Welcome back for another Monster Monday, part of my regularly scheduled Pathfinder 2e content. This week, we’re looking at a relatively low-level creature that can nonetheless present a serious threat, especially when encountered in pairs or groups. Commonly found in the service of stronger creatures, the hell hound has the potential to be a truly dangerous encounter.
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Overview
Hell hounds might be intelligent enough to understand language and act tactically, but they lack any ability to communicate themselves and will often find themselves acting subserviently to other creatures when players encounter them. Fire giants or efreet might keep them as pets or guard dogs, and Hellknights will sometimes employ them for their tracking skills.
In terms of raw ability scores, a hell hound boasts a High Strength and Moderate Dexterity score, but rather poor scores in all its other stats. Its Constitution and Wisdom are just below Low, and its Intelligence and Charisma are far below a Low score. This sets the creature up as a strong and fast striker, but without much durability — that reading is partially true, but it can be deceptively durable.
Despite its HP total being just below the Low threshold for a creature of its level, and Moderate-to-Low saves across the board, it still enjoys a High AC and an immunity to fire damage, letting it avoid large amounts of damage. Though its immunity is countered by its weakness 5 to cold damage (nearly the maximum recommended weakness to its level), it also has a very high speed of 40 feet, meaning escape it always on the table.
Though they can’t take much punishment, hell hounds can dish out extremely high amounts of damage, especially to Good-aligned creatures. The Strike bonus of its jaws attack is right between High and Extreme, and its damage against Good creatures sits squarely at Extreme (and still at High for non-Good creatures). More than that, it has an extremely dangerous fiery breath attack, boasting a fairly High DC for its level and the higher “Limited” damage value for Area damage of its level.
Despite its breath’s limited usage with a 1d4 recharge, it becomes truly dangerous when encountered in a pack: on top of its immunity to fire damage, if it would ever take fire damage its breath instantly recharges. As such, two or more hell hounds can potentially unleash their breath attacks every turn, absolutely devastating even somewhat higher-level parties.
These factors, combined with its relatively high Intelligence allow it to employ at least basic tactics and make good use of its skills. With a a High Survival value specifically when tracking, the scent ability, and darkvision, as well as passable Athletics and Stealth, let a pack of hell hounds (especially one controlled by a more intelligent leader) act as terrifying ambush predators and hunters.
This means that the most effective way to employ hell hounds in an adventure is not as boss monsters. Instead, they’re best employed as parts of specific challenges: guard dogs in a room with fire traps; bloodhounds employed by Hellknights chasing down lawbreaking parties; scavengers in a fiery, volcanic wasteland who’ve formed a mutually beneficial relationship with a local red dragon.
Recall Knowledge
When it comes to hell hounds, what you see is what you get. It’s hard not to look at a flaming puppy and not come to the conclusion that it probably does fire damage and doesn’t take any itself. However, it is a fiend, which allows for a little bit of misdirection on the part of a GM who wants to engage with a players’ Dubious Knowledge feat (or one who simply rolls a critical failure to Recall Knowledge). For example:
True: Hell hounds are weak to cold damage
Erroneous: Hell hounds can speak Infernal
The erroneous information isn’t entirely untrue, but it’s likely never going to be something the players can capitalize on. While hell hounds can understand Infernal, they can’t speak and they’re likely employed as servants to a stronger creature. This means diplomacy likely isn’t on the table — though the party’s existing knowledge of devils might lead them to falsely believe that they might be able to find a loophole in a contract they can exploit.
True: Hell hounds have a fiery breath attack
Erroneous: Creatures that Strike a hell hound in melee take damage from their flames
In both cases, the party know they’ll be dealing with fire damage, which was already obvious. However, thinking they punish melee attackers, the party might plan around using ranged options instead.
Conclusion
Hell hounds may not be a real centerpiece creature to build a whole adventure around, but the presence of one or more in the service of the adventure’s villains can give the game strong diabolic vibes. A smattering of hell hounds guarding a few suitable locations, like an enemy camp’s forges or some other location with ambient fire damage hazards, will really help sell the idea that the opposition are Evil-aligned devil-worshippers.
Their inclusion in any encounter is sure to add some dangerous wrinkles, forcing parties to play around fire damage, cones, and also contend with their strong tracking skills should they ever try to retreat. Their relatively simple statblocks make them a very easy-to-use ally for otherwise complex creatures, especially spellcasters, and their high damage, accuracy, and save DCs mean they can still be a threat even to higher-level parties.
And that’s all for today! Come join us for another Workshop Wednesday for the Hell Hound Fang, a dark, fiery magical dagger favored by diabolists and quite effective at dispatching the forces of Good.
Sustain a Spell 