Kroot Hound Pack

Proficiencies: Stealth +5, Awareness +5

Senses: Keen scent; tracks and hunts in total darkness

Run Together. The pack ignores difficult terrain and moves before most humans finish raising a weapon.

Flush the Quarry. A creature in cover hit by the pack's Dragging Bite makes a Willpower Save DC 12 or must leave its cover by the shortest route on its next turn.

Pack Attrition. The pack is many bodies: attacks and effects that damage an area deal one extra die of damage to it. While below half Vitality, its Dragging Bite loses one damage die.

Dragging Bite. Melee Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 2d6 + 2 piercing damage, and the target makes a Strength Save DC 12 or is knocked Prone.

Encircle. The pack splits around a single target within its reach. Until the start of the pack's next turn, that target's Movement is halved and it provokes Reactive Fire from the pack no matter how it withdraws.

Morale: Breaks and scatters when the handler dies or the pack drops below half strength; individual hounds flee, regroup, and shadow. While a kroot handler lives, the pack retreats and re-attacks on command instead of fighting to the end.

Tactics: Send the hounds in first to force the party out of cover and into kroot Fire Lanes. Target whoever is isolated, slow, or bleeding. The hounds are the beaters; the carnivores behind them are the guns.

Loot / Evidence / Hooks: Quill trophies and a handler's whistle that still means something to any surviving hounds.

A pack of lean, quilled hunting beasts that run silent and arrive together. Kroot hounds exist to flush targets out of cover and drag down whatever runs.

Use this enemy to break the party's formation, punish stragglers, and turn a withdrawal into a rout.

Threat Profile: Horde-pattern beast unit, high speed, melee harassment, flushes targets into pack or gun ambushes, fragile under massed fire.

Flush the Quarry. A creature hit by the pack must pass a Willpower Save or leave its cover by the shortest route.

Run Together. The pack ignores difficult terrain and moves before most humans finish raising a weapon.

Handler's Whistle. While a kroot handler lives, the pack retreats and re-attacks on command instead of fighting to the end.

Dragging Bite. Mob melee attack; a hit target makes a Strength Save or is knocked prone.

Encircle. The pack splits around a single target, denying it a clean withdrawal route.

Morale: Breaks and scatters when the handler dies or the pack drops below half strength; individual hounds flee, regroup, and shadow.

Tactics: Send the hounds in first to force the party out of cover and into kroot Fire Lanes. Target whoever is isolated, slow, or bleeding. The hounds are the beaters; the carnivores behind them are the guns.

Full Stat Block Priority: Medium