Swarmkeeper is S tier simply for the ability to flavor your swarm as bats and annoy your friends by constantly saying, "I'm Batman" in a gravelly voice.
Damn thats amazing... but also because you can use Thorn Whip with the magic initiate feat, and then because its a spell ATTACK, if you hit, you move the enemy 10 feet closer, then 15 feet backwards, and bang, thats 25 feet of movement inside the Spike Growth. We just call it the Cheese Grater.
@@GeneralPenemonto Because Thorn whip is a druid cantrip, you could also just take the fighting style instead of a feat...or honestly i'd probably just multiclass the 3 levels out of a druid primarily. Lot more slots to cast those spike growths
I’ve always been a fan of the Ranger. Wizards of the Coast though…? Edit: Don’t worry, they’ll have to go through the Ranger fans in the comment section first!!
As a ranger main, I agree with this. Underrated by far. With the right player, these classes are amazing on and off a battlefield, especially with a build suited to the campaign.
Note about Fey Wanderer: The extra damage is once per turn if you attack the same creature multiple times, but if you split attacks between multiple creatures, the extra damage procs again.
That's why Aragorn is a fey wanderer ranger. The extra psychic damage along with the great weapon fighting style is enough to make sure he kills an orc with each hit.
Aye! A fun magic weapon that helped my Fey Wanderer was the Two Birds Sling from Theros. With the battles taking place on a boat and with allies willing to corral the enemies I was just an absolute menace
@@chillycharizard5985 Agree in most instances, however there are times where it comes up. I'm setting up to run a Giant Barbarian/Fey Wanderer Ranger using a halberd. This increases my range to 15 feet from Giant, and with polearm master will allow him to opportunity attack when they enter the space of range. In addition, using the Tunnel Fighter stance from Ranger level 2, I get infinite opportunity attacks on individual targets. That d4 is going to hit all of them as long as I can pull off a hit which is relatively easy to do with reckless attack, so it's going to be useful. Just to finish off the build, add in some Sentinel, and it stops them in their tracks, meaning I don't get hit by melee very often.
My wife played a Swarm Keeper with a creepy vibe. Her swam was bats and she multiclassed into Arcane Trickster Rogue. Her Origin was Haunted One and her backstory included her family being wiped out by a vampire who bit her but she fought off changing completely. Many of the spells and abilities merged with the classic vampire abilities like Body of Mist and Charming people.
Note about the Horizon Walker: that bonus action that increases your damage also turns all of your damage into force damage, which almost no creatures in the monster manual are resistant or immune to
Yeah I played one during a campaign and at lvl 11 with two weapon fighting feats and a haste spell, I was blender when it came to minions/ads/low health opponents. It was great.
Also it stacks with HM so on the bigger guy you're doing 1d8+mod, 1d8, and 1d6 damage per turn as force every turn after the 1st, assuming you're not at 5th level yet and using a Longbow or Rapier. HW really starts making up for its 1st-round damage loss quickly
I was going to point out that you couldn't get a fly speed from a Velociraptor swarm, but then I remembered that it doesn't state a limit on how big the swarm is. Now I'm imagining that "fly speed" is just you surfing on a wave of 500 velociraptors running all over each other like ants.
D&D 5e is a game with only two splatbooks full of new player options that cause significant power creep and Tasha's is the newer of the two so most of its options cause more power creep than Xanathar's. For those of you who remember 3e/3.5, Xanathar's is probably in line with one of the early 3e Forgotten Realms splatbooks while Tasha's is one of the first few 3.5 "Complete _____" splatbooks. Neither is the second coming of Book of Exalted Deeds or Book of Nine Swords.
It's a mixed bag. The Ranger revisions are mostly solid, and there are some subclasses like Beast Barbarian that have a bit of thought and soul behind it. However, there are some options like the new Bladesinger, the Sorcerer subclasses, and especially Twilight and Peace Cleric that represent an egregious amount of power creep. DMs are now having to decide whether to pick and choose, ignore the book's existence, or simply allow everything and accept the consequences of having op character options at the table
Something to note here about the Drakewarden with Drake Companion: It says that the drake's cosmetics such as its color, scale texture or visible effects from your Draconic Essence is determined by YOU. This makes it so much better if you use this to trick enemies or BBEGs in or outside of combat because you can have the drake look like a red dragon and then completely catch them off guard when the drake starts dealing cold damage. Makes it even more fun to play with tons of variety
Wow, I forgot Eragon was a thing... On topic, Ranger's main issue was never really the subclasses, which have been pretty solid, it was the core class being iffy until Tasha's. That book has done so much lifting.
Rangers were a specialised generalist, so they didn't really have anything to really showcase their identity outside of being "weird nature people who aren't druids" in their base class
@@sev1120 yeah, despite being my favorite class, my group often mocks them with a common taunt being shit like "they're supposed to be tracking specialists, but I could get a better result if I rolled higher." Like, "ok? I mean that goes with everything... a bard can fight better than the fighter if they rolled higher, a barbarian could persuade people better if they rolled higher than the bard, a druid could heal better w/ cure wounds if they rolled higher than the cleric." Ranger had a lot of faults, but that was just a flimsy argument. All that said, what often handicapped Rangers back then was the idea that the settings would sometimes go outside the Ranger's area of expertise or the crew would end up fighting creatures they didn't specialize in - either due to DM wanting to take the adventure elsewhere or through poor communication in the character creation process - or both.
I agree that the core class is a lacking but I don't think Tasha's fixed it, I personally don't like the removal of favored foe/terrain, that's what made rangers feel like rangers to me it was a mechanic unique to the rangers and I think they should have improved on those features instead of removing cause they just feel less unique.
@@gadgetronking4255Well, they weren't removed? You can still take them if you want. Though you're right on thinking they should've just improved what was there already
A fun thing about the Fey Wanderer’s Beguiling Twist feature is that while you absolutely can use it after an enemy fails to charm/frighten you or your allies, you can also use it if your allies failed to charm/frighten an enemy. So if that charm monster from your party’s Wizard failed to work, you can Twist it to charm or frighten another enemy within range. It’s not only a great defensive feature but powerful offensive one too
About Fey Wanderer: Beguiling Twist is not limited to its original effect, nor to your allies. You can cast Charm Person, have the enemy succeed, and then proceed to scare them instead. It's especially powerful with Summon Fey, because the Mirthful option has a free charm effect as its bonus action.
I really like the Horizon Walker. I do wanna note that the attack that lets you do an extra d8 also completely changes the damage of that attack into Force. It may seem minor but can be really important because Force is one of the best damage types.
I would say that the most powerful part of being an horizon walker is the one turn of etherealness, just straight up being able to phase through walls is amazing, at the very least it could be a silent knock, when you open the door from the inside, with the added bonus of being better then a dimension door, as you can peek in and then decide if you want to hang out on the other side of whatever wall you would be vibin behind
I play a changeling fey wanderer. Usually I'm the DM and this combo still lets me roleplay a ton of different characters for social encounters, so fun ❤ also the damage is still pretty good!
I think a fun way to improve the Hunter Subclass is to allow you to swap your choices out during a long rest akin to a kind of prep for what you think you might face or might need in the next encounter.
Excellent idea. Simple, thematic and strong without being excessive. With appropriate limitations on the ability and designed in a way that doesn't slow the gameplay, that could be a brilliant bit of homebrew.
From an aesthetics standpoint Swarmkeepers are my favourite subclass in the game. I just played one with a swarm of crows for a one-shot and absolutely loved it! Also, can confirm that gathered swarm and spike growth is a killer combination.
I love them too aesthetically, but I much prefer them to wield swarms of Icy snow, dark fog, Smoke and embers, or Wind immune with cherry blossoms and autumn leaves. Making these swarms into swirling elemental magic makes a different and very cool character
@@J.sh_CDN Awesome! That's the best thing, the subclass encourages you to flavour it however you like! Anything from epic icy snow to a comedic crazy cat lady
Yes. And I really want to add in Thorn Whip (druidic warrior fighting style) and the Telekinesis feat to be able to move an enemy (or friend) up to 40ft in a turn. No enemy wants to face you next to a cliff... :D
@@Brethren01 YES, the Thorn Whip one is insane. I use it with the Magic Initiate feat, while playing an Aarakocrka ranger. 10 feet closer with thornWhip, 15 feet backwards, bang 25 feet of movement for a sweeeeet 10d6 dmg. We call it the cheese grater. It just demolishes enemies.
Bro, the ultimate negotiator: 17 Eloquence Bard/3 Fey Wanderer Ranger. You max out your WIS and CHA, take expertise in all CHA skills, then apply Glibness spell: your minimum CHA check for those skills is 37, and on a Nat 20, 42. Hell, even on spells that require a CHA check, like Counterspell, your minimum is 31 and max is 36
Personally that idea sounds amazing but id probably do 4 or 5 levels of ranger just because you get ability score improvement at lvl 4 and extra attack at lvl 5 seems more useful then a d12 of song of resr
@@kacin1292 I was gonna say. Doing what Garret mentioned would cause you to lose 9th level spells, and this is clearly meant to be a caster. Since you’d be focusing on WIS and CHA, this character would only have decent DEX. Not enough to be a martial character
@@fightingfalcon777 it did not occur to me about 9th level spells the question is though is one 9th spell slot worth more then getting an extra feat or ability score improvement if you do 4 and 16
@@garretwadden618 I don't think this build is very feat hungry, you can go variant human to stay in theme take actor/fey touched/skill expert and you start with 18 cha and 16 wis and you only need 3 ASIs to get 20 in both, and you got one free for another RP feat (or something else if this is in a campaign with combat)
@@laelnascimento7487 There it would be great and drakewarden could definitely use some spells too. I would also like a feature where spells with a range of self can apply either to self or the companion. Like Zephir strike (this would be great for companion, essentially giving them flyby), Ashardalons stride etc. Would of course be better if they also could just cast and concentrate on spells and share your spell list. Speaking a language is necessary for spellcasting and your drake knows draconic which is a language so he/she/etc should be able to learn spells and your own spells make the most sense for the drake.
My Horizon Walker is my favorite character I have ever made. He was an urban bounty hunter and thief for a local Dwarven crime syndocate and his abilities to teleport and phase through walls made his job much easier. Obviously him discovering some devil contracts from the other houses due to his ability to sense portals is where his story really takes off. Being able to teleport around a battle while hasted was a blast. 10/10 would recommend again.
Drakewardens have a neat use for infused strike (I think ... tell me if I'm wrong) if any party members within 30ft of the drake lands a critical hit, the drake can use its reaction to give them an extra 2d6 (instead of 1d6). And since the drake's turn is immediately after your own, yours is the last attack they can infuse before their reaction resets. So the opportunity to buff someone else's attack is always there, without forgoing it yourself.
Gloom Stalker ranger is so good, even when we aren’t in darkness or fighting at night, that initiative bonus and first round extra attack?? *chef’s kiss*
Quick note about Hunter’s Sense for Monster Slayer. This does work on creatures in disguise or shape shifted. This is game changing in the right campaign. Like trying to identify who the vampire is. Or which villager is the werewolf!
I think it's important to point out that Tasha's fix a lot of the problems with the base class. Yeah, it fixed Beastmaster, but the base class features were quite sub-par.
Dont forget to add, the tasha beast master is best pet class. Simply for the fact that , most pet classes say "bonus action to command it.... it takes its turn directly after yours." , meanwhile the tash pet , "during combat, the beast acts DURING your turn.", i feel that wins out. xD
Owlin gloomstalker….with night goggles…210 darkvision lol Anyway, I started playing a swarmkeeper for the first time (though I have experience in quite a few of the other subclasses). I made my swarm fragmented souls that are more akin to fireflies or folkloric will o the wisps than anything. The story was that fragmented souls have been collecting at this old abandoned and forgotten ruins in the mountains for quite a lot of centuries by this point. In this ruins was a white jade statue. This statue was brought to life by the power of the fragmented souls and she became their guardian (earth genasi since she is a spirit of the earth still). So her swarm is the very fragmented souls that brought her to life and she tries her best to either fulfill their wishes, help them move on, or allow them to find some sense of peace until they feel they can move on. She joins the party after the souls share some information about a massive slaughter of people who lived around a long hidden mcguffin. One of the party members was part of the family that protected the mcguffin (though he is unaware of that part of his legacy) and so the souls are also prompting her to join and offer her wisdom and protection to the party member too. So anyway, that’s how her story starts. I felt pretty proud of how this character turned out and I helped the dm build the ruins map and set up and its history when I joined which was also fun too. The dm loved the idea and I had fun with the collaboration portion. The party seems to love it too. Oh and dm led them to the ruins by the whole folkloric will o the wisps method. Think the little spirits in Brave, if you remember the movie. The dm also says that the place will be protected much the same way as some of the places in that movie were too and just can’t be found if the souls don’t lead someone there. Only, apparently, my character can get there without that assistance. It’s a nice ability that makes my character feel unique but isn’t game breaking since it requires the party to be in the area. The cleric and I have been discussing them doing that temple of the gods thing in the area during prologue if we all live that long, just to provide a connection for the place. It’s gonna be interesting for sure.
My partner played a swarmkeeper ranger who was a pirate. Her swarm manifested in two different ways depending on the effect: It was either her single parrot assailing enemies or helping her maneuver, or a small group of pirate underlings who would run in, pushing enemies around and stabbing them. With the spike growth/movement combo, it manifested as the pirates knocking the enemy between one another, punching them in the face and dragging them through the spikes as they went. It was a great bit of roleplay that made the character a blast to watch and play with.
Having played a drakewarden through the Tiamat Campaign, I can tell you it is a very fun class to play. The drake is a conjured pet so if it dies you can bring it back. You get to choose one immunity, let me recommend fire or posion, and you can change this immunity too. The immunity also doesn't have to correspond with the breath weapon. It helps the rogue with sneak attack because it counts as an ally nearby an enemy and its attacks are magical which means it's great against creatures like vampires and wererats that require damage to be magical to hit them. You get to roll to see if its breath weapon recharges and that's a lot of fun. The drake eventually gets multi attack too with claws and a bite. The Mounted Combatant Feature is viable here because at lvl fifteen you can ride him off into the sunset. Having resistance and immunity in a game where a lot of the monsters are elemental, I.E. Dragons or Demons, is very important. I recommend this subclass so much.
A cool thing about the horizon walker is, that you can use it as a multiclass dip for rogues to change the sneak attack damage to force damage with just 3 levels of ranger
I love the Hunter. It has simple combat abilities that make you feel just a little cooler in battle. It's a great subclass if you want to feel like a non-magical Ranger.
Underrated tbh, im surprised it didn't go into at least A tier here. Kinda glossed over the choice of evasion and uncanny dodge and how good multiattack defense can be.
Absolutely missed the best part of Horizon Walker, how their Bonus Action ability doesn't just add 1d8 damage to your next attack, 2d8 at later levels, but that damage is Force damage and so is all the other damage you deal with that attack. It converts all the damage you do on that attack, to Force.
I played a level 10 swarmkeeper with the TCE variant Ranger features, and I really leaned into damage output while building her. She was pretty awesome and the swarm was so much fun to roleplay (she was a beekeeper). The fact that you can manipulate an enemy’s battlefield position when you hit them with an attack can be very powerful and useful for protecting yourself or an ally who’s taking a beating. I must say that while the flying ability was cool and a great way to maintain distance from melee enemies, I wish it was a tad bit faster. 10 ft just doesn’t quite feel like enough. That being said, swarmkeeper’s probably my favorite Ranger subclass.
One of my favorite rangers was a Warforged Swarmkeeper that was basically a humanoid beehive piloted by the queen bee. There were so many bees that you couldn't tell if I was a Warforged or not. All of my joints were just the bees moving the limbs around according the the queen.
I let my buddy use Tashas beastmaster stuff for his first time playing. It was a party 5 not including the beast. I gave them a brief tutorial esque combat encounter. The dog had the most kills.
Horizon Walker is so good, and I wish more people recognized it. The party I DM has a Horizon walker in it, and they are the ultimate melee striker character.
I started watching D&D content (mostly our man here) maybe a year ago. Haven't actually played in over 25 years but if I ever do again I would be a fey wanderer, what a beautiful subclass
A thing most people miss between tasha beastmaster and the drakewarden is that it takes a minute and you have to touch your pet to resurect it where the drakewarden is just an action meaning it is next to impossible to kill a drake companion in battle and leave a drakewarden without a subclass where it is actually a viable strategy to do that to a beast master
Gloomstalker has been fun. If you play as a kenku, you are invisible in full darkness and the subclass gives you dark vision. Just remember on the first turn you have +10 movement and 1 extra attack. Need to figure out how best to use BA besides hunter's mark.
Watching this video and hearing you talk about gloomstalker makes me glad i choose to pair it with way of the shadow monk. I can now make my own darkness.
Fun note, the Fey Wanderer's extra d4 of damage is once per target per turn, not just once per turn. So if you attack multiple targets, the extra damage can go on all of them :)
Spectral Defense is situationally better than uncanny dodge, because it grants resistance for the whole turn, meaning if a creature has multiattack, you can halve all of its damage for the turn so long as you use your reaction against the first strike. That can be a life-saver if you're the sole target of a Dragon's multiattack, for instance. Its also situationally worse, because if you already have resistance to one of the damage types, the benefit of gaining resistance is less than halving the attack's damage. I'd argue that the first point makes up for that, but that is debatable.
so, what I've heard Is that Rangers have some of the most consistently fun and "balanced" subclasses (keeping in mind the changes done to beast master) out of most of the classes in the game.
Modify that one op owlin lineage combo so that they are a bat instead of a owl + gloomstalker ranger = undead batman. Out of nowhere a giant bat person drops on you in a dark alley. He leans in close and whispers, "I am justice." A sharp pain pierces your side. You look down and see a bat-shaped dagger staining your tunic around it a crimson red. You fall to the ground, your legs failing you. As the light fades away, you see the vigilante fly away to send another deserving individual to Avernus
Last time I rolled low, I played a halfling beekeeper called Bumbledore Beesbury. It was amusing, I didn’t expect him to last long but he survived the whole campaign carrying the same apiary strapped to his back.
A note on the difference between Beastmaster and Drakewarden: a Beastmaster and its companion take their turns simultaneously, so you can coordinate them. A Drakewarden's pet has its own initiative.
Swarmkeeper Swarmkeeper Swarmkeeper!!! Maybe my favorite subclass in the game. So much flavor, so versatile, and so much underrated power. I'm playing a Warforged with a nanobot swarm, which is freaking awesome. Combining it with the Druidic fighting style has been brutal! Shillelagh + Polearm Master + free 5 ft movement after an attack so I get an opportunity attack without giving one up in return? Awesome! Thorn Whip + an extra 15 ft pull for TWENTY FIVE FEET of forced movement!? No more flying or climbing enemy problems! Extra damage + Hunter's Mark + Multi Attack + Polearm Master (or two weapon fighting)! What boss? AND I get to fly, teleport, and phase shift later!?
The Question Around alone would deserve an upvote, but the subclass review is great as well. Thanks for another video having me laughing and entertained.
I am playing a horizon walker now. If you can get the sharpshooter feat either at the level 4 ability score increase or by playing a race that gives you a feat, it can make the damage insane. Because planar warrior converts damage to force once per turn, it means that you can get around lots of resistances that many others can’t without spells. With just one attack with the sharpshooter feat using a longbow at either level 3 or 4 (feat dependent), you can deal 10 + 1d8 +1d8+dexterity modifier (if proficient). Even if you take the average and assuming a +4 dexterity, you deal at minimum 16 force damage with one attack, and at max without a crit, can deal 30 force damage a turn. Besides some of the most powerful classes in the game, a lot of other classes may not be able to match this potential damage output at that level. Sure, sharpshooter gives you a -5 to hit, but most of the time rangers can counter this detriment.
I talked with my dm about the beast master subclass, and here are some ways to make it better(with the normal animals and that don’t overpower it): Commanding your companion as a bonus action! Really useful Sharing favoured enemy/certain applicable feats with your companion And leveling up your companions’ hp and armour class according to character rules.
“They’re not bad” pretty much sums up the entire class, most of their stuff is fine, it’s just rarely as strong as similar options you could get from other classes.
I have a player who's a swarm keeper warforge that we reflavored to be a living tree and has the torso that looks like a chicken coop but when you open the door it looks like a mini dimension for his chickens
The thing with ranger is, if you either go with 2 weapons or just pick correct spells, you won't even need bonus action things from subclass to keep gaining this bonus every turn.
I actually had to have a discussion to veto a PC from taking Horizon Walker in my campaign, but not because of the abilities covered in the video. No, it was their other 3rd level ability "Detect Portal" that would have broken my campaign. The world is experiencing incursions from other planes in a sort of slow-burn Conjunction of the Spheres sort of way, but a lot of the party investigations revolve around actually finding the incursions and dealing with the monsters. The PC in question was converting a Warrior sidekick character into a full PC Ranger at level 7, having recently joined the group, so it didn't make loads of thematic sense to be immediately attuning to portals, but we also both agreed that in this setting, being able to tell the direction and distance to a portal within 1 mile would actually be a bit much 😂😂
I'm currently playing a Swarmkeeper, her swarm is made up of pretty purple fireflies, so it definitely does *not* have to be gross and weird if you don't want it to be 😂
One of my favorite characters I made is a halfling Drakewarden ranger who lost her legs... to a drake. She jokes she is a quarterling and while he has a wheelchair, she usually relies on her drake to get her around.
I’m interested in Drakewarden just for the first time I’m playing with a new group and we’re about to head out when I call my acid vomiting drake and jump on its back saying; “we ready to head out?”
I was super excited to play swarm keeper, I was playing a locathah, and made my swarm sea gulls. It was all fun and games till one of the guys at the table pointed out that the swarms damage can not be boosted through a crit or feats like piercer, as the damage does not come from the attack but directly after... Now most dms would still allow it but we were playing with some serious rule sharks
I can see letting a drakewarden ride their dragon like a horse at earlier levels so you can still be a mounted combatant you just can't fly with it yet
I always like the idea of a swarmkeeper's swarm being something flavored sort of like bending in Avatar. Like maybe you've got a flask of water or a bag of gemstones with me that I pull out and float around during combat, or maybe you go Gaara mode and keep a jar of sand on your back that you use.
Fey wanderer player here. All of the fey based subclasses are underplayed and under appreciated, try one! Theyre very fun, and surprisingly well rounded. Moderately capable in conversation, of the course the best in exploration, and above average in combat
I love Swarmkeeper, I played one at level 10 in a one shot, and I'm currently playing a Swarmkeeper 3/Twilight Cleric 2 half-drow. You really wanna have some fun, take the Druidic Warrior fighting style for Thorn Whip, because Gathered Swarm triggers on all attacks, including spell attacks. Take Spike Growth at level 5 (or get your Druid to cast it). Thorn Whip them to you, Gathered Swarm them away. At level 5 this combo deals 2d6+10d4 magical piercing damage.
Gloomstalker is gloriously broken! Even in Dragonlance where there's not much darkness (yet), my lvl5 human GS with crossbow expert and sharpshooter is first round downing mid-baddies. 40+ damage while the rest of the party is lucky to get double digits. Bout to multiclass into Fighter, heading to arcane archer. 7 attack opener with first hit shadow arrow giving advantage on each subsequent attack. Charisma dump stat, he's basically John Wick of the woods with the demeanor of Rorschach. A real DM headshaker that one!
He saved my personal favorite for last, and the entire time, I was sitting here like, "Don't shit talk Swarm. Don't shit talk Swarm. PLEASE, don't shit talk Swarm!". And... he didn't... sorta? I just think that Swarmkeeper offers a lot of ideas for character concepts. Wanna play a goofy version of Link? Well, give a twinkish half-elf a swarm of chickens. Wanna pretend you have powers from The Mummy series? Scarab beetles! Wanna play as a funnt super hero? Put your character in a Beekeeper's suit, equip him with a glock... and a swarm of bees, and call him... THE BEEKEEPER! Literally just make Antman.
The smite spells that ranger has access to also have funny synergy with share spells. Or play a halfling or gnome ranger to ride your dragon while it's a medium creature. One unique thing about Hunters (And rangers in general, come to think of it) is that they're much better at dealing with hordes of weak enemies than other martials. I'm playing a hunter in my weekly CoS game and Horde Breaker actually comes up like... all the time. It also synergizes really well with mobile and my character's naturally higher speed from being a centaur; so I can crash into an enemy line, slap two enemies, deal extra damage to one of them with my hooves, then run away without reprisal.
Rn I'm trying to sneak a Samurai/Hunter into a high-level campaign. Samurais can give themselves advantage on every single attack they make in a turn and Hunters can make an attack against any number of creatures within 5 ft. This means you can have a very awesome turn once per short rest in which you can make, let's say, 4 attacks with advantage, use your action surge for another 4, again with advantage. 8 attacks with advantage is nasty. Then you have awesome options such as zephyr strike, ashardalon's stride and steel wind strike to roleplay an awesome Samurai who's just a speed devil.