Designing Monster Groups

In my experience as a designer and DM, the best monsters express a clear identity and a tactical challenge in their design. That goes double for monsters you expect to use in a group. Otherwise, a mob of goblins feels the same as a mob of gnolls. What’s the point of changing to a new creature if the game plays the same?

Story as Tactics

The math behind D&D is built to produce fights that last around three rounds. You can think of those three rounds as a three-act structure. The first round sets up the encounter, the second one introduces a complication or challenge, and the third one wraps up the action in a climactic event.

When you think of monsters in that light, you start to see how we can design creatures to fit into D&D’s encounter structure. Let’s take gnolls as an example.

Fun Fact: Hyenas eat their prey alive. They lack the jaw strength to crush and kill their prey before eating, so they just start devouring them once they have brought them down. That’s horrifying, but also a good place to start designing gnolls with an eye toward our three-round structure.

Drawing from hyenas, let’s create gnolls as vicious pack hunters that leap on their prey and devour them as quickly as possible. Let’s also double down on that chaotic evil alignment to add in a selfish focus on individuality.

A Gnoll in Three Acts

Here is how I envision the typical fight with a gnoll warband going:

·         The gnolls attack in large numbers, swarming around their prey

·         As gnolls fall, the survivors dine on their fallen comrades and grow stronger

·         The few surviving gnolls, powered up, overwhelm and devour their prey

I like this flow for its ability to showcase a hyper-Darwinian monster that has no room for weakness. It also has a lot of implications for how gnolls operate that can feed into the world’s mythology and legends.

It also means we want a lot of gnolls in an encounter, to help set up more fallen gnolls for their allies to eat. Let’s rough up some stat blocks:

Gnoll Bloodclaw

Medium humanoid (gnoll, mook), typically chaotic evil

Armor Class 12 (hide)

Hit Points 5

Speed 40 ft.

Saves and Checks: Con +3, others +0

Melee Attack Bonus: +3 claws, slashing damage

Ranged Attack Bonus: +0 thrown rock, range 30 ft., bludgeoning damage

·         Level 1: 1d4 damage

·         Level 2: 1d8 damage

·         Level 3: 1d10 damage

·         Level 4: 2d8 damage

Darkvision 60 ft.

Blood Frenzy: When a creature the gnoll bloodclaw can see is slain, it gains advantage on attacks until the end of its next turn.

Gnoll Pursuer

Medium humanoid (gnoll), typically chaotic evil

Armor Class 12 (hide)

Speed 40 ft.

Saves and Checks: Con +5, others +0

Melee Attack Bonus: +5 claws, slashing damage

Ranged Attack Bonus: +3 thrown rock, range 30 ft., bludgeoning damage

·         Level 1: 10 hit points, 1d6 damage

·         Level 2: 16 hit points, 1d8 damage

·         Level 3: 22 hit points, 2d6 damage

·         Level 4: 28 hit points, 2d10 damage

Darkvision 60 ft.

Rip and Tear: As a bonus action, the gnoll can make a melee attack against a creature at 0 hit points. If it does so, it gains temporary hit points equal to 2 + its level and its attacks this turn deal an additional 1d6 damage.

Gnoll Culler

Medium humanoid champion (gnoll), typically chaotic evil

Armor Class 14 (hide)

Speed 40 ft.

Saves and Checks: Dex +5, Con +5, Wis +5, Cha +5, others +0

Melee Attack Bonus: +5 claws, slashing damage

Ranged Attack Bonus: +6 longbow, range 150/600 ft., piercing damage

·         Level 3: 105 hit points, 1d8 damage

·         Level 4: 132 hit points, 1d10 damage

Darkvision 60 ft.

Rip and Tear: As a bonus action, the gnoll can make a melee attack against a creature at 0 hit points. If it does so, it gains temporary hit points equal to 2 + its level and its attacks deal an additional 1d6 damage until the end of its next turn.

Actions

·         Attack: This creature makes two melee or two ranged attacks.

·         Call to Feast: This creature makes a ranged attack, and up to two creatures of its choice adjacent to the target can make melee attacks against that target as reactions.

Counter

Soul Culling. When a creature uses Rip and Tear, the Culler can use its counter to grant the benefits of that effect to up to 1d6 creatures it can see within 120 feet of it.

Escape

Impetuous Fury (1/day). At the start of its turn, the gnoll can end all spells and effects on it but for the next 10 minutes it cannot use ranged attacks and must use its move to move closer to its enemies.

Bringing it All Together

The gnolls designed here set up this basic arc:

·         They attack in large numbers, with lots of bloodclaws and a few pursuers.

·         In the first round, the characters likely hack down a few minions.

·         The remaining gnolls then power up in round two, becoming an increased threat despite their numbers.

·         The characters then try to cut down gnolls while also denying them the ability to power up.

·         If they succeed, they can end the fight relatively intact. If not, the fight might take longer and expose them to more danger.

Remember that in my monster system, two mooks count as one PC, a normal monster counts as one PC, and a champion counts as two PCs.

Adding a culler to the mix complicates things for the PCs. They must endure its ranged attacks while it also magnifies the effects of the gnolls’ special abilities. A spellcaster or ranged character might need to focus on the culler first, at the expense of spreading out the characters’ attacks.

There’s also a nasty little surprise hidden in the Rip and Tear ability. A cruel DM could use that effect against a downed PC. In a dark and gritty campaign, that threat might be just the right way to throw some fear into the PCs.

From a story point of view, this clearly sets up gnolls as horrific, devouring predators. Mythologically, they might represent unfettered hunger, the dangers of creatures that lurk in the dark forests or dungeons, and the risks of going it alone. They’re one of many reasons why cities build walls, dwarves hide away underground, and elves keep to their trees.

What’s an Escape?

An escape is a new type of action I’ve added to some monsters. It’s a single use ability that lets a monster throw off a shut down effect, usually at the cost of restricting its actions in a way that makes sense. In this case, the gnoll culler throws itself into a rage that lets it push aside an effect or end a spell. In return, it loses its ranged attack.

In this case, the design gives a benefit for shutting down the culler. Knocking out its ranged attacks is a useful way to reduce its danger. However, as a DM you can still use a creature that represents a significant portion of your encounter budget.