Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Chameleon-X May 14, 2015 10:20:18	With Rage of Demons coming out next season, it got me thinking about Gnolls. I'm hoping this edition doesn't wait too long to bring back monster PC races. With that said, here's what I thought of. GNOLL Your Gnoll character has a number of innate traits, which are the product of his or her violent upbringing and the traces of demon blood burning in your veins.      Ability Score Increase: +2 Strength      Age: Gnolls mature quickly and live about half as long as humans; about 30 years.      Alignment: Most Gnolls are Chaotic Evil, but player characters may be any alignment. Gnolls who are not Chaotic Evil must constantly struggle against the destructive impulses of their demonic blood, and are still prone to violence and explosive anger.      Size: Most Gnolls are between 5 and 7 feet tall, and have lean, wiry builds. Your size is Medium.      Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.      Darkvision: You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern colors in darkness, only shades of gray.      Haunting Laughter: You have proficiency in the Intimidation skill.      Bite: You have a natural weapon; a Bite attack. This is an unarmed strike which you can use even when you do not have a hand free, and you are proficient in its use. Your bite has the Finesse property and deals 1d6 piercing damage on a hit. Languages: Common, Abyssal (Gnoll) Gnoll Most Gnolls who become adventurers are outcasts who have been exiled from their pack for one reason or another, and are forced to survive alone or find others with who will aid them. Depending on the reason for their exile, these Gnolls may miss their former kin, or hate them with a vengeance. Either way, even heroic Gnolls are unpredictable and ferocious, and tend to get what they want through force and intimidation, rather than diplomacy.      Ability Score Increase: +1 Dexterity      Blood Frenzy: When you deal damage to a creature that is not at full hit points, you may add your proficiency bonus to the damage roll. You may use this feature only once per turn.      Rampage: When you reduce an enemy to 0 hit points, you may make a bite attack as a bonus action. Flind Flinds are a variant of Gnoll that is shorter, broader, and stronger than the average Gnoll. These Gnolls tend to excell in leadership, strength, and brutality, and thus they often come to lead packs of lesser Gnolls. Gnolls look on the Flind in awe and reverence, and thus many Flind become adventurers after becoming full of themselves from such hero worship.      Ability Score Increase: +1 Charisma      Pack Attack: When you hit a creature with an attack, you may cause that attack to deal 1d6 extra damage if there are at least two other creatures within 5 feet of the target that are hostile to it, and are not incapacitated. You may deal this extra damage only once per turn.      Incite Rampage: When a friendly creature within 60ft of you reduces a creature to 0 hit points, you may use your reaction to allow that creature to make a single melee attack with a weapon as a bonus action.   Optional Feat: Butcher's Brood Prerequisite: Gnoll race   The lineage of Yeenoghu, the demon prince of butchery, runs strong in you, granting you powers above and beyond those of ordinary Gnolls. You gain the following benefits:      • You learn the Minor Illusion cantrip, but you may use it only to produce an illusory sound. This illusion can be of any sound you have heard, such as a woman's scream, a child crying, or even the voice of a specific individual speaking. If you use this ability to mimic a creature's voice, you may only duplicate short phrases such as "Help me," "Come Here," or "This way!" Constitution is your spellcasting ability for this spell.      • When you hit with the bite attack allowed by your Rampage class feature, you also gain temporary hit points equal to twice your proficiency bonus.      • You may use your Bite attack to grab a creature, as if you had a hand free. If you succeed on your grapple check, you grab the target in your jaws. While you have a creature grabbed in your jaws, you can use your Bite attack on that creature as a bonus action, once per round. When you use your bite attack in this way, it deals slashing damage instead of piercing, as you use your teeth to shake the target and tear their flesh.   Optional Feat: Now We Feast Prerequisite: Gnoll race You are a carnivorous creature with a taste for the flesh of humanoids, and you draw perverse strength from devouring the corpses of your enemies.      As an action, you may devour a portion of a humanoid within 5 feet of you, and recover hit points equal to your proficiency bonus times the CR the creature had when it was alive (minimum 1).  You may only benefit from this feature once with any particular corpse.      Alternatively, you may consume the entire corpse of a humanoid (bones and all) as part of a short rest. When you do so, any hit dice you spend during that rest restore the maximum number of hit points possible. The corpse you devour cannot be one you have previously taken a bite out of with the above benefit.      You gain nourishment from any corpse (or portion thereof) you devour. If you consume an entire corpse, you recieve sufficient food and water (from the victim's blood) to survive for one full day. Eating a corpse that is afflicted with a disease exposes you to that disease (i.e., you automatically fail any saving throw against that disease). If you are immune to the disease, it does not affect you, but you can still act as a carrier to infect other creatures you bite for up to one week after being exposed.
#2 Istbor May 14, 2015 10:37:09	I love Gnolls! I do however think Rampage and Incite Rampage are very strong.  Fitting both a move and attack into a bonus action or reaction, feels out of the ordinary for 5e.   I also want to know some clarification on Pack Attack, the two other creatures next to your attacked target, right now it does not state that they need to be friend or foe.  Is that supposed to be hostile creatures to that target?
(Reply to #2) Chameleon-X	Istbor wrote:
#4 Mechatarrasque May 14, 2015 12:30:32	I like them.  You might think about changing flinds' +1 stat to charisma.  It would be nice to have a caster gnoll--they hang out with demons and in 4e, an undead creature (I think it was witherlings) was associated with them (I can't remember about earlier editions).  Thematically, warlock seems like a good fit (particularly if they made an undead patron), and all that hanging out with demons could lead to sorcerers (if they had an abyssal bloodline sorcerer).
#5 Istbor May 14, 2015 12:42:14	Mechatarrasque wrote:
#6 LuisCarlos17f May 14, 2015 14:05:40	I don´t like the gnolls, the background. They are too wild and stupy to build a civilitation. They are the first from the list of races whou should suffer a genocide.    * About racial traits.    - But claws, most of natural weapons like fangs and horns aren´t really useful for humanoids characters.   - Inmunity to all no-natural diseases could be too powerful. Better adventage for saves againts contagious diseases.    - My suggestion is Smell can be a skill, for all classes chosen by PC gnoll.
#7 LordCorwin May 14, 2015 14:25:34	This seems a little powerful to me. Compare it to another very gruff race, like say the half-orc, and I think it's easier to see.
#8 Zardnaar May 14, 2015 14:55:36	I bought the Reclaiming the Cavees on the Borderlands adventure and it had Gnolls as a PC race in it.   Copy & Paste.   Gnoll Ability Modifier: +1 Strength, +1 Constitution. Age: Adulthood at 12. Live to be 50. Alignment: The only rules or structure that gnolls follow is might makes right. Size: Gnolls are slightly larger than humans, standing up to 7 feet tall. Your size is medium. Speed: 30ft. Bite: Gnolls can take a bonus action to bite. Strength is the appropriate ability modifier for attack rolls and damage. Proficiency bonus also applies, and damage is 1d6 piercing. Darkvision: You gain darkvision to 60ft.
(Reply to #5) Mechatarrasque	Istbor wrote:
#10 Solarazhade May 15, 2015 12:53:16	I had tinkered with a Gnoll player race but haven't actually sent it to my players yet because I felt it was a bit overpowered still.  All the same, I figured I might as well share what I have:   Gnolls are feral humanoids that attack settlements along the frontiers and borderlands of civilization without warning, slaughtering their victims and devouring their flesh.   The origin of the gnolls traces back to a time when the demon lord Yeenoghu found his way to the Material Plane and ran amok. Packs of ordinary hyenas followed in his wake, scavenging the demon lord's kills.  Those hyenas were transformed into the first gnolls, parading after Yeenoghu until he was banished back to the Abyss. RACIAL TRAITS Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, while your Dexterity and Constitution scores increase by 1.  Your Intelligence score decreases by 1. Age. Gnolls have a similar lifespan to Humans, but reach adulthood at about 10 years of age. Size. Gnolls are larger than humans, standing around 7'4", and weighing around 300 pounds.  You are considered to be Medium-Sized. Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Darkvision. Thanks to your fiendish heritage, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. Natural Attack. You are never unarmed. You are proficient with your bite, which is a melee weapon that deals 1d4 bludgeoning damage. Rampage. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, you can make a Reaction to move up to 1/2 of your speed and make a Bite attack. Corrupted Blood (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). As an action you can exude a pheromone stench, each beast or plant creature within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw with a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier. If the creature fails its saving throw, it is frightened of you for 1 minute or until it takes damage.  A frightened creature must spend its turns trying to move as far away from you as it can, and it can’t willingly move to a space within 30 feet of you. It also can’t take reactions. For its action, it can use only the Dash action or try to escape from an effect that prevents it from moving. If there’s nowhere to move, the creature can use the Dodge action.  Additionally, you have disadvantage on Wisdom (Animal Handling) and Charisma ability checks to interact with Animals, except Hyenas, and you may deal 1 necrotic damage a round with your touch to nonmagical nonsentient plants causing them to wither and die over time. Languages. You can speak, understand, and are literate in the Common, Abyssal, and Gnoll languages.   Notes: I like the idea of having a monster race that penalizes intelligence.  I think it can be fun to roleplay someone with an intelligence below 8, speaking in broken english for example.   I feel that rampage is powerful at low levels but since it never benefits from magical equipment it eventually becomes fairly balanced and actually under powered compared to some of the other reactions that you will have available at higher levels.   When I take a race from the Monster Manual I try to include everything from its stat block into the race and then add things that it wouldn't make sense to even show in the stat block.  So for example it doesn't make a lot of sense to put corrupted blood in the stat block because it won't effect most combats with humanoids, the exception being summoned creatures or ranger animal companion.  For some other races I put things like role playing interaction abilities that wouldn't need to be called out in the monster manual because it doesn't effect combat.  I also try and invent things that align with the monster description, in this I took from the fact that they were created by demonic blood.  For Kobolds for example I took from the fact that they burrow tunnels to create a new racial feature.   Eventually I end up going back and "Nerfing" some of the more powerful things so that it can't quite be the same as what's in the monster manual but it is still similar.  I will probably end up doing that here, I had to do it for Bugbears as well.
#11 LuisCarlos17f May 16, 2015 0:36:52	My suggestion is to use the racial traits fro gnolls from 4th Ed. Something like bonus to damage if the gnoll has only half hitpoints or lower. After racial feats only for gnolls could be created.   * What if a tribe scavenger of scavenger gnolls found ancient high-tech, and they were controlled, or ruled, by a raggamoffyn variant (the captured one monster template from 3rd Monster Manual II)? It would be like a mixture of splatterpunk version of borgs (from Star Treck) and the wild gangs from Mad Max movies. Controlled by piercings what really would be the living construction version of psionic pupetters.   Or a blue goblin (a subrace with psionic powers) used a gnoll tribe to enslave the goblin tribe (for revenge) and after the blue goblin (the blue-skin evil cousin of master Joda) used mind-controll to create a state-city rule by gnolls, and gnolls mind-controlled by the dinasty of "ministers" (the original blue's kindred).    * For me gnolls aren´t interesting if they can´t create complex societies, at least like the ironborns from "Games of Thrones".     * What if the werehyena monster template is added to a gnoll?
#12 Adjule May 16, 2015 8:26:54	Honestly the one Zardnaar copy/pasted is rather terrible, especially compared to the core races.   As for adding in that racial trait from 4th edition: why would you ever want to use any kind of healing that made you go above 1/2 hit points?   I love gnolls, and would love to play one in a game where they aren't seen as rampaging slavers that are KoS. I have gnolls as a race for my setting. What I gave them is +2 Con and +1 Str, darkvision, the Rampage ability from the MM, the dwarven poison resistance ability, proficiency with flails, and a bite attack. They aren't demon-worshipping rampaging slavers in this setting, but are bee-keeper merchants, who tend hives of giant bees, gather the honey, and export it.   I would love to see an official gnoll race that wasn't a completely terrible waste of word count. I don't see that happening anytime soon, and was amazed that there was a 4th edition one (dragon magazine, but everything was considered "core").
#13 LuisCarlos17f May 16, 2015 10:12:36	In my own settin gnolls don´t live like prehistoric tribes but more like the ancient Sparta, with kingdoms like a mixture of world of Gor(Conan the barbarian + Christian Gray) and Barsoom (Johan Carter's adventures in Mars), and with a little touch of Lovecraft mythos (specially the short story "the mound" about the K'n-yan kingdom).
#14 jonathan_sicari May 16, 2015 19:29:53	I loved my 4E gnoll PCs.