The Ranger: Gloom Stalker Is Appearing in 'Xanathar's Guide To Everything'

Todd Kenreck: The ranger Gloom Stalker is perfectly at home in the darkest areas of the D&D multiverse. I talked to Jeremy Crawford about this new subclass appearing in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. So, let's talk about the Gloom Stalker. Who is the Gloom Stalker for and what role does that serve?

Jeremy Crawford: The Gloom Stalker began life for the ranger as the Deep Stalker. It originally appeared in an Unearthed Arcana article that we did about various Underdark themed things in the game. It started life as this ranger who ventures forth in the vast subterranean realm that is the Underdark. As we worked on the Deep Stalker for Xanathar's Guide, we realized we wanted to broaden the scope of it a little bit. That this isn't just the ranger who's at home in the Underdark, but who also is at home in darkness everywhere. This is the ranger who can even use the darkness itself against creatures who are normally at home in darkness. This is the ranger who has a little bit of assassin in them. A ranger who is extremely adept at ambushes and who's a little bit of a terror.

One of the reasons why the way in which this ranger can make darkness terrifying, even to creatures who are at home in it, is the Gloom Stalker has this really fun ability where if a creature can normally see in darkness only because of darkvision, not because of some other sight, like blind sight, or what have you, but if they're in total darkness and the only way that that creature is able to see in that darkness is darkvision, the Gloom Stalker is invisible to them.

That somehow, basically the Gloom Stalker foils darkvision and that's what I mean, like, the Gloom Stalker terrifying to even the creatures in darkness, because the Gloom Stalker could just be standing right next to the creature with darkvision in the darkness and if the Gloom Stalker's totally silent, they don't know that the ranger is there.

I think, in a way, that alone justifies the existence of the subclass just because it's so kind of creepy. It's going to be very useful. In particular circumstances, this is the ranger who hunts others in the darkness because he, again, those for whom the darkness is usually their friend, it is not helping them against this particular ranger.

This ranger also, at higher levels, becomes very difficult to hit, where the shadows themselves can allow the ranger to impose disadvantage on attacks that will come in at the ranger as long as those attacks don't already have advantage. So, this ranger also has a few additional spells that it knows that help this ranger with sneaking in and out of places, escaping. One of the spells is a rope trick, so that you can imagine this ranger creeping into a place for a particular strike, and then when the guards are alerted that something terrible is happening, this ranger can slip away with the rope trick spell and hide in that extra-dimensional space.

So, again, I actually imagine this character, potentially be really scary. Like, this is the kind of character where the other characters in the group will be sometimes be going like, "Dude, you're terrifying." You know? Like, "You were standing right next to that guy and he couldn't see you." If the Gloom Stalker is in darkness and the only way someone else would be able to see them, because there's no light, and the only way that someone would normally be able to see somebody else in that darkness is with darkvision, they can't see the Gloom Stalker. And again, terrifying.

Probably, the scariest use of the Gloom Stalker will be for Dungeon Masters to take it and make non-player characters with it because then suddenly that terror will be turned on the player characters where they ... you know, the dwarf with her darkvision is looking in a room, it's like, "All clear." But they don't know that that Gloom Stalker is just standing there, normally in plain sight.

Todd Kenreck: Does the Gloom Stalker get their magic from a Shadowfell or where does it come from?

Jeremy Crawford: So, we leave it open in terms of where the ranger's magic comes from, because this ranger could be created to have associations with the Underdark, they could be created to have associations with the Shadowfell. I can also imagine using the Gloom Stalker to create a ranger in an urban setting. One who is adept at sneaking in alleys and going into darkened buildings and who is drawing their magic, maybe, from the urban environment itself. So, it's a very versatile ranger in terms of what you can do with it. Story wise, it's just the through line, no matter what kind of Gloom Stalker you make, is this is a person at home in darkness and a person who is going to be fantastic at ambushes and who is going to strike terror into other creatures of darkness.

Todd Kenreck: You can find the Gloom Stalker in Xanathar's Guide to Everything on DnDBeyond.com and earn pre-order bonuses as well by clicking on the link in this video description. I'm Todd Kenreck, thank you for watching.