Ghostfire Gaming and Steamforged Games join forces to make Grimm Hollow Epic Encounters boxes.
Boxes with miniatures and terrain and an encounter bundled together in a single Epic Encounters boxes.
Next year. #ttrpg #ghostfiregaming #steamforgedgames #D&D #ttrpg
Just backed Ghostfire Gaming's Grim Hollow: Transformed kickstarter.
I've really enjoyed their other work so am looking forward to seeing their core products get updated for 5e2e.
#ttrpg #rpg #DnD #5e #GhostfireGaming #GrimHollow
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ghostfiregaming/grim-hollow
A while back I did an article looking at the core competencies of Wizards of the Coast and Kobold Press. I wanted to do this more as a ranking, to avoid outright saying that any aspect of the company’s output is bad. If the company is compelling enough for me to spend time writing about it, I have respect for their work, and have enjoyed engaging with their material.
Who Is In This Time?
While I’m interested in what Cubicle 7 is doing, the work they have done with new classes and monsters are specific to the Broken Weave setting. While they have done some work with the rules around ancestry, a lot of it is tied to the lifepath system in A Life Well Lived. They don’t have much in the way of adventure material. Most of their work has been in that Miscellaneous Rules section, even if they’ve been knocking it out of the park on that front.
The other company that does have enough material to add to this comparison of competencies is EN Publishing, however, I don’t feel I’ve spent enough time with their options to filter them into a similar summary. I’ve spent more time with the character origins and monsters than with the classes, subclasses, and spells. At some point, it’s coming, but there is so much 5e for me to sort through right now.
I wanted to add Ghostfire Gaming to this, because I’ve seen a cross-section of their work. I’ve seen adventures, setting material, monsters, etc. There may be a few places where I don’t have much to go on, but they do have a spread of material that covers almost all of my original criteria, as well as the new categories I wanted to look at.
I’m leaving Wizards of the Coast out of this analysis because we’re kind of in a transitional period with the 2024 rules about to appear. On the other hand, with the publication of Tales of the Valiant, it’s reasonable to return to Kobold Press.
Revisiting a Theme
Compared to my last analysis, I added a few additional categories to the competencies list. Remember, a company can have a lower competency for a subject and still put out good material, according to this analysis. It’s just that something else they work on consistently ranks higher.
To clarify, if a content area appears higher in one company’s list than another, that doesn’t mean that company is necessarily better at that content area. Everything is contextual to that company’s product line.
Content Area
Kobold Press
Ghostfire Gaming
1st
Monsters
Setting Material
2nd
Miscellaneous Rules
Adventures
3rd
Adventures
Ancestries
4th
Magic Items
Classes
5th
Ancestries
Subclasses
6th
Setting Material
Miscellaneous Rules
7th
Subclasses
Monsters
8th
Classes
Magic Items
9th
Spells
Spells
Adventures
It’s interesting looking at how many adventures get published now, and how many have come from WotC, when third edition D&D eventually ceded the field to licensees and third-party publishers.
Ghostfire Gaming
Ghostfire Gaming has many adventure products under their belt, with three campaigns published via their retired Fables line, and the Saga of the Seasons adventure. They also have the Lairs of Etheris collection of lairs for their proprietary Grim Hollow monsters. They’ve developed several products that originated outside of the company, with campaign-length adventures like Dungeons of Drakkenheim and Sunken Isles, and the Quest-O-Nomicon adventure anthology. When they engage with setting content, they do so in a meaningful manner, which isn’t something WotC can always claim.
Kobold Press
If you want a campaign-length adventure, WotC dominates that category. Kobold Press has one campaign-length adventure in Empire of the Ghouls, and potentially a themed set of adventures in Tales of the Old Margreve, which don’t all have natural transitions. Kobold Press is great with lairs and short adventure PDFs, but they haven’t provided much in the way of connected narratives recently.
Ancestries
A few years ago, we saw a major change in the 5e SRD space. To move away from stereotypes and biological essentialism, designs started to change.
Ghostfire Gaming
Ghostfire Gaming has probably taken the most interesting road with its Ancestry design. They broke down traits into the smallest bits possible. Then, the individual traits were organized under Combat, Exploration and Environment, and Roleplaying traits. Existing ancestries are shown to illustrate what the “average” dwarf or elf might be, but players aren’t constrained to only picking those traits. Depending on the setting, adventurers could be reassembled from the magic of creation, be raised in another ancestry’s culture, or have diverse families. GMs can modify the number of traits PCs start with, and they can specify how many traits can come from each category.
This facilitates setting details. In the Raider’s Guide to Valika, for example, there are traits from traditional ancestries, but there are also Clan traits, to show the diversity of people in Valika, and the primacy of Clans over cultures traditionally associated with different ancestries. I don’t know that this is the single implementation that I would like to see in every 5e SRD game, and I need to see it in play more to see how much the system can be abused by those players prone to do so, but between showing the baseline ancestry and adding new traits in subsequent products, it feels robust, and I appreciate that Ghostfire created this approach, and has kept it across the Arora, Aethereal Expanse, and Grim Hollow product lines.
Kobold Press
Kobold Press has also come up with a solution that I like in structure. What was race is now split into Heritage (physically inherited traits) and Lineage (the culture in which the character is raised). This is a strong baseline for design, and mechanically, I like a lot of what I’ve seen. Thematically, I wish things were a little different. Tales of the Valiant creates the broadest archetypes they can, and in some cases, it feels less satisfying to me than a more specific implementation.
For example, the Tome of Heroes introduced a fire-resistant species of dwarf who don’t have darkvision due to working around forges and brighter lights. They also know minor magics related to repairing items. When this was translated to Tales of the Valiant, the Fireforge Lineage had skills and proficiencies in crafting, and the cantrip provided in the previous version, but the lineage is the standard dwarf, which, among other things, means that a Fireforge Dwarf has darkvision.
I appreciate the utility of the design, but decisions like this define all differences between dwarves, elves, or halflings as a function of Lineage. The design is so utilitarian that halflings and gnomes are different categories of Smallfolk, Aasimar and Tieflings are differentiated by a decision point in the Syderean Heritage, and Beastkin cover catfolk, minotaurs, avians, or lizardfolk. It makes for very flexible rules, but also makes a lot of distinct species less “visible” in the rules. I also wish that some of the lineages had more texture to them. They work well as broad archetypes, but I’m not sure I feel a deep roleplaying connection to the differences between a Fireforged Dwarf and a Stone Dwarf.
What I hope to see is something like a hybrid of WotC’s solution, where, to use Kobold Press examples, a Shadow Fey heritage is different from an Elf heritage, because there are physical differences and inherited traits distinct between them, but if the Player’s Guide pattern continues, I’m expecting a “Shadow” heritage to be applied to elves. Functional, efficient, and less flavorful.
I hope that when we see more setting-specific material, we will see a more individualized implementation. My ideal example is still Lazy Wolf’s 3rd party Black Flag product Banner of the Bull, which presents lineages that are firmly rooted in the Thrones and Bones setting. It’s very easy to picture a dwarf in this setting raised among Norronians, or a Huldrafolk changeling raised by Norronian parents. It’s a great proof of concept that I don’t feel that Kobold Press themselves have fully realized in their products. We haven’t seen much in the way of setting specific material from them since Tales of the Valiant launched, and this could change.
Classes
What constitutes class design varies a bit between these companies, from complete redesigns of core classes to additional class features, to brand-new classes.
Ghostfire Gaming
There isn’t as much to measure in Ghostfire’s design of core classes, but the one core class we’ve seen them build from the ground up has been both mechanically solid and thematically exciting. The Monster Hunter hasn’t reached its final form, but it’s already managing to do new things, like relying on opportunity attacks for their extra damage output, while still drawing from a well of D&D options that feel adjacent to how other classes function in the game.
Kobold Press
Kobold Press is in a strange position. Because a lot of the design adopted conventions like concepts introduced in the earlier 2024 D&D playtest material, a game that was created to carry on the tradition of the 2014 game may end up resembling the 2014 rules less than the 2024 version of D&D. Because of the standardization of subclass levels, the game requires more compatibility work to implement standard D&D subclasses, and even the previously published Kobold Press subclasses.
That means the game design needs to be compelling enough to play a game like, but not 100% compatible with, the current version of D&D. One of the strengths of Kobold Press as a 3rd party publisher was the ability to mix and match with D&D, which didn’t require their customer base to be dedicated to only their products in order to get the most utility for their games.
One issue that tends to be invisible from only looking at the classes is that the change to broad instead of class-specific spell lists alters some classes more than it appears. The bard, as an arcane caster, turns into a musical wizard rather than being able to be the class that can “almost” fill in for a cleric as the primary healer. Class spell lists tell stories and reinforce themes, and bards no longer lean heavily on spells that deal with sound, light, and creation. It can feel a little like “why is this wizard able to inspire people?” Paladins and Rangers both get more spells that are direct damage and area attacks, which may look appealing, but confuses what the class should be doing, i.e. hitting or shooting things. The broad spell lists also create issues whenever options open. For example, if a wizard takes the 10th level feature “Rite of the Source Master,” they can pick another source of spells, meaning that from that point on, they can start adding in spells that heal or raise dead, but by 10th level, that can be a dramatic shift in the character’s role.
Making ritual spells into something separate from standard spells, rather than a subset of regular spells, is an interesting idea, but functionally, most classes still get the same number of non-ritual spells. This can make the variety of spells you can take too narrow, since you’re not spending your spells known feature, for example, on ritual spells, but you’re still getting ritual spells from your number of rituals known.
While there is a clear theme/story to each of the spell sources, functionally, putting spells into these broad lists makes it evident that the game’s themes start to suffer the further you move away from Arcane/Divine. Looking at the individual sources, Primordial, for example, feels like half-Arcane, half-Divine, even if a lot of it is plant, animal, and elemental focused. What that means is, story wise, you may want your wizard to seem like a Merlin-style magician/druid, but if you want the most versatility, it makes a lot more sense to pick up the Divine source.
In the playtest material from WotC, some of this was addressed via limiting spell schools within a source for different classes, but that gets to be a heavier cognitive load. By adopting the broad sources without those limitations, however, the spells a class can access have an even harder time presenting a theme, at least outside of the wizard, cleric, or druid classes.
I like the idea of fighting styles being something that uses a bonus action, framing them as something a character actively does, rather than passively has. That said, there’s a few that let you double your proficiency bonus on attacks. I’m already a little concerned that the proliferation of Expertise skews the assumed difficulty of ability checks, but creating a similar effect for attack rolls seems like it could start to cause problems with assumptions brought over from D&D 5e. The class design also brings over a prescriptive issue from the 2014 rules. Classes can have wide open access to broad spell lists, but rangers can only be two-weapon fighters or archers, and paladins can’t be a duelist using two weapons.
There is another potentially invisible problem. Looking at discussions with KP staff, the rogue’s sneak attack and the paladin’s smite were meant to only be usable once per round on that character’s turn, but the wording is the same as the 2014 rules, i.e. once per turn, with no other qualifier. The main area you can find that hints at this is the 15th level ability of the Enforcer subclass that does let you sneak attack on an opportunity attack. This is supposed to be addressed in upcoming errata, but it feels like this could be a shock to the system to someone that knows how things work in the 2014 rules and sees the same wording here. That could mean that people that get used to a playstyle for a few months may need to unlearn what they have learned.
Aside from the spell list and the constrained fighting styles, I really like the design they put into the ranger. The class abilities describe a class that is good at scouting and hunting. Even though they are spellcasters, I want the ranger’s survival abilities to feel like a learned skill, not a supernatural affectation, and this class accomplishes that. It also shifts a Hunter’s Mark-like ability into a class feature, rather than gating a core aspect of the class behind spell slots.
I like the general idea of the Mechanist, although given how they address the idea of a class gifted with imbuing magical traits to items, Mechanist sounds more technological than some of the class features imply. I like the feel of a melee combatant that can represent a master elven bladesmith that is so talented they can make weapons of supernatural power, or dwarven weapon masters that have learned the secrets of dwarven crafting passed down from their ancestors. What I’m saying is, this feels less techno-magical, the way the Artificer does (even though I do like the Artificer) and may be easier to slot into settings where techno-magic trappings feel out of place.
In addition to the classes, we saw in the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide, we also have two other classes to look at from Kobold Press. The revamped Deep Magic volumes each presented a new class. Those classes were the Theurge and the Witch. One broad observation is that while the Theurge and the Witch were stated as being compatible with Tales of the Valiant, neither class has the standardized subclass levels presented in ToV. They also don’t have the 10th-level boon choice worked into the new version of the ToV classes. The Theurge gains subclass features on 3rd, 6th, 10th, and 14th level. The Witch gains subclass features at 1st, 6th, 10th, and 15th level.
The Theurge represents a scholarly spellcaster who can learn cleric and wizard spells. They must split spells they can put in their book between the two class lists, and they only get new spells when they level up, i.e. no scribing spells into spellbooks when they find them. They do gain the same number of new spells to add to their libram as wizards get when they level up. That’s one of the tricky things about the Theurge, it’s generally better than the wizard, with the only balancing factor being that they can’t add extra spells that they find.
The Witch is interesting in that it’s almost a “reverse bard,” able to assign a hex die to an opponent, and getting similar hit dice, weapon, and armor proficiencies. They can infuse a spirit into a signature item that modifies their spellcasting or adds additional abilities to them. Their spell list is like the bard’s, in that it’s a mix of thematic wizard spells and another class, although they lean more druidic for their spell list, versus the Bard’s clerical flavoring. Something that fits into a similar spot, but does it in a different manner is a good starting place for a class, and I think the witch worked out well in this case . . . but a lot of that is predicated on the class spell list being thematically appropriate, which may not translate if the class is ever converted to ToV.
Magic Items
Kobold Press has more examples of magic items, from their various supplements and an entire sourcebook dedicated to the subject, but Ghostfire has added a lot of items into their adventures.
Kobold Press
Kobold Press put out the Vault of Magic, which introduced a ton of new magic items. These are fun, and many of them have usable story elements, and that book also introduced something that makes its way into the core Tales of the Valiant rules, Fabled magic items. This introduces something that really needs to be a standard in 5e SRD games, magic items that level up with the character that owns the item. There is also a new system for pricing magic items. We’re told this doesn’t mean you should be able to find magic items for sale all the time, but sometimes, it would be nice to have pricing, and pricing that is based on the utility of the item, not just the rarity. Magic items also represent an aspect of Tales of the Valiant that can still be easily ported between the 2014 rules and ToV, and the pricing also works across games.
Ghostfire Gaming
Ghostfire Gaming hasn’t had any dedicated magic item products, and I can’t say that I’ve looked through everything they published, but I am familiar with the Fables line, and the magic items introduced in those products. The real strength of those items is that those items were tied into the setting and themes where the items appear, such as the magi-tech spy gear in Agents of the Empire. In some cases, this makes them less portable, but does a good job of using the magic items to contribute to storytelling.
Miscellaneous Rules
This is a huge catch-all, but I wanted to address the kind of design that fills in a gap or provides more structure to something lightly touched upon by the 2014 rules. Miscellaneous rules can be tricky, because it’s very easy for them to push into implementations that drift from anything that resembles the 5e SRD. Innovation is good, but if you drift too far, the more your game plays in the “drift,” the less it feels like the game you play outside of that miscellaneous rule.
Kobold Press
Kobold Press has been knocking it out of the park in this area. The downtime rules introduced in the Tome of Heroes created a new paradigm, based on those downtime activities that required a roll, which then rewarded a player with varying numbers of resources. The additional boost to this concept is that you may be working towards a larger goal (writing a piece of music, for example), but you can spend the points you are accumulating on things (gain advantage when interacting with people that could be a patron of the arts) that may give you a short term benefit before you pay for the more expensive payouts for the downtime.
The Tales of the Valiant downtime activities, which more closely resemble the 2014 rules, still have a more active roll involved. For example, you aren’t just spending time training for a tool or a language until you hit a threshold. You can learn more quickly with a good roll during your downtime.
Each of the tools and kits have a standardized presentation that suggests what ability scores work with the tool kit, what’s in the kit, the function of the tools, and any rules associated with the kit, or introduced by the kit. This was a huge improvement over the 2014 rules, which felt like they were just shifting some things from being called skills, to being called a tool proficiency, with the actual kit not providing much in the way of utility.
Tales of the Valiant introduces Weapon Options, which are like the Weapon Masteries that the 2024 WotC rules are introducing. I can’t really comment on those, other than to say I’m a little worried that it’s going to complicate combat. What I appreciate about the Tales of the Valiant rule is that, in most cases, you are choosing to perform the special action instead of damaging a target. That means they won’t come up every turn, and they may be used more as a support move for another character that requires a risk/reward assessment.
Luck is another new rule that I think has turned out very well. Replacing Inspiration with a more free-flowing currency, something that can accumulate, and be used in ways that are more likely to be beneficial, is a great module to swap into the game. Being awarded on a failed roll helps alleviate frustration, and awarding more than one point of Luck makes it more useful than Inspiration as a narrative/roleplaying-based reward.
Ghostfire Gaming
Ghostfire Gaming has introduced a lot of new miscellaneous rules, some of which landed for me, though not all. Transformations are a big win, although I would love to see some of these consolidated, with some tweaks and clarifications. It might also be worth it to see if you could introduce a “non-Transformation Transformation” for the people in the party who aren’t slowly turning into a creature of the night. Transformations are another example where Ghostfire has been producing rules that are also good at reinforcing setting information.
I also appreciate the Exploration and Discovery rules introduced in Arora. I like that it can facilitate hexcrawling, but also funnel things towards a few interesting options, and creating a currency to use for exploration makes the process feel a little more structured. It makes individual exploration rolls feel more meaningful because they are providing you with something for which you must plan your spending.
I’m still considering the Raiding rules from The Raider’s Guide to Valika. I appreciate the procedure of it, and the way it reinforces that raiding is something that requires preparation and planning. I’m not sure how much I want raiding to be a regular part of one of my games, and while I think the resolution rules are interesting when not using assault raids (where you run standard 5e SRD fights to represent key moments of the raid), I need more time to process them.
Advanced backgrounds feel like they are trying to provide too much character development off-screen. Advanced weapons don’t work for me. A better sword that you aren’t proficient with until 3rd level and costs ridiculous amounts of gold to give you something in 5e to spend your money on feels clunky. It’s just inflating numbers, especially when the only gateway to being proficient is gaining 3rd level. I’d be a bigger fan of having special training that costs X amount and lets you bump up your damage die by one step, for example.
Looking at Fables, some of the rules around Arcanotech were fun, and played with the idea of dangerous cutting-edge technology, but I wasn’t a fan of the seafaring rules that were introduced (and reintroduced) in the Aethereal Expanse adventures and campaign setting. Rather than layering additional options onto the DMG’s thin vehicle rules, naval combat uses targeting dice and a different hit point scale, and different movement rules. The mettle rules are interesting, but also feel like when used, they replace existing rules, like making basic Charisma checks with or without certain skills.
Monsters
Everyone publishes monsters, although Kobold Press definitely has a head start on Ghostfire Gaming in this regard. Still, they have a full monster grimoire in addition to the monsters that appear in their adventures and setting books.
Kobold Press
Kobold Press has managed to put out a wide range of monsters, from serious to humorous, and across all kinds of monster types, as well as a range of challenge ratings. Kobold Press monsters tend to hit harder than WotC monsters, which is a virtue in high-level play, but can be a bit difficult to account for with monsters on the very low end.
Kobold Press is one of the few companies to delve into a new area of unique individual monsters, adding Fey Lords to similar beings like Demon Lords and Archdevils. Archfey are already referenced in D&D, but there are few examples in D&D proper. These characters are a welcome addition.
Kobold Press’ newest monster offering, the Monster Vault, redesigns many of the core creatures from the 5e SRD. These redesigns are less radical than MCDM’s Flee Mortals! Most are very similar to their D&D 2014 versions, but with tweaked hit points, damage, and often additional options like bonus actions and reactions. I’m not a fan of some of the structural changes to the stat blocks, particularly the realignment of resistances and immunities, and the lack of hit dice to facilitate dialing hit points up or down, but those aren’t major impediments to using the monsters in a 5e SRD game, and these monsters are portable to games even without adopting Tales of the Valiant on a wider scale.
Ghostfire Gaming
The biggest downside to Ghostfire’s monster output isn’t the monsters, it’s actually an aspect of one of the company’s strengths. Monsters tend to be highly thematic. That means that if you want to pull a few monsters from the Grim Hollow Monster Grimoire for a dark fantasy game, you have some good options, but they lean heavily toward the horror side of things. That’s not bad, it’s just not as versatile as a broader bestiary
Similarly, the monsters that appear in the Aethereal Expanse are great, if you’re dealing with a campaign that introduces sailing the Astral plane. Arora is good at introducing draconic monstrosities and post-apocalyptic nightmares. In other words, good, solid content, tailored to the setting for which the monsters were created.
Setting Material
I completely understand the concern over creating a metaplot for a setting, providing a lot of superfluous details which are hard to weigh against other details, and creating long, detailed timelines. That said, trusting that people “get” the D&D vibe without providing actionable content tied to setting details isn’t my favorite way to go.
Ghostfire Gaming
While I’m not equally excited to engage with all of the settings they have published so far, the way Ghostfire presents settings is unafraid to make that setting feel distinct, to have a personality. Grim Hollow has distinct nations, organizations, ominous creatures, and a unique divine set up. Arora is very clearly a post-apocalyptic setting where individual regions are ruled by specific draconic rulers, with warped magical regions with their own quirks. The Aethereal Expanse synthesizes Astral sailing with a more typical paradigm of the high seas. Valika, while a subset of the Grim Hollow setting, is very much a Norse-inspired location that has distinct clans and threats that blend dark fantasy horror with Norse epics. Their settings are, indeed, settings, and not just proper names to use as a home base during an adventure.
Kobold Press
Midgard is a setting that made itself distinct by being a world that allows for the full range of D&D styled adventures and campaigns, while also introducing some darker eastern European influences, a little bit of a clockpunk aesthetic, as well as the detailed Southlands, which does feel like it’s being careful enough to introduce cultural elements into a fantastical setting without leaning too hard into stereotypes, although it’s not perfect in that regard.
At times Kobold Press introduces interesting new creatures but they aren’t integrated into Midgard. Recent sourcebooks that could be aligned with Midgard have become more generic toolboxes for genre elements, like Wates of Chaos, which could have detailed the Wasted West of Midgard’s setting, but instead creates a toolbox for building your own version of the Wasted West or another apocalyptic fantasy setting. At the very least, I would have loved a treatment for the Northlands like the Southlands Worldbook.
Does that mean Kobold Press has demonstrable evidence that generic toolkits are better for business than their own setting material? I can’t speak to that. If that’s the case, I can’t argue with their direction.
The Labyrinth Worldbook, the next product destined for crowdfunding in the fall, is detailing a wider planar setting. There are factions, and different groupings of worlds, but it’s also painted in broad strokes. Given that WotC is leaning into “the multiverse is the setting,” this feels like another instance where Kobold Press is entering “we’re doing what they’re doing, but slightly different” territory. The peek we’ve seen of the setting leans into factions, concepts and themes, and away from what was a grittier, slightly more grounded approach to setting details we received in Midgard.
Spells
This one is going to be quick.
Ghostfire Gaming
There are spells in various products, but there haven’t been as many books that have a significant portion dedicated to lots of new spells (keep in mind, I’ve not seen some of the developed settings like Drakkenheim). That’s really the only reason this one isn’t higher on their competencies list. Plus, everything has to rank somewhere, and being last in this case doesn’t mean being bad.
Kobold Press
Kobold Press has published big books of spells, notably Deep Magic, which was then adapted to Deep Magic Volume 1 & 2. There is some great, imaginative, evocative material in those books. There were also spells that weren’t balance well against baseline 5e SRD spells, from cantrips on up. The updated volumes cleaned up some language, and made some of the spells more easily understood, and sometimes answered questions introduced when the original spell came out. Unfortunately, many of these changes don’t address the power level of the spell.
There is also such a flood of new spells that the differences between spell lists starts to get lost. There are so many offensive spells that it becomes harder to read a spell and tell that it is a wizard, cleric, or druid spell. It’s too much of a good thing, all at once. There is also something lost from the previous Deep Magic. There were suggestions in that volume that only people with certain feats or subclasses may have access to spells associated with different themes, which helped reinforce that the material should be introduced in bite-sized chunks.
One of the best things introduced in the Deep Magic volumes are the variant spells. Different versions of commonly used spells to refresh the concept, looking at spells like raise dead or fireball. There are also tables to modify the existing spells, beyond the variants. I would have loved to have seen more content like that.
Subclasses
Subclasses have been one of the areas that I feel have evolved a lot since the 2014 rules. In more recent sources, like Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, subclasses feel like there was a strong alignment between the story of the subclass and the abilities the subclass granted. This is compared to some of the early 2014 subclasses, which may have had a theme, but often interspersed thematic elements with the utilitarian. Those features were nice to have but didn’t feel as connected to the theme of the subclass.
Ghostfire Gaming
Ghostfire subclasses have the same combination of general utility and setting focused options. There are a few that get a little wild for me, but wild has personality, and I would rather reject something interesting that doesn’t work for me than to not have much of a feeling about a subclass at all. There are also a lot of subclasses that have dialed-in story and options, in a manner that doesn’t feel too wild, and also remains true to the concept of the subclass. There are several that interest me across various sourcebooks, like the Path of the Wronged Barbarian, College of the Blade Dancer Bard, Veiled Guardian Rogue, and The Reaper Warlock Patron from the Aethereal Expanse book, and the Circle of Nightmares Druid, Way of the Silent Scribe Monk, and The Psychopomp Warlock Patron from Arora. I also appreciate that The Reaper and the Psychopomp tread similar ground but tell the same story with different mechanics.
The Raider’s Guide to Valika introduced martial maneuvers, combat abilities that can be learned and triggered by spending a set number of points from a pool. My personal preference is to keep to the more standard X per short or long rest, with a potential means of recharging by using a different resource, but preference doesn’t preclude interest. I know all of the subclasses got martial maneuvers because the Valikan clans are a martial society where even wizards are going to learn to gut someone in a fight, but having maneuvers for every subclass was a little overwhelming, and I was more comfortable with more weapon focused classes using these maneuvers. I know, I can be stodgy sometimes. The Carrion Raven, North Wind, and Dark Envoy are subclasses I wouldn’t mind taking for a spin, personally.
I’m not a fan of the Oath of Incarceration Paladin, mainly because it’s a theme that is very close to the political surface in the modern zeitgeist.
Kobold Press
Remember when I mentioned utilitarian class features that fit a theme, but don’t engage with it? Without being too dismissive, a lot of Kobold Press subclasses have fit this paradigm. They are safe, and they are useful, but they don’t provide me with as much roleplaying grist, based on the specific class abilities, as I would like.
The Player’s Guide has a limited number of subclasses that it can present for Tales of the Valiant, and one of the Wizard options, in the core book, is focused on using cantrips better than other wizards. It’s a mechanical option that you may want to pursue, but it feels less evocative than I would like.
While I may have had reservations with some of the spells in Deep Magic, some of my favorite subclasses produced by Kobold Press have been the subclasses based on the magical traditions presented in those books. A lot of those have a personality to them that really defines your spellcaster in terms of that tradition, and I wish some of the weirder, more bombastic subclasses had made it into the Tales of the Valiant book instead of what feels like the “obligatory” mechanically sound options.
Moving Forward
I’m really interested to see what the 2024 rules look like, and how all of these options compare after we see the big picture. 5e SRD fans have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to material we can draw from, and while some sources are easier to mix and match than others, so much of it works together that players and DMs have an exceedingly full toolbox. It just doesn’t hurt to know which tools you want to pull from what section.
If you are planning on taking a look at some of these products for yourself, and you don’t mind helping me generate enough to buy more games to do more reviews, you could consider visiting DriveThruRPG via these links:
Ghostfire Gaming
Kobold Press
Lazy Wolf
https://whatdoiknowjr.com/2024/07/03/revisiting-5e-srd-competencies/
#5eSRD #AetherealExpanse #Arora #DD #DD5e #dnd #DnD5e #DungeonsDragons #GhostfireGaming #GrimHollow #RaiderSGuideToValikan
I enjoy horror stories, and the idea that they explore the concept of what we are most afraid of, the things we can’t escape. Whether it’s literal or figurative, there is something out there that may consume the people around us, and we’ll either survive the experience with scars, or succumb like everyone else we’ve seen around us. But I also enjoy a good action horror/monster hunting story.
Monster hunting explores something different about us. It’s less about acceptance or survival, and more about facing an insurmountable problem, and still assuming there is a solution. Monster hunting fiction often teaches us that knowledge and the execution of that knowledge may help us to do things that no one thinks is possible. Monster hunters often end up battered and bruised, and what they do isn’t easy, but if they do it right, they stop something that seems unstoppable.
With all of that said, if you give me a protagonist that is a monster hunter, you’re going to get my attention. In D&D, the monster hunting role often falls to the ranger, and while that’s not a bad fit, rangers can be monster hunters, but not every ranger fits the archetype of the monster hunter. That leads to two results, when applied to D&D 5e . . . multiple monster hunting focused subclasses, or a monster hunting class (but I’m okay with both). With all of that said, I wanted to take a look at the playtest of Ghostfire Gaming’s Monster Hunter class.
Disclaimer
I’m not working from a review copy for this, I’m working from a playtest document, which you can access for .99 cents. I’m normally not a fan of playtest material being gated by a fee. Either you want outside input, or you have internal playtesters whose opinions you are going to trust, why charge people for access? That said, when I say this, it’s usually surrounding playtest material being gated behind a Kickstarter backing level, or with playtest material that is only available in physical media. The .99 cents reserves you a notification on an upcoming Kickstarter from Ghostfire.
I have played around with a Monster Hunter by running numbers in Roll20 in some simulated encounters, but not in an actual game with real, other humans. While I haven’t seen one outside of the “test environment,” I’ve got a lot of experience with D&D 5e, both as a player and as a DM.
Class Overview
The monster hunter class is what it says on the page. They are specialized in hunting various dangerous creatures. In addition to increasing the class’ ability to harm monsters, that also means that they gain abilities that help them research and/or just know things about monsters.
If you were to only have two things that you could reference to figure out what this class is and what it does, I’d say that interacting with anything based on the Witcher would absolutely point you in the right direction, and probably the 2004 Van Helsing movie. You are a monster hunter in a world where monster hunting is an established tradition, even if there aren’t many of you around.
The Artificer is a class that doesn’t reveal much of what the class is capable of outside of its subclasses, and that’s probably not unfair to say about the monster hunter, either. While there are some signature class features, a lot of what they do in combat will be modified by what their subclass grants them.
The core underpinnings of the class are:
I’ll admit, I like a class that appreciates intelligence outside of setting the DC for spells, even if Intelligence saves don’t come up that often. Leaning more heavily on dexterity for a d10 class is an interesting choice that reinforced the idea of precision over power. Let’s see if and how they follow up on those choices.
Tier 1 Abilities (1st through 4th)
Unsurprisingly, monster hunters get access to a fighting style, like fighters, rangers, and paladins. They can choose between archery, dueling, great weapon fighting, and two-weapon fighting. I am already indignant on the ranger’s behalf over that great weapon fighting option, but that’s not the monster hunter’s fault. This does mean they don’t get defense as an option, and they don’t get protection. Does that communicate a theme? Probably, which may be inferred as “you aren’t worried about your own safety and you protect others by killing the damn thing.”
The other starting ability is the monster grimoire, which is a big book of stuff you may need to kill, filled with notes. You pick two types of monsters that are covered in your book. Anytime you need to use an Intelligence check related to those monsters, you get proficiency, or you are treated as having expertise if you are already proficient with a skill that applies. You also pick up a language based on your choices. Because monster hunters aren’t dealing with all that philosophical stuff about humans being the real monsters, the only humanoids you can pick for this ability is humanoid (shape changer).
I like having a book of monster facts. It reminds me of the show Grimm. On one hand, this feature is pretty tightly focused, and if your DM is never making you roll Intelligence checks to learn things about monsters, it won’t get much use. On the other hand, it’s thematic, and it doesn’t limit the monster hunter to only being good at killing the things in their book.
What is pretty much your class’ signature move kicks in at 2nd level, which makes sense, because a lot of classes do that, however, this one is interesting. Despite being a d10 combatant style class, monster hunters don’t get extra attack. Instead, within a certain range, if an opponent makes an attack, and the monster hunter has a reaction free, they can use it to make an attack on that opponent. This has lots of interesting ramifications. It comes in three levels earlier than most extra attack options, however, while you may get to use this more often, it does mean in some of those circumstances you’ll be missing out on opportunity attacks, so you don’t have a net gain in number of attacks when that happens. If other classes or spells grant the ability to attack with a reaction, that’s just not going to do anything for you.
I always want abilities to be functional, but I’m much happier when things fit a narrative, and I do like the idea that a monster hunter isn’t being trained as a duelist or a tactician, so their extra attack comes from looking for an opening when something goes on the offensive. I don’t think I can definitively say “no, that’s too powerful for 2nd level” considering some of the instances where the monster hunter is missing out on attacks, but I don’t want to balance 2nd level on what higher levels don’t get. My gut feeling is to like it. Also, this means the monster hunter is going to be a good party member to have around when the whole party is surprised, because they’ll still get their studied response once their turn has happened, and they have a reaction again.
Your subclass comes in at 3rd level, which isn’t a think I’ll need to say nearly as much in the future since so many things are pushing towards that just being where subclasses start. Standard ASI at 4th.
Tier 2 Abilities (5th through 10th)
Your very first class ability in tier 2 is expert strike, which lets you add your intelligence to your weapon attack. This also helps mitigate those moments when your reaction based attack isn’t as exciting, but also, I appreciate that a martial class gets to use intelligence for something, and it kind of makes sense for a class that specifically studies its opponents to help kill them.
The next ability you get lets you add another monster type to your grimoire, and in addition to your normal benefits, now any monster you have in the book is subject to you rolling a crit on a 19 or 20. An increased critical range feels better than saying you can only do your extra special damage to the monsters you have already picked early in the campaign. Yes, I’m still scarred by previous edition rangers.
Probably the biggest benefit so far from the grimoire kicks in as you get closer to tier 3. Now when you make a save caused by something that you have in your book, you can make it an intelligence check instead. Well, heck, that “intelligence saves are nice, but they don’t come up that often” thought just goes out the window at this level. This is where we start to feel a little FOMO about the class, because every time you’re making saves against a monster type that isn’t in your book, you’re going to remember it. This also reminds you that when the rules say dexterity and intelligence are your primary stats, they are not kidding.
The final ability you get to round out this tier of play lets you pick someone else to attack as well whenever you make your reaction based attack. Which means at higher levels, having a party with multiple monster hunters is going to be missing out a bit on their abilities.
“Attack it now!”
“I already was!’
Tier 3 Abilities (11th through 16th)
Your first tier 3 ability is another upgrade to your book, which just lets you add another monster to the ones you know how best to kill.
Lair sense may be one of my favorite abilities, because it plays with rules elements that don’t usually get any interaction with player facing abilities. You ignore regional effects (how many times do you remember to use those, DM?), and have advantage on saves caused by lair actions. The final benefit from this ability is gated behind the monster types in your book. Any attack made on you using a legendary action is at disadvantage, and any save you make because of a legendary action are made with advantage.
Tier 4 Abilities (17th through 20th)
Into the lofty levels of tier 4, the first ability that you get lets you have two allies attack when you do, when you make your special reaction based attack on a creature. Not bad, I’m not sure if it’s 17th level cool, but then again, 17th level cool is very hard to define since it rarely gets visited.
Your capstone ability increases the critical threat range on the monsters in your book to 18-20. The second part of the ability only functions a number of times equal to proficiency bonus (again, just for monster types in your book), but when you crit an opponent, they have to make a save versus the damage dealt, or else drop to 0 level.
I know it’s what we already do with concentration, when it comes to saving versus a damage amount, I’m just not a fan of it. I would much rather see it as a set saving throw DC. Bounded accuracy should mean that if you have even a moderately good DC, you still have a chance to pull this off, and it would give you another reason to flaunt your intelligence if you base the save off that stat.
I do like multi-step capstone abilities, because there is less pressure to make it do one super spectacular thing, and instead you can do a few really good things. Although auto-killing an enemy is a pretty spectacular capstone, compared to some classes. Also, DM, if you don’t want to cry, remember to save a legendary save for this . . . then you can make your monster hunter’s player cry.
Subclasses
Subclasses for the monster hunter are referred to as hunter guilds. Now I must vent two things. The first is that they really should have called ranger subclasses lodges. That just works. The other thing is, I’m very sad that both Tales of the Valiant and A5e just kind of gave up on giving subclasses cool, thematic names for a class’ subclasses. It actually does help to create a feel for the class and how it approaches things.
The guilds include the following:
Remember when we mentioned The Witcher up above? It is kind of interesting that some of the key components of that fiction are split into non-interacting subclass abilities. In other words, nobody is going to be “the whole Witcher.” That does go a little way in reinforcing that The Witcher isn’t the only inspiration, although I wonder if there is room for a “dabbler” subclass that gets a few minor signature abilities from a couple of the guilds.
This class gets subclass abilities at 3rd, 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th, which matches the fighter subclass progression.
Carver Guild
You are the frontline tank kind of monster hunter. You get heavy armor and everything keys off you being in melee and getting in monster faces.
You get heavy armor proficiency with this subclass, and the close quarters ability adds a d6 to your damage when you use your studied response reaction based attack, and then inflict disadvantage on your target’s next attack.
I’m concerned about what combat is going to look like if your monster hunter hits consistently, and one attack from your NPC is always going to be at disadvantage. Making this a save based ability would partially mitigate that, but it would also start to slow things down since it happens on every reaction attack the monster hunter makes. Not sure how I feel about this until I see how badly that disadvantage messes with NPCs.
True grit at 7th level makes you immune to fear from creatures in your book, gives you advantage otherwise, and when you damage something that inflicted the frightened condition on someone else, you can end that condition on them. I like it. In fact, if the dice didn’t hate me, this would have been a clutch ability in my trial run.
Terrorize the terrors lets you force your target to make a save when you hit them with your studied response reaction attack, or they gain the frightened condition. I’m biased, because the frightened condition just isn’t that much fun for me, even if it works better than fear in previous editions, but every time you hit is way too often for this ability. This should be either PB number of times on a long rest, or once and recharge on a short rest. Keep in mind, I’m not just saying this because it hinders the opponent if they fail their save, but also because it just happens every time you hit, adding something to the routine of combat every round.
Deadly redirect increases your damage when you hit with your studied response, and then forces the creature you hit to attack you with their next attack instead of whoever their regular target would be. I’m not a fan of “you do this, they must only do this in response” style abilities. I always worry that absolutes that just happen reliably set up players to come up with unexpected chain effects that cascade from that expected moment. Technically, the monster still has the option to just not attack to avoid that absolute.
Controlled Footwork lets you “recharge” your reaction once per turn when you miss an attack. It’s breaking the ancillary action economy of the game a bit, but it’s also doing it at 18th level, so I’m not sure I care.
Outside of maybe getting bogged down extra rolls, and maybe throwing off your NPC’s reliability, it’s a pretty straightforward subclass that does look like it is what it says it is, you get in the monster’s face and beat it up until it falls over.
Devourer Guild
If you are a member of the Devourer Guild, you have a mutated metabolism that lets you adopt some of the properties of the creatures you eat. Because this is the subclass that deals with devouring, you also get some ability to create and interact with consumables.
A lot goes into your 3rd level ability. This ability actually does three things–you can salvage bits of monsters to consume later as an action, eat the monster bit as a bonus action, and depending on the monster, you get one of 11 mutations. Some of these mutations are shared between different monster types. For example, eating part of a fey, fiend, or undead can be used to trigger invisibility.
Because not every monster allows for every mutation, however, it does matter what you harvest. The bits you harvest only last until your next long rest, and then it’s not fresh enough to trigger your mutations. No matter how many monster bits you collect, you can only use these mutations a number of times equal to 1 + your Intelligence bonus. The abilities include things like acid blood, acumen, awareness, flight, infused, invisibility, might, natural weapons, regeneration, resistance, or telepathy. The duration ranges from a minute, to minutes, to an hour.
I like this, I feel like it’s a little bit to juggle, but probably not more than a spellcaster is already juggling. This isn’t the monster hunter subclass for someone that doesn’t want to juggle some options.
Your 7th level ability gives you bonus damage for one minute against a creature of the same type as the bits you just ate. After the wide range of things to reference with your first ability, this one is pretty straightforward.
Gnawing Hunger is kind of still in line with the story of the class. When you harm a monster with a melee weapon attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to half the damage you inflicted, or equal to the amount of damage you have done if the monster is one in your grimoire. Essentially just getting splashed with gore triggers some abilities in you. I like the base concept of this, however, I wish the temporary hit points were fixed.
I know it feels good to roll high and get an ever better benefit, but it’s very swingy. If you crit a monster, you’re really buffering your hit points, and if you have a magic item that boosts your damage, you’re not just double dipping because of the ability by getting temp hit points, you now double dipping on your magic item or other boosts to damage giving you even more of a buffer on top of doing even more damage. I would rather this was set at X, and then you get 2X from something in your grimoire.
Alchemical Decoctions basically lets you save up some of the monster bits that you cut up, spending some gold and an hour to turn the monster bits into a potion. You can only have four of these active at any time, but someone else can use them, although they gain levels of exhaustion if they use more than one per long rest. At 15th level, I’m not sure I would require the gold piece expenditure. I would probably just shift this to “you can prepare up to four when you take a long rest.” The granularity can add to the story, but sometimes it just feels like extra flash.
At 18th level, you can consume an extra portion per long rest, and you gain advantage on that kind of monster when you attack them with an attack triggered by a reaction. This works for me, no notes.
I feel like a few things may need to be spelled out or clarified, even though I think the intent is pretty clear. In multiple places, it mentions that you can consume a number of portions “safely,” and effectively, this seems to indicate that you could consume more in an unsafe manner, but we don’t get a definition for what the unsafe side effects are. The wording is very much calling back to The Witcher, but I think it’s implying something that isn’t delivered. This next thing is probably just a me thing, but I kept reading “portion” as “potion,” and I just wish the words weren’t so similar.
Alchemical Decoctions doesn’t expressly say that you (as opposed to others) can consume Decoctions in addition to your normal number of portions that you can consume, and I think that’s the intent, but that means your number of mutations per long rest effectively becomes 5 + int bonus, which is a bit of a jump (although as potions, as per rules no matter what Baldur’s Gate 3 tells you, shift the action economy to an action instead of a bonus action). So, one way or the other, I would like to see it clarified if this just lets you and off your portions to someone else, and maybe save a monster type you haven’t fought in the last day, or if it really is meant to let you break your per long rest limit.
Occultist Guild
Were you waiting for a martial class that isn’t a spellcaster, but has a subclass that lets them become a ⅓ caster? This is the subclass you were looking for.
Acolyte of the occult just gives you proficiency in the arcana skill. Spellcasting works the same way that spellcasting works for the Eldritch Knight, except your school limitations are abjuration and divination. You’re an Intelligence based caster with a spells known limit, you get cantrips, and your spells top out at 4th level. Divination and abjuration make story sense, but it feels like this class is already trailing behind in combat capability compared to the Eldritch Knight. Eventually you can pick up spells from other schools, just like the Eldritch Knight, and at the same levels.
It’s probably my reading comprehension, or just one of the quirks of my erratically functioning brain, but there is a column that says “component limit,” and I don’t know what its referring to. I even did a search of the document to see if I was missing the words somewhere else, and I can’t find it. Forgive me if you spotted what this references.
Counter charm is an ability connected to your monster grimoire, granting you advantage on saves against spells cast by one of those creatures, and it expands your triggers for your studied response attacks to when a creature casts a spell within their range as well. Not what I was thinking when I saw “counter charm,” given what that term is associated with in the game.
Mage hunter lets you consider “spellcasters” as a monster type in your grimoire if they can cast one or more spells. You also inflict disadvantage on any saves made by something you hit that needs to make a concentration check.
At 10th level, you become a ritual caster. In addition to getting the ability to cast ritual spells as rituals, at higher level, you pick up additional spells, as long as they have the ritual tag. Learning to cast rituals does feel like what some esoteric order would end up learning, so I’m good with this ability.
At 15th level, you can extend your resistance to spell saves cast by monsters in your grimoire to allies that are within a certain range. On top of that, you get a once per long rest casting of counterspell, and have it on your spell list now.
At 18th level, studied response extends to letting you cast a cantrip or a spell with a casting time of 1 action or less.
Not sure about the school restrictions at lower levels, I wish counter charm were named differently, but I like the ability. I do have some concerns, not from anything that Ghostfire will put out, but in how this interacts with newer D&D products. Creatures that have those “pseudo spellcasting” attacks may not count as spellcasters unless they also have the ability to cast a spell as traditionally expressed. This is an ongoing discussion about official D&D design, but it’s also pertinent to gaining counterspell at 15th level, which could feel really weak if nothing magical being used against you is expressed as a spell. But do you want to design to the rules in the 5e SRD, or do you want to try to bridge the gap and account for design decisions for material that may be used with your material?
Trapper Guild
Our final guild is the trapper guild, the guild that sets traps and makes bombs. Basically you construct additional tools to help you hunt monsters. You can also blow up nests when you see them marked on the map. Sorry, disregard that last bit.
The Carver Guild leans into up front fighting, and in comparison, the Trapper Guild leans into sneaking and maneuvering, so the trapper picks up stealth and tinker’s tools as proficiencies. This also plays into the idea that they make tools to help them hunt.
Trapper’s gadgets gives you two uses of your gadgets per long rest, but you can spend some gold and an hour to make new gadgets that you can use before your uses reset on a long rest. I like the idea of providing an “in universe” way to get more uses out of a class feature that limits a physical object you can build, if only for logic’s sake. I like the explanation in world, but from a game standpoint, I would almost rather you just got another gadget back when you take a short rest. The funny thing is that in 5e SRD games, it seems like 20 gp goes from either being a big deal or a nuisance.
Even though the guild is called the Trappers Guild, a lot of the gadgets are more like combat aids. You have a few Green Arrow/Hawkeye style trick arrows that can entangle or do extra damage, anti-regeneration oil to put on weapons, a bomb that creates a cloud where all weapons count as magical or silvered, a D&D Ghillie suit, and the one actual trap in the gadgets, a trap that can be placed adjacent to you that does bludgeoning damage and can knock an opponent prone, and that can also just be used as an item you can hit someone with in melee.
Ambusher’s advantage gives you a bonus equal to your intelligence bonus on initiative. Monster types that are in your grimoire can’t surprise you. Which is cool, but it does take away that cool scenario I pictured about your monster still using studied response when they’ve been surprised, once they get their reaction back. Regardless, handy abilities to have.
Ranged response lets you make your reaction when a creature attacks you, which, as usual, is resolved before the creature resolves its attack, and as part of the same reaction, you can move up to half your speed. You can only do this if the creature moved towards you and targets you with a melee attack. If you want, you can move before you make your studied response attack (handy for ranged monster hunters). The text mentions that if you move out of the creature’s reach, they can still make an attack at disadvantage, simulating that you just barely got away from the creature. The opponent doesn’t lose its attack, so if you’re out of its range and it doesn’t want to attack you, it can pick a new target.
I like mobility class features for skirmishing classes, and this actually makes it a little more likely that you could drop a trap, if that’s one of the gadgets you’re carrying, on your turn, and then backpedal as soon as the creature closes on you. I know the “attack with disadvantage” makes the trapper a little less difficult to hit in light of this ability, but we’re already playing with reactions and action countering actions happening before other actions, and I almost worry that saying “and as you were moving, it can also do this” is going to confuse the situation. I’m not totally against it, I’m just concerned that this is one of those abilities that might confuse people when it’s used, or may even be something the DM just forgets they can do.
Part of building gadgets includes eventually making monster-hide armor, which requires you to have some salvage from a monster. You can apply up to two features from a list, which includes infusing armor with damaging energy, gain damage resistance, increase your AC, let you regenerate, move with more stealth, or gain a bonus action short range teleport. It’s interesting that a few things that say “infused with X” makes me think “oh, they’ll have an aura that damages someone that hits them with a melee attack,” and instead, it means they can channel that damage into a weapon. I would kind of like to see a damaging aura somewhere in the mix. I really like that the stealth option also lets you remove the disadvantage from medium armor for stealth, reconciling your armor proficiency with your playstyle, but this is also a 15th level ability, so you’re waiting a bit for it.
Your last ability is rapid tinkerer, which lets you build two gadgets in a minute, once per short or long rest. I like this. It’s good, its functional.
The text uses the word “salvage,” which is specifically a word used in the Grim Hollow Grimoire for a set of rules that lets you do something with parts of monsters that you salvage. There isn’t a system to this (i.e. making an ability check to see if you salvage or how much you salvage), so much as there are subsystems for the monster remains, which can be something that lets you craft a magic item with time plus gold, or gives you a more immediate result (you rub dead monster on your body and become resistant to cold for a while).
I wonder if either this word should be generalized in case people want to use this subclass outside of Grim Hollow, or if the subclass contains a sidebar that says something like “salvage means claiming bits of the monster, but you can do this without a check after you defeat them, see X for more information on using this with monsters in the Grim Hollow setting,” or something like that. It’s also interesting that this class mentions salvage, while the Devourer Guild has its own rules for harvesting portions. I don’t think that’s wrong, but it is interesting that two subclasses do similar things, using different terminology. And yes, I realize salvaged bits don’t necessarily have a time limit on using them, outside of common sense.
It’s also interesting to me that unlike the mutations in the devourer guild, the different abilities aren’t organized by Item (monster type, monster type, monster type) that can be used for that item. There are some examples of monster bits that could be used to provide some of the benefits, but it’s not framed as an all-inclusive list, and its more about very specific monster parts versus general “salvage.” If only for consistency, I think I would rather see a structure similar to the devourer guild’s mutations for these abilities.
End of the Road
That was a long first impression for an 11 page playtest, but honestly? I kind of miss doing deep dives into classes and subclasses since we haven’t been seeing any recent playtest material from WotC, and also, when I see new classes and subclasses in setting books or books with significant additional content, I can’t do this kind of dive.
The first thing I would like to say is that I’ve read a lot of third party subclasses and classes, and even some of them that don’t feel too weak or too powerful still kind of feel like they are swimming upstream against how D&D usually does things. Even though the monster hunter introduces some new mechanics, I feel like the new mechanics are in the “shape” of existing D&D abilities. That meant as I was looking through the document, my mind wasn’t wandering toward “how should this be done to make it more 5e SRD modern design?”
Final Thoughts
Since I already said that, why not fly in the face of my own comment for a moment. The Grimoire mechanics fit the 2014 ranger paradigm, but the ranger was one of the least well received 2014 classes. One aspect of that is the same thing that has haunted rangers for multiple editions, “what if we never run into X after I pick it?” Yes, your DM should be throwing you a bone when you take that, but that also means that if one of your monster types isn’t what was already in the campaign (especially if you’re running a published adventure), the DM is doing extra work to make sure you don’t feel bad about a class feature.
My personal preference would be that your grimoire has information on all kinds of monsters, but you have to review the book as part of your long rest to keep sharp on techniques. This would manifest as “you gain the benefits against two monster types to start, and you can change one monster type after a long rest.” You can make the bonus language option come from one of your two types that you pick at character creation. This doesn’t just strike me as a versatility issue, it actually plays into the “I research monsters” vibe of the class, if you start encountering something and you switch to that monster type when you take a long rest. If you can only change one per long rest, the feature doesn’t quite feel so ephemeral, because it changes in steps.
I really like the studied response ability. It feels like what a class’ signature ability should feel like, playing into the story of the class and being unique to that class. That said, it’s breaking new ground, and it’s hard to get a feel for if this grants actually parity with extra attacks, which honestly would feel a little lackluster after seeing studied response and how it fits the class’ theme. I know in my limited tinkering with a Carver Guild monster hunter, at 7th level, that meant getting up in the monster’s face so I could melee it, and even though I could attack before it, any substantial monster is still going to be around. The monster hunter’s allies couldn’t break away from their opponents, so he was in line to get munched on and fell before anyone else in the party.
That’s limited experience, but it highlighted something I was thinking, which is that ranged monster hunters, relying on other front line fighters to run interference, feel like they’re going to be much more effective. There definitely should be a place for ranged monster hunters (I see you, repeating crossbow shooting Van Helsing), but I don’t think you want to disincentivizes melee monster hunters (I’ve got your back, Geralt). I could be wrong, and maybe I’m overthinking this, but it’s a concern.
I like that a lot of the abilities that naturally supplement studied response are still worded as “when you make an attack with a reaction,” because it’s nice to know in those corner case situations where you wouldn’t be able to make a studied response, but an ally can grant you a reaction based attack, you don’t miss out on some of your features.
At 7th level, manually inputting a monster hunter into Roll20, it becomes really evident that the class has a lot of features, and even though some of them are just building on previous abilities, it still makes that list longer. That observation is more about the intimidation factor of looking at the character sheet, not that it’s bad, or that it doesn’t fit the D&D paradigm, because the other class that felt like that was the Artificer that I included in the sandbox where I was testing this class.
I know people complain that gold doesn’t mean much in D&D 5e, and I know that spending gold to make something makes it feel a little more grounded, and not like items are just magically appearing in your backpack when you aren’t a magical character. I don’t really like gold piece requirements being a qualifier for if you can use class abilities (why is the wizard looking at me that way?), even if it is present in the spellcasting system (which feels like it’s attached to the spellcasting system and not the class feature, if that makes sense).
I would also like to take a minute to appreciate that two of the classes aren’t inherently magical. One can add supernatural abilities to things when they craft them into an item, but that feels less overt, and more a property of knowing how to use the monster the right way. I love a lot of the barbarian, fighter, and rogue subclasses that have overt supernatural abilities, but I really wish I had more compelling, non-supernatural options for all of these, especially the barbarian.
I’ve seen classes and subclasses that have a promising theme, and don’t really engage with the theme unless you kind of squint. I’ve also seen classes and subclasses that basically reinforce their themes in a way that works perfectly fine, and won’t break the game, but don’t feel exciting or compelling. If I have a finite number of games I get to play (and as the frequent DM, it is, indeed, finite) I want something where I’m going to be excited to get to use one of my class abilities. This feels in line with other classes that give me that feeling, like AngryFish Games’ gunslinger. I don’t know if everything works the way it should yet, because it’s treading enough new ground that some of those answers are more nebulous than they would be with a subclass of an existing class, but I really want it to work, and nothing about the class as it stands now indicates that it will take a turn for the worse before publication.
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DnDFanatics
darjr
Gerard Hynes
MPG
What Do I Know?
Greg Marks