The Hand Crossbow Is a False Prophet: An optimizer's guide to Grim Hollow: Player's Guide

 

 

You must consider your actions carefully. If you choose to fight against injustice, what is the cost of wielding power? If you choose to follow your own ambitions, what havoc are you willing to unleash? Grim Hollow invites you to explore humanity through the medium of roleplaying games and asks, genuinely, "What is a monster?"

The cost is a spell slot, I'm willing to unleash the havoc of a Sleet Storm, and 'monster' is synonymous to 'creature' RAW... Wait, what? They killed oversized weapons in 2024? Darn.

Read along: I assume you're reading the features mentioned immediately before I review them. This article would double in size if I were to repeat everything. You don't need your tech radar turned on-- I've got you covered-- but just have a basic understanding of the feature discussed. 

Circle Casting assumed banned: Fuck CC. 

Heritage and Traits

 Instead of a species as usual, you first decide a relatively very bare-bones specie and then choose 8 feats-- sorry, traits-- to build your specie. You can take a trait twice to upgrade it. 

 

Heritage

There are only two options worth a salt: Dwarf for letting you ignore heavy armor's Speed reduction and letting you lower your Speed by 5 to get another trait., and any of the Small species which also let you lower your Speed by 5 to get another trait. 

We're gonna say that that 5 ft is a Trait in and of itself, and thus say that we practically have 9 Traits to choose from.

Trait

Note that I don't dock points for a upgrades and Traits which rely on another Trait just because the necessary Trait isn't a 6/6.

 

+5 ft Speed (2/6): 25 ft Speed is rather awkward because monsters are likely to have 30 ft Speed. Bumping this up could help with early-game kiting, but this is mostly rendered unnecessary by buying a mount as well as some class features which grant a different Speed set at a specific value. 

 

Awakened Mind (4/6): All of these conditions generally suck to have, so protecting yourself from them is very nice.

    Reawakened (4/6): All of these saves generally suck to fail at, though only Wis is common. This is good, but slightly diminished by Awakened Mind possibly already granting Adv on the save.

 

Awesome Critical (1/6): With a 1d12 weapon attack made at Adv, this is an 0.975*((5,5*5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12)/12-6,5)=1,01 dmg improvement per hit. Wow. 

    Maximum Critical (1/6): If you're reading this blog, then you probably just know from smell that this is terrible.

 

Battlefield Control (3/6 on melee Rogues and Moon Knight-esque builds, 2/6 on other melee builds): This is absolutely not the ideal method of dealing more damage, because leaving yourself without a reaction for a defensive spell sucks. If you've got the damage to justify this, however, then this could be worth looking at.

    Battlefield Dominance (1/6): Adv is too piss easy to generate in 2024 for this to be worthwhile. This would barely be a 2/6 if it wasn't PB/LR, maybe.

 

Brave (3/6, 4/6 on melee builds): Frightened sucks, so lets protect our noggins against it, especially if our game plan for some reason involves walking towards your death.

    Infectious Bravery (2/6, 3/6 if you've got a melee ally): The reaction has to trigger and thus can presumably just be used whenever by you, and then you can use it on one save against Frightened without expending your Reaction. This basically means that you just give an ally a worse version of Brave. 

 

Breath Weapon (2/6): This is a decent cantrip with just PB/LR uses. At least you can do Fire damage. Mostly skip though.

    Potent Breath (2/6): Just more of the same. Nothing says your breath weapons can't be identical, so just keep on getting Cone Fire. Giving 1 creature Dadv on a save against your breath wpn 1/LR is negligible for the purpose of the rating.

 

Centered (1/6): Please just attack with that BA.

    Centered Edge (1/6): It's 2024. Adv drops like candy. This is so seldomly worth your BA that this being PB/LR isn't even a big deal.

 

Charging Attack (4/6 for non-unarmored Monk melee builds): This largely replaces the necessity for Dual Wielder/PAM, which is truly excellent. However, you having to move 20 ft can be quite cumbersome, means not being able to use a mount (at least, I think making your mount move 20 ft towards the enemy doesn't count) and could mean taking more OA's than you otherwise would. Still, I would strongly recommend getting this on melee builds to free up your first feat.

    Furious Charge (2/6 on melee builds which lack Reckless Attack and Grappler and don't use Vex weapons): If your melee build for some reason has a drought of Adv generation, then this might be worth looking at. 

 

Creature Cover (1/6): If the battlefield is barren enough that you can't find cover anywhere else, then you've won the encounter by default. 

    Subtle Cover (1/6): No.

 

Damage Resistance (4/6 for Poison, 2/6 for other types): Poison isn't covered by Absorb Elements and is a common type. I would consider this as a luxury purchase for my durability.

    Damage Immunity (2/6): This, on rare occasions, could mean preventing a lot of damage. However, you're already mitigating half of it with Damage Resistance and you're spending your Reaction for immunity to it, meaning that you're not gaining +5 AC with Shield this turn. 1/SR just rubs it in harder.

 

Divine Sangromancy (1/6): This is blatantly inefficient relative to using the hit die on yourself and healing an additional amount of HP equal to your Con.

    Sangromancy Savant (2/6 on Barbs, maybe): This is very marginally more HP healed overall, but this still really isn't an efficient method of healing.

 

Draining Attack (5/6 for builds which can add damage to Unarmed Strikes, 6/6 on Dank Knight): This is a pretty fantastic amount of durability. Not much to say here-- just take it if you want to play a martial that is actually arguably more durable than casters.

    To the Dregs (2/6 on Dank Knight): This is just PB/LR do more damage, with you dealing more damage the less HP the enemy has lost. Use simultaneous effects to first drop the max HP and then deal the actual damage. The problem is that Dank Knight doesn't have enough of a problem dealing damage that PB/LR a bit more damage is gonna be very huge. Do consider if you're starting particularly late, however.

 

Enemy In Motion (2/6): I like passing my saves, but just PB/LR uses with a condition that enemies can dance around by just not moving before forcing the save is bad... and also, attacks rarely force saves, so this is borderline just PB/LR Adv on an attack of yours at the cost of your Reaction, which is usually a negative exchange.

    Moving Insihgt (1/6): Ignoring that it doesn't specify how you affect the save, all of the above still applies.

 

First Strike (2/6): PB/LR dink a bit harder. 2/6 is generous here.

    Strong Strike (1/6): Fucking ONE use for 5 more dmg.

 

Focused Mind (4/6): Debilitating, if not actively harmful condition to have. Take this if you justifiably fear Vampires.

    Immutable Mind (2/6): Charmed really is so dangerous that even getting to auto-pass 1/LR isn't totally worthless. Still... 1/LR.

 

Focused Reserves (1/6): Please just cast Shield instead and maybe take Draining Attack or Inspiring Leader if you're this desperate for THP.

    Focused Edge (1/6): Marginal improvement to shit. 

 

Hunter's Instinct (2/6 on builds which can hit hard with one attack): PB/LR accurately hitting can be big, but this relies on you having to miss and not having already ran out of your quite limited uses.

    Relentless Instinct (2/6 on aforementioned builds): This helps a bit with the issue of the limited uses, but not by very much.

 

Larger Target (1/6): First Strike is objectively better than this, and that still sucks.

    Even Larger (1/6): Wow, I get to hit more creatures with a PB wet slap PB/LR.

 

Light Armor Training (2/6): Light armor is bad. If you get this to qualify yourself for Medium Armored, then congratulations: you lack shield training and are down a feat.

    Light Armor Expertise (5/6 on builds which wear Light armor): yeah sure, +1 AC, always great.

 

Lucky (3/6): Idk why they made this PB/LR. I still like the security of an average +0,95 to my saves, but the limited uses makes it unfeasible to also get the bonus to your attack rolls.

    Master of Fortune (2/6): Even ignoring that there are several Traits which might already grant Adv, this is... okay, but save protection only goes so far with so limited uses.

 

Magical Fortification (5/6 for Wis, 4/6 for Con, 3/6 for Dex, 2/6 for int and Cha, 1/6 for Str): Wis is the best here due to Adv on it being relatively scarce (but do remember that Reawakened is there). Next is Con, which is more common with Eldritch Mind and War Caster. From there, it descends in frequency and severity.

    Extended Fortification (As above +1): I would consider getting this multiple times, because passing saves is just cool like that. 1/LR auto-pass is... okay-ish as a cherry on top.

 

Medium Armor Training (6/6 if you otherwise wouldn't have it): HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! Common arcane caster W.

    Heavy Armor Training (5/6 if you're a Dwarf or have 15+ Str): +1 AC is just cool like that.

 

Menacing Roar (2/6): This is 1 use of a shittier Fear. The effect is still strong, but I'm not hyped for being able to only use it once nor it keying on my Con.

    Incomparable Roar (1/6): Too small of an increase in severity.

 

Might Shove (1/6): Just fucking attack with that BA. Charging Attack to do this with a Push weapon is right there.

    Overwhelming Shove (1/6): Like 2-3-ish extra ft, I eyeball. Skip. 

 

Natural Attack (6/6 with Unarmed Strikes stacking tech): Add it to the pile, fuck yeah. 

    Swift Strikes (1/6): This is negligible, since builds which wanna make U.S.'s want Monk anyway.

 

Out of Phase (5/6, 6/6 if Dodging isn't feasible for your build): This either frees up your Action you'd spend on Dodging, or lets you Dodge. PB/LR uses only slightly dampens my excitement here, because the offensive or defensive power offered here is just so strong while it lasts.

    Phase Shift (5/6, 6/6 if Dodging isn't feasible for your ally): Yeah sure, make an ally also hard as hell to hit.

 

Pack Hunter (2/6): I'm getting rather tired of talking about save buffs. This is just PB/LR and prevents you from using the Reaction for Counterspell of Absorb Elements. There are plenty of other Traits to give Adv, too.

    Pack Leader (1/6): Holy fucking yawn, are we ever done with marginal increases in usage?

 

Pack Tactics (2/6 on attack builds, 4/6 if the build also has no better reaction): Having someone's Familiar within 5 ft of a target isn't a big ask, and Adv is nice enough. This is diminished in impact by just how easy Adv is to get, but even a Dual Wielder build likely still lacks it on over half the attacks.

    Pack Instinct (3/6 if you want that Reaction): We get back to vanilla PT viability.

 

Personal Bastion (1/6): I really, really can't think of a use case of this.

    Mobile Bastion (1/6): Nope, still have no clue when you'd use this. 

 

Psychic Spirit (3/6): Psychic damage really isn't common, but it's not covered by Absorb Elements, so... sure.

     Spirit's Strength (2/6): You're stretching my patience regarding damage mitigation features here.

 

Quick Initiative (1/6): This is thoroughly useless, since Alert is an obligatory origin feat and already adds your PB to Init.

    Focused Initiative (2/6): This isn't thoroughly useless, but this is only useful if you and all your summons roll poorly. The more summons you have, the worse this becomes. 

 

Quick Slip (5/6 if you've got nothing better to do with that BA): Hide is a pretty busted action in 2024, so being able to use it as a BA is a great benefit.

    Astute Slip (2/6): This just frees up the action of a familiar who'd otherwise have to give your the Help action. Not exactly reality-altering.

 

Reach Attack (3/6 on melee builds): This lets you poke creatures from a distance. This is important if you have Charging Attack, since that means you don't have to be within 5 or 10 ft of the target and thus guaranteed to possibly be in reach of them, threatened by OA's.

    Opportune Reach (2/6): I doubt you're getting OA's from this consistently enough. Still damage when it does happen at least.

 

Relentless Endurance (1/6): 1/LR save a spell slot or scroll and someone's BA that would've gone to Healing Word. This is bad. You can just get immediately knocked down again btw.

Unparalleled Endurance (2/6): Now it's a bit more like Heal, in that you get enough HP to not be immediately knocked down again. Still merely 1/LR in a game where healing is easy enough.

 

Ruthless Response (2/6): Get that PB/LR attack out of my fucking sight.

    Focused Ruthlessness (1/6): I don't want to talk about this. 

 

Skirmish Tactics (1/6): You could use a reach weapon, get Reach Attack, Push them away, use a feature which fully disables OA's, not play a melee build, get Mobile, and more.

    Supreme Skirmisher (1/6): BA. Attack.

 

Slippery (1/6): Not sure about you, but this is far too rarely a concern for me. 

    Supreme Slip (1/6): Pro tip: Click Repelling Blast or have your mount move to break the grapple.

 

Stalwart Reserves (1/6): This is somehow not the most inefficient THP gen I've ever seen. 

    Stalwart Edge (1/6): Almost oubling nearly nothing nets less than nearly nothing.

 

Tenacious (1/6): If there's no one to yo-yo you, then you're prime to get a coup-de'tat anyway.

    Hard to Kill (3/6): This is actually not negligible, because it means that you don't slow your party's action econ down if getting you up to perform actions is necessary but you don't need to be healed against death. However, this is a rather rare situation IME.

 

Timely Boon (2/6): Passing saves is nice, but a minor increase PB/LR isn't wild when there are several good Traits already boosting your saves.

    Born Lucky (2/6): More of the same, really.

 

Touch of Life (3/6): Necrotic's not covered by Absorb Elements and not as rare as Psychic. It's decent.

    Strength of Life (1/6): Not a strong enough benefit to warrant a limitation even close to 1/LR.

 

Toughness (3/6): It's more HP. Use this when you're scraping the bottle of the barrel for Traits.

    Extra Tough (3/6): More of the same.

 

Unchecked (2/6 on melee builds): Magical Fortification for Dex save is right there.

    Slip Free (1/6): Again, Magical Fortification. Please.

 

Weapon Aptitude (1/6): Weapon prof is far too easy to acquire for this to matter in any build I've ever seen.

    Weapons Specialist (1/6): I'm gonna need more than +1 dmg to bump this up.

 

Well Protected (4/6 on melee Monks): Medium Armor Training. Right there. Melee Monk is the only build which would ever consider this to make increasing Wis less necessary, and this does at least do a good job for that.

    Protective Cover (1/6): You have Magical Fortification for Dex save for Dex saves and Deflect Attacks for ranged attack rolls. Not happening.

 

This is getting exhausting, so from now on, I'll only talk about stuff that's actually spood.

 

Climber/Wall Walker (5/6): Its Spider Climb, with a PB/LR BA Dash as a cherry on top.

 

Darkvision/Improved Darkvision (3/6): What the fuck am I supposed to say here?

 

Ethereal Fade (4/6 on casters): This is like Dodge on steroids. Sure, you're gone, but your Sleet or velociraptors are still annihilating the enemies. PB/LR uses doesn't upset me this once.

 

Meditative Rest (6/6): Yeah sure, I'll take 4 more hours of time to craft magic items.

    Restorative Rest (5/6): Not as big of a bonus, but still major. The d6 is a nice treat.

 

Power Nap (4/6 on Chron): Another bead is awesome, though I will dock points for investing in something you're only gonna get a return out of halfway through the game.

    Extreme Resilience (6/6): Lock stocks fucking plummet with this. Spell slots rule.

 

Unnatural Healer (???): Just adding this here to remind me to read Grievous Wounds.

 

Subclasses

Barbarian

I don't wanna go 'for melee' constantly, so just know that the ratings are ignoring the fact that melee fucking sucks. 

Fractured (3/6, 4/6 dip on U.S. Stack tech builds)

Lv 3: Face of Rage (4/6): We're dealing with another 1d8 to U.S., which isn't big when you factor in that you must Rage to get this. Being able to change it to force it nice if you don't have Elements Monk. We also get to Push and Prone, which is always awesome to have.

 

Lv 6: Brains and Brawns (4/6): Yeah, sure, I'll take a truck ton of resistances. 

 

Lv 10: Cunning and Brutal (2/6): U.S. Stack allows this to not be wholely negligible, but even that many dice won't save crit fishing from sucking dick.

 

Lv 14: Better Half (2/6): This is a ton of THP, but ending your Rage suuuuucks.

Primal Spirit (6/6)

One of the best Barb subs I've ever read, only in competition with Wild Soul. This seriously makes the class viable in high op, especially if you start later. You get a cool pet, then later becomes better than most full-casters.

 

Lv 3: Primal Companion (4/6): We get another body on the field, which is inherently good. Flying Primal Striker is my preference due to it having higher speed and a flying speed. This is actually worth sacrificing your BA for, since the damage the beast deals is actually pretty good: 0.75(4.5+2+2)=6,375 dpr, roughly. This saves a feat that would've gone to Dual Wielder or PAM and the awkwardness of Charge Attacker. Alternatively, you can go for a DW build and replace your Nick attack with this, which is a bit more damage at the cost of a feat.

Be careful with your Striker, however, as it's capital-F Frail when its Flight doesn't prevent it from getting seriously hit, and a Rage is an expensive price to pay to revive it. 

 

Lv 3: Shared Rage (5/6): This is vital in having your Companion not be a total wet noodle.

 

Lv 6: Kin to Death (2/6): The spells are.... okay, but too easily acquired, especially Speak With Animals, which is a ritual.

 

Lv 6: Skinrider's Trance (7/6): Your reaction and movement is gone, but nothing prevents you from otherwise fully operating your own body while possessing a beast. At a cost of having to be mounted and not having a reaction you rarely do anything with anyway, you get another body on the field. 

However, this comes with a secret, weird caveat: Your Hit Points, Hit Point Dice, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Speed, and senses are replaced by the creature's. Permanently.  

 

If we take a gander at the 2024 MM and sort Beasts by descending CR, we can see that a T-Rex reduces your AC by 2 due to setting your Dex to 10, but does give alot more HP and Hit Dice to off-set the AC problem. Notably, we get 27 Str.

You can easily guarantee you get a good body by just having someone Polymorph into whatever you like and then possessing them. 

If someone is playing a Druid 1/AbbMind x, you can have them Mizz Giant Insect or Summon Beast at a ludicrously high level to get staggering AC and a flying speed. The stats are bad, however, and you have no Hit Die, so this is kind of a meme.

As for what you want to puppet, Traxigor is obviously the best by a landslide due to being a lv 18 caster, even if its spell list leaves stuff to be desired. However, since there's no cap on the number of creatures you can possess at a time, you should just get whatever halfway-decent things you can-- just make sure you end up with T-Rex stats.

 

Oh, by the way, the possession has an expiration date, but the control is permanent. You can make a real army with this. This is legit better than Pbind at this level just due to the raw amount of numbers you can get. 

 

This becomes about twice as amazing if Nystul isn't banned for obvious reasons.

 

It's safe to say that Magic Jar Lite plus Pbind Ultra is worthy of breaking the scoring.

 

Lv 14: Shape of the Wild (GG/6): Notice how it doesn't specify what new form the Companion must take on. You win.

Wrathful Dead (3/6) 

Quite a let-down from the peak that was Primal Spirit. Not even any tech here that gets you 27 Str. yawn. 

Lv 3: Rage of the Dead (3/6): Shadow Form and Shadowy Step is where it's at here. They both help make Charge Attacker more reliably be able to be pulled off from. Spectral Sight is also neat to prevent Dadv from Invisible.

 

Lv 3: Final Fight Chambers (2/6): Hate is rather redundant with Reckless Attack and general Adv generation, Jealousy is less than useless due to wasting your Reaction, and Terror takes away from your Charge Attacker attack you just got a synergistic feature for. I'd go Terror here for its utility, but I'd experiment with Hate too for usage when I'm too scared to use Reckless Attack.

 

Lv 6: Dark Room Revisited (3/6): Hypothermia is the best here due to its speed halving, but Immolation has its use for proccing Oil and being a Dex save rather than a Con one. The problem with this feature is that its little damage due to saving for nothing. However, Barb really does need some sort of AoE, so I'll take even this relatively shitty one. 

 

Lv 10: Death Is But a Door (3/6): Hard To Kill is barely a benefit. What we're looking at here is getting Revivify. This is because they made an error and said that Raise Dead is 3 Exhaustion, while the feature lets you cast Revivify, thus Revivify doesn't cause Exhaustion. You still have the major problem of this being 1/LR with the brutal recovery cost of 2 Rages, however.

 

Lv 14: Powered by Pathos (3/6): Hate is a meme. Jealousy is the best: it would have some use in knocking down fliers... were threatening fliers not creatures like Dragons who have LR's, but it does mean that it's practically guaranteed speed halving, which is quite nice. Terror is practically very similar to Jealousy. I'd stick with Terror.

Bard

Adventurers (5/6)

An excellent test in understanding that it's the number of good features that count, not the number of bad ones.

You get the major benefits of getting Shield, Absorb Elements, and a bit later invocs. This solves Bard's problem of having of not being able to get all of AE, Shield, armor, or stopping multing at lv 2 at the latest.

I won't cover every single option due to that being really annoying to do, so this is my suggested order. 

Lv 3: Talented Adventurer: Wizard (5/6)

 

We start with Wiz for Shield and Absorb Elements (Find Familiar as the option for if you already have one of these). The difference between having these spells and not is plenty to justify a 5/6.

Lv 6: Well-Rounded (1/6): This is a ribbon.

Lv 6: Talented Adventurer: Warlock (5/6): You get Repelling Blast. I am assuming you dipped Hex 1.

Lv 14: Improvisational Talent (1/6): You're good enough at 5e to not need this.

Lv 14: Talented Adventurer: Warlock (4/6): You get Lance of Lethargy, because nothing prevents you from taking a Talent more than once. Ain't that something? 

Fools (4/6)

This is just a bunch of BI's and some other neat shit. Quite a cool sub and healthier than Tragedy from TDCSR. 

 

Lv 3: Antagonistic Antics (2/6): Bard cantrips are too shitty for another one to matter. The free Diss Whis prep is nice, though, as is having something to fling in the off-chance I Dash or Disengage. But yeah, it's just the free Diss Whis.

 

Lv 3: Cruel Jest (2/6): This is basically a sidegraded SBarbs (a spell on the Bard list you should have) that comes with the tall cost of a BI. If a creature's fucking mauling an ally with multi-attacks... maybe use this. 

 

Lv 6: Gallows Humor (5/6): You can theoretically farm BI's with this by bag of not-ratting and targeting an ally with crazy high Wis saves. This is practically unfeasible, however, so I'd recommend using this in-combat, because the fail effect is pretty brutal. It's hard to go wrong with this: just be careful with having no Reaction. 

 

Lv 14: Last Laugh (5/6): More BI's is always great, and getting to has Resistance to all damage while you're at it is just fantastic. This is how you design a capstone.

Requiems (4/6)

In typical Bard fashion, this is lob-sided to be mid early on and amazing later on.

 

Lv 3: Chilling Memory (2/6 if you don't dip for better cantrips): Toll the Dead is a nice upgrade over Vicious Mockery. It's a testament to how terrible Bard's cantrips are that this isn't a 1/6.

 

Lv 3: Pluck the Heartstring (2/6): A creature can expend their BI to save someone's BA that would've gone to Healing Word. Whoop dee doo. Offense is offensively bad.

 

Lv 6: Stir the Bones (5/6): ADead is an amazing spell, so that's a 4/6 on its own. Free Bardics for your skellies bumps this to a 5/6. I still don't recommend making your skellies use the Bardic on an attack roll unless you need something dead immediately, however-- just relegate it to a save as always to have them stick around a bit longer.

 

Lv 14: Dual Death (6/6): This is the list which this is compatible with. Finger of Death is the obvious stand-out here, dealing a shit ton of damage and getting you a bunch of Zombies. Other notable spells include Revivify, Vampiric Touch (I can't believe the spell is worth casting either), and Harm. Absolutely expend BI's to restore your use of this. 

 

 

Cleric

Eldritch (4/6)

A rather decent sub. You could consider this if you wanna grant Reckless Attack to your whole army.

 

Lv 3: Eldritch Domain Spells (3/6): Detect Thoughts, Hideous Laughter and Fear are the highlights here. Not a Tempest or anything, but decent enough.

 

Lv 3: Eldritch Contagion (2/6): Random effects aren't hype due to you not knowing when it's gonna be helpful. It's behind a save, too, and few effects are actually that bad. What you can do that's cute is intentionally afflict the Reckless one onto an attack build ally, but that's barely gonna move the needle to a 2/6.

 

Lv 3: Prophesy of Doom (5/6): You get to spread the Reckless onto more allies, and you get a fairly decent at-will option while you're not spamming Dodge. This is pretty amazing now, since you get to throw Reckless onto your whole army. Watch that skellie dpr significantly increase.

 

Lv 6: Otherworldy Calm (2/6): Psychic is rare and Frightened and Charmed Adv is usually great, but diminished by Traits. I don't care about having an unpropable mind.

 

Lv 17: Sing the Song that Ends the Worlds (6/6): Would you like an at-will save-or-get-an-annoying-effect-and-10d10-psychic? Cuz I sure do. 

Inquisition (3/6)

Your main shtick is Spell Shield. Otherwise thoroughly mediocre. 

 

Lv 3: Inquisition Domain Spells (2/6): Prep freed from Silence and Dispel Magic. Not nothing, not good.

 

Lv 3: Witch Hunter's Strike (2/6): Wis mod/LR is just far too few uses for a mediocre Smite. You get THP, at least. 

 

Lv 3: Spell Shield (4/6): This is a pretty good use of your CD. Use this on your highest-value ally if you're scared of upcoming casters.

 

Lv 6: Rebuke Invoker (2/6): This leaves you without a Reaction, is a Con save not saving for half, and is just Wis mod/LR. The damage is... passable. 

 

Lv 17: Supernal Safeguard (5/6): Yeah sure, I like defensive buffs. 

Purification (2/6, 3/6 Dank Knight dip)

Cleanse With Fire (3/6): It's more damage of the best damage type. Wis mod + PB/LR is a tolerable usage limit.

 

Lv 3: Purification Domain Spells (3/6): Fear and Wall of Fire are both great.

 

Lv 3: Unclean Brand (1/6, 3/6 on Dank Knight): Nope, not going into melee for this, unless I'm Dank Knight due to this working with U.S. Stack tech. Ask your DM whether you proccing Oil with this counts as you dealing the Fire damage from the Oil.

 

Lv 6: Ward Against Corruption (1/6): These effects are just way too rare for Res against them to be valuable. A tiny thing here is that you can use this to proc Oil, but that's not valuable when it requires you to be in melee.

 

Lv 17: Sear Imperfections (1/6): We're in T4. No.

Druid

Blood (4/6)

Do you want to be a meaty as fuck Druid? Then play Shep for the Bear Totem! Or this, I guess. 

 

Lv 3: Blood Spells (3/6): We get Dark Sacrament. 

 

Lv 3: Rite of the Blood Moon (3/6): That's a lot of THP and mobility. It's fine. Violent Strikes Hand Crossbow is significantly more damage when you get it and marginally more when cantrips reach T2, unless you know True Strike.

 

Lv 6: Blood Boon (3/6): Another feature which improves our bulk considerably by restoring HD. It's als fine.

 

Lv 10: Blood Lust (5/6): Resistance to the three most common damage types? Sign me up! Violent Strikes still isn't worth using over a cantrip (but it's really nice with True Strike).

 

Lv 14: Exsanguinate (5/6): That's a lot of HD, and THP that puts Twi to shame. 1/LR dampens my excitement on the latter benefit, but this is still quite meaty. 

Entropy (5/6)

Bladesinger not enough for you? Well, have I got a way to dump the mother of turds on martials.

 

Lv 3: Catastrophic Power (3/6): As a big fan of Oil, Elemental Cataclysm is decent enough. If you wanna kill something with raw damage, but they have a nasty Fire Res or Imm, then cast this. This has the problem of LR existing, and creatures you'd wanna use this on probably having that. Still, you can use this as a petite Fireball to soften a horde up for blasting with Fire damage, maybe. 

Note that Elemental Cataclysm nor Vicious Smite are spells, and thus you should strongly consider the latter if you know you're gonna fight Vecna. 

Weapon Mastery is the best option overall. Choose Dart to Vex with it in combination with Thrown Weapon Master. You could also use Heavy Xbow instead if you'd rather have the control of Push.

 

Lv 3: Ruin Incarnate (5/6): We get to shit on martials. Lovely. This is also likely a major AC bump. 2024 Druid wants to invest in Wis anyway, so getting high AC and freeing up our hand from a shield while we're at it is delectable. 

 

Lv 6: Many Roads to Ruin (5/6): Proc Oil, bypass Res/Imm, and have a big bonus to Dex saves (and Str, whenever the hell that happens). Just a very solid batch of features, I love it. 

 

Lv 10: Shake the Earth (2/6): This is something you use pre-fight to get the damage bonus. However, 1/LR isn't gonna make this seriously shake the earth.

 

Lv 14: Entropy's Apex (5/6): We get to further shit on martials, and Shake the Earth is now more readily available. Cool capstone.

Mutation (5/6)

Shame this is 2024, where Marc is dead. In 2014, this'd be objectively than Moon. Regardless, this is the most comically lob-sided feature I've ever read. 

 

Lv 3: Circle Forms (2/6): You get more HP out of your Wild Shape. That's it. Don't go into melee for this.

 

Lv 3: Mutate Shape (1/6): Somehow, not a single option worth considering. Damn.

 

Lv 6: Unnatural and Unnerving (2/6): This makes Natural Armor and Venomous Attacks maybe worth a gander. Most hesitant 2/6 I've ever given.

 

Lv 10: Endless Evolution (6/6): Now your mutations are seriously worth considering, because for the price of a Lv 1 slot, you get a whopping 5 Mutation Points (assuming +4 Wis, which is very achievable). The highlights:

• Creature of the Earth: Burrowing speed is far rarer than flight, and when it applies, it can default kill like little else. 
• Creature of the Sky: It's flight.
• Elemental Inurement: Res is always good to have. 
• Rapid Regeneration: Basically, you heal to full, again and again. Incredibly value for a lv 1 spell-- certainly the best mutation. 
• Wall Crawler: Use this if Creature of the Sky doesn't fit in your budget. 

Unnatural and Unnerving now gives you a real reason to use a lv 2 slot rather than a lv 1 one (unless you can use Wild Resurgement tech, of course).  

Lv 14: Apex Predator (6/6): Polymorph your allies into Beasts, then use Rapid Regeneration. Congratulations: you've solved healing.

Fighter

Bulwark (4/6, 1/6 if your party has THP generation)

Went to the Bladesinger school of being objectively better at range than in its designated position.

 

Lv 3: Protective Taunt (1/6): Great job, you're in melee and about to get murdered, but good thing they can't target your armor-dipped caster far away from them!

 

Lv 3: Weather the Storm (4/6): This is an amazing amount of THP. Not competitive with Twi, obviously, but just getting it on yourself is worthy of a 4/6 (I can see a 5/6).

 

Lv 7: Threatening Presence (4/6): Doesn't save for half, and the taunt is shitty as always. However, more Weather the Storm uses and an aoe on a class which normally doesn't get them is worthy of a 4/6 anyway.

 

Lv 10: Aggressive Defense (1/6): Melee.

 

Lv 15: Improved Second Wind (4/6): Another Weather the Storm, pretty much. Cool.

 

Lv 18: Halt the Assault (2/6): You still need to be in melee for this, but at the bare minimum you get Res and thus actually prevent damage. Still, 2/6 is generous. 

Living Crucible (5/6)

You get a choice menu with very obvious right choices. Fortunately doesn't fall into the trap of assuming one very poorly scaling feature compensates for having only flavor features elsewhere. 

Lv 3: Compound Creator (5/6 lv 3, 2/6 lv 7, 1/6 all other lvs): Aight, let's rank 'em. 1+Con mod is a rather limited number of uses, so the ratings will be quite strict.

• Adrenal Injection (2/6): non-magical Jump + Longstrider is nice enough, but note that this is cutting into your BA attack and made useless with a mount.
• Allsens Injection (2/6): You can use this for Adv generation while an ally's Heavy Obscurement is up, which is quite decent... while it lasts. Also again, no BA attack when you'd wanna use this when you're on the offensive.
• Arcane Eye Oil (1/6): I'm not spending such a limited use on Detect Magic, a ritual spell.
• Draught of Stuff: 3/6 for Wis and Con, 1/6 for Str, 2/6 for rest.
• Elfsight Oil (2/6): This has the minor application of when you wanna avoid darkness's Heavy Obscurement in a range longer than bullseye lantern's 60 ft. Good for kiting, but this is a somewhat rare circumstance.
• Fleshknit Phosphate (5/6): Heal to full? Yeah, sure. Could be decent to use in combat.
• Ironmind Injection (4/6): This manages to avoid the limited usage penalty by lasting 1 hr. Both of these conditions suck, but I'm not putting this above a 4/6 when Traits solve this anyway. 
• Liquid Courage (5/6): Little touches this amount of THP. Great rest use, which is why the rating is so high.
• Liquid rage (1/6): Nope, not even on Dank Knight am I using my BA on this.
• Presto Powder (2/6): Adv on Init is negligible due to Weapon of Warning. Dash and Disengage BA is normally decent, but not for 10 minutes only.
• Spellshine Ointment (2/6): You can also just attack to kill the damage dealer sooner. This is okay against stuff like undead hordes, I guess.
• Steelskin Ointment (3/6): As above, but more versatile due to BPS being more common.
• Tenmen Tincture (1/6): This would be laughable as a permanent benefit. 

Lv 3: Student of Alchemy (3/6): Brewing potions isn't exactly at the top of the list for magic item crafting, but covering ground in it is nice regardless.

Lv 7: Living Caldron (4/6 at both lvs): More Fleshknit Phosphate uses is really cool.

Lv 10: Rapid Consumption (2/6): This has very limited usage, but can in rare circumstance be legitimately great to combine two defensive compounds.

Lv 15: Toxin Transmutation (3/6): Poison damage is common, and the Poisoned condition is nasty for a martial. I like it.

Lv 18: Living Catalyst (1/6): We've already hit rock-bottom with what we can take, and are optimizers regardless, meaning that we know what compounds are spood.

Nightwatcher (2/6) 

It;s called Nightwatcher, since that's what you'd rather be doing than play this garbage. 

 

Lv 3: Skilled Guardian (2/6): Please don't tell me they factored this skill feature into the power budget...

 

Lv 3: Ever Vigilant (3/6): We're mostly dealing with (Superior) Darkvision here, Since Adv on Init is negligble due to Weapon of Warning. 1/LR moving apart in anticipation of an aoe is something.

 

Lv 7: Size Up (1/6): RAW, the damage itself gets Res to an unspecified thing. This is garbage. With the RANFS fix of saying that the target gets Res to the damage, this isn't gonna crawl up to a 2/6, because you should just be fucking killing the attacker to reduce the harm it can do with a BA attack. BA's don't grow on trees.

 

Lv 10: Night Stalker (2/6): 2 benefits that exist when you're playing a very suboptimal build and don't have a mount to Disengage despite being balls-deep into the game.

 

Lv 15: Ready for Action (2/6, 6/6 RANFS): We're not here for Reliable Init, because Alert makes that largely useless. More interesting is critting your turn, which will happen almost always since you just Alert swap with an ally who got the generous window of 18-20 Init (Ty Cell for pointing out that this is based on the total, not the d20 roll). That said, the raw power of action econ is only getting you so far after 15 levels in Fighter, and not even in a good sub.

Then you notice that this is for your first turn. The first turn you've ever taken. In your whole life.

 

Lv 18: Beat Down (2/6): This is moderately interesting, since BA attacks generally don't add your modifier while this does. However, melee.

Monk

I don't wanna go 'for melee' constantly, so just know that the ratings are ignoring the fact that melee fucking sucks. 

Leaden Crown

Why these chumps fight for Humanoid sovereignty by being in melee without armor instead of just enslaving the rest of the multiverse with Pbind or Skinrider's Trance is beyond me. They do get spells tho, so they're not wholely cringe.

 

Lv 3: Subtle Hand (3/6): Bypass BPS Res/Imm and be able to poke the majority of monsters beyond their reach. Sure.

 

Lv 3: Psionic Prowess (4/6): Nowhere near as good as 2014 Shadow nor as cool as 4e Monk, which just has psionics by default, but Mage Hand is a decent cantrip and PFG&E, Levitate and Shatter provide tools martial classes seldomly get. This greatly expands your use applications beyond just hitting in melee and you can spam these spells better than even Locks can.

 

Lv 6: Unsubtle Strike (2/6): Forced movement is always cool, but you're targetting a relatively high stat with a likely low save DC just once per turn.

 

Lv 11: Psychic Crush (2/6): You're unlikely to deal more damage with this than with your BA U.S. or FoB. Just keep your FP to spam your spells.

 

Lv 17: Psionic Mastery (5/6): WoF 3/SR? Fuck yeah. Better extremely late than never.

Pride (1/6)

It has to be homophobic how bad Pride Monk is.

 

Lv 3: Tall Tales (1/6): Flavor, next.

 

Lv 3: Bruised Ego (2/6): This is very little THP you're getting sometimes. Your Wis mod is 3 at best. I'm not hyped for at best 4,5 THP 3/SR.

 

Lv 3: Assertive Attacker (3/6): You know what, sure, go hit harder in the common occurence you're Bloodied. 

 

Lv 6: Irrational Retaliation (1/6): Please just fucking cast Shield from an enspelled item or even use Deflect Attacks. This is extremely little damage, especially after you should have a consistent from of Adv generation in Grappler. The flavor also deserves a 1/6-- stop with flavor that encourages you to act like an egoist.

 

Lv 6: Redoubled Efforts (1/6): Brutal Critical with a god damn condition attached to it.

Lv 11: Ever Prideful (2/6): I mean... there's some utility in saving a spell slot and BA that would've gone to Healing Word, but this costs so much FP and means you can't cast Shield from your enspelled item.  

 

Lv 17: Egotistical (2/6): Slightly more THP and a bit more damage... Quite meh.

Regret (4/6 -- 6/6)

The ranking to the left is for melee Monk while the one to the right is for a ranged Monk build which dipped Fighter 1.

 

Lv 3: Shade of Regret (2/6 -- 6/6): For melee Monk, you can occasionally use this if you're unable to close the gap to still get some damage off. This is a rather niche situation, of course, and an inefficient use of your FP. 

For ranged Monk, this is amazing, because it lets you actually use FoB. I'd strongly consider getting Unarmed Fighting as my FS from Fighter, even if you're not making a Dank Knight build. 

There's a cool tech for both: You can have up to two shades up at a time, and dubiously, when your use FoB, you can make it come from both shades simultaneously. Clear this up with your DM as always-- I'm not confident in saying this is 100% RAW. Regardless, this is a very expensive use of your FP, so only use it in dire situations involving mainly one enemy.

 

Lv 3: The Road not traveled (5/6): This is a very big distance you're covering, and remember that you can Dash with your BA too, so up to twice a turn if you spend both your Action and BA on it. Also note that you don't require LoS to the place you're teleporting (the ally) to, so you could use this to just dip from the fight entirely by going through a wall.

 

Lv 6: Aid Not Given (6/6): Infinite healing. Amazing. The healing isn't terrible, so do consider using this to yo-yo. BA Help is mostly useless.

 

Lv 11: Crushing Guilt (4/6): As always, I have to give some kudo's to giving a martial an AoE option. However, this costs a lot of FP. Note that this requires absolutely no action, however-- you can just do this whenever you desire, so I'll rank this highly for its theoretically completely insane, completely inefficient burst potential.

 

Lv 17: Relive the Past (3/6): More damage, sure. Idc about Stunning Strike from range when this is the level I'm becoming a dragon.

Paladin

Total rankings exclusively take lv 3 into consideration unless lv 7 is really spood. Don't poke yourself on the edge of these subs. I also factor in that you're only occassionally actually going into melee as an optimized Pal.

Pestilence (4/6)

If you like having one singular good thing, then this is a subclass for you.

 

Lv 3: Debilitating Fever (5/6): This is entirely guaranteed to waste at least a full turn, which can often be precious. Even works with Darts!

 

Lv 3: Entropic Infection (1/6): Holy shit, this is a garbage use of your action econ. This makes 2014 Vengeance look like a well-oiled machine.

 

Lv 3: Oath of Pestilence Spells (1/6): Bane is okay. That's the singular spell here worth a damn. 

 

Lv 7: Aura of Rampant Sickness (1/6): Melee, takes a reaction, and must be done before the test. Debuffing saves rarely isn't gonna make this worth a damn.

 

Lv 15: Disgusting Resilience (1/6): Tall price to pay to save someone a BA and a spell slot for Healing Word. I don't care for a benefit when I die.

 

Lv 20: Plaguebringer (2/6): The Imm's and Res's is pretty much all you're getting out of this, usually.

Slaughter (4/6)

Go to lv 7 for this one-- the more summons and weapon users you have, the better.

 

Lv 3: Frenzied slaughter (3/6): Dart isn't a melee weapon, so Reaction for a reroll is largely useless. Condition Resistance is the main benefit, and it's not that good coming from the book with Heritage & Traits.

 

Lv 3: Oath of Slaughter Spells (2/6): For the levels you'll actually reach, it's just Shatter. Too late do you get Fear.

 

Lv 7: Bloodthirst Aura (5/6): Hit your skellies with carefully managed U.S.'s to give them a big bonus to their dpr. The Sangromancy thing is negligible.

 

Lv 15: Follow Through (2/6): Ideally, you don't even have creatures this close to you, but this is a pretty useful reaction if this is unfortunately applicable.

 

Lv 20: Blood Knight (3/6): The main thing here is the boatload of THP. The other stuff is rather shitty. Consider the spell slot for this one.

Zeal (1/6)

What absolute fucking shit. Go play Primal Spirit Barb instead of this for all I care. 

 

Lv 3: Mark of the Heretic (1/6): I would rather have you cast Hunter's Mark than use this utter garbage. 

 

Lv 3: Oath of Zeal spells (1/6): Detect Thoughts, I guess. Too late Fear and Divination.

 

Lv 7: Aura of Clarity (1/6): IME, Blinded is way too rare for this to be valuable more than once or twice per campaign. 

 

Lv 15: Compel Confession (1/6): Niche, campaign-dependant utility which could be replicated with Detect Thoughts is hopeless.

 

Lv 20: Apocalyptic Revelation (2/6): Sigh... The Truesight is okay, and Smite the Heretic is good for single-target dpr. 

Ranger

Green Reaper (3/6)

Beats Fey Wanderer at being the middest sub imaginable. Just straightown the middle. 50% power, with a mere 2% margin of error.  

 

Lv 3: Envenomed Attack (4/6 at lv 3, 2/6 afterwards): You'll wanna use this if you need to use your Toxic Tradecraft feature. Additionally, this is quite good when you're at lv 3 and using a Heavy Xbow, since you don't have Thrown Weapon Master. Otherwise, you're using that BA to throw two Darts. 

 

Lv 3: Toxic Tradecraft (3/6) The base effect is already decent-- no-save Poisoned is hard to come by. However, remember that this comes with the cost of not throwing 2 darts as a BA, because you need to use that BA for Envenomed Attack usually. As for the effects:

• Attenuate (3/6): This is something you need to coordinate with your party. This could get a bit more damage out of a Fireball, or increase the chance Web restrains. Plenty of decent uses of this.
• Befuddled (3/6): This is obviously used against enemy casters due to disabling their V spells. 
• Uncoordinated (2/6): Enemies rarely Disengage or Dodge. Reactions has some marginal use, however (and in particular fucks Vecna over hard.
• Debilitate (1/6): How often are you seeing an enemy get significant enough healing that you wanna expend a lv 2 slot to force the healer(s) to do something different with their actions?
• Potent (1/6): Far too little damage for the slot.
• Suffer (1/6): Just use Oil instead, please.
• Lingering (1/6): Poisoned is too mediocre of a condition for having it last a while longer to be valuable. The novelty of no-save Poisoned is only going so far.
• Supernatural (1/6): This is unique in that it's the only effect which persists after the Poisoned condition ends. However, if a creature's Imm to Poisoned, then odds are it's also Imm to Poison, and thus you can't use this in the first place. Even so, again: Poisoned is a mediocre conditon.
• Flesh Eating (1/6): Too little damage for a lv 4 slot.
• Insensate (1/6): Outclassed by Fog Cloud, Befuddled and Sleet Storm in terms of fucking casters up.
• Paraplegia (2/6): This has a little bit of utility in instantly dropping fliers out of the sky and buffing any Dex saves your party wants to force.
• Enhanced (2/6): Paraplegia + Befuddled is the use here. It's not a good one.
• Stinging Application (2/6): Note that this damage applies to any creature you hit with a poisoned item. The damage is pretty decent, which isn't worth much for a lv 5 slot.

Lv 3: Green Reaper Spells (1/6): Nothing.

Lv 7: Poison Control (3/6): Useful Resistances. Protection from Poison isn't awful when you get free casts of it.

Lv 11: Variegated Vexations (1/6): W... wuh? This disables my whole fucking subclass. I have a Dragon's Wrath Dart at this point, so bypassing Res/Imm isn't even valuable.

Lv 15: Pain Tolerance (3/6): Preventing a whole attack at no resource cost is decent, but note its uselessness against multi-attacks and multiple attacks in general.

Primordial Archer (4/6)

This starts rather mediocre, but we do make good steps later on, fortunately. Still not saving 2024 Ranger, however.

 

Lv 3: Elemental Arrows (3/6 at lv 3, 2/6 afterwards): This can seriously be worth the BA, even when this costs 2 Darts, because Oil is just that broken. Wis mod/LR is very unfortunate, however.

 

Lv 3: Herbal Lore (2/6): Stabilizing is far worse than yo-yo-ing due to the action econ loss. Having to take an Action instead of a BA to yo-yo is unfortunate, but could be worth it since this is resourceless (1/SR is plenty of uses for this mediocrity).

 

Lv 3: Primordial Archer Spells (1/6): While Wall of Stone is fantastic, it comes far too late and after far too much garbage to move the needle.

 

Lv 7: Weave of the Elements (3/6): Res, sure. 

 

Lv 11: Witching Arrows (6/6): Putting Arcane Archer to shame, I like it. Props for how decently this upcasts.

• Arcing Shot (5/6): Guaranteed 2d6 against target 1, then possibly the damage from the attack itself plus 2d6 against target 2. This is seriously good damage for a lv 1 slot.
• Entangling Shot (3/6): I'm a weapon user-- I'd rather just kill the target than offer an easily-passed save which offers repeats. However, the damage is there, and Restrained is brutal, especially against fliers. 
• Hexing Shot (4/6): Better save targeted than Entangling, half damage on a failed save, but worse conditions. Overall slightly better, I think, but the two are definitely close.
• Viper Shot (2/6): The worst of the three saves, both in save targeted and condition inflicted. Poison if often resisted, too.

Lv 15: Primordial Magic (6/6): Keep your knockers protected on your CA, and deal good damage while adjusting your Res for the fight. Great capstone on all fronts.

Vermin Lord (6/6)

This leaves 2014 Gloom in the dust, and gives the likes of fucking Chron a run for their money. You get 2014 CA, basically, can down-cast it sorta, and the damage of it is fucking exponential. 

 

Lv 3: Verminkin (6/6): Holy shit. Conc-less mass-summoning. The BA means no Darts, but that's plenty compensated with the sheer fucking numbers this offers, so add saving a whole feat to this sub's portfolio. This is an incredible upcast due to its exponential scaling. It's worth it to invest a bit more in Wis than usual for this, but don't worry too much about the accuracy since Swarm of Vermin have Pack Tactics. Beg someone to play a Shep or Twi (or multiclass into either after Ranger lv 3 or 5-- you want those slots to upcast this with).

 

Lv 3: Swarming Strikes (3/6): You can already command all of them to Attack, so not sure what this is up about. Really, Verminkin specifies you can command all of them with a single BA. Anyway, whenever you're down to one, this is great to instead be down to about 1,75 (mind the loss of Adv from PT).

 

Lv 3: Vermin Lord Spells (1/6): Even if just Freedom of Movement was too little, too late, you just wanna use the slots to upcast Verminkin with.

 

Lv 7: Filth and Fortitude (6/6): Imm to a common condition is nice, and saving a feat that would've gone to Res: Con is amazing. A second feat saved is divine.

 

Lv 11: Infectious Swarm (6/6): Wis mod + PB uses/SR is a fucking staggering amount of uses for how hard this hits. Poisoned with no save is also cool.

 

Lv 15: Strength of the Swarm (1/6): You need to be in melee for this, your swarms are valuable enough to not throw into the trash, and you still don't just wanna expend the slot for Shield instead of using this garbage? What a terrible capstone for otherwise an incredible sub. 

Rogue

High Rider (6/6)

Thief 3 dip is dead-- all hail our new overlord of T2-T3 martial multiclassing, High Rider. It's a shame Rogue's sub progression sucks fucking balls.

 

Lv 3: Hair Trigger (6/6): Blackpowder Pistol prof is largely useless when Darts exists. No, getting a free attack before anyone else does is the big-ticket feature here, which needless to say is incredible. A funny tech you can pull off is make the controlled mount of someone else move up to its Speed, which is unlikely to be a good play, but it's a play.

 

Lv 3: Trusty Mount (5/6): Find Steed is an excellent, difficult-to-acquire summon spell. 

 

Lv 3: Ride Them Down (4/6): Not having my class be disabled when my party casts Fog Cloud? Hell fucking yeah.  This is the worst of the three lv 3 features, yet is still better than some entire Rogue subs.

 

Lv 9: Horse Lord (4/6): This makes your mount meaty as fuck, and makes kiting even easier than normal. 

 

Lv 13: True Grit (6/6): Saving a feat and frequently mitigating damage is simply awesome. 

 

Lv 17: Desperado (6/6): Funny thing you can do here is make minions beat you up and then immediately yo-yo you repeatedly to spam the everliving shit out of this. 

Rogue

Misfortune Bringer (6/6)

Continuing with shocking excellency for a Rogue sub: welcome back, UA Swashbuckler.

 

Lv 3: Evil Eye (2/6 for straight Rogue, 3/6 as dip, 4/6 as dip for Gloom and lv 11+ Fighters): Specific beats general, so you deal SnAt damage whenever you hit a creature afflicted with this. The more often you hit, the better this sub becomes as a dip. However, this costs your BA, so no Darts. This makes it rather tough to get enough value out of this to compensate for the loss of 2 whole attacks as a dip. 

Note that the rating of this feature is in a vaccuum and not counting Misfortunist. 

 

Lv 3: Misfortunist (6/6 at lv 3, 4/6 at lv 13, 2/6 at lv 17): Welp, here we go:

• Befuddled (1/6): This takes a whole ass Action that you could've used to just kill the target. Why would I instead offer a save to partially debilitate them? Also, the target knows I Charmed it anyway, because it knows it can't attack me. 
• Clumsy 2/6): BA and Reaction is a lot of action econ, and 3 JP is just a really steep price. However, even so, this effect is so debilitating for some foes that it could be worth it in rare circumstances.
• Debilitated (2/6): This is what you use if the target has like 1 or 2 HP and it must die absolutely immediately. 
• Doomed (6/6): You're a Rogue, so missing attacks sucks for you. Note that this offsets the BA consumed for Evil Eye by granting a whole new attack to which you can apply SnAt to.
• Inept (4/6): Help your friends stick their save-or-sucks. 
• Insensate (1/6): While Blinded does screw over casters, the fact that this takes an entire action, 3 JP, and still offers repeat saves (shouldn't even need a save in the first place) makes this just terrible. Please kill that caster.
• Maimed (4/6): Normally I fucking hate crit stuff, however, this is used not granted under the pretense that the necessary circumstance is granted, but that this is one of many options you have, with this being the one you use in the necessary circumstance. Remember you're a Rogue, so you're getting a lot out of crits, too.
• Curse of the Marked (1/6): Just... kill them before they get away. This is 5e, so this isn't a tall order.
• Plagued (3/6): Healing prevented is damage dealt, as the saying goes. Enemy healing isn't a big concern usually, but when it does come up, then this can deal a lot of damage.
• Somnolent (2/6): As Insensate, except that at least the condition is better.
• Unlucky (1/6): 3 JP is a lot and you could just be yeeting Darts with that BA, which would be SnAt-boosted.

Lv 9: Steal Luck (5/6): Another Doomed use. Note that you can target yourself with this if you're making an attack roll with Dadv so that you don't miss out on SnAt dmg.

Lv 13: Curse Caster (1/6): Bestow Curse is a shitty spell that's not worth losing 3 whole attacks to which you apply what's currently 6d6 SnAt dmg to. 

Lv 17: Improved Steal Luck (4/6): Three more SnAt applications/LR, neat.

Sanguine Thief (5/6)

I don't know how the spellcaster sub is the worst of the three, either. Like, this is still better than AT.

 

Lv 3: Spellcasting (6/6): It's spellcasting.

 

Lv 3: Stolen Power (3/6): This prevents us from hurting ourselves when casting a Sangromancy spell a few times. Neat.

 

Lv 9: Bloody Blades (1/6): 0,095*9=0,855 dpr per attack you make with these daggers per round, assuming you always have ADv. Have you really got no magic weapon which makes using these a reduction in dpr by now?

 

Lv 13: Bloodstitch (4/6): The usual benefit of an AoE is gone on a 1/3rd caster sub, but in return, this is decent damage and fine healing, culminating in a resounding 'good'.

 

Lv 17: Bloody Exit (3/6): This is now the best use of our Sangromancy die. Either this is better than Shield, or worse than it but you deal a lot of damage, too. Shame about the 1/SR uses tho, and the fact we have Shield anyway.

Sorcerer

Apocalypse (5/6)

Who needs a good spell list on a class infamous for its shitty spell list when you can instead be really, really good at casting those shitty spells and making others cast those shitty spells?

 

Lv 3: Apocalyptic Spells (2/6): So for the spell list, by far the most important thing for a Sorc sub, we get Augury, Revivify and Divination. That's it?

 

Lv 3: Unhinged Asservations (6/6): Halved time on scribing is already an easy 4/6, and applying a metamagic to the spell bumps it to a 5/6. However, the big thing is that any creature which knows a language can use the scroll. Off-load your Conc to your skeletons. This seriously compensates for the shitty spell list.

 

Lv 6: Bear Witness (4/6): Force Res and Frightened Imm are seldomly gained. Recite Scripture is rarely worthwhile.

 

Lv 6: Arcane Apocrypha (6/6): Basically, another slot of our highest lv slot up to lv 5. No notes-- spells are amazing, and thus are slots to cast them with.

 

Lv 14: Forbidden Magic (2/6, 6/6 if you can somehow bypass hit point max reduction): All of these are normally good to great benefit gated behind a bad to terrible drawback. This is an emergency button you hope you don't need to press. Of course, Pyrrhic has ways to be ignored, so consider getting those ways.

 

Lv 18: The End is Nigh (5/6): Devastating damage for its level (4th), with a good rider on a fail. Great button you don't feel scared to press.

Haunted (5/6)

You get a really, really good pet. 

 

Lv 3: Haunted Spells (3/6): Unseen Servant and Death Ward, and a prep freed from Invisibility.

 

Lv 3: Sixth Sense (4/6): Not that big in 2024 with how broken Alert is, but a flat bonus to Init is still a big benefit.

 

Lv 3: Phantom Companion (1/6, 5/6 if you're Small): If you're Small, then congrats: You got the best lv 1 spell in the game. Otherwise, this is close to being actively harmful. No, you're gonna learn FF from somewhere else and get a Giant Fly for your efforts. 

 

Lv 6: Strength of Spirit (5/6): You make your Giant Fly or Spirit Companion far bulkier, drastically reducing the chance of you falling from it dying. This now gives an actual reason to use your Phantom Companion: Spam it to get it to default kill. Just as a Magic action, you get a puppet through which you default kill anything which can't kill it in time for it to get a hit in. Plus, even enemies that can kill it before then likely need to move deeper in while doing so, allowing you to press onwards relatively safely.

 

Lv 14: Phantom Possession (3/6, 5/6 with Pact of the Chain): The familiar's Hit Points, Hit Point Dice, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Speed, and senses are replaced by the creature's. Permanently. This boils down to just getting more HP and/or a faster flying speed, most likely, unless you have PotC, in which case you get a great at-will option in making the Companion attack with its probably monstrous Str or Dex.

 

Lv 18: Become Death (6/6): This is actually stronger than just saving someone else's BA and lv 1 slot, because the THP is massive enough for you to be able to stick around longer before needing yo-yo-ing. The other benefits while you have the THP are fairly decent, except the Necrotic damage, which is amazing, because it's permanent. And stacks with itself. After a few weeks, anything not Necrotic immune dies from the damage.

Wretched Bloodline (2/6)

If the rating seems low to you: I can't overstate the importance of a good spell list on a Sorc sub. Apocalypse has such broken features that it compensates for its lackluster list, but Bad Luck Charm as your only good feature is terrible when you list sucks-- or here, non-existent.

 

Lv 3: Bad Luck Charm (5/6): Penalizing saves is great, and the cost is little enough that this might even be worth using for penalizing other stuff. For sure use SP on this. Putting Elo to shame is lovely.

 

Lv 3: Blood Ties (2/6, 3/6 if your campaign features a lot of one of these creature types): Detect Evil and Good is an atrocious spell, so you're mostly just getting the additional benefits. PFE&G, which this emulates, is a decent spell, and you get free casts of it so even better, but then it not activating 1/3rd of the time due to the creature type restriction docks a point. Take Fey here for Terrifying Visage, unless your campaign features a lot fo one of these creature types.

 

Lv 3: Wretched Curse (3/6): None of the curses are very bad. I'd go Nocturnal, because Eldritch Sight Superior Darkvision is great for various purposes, like attacking with Adv against foes in a Darkness spell or foes with more limited Darkvis range than you do.

 

Lv 6: Share the Burden (1/6): Nope, still not casting it, even if it's practically lv 1 and no conc, because you have to spend an entire Action on casting it.

 

Lv 14: Terrifying Visage (2/6): This has the problem of creatures which are scary very likely having LR at this point. You're mainly just getting MStep as a cantrip for a small while.

 

Lv 18: Vengeful Summons (2/6): None of these summons are impressive for what converts to a lv 3 slot. However, at least this doesn't require Conc. 

Warlock

Coven (1/6)

If I were your hag patron, then I'd beg you to break your Hag's Eye so that I don't have to see your absolutely fucking miserable sub. Admittedly, hags would be sadistical enough for them to grant you such piss-poor benefits. 

 

Lv 3: Coven Spells (2/6): So on the one hand, Locate Object, Counterspell, Polymorph and Divination makes for a decent enough list. On the other hand... why the fuck does this assume Lock is a half-caster, except at lv 3 where it immediately gets lv 2 spells?! And why do you get Contact Other Plane prepared when the base class already fucking does that?! 

 

Lv 3: Hag's Eye (1/6): Reddit feature. I don't care about Hex, and why is this the 3rd time I'm seeing Bestow Curse be a feature on a sub?

 

Lv 6: Hag's Guile (1/6): If the DM is competent at combat, then they won't waste action econ on Study actions, except maybe against Phantasmal Force, which isn't on the Lock list. Reaction for Dadv on a Study action deals psychic damage equal to 1d6 plus 1d6 for each spell slot used to cast the spell to me IRL. 

 

Lv 10: Hag's Visage (1/6): To be clear: at-will BA to force single-target save vs Frightened, repeat saves, is barely a 2/6 this late into the game when LR is rampant. Pile a Magic action to activate and 1 min/LR on that, and no amount of negligible additional benefit saves this from a 1/6. At least Undying Lock can spam Death Ward by now... no sorry, it did so 3 lvs ago, because Lock isn't a half-caster, contrary to the implication of the spell list.

 

Lv 14: Hag's Craft (1/6): Remember that this is 2024 where crafting and Tasha's Bubbling Cauldron are both a thing. A few potions you have little time to consume and a Minor Heartstone thus are only even barely worth a 2/6, which is then down-graded to a 1/6 due to costing a slot.

First Vampire (5/6)

Spells lists carry, y'all. Note quite Genie or anything, but up there with Fathomless and Fiend. Would be a 6/6 if CA wasn't nerfed (though mind it's still a great spell).

 

Lv 3: Drain Life (3/6, 6/6 on Dank Knight): Going into melee is problematic, unless you get to deal enough damage to kill your enemies. This can do that. Smiting is a bit less awful when using pact slots and even less so when you get a lot of healing out of it. For Dank Knight, this is more damage to the stack and a way to basically recover to full health with a lv 1 slot.

 

Lv 3: Nocturnal Predator (3/6): Darkvis is neat.

 

Lv 3: First Vampire Spells (5/6): Command, Fog Cloud, CA and Seeming. Three great to amazing spells, though Fog Cloud isn't good on a Lock. (Side note: why am I getting two lv 5 spells at lv 7 when I have lv 4 slots?)

 

Lv 6: Creatures of the Night (-1/6): Remember everything I said about Skinrider from Beast Spirit Barb. Using this feature at all will be a detriment to your stats. Wolf is the least detrimental option, and though it raises your Str, it lowers your Con (assumes -8 and 14 respectively). Don't touch this feature. 

 

Lv 10: Eldritch Appetite (5/6): Another slot, basically. Cool. 

 

Lv 14: Eternal Night (6/6): This is a 6/6, because dying from aging is one of the bigger threats to a PC at this high of a level. The BA is okay for the healing.  

Parasite (6/6 dip, 4/6 mainclass) 

This is absolutely wild in how front-loaded this is. This puts Hex to shame in all regards. This is worth dipping for, even with lv 3 subs. 

 

Lv 3: Spell Siphon (6/6): A very interesting feature. This can net you great spells, but when it does it only does until you finish a LR, and when it doesn't, you're left with scraps at best. In addition, strong casters often have LR's. It becomes marginally more interesting to try to burn LR's just so you can prep a strong spell, but this is unlikely to actually be worth it. 

What you should do whenever possible is try to non-lethal casters, then torture them into casting a spell you want and auto-failing this Cha save. 

This feature scales as you level and encounter stronger casters with better spells to steal. However, unless you're dipping this class as a full-caster, you'll hit your head after lv 9 as your pact slots stop scaling. Still, you'll increase your Cha and get access to better and better ways to steal spells.

Methods of generating casters include, but aren't limited to, Pbinding casters, Sims, and fellow casters. Your friends should gladly give you spells like Wall of Force, Animate Dead, and several more. 

 

Lv 3: Physical Specimen (5/6): None of these benefits are outstanding, but Cha mod decency culminates into excellency, if you ask me.

 

Lv 6: Symbiotic Sentinel (2/6): Init Adv should already be granted by a Weapon of Warning by now, and you can get Res's to those conditions with your Traits. All that's left is Surprise imm, which isn't particularly scary in 2024. 

 

Lv 10: Spawn Pawm (1/6): No, I'm not casting a shitty spell, for however many free casts you give to me, when I could be clicking EBARB which just got a third beam, not even when I do 10 psychic dmg on a fail, given that damage is less than EBARB dmg.

 

Lv 14: Larval Regeneration (0/6): At this point, whatever somehow kills me probably isn't gonna struggle to kill this dinky parasite. Additionally, Clone is a spell which your party should have at this point, as is Demiplane to protect your Clones. 

Finally, the rat immediately dies, because it has my HP. Which is 0. 

Wizard

Daemonologist (6/6)

Sorry, we're giving Wizard spells as part of their sub now, but still not Bard? Well, all right, then. Let's shit on Lock, too, while we're at it.

 

Lv 3: Fair and Foul (4/6): Daemon merely frees a prep from Fear. Seraph is far better, granting Bless, Aid, Revivify, Guardian of Faith and Gresto. I wish Seraph also has SG, just to put the shit in Clershit.

 

Lv 3: Stolen Secrets (6/6 at lv 3 and 6, 5/6 at lv 14): LotFO (Lords' Alliance Agent), Repelling Blast (True Strike) and Agonizing Blast (True Strike) should be you choices. Replace LotFO with Eldritch Mind if it's already covered. I'm recommending True Strike over Ray of Frost, because acid bullets are funny (more on that later).

 

Lv 6: Borrowed Tongues and Hides (3/6): Both nice Res's, I guess. I'm apathetic to the difference between them, so stick with Seraph unless you're sure a mountain of Necrotic will rain upon you.

 

Lv 10: Unearthly Countenance (3/6): We get to give our Giant Fly lunch time and can upcast Bless and Aid, all for a whopping 10 mins. I beg of you: don't expend a lv 5 slot for this. This is best used when rest-casting Aid to grant an additionaly 5*3 HP, which is good enough for a 3/6.

 

Lv 14: Eternal War Eruption (6/6): We get a big ass explosion and more importantly another lv 5 slot. Spells are good, and Wizard spells are really, really good.  

Plague Doctor (4/6)

We're dealing with something odd here: we get a feature that will naturally grow with us in our career, then mostly features which ignore this fact. Quite miffed about the design of this sub, ngl. 

 

Lv 3: Potion Craft (5/6): Good Wizard spells improved with this include (bolded are particularly impressive, bolded and in italics are even more impressive): Jump, Longstrider, PFE&G, Silvery Barbs, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Dragon's Breath, Invisibility, Levitate, Suggestion, Tasha's Mind Whip, Syluné's Viper, Polymorph, Telekinesis, Create Magen, Simulacrum, Maze, True Polymorph. 

So yeah, mostly off-loading Conc and/or the required action, that's all great and probably worth a 5/6 in and of itself. 

 

However, you can choose any spells in your spellbook and you can put non-Wiz spells in your book (or simply Fabricate a book with all spells). The list now expands with: Command, Dissonant Whispers, Healing Word, Hex/Hunter's Mark if you have an AbbMind upcasting Summon Aberration, Sanctuary, Shield of Faith, Lesto, Revivify, Freedom of Movement, Gresto, Heal. 

Yup, the list consisting of non-Wiz spells is smaller than the one consisting of Wiz spells, with less highlight and one with a massive condition. Welcome to 5e. 

 

Lv 3: Good Medicine (1/6): Trap medicine. This is just a really inefficient use of your slots. Just copy Healing Word into your book to have an objectively better version of this.

 

Lv 6: Bad Medicine (1/6): You get simultaneously a Good Medicine with this, as the trigger to get the Medicine in question is expending a spell slot without choosing a spell. This makes the Medicines marginally better than Healing Word, sure, but you still shouldn't touch this feature, because you've got way better uses of your limited Potion Crafts.

 

Lv 10: Breathe It In (4/6): Poisoned Imm is nice. What this is best used for is intentionally taking as much Poison or Acid damage as possible in one hit without expending an inappropriate resource to gain a lot of THP and then shrug off the damage with Aura of Vitality or whatever.

 

Lv 14: Medicinal Master (1/6): Nope, still outclassed by actual spells for your Potion Craft. 

 

Feats

Origin

And this is where we see Lock stocks go further than even Parasite could manage to take them. LotFO is really, really spood.

 

Blood Hound (1/6): Yeah, I'm generally gonna be aware of such a creature's presence anyway because of their foot steps and because they're assaulting me. Most Perception checks rely on sight, and the Help action exists.

 

Convincing Inquisitor (1/6): Skill feat. Next.

 

Deathbound (2/6): I mean... It's free HP, so I won't rate it a 1/6, even though this is only marginally more healing.  

 

Fortune of the Thaumaturge (4/6): Saves will inflict much more harm than 4-7 dmg to yourself will. PB/LR is unfortunate, but this is still a spood save protector. Also funny how the bigger your class's HD is, the more damage this deals on average.

 

Free Sword Mercenary's Will (3/6): The reaction is largely useless, but could mean not getting pushed off a cliff, I guess. Resolute's more save protection, but comes with the problem of coming in the book which gives 8 trillion methods of save protection, like Traits and the origin feat immediately preceding this one.

 

Insightful Collector (3/6, 5/6 in T1, CoS or as a LotFO pick): Starting with Cast-Off armor is a significant amount of money you're saving from the get-go. Seriously consider this if your campaign won't leave T1 or it's CoS. As a LotFO pick, you have the benefit of being able to drop it when it becomes useless, making it a versatile and excellent LotFO pick.

 

Resolution of the Syndicate (3/6): Free damage and HP. Not much of either at all, but it's still nice enough.

 

Survivor (5/6 in campaigns with down-time, 6/6 on lv 10+ Chron): SR to remove Exhaustion means that you can go on far longer crafting binges without being a complete wreck when adventure calls. I needn't explain why this is incredible on a Chron.

 

Triage Expert (7/6): Simultaneous effects, so first discard the non-existent lowest die on Goodberry, then roll a d100 and add it to the amount healed. Damage which doesn't kill is insignificant damage with this feat. Nerf this.

General

Blackpowder Pistol Expert (3/6): Ignoring Loading is as huge as always, but why would you ever use this over just Gunner? If a creature's moving while within 5 ft of you, then the DM is an idiot or would proc an OA anyway by leaving your reach since moving while within 5 ft of you implies a desire to do something other than maul you in melee. Trick Shot's only useful when a creature Disengages or when you pressure a creature into doing something inferior to that.

 

Expanded Grip (1/6): The damage increase is negligible, and so is not losing your grip. Skip.

 

Hulking Figure (1/6): Great, the only combat-relevant feature is a US boost, despite requiring 13+ Str and thus being unusable in the one type of build which actually want to US: melee Monk.

 

Lightning Caster (4/6, 6/6 with an invoc'd Action cantrip): Even just two Ray of Frosts and a free Shield or Counterspell is quite decent. If it's EBARB or TSARB (True Strike ARB), then this is just incredible at how hard it lets you laugh in the face of martials.

 

Medician of the Morbus Doctore [remind me to rate this once I've explained Grievous Wounds]

 

Nimble Physique (3/6, 5/6 on unarmored full-casters): Monk as intended (or Dank Knight) just wants to attack with that BA. Unarmored casters, however, are likely casting Magic Stone or using Telekinetic's shove, if anything, with that BA, making this feat very attractive for them.

There's a funny tech here: have a minion grapple you. This way, you don't suffer from Dadv on attack rolls attacks against you don't have Adv. Any attack.

 

Sangromantic Initiate [remind me to rate this once I've explained the new spells]

 

Shadowsteel Adept/Master  [remind me to rate this once I've explained shadowsteel curses]

 

Syndicate Spy (-3/6): This pidgeon-holes into taking the atrocious Syndicate Smuggler bg, and what you get to show for it rounds to having no feat.

 

Thrown Weapon Master (6/6): The Hand Crossbow is a false prophet! All hail our new supreme rulers of weaponry: the dart and iron ball! The former is a ranged weapon, meaning it's compatible with Sharpshooter, and actually has a mastery property. The latter comes with actually good range without a feat investment, but no mastery property.

The BA attack is the primary benefit of the feat. 2 Attacks as a BA is obviously amazing, but it gets even better once you notice that once you take the Attack action, you can make this BA attack whenever, forever, because it doesn't specify it has to be made on the same turn as the Attack action.

Thirtiary is Quick Hands, but even that has niche utility in no-save disarming enemies.

Secondary is Returning, which is hugely important for letting you invest in one singular great magic item rather than having to make multiple shitty ones.

 

Witch Hunter [remind me to rate this once I've explained shadowsteel curses]

Fighting Style

Advanced Weapon Proficiency (6/6): We'll discuss more about this later, but advanced weapons are amazing, particularly Repeater Heavy Crossbow. This is worth sacrificing Archery over.

 

Close Combat Artillerist (1/6): Your feats should already be giving you Firing In Melee, and +2 damage in this hopefully very rare occurence is bad, because it's a hopefully very rare occurence.

 

Dual Shot (5/6 or 6/6, 1/6 on Rogue): It's rather unclear whether this can occur a max on once per Attack action or whenever you attack with a bow as part of the Attack action. Either way, this is a major increase in your raw dpr, the impact of single-target focus shouldn't be underestimated. Still, having the option to increase your raw dpr with the honestly somewhat minor drawback of reducing the damage on the most pressing target will often be a good decision to make. This is obviously a lot better if you get to use this multiple times per Attack action.

This sucks for Rogue since you disable your class while using this.

 

Flurry (3/6 ignoring that this is melee): Same as Dual Shot, except it's unambiguously 1/turn and having the second target need to be within 5 ft of the first one makes this a lot harder to use.

 

Mobile Combatant (2/6): Mounts exist.

 

Opportunist (5/6 on Echo or any other build which consistently procs this): This is an amazing buff to your dpr if you get OA's consistently (but not as amazing as Archery is, since this is only for 1 attack max). Shout-outs to its interaction with Zhentarim Tactics.

 

Prone Defense (6/6): This is a dramatic increase in the survivability of martial builds which normally can't reliably impose Dadv on attack rolls like casters can by Dodging. This is particularly incredible with Rogue since this removes any and all Dadv, thus meaning you get to SnAt even when Heavy Obscurement is up.

Epic boons

Magic Resistance (2/6): You should have Mage Slayer and like 30 different things assisting you on saves by now. This is GH: you have your saves protected by now.

 

Perfect Flight (1/6): You're at the very worst riding on a Steed by now thanks to you Wishing for Find Steed. 

 

[remind me to rate the rest once I've explained transformations]

 

 Equipment

Weapons & Ammo

I don't have very much to say here. It's a great idea to take Advanced Weapon Training as your FS (but probably not as a general feat)-- but mind heavy competition in Archery, Dual Shot, maybe Opportunist and especially Prone Defense.

 

I wanna note the tech in Momentum that the damage die increase is permanent. 

 

Melee weapons: Of the melee weapons, I would most strongly consider Knight Lance for having the biggest damage die, Set and being basically one-handed, Military Fork for being having the best mastery property out of all Hafted weapons, and Wrath Maul for having the second-biggest damage die, Hafted, and the damage it deals is enough for Brutal to not be good, but not quite as insignificant as usual. Rogue might wanna opt for the Side-Handle Baton for Swift, though it's likely better off simply using a PHB weapon.

 

Good weapons: Unsurprisingly, the ranged weapons are way better. Blunderbuss is amazing for Str-based builds thanks to Cumbersome and Scatter-- equip your local Barb with a glock. For Dex-based builds, we've got the GOATed Heavy Repeater Xbow, having Heavy for GWM compatibility, Push, and not requiring feat investment to ignore Loading thanks to Magazine, though it does suffer from its incredibly high price. Rogue might wanna opt for the Hand Repeater Xbow instead, exchanging Heavy and lesss ammo in the Magazine for Vex.

 

Boring ammo: Ammo is where it gets really exciting-- and for once, this doesn't buff summoners more than weapon users due to ammo requiring lv 3+ to use. Damage Types is okay for bypassing BPS Res/Imm. Ranging is rather shit as you've probably already won if you must attack from so far. Whistling has utility in alarming far-off team mates, but comes with the problem of alerting the rest of the dungeon as well as the fact that you could just cast Thaumaturgy or something.

 

Broken ammo Alchemical ammo is where shit really heats up. This is a truly drastic increase in the dpr of weapon users: flinging Alchemist's Fire for 2d4 extra Fire damage on a hit and one or two Oil procs is an amazing amount of damage. Acid and Holy Water are also great if the enemy is Imm to Fire. War Oil is even more insane: it gives weapon users actual control, and somehow more notably deals 2d4 Fire dmg on hit and at EoT, so even more Oil procs. Note that War Oil stacks with itself, because of course it does. 

Weapon users now actually deal more damage than summoners. Of course, this means that gishes who get Extra Attack in some form are now A-to-S-tier subs. What, actual martials? Lmao, no. You can use Vermin Lord or Watchers Paladin if you want, and that's where it about ends for classes actually meant to harm with weapons. Lock no longer EBARBs: PotB is where it's at now (True Strike before it gets that).

 

More boring ammo: Specialized ammo sucks relative to alchemical ammo. This is unfortunately both worse and more expensive than alchemical in every way and is therefore simply not worth covering.

 

Misc equipment: This is where we discover the only specie which exists with GH is Thri-Kreen. This is because it can have a regular shield, a retractable shield and a tower shield if the Str investment isn't too great of a cost or a buckler shield if it is. With the house rule I strongly recommend implementing that you can only benefit from one shield at once, I'd recommend Retractable Shield if you lack the Shield spell (and decent if you have it for its spell slot efficiency). +PB AC to even one attack is no joke. If you both have the Shield spell and 15+ Str, then I'd recommend the tower shield instead for a bigger flat AC bonus and Dodge on heroin.

 

Iron Net is good for your minions to have due to the Net's flat escape DC.

 

Concealed Blade is the most annoying thing in this book. You needn't make the attack with it, nor do you need to hold it, and I don't think you so much as need this on your person. Due to how broken it is by virtue of being free, this adds an entire fucking phase to starting combat where every combatant rolls Deception and Perception and then annoying bean-counting to see who has Adv on who. I strongly recommend either outright banning this or making this function soelely on passive Deception and Perception. Deception is now a meta skill due to having a defined function. 

 

Transformations 

 Templates? Not quite, since they actually did do a good job at making the cons seriously suck to have. While this is free and can very much be optimized to overall benefit, take care transforming. 

 

Getting transformed: If the recommended class level per trans stage is for some reason ignored (which I strongly recommend not doing), it should be really, really easy to instantly hit lv 4 instantly. It's honestly hard to believe you're an adult in GH who hasn't committed 4 exceptionally evil acts. Backstory optimization, people.  

 

Trans spam: There's absolutely nothing preventing you from getting transformed into multiple things at once. There's also nothing preventing from transforming into the same thing an arbitrary number of times, but that should probably be banned. 

Aberrant Horror

Stage 1 (5/6)

Unstable Form (-2/6): HP halving, Exhaustion, Stunned on 1st turn and no Reactions are the truly brutal ones. The other harmful ones mostly suck. The few positive effects aren't very helpful.

 

Aberrant Form (1/6): This is so little THP that I can't even give it a point for being free.

 

Aberrrant Mutation (6/6): Chitinous Shell is simply amazing for its flat AC boost. Eldritch Limbs is completely useless. Slimy Form is decent enough if you know any of those damage types are coming and want to save your Reaction and slots from Absorb Elements while having a possibly neat BA Dash.

Stage 2 (1/6)

Efficient Killer (1/6): Nope, still terrible. This has the opportunity cost in not adopting another Mutation and has the problem of being severely outclassed by regular attacks through GH's amazing FS's, feats, adv wpns, and alchemical ammo.

 

Writhing Tendrils (1/6): The BA Disengage is the only real benefit here, and remember that mounts exist and you first need to spend a BA on a prior turn to even have the BA Disengage. Take this one instead of Efficient Killer some stuff in later stages.

 

Hideous Appearance (0/6): This is mostly just a very mild annoyance. Just let someone else to the talking. Hostile doesn't actually mean the creature will instantly attack you, nor does it mean the creature can't be an ally of yours.

Stage 3 (5/6)

Terrifying Visage (6/6): Holy fuck, 2*PB/SR BA save-or-Frightened? This is legitimately incredible. Doesn't even offer repeat saves or anything. Writhing Tendrils is now worth using, and burning LR's is now sometimes real since all PC's should have this basically-at-will save-or-suck.

 

Constricting Tendrils (1/6): Melee. Nope, not happening.

 

Unstable Existence (-1/6): This shouldn't come up often at allwith GH's eight trillion save protection options, but it can be detrimental when it occurs.  

Stage 4 (1/6)

Eldritch Aberration (1/6): This made me laugh out loud. We're in T4. There's an entire army your enemies need to go through before there's so much as a sliver of a chance you wind up in melee.

 

Poison Tendrils (3/6): Neat Res and Imm while our frequently used Tendrils are active. The save-for-3d6 will occur far too rarely to be meaningful to the rating.

 

Entropic Abomination (-2/6): Triggers a bit more often, I guess. 

Fey

Stage 1 (5/6)

Fey Form (3/6): Neat.

 

Servant of the X Court (4/6): Not-casting MStep is quite decent utility. Summer is the best here in a vaccuum for Oil procs, but future features may want you to take something different. For lv 1-20, I'd recommend 

 

Planar Binding (-1/6): This is annoying to bypass and can be even more annoying to seriously deal with (though there's the possibility of having Dadv on something you don't care much about).

Stage 2 (?/6)

Two-Faced (2/6 for Winter, 1/6 for rest): Decent enough effect, but single-target save-or-sucks just aren't that valuable when GH gives plenty of options to simply kill a single creature with raw damage. In addition, each effect has a problem: Spring and Summer are too easily ended, Autumn inflicts a relatively bad condition and Winter... actually, Winter's fine. 

 

Magic Tricks (3/6 for Winter, 2/6 for Spring, 1/6 for rest): Lv 0 and 1 spells are pretty damn easy to get in 2024. Winter ranks the highest due to Darkness being the only lv 2 spell worth a damn. Spring ranks a close second for having a better lv 1 spell in Fog Cloud, but MStep being mitigated by Servant of the X Court's teleport as well as Fey-Touched. The other two have too bad of a spell offering.

 

Queen's Command (?/6): This is impossible to rank due to being 99% DM fiat. The effect for failing to pay tribute is absolutely brutal.

This can be argued to be a GG/6 if you're playing CoS and your DM rules that this is more specific than the mists. 

Stage 3 (2/6)

Illusionary Cloak (2/6): Not-casting Disguise Self for free is decent utility, but like, we're in T3. We're kinda above socially solving encounters by now, probably.

 

Tooth and Claw (2/6): For once, a melee weapon actually has uses. You can use it as a BA once and deal 1d6 Slashing + 2d6 Psychic + mod damage and force a save against Stunned. That said, this is still relegated to melee, has no mastery property, and it's quite possible you have a BA which deals more damage than this does (looking at you, Vermin lord).

 

Dreams and Nightmares (2/6): T3 is really too late for single-target save-or-sucks to be useful. At least Paralysed is a condition that's hard to come by, so a brownie point for making Vermin Lord nuclear.

 

Weakened Constitution (-1/6): Exhaustion really sucks, so do expend those HD. 

Stage 4 (0/6)

Greater Magic Tricks (2/6 for Summer, 1/6 for rest): Summer at least has Fireball. Other than that, I see shit, shit, shit.

 

Twilight Glamour (3/6): Being Invisible for a whole fight is neat enough. We're in T4, tho.

 

Seasonally Affected (-2/6, -3/6 if you have Res or Imm to the dmg): Having a weakness sucks.

Fiend

Stage 1 (5/6 with Infernal Smite, 3/6 with Devilish Contractor)

Fiendish Soul (3/6): Always good to have Res, just less so when AE already covers the damage type.

 

Infernal Smite (4/6): The damage isn't a whole lot, but this procs Oil and has a very generous PB+Trans/SR usage limit. It also scales very well due to gaining both more uses and dealing more damage with those uses (and you getting more minions to throw Oil as the game progresses).

 

Devilish Contractor (1/6 Stage 1, ): Getting someone to sign a contract of yours can be trivial with Suggestion, but the DM can just say no to this by making a Suggested creature be considered an ally of yours. Doing it the ol'-fashioned way shouldn't be all that difficult at all. The signer doesn't have to sign their soul away or anything. You just grant them a present and that's it. 

 

As for the Stage 1 Gifts of Damnation:

• Joyous Life (1/6): Laughable, because you don't add your Con mod to the amount healed and can even just fail to heal up. This has marginal use for yo-yo-ing yourself, but that won't save it from a 1/6 with a 1/SR usage limit.
• Prodigious Talent (-2/6): You know how little I care about skill bonuses in the game where magic solves everything (like the magic spell Guidance). Then you add a 10% chance to be severely neutered, at which point I laugh out loud. This is a great joke, thanks, Ghostfire.
• Unsurpassed Fortune (1/6): Somehow the best of the three stage 1 gifts. This has the unique benefit of being able to make a creature fail their save in spite of using a LR, but the chance is only 25% after Heroic Inspiration, the creature can just use another LR, and why are you burning LR's in the first place exactly? Remember that you could be casting a spell with this Reaction. 

Fiend Bound (-1/6): Meh, not like I'm making them anyway since Healing Word exists. 

Stage 2 (Varies/6)

Demonic Brand (1/6, 2/6 if you somehow have no better BA): PB/LR? Con save? And all I'm getting out of it is a -2 penalty to saves? I guess you could also use this if there's a ton of healing being flung around. 

 

Enhanced Contract (2/6): Switching out from Liberating Freedom when your flight has run out would be sweet, were we not playing the game with Giant Fly. The THP is something, at least. 

 

As for the Stage 2 Gifts of Damnation:

• Liberating Freedom (2/6): It's flight and all, but that's just not that valuable when Giant Fly exists.
• Unfettered Glory (-1/6, +1 point per attack roll you make without a ranged weapon per round, max 6/6): This can pretty easily be a huge bonus to your dpr, like for EBARBers with Lightning Caster. The healing penalty is not to be underestimated, however.

Fiend Form (0/6): See Aberrant's Hideous Appearance.

Stage 3 (-1 or 0/6 depending on Unfettered Glory rating)

Devilish Subcontractor (2/6 or 3/6 depending on Unfettered Glory rating): Shame Gifts overall suck.

Overwhelming Brand (2/6): Let's be clear: these effects are all permanent. This doesn't matter very much, but is funny enough to save this from a 1/6. Speed halving and forced movement is great. Still, Con save and PB/LR.

Pull of the Netherworld (-3/6): This one actually sucks a lot. You're almost certainly gonna take this damage 1/SR. The damage is heavy, and getting killed by this will horrifically suck, so make sure you take the damage out of combat when 36 dmg won't kill you.  

As for the Stage 3 Gifts of Damnation:

• Second Chances (2/6): Roughly 50% chance to prevent wasting a spell slot and action econ on yo-yo-ing you 1/LR isn't nothing, I guess.
• Unconditional Love (3/6): The chance to fail is a little annoying, but the THP gained is decent enough.

Stage 4 (5/6)

Abyssal Resistance (5/6): This is a huge amount of Res's.

Infernal Summons (7/6): There is no limit to this. You can simply spam these strong minions until whatever you hate dies.

Ultimate Brand (3/6): This is still relying on having a save fail in T4, but the effect that occurs when that happens is now at least insanely strong.

True Name (-3/6, -2/6 if your Cha save's great): This is genuinely terrifying when it can happen, but we're in T4, so we should have trillions of tools to prevent melee from happening anyway.

Hag

I'll be organizing this one differently: it's based on the sisterhood a feature belongs to. Be warned: this transformation sucks. The boons are decent, but the flaws are incredibly painful.

General

Hag Form (4/6): I don't care for 13+Dex natural armor, but prof in a minor save is quite useful.

 

Hideous Appearance (-4/6): See Aberrant's Hideous Appearance, but know that this one is a lot worse than the previous incarnations. It's really easy to accidentally see your own reflection (water, much?), DC 18 Wis isn't easily succeeded and Exhaustion is an incredibly brutal punishment. 

I recommend blindfolding yourself whenever you're not sure you need your vision. The blindfold can be removed with an object interaction. In addition, make sure you have Wis save prof, even if this comes at the cost of Con save prof. Exhaustion is scary.

Still, if you ever fight on water, or an enemy knows of your weakness and holds up a mirror... good luck.

 

Iron Sensitivity (-3/6): Not a fun on either. This just puts you out of the fight if you fail the save. At least the save DC is more forgiving and you likely have Res Con by now.

 

Evil Eye (1/6): Remind me  

 

Purity's Pain (-6/6): If we don't play in a world of stupidity, then every fucking base should be filled to the brim with religious art devoted to an arch seraph. Jesus, do you see how liberal the examples are as to what is pure? This will inflict ludicrous damage on you. 

 

Arch-Crone's Hunger (1/6): This one is actually a very minor benefit, because we can feed on the pain and suffering on others, something we as adventurers do as our job. You have plenty of opportunities to kill sapient creatures at this point. 

Green Sisterhood (4/6)

The (3/6 if you lack Darkvis): Darkvis is cool. That's it. 

 

Adept (2/6): Trans/LR Invis is... okay-ish. The claw is 100% useless.

Master (6/6): The claws are still useless for full-casters, but other builds will take delight in just another whole ass attack when they can safely get into melee. Of course, since this is a claw attack, claw tech is totally compatible with this.

The Gasdra is a very useful companion to have. It deals okay damage with its stat block attack, has three OA's, decent bulk and can do any of the very useful things a Familiar can. Worth the ritual's time and price.

The real kicker is obviously Hit Dice to recover a slot. That's another use of your best spell that's well worth the trade-off. An amazing way to cap off this otherwise mediocre sisterhood.

Red Sisterhood (1/6)

The (-1/6, 1/6 if you lack Darkvis): This is a negative, because you wanna be transformed more often than that you don't IME. Disguise Self stealth? Nope. Polymorph? Nuh-uh. Shapechange? No becoming a god for you, buddy.

 

Adept (1/6): Charm Person is a bad spell.

 

Master (3/6): See Green for commentary on the claw. I really don't care about Men In Blacking charmed creatures, but it's technically not worthless. Charm Person remains a bad spell, but a Hit Die for it such a low price that it becomes fairly decent.

Sea Sisterhood (2/6)

The (1/6, 3/6 with Darkvis, 4/6 if you progress your Trans really quickly and have no better at-will): Not much here unless you Trans fast enough for the not-cantrip here to be considered good.

 

Adept (2/6): Disguise Self is an okay spell.

 

Master (4/6): See Gren for claw commentary. BA 1/SR single-target Frighten is rather mediocre, so is party-wide underwater breath.