Gnoll 5e: Stats, Rampage and the 2024 Gnoll Warrior

The gnoll is a CR 1/2 Medium monster with AC 15, 22 hit points, a spear or longbow, and Rampage: when it drops a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on its turn, it gets a bonus-action move and bite. One gnoll is a mediocre fighter. A pack of them snowballs, because every kill buys another attack. The 2024 rules rename it the Gnoll Warrior, give it 27 hit points, change it from a Humanoid to a Fiend, and rewrite Rampage so it fires on any damage to a Bloodied target, once per day. This page covers the monster stat block, not a player character option.

Table of Contents

• •Gnoll Stat Block (2014)
• •The 2024 Gnoll Warrior
• •How Gnolls Fight
• •How Many Gnolls for a Level 2 or 3 Party?
• •How Players Beat Gnolls
• •Gnoll Encounter Ideas
• •Frequently Asked Questions

Gnoll Stat Block (2014)

This is the gnoll from SRD 5.1, identical to the 2014 Monster Manual version.

Read the numbers as a raider, not a soldier. Strength 14 and +4 to hit make it a fair melee threat, but Intelligence 6, Charisma 7 and a passive Perception of 10 mean it doesn't plan, negotiate or notice much. Hide armor and a shield give it AC 15, the same as a goblin, with three times the hit points.

The gnoll carries three weapons and you will mostly use two of them. The spear (+4, 5 piercing) is its default in melee and can be thrown 20/60 feet. The longbow is weaker to hit (+3, because it uses Dexterity 12) but reaches 150 feet. The bite (+4, 4 piercing) deals the least damage and exists for Rampage. The two-handed spear option (1d8 + 2) needs the gnoll to put its shield away, so ignore it unless you want a shieldless gnoll at AC 13.

The 2024 Gnoll Warrior

SRD 5.2.1 keeps one gnoll stat block and calls it the Gnoll Warrior.

What changed from 2014:

Three of those changes alter the fight:

• •Rampage starts earlier. A creature is Bloodied at half its hit points or fewer. The 2014 gnoll needs a kill. The 2024 gnoll only needs to hit someone who is already hurt. That moves the bonus attack from the end of a fight to the middle of it.
• •Rampage is rationed. Each Gnoll Warrior gets it once per day. Six gnolls still means six bonus attacks, but no single gnoll chains them.
• •They are Fiends. Spells that target Humanoids (Hold Person, Charm Person) stop working. Protection from Evil and Good, Detect Evil and Good and Dispel Evil and Good start working. The SRD gives no lore for why. If you want a reason, give your gnolls a fiendish origin of your own.

If you run the 2014 books, use the 2014 gnoll. If you mix rules, the Gnoll Warrior trades a little for a little at the same XP: 5 more hit points, a better bow and an earlier Rampage, but only one Rampage a day and no thrown spear.

How Gnolls Fight

Gnolls work best as a pack that picks one target and keeps hitting it. Rampage rewards focus fire in both editions, just at different points.

Damage per gnoll. Against AC 16, a +4 attack hits on a 12 or higher (45%) and a +3 attack hits on a 13 or higher (40%).

One gnoll on its own is around 2 damage a round. Five gnolls on one character is 11 to 12 a round before Rampage, enough to drop most level 2 characters in two rounds.

2014 Rampage: the kill chain. The trigger is "reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on its turn". Anything counts: a party member, a familiar, a summoned beast, a horse, a fleeing villager. After the kill the gnoll moves up to 15 feet and bites. This is why 2014 gnolls go after the weakest thing on the field first. A wizard's owl familiar has 1 hit point, so killing it is a free bonus action for whichever gnoll swats it.

The harsh version is a bite on the creature it just dropped. Under the 2014 rules, a melee hit against an unconscious creature within 5 feet is a critical hit, and a critical hit on a creature at 0 hit points causes two failed death saving throws. A gnoll that drops a character and then bites them has taken that character two-thirds of the way to dead in one turn. Decide before the session whether your gnolls do this. It fits what gnolls are, but it can end a campaign at level 2.

2024 Rampage: bleed them. The 2024 trigger is damage to an already Bloodied creature, and the bonus Rend can target anyone within reach after the move. A fighter with 20 hit points is Bloodied at 10. Once the pack gets them there, every gnoll that hits them gets an extra Rend (another 2.3 damage on average) that round. Plan the pack's turns so the first gnoll bloodies a target and the rest follow up.

Shoot first, then close. A gnoll's bow outranges almost everything a low-level party carries. Open with Bone Bow or longbow volleys from 150 feet behind rocks or brush (half cover adds +2 to their AC), then charge when the party splits up to chase. Gnolls don't need tactics beyond that. They have Intelligence 6.

When to run. Gnolls hunt and do not hold ground. When half the pack is down, the rest drag off whatever they killed and leave. A gnoll pack that retreats with a dead horse is scarier than one that fights to the last.

How Many Gnolls for a Level 2 or 3 Party?

Gnolls are 100 XP each in both editions. Using the 2024 budget for four characters:

Under the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide guidelines, which our encounter calculator uses, four gnolls are 400 XP, doubled to 800 for a group of three to six. That is the Deadly threshold for four level 2 characters and a Medium fight for four level 3 characters. Three gnolls (600 adjusted) are Hard at level 2.

Practical guidance:

• •Level 1: avoid more than two. A 2014 gnoll's spear can drop a 1st-level wizard in two hits, and Rampage turns that into a chain.
• •Levels 2 to 4: the sweet spot. A pack of 4 to 8 gnolls with a few hyenas is a full fight.
• •Level 5 and up: gnolls become fireball fodder (22 or 27 hit points against an 8d6 average of 28). Use them as a screen for something bigger, or in numbers large enough to surround the party.

How Players Beat Gnolls

Gnolls have no resistances, no immunities and poor mental saves. The counters depend on which edition's gnoll you face.

• •Target Charisma or Intelligence. Both are −2. Wisdom and Constitution are +0 and Dexterity is +1, so area spells land. Shatter (3d8, average 13.5, Constitution save) leaves a 2014 gnoll with about 8 hit points and a 2024 Gnoll Warrior at half. Burning Hands (3d6, average 10.5, Dexterity save) takes almost half of a 2014 gnoll's hit points, and it hits every gnoll in a 15-foot cone.
• •Deny the trigger. In 2014, keep familiars, mounts and hirelings out of reach, because every kill feeds Rampage. In 2024, heal anyone who is Bloodied back above half their maximum. Healing Word from 60 feet as a bonus action can switch the trigger off for that character.
• •Pick up the downed fast. A character at 0 hit points next to a 2014 gnoll is in danger of a critical bite. Stabilize or heal them, or put someone between them and the pack.
• •2014 gnolls are Humanoids. Hold Person works (Wisdom +0, so a DC 13 save fails 60% of the time) and paralysis makes every melee hit a critical. Charm Person works, though at Advantage once you're fighting it. Command does not, unless the caster speaks Gnoll: the 2014 spell has no effect on a creature that doesn't understand your language, and gnolls only speak Gnoll. The 2024 Command has no language clause.
• •2024 gnolls are Fiends. Hold Person and Charm Person can't target them. Protection from Evil and Good gives the warded character protection: Fiends have Disadvantage on attack rolls against them, which drops a gnoll's 45% hit chance to about 20%.
• •Fight at night with light. Gnolls have darkvision 60 feet. Don't let the party's lantern be the only light on the field. Light a fire at the camp's edge or cast Light on a thrown stone so archers can see what's coming.

Gnoll Encounter Ideas

The ox road. Gnolls have learned that the salt caravans stop at the same well every evening. They shoot the oxen first from a ridge 150 feet away, then wait for the drovers to try to drag the carts out. The party arrives as the second volley lands. The gnolls don't want the salt. They want the oxen, and they will happily trade the cart drivers for them if the party gives them a reason to.

The hyena kennel. A noble keeps a pit of hyenas for sport. A gnoll pack raided the estate, killed the kennel master and freed the animals, and now runs with them in the hills nearby. In a 2014 game, every hyena the party kills is one less body for gnolls to Rampage off; every dog or horse the party brings along is one more.

The burned chapel (2024 gnolls). If you use the 2024 Fiend gnolls, give them a source. A chapel's floor cracked during a storm, and the gnolls that came out of the gap have been circling the village since. Detect Evil and Good cast near the crack senses more Fiends moving below it. Closing it is the real objective; killing the pack only buys time. If you're running this as a campaign arc, Loreify can record the session and keep track of which villagers survived each night and what the party learned about the crack.

Frequently Asked Questions

What CR is a gnoll in 5e?

The gnoll is CR 1/2 (100 XP) in the 2014 rules. The 2024 Gnoll Warrior is also CR 1/2 and 100 XP.

How does a gnoll's Rampage work?

In the 2014 rules, when a gnoll reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on its turn, it can use a bonus action to move up to half its speed (15 feet) and make a bite attack. In the 2024 rules, Rampage is a once-per-day bonus action used right after the gnoll damages a creature that is already Bloodied; it moves up to half its speed and makes one Rend attack.

Are gnolls Fiends in 5e?

In the 2024 rules, yes: the Gnoll Warrior is a Medium Fiend. In the 2014 rules the gnoll is a Medium Humanoid (gnoll). The change means Hold Person and Charm Person work on 2014 gnolls but not 2024 ones, while Protection from Evil and Good only works against the 2024 version.

How much HP does a gnoll have?

A 2014 gnoll has 22 hit points (5d8). The 2024 Gnoll Warrior has 27 (6d8). Both have AC 15.

How many gnolls should I use against 4 level 2 players?

Four gnolls is a Low-difficulty fight by the 2024 budget and six is Moderate. The 2014 guidelines rate four gnolls as Deadly for a level 2 party once the group multiplier applies, so start with three or four if you're using the 2014 math.

Stat blocks: System Reference Document 5.1 (2014) and 5.2.1 (2024), Wizards of the Coast, CC-BY-4.0. Tactics, encounter math and ideas are Loreify's own.