Demon Hunter's Handbook

No campaign theme is more gripping than a battle against the minions of hell! This jam-packed sourcebook brings to the table everything you'll need to run a fantasy campaign centered around demon hunters. From puritanical holy men fighting for their gods to crazed warriors only one step away from damnation themselves, every classic archetype is covered -- with new ones introduced as well. The handbook focuses not only on new classes, races, and feats, but also covers ways to tailor the existing d20 canon to a demon-hunter theme. It includes rules for possession and exorcism, organizations both pure and demonic, and guidelines for creating truly villainous demons to hunt.

A hunting we will go.

Demon Hunter’s Handbook
Written by Patrick Younts
Published by Goodman Games
www.goodman-games.com
ISBN: 0-9746681-8-4
GMG4320
96 black and white pages
$19.99

When I first saw the Demon Hunter’s Handbook, I was taken back by how stupid the main character looks with that pointy hat. It’s not that it’s a bad picture. The fallen demon in the background looks great, the main figure, outside of the hat, looks decent. Perhaps it’s all the Solomon Kane books I’ve had in one edition or another, or the Van Helsing posters I’ve seen, where this puritan style character is represented with a flat hat instead of a pointed one. It’s like the artist decided that she was a witch demon hunter and added that point in. Going past that however, I see that the Demon Hunter’s Handbook is a toolkit for using demons and other evil outsiders in your personal campaign. Written by Patrick Younts and published by Goodman Games. Interior artists include Alex Kosakowski, Doug Kovacs, Claudio Muniz , Matt Morrow, and Mikolaj Ostapiuk. Interior art is well done, dark and grim, matching the source material.

Layout is standard two-column format. Outer borders change with each chapter. Outer borders are one of the illustrations from that chapter. Upper outer edges shows the name of the chapter, while inner upper corner shows the section and page number is in the middle of the page.. For example, flipping to page forty, I see I’m in chapter two and looking at demon hunter abilities. The background color of the paper is gray with a pentagram faded into the background. The black text is easy to read against the gray background.

The book is broken up into five broad chapters. The first section starts off with ideas on how demon hunters fit into a standard fantasy campaign. Patrick focuses on the motivations and methods of demon hunters of different alignments and classes, and sprinkles some new game material into the text at the same time.

For example, while aasimars are a standard good selection for a race that would hunt demons, the steward archon, a being whose been blessed with some of the divine energy from a archon, is new. In addition, while the class information on how the different classes could potentially hunt demons, including recommended skills and feats and character concepts, many will want to see the new crunch in the form of the new PrCs.

It starts with the bound spellcaster, a 10 level PrC with spellcasting every other level who gains more power by binding itself to demon flesh. This includes numerous bonuses like darkvision, ability score increases, and special abilities like claw and bit attacks that are considered magic weapons. It’s an interesting class and one that doesn’t blindly grant spellcasting at every level in addition to a ton of special abilities.

The preserver takes the druid and focuses on it’s role as a protector of the forest from unnatural predators. They get spellcasting at almost every level, but also gain special abilities like learning how to turn into a celestial beast and using wild shape to turn into huge creatures. A different take on the druid as far as purpose and origin.

The Righteous Sword on the other hand, is pretty much a paladin dressed up in demon slayer abilities. Nothing wrong with that as it takes a class already pretty good as killing demons and makes it even better. Note that a fighter-cleric could make it into this PrC, or a cleric, or a fighter who had a lot of skill points and time to burn. Since the class continues to advance in spellcasting at a reduced rate, it’s good that they get things like smite evil and the ability to permanently destroy an outsider.

The reformed cultist on the other hand, is perfect for those who want to play the former rogue whose decided to work against his past masters. They gain the ability to sense demons, as well as some sneak attack dice and even a bonus feat with some other abilities.

A good set of PrCs that each include some fiction to introduce them, some background to cementer them, and all the game mechanics, ranging from requirements and class features, to the good old ten level PrC charts.

When looking at ways to augment your demon hunter, you’d want to quickly flip to chapter two, demon hunter abilities.Here’s where they have things like new feats, most of which are focused on overcoming an outsider’s abilities. For example, Cracks in the Armor gives you a +2 to all caster checks to beat the spell resistance of evil outsiders.

For skills, there are some new uses for knowledge, mainly exorcism. The book provides new rules for possession and beating possession to allow those players who want to have their clerics whip out the holy water and scented candles the opportunity to do so. Possession takes some time to initiate, and has two phases, tainting and full possession. Exorcism is in essence a knowledge religion check with the result being the Will save that the demon has to make. Failing it banishes the demon. It’s a nice little subsystem that doesn’t add a lot of complexity to the d20 system but seems to do the job well enough.

A few new domains and spells help round out the section. How about a domain for exorcism, purity and righteousness? How about new spells like Destiny’s Spear, a 4th level paladin spell that does 1d4 points of force damage per casting level and can even have a smite attack channeled through it? Overall it’s mainly focused on combat magic against demons and in that regard, does a good job. The spells and other material is packed with background information which makes reading the book smooth and easy.

The section on equipment isn’t quite as useful. While the new weapons, mostly simple, are good little additions to a campaign, they don’t do a whole lot and won’t be useful against most outsiders unless they’re magical in nature. Some of the miscellaneous equipment, like the holy write and holy censer, give minor bonuses to the character in turning attempts of other areas. I was a little disappointed that while it went into brief detail about making weapons out of fallen demons, that it didn’t provide any named magic weapons or new properties against demons and other evil outsiders. It was a good opportunity to showcase some unique ideas and put the fiction of the author to work and they seemed to go for the generic route.

Chapter three is great for those looking to add demons and other outsiders to the campaign as that’s it’s focus, the campaign. It’s solid advice on running a campaign with various themes ranging from the “dying of the light” to “yeah, demons are tough but they’re but one in a million enemies.” This would be good reading for someone getting ready to game master Dark Legacies, Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing, or any number of games where demons are a major force to be reckoned with and no quick victory is around the corner.

In addition to campaign advice, there are also adventure seeds to get the creative juices flowing. They’re broken down by type, so there are intrigue based, action based, and are grouped into wilderness and city for ease of use.

To further help the GM with his own campaign, chapter four, organizations, provides background details on what types of cults the GM may decide to use. Will he add in a mystery cult? How about a cabal of powerful spellcasters?

How do religions fit into the big scheme? What about secret societies within the religions? Orders of knighthood or secular organizations like governments? The author hits most of the major ones and a few of the minor ones that would be appropriate. Patrick also provides ideas on how to make your own organization, whether it’s a celestial one that works against demons, or an apocalypse cult that seeks to bring about the end times.

While several sample organizations are included, along with a few NPC’s, they aren’t broken down as say, WoTC might do it. You don’t have knowledge checks to see what the players would know, or have a breakdown of all the forces that each organization may have. Instead, it relies on putting that power in the GM’s hands. For example, the Broken Dolls are noted as having “little money”. What does that mean? Well, as a GM, common sense will have to dictate the terms.

Chapter five ends with allies and enemies. This includes new monsters like the powerful Corrupt King, a monstrous demon that clocks in at a CR of 18, as well as several NPCs to act as patrons and allies, as well as enemies. For example, can the party help Magdalena finish her years long quest and kill her nemesis or will they fall pray to the fallen knight, Estaban Esbach whose possessed by a pit fiend?

The book provides a lot of free hand tools for the GM to use in his campaign. It doesn’t break out all the little details or go into specifics but for the most part, that’s a good thing.

Ook

Demon Hunter's Handbook



So, you want to be a Demon Hunter?


Just how you answer that question really determines whether or not this product is for you. If you said yes, or want to run a D&D/d20 game based around the concept of demon hunting, then this book, Demon Hunter's Handbook from Goodman Games, is worth buying, though it's probably not the definitive work on the subjective.


While I'd be lying if I said I were an expert on this subject (Demons), I do have a semi-strong interest in the subject matter. I've read the Exorcist and books about the case it was supposedly based on, seen countless B-movies and trashy horror books involving demons and possession, and I own Tubular Bells 1,2, and 3. (In fact, the first track from Tubular Bells 2 is my favorite song. Or tied with it). So I have semi-high standards when it comes to something like this.

Frankly, when I first heard of this book, I was expecting something of a "splatbook", along the lines of say, Mongoose's Quintessential Series or Green Ronin's class books. Which is neither inherently good nor bad, just somewhat formulaic. The reality turned out quite different. While it's got some crunchy stuff, it's really more a "theme" book, reminding me more of a Gurps Supplement than anything else, which in my view is a good thing. (Though note that you might get the impression otherwise from this review, since I will mostly cover the crunchy rules stuff, I just do that because it's hard to review non-rules stuff)




The first chapter is on characters. This is a big section of the book (almost a third), but the crunchy stuff is minimal. 4 prestige classes, 1 variant core class. Most of the chapter discusses how various existing character classes can go about demon hunting. Basically they get a description of how they fit into the demon-hunting mold, various character concepts for them, and skills and feats appropriate for smacking demons down (or something like that)



The variant core class is the "Planar Cleric", basically a normal Cleric but instead of being able to turn undead, they turn outsiders.

The most interesting prestige class, I thought, is also the first, the "Bound Spellcaster". Basically, very very slowly, the character turns himself into an evil outsider. It's not bad, but at the same time, I'm not sure anyone would take it. It's for arcane spellcasters mostly, but essentially costs them 4 levels of spells. So basically a 20th level character with 10 levels in that cast would be the equivalent, spell wise, of a 16th level wizard (or sorcerer). Which means giving up the most powerful spells, 9th level ones. In return they mostly get physical enhancements (more or less turning into the half-fiend template, plus various sorts of damage resistance)

Beyond that prestige class, there's the Preserver class, which is a demon fightin' druid. Which I personally find ironic, but is plausible the way it's written up.

Also the "Righteous Sword", basically for paladins/clerics. Basically they get all sorts of extra smiting abilities.

The Reformed Cultist seems a mite powerful to my eye. They get the best Base Attack Bonus progression, the sneak attack ability (maxing out at +3d6) or another goody at every level, and they get 8 skill points per level. On the downside, they've lost their soul and so can't be raised from the dead by any means. It's a Rogue class.



Chapter two pretty much contains the crunchy stuff in the book. It's on new Demon Hunter abilities. New feats, uses for skills, spells and equipment. Perhaps more importantly, rules for possession by outsiders and the exorcism of them.



Possession by an Outsider and exorcism pretty much works the same, game mechanic wise. Basically two skill rolls in a row have to be made. There are some additional complications, but that's the gist. Now, it's pretty simple, but for me, it passes the big test. Can it duplicate the definitive movie about possession, The Exorcist? The answer is yes, it does.

It also provides pretty decent guidelines for targets of possession. That's one of the puzzlers about demonic possession - if there are so many demons, why don't they possess everyone? Now in the real world version, I've read various explanations: coming in contact with mysterious idols, playing with a ouija board, buying a Slayer album, having someone say the devil can take them, and a few other ways. None of which made much sense.


There's a number of new spells, around 20. Not surprisingly, most of them have to do with smiting or damaging evil outsiders.

Some seem a bit odd, causing the soul to explode. Maybe it's just me, but I always though the whole sort of point of a soul was that is was unaffected by matter one way or the other. So it seems unlikely that they could explode and damage people. But maybe that's just me.

Most are pretty good, though. Many seem to remind me of spells from console video games, with lots of visual effects. For instance, "Heaven's Tears", which brings a celestial rainstorm. Or "Natures Retribution", where "Clenching your fist, you cause streamers of vivid green energy to come pouring forth from the ground..."

There's also the reverse of one of my favorite songs, "Heavenly Bells". Doesn't quite roll off the tongue like it's netherworld equivalent, but the spell causes evil outsiders to be annoyed and distracted.

As near as I can tell, pretty much all of them are in line with the ones from the core rules, in terms of damage and effect.


There's about 5 pages of new gear.

One piece of armor, the "Armored Ankle Coat". Basically a big long black coat. This provides minimal protection (+ 1 AC), but has very little drawback, either (basically the same stats as padded armor). The only real notable thing is it stacks with normal armor. Which means if you allow them in your game, everyone will wear them, since eh, free +1 AC. While not exactly a gamebreaker, they should have had some penalty when wearing it with armor, like the similar "Bishop's Mantle" in Arms & Armor 3.5, which besides the +1 AC, has a - 1 armor check penalty, and drops the max dex bonus by 2. Either that or just say that wearing a long black coat adds a +1 style bonus to AC.

Besides that problem, I would have liked to have seen a more realistic take on an armored long coat. Generally speaking, while it's true that light long coats provide no drawbacks, movement wise, once you get even slightly heavy, they can be problematic. I have a long duster that I use as a raincoat and while it's not bad when it's dry, once it gets wet (and thus heavier and slightly sticky) it can be tricky to move quickly in it, not hard, but slightly harder. I think an armored version would be more like studded leather in terms of protection and ease of use.



A fair amount of new weapons. Most are sort of "gadget" weapons. Holy symbols with spring loaded blades, holy water shooting gauntlets, holy water containing bolts/arrows, and my favorite, the "Throwing Cross". Actually, it can be made in a version for any holy symbol, presumably except that of the Goddess of Nerf. (For whom a funny name I can't come up with.)

The weapons all seem pretty balanced, mechanic wise, and seemingly correct for how much damage they should do.


Lots of non-combat stuff, too. Lots and lots of candles, oils, incense, like a Pier 1 almost. These actually have a purpose besides stinking up the place and/or impressing women, they help
out various religious or demon hunting tasks. Some contain cleric spells, like commune, to get godly advice. Some help with exorcism.

There's even a section on making the most out your demon corpse. Which is a bit icky and probably for non-good demon hunters, some of it can be useful.




Chapter three is about running a demon hunting campaign. Basically themes, types of campaigns, advice, and quite a few plot seeds. Most of this is pretty good stuff. This is arguably the most interesting part of the book (at least I would so argue), but also the trickiest to summarize. Basically though, it pretty much covers most questions and problems a DM might run into, and how to go about achieving the right feel.



The fourth chapter is on organizations. Cults, Demon hunting organizations, that sort of thing. First off an overview of the various different types of groups and their motivations

Then there is a way to describe and build them. Not exactly stats, more like categories. Type, Goals, Size, and Resources. While I've seen more detailed ways of doing it, this does the job pretty well. There are a few samples of organizations.


The last chapter introduces a few new demon types and some NPCs.

Because most of the standard D&D demons tend to be the combat monster variety, as opposed to the subtle, seductive demon, this book tries to fill in with the latter type.

There's the "Sin Eater" and its superior form, the "Corrupt King". Basically they sort of implant impure thoughts into people.

Also the "Curse Bearer", which I'm not quite sure I get, but sort of tempts people with really cool stuff that also happens to be cursed. Like James Dean's death car, or a book of forbidden knowledge, or


You also get stats for some NPCs, including the covergirl, Magdalena. She's going for that Solomon Kane, brooding pilgrim look, albeit with a pointy hat, not the standard squarish flat top pilgrim hat. Curiously, while she's partly a paladin, she's Chaotic Good (which I guess explains the pointy hat, she's a pilgram rebel!). A couple other demon hunters, including an excellently named kid who lives in an evil orphanage.

Besides Demon Hunters, there are some demon cultists. Including the headmistress of said evil orphanage.



The book is fairly average looking, not bad or good. Fairly atmospheric looking, with an upside down pentagram as background art on each page, and a fair amount of reasonably creepy artwork. But nothing great.

I didn't notice any typos, but did spot one rather amusing auto-correct error.

"If this occurs, then a portion of the DirecTV's essence is sent to fester on the mortal world..."

It should be Dretch, and in fact is, in every other mention in that section. Just a slight boo-boo.



It's a good book, but nothing in it really screamed "Wow, this is great!". Also one area that doesn't seemed to be covered is actually getting evil outsiders to fight. Pretty much every demon/devil of note has the ability to teleport or planeshift at will. While this generally gets sort of ignored to make winnable fights for PCs, if a DM plays an evil outsider intelligently, they are very hard to beat, unless this ability is negated. I thought this should have been addressed.

Another thing you would sort of expect in a book like this, is info on magical wards and protections and such like the pentagram. Now I can see why they might not want to put that in a book prominently, even though it's 25 past the old hysteria days, I think it might have been touched upon a little.

While I generally liked the author's writing (some parts were funny) and agreed with his roleplaying advice, I did differ with him on several opinions. For instance, he writes

[/i]"How much worse is a mortal who commits atrocities not because he seeks to honor his chosen god, but for no other reason than wealth or personal power?"[/i]

Personally, I would say none. If anything, I tend to think the wealth/personal power motive is at least understandable, since greed is something most feel, while honoring a demon-god is not (unless you believe Geraldo). There are a few other examples like that. While a book like probably actually is the place for philosophical arguments, I think both (or more) sides could have been presented than just the author's opinions, though this doesn't detract from the book's utility.



All in all, I'd call it a B

[imager]http://www.goodman-games.com/images/GMG4320CoverLarge.jpg[/imager]The Demon Hunter’s Handbook is a sourcebook of character and campaign options for d20 fantasy gaming with a focus on battling evil outsiders. The book is written by Patrick Younts, author of some of the better books in Mongoose’s Quintessential series such as Quintessential Sorcerer and Monk, as well as a series of PDFs under the RoninArts baner. The book is published by Goodman Games.

A First Look

Demon Hunter’s handbook is available in both print and PDF formats. This review is based upon the print format book, a 96 page perfect-bound softcover with an MSRP of $19.99. The electronic format is available at the usual outlets (here at the ENGS, as well as RPGnow and DriveThruRPG) for what I’m currently seeing as $8.39.

The cover of the book has a dark green hue. The cover plate is Thomas Denmark. The cover depict a woman with sword, shield, and an oddly distinctive “hat with a buckle on it” striding away from the corpse of a huge demonic creature.

The interior is black and white. The pages have a grainy grey watermark (not unlike the classic “Ruins of Undermountain” books) with a watermark like a summoning circle. Interior artists include Alex Kosakowski, Doug Kovacs, Claudio Muniz, Matt Morrow, and Mikolaj Ostapiuk. For having five artists, the artwork of the book looks surprisingly consistent. The artwork uses lots of pen-and-ink illustrations with bold lines and hatched-shading. This gives the book a gothic feel appropriate to the topic. Some of the art has a style similar to Scott Purdy’s, who I have come to favor for this sort of thing.

A Deeper Look

The book is logically arranged into five chapters: Characters (including races and classes), Demon Hunter Abilities (feats, domains, spells, equipment, magic items), The Campaign (campaign advice, ideas, and adventure seeds), Organizations, and Allies & Enemies (creatures).

New races include the aasimar (okay, I’ll get to that in a sec. . .) and steward archon. A steward archon isn’t exactly an archon in the traditional sense. It’s a mortal who has been infused by the essence of an archon who willingly parted with some of their essence to empower mortals against demons, who are otherwise usually bound to their heavenly realm. In essence it’s a “substitution race” like the elan of the Expanded Psionics Handbook. This race earns Patrick a small tip of the hat from me for not using the tiresome out of assuming that any two creatures that move can breed.

The aasimar here is similar to the one you know and love, but there is a variant “demon bane” aasimar. The idea is that the parent of the aasimar, a little like the idea of a steward archon can give over a portion of their essence to give them abilities for focussed on fighting demonic outsiders.

A brief section covers the existing core classes; there are no new core classes (though there are some variant rules for clerics). Instead, each class is covered with a short discussion of how they can fit the role of a demon hunter, possible character concepts, and recommended character options to optimize them in such a role. (As a side note, it casts the bard in an interesting role of being a keeper of lore who might be able to identify abilities and weaknesses of outsiders. Though this works, the concept suggests that Wizards of the Coast’s Heroes of Horrors, with its archivist class, might be a good resource for the sort of campaign outlined in Demon Hunter’s Handbook.

The cleric variant is the planar cleric. The planar cleric differs from the standard in two ways. First, they are required to take either righteousness or purity domain, new domains in this book. Second, they receive an ability to turn or rebuke evil outsiders instead of undead. This is not a straight up conversion; there are a few tweaks. Mainly, you only banish outsiders of HD that would be destroyed under the standard turning rules; you need 4 time the HD of a creature to destroy it.

A curious bit is that the turning evil outsiders mentions a rebuking option like evil clerics receive, but this does not make too much sense given the domain requirements. I don’t see righteousness or purity domains as being appropriate for evil planar clerics that traffic with demons.

There are four prestige classes for demon slayers in the book, intended to capture some of the common archetypes associated with such a campaign. The author admits that they are specifically balanced for demon-hunting campaigns. The classes are:

• Bound spellcaster is an arcane spellcaster who takes on the essence of a demon in order to try to better combat the fiends. They have slowed caster level advancement, but take on qualities of half fiends and gain benefits against fiends.
• The preserver is intended for druids, and represent those who have received nature’s blessings to guard against the corruption of demons. The class trades a few caster levels for numerical bonuses against fiends and the ability to change into or summon creatures with the celestial or half-celestial template.
• The righteous sword is a bit more classic a concept, a holy warrior who takes up arms against evil. The class has slowed spellcasting progression, but gains the ability to enhance their weapon further against fiends and act as a bastion of goodness, inspiring those around them.
• The former cultist is well, a former member of a demonic cult, who know uses his knowledge against fiends. The former cultist seems to be principally aimed at rogues. The class has some rogue like abilities, though some replaced with abilities in sniffing out and resisting demons.

The Demon Hunter Abilities chapter contains more discrete character options like feats useful in the fight against demons, new skill uses, new domains (Exorcism, Purity, and Righteousness), spells, equipment, and magic items. In addition to the individual items, there is a sizeable section of new rules on exorcism and possession. The rules herein assume that most demons have the capability of possession, though weaker demons take an extremely long time to effect possession. The rules make exorcism a taxing challenging process that does not boil down to a single roll. The exorcist, in addition to needing a healthy knowledge (religion) score to perform the rites, must have a steady fortitude.

The third chapter is the classical campaign advice chapter. The topic of “demon hunting” may not seem all that unusual for a d20 fantasy game; demons are classic villains, after all. This chapter sort of outlines the sort of changes this modestly more specific campaign focus would require. In this vein, he addresses both mechanical concerns and the feel of the game. Several example hooks are also included, with for city and rural, intrigue and action based options.

The organizations chapter includes a few sample organizations, but the bulk of the chapter is not about samples, but walking you through the groundwork of an organization allied with or opposed to demons. Organization type, size, and resources are addressed, with guidance on the game impact of each of these choices.

The Allies & Enemies chapter contains new creatures and NPCs. Except for the template, the creatures are all demons, though guidelines for using them as devils instead are included (both in terms of mechanics and behavior.) The demons range from the lowly sin eater to the unique corrupt king. I found the sin eater to be a better take on the concept than the corruption eater in Heroes of Horror; when the sin eater eats “corruption”, it’s not a good thing. It more or less “harvests” corruption, which siphons off the strength of the victim like a parasite.

Also, a quick nod for actually using open game expanded psionics content in one of the NPCs.

Conclusions

The Demon Hunter’s Handbook takes a subset of the fantasy gaming experience and provides support for running a more focused campaign around it, both in terms of mechanics and in terms of flavor/idea support. Younts does a good job of tying the two ends together.

Some of the mechanics and ideas could be used in a more contemporary game. The author spells out pretty clearly (and accurately) where he feels that the balance does not fit the core game assumptions, though his prescriptions are a little vague.

This book would work well alongside Wizards’ Heroes of Horror supplement in a demonic-infested horror campaign. The plane of Palpatur from Malhavoc’s Beyond Countless Doorway would also be a good fit for the material herein.

Overall Grade: B+

-Alan D. Kohler