Burrow-Mawg 5E Tactics
This creature crops up in "Murder in Corvis", the prelude to the two Black River Irregulars books by Richard Lee Byers. They collect in a pack as per MN5E, page 20, and I think they make an interesting change from the larger creatures I've covered to date.
A very hungry burrow mawg...
Their ability contour is high DEX and higher than average CON to make them more robust, but without a ranged attack, they are melee shock attackers when forced into combat to protect their lair or when hungry and targeting food as a pack. Their highish WIS means they are able to choose their fights and rather than parley will avoid fights they can't win by burrowing out of reach as needed.
This is relevant given their low Hit Dice, average movement, and lowish AC. As they have Perception proficiency, darkvision, and Sunlight Sensitivity, they instinctively avoid sunlight and only attack their food from darkness or intruders in their subterranean lairs when threatened. The Aggressive trait allows them effectively a free Dash to close into combat if their opponent is within 60 ft.
This is where their burrow movement comes into play - their burrowing, even though it seems relatively poor at only 10 ft., allows them to close 20 ft. distance *through* soft earth and still attack as an action when combined with their Aggressive trait. Although they have only animal intelligence, it seems reasonable that they will have adapted to take advantage of this uncommon movement option for both attack and defense. They don't have a direct ability to avoid opportunity attacks that would make a hit-and-run strategy truly effective, but being able to burrow away from melee out of sight and reach to flee means worth taking that risk.
The 'mawgs have a set Multiattack - one bite and two claws that only differ in their relatively minimal damage by one point and lack any special features such as additional damage or inflicting conditions such as prone or poisoned. Its combat decision then comes down to whether to invoke their Reckless trait to give them advantage on all three attacks at the cost of giving their opponents advantage on attacks on them. Although they lack Pack Tactics, as most opponents will be able to inflict more damage than the 'mawg can on an individual attack but only have fewer attacks, this may be worthwhile if the creatures outnumber their opponents and each individual 'mawg then only has a low risk of being attacked but rapidly becomes dangerous if the 'mawg is outnumbered. It makes sense then that when they attack en masse, all the 'mawgs will invoke Reckless, but a lone 'mawg would rather Disengage and burrow away from multiple opponents, to reposition itself with its fellow cluster mates.
What about a 'Mawg Swarm?
It strikes me that as they are Tiny creatures, a larger group of 'mawgs could be modeled as a swarm:
This is a simplistic conversion, as there are not really any good guidelines on making swarms out of Tiny beasts - looking at some of the base Tiny beasts and their corresponding swarm stat blocks I've developed some rules of thumb based on those in the MM5E:
- Keep the same abilities, movement(s), senses, and AC
- Add the "usual" swarm resistances and immunities
- add the Swarm trait
- Use the same Abilities where appropriate
Hit dice and hit points are a bit trickier to adjudicate, but it seems to change the die to a 1d8 and then multiply the existing Hit Dice (usually a single 1d4 hit dice) by eight works out about right for most, although oddly some swarms only have 7d8 Hit Dice. Similarly, attacks seem to scale up by a similar factor, changing to a 1d4 or 1d6 and multiplying by a factor of 4, the damage halving if the swarm is reduced to half or fewer hit points.
I'm not completely convinced this is a good extrapolation but it'll make a good start for now... with swarms/hordes I prefer to use design them a bit differently as mobile obstacles that invoke saves against damage and conditions rather than conventional attacks.
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