Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

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Gargoyles are based on sculptures found in many medieval buildings (particularly churches). If I recall correctly, these statues depict horrible beasts and are said to act as a sort of spiritual scarecrow, frightening demons away. They’re usually known as grotesques, with gargoyle being a specific type of grotesque that has a waterspout running through it to channel rainwater. It’s “gargling”, you see.

D&D gargoyles are a classic monster, part of the game since its beginnings. So classic, in fact, that the real surprise here is when the demonic-looking statues aren’t gargoyles in disguise. They appear in both books.

The Lore

Despite appearances, gargoyles aren’t animated statues, but living semi-organic creatures who originated in the Elemental Chaos and spread to the world long ago. As you’d expect, they’re ambush predators, and they’re also both sapient and inclined to cruelty and sadism. They’re fond of “playing” with their prey before eating it and don’t care if it’s sapient itself.

Nevertheless, they can form cooperative relationships with other earth creatures, and are sometimes employed by evil summoners or demon cultitsts who bind them with magic. Gargoyles aren’t demons, but they look demonic enough and are easier to bind!

The Monster Vault makes an interesting inversion by saying that in the world of D&D, the gargoyle’s reputation for cruelty has turned its image into a sign of warning to intruders. This means that people in the setting have a reason to sculpt gargoyles into their buildings! Ironically, the monsters end up gravitating to these places since they provide such convenient camouflage.

The Numbers

As creatures of earth, gargoyles have Tremorsense 10 and an immunity to petrification. They’re not immune to poison because they’re still semi-organic. Gargoyles move pretty fast, with a ground speed of 6 and a flight speed of 8. No hover capability, but they also can attack from the air with no penalties. Gargoyles also have darkvision.

They’re all Medium Elemental Humanoids (Earth).

Gargoyle (Both)

The classic model is a Level 9 Lurker with 77 HP. It attacks with a claw that suffers from the damage bug, and can use it as part of a Flyby Attack that allows it to fly its speed without drawing opportunity attacks and make a claw attack at any point in the movement. A hit here also knocks the target prone.

As expected the gargoyle can also assume a Stone Form, which gives it Resist 25 to all damage and Regeneration 3. In this form, it can only perceive its surroundings via tremorsense, and can take no other actions other than to revert to normal. Reverting is a minor action, meaning it can attack on the same turn it does so.

The creature doesn’t do any additional damage from attacking from hiding, meaning it’s another one of those MM lurkers who should have been a skirmisher.

The MV version is a proper lurker: though its basic attack does the same damage, it now has a +20 bonus on its next damage roll after leaving Stone Form. It also only has Tremorsense while in Stone Form, and its Flyby Attack ability (renamed to Swoop Attack) only allows an attack at the end of the movement.

Instead of regenerating, the MV gargoyle gains 5 temporary HP at the start of its turn. I don’t think this stacks, so it will never get rid of all its damage during the fight. This is in line with late 4e’s policy of never giving its monsters much in the way of healing abilities.

Gargoyle Rake (MV)

This is a Level 5 Lurker with 52 HP that is essentially identical to its level 9 cousin, above. Its level-based stats are smaller, of course. Also, damage resistance while in stone form is only 20, and the damage bonus is +15.

Gargoyle Rock Hurler (MV)

This one throws rocks! It’s Level 11 Artillery with 87 HP. The basic claw attack is okay, and it can hurl rocks either one at a time (Ranged 20 vs. AC) or in a volley (Area Bust 1 Within 10 vs. AC; half damage on a miss).

The rock hurler can’t create its own ammunition, but it’s likely to be found in a place with plenty of loose stone lying around anyway.

It can’t turn into a statue completely, but its stony hide gives it Resist 10 to damage from ranged attacks originating from more than 5 squares away.

Nabassu Gargoyle (Both)

While still not classed as a demon, this Level 18 Lurker is a lot closer to being one than its weaker cousins. It has 131 HP and all standard gargoyle traits.

Its abilities are a basic claw, a non-basic bite that does a bit more damage, and a stronger version of Stone Form. Instead of getting a bonus to its next damage roll when leaving Stone Form, the nabassu gargoyle automatically does a chunk of fire and necrotic damage to every enemy within 3 squares of it.

While in stone form it also emits a Bloodfire curse (aura 3) that deals 10 fire and necrotic damage to any enemy that ends its turn in range. When this happens, the monster gains 10 temporary HP.

A useful note: “10 fire and necrotic damage” means 10 damage of the “fire and necrotic” type, not “10 fire and 10 necrotic”. This means you resist it with the lower of your fire and necrotic resistance - if you have Resist 15 to fire but 0 to necrotic, you take the full 10 damage.

The Monster Manual version is a bit clunkier. Its Stone Form functions exactly like that of the MM classic model, and its bite heals it for half its rolled damage on a hit. Bloodfire is an Aura 2 that does 5 damage and weakens enemies who already are taking ongoing damage, and only works out of Stone Form.

Just use the MV version, it’s better.

Sample Encounter and Final Impressions

The sample encounter from the MM is level 9: 3 gargoyles, 2 galeb duhr earthbreakers, and 1 gibbering mouther. It’s essentially another version of the similar galeb duhr/gargoyle/bullete encounter we already saw, with a different interloper.

The Monster Vault gargoyles are generally superior to the MM ones when it comes to mechanics, and you lose nothing by ignoring the Monster Manual on this one. Lore-wise, I feel gargoyles are one of those monsters so classic that you almost have to feature them in your campaign at some point. The big subversion here would be a campaign where every statue was exactly what it seemed.