Scout

A Scout on the party's side is a hire, a contact in the local ranger's lodge, or an NPC the party rescued from the previous bandit camp. They know the local woods, the local rivers, and the local rumors, and the party should pay them in coin, supplies, or one solid favor at the end of the road. Make the relationship feel like an exchange, not a tagalong.

In combat the Scout is a CR 1/2 mook with a longbow. Two Longbow shots per round at +4 for 6 damage each, from 150 ft. away, behind the party's back line. They will not survive a charge: AC 13 and 16 HP fold to almost any single melee hit at this tier. Their job is the soft kill on the enemy that everyone forgot about, the goblin slinger on the cliff, the orc archer in the back. Direct them onto a target and they will work that target until it drops or until you tell them otherwise.

The real value is the Scout's skill block. Stealth +6 means the Scout walks point on every overland leg of the journey. Perception +5 and Passive 15 catches the bear-trap before the rogue does. Nature +4 and Survival +5 cover food, water, weather, and which mushrooms the wizard should not eat. Use the Scout to skip the boring travel rolls and let the party focus on whatever is at the end of the road.

Have the Scout know one piece of bad news the party did not ask for. A burnt farmhouse two miles south, a strange set of tracks, a body in the river. Drop it casually at camp, after dinner. The session ends on the question, not on the answer.

A Scout is the wilderness encounter that started two hours before the party noticed. Stealth +6, Survival +5, Perception +5, and a Passive Perception of 15 mean the scout knew the party was coming, picked the firing position, and dropped the first arrow before initiative. Run the encounter that way. The Scout is not a fight, the Scout is the opening of a fight, and what comes after depends on whether the party catches the scout or lets them get away.

In combat, the Scout never closes voluntarily. Multiattack is two attacks combining Shortsword and Longbow in any combination, and the obvious choice is two Longbow shots from 150 ft. of cover. +4 to hit for 6 piercing each, AC 13, 16 HP. The Scout is fragile and knows it. Round one is two shots, round two is Disengage and dash for the next ridge or rooftop. They are not trying to drop a PC, they are trying to bleed the party and keep them moving toward the ambush their boss set up two miles back.

The encounter the players will remember is the chase. A Scout in their home terrain is hard to catch. They know the ground, they have Survival +5 to find paths the party cannot, and they will Hide every time they break line of sight. If the party does catch the Scout alive, the Scout knows everything: who hired them, where the camp is, the names of the other guards. Make capture a real reward for clever play.

Run scouts in pairs at minimum, with a horn or signal. The first arrow is the warning shot. The second scout is already running back to report. If both die before the report goes out, the party gains a full surprise round on the next encounter, which is the kind of consequence that teaches players to value initiative and stealth.

Tell the players what they see, not what the scout did. "An arrow buries itself in the cleric's pauldron from somewhere uphill" is correct. "A Scout fires its longbow at AC 17 and misses" is the table reading you the stat block.