Copyright 2008 Wizards of the Coast

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Gnolls have been in the game since the beginning or close to it, when they fit in the Humanoid Power Ladder right above hobgoblins and before bugbears. In 4e, they are present in both books.

The Lore

Once the Humanoid Power Ladder got dismantled, just being “the 2 HD humanoid” no longer cut it as the gnoll identity. And in Fourth Edition, they are now widely known as the Least Reasonable Humanoids.

You see, the vast majority of these hyena-faced people your group ends up fighting will be worshippers of the demon lord Yeenoghu, whose teachings can be summed up as “kill and eat everything you see”. Gnoll bands are nomadic and roam around fulfilling that mandate. They never build permanent structures, and even their gear is mostly taken from those they killed. Sometimes they take slaves, but those slaves never last long. Mostly they just kill and eat people. In short, they’re the closest you can get to a demon while still having the natural origin. You can frequently find actual demons in their midst, either summoned by their priests or sent by Yeenoghu to boss them around. Their warriors carry all sorts of demonic boons into battle as well.

No one else cooperates with gnolls. If you try they’ll eat you, and if you’re strong enough to prevent them from eating you, you don’t need their help in the first place.

There was a Dragon article with presented playable gnolls who were members of a dissident faction that rejected demon worship. They are fierce and honorable hunters, most often Good or Unaligned, and a lot more likely to cooperate with others. I liked them a lot and I’m sad they never showed up again after that one article.

The gnolls we’ll be looking at there are the usual “fanatical demon worshipper” variety.

The Numbers

Gnolls are Medium Natural Humanoids and typically Chaotic Evil. The gnoll mechanical schtick is that they punch above their weight class. They get a +2 bonus to damage when bloodied, and their signature trait is Pack Attack, which gives a further +5 damage bonus if their target has two or more of the attacker’s allies next to it. Their land speed is 8, making it very hard for innocent civilians to escape from them. And they have low-light vision, to better chase you in the dark.

Unfortunately their MM incarnations suffer from the same “naturalistic design” variant of the damage bug we saw with foulspawn. It’s less egregious due to their lower level, but it does mean that a bloodied gnoll benefiting from Pack Attack juuust manages to hit the average damage expected by the new math.

The Monster Vault variants behave like they’re supposed to, with their basic damage hitting the expected average and the add-ons applying on top of that. Don’t let them surround you!

There’s little overlap between the stat blocks in both books, which leaves us with a lot of gnolls to look at. Fortunately most of them are fairly simple. Let’s mix them all and look at them by level.

Gnoll Huntmaster (Both)

Huntmasters are level 5 artillery with 50 HP and all common gnoll traits. They fight in melee with a handaxe, and at range with a longbow. Other than their damage numbers, the two statblocks are identical.

The common traits are the entirety of huntmaster’s special tricks, which are actually respectable since Pack Attack works with the longbow. The gnoll itself doesn’t have to be adjacent to the target, only its allies!

Deathpledged Gnoll (MV)

This Level 5 Brute has 75 HP and all common gnoll traits. It fights with a spear, and generally wants to engage someone and stand its ground to both do damage and give its buddies the benefit of Pack Attack.

This gnoll is “deathpledged” because when it first hits 0 HP, it goes berserk! It regains 5 HP, gains Resist 15 All, and 1 action point! At the end of its next turn, though, it drops dead. This means it’s going to use that last turn to attack twice if you don’t manage to kill it first. This power is named Claws of Yeenoghu.

Gnoll Claw Fighter (MM)

This Level 6 Skirmisher has 70 HP and likes to tear people apart with its bare hands.

Its basic melee attack is a single claw strike, and it can make two of those when it charges. It can also perform a Mobile Melee Attack that allows it to make a claw strike and move a total of 4 squares at any point in the action, without provoking opportunity attacks when moving away from the target of the attack.

This gives us a pretty obvious routine: charge one turn, attack and move away on the next. Fix the damage of the gnoll’s claws if you plan on using it, though, it’s really low as printed.

Gnoll Marauder (MM)

This Level 6 Brute has 84 HP and all common gnoll traits. It fights with a spear, which makes me think it was an earlier version of the Deathpledged Gnoll above.

Instead of the Claws of Yeenoghu power, the marauder has Quick Bite, which allows it to make a free-action bite attack against a bloodied enemy it just hit with the spear. This does a bit less damage than the spear, but it’s pretty good for a bonus attack.

Gnoll Blood Caller (MV)

Our first spellcaster is a Level 6 Soldier with 70 HP and all common gnoll traits.

The blood caller fights with its claws, which mark for a turn as an effect. It can follow that up with Blood Call (Close Burst 5 vs. Will), which targets every enemy marked by the gnoll. A hit does psychic damage and pulls the target up to 3 squares. The gnoll itself can shift 3 squares as an effect, too.

Once the gnoll is bloodied it can use Blood Frenzy as a 1/round minor action. This automatically deals a bit of damage to every enemy in a Close Burst 1 and marks them for a turn. And now you know why Blood Call is an area effect.

This is another monster that will make up the frontline in a gnoll encounter to provide Pack Attack bonuses, and it has a few tricks to pull the PCs into more favorable positions for that.

Fang of Yeenoghu (MV)

This Level 7 Skirmisher (Leader) has 77 HP and all common gnoll traits. It’s another one of those caster-types.

The Fang of Yeenoghu wields a Cudgel of Bloody Teeth in combat, whose blows also deal ongoing damage (save ends). Its other melee attack is a Relentless Push: the gnoll can shift 2 squares before the attack, which does a bit less damage than the basic cudgel blow and pushes the target 1 square. After this, one of the gnoll’s allies within 5 squares can shift 1 square as a free action. I think this is the most complicated gnoll power I’ve seen so far.

Its final technique is Howl of the Demon (Close Burst 5; Recharge 6), which allows every ally in the burst to make a free melee basic attack.

It looks like the Fang’s main concern in a fight will be to position the PCs and its allies so that all of them benefit from Pack Attack, and then let loose the Howl.

Gnoll Gorger (MV)

This most psychotic of gnolls is a Level 7 Brute with 96 HP and all common gnoll traits. Its only attack is a bite that does Brute-tier damage, and as a minor action it can Gorge, which means it takes a bite out of an ally. This deals 5 damage to the ally and heals the gorger for 5 HP.

That’s some real horrific imagery right there.

Demon-Eye Gnoll (MV)

This level 7 Lurker has 62 HP and all common traits. Plus, the Abyss leaks out of its eyes.

This gnoll fights with a Reach 2 glaive, which does extra damage if the target can’t see it. It has a Stare into the Abyss power (Close Burst 3 vs. Will) that dazes and makes the gnoll invisible to the targets for a turn.

Once bloodied, the Abyss starts leaking through the gnoll’s wounds too, functioning as an Aura 3 that deals psychic damage to those enemies caught within and forces them to make a melee basic attack against an ally if they’re dazed.

Gnoll Demonic Scourge (MM)

This Level 8 Brute (Leader) has 106 HP and all common traits. It projects an aura of command that gives a +1 attack bonus to allies within 5 squares, or +2 if the demonic scourge is bloodied.

It wields a heavy flail in combat, which can knock its targets prone if they’re bloodied. And when it bloodies someone with the flail, an ally can make a free melee basic attack against the target. Once per encounter, the gnoll can grant this free attack to 2 allies instead of 1.

Gnoll Far Fang (MV)

This Level 8 Artillery menace has 68 HP and is mostly an up-leveled version of the huntmaster. It has one extra trick: a volley of Hungry Arrows (Area Burst 2 Within 10 vs. AC; Encounter) which does longbow damage plus ongoing damage (save ends).

Gnoll Pack Lord (MV)

A Level 8 Controller (Leader) with 90 HP, this seems like a more complex version of the demonic scourge above. It’s also pretty much a lazy warlord.

Its basic flail attack is nothing special, but it can cast a Demonic Frenzy charm (Ranged 10 vs. Will) that does no damage, but dazes for a turn as an effect. On a hit, it also inflicts a -2 attack penalty and forces the target to make 2 basic attacks against targets of the gnoll’s choice.

It can also use a power called Feed on the Weak (Area Burst 1 within 5 vs. Will), which does no damage but causes the target to grant combat advantage for a turn and allows an ally in the burst to make an attack as a free action.

As a minor action, it can use a Pack Cackle (Close Burst 5; recharge 5-6) to allow its allies to shift 2 squares as a free action.

Gnoll Demon Spawn (MV)

Our final gnoll is a Level 9 Brute with 120 HP, who is Large but still a Natural Humanoid despite that demonic ancestry. An upgraded version of the Gorger, it fights with its claws and can take a bite out of its enemies to heal itself. This is a minor action, and requires an attack roll since no PC is just going to stand there and let it happen.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

I’m not going to detail the MM encounters here, as this post is already too long. You can guess what they look like: groups of assorted gnolls, with the occasional pack of hyenas and evistro demons thrown in. As I said above, no one else can work with these maniacs.

When it comes to humanoids and other “sapient, natural” opposition, I don’t mind if the specific group the PCs are fighting is villainous. However it does bother me a bit when the game seems to say every single member of the species is similarly evil. That solitary Dragon article could have opened the way for a setting where your typical gnoll is a person and not necessarily hostile, with the ones you fight being those individuals who chose an evil path (much like the game treats humans). Instead, it was never officially built upon and in fact 5e went in the other direction and made gnolls into basically another type of demon.

Anyway, these stat blocks make for mechanically interesting enemies and we have enough of them to build entire dungeons with nothing but gnolls as the opposition. Do grab that Dragon article if you can, I remember the playable version was also quite good.