Gnoll

Medium humanoid (gnoll), chaotic evil

Armor Class
15
hide armor, shield
Hit Points
22
5d8
Speed
30 ft.
  • STR +2
  • DEX +1
  • CON 0
  • INT -2
  • WIS 0
  • CHA -2
Senses
darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages
Gnoll
Challenge 1/2 100 XP · Proficiency +2

Traits

Rampage

When the gnoll reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on its turn, the gnoll can take a bonus action to move up to half its speed and make a bite attack.

Actions

Bite

Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 4 (1d4 + 2) piercing damage.

Spear

Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage, or 6 (1d8 + 2) piercing damage if used with two hands to make a melee attack.

Longbow

Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d8 + 1) piercing damage.

How to run it

Rampage turns a gnoll pack into a cascade. Every time one drops a character to 0, that gnoll moves half its speed and bites again as a bonus action, which can reach a second character who thought they were safe. A fight that is going badly for the party goes worse very quickly.

Gnolls do not fight tactically. They are hunger with a spear. Run them as a mob that pursues the wounded and ignores the armoured, which is both flavourful and mechanically correct given Rampage.

Building the encounter

Four to six for a party of four at level 2. They are more dangerous than their rating against parties with a squishy front line, and less dangerous than it against a party that keeps everyone above zero.

Open ground and pursuit suits them. A gnoll warband that catches a caravan in the open is the encounter this stat block was written for.

What to pair it with

A gnoll pack lord or a hyena pack to add bodies and speed. Hyenas alone alongside gnolls is thematically perfect and mechanically cheap.

They also work as the second wave. Gnolls arriving three rounds into another fight, when characters are already low, is when Rampage really bites.

Reskins

Frenzied pack predators that feed on the fallen. Ghouls with a pulse, cannibal raiders, hunger-cursed villagers, or a demon's hunting pack. Rampage carries the identity and reskins into almost anything hungry.

Drop the longbow if you want them purely as a melee terror; it is the least characterful part of the stat block.

Commonly played wrong

Rampage requires the gnoll to reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on its own turn. It does not trigger on an opportunity attack, and it does not trigger on killing a summoned creature that vanishes rather than dropping.

The bite it grants is the 1d4 bite, not the spear. That is a small distinction that makes the follow-up much less lethal than players fear.

Compared to others at this CR

At CR 1/2 the gnoll sits with the orc and the hobgoblin. It has the worst defences of the three and the only ability that scales with the party doing badly.

Against a healthy party a gnoll is the weakest of that trio. Against a party that has already taken a beating it is by far the most dangerous, which makes it an excellent choice for a second encounter in a day.

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