Agreed that a lack of actual details about good gnolls vs. evil gnolls is a fail, but hey, baby steps. At least they have an origin separate from Yeenoghu now!
Adding the word “many” to the description of evil gnolls doesn’t actually do anything to shift the lore. Show is what the non-evil gnolls look like, don’t just tell us they could theoretically exist somewhere. Then give us PC stats for them.
D&D General What Would Happen if Fiends Came to Fill the "Low CR Monsters" Niche?
- Thread starter Hexmage-EN
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Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Fifinjir
Explorer
There’s plenty of reasons for devils to go to war on the material plane. Safe and happy people are less likely to make deals, while people fearing for their lives, ground down by tragedy, or separated from their support structure won’t be as inclined to thing through that decision as objectively. Of course, they might want to disguise the lemures as something else so their targets can’t see what they’ll become right in front of them….
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
This is an interesting thread (and gnolls...are furries...you may use in our game as you wish...but I have to concede some wider cultural influence, and they are furries).
And its an awesome idea, for a particular campaign. For a particular campaign, I think playing down other fantasy elements and playing up a demonic threat, with cultists and paranoid witch hunters and all the rest, could be great.
But as we can see from the thread, its probably not a general solution.
And its an awesome idea, for a particular campaign. For a particular campaign, I think playing down other fantasy elements and playing up a demonic threat, with cultists and paranoid witch hunters and all the rest, could be great.
But as we can see from the thread, its probably not a general solution.
Remathilis
Legend
They look like the kawaii puppy PCs artwork you find on your typical CR fansite.
Adding the word “many” to the description of evil gnolls doesn’t actually do anything to shift the lore. Show is what the non-evil gnolls look like, don’t just tell us they could theoretically exist somewhere. Then give us PC stats for them.
Hi gnolls, welcome back to being hyena-headed orcs.
Oofta
Legend
If 4E is any guide then I submit my 4E PC for LFR as a sample:
Adding the word “many” to the description of evil gnolls doesn’t actually do anything to shift the lore. Show is what the non-evil gnolls look like, don’t just tell us they could theoretically exist somewhere. Then give us PC stats for them.
Voadam
Legend
Goblins and orcs as ordinary mammalian humanoid reproduction is simply changeable lore same as demons coming from outer planes.
You can go with Warhammer 40K orcs reproduce from spores released by orcs killed while flooded with adrenaline during battle and their biology is directed to aggressively getting into fights to die as a reproductive strategy. I have gone with 40K style orcs in a Pathfinder game and it worked well narratively.
I have seen people use goblins as narratively cruel dark fey spawned by shadow and corruption. So they pop out of evil tainted dark areas, there are no goblin children or grandmas.
I'm sure most people reading this thread already know this, but I just wanted to point out that Kobold Press has an excellent resource for playable gnolls with a fleshed-out culture. The stats are in their book Southlands Heroes for 5th Edition. More detailed information about their culture and homeland are in the recent Southlands Worldbook.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
What an elitist take.
This is just the rubber masks argument with a new coat of paint, and that argument has never been compelling.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Hey, if that’s the tone your group is going for, more power to you.
Oofta
Legend
I've said it before, I have a hard time taking FR seriously. That and PCs for public games tend to be comparatively simplistic.
Home games tend to be more serious, although the LPH (laughs per hour) tends to be pretty high there as well. It's a game. One I play to have fun.
Voadam
Legend
AD&D 2e D&D Diablo was absolutely fantastic. 3e D&D Diablo was decent but unfortunately lost a lot of the descriptive and narrative elements for just straight stat blocks.
If you want D&D demons across a wide range of power levels it is a great model.
The new lore specifically allows for both Yeenoghu's single-minded killing machines and complex non-Yeenoghu gnolls to coexist in the vast D&D multiverse. Now, it fails in not actually putting much effort into detailing how that works - a failing the lore in Monsters of the Multiverse seems to have generally - but it's probably the best way to accommodate fans who want one or the other approach.
Personally, I hope to see more of this - take the options we had in 2014 and add to them, don't just slim everything down.
Frozen_Heart
Adventurer
I've noticed that in sci-fi settings there is often some 'insect swarm' type enemy which the heroes can kill without remorse. Tyranids being an example.
I'm not sure if DnD has anything equivalent to that. The good thing about some tyranid-like hive mind species (obviously toned way down to fantasy levels) is that it can be intelligent enough to give players a more complex fight like they're looking for. While also being pretty safe from people wanting to play 'good adventurer' versions of those same creatures.
I'm not sure if DnD has anything equivalent to that. The good thing about some tyranid-like hive mind species (obviously toned way down to fantasy levels) is that it can be intelligent enough to give players a more complex fight like they're looking for. While also being pretty safe from people wanting to play 'good adventurer' versions of those same creatures.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Zergs gotta zerg. I've seen a few attempts to do this kind of thing in D&D (e.g. formians, core spawn) but it never seems to have caught on. Starfinder has this trope.
What you describe here is certainly one thing that would be bound to happen. I don't think that it would lead to the negative view though.
My main concern is about "suspension of disbelieve" and getting "too fantastic".
Fighting the extraplanar as run off the mill mooks from 1st level just makes them totally mundane.
There's a reason adventurers fight giant rats in cellars and don't start with a "CR1 least lesser aspect of Orcus"
Fighting least fiends all the time just means there's nothing special anymore when the higher fiends show up
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Crimson Longinus
Hero
Are there even formian rules in 5e?
Remathilis
Legend
Drone enemies (hivemind aliens, battle droids, zombies) all work but the suffer from a lack of creative spark that makes them drones. Hence, they get boring after a while and any attempt to inject creativity or personality leads to the same kind of problems as inherently evil races in that if one can go against it's programming (Such as Seven-of-Nine) then they aren't inherently evil and KOS.
Mainly though, it's a sense of repetitiveness. Which is why D&D has 700 low CR critters all filling the same general role.
