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
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.
But power creep sells. I play with a guy who bought Ebon tide for a species, a feat and two magic items. And the DM rolled with it, because he still thinks if its "official", as in on DDB, then it not gonna be broken like homebrew. I hate having to shatter his world, because I'm not even an DM, but my background with game systems makes it easier for me to recognize balance problems. And honestly his brother is a power gamer, he should know by now you don't need homebrew to make a broken build. After all, Silvery Barbs is just ONE spell, and it breaks everything.
I hate to break it to you guys, but "power creep" is easily dealt with.
You don't have to ban any in-game content.
You just have to have a hard rule against powergaming, metagaming, mimmaxing, excessive rules lawyering, &, above all else, SHOWBOATING/trying to "win" where it isn't needed.
Stopping people from copying what they see online is the easiest way to deal with "power creep".
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
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?
Its a mixed bag there for me. There are some subclasses that are interested I would mind testing. Others that are meh. The setting is supposed to be more difficult so I'm not sure how well some of the stuff would balance with a core game.
I hate to break it to you guys, but "power creep" is easily dealt with.
You don't have to ban any in-game content.
You just have to have a hard rule against powergaming, metagaming, mimmaxing, excessive rules lawyering, &, above all else, SHOWBOATING/trying to "win" where it isn't needed.
Stopping people from copying what they see online is the easiest way to deal with "power creep".
That doesn't work, because the type of person who are prone to things will take that personally, and make the whole relationship going forward very adversarial. They will try to skit those rules out of spite. I know I would when a DM tells me not to do something, but defines it as vaguely as "whatever I feel like at the time". No useful boundaries are being defined.
What you need to do is Monkey paw it. Not all GMs are up for this, because its essentially a long con that has at least some risk of collateral damage. Newer GMs in particular don't have the precision to create a measured response to re-balance the game, so it may feel sloppy at first. But hear me out.
The vast majority of meta builds are almost entirely focused on DPR, shut down or guaranteeing rolls. You don't need to ban this.... you just need make the game world respond to this overwhelming threat. And unless the players are a group who will back up a friend, no matter how stupid they are acting, typically you'll have the players support by the end of it. Heres what you do.... make a note of EVERY enemy that power player wipes out too fast, or groups nullified way too fast. Make a note of all their behaviors that are excessively cruel or just unhero like. Then make a check mark next to the victories and kills that other people learn about.... either by escaped enemies, or bragging in town. Make this into the player's legend.
At first the towns folk and kingdoms will see them as a hero. But as the bodies pile up, or the cruelty consistent, NPCs start to become cautious of them. Shop keepers are quick to get him out of the store; sometimes even giving lesser items away so they'll move on. NPCs stop asking that player for help, but may still approach the others. NPCs then start lying about quests on a quest board being finished, so the group doesn't try to do it. Attentive players will pick up on this, and may try to reign the problem player in. If it doesn't stop, and that power player keeps trouncing the encounters, intelligent MONSTERS start to become afraid of them. They start to employ explicit counter strategies against the player, and if that doesn't work, monsters just start running at way at the sight of them. Dungeons get more barricades put up to slow the party down, enemies falling into their own traps in a panic, cultist taking more extreme measures KNOWING this character's reputation. The BBGs start trying to recruit the player early into new legs of the adventure. Other adventuring parties come after them! If the Player wants to be a force of nature; make the world react to them like they are one. And if they don't get the message, and reign themselves in...... soft lock the adventure. Let them do something that derails events.
If you want to be very passive aggressive about it, make a bunch of envelopes with things that you suspect will basically stop the adventure from moving forward, and show the players the stack as an indication that you aren't making it up in the moment. And when one of those things happen, you hand the group the envelope. If you have to, expand the pile. The card in it reads the condition, and you explain to them why it messed up events. The first time it happens is usually enough to get the message, if somehow the foreshadowing you've been doing hasn't sunk in yet.
If this sounds like messed up, its because it is. But if they're not able to understand why overdoing it with a min/max build is a problem, you need to SHOW them why it becomes a problem. And you tell them as a GM, you can't constantly keep overcorrecting when that player's build gets out of control. So instead you leaned into that decision of them being a power house, and now the world recognizes them for that. Especially if that power gets abused. And in that whole process, you told a real STORY. You didn't make them be the monster, you LET them become one. The world tried to stop them, and it failed. If that player can't gain introspection from that, I honestly don't know what will. And theres a good chance the other players will agree with you. They had every opportunity to ease up and let the others do things, but they didn't.
Like I said, not ever GM will up for something like this. It requires giving up control, and having a solid understanding of the world and its population. And its not likely to end in a trial like the beginning of Chorno Trigger, where every bad action that the player just assumes was a video game norm, gets thrown back at them as a moral consequence. But if the player is going to make it hard to play with the ball, then the world will slowly withdraw, taking the ball with it. And if that player gets the message before its too late, this should never become a problem ever again.
I hate to break it to you guys, but "power creep" is easily dealt with.
You don't have to ban any in-game content.
You just have to have a hard rule against powergaming, metagaming, mimmaxing, excessive rules lawyering, &, above all else, SHOWBOATING/trying to "win" where it isn't needed.
Stopping people from copying what they see online is the easiest way to deal with "power creep".
That doesn't work, because the type of person who are prone to things will take that personally, and make the whole relationship going forward very adversarial. They will try to skit those rules out of spite. I know I would when a DM tells me not to do something, but defines it as vaguely as "whatever I feel like at the time". No useful boundaries are being defined.
What you need to do is Monkey paw it. Not all GMs are up for this, because its essentially a long con that has at least some risk of collateral damage. Newer GMs in particular don't have the precision to create a measured response to re-balance the game, so it may feel sloppy at first. But hear me out.
The vast majority of meta builds are almost entirely focused on DPR, shut down or guaranteeing rolls. You don't need to ban this.... you just need make the game world respond to this overwhelming threat. And unless the players are a group who will back up a friend, no matter how stupid they are acting, typically you'll have the players support by the end of it. Heres what you do.... make a note of EVERY enemy that power player wipes out too fast, or groups nullified way too fast. Make a note of all their behaviors that are excessively cruel or just unhero like. Then make a check mark next to the victories and kills that other people learn about.... either by escaped enemies, or bragging in town. Make this into the player's legend.
At first the towns folk and kingdoms will see them as a hero. But as the bodies pile up, or the cruelty consistent, NPCs start to become cautious of them. Shop keepers are quick to get him out of the store; sometimes even giving lesser items away so they'll move on. NPCs stop asking that player for help, but may still approach the others. NPCs then start lying about quests on a quest board being finished, so the group doesn't try to do it. Attentive players will pick up on this, and may try to reign the problem player in. If it doesn't stop, and that power player keeps trouncing the encounters, intelligent MONSTERS start to become afraid of them. They start to employ explicit counter strategies against the player, and if that doesn't work, monsters just start running at way at the sight of them. Dungeons get more barricades put up to slow the party down, enemies falling into their own traps in a panic, cultist taking more extreme measures KNOWING this character's reputation. The BBGs start trying to recruit the player early into new legs of the adventure. Other adventuring parties come after them! If the Player wants to be a force of nature; make the world react to them like they are one. And if they don't get the message, and reign themselves in...... soft lock the adventure. Let them do something that derails events.
If you want to be very passive aggressive about it, make a bunch of envelopes with things that you suspect will basically stop the adventure from moving forward, and show the players the stack as an indication that you aren't making it up in the moment. And when one of those things happen, you hand the group the envelope. If you have to, expand the pile. The card in it reads the condition, and you explain to them why it messed up events. The first time it happens is usually enough to get the message, if somehow the foreshadowing you've been doing hasn't sunk in yet.
If this sounds like messed up, its because it is. But if they're not able to understand why overdoing it with a min/max build is a problem, you need to SHOW them why it becomes a problem. And you tell them as a GM, you can't constantly keep overcorrecting when that player's build gets out of control. So instead you leaned into that decision of them being a power house, and now the world recognizes them for that. Especially if that power gets abused. And in that whole process, you told a real STORY. You didn't make them be the monster, you LET them become one. The world tried to stop them, and it failed. If that player can't gain introspection from that, I honestly don't know what will. And theres a good chance the other players will agree with you. They had every opportunity to ease up and let the others do things, but they didn't.
Like I said, not ever GM will up for something like this. It requires giving up control, and having a solid understanding of the world and its population. And its not likely to end in a trial like the beginning of Chorno Trigger, where every bad action that the player just assumes was a video game norm, gets thrown back at them as a moral consequence. But if the player is going to make it hard to play with the ball, then the world will slowly withdraw, taking the ball with it. And if that player gets the message before its too late, this should never become a problem ever again.
Yeah that sounds toxic as hell and a great way to create a totally unhealthy DM v Player environment. How about just talking to players like they're people?
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.
Theres also the astarion’s book of hungers which just came out and has some vampire content. Probably less than grim hollow, but it might be worth a look.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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.
But power creep sells. I play with a guy who bought Ebon tide for a species, a feat and two magic items. And the DM rolled with it, because he still thinks if its "official", as in on DDB, then it not gonna be broken like homebrew. I hate having to shatter his world, because I'm not even an DM, but my background with game systems makes it easier for me to recognize balance problems. And honestly his brother is a power gamer, he should know by now you don't need homebrew to make a broken build. After all, Silvery Barbs is just ONE spell, and it breaks everything.
I hate to break it to you guys, but "power creep" is easily dealt with.
You don't have to ban any in-game content.
You just have to have a hard rule against powergaming, metagaming, mimmaxing, excessive rules lawyering, &, above all else, SHOWBOATING/trying to "win" where it isn't needed.
Stopping people from copying what they see online is the easiest way to deal with "power creep".
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Its a mixed bag there for me. There are some subclasses that are interested I would mind testing. Others that are meh.
The setting is supposed to be more difficult so I'm not sure how well some of the stuff would balance with a core game.
That doesn't work, because the type of person who are prone to things will take that personally, and make the whole relationship going forward very adversarial. They will try to skit those rules out of spite. I know I would when a DM tells me not to do something, but defines it as vaguely as "whatever I feel like at the time". No useful boundaries are being defined.
What you need to do is Monkey paw it. Not all GMs are up for this, because its essentially a long con that has at least some risk of collateral damage. Newer GMs in particular don't have the precision to create a measured response to re-balance the game, so it may feel sloppy at first. But hear me out.
The vast majority of meta builds are almost entirely focused on DPR, shut down or guaranteeing rolls. You don't need to ban this.... you just need make the game world respond to this overwhelming threat. And unless the players are a group who will back up a friend, no matter how stupid they are acting, typically you'll have the players support by the end of it. Heres what you do.... make a note of EVERY enemy that power player wipes out too fast, or groups nullified way too fast. Make a note of all their behaviors that are excessively cruel or just unhero like. Then make a check mark next to the victories and kills that other people learn about.... either by escaped enemies, or bragging in town. Make this into the player's legend.
At first the towns folk and kingdoms will see them as a hero. But as the bodies pile up, or the cruelty consistent, NPCs start to become cautious of them. Shop keepers are quick to get him out of the store; sometimes even giving lesser items away so they'll move on. NPCs stop asking that player for help, but may still approach the others. NPCs then start lying about quests on a quest board being finished, so the group doesn't try to do it. Attentive players will pick up on this, and may try to reign the problem player in. If it doesn't stop, and that power player keeps trouncing the encounters, intelligent MONSTERS start to become afraid of them. They start to employ explicit counter strategies against the player, and if that doesn't work, monsters just start running at way at the sight of them. Dungeons get more barricades put up to slow the party down, enemies falling into their own traps in a panic, cultist taking more extreme measures KNOWING this character's reputation. The BBGs start trying to recruit the player early into new legs of the adventure. Other adventuring parties come after them! If the Player wants to be a force of nature; make the world react to them like they are one. And if they don't get the message, and reign themselves in...... soft lock the adventure. Let them do something that derails events.
If you want to be very passive aggressive about it, make a bunch of envelopes with things that you suspect will basically stop the adventure from moving forward, and show the players the stack as an indication that you aren't making it up in the moment. And when one of those things happen, you hand the group the envelope. If you have to, expand the pile. The card in it reads the condition, and you explain to them why it messed up events. The first time it happens is usually enough to get the message, if somehow the foreshadowing you've been doing hasn't sunk in yet.
If this sounds like messed up, its because it is. But if they're not able to understand why overdoing it with a min/max build is a problem, you need to SHOW them why it becomes a problem. And you tell them as a GM, you can't constantly keep overcorrecting when that player's build gets out of control. So instead you leaned into that decision of them being a power house, and now the world recognizes them for that. Especially if that power gets abused. And in that whole process, you told a real STORY. You didn't make them be the monster, you LET them become one. The world tried to stop them, and it failed. If that player can't gain introspection from that, I honestly don't know what will. And theres a good chance the other players will agree with you. They had every opportunity to ease up and let the others do things, but they didn't.
Like I said, not ever GM will up for something like this. It requires giving up control, and having a solid understanding of the world and its population. And its not likely to end in a trial like the beginning of Chorno Trigger, where every bad action that the player just assumes was a video game norm, gets thrown back at them as a moral consequence. But if the player is going to make it hard to play with the ball, then the world will slowly withdraw, taking the ball with it. And if that player gets the message before its too late, this should never become a problem ever again.
Yeah that sounds toxic as hell and a great way to create a totally unhealthy DM v Player environment. How about just talking to players like they're people?
Theres also the astarion’s book of hungers which just came out and has some vampire content. Probably less than grim hollow, but it might be worth a look.