monster PC options in Volo's Guide to Monsters where they had kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, and orcs, but that was a while ago and there has been a bunch of stuff since then.

Nope, not yet

Edited to add my source: https://www.dndbeyond.com/races

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Not sure about 3PP, I'm sure someone has done it

 

[Corinnguard]

https://www.5esrd.com/database/race/gnoll-4/ The 5e Midgard setting has PC stats for them.

 

[billd91]

Have gnolls not gotten a WotC player option? I know they were not in the monster PC options in Volo's Guide to Monsters where they had kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, and orcs, but that was a while ago and there has been a bunch of stuff since then.

Not for 5e. Whereas most of the other humanoids have PC options and have had care taken to emphasize they aren't not monolitically violent and evil, gnolls seem to have been reserved as a thoroughly evil humanoid race suitable for slaughtering without moral squeamishness.

 

[Voadam]

Not for 5e. Whereas most of the other humanoids have PC options and have had care taken to emphasize they aren't not monolitically violent and evil, gnolls seem to have been reserved as a thoroughly evil humanoid race suitable for slaughtering without moral squeamishness.

4e had inherently evil demonic gnolls from the start as well but gave PC options fairly early on in dragon.

5e Orcs originally leaned hard into being inherently evil from Gruumsh's influence too which carried over to Half-Orcs in the PH descriptions but they gave us PC options in Volos for full Orcs. It seems a bit of an odd exception to keep gnolls as the one classic WotC humanoid non-PC option.

I have 3rd party Midgard 5e stuff for gnoll stats if I want civilized Hamunaptra style gnolls, it is just an odd gap for WotC, particularly with Eberron gnolls having broken their demonic ties.