Anyone else have a massive problem with this? Not for any list of reasons, but the whole, "gnolls are just born bad, because they are too demonic." Where as Tieflings are also like, half demonic.
If we follow the logic of how Gnolls are, gnolls are Atleast 40 percent of demonic heritage, they don't even speak abyssal. They don't have any particular group of powers beyond that of other races. They get Rampage, but guess what? Orcs can pick up a rampage like ability as well. Tieflings literally have demonic bloodline powers.
I do not know what it is, but it smacks of some kind of hatred for monsterous race players. Like kobolds got hit hard, a number of monsterous creatures that were somewhat uncommon but still played got the short end of the stick. Where I Do greatly enjoy the whole, narrowing and focusing of the lens, the excuses for why we can't have some creatures that were playable in the past, are flimsy at best.
I don't really think there's anything wrong with playing as a gnoll. I could imagine the next iteration of monstrous PC races may include Gnolls and maybe warforged along with the Minotaur and centaur that are currently UA.
We've seen a lot of effort over time to flesh out monstrous races and give them more depth and soul to them beyond just being generic bad guys and I think for the most part it's been better for the game as a whole since it allows DMs who lean on official lore to flesh out their stories more without really invalidating just having generic bad guys if that's what people prefer.
But for gnolls they went completely in the opposite direction, enthusiastically stripping away all of the nuance and development they've been given over the last couple decades in 3e and 4e (though even AD&D gnolls had more substance to them) to make them one of the most one-dimensional bad guy races dungeons and dragons have ever had. To the point that instead of embracing nuance and individuality we apparently have writers going out of their way to emphasize that it's basically impossible.
It seems like such a waste and so counter to the direction most other traditionally antagonistic races have been taken.
If a bugbear can be a playable race, or genasi, or even elf for that matter, there's no reason your campaign couldn't use a gnoll PC. So what if their blood runs hot? So what if they are driven by hunger? These are valuable traits that will lead to fantastic character motivation and development.
Anyone else have a massive problem with this? Not for any list of reasons, but the whole, "gnolls are just born bad, because they are too demonic." Where as Tieflings are also like, half demonic.
Not that it matters, but tieflings are distantly related to devils. Demons want little more than destruction. Devils are lawful and have restraint. But more importantly, Asmodeus doesn't hold sway over tieflings; they can do whatever they want, just like humans.
The real half-devils and half-demons are called cambions, and they're not playable either. They're fiends through and through, no better than their fiendish parent.
If a bugbear can be a playable race, or genasi, or even elf for that matter, there's no reason your campaign couldn't use a gnoll PC. So what if their blood runs hot? So what if they are driven by hunger? These are valuable traits that will lead to fantastic character motivation and development.
You're vastly understating their motivations. Bloodlust and hunger isn't a facet of their personality; it's their sole reason for living. They don't think about anything else. Nothing short of a massacre gives them any satisfaction, and even that only gets them to stop for a couple of days. There's no room for character development or cooperation with other races in a monster like that.
The only way to make gnolls playable is to establish some faction of gnolls that have somehow broken free from Yeenoghu's influence, just like the UA Minotaurs escaped Baphomet's influence.
Have you seen most player parties? And that is another point, Minotaurs broke Baphomets hold fairly easily. That and Yeenhagu cares very very little for what exactly his gnolls do as long as they fling themselves into battle as frequently as they whim it. Or gorge themselves on the meat of their kills. Hell Yuanti are also a statted race.
Yeah, there isn't really any arguing the point of 5e gnolls as written. They're fundamentally and inalienably evil and destructive to such an extreme that they don't even play nice with other bad guys.
Saying they're 'too demonic' to be playable is honestly misrepresenting and grossly underselling it. 5e gnolls have so little agency as a rule that an actual demon would be a more viable party member than a gnoll would, since at least a demon would have a mind of its own.
They're basically designed specifically to be unplayable. So if you want playable gnolls you're going to have to invent your own lore to justify it (and you totally should because, again, 5e gnolls are a huge waste as written and having real gnolls would be cool).
Personal opinion is it would take something along the lines of divine intervention, or a wish to break gnolls from there connection to Yeenoghu. They seem pretty strongly set as conduits for the demon lord. I feel like while reading Mordenkainens they mentioned something like the souls of those consumed by the gnolls go straight to yeenoghu. I could be mistaken as I have only had a short time to start reading through all this new material but that is my two cents.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I want to take it a step further. DnD needs some generic bad guy races. Too many of the non-beast monsters have been humanized and given complex motivations / backstory that aside from undead we need some sort of random bad guys to be able to throw in there.
Just do a search in the available monsters for Basic Rules. For a tier 1 party fighting a group of chaotic evil bad guys there are 7 medium sized 1/8 - 1 CR enemies and... 3 of them are Humanoid. Bugbear, Gnoll and Orc (orcs have more complex motivations)... So for mindless generic random humanoid bad guys you have Bugbear and Gnoll (cr 1 and 1/2 respectively).
Sure I would be all for them making some sort of "awakened" Gnoll race down the road, or even as part of some Unearthed Arcana... however the basic Gnoll as outlined in Basic Rules or MM... I think it's good how it is.
@CWard83: I think that's partially what has been hinted at in this thread. Is it OK to have an "awakened" gnoll PC? I say sure... but if not, why not? If it doesn't work for your setting, then you have a disconnect between the game that your player wants to play and the game you want to run.
Why is it said there needs to be a categorically mindless evil? Why is it a bad thing that these monstrous races are given consciousness or other motivation? Examples are given of undead having no motivation, and yet Strahd and Acererack have powerful motivations for their deeds and are showcased as they are formidable and cunning foes with rich backstory.
@InquisitiveCoder I see many reasons brought up in generalities that it's just not done that way, or this is what's accepted as history/monster lore, but isn't the fun in the fact that the adventuring PC's are exceptional individuals who gain powers (and xp) by heroic action?
Does it all just boil down to "I don't want to talk to these things... let's just hit it!" ? If so, that's fine, but those are monsters/npc's. Shouldn't a player be able to choose the character they want, with DM guidance?
Why is it said there needs to be a categorically mindless evil? Why is it a bad thing that these monstrous races are given consciousness or other motivation?
Sometimes stopping a force of destruction is all your adventure calls for. Sometimes the story you're going for has nothing to do with brokering peace with the villain or unravelling their motivations, and having monsters players can kill without moral dilemmas is really handy. Breath of the Wild became game of the year with an antagonist that's the Zelda equivalent of a Tarrasque.
Examples are given of undead having no motivation, and yet Strahd and Acererack have powerful motivations for their deeds and are showcased as they are formidable and cunning foes with rich backstory.
They're also irredeemable monsters, which is why vampires and liches aren't playable either.
I see many reasons brought up in generalities that it's just not done that way, or this is what's accepted as history/monster lore, but isn't the fun in the fact that the adventuring PC's are exceptional individuals who gain powers (and xp) by heroic action? Does it all just boil down to "I don't want to talk to these things... let's just hit it!" ?
Every single "evil" playable race is that way because of nurture. Gnolls are evil by nature, like fiends and most undead. That's all it is. As far as we know there's no such thing as a heroic gnoll, and if there were one, it would be a very different kind of gnoll from the ones in the Monster Manual.
Shouldn't a player be able to choose the character they want, with DM guidance?
No? Players should work with the DM to find something to play that fits into the story everyone wants to play. If the bad guys are irredeemably evil cyborgs, it's very unlikely evil cyborg is going to be an option for the players. If the DM wants to be super accommodating they might find a way to make it work anyways, but players aren't in a position to demand the DM bend over backwards.
I'm fascinated by this thread. If a monster race is "just that way because 'reasons'" couldn't a player be "just different because 'reasons'"? I mean, a lot of the guidance is already out there on how to treat the player fairly and how to keep power relatively comparable. So, why stop at gnolls? Why not a jelly or a plant player?
Absolutely, but... The OP was asking more directly to 5e rules as written. You can homebrew anything you want, and should, if it makes you happy. As written though, wizards has to stop somewhere in what they allow playable characters...
DnD needs some generic bad guy races. Too many of the non-beast monsters have been humanized and given complex motivations / backstory that aside from undead we need some sort of random bad guys to be able to throw in there.
Why? Nothing about DnD adding more content to orcs made them any worse at being generic fill-in mooks. Nothing about DnD stripping away all of the gnoll lore they've written up to now makes them particularly better at it too. In fact, despite this assertion that 5e's gnolls are our only option for generic low CR bad guys... I still see orcs show up in that role a lot more often in campaigns.
A raiding party of AD&D, 3.5 or 4e gnolls isn't visually or thematically distinct from a raiding party of 5e gnolls. But a 3.5 gnoll mercenary working with the party is distinct from the same concept in 5e because word of god now is that we're not allowed to do that anymore within their lore.
I dunno, maybe if they had created something new for this express purpose it'd make more sense, but taking something that was already well established, functional and had fairly recently been significantly fleshed out and expanded upon and stripping that all away to create something intentionally designed to be generic instead just feels incredibly wasteful.
On the other side of it, as a DM, I really like Gnolls as they are- specifically because they are mindless killing monsters that can't be reasoned with.
It can set up some great situations where the players know that there's no back-up plan of talking their way out, or tricking their adversaries with words.
The game doesn't need many monster races like this, but having one or two is great.
As suggested above though, if you want a playable gnoll race for a PC, then just homebrew the reasons and lore behind it and you're good. :)
Tieflings are half Devil, trust me it's waaaaaaay different. You also mention the Abbysal language, you can tell Tieflings are like devils because they speak Infernal not Abbysal.
Anyone else have a massive problem with this? Not for any list of reasons, but the whole, "gnolls are just born bad, because they are too demonic." Where as Tieflings are also like, half demonic.
If we follow the logic of how Gnolls are, gnolls are Atleast 40 percent of demonic heritage, they don't even speak abyssal. They don't have any particular group of powers beyond that of other races. They get Rampage, but guess what? Orcs can pick up a rampage like ability as well. Tieflings literally have demonic bloodline powers.
I do not know what it is, but it smacks of some kind of hatred for monsterous race players. Like kobolds got hit hard, a number of monsterous creatures that were somewhat uncommon but still played got the short end of the stick. Where I Do greatly enjoy the whole, narrowing and focusing of the lens, the excuses for why we can't have some creatures that were playable in the past, are flimsy at best.
Thoughts?
Hi there Haresy,
you'll probably need to provide a reference and context to this discussion - where is it that you saw it said that "Gnolls are too demonic"?
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
I don't really think there's anything wrong with playing as a gnoll. I could imagine the next iteration of monstrous PC races may include Gnolls and maybe warforged along with the Minotaur and centaur that are currently UA.
StormKnight, Perkins a while ago stated that Gnolls were too demonic for standard play. That they were just 'badguys' and the like.
I believe Volo's Guide makes comment on Gnolls as well.
Ah, ok - I can certainly see that being the case.
Gnolls in 5th edition aren't really individual creatures, they operate more as servants of the demon lord Yeenoghu.
As you mentioned, the section in Volo's explains this well.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/vgtm/monster-lore#GnollsTheInsatiableHunger
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
I really don't get 5e gnolls.
We've seen a lot of effort over time to flesh out monstrous races and give them more depth and soul to them beyond just being generic bad guys and I think for the most part it's been better for the game as a whole since it allows DMs who lean on official lore to flesh out their stories more without really invalidating just having generic bad guys if that's what people prefer.
But for gnolls they went completely in the opposite direction, enthusiastically stripping away all of the nuance and development they've been given over the last couple decades in 3e and 4e (though even AD&D gnolls had more substance to them) to make them one of the most one-dimensional bad guy races dungeons and dragons have ever had. To the point that instead of embracing nuance and individuality we apparently have writers going out of their way to emphasize that it's basically impossible.
It seems like such a waste and so counter to the direction most other traditionally antagonistic races have been taken.
If a bugbear can be a playable race, or genasi, or even elf for that matter, there's no reason your campaign couldn't use a gnoll PC. So what if their blood runs hot? So what if they are driven by hunger? These are valuable traits that will lead to fantastic character motivation and development.
Not that it matters, but tieflings are distantly related to devils. Demons want little more than destruction. Devils are lawful and have restraint. But more importantly, Asmodeus doesn't hold sway over tieflings; they can do whatever they want, just like humans.
The real half-devils and half-demons are called cambions, and they're not playable either. They're fiends through and through, no better than their fiendish parent.
You're vastly understating their motivations. Bloodlust and hunger isn't a facet of their personality; it's their sole reason for living. They don't think about anything else. Nothing short of a massacre gives them any satisfaction, and even that only gets them to stop for a couple of days. There's no room for character development or cooperation with other races in a monster like that.
The only way to make gnolls playable is to establish some faction of gnolls that have somehow broken free from Yeenoghu's influence, just like the UA Minotaurs escaped Baphomet's influence.
Have you seen most player parties? And that is another point, Minotaurs broke Baphomets hold fairly easily. That and Yeenhagu cares very very little for what exactly his gnolls do as long as they fling themselves into battle as frequently as they whim it. Or gorge themselves on the meat of their kills. Hell Yuanti are also a statted race.
Yes. They don't act like gnolls.
Yuan-Ti don't act like mindless killing machines either.
Yeah, there isn't really any arguing the point of 5e gnolls as written. They're fundamentally and inalienably evil and destructive to such an extreme that they don't even play nice with other bad guys.
Saying they're 'too demonic' to be playable is honestly misrepresenting and grossly underselling it. 5e gnolls have so little agency as a rule that an actual demon would be a more viable party member than a gnoll would, since at least a demon would have a mind of its own.
They're basically designed specifically to be unplayable. So if you want playable gnolls you're going to have to invent your own lore to justify it (and you totally should because, again, 5e gnolls are a huge waste as written and having real gnolls would be cool).
Personal opinion is it would take something along the lines of divine intervention, or a wish to break gnolls from there connection to Yeenoghu. They seem pretty strongly set as conduits for the demon lord. I feel like while reading Mordenkainens they mentioned something like the souls of those consumed by the gnolls go straight to yeenoghu. I could be mistaken as I have only had a short time to start reading through all this new material but that is my two cents.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I want to take it a step further. DnD needs some generic bad guy races. Too many of the non-beast monsters have been humanized and given complex motivations / backstory that aside from undead we need some sort of random bad guys to be able to throw in there.
Just do a search in the available monsters for Basic Rules. For a tier 1 party fighting a group of chaotic evil bad guys there are 7 medium sized 1/8 - 1 CR enemies and... 3 of them are Humanoid. Bugbear, Gnoll and Orc (orcs have more complex motivations)... So for mindless generic random humanoid bad guys you have Bugbear and Gnoll (cr 1 and 1/2 respectively).
Sure I would be all for them making some sort of "awakened" Gnoll race down the road, or even as part of some Unearthed Arcana... however the basic Gnoll as outlined in Basic Rules or MM... I think it's good how it is.
@CWard83: I think that's partially what has been hinted at in this thread. Is it OK to have an "awakened" gnoll PC? I say sure... but if not, why not? If it doesn't work for your setting, then you have a disconnect between the game that your player wants to play and the game you want to run.
Why is it said there needs to be a categorically mindless evil? Why is it a bad thing that these monstrous races are given consciousness or other motivation? Examples are given of undead having no motivation, and yet Strahd and Acererack have powerful motivations for their deeds and are showcased as they are formidable and cunning foes with rich backstory.
@InquisitiveCoder I see many reasons brought up in generalities that it's just not done that way, or this is what's accepted as history/monster lore, but isn't the fun in the fact that the adventuring PC's are exceptional individuals who gain powers (and xp) by heroic action?
Does it all just boil down to "I don't want to talk to these things... let's just hit it!" ? If so, that's fine, but those are monsters/npc's. Shouldn't a player be able to choose the character they want, with DM guidance?
Sometimes stopping a force of destruction is all your adventure calls for. Sometimes the story you're going for has nothing to do with brokering peace with the villain or unravelling their motivations, and having monsters players can kill without moral dilemmas is really handy. Breath of the Wild became game of the year with an antagonist that's the Zelda equivalent of a Tarrasque.
They're also irredeemable monsters, which is why vampires and liches aren't playable either.
Every single "evil" playable race is that way because of nurture. Gnolls are evil by nature, like fiends and most undead. That's all it is. As far as we know there's no such thing as a heroic gnoll, and if there were one, it would be a very different kind of gnoll from the ones in the Monster Manual.
No? Players should work with the DM to find something to play that fits into the story everyone wants to play. If the bad guys are irredeemably evil cyborgs, it's very unlikely evil cyborg is going to be an option for the players. If the DM wants to be super accommodating they might find a way to make it work anyways, but players aren't in a position to demand the DM bend over backwards.
I'm fascinated by this thread. If a monster race is "just that way because 'reasons'" couldn't a player be "just different because 'reasons'"? I mean, a lot of the guidance is already out there on how to treat the player fairly and how to keep power relatively comparable. So, why stop at gnolls? Why not a jelly or a plant player?
@Kickinitlegit
Absolutely, but... The OP was asking more directly to 5e rules as written. You can homebrew anything you want, and should, if it makes you happy. As written though, wizards has to stop somewhere in what they allow playable characters...
Why? Nothing about DnD adding more content to orcs made them any worse at being generic fill-in mooks. Nothing about DnD stripping away all of the gnoll lore they've written up to now makes them particularly better at it too. In fact, despite this assertion that 5e's gnolls are our only option for generic low CR bad guys... I still see orcs show up in that role a lot more often in campaigns.
A raiding party of AD&D, 3.5 or 4e gnolls isn't visually or thematically distinct from a raiding party of 5e gnolls. But a 3.5 gnoll mercenary working with the party is distinct from the same concept in 5e because word of god now is that we're not allowed to do that anymore within their lore.
I dunno, maybe if they had created something new for this express purpose it'd make more sense, but taking something that was already well established, functional and had fairly recently been significantly fleshed out and expanded upon and stripping that all away to create something intentionally designed to be generic instead just feels incredibly wasteful.
On the other side of it, as a DM, I really like Gnolls as they are- specifically because they are mindless killing monsters that can't be reasoned with.
It can set up some great situations where the players know that there's no back-up plan of talking their way out, or tricking their adversaries with words.
The game doesn't need many monster races like this, but having one or two is great.
As suggested above though, if you want a playable gnoll race for a PC, then just homebrew the reasons and lore behind it and you're good. :)
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Tieflings are half Devil, trust me it's waaaaaaay different. You also mention the Abbysal language, you can tell Tieflings are like devils because they speak Infernal not Abbysal.