Do you like the Witcher video games? Perhaps the 2004 Van Helsing movie where Hugh Jackman has a repeating crossbow? Do you want to suss out a monster's vulnerabilities, track them to their lair, prepare your defenses, then have an epic confrontation?
If so, you'll want to read on, because we're talking the new Monster Hunter class from Grim Hollow: Player's Guide with Ghostfire Gaming's Creative Content Director, Ben Byrne!
Your Ultimate Pass to Dark Fantasy Adventure
With the Grim Hollow: 2024 Bundle from Ghostfire Gaming, you’ll unlock both the Grim Hollow: Player’s Guide and Grim Hollow: Campaign Guide on D&D Beyond.
Explore new classes like the Monster Hunter, hundreds of new player options, twisted transformations, grim magic, and a fully realized campaign setting steeped in darkness and peril.
The Monster Hunter Class
Monster Hunters are professionals who specialize in defeating monstrous entities that lurk in shadows and threaten the lives of ordinary folk.
These martial combatants live or die by their sword, bow, or hands. They turn encounters against dangerous creatures into hard-fought victories by relying on training, knowledge, and sheer grit.
They don’t have divine magic like Paladins and aren’t in tune with the natural world like Rangers. Fighters and Rogues, while brilliant in combat and often strategically minded, don’t have the same dedicated training that equips a Monster Hunter to stalk and slay the unknown. Monster Hunters spend uncalculable time studying creatures, uncovering weaknesses, and turning that knowledge into lethal precision.
Level 1: Monster Grimoire
Monster Hunters get the Monster Grimoire feature at level 1. This cornerstone feature provides hunters with a catalog of knowledge about their foes, enabling them to gain a strategic advantage.
The Monster Grimoire grows with the knowledge of its wielder. Early on, it sharpens your ability to identify and exploit a creature’s weaknesses, but as you advance, it broadens its catalog of prey, turns knowledge into defense, and even shields you from the special abilities of legendary foes.
At its zenith, a Monster Hunter using the knowledge inside their grimoire can deal a critical blow so precise it can fell the most fearsome monsters in a single strike.
Level 2: Studied Response
Studied Response is another important feature for Monster Hunters. This allows them to turn an enemy’s aggression into opportunity—striking back as a Reaction when an enemy targets them with an attack.
Paired with Weapon Masteries like Vex or damage-enhancing abilities like the Trapper's Elemental Ammunition, this can produce hefty damage each round, even before their Extra Attack enters the picture at level 11.
Level 3: Monster Hunter Guilds
Not all Monster Hunters fight alike. At level 3, Monster Hunters choose their subclass, which represents the style of hunting they devote themselves to mastering:
- Carvers get up close and personal, wielding heavy weapons and armor to take down their foes with brute force.
- Devourers embrace the power of their quarry, consuming defeated foes to gain monstrous traits themselves.
- Occultists study the occult to use and deepen their understanding of eldritch power, and therefore defeat it.
- Trappers lay cunning snares and wield crafted gadgets to weaken prey before moving in for the kill.
Ben's Monster Hunter (Trapper) Build
When building this Monster Hunter, Ben wanted to showcase the extent of this new class's abilities and some synergies that were possible to create a deadly master of preparation and precision.
He chose the Trapper subclass, which has a modular approach to combat, and built around the Trapper's abilities to seed the battlefield with hazards while avoiding up-close combat with their foes.
Survival of the Fittest
Ben imagined that this particular Trapper Monster Hunter was forged through adaptability and grit. He survives in a dangerous world by learning lessons and then employing tactics to put more powerful foes at a disadvantage.
In the world of Etharis, evil is an ever-present force, and only a few have the power and tenacity to stand up against the horrors that stalk the land. One such horror is the Great Beast, a behemoth wreathed in shadows whose rotting, corpse-like body spreads corruption wherever it treads.
While our Trapper was raised in the Bürach Empire, he has dedicated himself to a life of danger. One spent hunting and killing the abominations that spring from the Great Beast's shadow.
Know Thy Foe
When building this Monster Hunter, Ben emphasized the class’s investigative edge. He selected Perception, Investigation, and Nature as the class's skill proficiencies to ensure the hunter could track, identify, and, eventually, exploit his prey's weaknesses.
As this Monster Hunter expands his knowledge and starts encountering different minions of the Great Beast, he adds new monster types to his grimoire. First Monstrosities and Aberrations, then Undead, and eventually Fiends.
Tools of the Trapper
These are the primary facets of a Trapper Monster Hunter that Ben focused on:
Ambush. Ben leaned into the Trapper’s ambusher playstyle. The Human's First Strike feature combines with the Trapper's level 7 Ambusher's Advantage feature so that they can strike first and deal massive damage.
Strike When Your Foe is Distracted. The Opportunist Fighting Style feat adds a bonus to attacks made as a Reaction, which, when combined with the Monster Hunter's level 2 Studied Response and level 5 Expert Strike, creates a vicious combo of deadly and precise strikes.
Weapons of Choice. Ben's Monster Hunter chose the Rapier and Hand Crossbow's Vex mastery properties, which can provide a consistent source of Advantage thanks to the Monster Hunter's Reaction-based Studied Response attacks.
The Master of the Hunt
The hunter crouches in the half-light of a ruined chapel, his hand brushing the pages of a battered, leatherbound journal. Scribbled pictures note the creature's tracks; he compares them to the claw marks etched into the stone walls. The signs are clear—an aberration stalks these halls.
He seeds the ground with weretraps, hidden beneath splintered pews and under cracked floorboards. He loads an alchemical bolt into his crossbow. Then, he waits.
Despite its size and multiple clawed appendages, the horror whispers across the ground like a shadow.
As it enters the room, the hunter is already moving. A flash of red streaks out from his crossbow—a flameshot to target the monster's weakness. The ambush catches the creature by surprise. It swings wildly, but the hunter anticipates the move and lands another critical strike into its unprotected side.
Bleeding badly, the aberration charges its unknown foe, only for the hunter to disappear and reappear behind the beast. It claws at the wooden floorboards to stop its momentum, only to trip one of the hunter's hidden explosives.
The hunter puts two more shots into its prone form to make sure the job is done. Another entry for his grimoire.
Build Information
| Category | Choice |
|---|---|
| Background | Beast Hunter*: Ability Score Increase (+2 Dexterity, +1 Intelligence); Blood Hound |
| Species | Human*: Awesome Critical; First Strike; Weapons Aptitude; Helping Hand; Intrinsic Orientation; Artisanal Focus; Keen Survival; Skill Prowess |
| Ability Scores | Dexterity → Intelligence → Constitution → Wisdom |
| Level | Features |
|---|---|
| 1 | Core Monster Hunter Traits (Perception, Investigation, Nature); Monster Grimoire (Abberration, Monstrosity, Deep Speech); Weapon Mastery (Rapier, Hand Crossbow) |
| 2 | Fighting Style (Opportunist*); Studied Response |
| 3 | Hunting Guild (Trapper): Sneaky and Crafty; Trapper Gadgets |
| 4 | Ability Score Improvement (Dexterity +2) |
| 5 | Expert Strike; Weapon Mastery (Heavy Crossbow) |
| 6 | Improved Monster Grimoire (add Fiends) |
| 7 | Ambusher’s Advantage |
| 8 | Ability Score Improvement (Intelligence +2) |
| 9 | Knowledgeable Defense |
| 10 | Agile Response |
| 11 | Extra Attack; Weapon Mastery (Light Crossbow) |
| 12 | Ability Score Improvement (Feat: Crossbow Expert) |
| 13 | Improved Monster Grimoire (add Undead) |
| 14 | Lair Sense |
| 15 | Monster-Hide Armor (Light); Monster-Hide Armor Modifications (Hardened Defense, Phase Leap) |
| 16 | Ability Score Improvement (Intelligence +2) |
| 17 | Slayer’s Aid; Weapon Mastery (Dagger) |
| 18 | Rapid Tinkerer |
| 19 | Epic Boon (Boon of Combat Prowess + Intelligence) |
| 20 | Grave Strike |
* Located in the Grim Hollow: Player's Guide
Hunt Your Foes
The new Monster Hunter class is but a small taste of what awaits in the dark fantasy world of Grim Hollow. The Grim Hollow: 2024 Bundle, now available on D&D Beyond, opens the gates to Etharis—a grim land where survival is never guaranteed and power always comes at a cost.
On top of the Monster Hunter, you’ll find 40 new subclasses and 40+ feats, twisted transformations, grim magic, a setting teeming with peril, and more. Whether you want to step into the boots of a monster slayer to stand against evil or succumb to the dark whispers, this bundle gives you everything you need to descend into the shadows and carve your legend.
Mike Bernier is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his girlfriend, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.
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