D&D 5E Non evil gnoll tribes?

Charlaquin · Feb 6, 2019

oreofox said:
You know, that's almost the full backstory of my gnoll PC I am playing. Except the paladin in the party was the only one against infanticide and fought her party members (and won, though knocked them out), and lost her paladin powers (because, you know, the whole baby orc scenario that was so popular to put paladins into years ago). Raised by the paladin that saved her, became a paladin herself (though paladin of redemption). She's a triple multiclass (one level of barbarian for the rage "skinned" as her demonic heritage manifesting, and fiend warlock levels because Yeenoghu is trying to recorrupt one of his lost children).

As for the 2-year-old OP: There is nothing official for gnoll PC race. Kobold Press has something in their Midgard books. Not sure about anything else. I made my own homebrew version of the gnoll for a PC race for my campaign setting. That's the best choices that you have.

What a freaking awesome character! This is why the whole “Gnolls can NEVER be PCs” thing is stupid. Why rule out the possibility of characters like this, just because gnolls have a demonic origin?

doctorbadwolf · Feb 7, 2019

For me, gnolls are the demonic side of the same fiendish coin as tieflings.

A gnolls has stronger desctructive impulses than other races, and even good gnolls are most comfortable around their own kind and their hyena friends, but they aren't actual demons, any more than tieflings are.

But in my games, you can play a tiefling as a literal cambion, so, whatever. IMO, only things that ping Detect Evil and Good have alignment built in. Everything else gets to choose.

And even then, if angels can fall, why can't devils rise?

KahlessNestor · Feb 11, 2019

Now I want to play that gnoll paladin... I have a thing for characters fighting against the monster inside of them.

OniDaimyo · Jun 2, 2019

Well there is a race that are like Wolf like humanoids in Mystera. They are more like Native American in theme? I forget what they are called. They can def be paladins.

MonsterEnvy · Jun 2, 2019

There is one and half non evil Gnolls in Out of the Abyss.

One of them is a Fang of Yeenoghu that was infected by Demonic Madness, and the form his madness took was giving him a conscience and quelled his feral attitude. As a result he feels super guilty about all the horrible things he has done, and is seeking to atone. Though curing his madness will turn him back into an evil gnoll.

The other is sorta still evil, but can become good. A gnoll that was captured, tortured, and abused by minotaurs until he became their slave. While his initial role is to the lead the characters to an ambush. He can be turned to become a loyal ally of the players.

This wretched gnoll is named Gash. Thanks to treachery he committed against his kind, the minotaurs spared his life. However, their mercy comes with regular abuse and torment. The gnoll now sees himself as a loyal and willing servant of the brutes, and he is eager to lead gnolls and anyone else to his minotaur masters.
nging and mewling, Gash approaches the party with arms out and head down. He speaks in both Gnoll and Abyssal. If the characters can’t understand him, he pantomimes helpful gestures and beckons them to follow him.

Any aggressive action sends Gash skittering back into the maze and to his masters. If the characters capture him, he shrieks and screams, drawing one minotaur to investigate the racket.

Accepting Gash’s offer transforms the cringing gnoll into a dutiful guide. He leads the characters through passage after passage, choosing directions seemingly at random until the characters encounter the minotaurs. If the battle turns against the minotaurs, Gash flees.

If the adventurers show pity or kindness, Gash becomes confused, as he has never experienced such things. A character can befriend the gnoll with a successful DC 20 Charisma (Persuasion) check. If any character uses magical healing on Gash, the check is automatically successful.

If the characters befriend Gash, he warns them to turn back, flee, and never return. He says his masters are vile minotaurs who wait in the maze, eager to kill all trespassers. If asked, Gash explains that the minotaurs spared his life in exchange for leading travelers into the maze. If the characters insist on entering the maze, Gash goes with them, trying to keep his new friends safe. If the characters defeat the minotaurs and move deeper into the Labyrinth, Gash can accompany them as a follower and guide, giving the characters advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to avoid becoming lost in the Labyrinth.

Elderbrain · Jun 2, 2019

The DMG provides ability scores adjustments and features for Gnolls on page 282 under "NPC Features"... you could use those (they are +2 STR, -2 INT, the Rampage feature from the Monster Manual entry, and Darkvision 60 feet.) The listings include adjustments for most of the races which got PC treatment in later books (i.e. Aarakocra, Deep Gnome, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kenku, Kobold, Lizardfolk, and Orc), so if you don't have those books you could still play as one. Races given adjustments which haven't yet been given the PC treatment are Bullywug, Gnoll, Grimlock, Kuo-toa, Merfolk, and Troglodyte, as well as Skeleton and Zombie which aren't exactly races, but hey! You could play one...

As far as lore is concerned, unless you are playing in an official tournament or the like nobody should feel bound to accept current lore (or any lore) as binding in their home games, no matter what campaign setting you use. I've never had a Gnoll PC (yet) but in my games I assume that Yeenoghu poached his first batch of gnolls from their original creator and then learned how to make his own demonically-tainted ones, to the point that most people think he created the race. The gnoll deity still exists but due to lack of worship is greatly weakened. So I kind of split the difference by saying that yes, Yeenoghu actually did/does personally make some gnolls, but he didn't make the first ones. And there could be gnoll tribes out there made up of gnolls from the original batch, which are usually evil but can choose not to be, per earlier lore and rules. Of course a casual observer cannot tell one type of gnoll from another...

OniDaimyo · Jun 4, 2019

Those are for NPCs though. PCs don't have negatives to stats anymore in 5e I thought so I personally wouldn't give negatives to stats for any race i allowed. Though I've never really DMed but if I did I'm just saying that's something I think would be unfair.
I like the Gnolls in Eberron from what I've heard of them as neutral mercenary types. They still aren't nice guys and gnolls usually shouldn't be since they are still aggressive but at least they don't have to be evil.

Elderbrain · Jun 4, 2019

Some PC races do have negatives to stats, per Volo's Guide to Monsters, specifically kobolds (-2 STR) and orcs (-2 INT), so there are indeed official PC race rules in 5e that have negatives now. So the -2 to INT for gnolls would seem to be on par with that. However, it's your game and there's no reason that you can't just, say, drop the INT penalty and use the rest of the rules - after all, those score adjustments really reflect a racial average, and don't preclude exceptional individuals. And you can just say "my gnolls are different". After all, not all elves and dwarves use the same ability score adjustments, High elves and Wood elves differ, so why couldn't there be sub-groups of gnolls, orcs, etc. that likewise differ in terms of average abilities versus other subgroups of their race?

Even if you did use the negative score mods, it's still possible for your players to get a lucky dice roll and wind up with a gnoll much smarter than the average human (i.e. rolls an 18 INT score, applies negative -2 mod, and still has a gnoll with an INT of 16... umm, gnoll wizard). Or you could let the players use the point-buy system in the DMG to offset the negative score mod. Both strictly by the rules, if it matters to you.

Azzy · Jun 4, 2019

One of the Kobold Press books (I forget whiich one) has a PC Gnoll race.

QuietBrowser · Jun 7, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
Forgotten Realms gnolls have canonically been capable of not being evil since at least 3.5, where Kemp’s Shadow War trilogy features gnolls hired to guide the protagonists through a swamp.

Try earlier than that. As early as AD&D 1e, the splatbook on Thay ("The Red Wizards", I think it's called off the top of my head) had gnolls as a perfectly civilized (if still evil) member-race in Thay, where they were particularly favored in the role of city guards and personal defenders by the Red Wizards. There's even a novel from that era - Soldiers of Ice (The Harpers #7) - where gnolls, whilst antagonistic, are not presented as incapable of civility or reason, and the situation is ultimately resolved with diplomacy (after, admittedly, some violence). There is an even an almost heroic gnoll who ultimately joins with the novel's protagonist and returns to civilization at her side.

Mindlessly evil rage-zombie gnolls is a complete 5e invention. At most, it's an exaggeration of the lore from the 4e Essentials splatbook "Monster Vault".