Ghoul

Medium undead, chaotic evil

Armor Class
12
Hit Points
22
5d8
Speed
30 ft.
  • STR +1
  • DEX +2
  • CON 0
  • INT -2
  • WIS 0
  • CHA -2
Damage Immunities
poison
Condition Immunities
charmed, exhaustion, poisoned
Senses
darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages
Common
Challenge 1 200 XP · Proficiency +2

Actions

Bite

Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) piercing damage.

Claws

Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (2d4 + 2) slashing damage. If the target is a creature other than an elf or undead, it must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or be paralyzed for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

How to run it

The claws are the whole creature. A hit forces a DC 10 Constitution save or the target is paralyzed for a minute, repeating at the end of each of its turns. A paralyzed character is auto-hit by everything adjacent, and every hit is a critical. Two ghouls on one paralyzed character will kill them.

Run ghouls as a swarm that seizes on whoever fails first. They should visibly converge on the paralyzed target, because that is both what starving undead would do and what makes the mechanic matter.

Building the encounter

Four ghouls is a hard fight for a party of four at level 3, and a genuinely dangerous one because of how quickly paralysis compounds. Two is a fair encounter at level 2.

They need to be able to reach the party. Ghouls in a corridor where only one can engage is a much easier fight than ghouls in a crypt chamber where all four can surround someone.

What to pair it with

A ghast, or a necromancer who raises more of them. Ghouls also work well with terrain that slows the party, since anything that keeps a character adjacent to a ghoul for an extra round is doing the ghoul's work.

Skeletons alongside ghouls create a useful decision: the skeletons are the obvious targets and the ghouls are the real threat.

Reskins

Anything that immobilises through fear, venom, cold or magic. Paralysis is such a strong effect that the fiction hardly matters; a spider-thing, a fungal horror or a creature that induces terror all play identically.

Keeping the elf immunity is optional and rarely comes up unless someone at the table is playing an elf, in which case it is a lovely moment.

Commonly played wrong

The bite is +2 to hit and the claws are +4. The claws are the better attack and the one carrying the paralysis, so a ghoul should almost always use claws. Alternating them because the bite is listed first is a common and costly habit.

Elves are immune to the paralysis, and so are undead. That immunity is easy to forget and it matters enormously to the elf player who has been dreading this fight.

Compared to others at this CR

At CR 1 the ghoul is the control option and by some distance the most dangerous of them to a level 2 party. The bugbear does more damage; the ghoul removes a character from the game.

Paralysis at CR 1 is unusually punishing, and a group of ghouls can end a low-level party in a way nothing else at this rating can. Use them deliberately, not casually.

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