Monster Slayers from Xanathar's Guide is Van Helsing

D&D Beyond talks to WotC's Jeremy Crawford about the Monster Slayer subclass. "So the monster slayer in the ranger is a subclass that's basically all about letting you play Van Helsing. This is the Ranger who is the pro at hunting down not only creatures of the night - vampires, werewolves etc - but is also the bane of evil spellcasters. This is the Ranger who is a bit more bookish we imagine than the typical Ranger, the one who knows all sorts of interesting tidbits about different monsters and how to defeat them."

D&D Beyond talks to WotC's Jeremy Crawford about the Monster Slayer subclass. "So the monster slayer in the ranger is a subclass that's basically all about letting you play Van Helsing. This is the Ranger who is the pro at hunting down not only creatures of the night - vampires, werewolves etc - but is also the bane of evil spellcasters. This is the Ranger who is a bit more bookish we imagine than the typical Ranger, the one who knows all sorts of interesting tidbits about different monsters and how to defeat them."

[video=youtube;QHd8UhCqmFQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHd8UhCqmFQ&feature=youtu.be[/video]​


"This subclass actually started in the Unearthed Arcana process as a fighter subclass. People responded pretty well to it but as we worked on it we really felt that the subclass would be even better as a part of the Ranger class where the class would gain access to a number of the Ranger's magical abilities, the Ranger's favored foe abilities these sorts of things that all were a natural fit for this person who is the best at hunting down these vile creatures. The the subclass itself I think is super fun; it has a number of additional spells it knows all about trapping otherworldly creatures - you know spells like magic circle, hold monster, also banishment to send fell creatures off to other planes, but probably my favorite bit in this subclass is its ability to foil a dark spellcaster's magic. Now people can already do this in the game using counterspell; this ranger can do it just using a particular class feature on top of that. It also works against other people who are trying to teleport away, so this is a this is one of the few characters in the game where if as long as the foe is is close enough this Ranger has a chance to magically foil the person's ability to suddenly teleport out of a battle and get away. Because again this is this is the Van Helsing figure who is going to stop that creature of darkness who can normally escape from others, but not from this Ranger.

This ranger also has early-on ability and this goes back to the idea that this ranger knows potentially a little bit about every monster, the ability to discern whether a monster has damage immunities, damage resistances, condition immunities, that sort of thing, so this is then going to be the character who can help the group figure out "How do we stop this monster that has bedeviled us of our weapons' work against it?". Whereas this is this is the the character who who is more quickly going to figure out we need to use silvered weapons or we need a magical weapon or stop using fire, that kind of thing.

Now many groups figure these sorts of things out through trial and error and then they remember them because "Oh we fought these creatures before we know they're immune to these sorts of attacks". This is the sort of character, the monster slayer, who in contrast has the potential to figure those things out upon first meeting a monster and this chance is really representing the fact that this monster slayer is assumed to have been doing studying before their adventuring and during, always learning new things about monsters.

So as a lover of especially old Hammer horror films, and pretty much gothic horror stories of any sort, and in October I have a kind of an endless diet of those things at night given that taste of mine, this is a ranger subclass I'm particularly excited about."



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Besides the usual 5e trade dress, WotC ought to print a special edition of this book, printed with the trade dress of 1e Unearthed Arcana: orange spine, 1e font, black-and-white line-drawings and all.
 

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When Clerics were first created, they had two things going for them:

One, they healed people, which patched up the downtime problems that the game had. Something that also makes them the defacto "Doctors" of the D&D world.
And Two, they were the anti-vampire character. Which also granted them abilities that were useful against other monsters and spellcasters.

So naturally, the good doctor was presented as a Cleric, because that was as cool as a Cleric was ever going to be.

But fear not! It seems that XGtE is doing it's damnedest to outmode the Cleric. Between the existing alternatives, this subclass, and all the other divine flavored subclasses that are looming, there will be nary a reason to ever roll up a Cleric again. Which is fair, considering that Clerics are just a hodgepodge of tentatively related ideas that somehow jelled despite of the mess.



The Witcher would get along swimmingly with Elminster.
In what world are Clerics short changed in 5e? They get so very much in 5e and are a top tier class in every sense.
 



Xeviat

Dungeon Mistress, she/her
I don’t want Monster Slayer to be a Ranger. The ranger has nature themes and Druidic magic that doesn’t necessarily fit with all monster slayers. Fighter would have been a better place for it, and would have allowed for a nonmagical ranger-type character.

How does the Monster Slayer differentiate itself from the Hunter Ranger?


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gyor

Legend
I was hoping for a new subclass video today, but instead we got interviews with critical roll guys. Not a good trade off honestly.
 


I don’t want Monster Slayer to be a Ranger. The ranger has nature themes and Druidic magic that doesn’t necessarily fit with all monster slayers. Fighter would have been a better place for it, and would have allowed for a nonmagical ranger-type character.

How does the Monster Slayer differentiate itself from the Hunter Ranger?
Less "One with Nature", and more "Destroy the unnatural" I would guess.

Note that the UA Fighter version of the Monster Slayer was not nonmagical: they got a couple of spells.
 

MonkeyWrench

Explorer
It's less about the specific mechanics and how close they track to what Geralt can do than it is the feel of the subclass.

The Geralt in the video games (I've never read the original Polish novels or their translations) has access to Burning Hands, Thunderwave, Shield, Charm Person and whatever spell Yrrden might be equivalent to. Though houserule wise you'd just swap some spells from the Ranger list out for those ones.
 

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