A jackal is a CR 0 Small beast with AC 12, 3 hit points, a 40-foot speed and a +1 bite for 1d4 − 1 piercing damage. The two editions built it for different jobs. The 2014 jackal is a pack biter with Pack Tactics and Keen Hearing and Smell. The 2024 jackal loses both traits and becomes a lookout instead: Perception +5, Stealth +4 and 90-foot darkvision.
Small beast, unaligned
Keen Hearing and Smell gives Advantage on Perception checks that use those senses, and Advantage adds 5 to a passive score. A 2014 jackal has passive Perception 18 against anything it can hear or smell, so a party sneaking upwind of a jackal den has to beat 18 on its Stealth checks.
Small Beast, Unaligned
| 2014 Jackal | 2024 Jackal | |
|---|---|---|
| AC / HP / Speed | 12 / 3 / 40 ft. | 12 / 3 / 40 ft. |
| Skills | Perception +3 | Perception +5, Stealth +4 |
| Senses | Passive Perception 13 | Darkvision 90 ft., passive Perception 15 |
| Traits | Keen Hearing and Smell, Pack Tactics | None |
| Bite | +1, 1 (1d4 − 1) piercing | +1, 1 (1d4 − 1) Piercing |
The hyena, vulture and blood hawk all keep Pack Tactics in 2024. The jackal is the one that lost it, so a 2024 jackal pack is weaker in a fight than a 2014 one.
Badly, in either edition. A 2014 jackal biting a level 1 cleric (AC 16) with an ally beside the target needs a 15, rolled with Advantage: about 51%. A hit deals 0 to 3 damage. Six jackals swarming one character deal around 4.5 damage a round. Without Pack Tactics, the 2024 jackal hits that cleric only 30% of the time.
Play jackals as scavengers. They follow the party at a distance, wait for someone to fall behind or drop to 0 hit points, and run from anyone who stands and fights. The 2024 jackal's Stealth and darkvision make it good at the first part: it can shadow a party at night from 90 feet away and stay out of their torchlight.
Jackals are 10 XP each. Under the 2024 rules, twelve jackals (120 XP) are a Low encounter for four level 1 characters (120 of the 200 Low budget). The 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide guidelines (used by our encounter calculator) multiply twelve monsters by 3, which gives 360 adjusted XP, a Hard fight for the same party. Run your pack through the calculator if you're using the 2014 rules.
A better use is as an alarm. A jackal pack around a bandit camp barks at whatever it notices, and the bandits come running.
The 2024 Find Familiar spell allows any CR 0 Beast, and through the familiar's eyes the caster gets its special senses. A jackal familiar brings 90-foot darkvision and passive Perception 15, more darkvision range than the cat (60 feet). Among the SRD 5.2.1's CR 0 Beasts without a fly speed, no other has passive Perception as high (the deer is next at 14) or darkvision as long. The 2014 spell's list doesn't include the jackal. A druid can Wild Shape into one from level 2 in either edition.
The followers. Five jackals trail the party across a dry plain for two days, always out of bow range. On the third night they slip into camp and steal a pack of rations, unless someone has darkvision or a light on watch.
The guard dogs. A hermit's hut is surrounded by tame jackals. They bark at the party from 90 feet in the dark long before anyone sees the hut.
CR 0, worth 10 XP, in both editions. It has AC 12 and 3 hit points.
The 2014 jackal does. The 2024 jackal doesn't: it has no traits at all, and gained Stealth +4, Perception +5 and 90-foot darkvision instead.
Under the 2024 rules, yes, because Find Familiar allows any CR 0 Beast. The 2014 Find Familiar list doesn't include the jackal.
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.
This page includes material from the System Reference Document 5.1 and 5.2.1 by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Loreify is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast.
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