D&D General What Would Happen if Fiends Came to Fill the "Low CR Monsters" Niche?

[JEB]

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.

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!

 

[Charlaquin]

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!

Yeah, it just sucks to have to take baby steps to get back to the point we had already gotten to over a decade ago.

 

[Blue]

If you are willing to look at some of the high quality 3rd party, like Kobold Press' Creature Catalog and Fifth Edition Foes, we have actually a nicely fleshed out set of fiends starting CR 1/4 and going up from there. This would definitely be possible.

 

[Fifinjir]

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]

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.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

They look like the kawaii puppy PCs artwork you find on your typical CR fansite.

Hi gnolls, welcome back to being hyena-headed orcs.

 

[Oofta]

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.

If 4E is any guide then I submit my 4E PC for LFR as a sample:

 

[Voadam]

Goblins (orcs, etc.) reproduce in the same way that humans do. That goes a long way to making them into people--you can have baby goblins and elderly granma goblins, if you wanted.

How do demons reproduce? If you want them to remain inhuman, killable monsters, then have them reproduce as such. They aren't born; they spontaneously generate out of corrupted places or out of piles of filth, spawn from evil thoughts, or are formed out of souls stolen or captured by greater demons. (This is assuming you don't have them being created out of the souls of the damned, as is traditional.)

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.

 

[jayoungr]

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]

They look like the kawaii puppy PCs artwork you find on your typical CR fansite.

What an elitist take.

Hi gnolls, welcome back to being hyena-headed orcs.

This is just the rubber masks argument with a new coat of paint, and that argument has never been compelling.