COMPLETELY unnattached to life.

[The_Universe]

This may sound weird, but.. what about formians, or an insectile race? When you reproduce not just in the dozens, but in the THOUSANDS, and your life is pheromone driven, you will do some crazy stuff in defense of the colony.

Yeah - that's what I was talking about, above!

 

[Lasher Dragon]

I like the insectoid idea as well... but do they qualify as humanoid?

 

[Henry]

Yeah - that's what I was talking about, above!

Oops- I missed the last line of your post!

 

[Crothian]

you could create (I'm sure someone has already) a humaniod insect race

 

[Stormborn]

This may sound weird, but.. what about formians, or an insectile race? When you reproduce not just in the dozens, but in the THOUSANDS, and your life is pheromone driven, you will do some crazy stuff in defense of the colony.

Great point. Things with hiveminds (like ENworld!) care little for the individual pieces, no more that a high level fighter cares for 1 or 2 hp. Insects are perfect for this, of course, but other things can work well.

A sentient virus (or a demon that can possess multiple targets, or a living spell created by an evil wizard) that infects humanoids and spreads through contact (or maybe something worse (nastier) like blood - imagine the mass of commoners grabing inoccent vicitims, cutting a vein, and bleeding into the victim's mouth >grossess himself out for second <) might infect a whole city worth of people and turn them on the PCs. Worse, the PCs know that the enemy is made of helpless vicitms,but there isn't anything they can do about it. They enemy is organized and willing to do anything to get at the PCs, or perhaps a target the PCs are guarding. Build bridges out of bodies, walk around with delayed blast fireball or explosive runes cast on them, cover themselves in contact poison and dog pile the PC fighter etc...

Course that might be more than what you want for your current situation. Another option would be short lived humanoids bred in alchemical vats who reach adulthood in a few hours and die in a day, all with the rudimentary knowledge of the original fighter that was a component in the vats.

Or just insects...insects are good.

 

[alsih2o]

INSECTS!!!!

Bingo Bobby! That is it right there.

My party beware!!!!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Hordes of gibberlings, the lemmings of the Underdark.

 

[NiTessine]

In one campaign, the DM did this with halflings.

They were best (or at least funniest) summed up as samurai Nazi pygmies from Sparta.

 

[frankthedm]

Get a bunch of goblins with 1 cross class rank in use magic device. Give them fireball scrolls.
use scroll within 20' of party.

 

[Sarellion]

For reasons I cannot state because my players are present, I need some humanoids with absolutely no care for life.

And evil.

The kind who would jump off a cliff holding their spear hoping to wound an enemy if it gave them the slightest better chance of hitting. The kind who would feed themselves to a large animal to slow it down. Fearless.

Baddies that see 35 of their brethren slain in a row by one guy and think "I better rush hi too!"

Remember that general in LoTR that didn't blink when the huge pieve of cornice was fung amongst them a few feet from him? That guy, but more like a mook.

Small or medium, 1 HD, combat opriented and insane by all modern, western standards.

Which humanoid race do you think best fits this?

Sounds a lot like dwarves.