Gnolls D&D | Let's Build an Encounter | D&D Quest Ideas

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Good to be back making videos for you all! Apologies for the audio. When I uploaded the video earlier today, I didn't expect KZbin to compress a bunch of the edits I made SOOO badly. I figured out how to fix it in the future now, but that would be mean re-recording the video, which would delay it another few days So I decided to remove some of the edits I made and then reupload it as is and then record it properly from the beginning next time so the audio experience in future videos is smooth. You live and you learn! Anyways, thanks for watching and thanks to Sky rexotron, just some troglodyte, Ty the Guy and Theory BREAK! for the recommendation! If you like this video and want to see more D&D encounters, check out the whole playlist here: kzbin.info/aero/PLN3EWMJpTElMPfoxgFTAMuY3qdC7sGz_7

[@mesdecent8051]

"The gnolls as a thank will not try to kill your party" Yep. That is a gnoll's reward allright.

[@ZillithE]

Hi Matt, welcome back. I am immediately excited to add this encounter into my long running game. I'm not sure how often you hear about people using your encounters but I wanted to let you know I ran your elemental encounter with the shifting arena a little while back and my players absolutely loved it and described it as one of the best encounters they've had!! Love the new audio, keep up the hard work, it's greatly appreciated!!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Love to hear it! Glad it went well

[@Drahjan_TheoryBREAK]

While the original challenge was diplomacy, this quest was way too good. So I give it a passing grade of 98%, because sympathy for the Gnolls was my main concern and you ramped it up past my expectations. 👍👍👍👍

[@mattnerdy7236]

Hey Matt, great episode! Really hard creature to feel sorry for, don't know if the party would feel that way, lol. Loved the canopy idea, I can see an epic fight scene with the party pulling tarps down trying to escape the Gnoll hoard. I could only think of one way the adventuring party would work with Gnolls. Famous Quote: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Let's say a war party of Berserkers has moved into the area and is causing problems for everyone. Would make for a great story for the player, working shoulder to shoulder with Gnolls. Thanks Matt you have a wonderful day!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thank you! And no worries. There is no need for your players to feel sorry. Whether they do or not will entirely depend on the player’s personality and how well the DM sells it. And those are some swell ideas!

[@scottberry1073]

Dude I love your art style. As someone who is a semi-new DM (only been a DM for just under a year) these videos are super helpful

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Glad I could help!

[@JNJTabletop]

This sounds like so much fun!! Any time you can link something seemingly mundane like gnolls to a much larger storyline AND make it spicy like that... you win. Great video, brother!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thank you, good sirs!

[@Drahjan_TheoryBREAK]

0:10 Holy Flip! That's me! Sorry, it's been a while since I last watched of your videos. I wasn't expecting my own challenge to be here. This is great! Thank you, my friend!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

No worries, my friend. Welcome back!

[@paul_ujb]

Really fun idea! I enjoy the idea of turning a town into a puzzle/maze due to tarps and sunlight cover. The large magical area is also intriguing and bound to make the PCs wonder what’s going on if they notice it. Might be hard for the players to feel *bad* for the gnolls in general but they may sympathize with their condition. Could also kickstart a discussion concerning free will, acting on instinct, murder hoboism, etc. Some definite food for thought here, thanks!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Glad I could help!

[@marcusblacknell-andrews1783]

For my encounters, I've built Gnolls as witchdoctors. Using the "Way of Mercy" monk subclass, Fangs of Yeenoghu Gnolls are practitioners of Voodoo magic.

[@thanekrios8]

Takes a few weeks off and comes back with an absolute BANGER can't wait to run this, well done!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thank you, sir!

[@CommanderHAL9000]

Yes; no more vacation for you, Matt! I was going into withdrawals.

[@robusterbrown1291]

This is interesting. I have always used Gnolls as the only pure evil monster race. I have Orcs, Kobolds, goblins etc have good qualities too and you can see them in cities but I’ve always kept gnolls as a the unquestionably evil one.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Which makes total sense! What's interesting is these gnolls are still technically "evil," it's more that they are in such pain it creates a moral dilemma your players can ponder over - do you let a creature suffer just because they're evil? That's the question they need to answer. Maybe they feel bad or maybe they say "screw it" and just off them haha. It's up to your players - which is the main goal :)

[@robusterbrown1291]

@@HiddenNerdySide I do love the decision because a lawful good character could reasonably and logically kill every gnoll and stay a lawful good character. They are making the argument that the gnolls will simply kill more people later. That is a utilitarian view but looking at it from a more traditional moral viewpoint you could argue that it is not right to judge people for crimes they haven’t yet committed. Very interesting. However I may have used gnolls to traumatize my players too much for them to consider gnolls to be people lol.

[@dadosyleyendas]

Nice to see you back my friend. Awesome encounter, as always!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thank you! It's good to be back!

[@The_Golden_King]

Glad you're back! Looking foward to you continuing going down the monster manual and making it your own.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Good to be back and thanks!

[@doublex929]

As a Gnoll lover and a forever dm I really appreciate this video, you got a sub from me

[@RoninCatholic]

I like hyenas, so gnolls are one of my favorite early game D&D monsters.

[@grahamrussell5827]

Huge fan of your content! You are GREAT at putting fresh spins on common monsters and making them more than just a random combat encounter. A monster I have yet to see done well is the Elder Oblex, which I think you would be perfect for. The stringy line of ooze connecting a body back to the main oblex has always been a challenge I've struggled to overcome when crafting an interesting encounter with it. I bet you'd come up with an amazing encounter, though. Keep up the good work!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Hey there, thank you for your support! I will absolutely put it on the list!

[@pierrehurley]

Awesome idea my man. Might steal it for my campaign. And I’d love to see a video about A Demilich

[@HiddenNerdySide]

On the list, my friend!

[@Senctia]

I know this is a relatively old video but for spicing things up I thought of instead going the vampire gnoll route, having some of the cursed gnolls in the canyon having kept themselves sorta sane by eating the other gnolls and becoming either a Flind, or depending on how humanoid you want to play them throw together a sort of gnoll varient of a wendigo due to the wendigo's ties to cannibalism.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Definitely a spicy twist!

[@nikitasnkts4612]

Excellent video! Happy you are back. I would be really interested in seeing an encounter either based on a treant or a dracolitch

[@HiddenNerdySide]

On the list, my friend!

[@godzillatemybaby4263]

The next game I have been working on has gnolls play a big role and the BBEG is a vampire so I think this will fit right in.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Sounds spicy!

[@voryndagothDL]

Return of the King

[@BewareTheCarpenter]

Welcome back. I wonder what the behaviour differences would be of gnomes vs were hyenas. Or gnolls bitten by were hyenas. I'm personally partial to lawful hobgoblins deliberately being bit by were hyenas so they can infiltrate and take over a knoll pack, trying to organise them snd lead them with some tactics against their hated orc enemies; all the while struggling not to become the very chaos they hate.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Love the idea!

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

Just found your channel yesterday but loving your content.

[@michellethomas6494]

Love this. Currently working on gathering some people up to run through it. As for recommendations on other encounters, I've always been fascinated with Xvarts and their "god" Raxivort. I've run a custom adventure centered around them, but it was really clunky and needed refinement. I keep trying to add them into other adventures, but end up with the same issues. I'd be interested to see what you can come up with.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thanks and I hope it works well! And xvarts are definitely on the list as several people have recommended them as well!

[@nikp3572]

How about an encounter with a medusa but the adventurers are not to kill her. She is intelligent so roleplay something you need from her. Welcome back I really enjoy your videos.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Interesting. I'll put it on the list!

[@gamedokter]

Awesome video as always! I was wondering, could you please do a video on how to continue a campaign after a TPK? I have a few ideas, but am not sure what the best one is.

[@gamedokter]

I was thinking of having them play through the underworld for a little while and then having a powerful god or something resurrect them.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

That’s certainly one way to go. It really depends on how married your players are to their characters. If they are all die hards for their characters or if they TPK’d early in the campaign and they didn’t feel like they had a good enough shot with them - I think your idea could work really well. Possibly have a god of death have them earn their resurrection through trials or some demon or devil bring them back after making them sign a nefarious contract! From my experience and the players I currently DM, I know they’d rather simply move on an introduce a new batch of characters, possibly in the current campaign or something new. Death is an important part of D&D because it’s the ultimate stake. It’s also what makes each character special since they could be gone at any moment. Of course, if you’re having trouble deciding, you can always pass the question on to players. There’s no better people to ask than the ones who will be experiencing it! Thanks for kind words and I’ll put it in my list of future videos!

[@badideagenerator2315]

mabye the new replacement pc's could be tasked with a "missing persons" quest, where it eventually turns out the people who dissappeared were their dead pc's, allowing the players to catch up to where they left off using notes recovered from the bodies.

[@skyrexotron5031]

Yooo, thanks for making a gnoll encounter!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

I got you!

[@comediccarnage8059]

Ah man, I felt so bad for that first gnoll. Is there a reliable way of easing the pain of a gnoll? Other than outright killing them I mean. I feel like a gnoll wouldn’t understand a humans gesture of mercy and would probably even react negatively to one trying to help him.

[@thomaskemp8803]

I'd love to see an incounter with an oblec

[@HiddenNerdySide]

On the list!

[@moonringXD]

Excellent video as always!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Excellent comment as always!

[@tristanlambshead1617]

I was wondering how you would potentially add a loxodon into a serious encounter. I feel like they are just unable to be taken seriously

[@HiddenNerdySide]

The trick is to treat them like you would anything else. Take my Giff encounter where I make a serious encounter with a hippo person. I simply found an empathetic situation a human could be in and just swapped out human with a hippo. You could toss a Loxodon in that situation as well and it would work. You can also do this with mad mages, bandit captains, and so on. Sure people may make a few jokes at first, but if you take it seriously and have the character act in that way, people will come around :)

[@حَسن-م3ه9ظ]

There's an elephant-folk character in a Conan short story called the Tower of the Elephant *spoilers!* There's an elephant-folk who's actually the last one of his kind surviving a cataclysm, he's imprisoned and tortured in a sorcerer's tower

[@badideagenerator2315]

a trio of heavily armoured loxodon mercenaries have been hired to kill the party, the encounter takes place indoors. initially, there's lots of cover, but the loxodons are able to change the shape of the battlemap through sheer brute strength by barging through walls, kicking large obstacles aside, or throwing heavy setpieces at the party.

[@zachjones8085]

so this might be a bit different of a suggestion, but I am running the module waterdeep dragon heist and adding a massive civil war arc a little bit before the end. I want to have some conflicts during the civil war besides the, ya know, CIVIL WAR, but all I can think of is a minor undead uprising by a necromancer who is trying to stop the civil war b giving a threat all sides will come together to, but I know the war is gonna be over 2 and a half months in sessions, any other ideas for major events? sorry if you are unfamiliar with that module. also in general an entirely city based encounter would be cool of you. thanks if you see this

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Hey Zach! I'm not too familiar with the modules in general, but I can give you some advice on running wars. Think about A) what effect does war have on its surroundings and B) what your players can do to have a real affect on the future battles to come. Your necromancer raising the dead is a good example of what effect does war have on its surroundings. There are lots of dead people around so it makes total sense a necromancer would take advantage of the situation. Another example would be the rotting corpses killed by some magic are causing a magical plague your party needs to cure to save a town and its soldiers so their forces can be stronger. An example of what your players can do to have a real affect on future battles is what if there is a team of dwarves building powerful siege weaponry for you enemies and they have to stop them? So your players go and do so and maybe they can convince the dwarves to build siege weapons for their side. Then when your party and their allies are attacking a town, allow them to hope over the walls with ease thanks to the siege towers they have the dwarves built, showing the payoff of their actions. Wars aren't won with one battle, it's by a collection of small victories. Show how those small victories add up and you'll be laughing! Hope this helps!

[@kevinjohns7807]

Welcome back!

[@HiddenNerdySide]

Thank you!

[@mysterymaiden]

Shield laser

[@jackmalin2528]

A long awaited sacrifice for the Great Old Algorithm. Summoning of the imp challenge has failed this time aswell i see. A pitty.

[@HiddenNerdySide]

I wrote 6 scripts while I was away. That's all I'll say

[@jackmalin2528]

@@HiddenNerdySide Fine then. Keep your secrets :)