Pauriel
Pauriel — The Encounter
Flame-Haired Warden of the Greenwood, Arrow Never Spent · a boss your table can run with almost no prep. SRD 5.1-compatible.
Who Is Pauriel
Among the warden-folk of the greenwood, Pauriel is sung of as the arrow that never sleeps. Folk-tales of the Sylvan realms hold that the eldest forest elves set guardians at the eaves of their woods, sentinels who hear the snap of a twig a league off and answer it with a feathered shaft before the trespasser draws breath. Pauriel is reckoned the keenest of these wardens, a captain of the border patrols who hunts goblin-kind and spider-spawn through root and bracken. She trusts no walls, only the living wood, and she moves through tangled thickets as though they parted to let her pass. Those who have faced her speak of a flame-haired shape glimpsed between trunks, of three arrows in the air at once, and of comrades who fell with elf-fletching in their throats before the warden was ever truly seen. She kills swiftly, mercifully, and is gone.
Run Pauriel in Sixty Seconds
- Hold her back. Pauriel is a sniper, not a duelist. Deploy her in cover at maximum range and never let her be the front line.
- Open on the soft targets. First arrow each turn crits on 19-20 and ignores cover, so spend it on the enemy caster or healer.
- Stay mobile. Each turn bonus-action Disengage or Dash, then move through brush freely with Light Step; opportunity attacks hit her at disadvantage.
- When bloodied, peel away to fresh cover, use Deflecting Strike against incoming arrows, and let Mirthil or a minion screen her retreat.
- Three ways to run her: lone forest ambusher who never gets close, the ranged lieutenant of a goblin or spider warband, or a skirmish pair with her hound flushing quarry into her line.
Pauriel
Medium humanoid (elf), chaotic good
CR 6 · 2,300 XP · GUIDELINEFey Ancestry. Pauriel has advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put her to sleep.
Greenwood Archer. Signature. Pauriel ignores half cover and three-quarters cover when she makes a ranged weapon attack, and she does not have disadvantage on ranged attacks while a hostile creature is within 5 feet of her. The first ranged attack she makes on each of her turns scores a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
Light Step. Difficult terrain composed of nonmagical foliage, undergrowth, or rubble doesn't cost Pauriel extra movement, and opportunity attacks against her are made with disadvantage.
Actions
Multiattack. Pauriel makes three attacks with her longbow, or two with her twin daggers.
Longbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d8+5) piercing damage.
Twin Daggers. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d4+5) piercing damage.
Bonus Actions & Reactions
Cunning Disengage (Bonus Action). Pauriel takes the Disengage or Dash action.
Deflecting Strike (Reaction). When a creature Pauriel can see makes a ranged attack against her, she adds 3 to her AC against that attack, knocking the missile aside with a parry.
A lithe elf-maiden of the deep forest, copper hair streaming, draws her recurved longbow to full tension as she vaults across moss-clawed stone. Every line of her stance says the shot is already loosed.
Pauriel, Bound
Companion · acts on your initiative
Bound · GUIDELINEPack Sense (signature). Pauriel and any ally within 30 feet that can see it have advantage on Perception checks that rely on hearing or smell, and the hound can't be surprised.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (2d4+3) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength save or be knocked prone.
Reactions
Guard the Warden. When a creature within 5 feet of Pauriel targets Pauriel with a melee attack, Pauriel bites that creature as a reaction.
A grey forest-hound that ghosts at the warden's heel, ears pricked, herding quarry into her line of fire.
Guideline numbers — formula-tuned and read from the miniature's design, not yet table-proven. Tell us how it ran in the comments.
How It Fights — by Tier
Same creature, scaled threat. The traits never change; only the numbers move.
Open from cover at long range, spending the first arrow's improved crit on the biggest threat, then bonus-action Disengage if anyone closes. If the party clusters, pick off whoever has the lowest AC. Pair her with a brute or beasts to body-block while she snipes from the back.
Home tier. Open with three longbow attacks on the squishiest PC, Greenwood Archer ignoring their cover. Kite via Cunning Disengage and Light Step so she never eats a full turn of melee. Run her alongside goblin lines or a spider swarm; she is a skirmisher, not the centerpiece, so pair her with a bigger threat for the party to fixate on.
Run her as the ranged lieutenant of a warband or lair, perched high while frontline minions hold the choke. Concentrate all three arrows on healers or casters each round, Deflecting Strike to shrug enemy archery. She still wants a heavier ally to anchor the fight; she punishes the back rank while the lair's brute eats the melee.
Put Pauriel on the table
Download the presupported STL and run the fight tonight — the model, and the encounter that comes with it.
Get the STL on MyMiniFactory →Clay Cyanide Companion Rules v1
How a bound creature acts
- A companion acts on its owner's initiative, immediately after the owner.
- It uses the Companion block above — roughly ×0.6 HP and damage, no recharge abilities, and at most one reaction trait.
- It moves freely; it takes its Action only while its owner is conscious.
- At 0 HP a companion is broken, not dead — restored on a long rest unless your table rules otherwise.
Original Clay Cyanide material © Clay Cyanide LLC — explicitly not the non-SRD official sidekick rules.
Questions, Asked at the Table
What CR is Pauriel?
Her native build is CR 6 (2,300 XP), a Tier 2 ranged skirmisher tuned for parties of levels 5-10. Tier 1 and Tier 3 stat blocks are provided with identical traits and rescaled numbers.
Can Pauriel be a companion or ally?
Yes. Drop her hostility and she makes an excellent NPC ranger or guide: a forest warden who scouts ahead, picks off threats from range, and travels with her hound Mirthil. Use the Tier 1 numbers if she fights beside a low-level party so she doesn't outshine the players.
Is Pauriel solo-capable?
No. She has no legendary actions and only a single defensive reaction, so a four-PC party will out-act her in a one-on-one fight. Run her as an add-on to a bigger threat, or as the ranged lieutenant of a warband or lair.
Tell Us How It Ran
This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 ("SRD 5.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Clay Cyanide Miniatures is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or specifically approved by Wizards of the Coast LLC. This content is compatible with the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. Companion rules, lore, names, and original mechanics © Clay Cyanide LLC.
Technical Specifications
32mm, 75mm
STL, Pre-supported STL
Standard or ABS-like resin, 0.05mm layer height
Yes — ready to print, optimized supports included
Played Pauriel at your table? Log in with your Obsidian Tavern account to leave a balance note, a war story, or a file issue — the sharpest reports get the block revised.
Log in to comment