Does anyone have the Grimhollow books? If so what are your thoughts? Are they good? Are they worth the money? Do they work well with the other 2024 materials?
I cannot speak to their quality of worldbuilding and lore, as I do not use those portions of the books. Regarding the rest, I think it depends on what you want.
I like the monsters in the book - they tend to be a bit stronger and more dynamic than official monsters, which I feel is a good improvement (a lot of official monsters are insufficient to threaten appropriate players for their CR).
Player facing options, like subclasses, species, items, and spells, however, leave a lot to be desired. A significant number of them are power crept beyond official content, often in ways I think are problematic from a design stance (a problem not specific to this third party content - a lot of developers power creep their player options instead of aim for commensurate power with official content). This does mean they technically work with a lot of 2024 materials, but can feel a bit like they eclipse official content due to power creep.
I do use the lore and setting in one of my campaigns and it's a lot of fun if you like grim dark everything is hopeless settings. I especially like the country ruled by vampires where the sun hasn't risen in a century.
As for the power creep Caerwyn mentioned it's definitely there compared to official releases but I usually chalk that up like a lot of third party stuff to them designing to their own settings rather than worrying about whether the content is over powered compared to other settings. The monsters are more powerful and permanent death and injury is a big feature so lets give players a bit more oomph so to speak.
If you're worried about players being over powered my suggestion would be to not buy the Players Guide but to get the Campaign Guide on here for the setting lore and then go to Ghostfire direct to buy the Monster Grimoire for all their monsters (the 2024 Campaign Guide isn't available from them yet, they're still sorting out the kickstarter fulfilment, but the Monster Grimoire is backwards compatible and not planned for an update)
As for the power creep Caerwyn mentioned it's definitely there compared to official releases but I usually chalk that up like a lot of third party stuff to them designing to their own settings rather than worrying about whether the content is over powered compared to other settings. The monsters are more powerful and permanent death and injury is a big feature so lets give players a bit more oomph so to speak.
I will be honest, I see this explanation for the power level jump of players a lot and it seems quite a bit counterproductive to me. Official monsters are not overly threatening - if you follow CR guidelines, your party will generally breeze through fights. Making a world more dangerous by adding challenging monsters makes a lot of sense to me - one of the main reasons I buy Grim Hollow content is so I do not have to start using CR 20 monsters against level 10 parties when I want a solo monster. The fact they also tend to be better designed, with more interesting and unique abilities than official content is a nice boon as well.
Making players more powerful to compensate closes that gap once again, undoing sone of the gains you have from making the world more dangerous. If one wants to play in a deadlier world (be it grim dark or just a more difficult traditional fantasy world), the monsters should be getting stronger, while the players should be designed approximately the same.
So, I would second the suggestion that, if you want your world more dangerous but players not, buy the DM facing content but not the player one. If you also feel comfortable in homebrew, you could also buy the player one for the flavor and use a “third party content may be used with my review, and might be excluded or have its power adjusted to be more in-line with official content” rule - I have never seen a player object to that as a condition, as most players understand the design issues that can come with what is effectively glorified homebrew.
Our campaign is homebrew, we are playing in an undead/vampire dominated world right now. I was actually thinking about the player options as they pertain to the 2024 character builder aspect and how it fits in.
In that case there’s definitely a lot to choose from. There’s about forty subclasses in the book, several of them themed on the subject of blood magic or the undead (including a vampire patron warlock) and they’ve also got a system for monstrous transformations that includes turning into a vampire, although you’ll need to homebrew those as DDB couldn’t implement them on the current site. The power balance isn’t always very consistent but there’s still a lot to enjoy
Does anyone have the Grimhollow books? If so what are your thoughts? Are they good? Are they worth the money? Do they work well with the other 2024 materials?
I cannot speak to their quality of worldbuilding and lore, as I do not use those portions of the books. Regarding the rest, I think it depends on what you want.
I like the monsters in the book - they tend to be a bit stronger and more dynamic than official monsters, which I feel is a good improvement (a lot of official monsters are insufficient to threaten appropriate players for their CR).
Player facing options, like subclasses, species, items, and spells, however, leave a lot to be desired. A significant number of them are power crept beyond official content, often in ways I think are problematic from a design stance (a problem not specific to this third party content - a lot of developers power creep their player options instead of aim for commensurate power with official content). This does mean they technically work with a lot of 2024 materials, but can feel a bit like they eclipse official content due to power creep.
Thank you.
I do use the lore and setting in one of my campaigns and it's a lot of fun if you like grim dark everything is hopeless settings. I especially like the country ruled by vampires where the sun hasn't risen in a century.
As for the power creep Caerwyn mentioned it's definitely there compared to official releases but I usually chalk that up like a lot of third party stuff to them designing to their own settings rather than worrying about whether the content is over powered compared to other settings. The monsters are more powerful and permanent death and injury is a big feature so lets give players a bit more oomph so to speak.
If you're worried about players being over powered my suggestion would be to not buy the Players Guide but to get the Campaign Guide on here for the setting lore and then go to Ghostfire direct to buy the Monster Grimoire for all their monsters (the 2024 Campaign Guide isn't available from them yet, they're still sorting out the kickstarter fulfilment, but the Monster Grimoire is backwards compatible and not planned for an update)
I will be honest, I see this explanation for the power level jump of players a lot and it seems quite a bit counterproductive to me. Official monsters are not overly threatening - if you follow CR guidelines, your party will generally breeze through fights. Making a world more dangerous by adding challenging monsters makes a lot of sense to me - one of the main reasons I buy Grim Hollow content is so I do not have to start using CR 20 monsters against level 10 parties when I want a solo monster. The fact they also tend to be better designed, with more interesting and unique abilities than official content is a nice boon as well.
Making players more powerful to compensate closes that gap once again, undoing sone of the gains you have from making the world more dangerous. If one wants to play in a deadlier world (be it grim dark or just a more difficult traditional fantasy world), the monsters should be getting stronger, while the players should be designed approximately the same.
So, I would second the suggestion that, if you want your world more dangerous but players not, buy the DM facing content but not the player one. If you also feel comfortable in homebrew, you could also buy the player one for the flavor and use a “third party content may be used with my review, and might be excluded or have its power adjusted to be more in-line with official content” rule - I have never seen a player object to that as a condition, as most players understand the design issues that can come with what is effectively glorified homebrew.
Our campaign is homebrew, we are playing in an undead/vampire dominated world right now. I was actually thinking about the player options as they pertain to the 2024 character builder aspect and how it fits in.
In that case there’s definitely a lot to choose from. There’s about forty subclasses in the book, several of them themed on the subject of blood magic or the undead (including a vampire patron warlock) and they’ve also got a system for monstrous transformations that includes turning into a vampire, although you’ll need to homebrew those as DDB couldn’t implement them on the current site. The power balance isn’t always very consistent but there’s still a lot to enjoy
Thank you.