Tharden Baldugann scanned the horizon expecting trouble. He had been hired as a caravan guard after a recent uptick in travelling traders being attacked or going missing in the night. He held his trusty heavy crossbow, armed and ready to shoot at anyone that posed a threat. He could hear the yips and howls of jackals in the distance, probably hunting some poor desert hare.
A sharp searing pain arose in his thigh as an arrow impacted. Grimacing, he turned the direction that the arrow came, spotting several figures rising from behind a dune and loosing arrows towards the caravan. Bandits, of course it was bandits striking the caravans. He aimed and shot a bolt; it struck one of the bandits square in the center of their chest. He propped his foot against the cocking stirrup and wrenched the string back into its latch. He slid another bolt into its groove and shouldered it to shoot again.
The cart rocked as something started to climb the side. Tharden spun to see what it was and attack if needed. He froze for a moment in shock. Climbing up into the driver’s seat next to him was a large humanoid figure. It looked like a mix of a man and a jackal. Its eyes began to glow a hazy bright purple color, and Tharden’s vision began to narrow in and lose focus as he felt an unceasing influence to fall asleep.
The Jackalwere raiders had claimed their new victims.
Overview
Haha! I bet you weren’t expecting “in the future” to mean next week! This is a continuation of the Lamia post from last week.
Here we have the servant of the Lamia, a shapeshifter granted its powers from the very same evil that created the Lamia themselves. Similarly, I have not run a Jackalwere in any game before, but I can see it being a very good early game replacement for your Bandits/Goblins/Undead starter. They will, however, put up more of a fight further into the campaign.
The first thing we need to take note of for the Jackalwere is: they have similar enchanting abilities to their Lamia masters. The Sleep Gaze will pose a threat early on and still kick in as the players level up their characters. This will, however, not affect those with Fey Ancestry, and cannot be used against a character who has saved against it for the next 24 hours.
Lastly, we should remember that they are labeled as beguilers and cowards. Here we have a little bit of tasty, tasty fluff that gives us an idea of how to play the Jackalwere. They will only commit to an attack after they have an advantage or the element of surprise, and they will usually start said attack by attempting to make one of their targets fall asleep. The rest of the block mentions that they are compulsive liars and might “wince in pain” when telling the truth. Finally, they fight alongside jackals; this isn’t going to add too much to the combat, but you can signal the presence of Jackalweres by an increase in jackals in the area.
Stats
Now, let’s look at the Stat block and see what our beastie can do.
The low Armor Class and middling Hit Points, for CR 1/2 creatures, puts the Jackalwere squarely in the “minion” category of creatures. Not one that will be able to sustain fights, but one that can apply status effects. However, they do have a special resistance.
The Resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-silvered weapons can give the Jackalwere a small boost in terms of health. However, at 18 Hit Points, any first level damaging spell can wreak havoc on them enough to let the half-damage martials clean up.
Shapechanger sometimes gets overlooked and lumped into just being a roleplay ability. This is not always the case with Shapechanger. However, in this instance, it is. The Jackalwere gets two alternate forms: a jackal, and a specific human. You have to love WotC’s1 writing sometimes — the term “a specific medium human” is vague enough to be maddening. The fluff does say they appear “gaunt and affecting a wretched demeanor,” and while this is “specific,” I personally would have said:
The Jackalwere can use its action to polymorph into a gaunt Medium human or a jackal-humanoid hybrid, or back into its true form.
When I first read what WotC wrote, I looked through the stat block and the fluff for what specific human they meant, to see if they meant a specific stat block. Alas, no, just that the human form is thin and wretched looking to garner pity from travelers.
Keen Senses has an odd placement in some stat blocks. I would argue that the vast majority of players and DMs will use Perception checks for visual cues. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be used for anything else; it is just the most common use of the skill. As for this specific instance, with the advantage being given to Perception based on Hearing and Smell, hearing is an easy sell — the jackal gets advantage on Perception checks unless the adventurers have magically quieted movement. Smell, however, well... How do you feel about calling your friends' characters stinky?
Pack Tactics— the Rich Man’s flanking, the McLaren of combat advantage. Honestly, this is a great feature for creatures who are described as cowardly. This will come up in one of the combat examples, but the Jackalwere will not fight fair fights, only attacking when they can get the numerical advantage and can guarantee they will have victims they can kidnap for their Lamia masters.
The Bite and Scimitar attacks are nothing to be impressed by. They don’t add anything special and just exist to harass adventurers, only being passable by the Pack Tactics ability. Their non-damaging action is where the Jackalwere shines.
Speaking of, Sleep Gaze.2 This ability will be powerful up-to and including Level 4, due to its 45% chance of failure on the Wisdom Save.3 The threshold for waking a sleeping character, shaking them, is similarly a little vague. I would argue that attacking the sleeping character would constitute “shaking.” If someone saves against Sleep Gaze, they are immune to it for 24 hours, which gives you your out for the Jackalwere’s cowardice: they pop up, attempt to sleep someone, it fails, and they sprint away with their 40 feet of movement. Furthermore, you will more-than-likely have characters immune to magical sleep; some could argue that not targeting these characters can be seen as meta-gaming as the GM, but honestly, this depends on too many factors to give a clear cut yes or no answer to this dilemma. This question may be addressed in a future (not next week, don’t worry) post on the topic of Sportsmanship in TTRPGs.
Combat Examples
Now that we have learned what we learned, we can take a look at it all and make a couple of combat encounters. One encounter will be against a Jackalwere and a pack of Jackals. The other will include several Jackalweres.
In our first encounter, we will be running 1 Jackalwere and 10 Jackals against 4 second level adventurers. You may have read that and thought “What the fuck, ten Jackals?!” Don’t worry; Jackals only pose a threat to commoners and small mammals (maybe to wizards without spell slots too), and as the players have access to AoE4 spells, the Jackals are just fodder for the Jackalwere.
Following up on a lead, the adventurers trek out into the savanna. Making their way through the brush and dense foliage, they stumble into a dry riverbed. The ranger plucks some fur off a thorny branch; they are on the right trail. A cacophony of yips and howls erupt in the evening skies as a horde of ravenous Jackals rush from the banks of the riverbed.
On the first turn, the Jackals will rush the players, attempting to create distractions and confusion as a small swarm of Jackals suddenly descends upon them. Each Jackal will run to the closest adventurer; put no more than three Jackals on a single adventurer and keep one in the middle to attack when a spot opens. Remember, each Jackal attack will have advantage as long as they have a conscious ally neighboring their target. This will mean more attacks will hit per Jackal, but with the damage output being 1d4-1 (minimum 1 damage), you aren’t looking at doing a whole lot of damage. In fact, I wouldn’t roll the d4, and instead use the average damage of 1 to simplify combat rounds for 10 creatures and to reduce the threat of them even further so that the players focus on the star of the show.
The Jackalwere will wait for a turn, letting the Jackals rush in and grab the focus of the adventurers. On the second turn, the Jackalwere will jump into the fight and attempt to use Sleep Gaze on the nearest adventurer. If this does not work, the Jackalwere will flee; they are cowardly, and if they cannot maintain their advantage, they will not remain in the fight.
In our second combat example, the adventurers are nearing the lair of a Lamia and it has sent out defenders to deter them. We will have 4 Jackalweres, 4 Cultists (of Graz’zt), and 8 enthralled Guards against 4 fifth level adventurers.
Looking to exact some revenge, our adventurers have hunted down the source of the caravan raids. Sneaking through the savanna’s underbrush, they scope out the ruins, seeing several caravan guards patrolling the grounds. A quick shiver down the fighter’s spine alerts the party that their cover has been blown. That… and the guards yelling and pointing in their direction.
Once again, we have the Jackalweres waiting in the wings for the fight to start. In their first turn, the Guards will rush forward and take up defensive positions to fight the adventurers. Here, I would alter the Guard stat block slightly and give at least half of them light crossbows, using the following attack action:5
Light Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, range 80/320 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d8 + 1) piercing damage.
Have the half with crossbows make ranged attacks against the adventurers, then duck back into cover. The half without ranged weapons will hold their actions6 until an adventurer gets into melee range.
The Cultists will also take up defensive positions and wait for the adventurers to charge into the fray, getting partially surrounded by the Lamia’s defenders. Quick note: these Cultists are not mind controlled by the Lamia; they are acting on their own freewill under the tutelage of Graz’zt, and will not fight to the death like the Guards will. Once either half the guards die or one Jackalwere dies, the Cultists will flee further into the ruins to grab more defenders.
Finally, the Jackalweres will start to act on the second turn. Have them make Stealth checks to attempt to flank the adventurers. If they are successful, the Jackalweres will attempt to Sleep Gaze the backliners, then attack them and flee. However, if they are caught, they will attempt to Sleep Gaze the nearest adventurer and attack them. In either instance, they will stay in the fight until either half the Guards die or one Jackalwere dies; then, they will flee to the inner sanctum to defend the Lamia directly.
Final Thoughts
The Jacaklwere is the perfect minion for the Lamia and WotC kinda nailed it here. Their ability to charm enemies and shapeshift makes them perfect ambushers. While they don’t have a ton of roleplay potential themselves, they will lend to an interesting narrative that can create great roleplay for the players and your NPCs. Ultimately, I believe the Jackalwere to be a fun alternative to the standard Goblin/Bandit/Undead start for a campaign.
Wizards of the Coast
If you need a refresher for the dice math you can reread the Specter post and future Dice Math post.
Area of Effect, a type of spell that targets a defined area rather than a creature or several specific creatures.
Remember, the DM is free to alter the stat blocks as they need. Does your creature need a ranged attack? Give them a bow or crossbow. Want them to cast spells? Give them some cantrips and a few leveled spells. Want them to be a “silly little guy”? ... I guess you can give them proficiency in Performance, but that is something you have to Roleplay.
If you have a creature “Hold their Action,” you declare what action they plan to take (attack, cast a spell, etc) and declare what the triggering event will be (specific or any enemy coming into melee range, ally dropping to 0 hit points, enemy casts a spell). The triggering event will use the creature's reaction.