Demon Hunter Class

[Creyzi4j]

What do u guys think of the demon hunter class?
Is it OP or weak?
Any good builds for it?

[Maxilian]

No idea what you talking about, new UA?

[jaappleton]

There was no UA yesterday.

So... What the hell are you talking about? My interest is piqued.

[King539]

Maybe this? (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Demon_Hunter_(5e_Class))

[JackPhoenix]

Pact Magic with 9 spell slots refreshed on short rest (scaling up to 7 instead of warlock's 5?), better smite than paladin and expertise available at level 1 and way better Crossbow Expert at level 2. Yeah... no. Didn't even had to read beyond that.

It's from dandwiki, so it is to be expected that the "best build" for this is "never use it"

Someone played too much Diablo 3

[Maxilian]

Pact Magic with 9 spell slots refreshed on short rest (scaling up to 7 instead of warlock's 5?), better smite than paladin available at level 1 and expertise. Yeah... no.

It's from dandwiki, so it is to be expected that the "best build" for this is "never use it"

Yeah, i'm still unsure who keeps making all this OP class and races to add to DnDwiki

[jaappleton]

It's from dandwiki

And that's when you know to NEVER use it, because it'll make a Lore Wizard look underpowered :smallbiggrin:

[KorvinStarmast]

Someone played too much Diablo 3
I am not sure that is possible. :smallbiggrin: (Yeah, this morning I spent a few minutes adding some levels to my Season 10 Demon Hunter, as I've decided that he gets the season rewards rather than my crusader or witch doctor. It's Marauders, and I've never put that whole set together before).

[Mortis_Elrod]

oh my lanta. What is this? You know im never one to say something is op with a cursory glance but.. im sorry. Whoever made this is insane if the don't think it's OP. Way better smite, better pact magic than THE pact magic class, a better devil's sight, a level 6 asi (seriously?) and thats not even a fraction of it. i think i saw one of the archetypes has an even better Agonizing blast, one that at level 13 you add DOUBLE your cha bonus to the damage...... im just going to stop reading.


Its OP. and thats putting it lightly.

[Waterdeep Merch]

It's a rather excellent edgelord Mary Sue class. One of the best I've seen, really. Here are a combination of class features it doesn't need from classes that it can use better than them, a background flavor that encompasses every edgy character ever created during grade school lunch, and that sort of insane logic of 'of course it's strong because it should be, isn't that awesome?'.

If I may make some adjustments- it really should have a d12 hit dice due to the angelic/infernal blood, wisdom save proficiency because you can't control them, and some kind of unique weapon proficiency. Maybe a demon blood katana or something?

And as a nickpick, how do you gain thieves' tools proficiency for multiclassing into the class but don't gain it natively? A bit of an oversight I suspect, seeing as how tightly knit the class is otherwise.

[Bloodcloud]

Soooo ridiculously OP. You can tell whoever made it got bored by the time he got to archetype, cause the wording really gets all over the place.

If a player came to me with this clas, I would kick him out of the game here and there. Period.

[Maxilian]

OP don't feel bad, we are destroying whoever made the class, not you, just have in mind (for future reference), that Dndwiki stuff is not well received in most tables (because they are almost always way too good)

[Bloodcloud]

OP don't feel bad, we are destroying whoever made the class, not you, just have in mind (for future reference), that Dndwiki stuff is not well received in most tables (because they are almost always way too good)

I do second OP. From your join date I assume you are pretty new, so I don't hold it against you at all, the player I'm used to are experienced and do know better though. But yeah, Dnd wiki should be considered unbalanced by default and unusable through and through. Don't go there. Ever. Except to laugh at ridiculously unbalanced stuff.

In fact, avoid most homebrew. But if you must, check https://www.reddit.com/r/boh5e/. At least they attempt balance and people review what is posted there.

[Waterdeep Merch]

OP don't feel bad, we are destroying whoever made the class, not you, just have in mind (for future reference), that Dndwiki stuff is not well received in most tables (because they are almost always way too good)

Certainly no offense to the OP, and weirdly little offense to the creator of this complete abomination of game theory. From his discussion pages I can tell he earnestly believes this is a balanced, interesting class. It's fascinating.

I'm seriously considering using this as the basis for an NPC-turned-villain. A beautiful, beautiful cautionary tale for my players about the dangers of ill-conceived generic roleplaying and terrible balance. Two of them wish to be DM's. I will let them experience true horror.

[jaappleton]

I do second OP. From your join date I assume you are pretty new, so I don't hold it against you at all, the player I'm used to are experienced and do know better though. But yeah, Dnd wiki should be considered unbalanced by default and unusable through and through. Don't go there. Ever. Except to laugh at ridiculously unbalanced stuff.

In fact, avoid most homebrew. But if you must, check https://www.reddit.com/r/boh5e/. At least they attempt balance and people review what is posted there.

There's also r/UnearthedArcana , those guys do their best to check and balance each others work.

Also, I know some find a few of their things a bit on the powerful side (though I haven't seen anything I'd call broken), but overall I think they're pretty good:

Check out the Middle Finger of Vecna.

[MrStabby]

Yeah, don't ever trust internet homebrew. Some is occasionally OK as the authors run out of bad ideas and have to resort to mediocre ideas instead. Read it though, if you want, just be aware that it is almost always worthless as a final product and just use it to see how these things fit together. Once you understand how it works you can make your own that is a) better than you get on the internet and b) specifically made for your campaign worlds and the needs of your table.

[JNAProductions]

This forum tends to have good critiques on homebrew.

[Creyzi4j]

I do second OP. From your join date I assume you are pretty new, so I don't hold it against you at all, the player I'm used to are experienced and do know better though. But yeah, Dnd wiki should be considered unbalanced by default and unusable through and through. Don't go there. Ever. Except to laugh at ridiculously unbalanced stuff.

In fact, avoid most homebrew. But if you must, At least they attempt balance and people review what is posted there.

I did think it was kind of OP. Though I never could tell properly. I just played a paladin oath of conquest lvl 9 where one of my party members played a demon hunter.

The DM kind of forced us to pvp early on. And i couldn't get close to him since he had spear mastery and sentinel. He also had resilience in wisdom and warcaster. I thought it was OP since he had 4 feats = similar to a fighter. Plus some abusive abilities like casting eldritch blast as bonus. I couldn't do anything on our fight.
He said..well it's not too OP since you could kill me in one to two hits (which was true). So I thought..maybe not too OP afterall? But then again..I never got a single hit.
That 3 attribute bonus to lvl 9 is kind OP tho'

[JNAProductions]

I did think it was kind of OP. Though I never could tell properly. I just played a paladin oath of conquest lvl 9 where one of my party members played a demon hunter.

The DM kind of forced us to pvp early on. And i couldn't get close to him since he had spear mastery and sentinel. He also had resilience in wisdom and warcaster. I thought it was OP since he had 4 feats = similar to a fighter. Plus some abusive abilities like casting eldritch blast as bonus. I couldn't do anything on our fight.
He said..well it's not too OP since you could kill me in one to two hits (which was true)

Well, except he has a BETTER SMITE than you do.

And has much better ranged options, which he can do at range.

Yeah, this is a RIDICULOUSLY OP class.

[Anonymouswizard]

Certainly no offense to the OP, and weirdly little offense to the creator of this complete abomination of game theory. From his discussion pages I can tell he earnestly believes this is a balanced, interesting class. It's fascinating.

I'm agreeing here. I'm no paragon for balance myself (in fact I've built intentional imbalance into my homebrew game, it gives a certain feel and the book even recommends how to avoid being underpowered), but the fact someone honestly thinks that this is balanced and interesting as a class is fascinating (and wouldn't 'Demon Hunter' be more of a background anyway?). I'll let my fighter subclasses speak for themselves: one's built around a very specific idea but is meant to be very good at that, and now I look at the other I realise it's still missing an ability (unfortunately it interested me less by the end). But at least I realise I'm not great at this and ask for help.


This forum tends to have good critiques on homebrew.

Agreeing here, it's not perfect and it can be better to wait at least a week to see a revision or two, but I've generally seen decent reviews on homebrew, even when it's utterly borked (as one of mine was years ago, I need to get back to homebrewing).

EDIT: I should mention that while I'm a believer in PEACH, I'm not a believer in constructive criticism. If all I can say is that it's bad and why then I'm going to tell you, under the hope that you understand it better and can fix it. That's why I like uploading my homebrew to GiantITP, if something's just wrong someone will decide not to sugar coat it.

EDIT2: in case anyone who forgets, a weakness that never comes up is not a weakness. It doesn't matter if I die in a hit if you can never get within striking range (ranged attacks and spells mitigate this, but I'm fairly certain I've missed this class's ability that nerfs that).

[Waterdeep Merch]

I did think it was kind of OP. Though I never could tell properly. I just played a paladin oath of conquest lvl 9 where one of my party members played a demon hunter.

The DM kind of forced us to pvp early on. And i couldn't get close to him since he had spear mastery and sentinel. He also had resilience in wisdom and warcaster. I thought it was OP since he had 4 feats = similar to a fighter. Plus some abusive abilities like casting eldritch blast as bonus. I couldn't do anything on our fight.
He said..well it's not too OP since you could kill me in one to two hits (which was true). So I thought..maybe not too OP afterall? But then again..I never got a single hit.
That 3 attribute bonus to lvl 9 is kind OP tho'

I do believe that having some imbalance in your games can be okay, even a good thing. It's alright if you aren't the strongest member of your party, and it's no sin to be the guy that needs saving the most in major fights. So long as you get to do something and everyone's having fun, balance isn't all that important.

That's not to say balance is meaningless. In good game theory, you generally have things balanced enough that there are multiple legitimate tactics and methods that you can utilize to get the result you want. This becomes more prevalent in games with multiple players, and extremely important if you're doing player versus player.

Taking this all into account, I feel your DM might be overlooking how bonkers nuts wow the demon hunter class is. It's bad enough in a normal game, in one featuring PvP it's obscene. It's downsides might as well be nonexistent, as they never actually stop them from performing outside contrived circumstances that are no fun for anyone involved. Like forcing a wizard to file taxes every time they want to cast wish.

Look at the worst offender, the Arcane Devastator. This guy: has fantastic melee options, double charisma and two extra BOLTS on the best attack cantrip in the game, Eldritch Blast, can cast it as a bonus action eventually, more than twice the number of spell slots as a warlock, all the best tools from the Warlock's best subclass (Tome), zero weaknesses from casting while in melee, and capping with the champion fighter's raison d'être. And this is strictly what it's doing within the subclass. Entire classes are less powerful than this subclass alone.

[Bloodcloud]

I do believe that having some imbalance in your games can be okay, even a good thing. It's alright if you aren't the strongest member of your party, and it's no sin to be the guy that needs saving the most in major fights. So long as you get to do something and everyone's having fun, balance isn't all that important.

That's not to say balance is meaningless. In good game theory, you generally have things balanced enough that there are multiple legitimate tactics and methods that you can utilize to get the result you want. This becomes more prevalent in games with multiple players, and extremely important if you're doing player versus player.

Taking this all into account, I feel your DM might be overlooking how bonkers nuts wow the demon hunter class is. It's bad enough in a normal game, in one featuring PvP it's obscene. It's downsides might as well be nonexistent, as they never actually stop them from performing outside contrived circumstances that are no fun for anyone involved. Like forcing a wizard to file taxes every time they want to cast wish.

Look at the worst offender, the Arcane Devastator. This guy: has fantastic melee options, double charisma and two extra BOLTS on the best attack cantrip in the game, Eldritch Blast, can cast it as a bonus action eventually, more than twice the number of spell slots as a warlock, all the best tools from the Warlock's best subclass (Tome), zero weaknesses from casting while in melee, and capping with the champion fighter's raison d'être. And this is strictly what it's doing within the subclass. Entire classes are less powerful than this subclass alone.


I mean, looked it up again... at lvl 5 it has the DPR of a level 17-20 Sorlock AT-WILL. Then it gets much, much worse. It is an assassin/arcane trickster/warlock/sorcerer. Y'ou'd have to gestalt four classes to get to that power level. And at high level it would probably still kill a 4 class gestalt cause it stacks more things together! The spell slots are all for defensive buff cause no damage spell is ever gonna outdamage those eldritch blast! And of course it gets to cast armor of aghatys as a 7th level spell! And if you do manage to hit him, hit back with hellish rebuke! It's not even squishy!

Also, I did not know there was discussion! This is golden! The author is defending the balance!

[jaappleton]

I did a bit of digging, and found this:

https://dnd-5e-homebrew.tumblr.com/post/138790269566/demon-hunter-class-by-sonixinos

It certainly seems more in line with 5E's balance and mechanics. I'm not ready to say "Thumbs up, no issues!", but it shouldn't be totally out of line like the one from DnDWiki.

[Corran]

Also, I did not know there was discussion! This is golden! The author is defending the balance!
Oh please, point me to that discussion. I need a good laugh.

[Bloodcloud]

Oh please, point me to that discussion. I need a good laugh.

It's on the same page, there is a tab you can press up there

[Corran]

It's on the same page, there is a tab you can press up there
Found it, thanks. *Brings out pop corn and starts reading...

[Findulidas]

I think it sad. Somebody really liked the class and thought he did a good job with it. Probably still thinks its a good one.

[CaptainSarathai]

Just use Mercer's Blood Hunter. It's close enough to the feel and flavor, and the guy writes for official material as well. It's about as close to a "stamp of approval" as you'll get.

Personally, I rarely allow ANY homebrewery in my campaigns. If it's in the official book, we can work with it. WotC let enough shenanigans slip through the cracks to keep a powergamer happy for quite a while. The permissive MultiClass rules combined with Backgrounds that actually matter means that you can build and refluff just about anything into whatever vision you have.
Bringing in homebrew just creates opportunity for strife. Whoever invented the homebrew, or brought the homebrew is instantly the dissenter, the outcast, and the target for scorn.
I've had parties jump on me for building characters who would be legal in Adventurer's League play, and I had to go through and show them everything in the books, erratas, FAQs, Sage-Advice columns, that pertained to letting that character do a little more damage (or have more Skills/bonuses/whatever) than they can.
---

Don't get me wrong: I love homebrew. I played Warhammer Fantasy (rip) and spent 2 years homebrewing and play testing an entire army for that game, including making an official-looking 100 page rulebook for the army, publishing it as a .PDF and having a copy officially printed for myself. It looks and plays like an official army. But I had played the game for almost 20 years before writing it, and then spent 2 years testing the balance; I had myself and a playgroup of 10 people, plus an online community playing with/against my homebrew and giving me feedback and metrics for 2 years, before I released it "to the masses." And people still had the knee-jerk reaction to call it trash.

I've written subclasses for D&D and suggested homebrew tweaks to existing classes, to mixed reception. I don't mind homebrew, but bad homebrew ruins it for the rest of us.

[Anonymouswizard]

Just use Mercer's Blood Hunter. It's close enough to the feel and flavor, and the guy writes for official material as well. It's about as close to a "stamp of approval" as you'll get.

Personally, I rarely allow ANY homebrewery in my campaigns. If it's in the official book, we can work with it. WotC let enough shenanigans slip through the cracks to keep a powergamer happy for quite a while. The permissive MultiClass rules combined with Backgrounds that actually matter means that you can build and refluff just about anything into whatever vision you have.
Bringing in homebrew just creates opportunity for strife. Whoever invented the homebrew, or brought the homebrew is instantly the dissenter, the outcast, and the target for scorn.
I've had parties jump on me for building characters who would be legal in Adventurer's League play, and I had to go through and show them everything in the books, erratas, FAQs, Sage-Advice columns, that pertained to letting that character do a little more damage (or have more Skills/bonuses/whatever) than they can.

Eh, it's fair, I personally tend to run whatever game I'm running with an 'official books' policy (generally more restrictive, 'official books I own'). It's just to make it easier to track all the parts. I also go with 'books and errata only' just to avoid having too much to look up.

On the other hand if I like the game I'll be very likely to pick up a supplement or two, so there's generally a decent wealth of options, and I'm willing to read anything friends let me borrow. I'll also check homebrew if asked to, but the rule is always 'no unless I say so'.

But I've had bad experiences with 'anything goes, even homebrew' games. In my experience GMs likely to run those aren't very good at balancing encounters (either making everyone bar the sorcerer useless or forgetting the action economy).


Don't get me wrong: I love homebrew. I played Warhammer Fantasy (rip) and spent 2 years homebrewing and play testing an entire army for that game, including making an official-looking 100 page rulebook for the army, publishing it as a .PDF and having a copy officially printed for myself. It looks and plays like an official army. But I had played the game for almost 20 years before writing it, and then spent 2 years testing the balance; I had myself and a playgroup of 10 people, plus an online community playing with/against my homebrew and giving me feedback and metrics for 2 years, before I released it "to the masses." And people still had the knee-jerk reaction to call it trash.

I've written subclasses for D&D and suggested homebrew tweaks to existing classes, to mixed reception. I don't mind homebrew, but bad homebrew ruins it for the rest of us.

Well it sounds like you put more effort into it than Games Workshop used to.

(I feel nostalgia for my Warhammer Fantasy days, I loved the game and how it focused on units over dudes, wish it was still going so I could make an Empire army)

[Waterdeep Merch]

Eh, it's fair, I personally tend to run whatever game I'm running with an 'official books' policy (generally more restrictive, 'official books I own'). It's just to make it easier to track all the parts. I also go with 'books and errata only' just to avoid having too much to look up.

On the other hand if I like the game I'll be very likely to pick up a supplement or two, so there's generally a decent wealth of options, and I'm willing to read anything friends let me borrow. I'll also check homebrew if asked to, but the rule is always 'no unless I say so'.

But I've had bad experiences with 'anything goes, even homebrew' games. In my experience GMs likely to run those aren't very good at balancing encounters (either making everyone bar the sorcerer useless or forgetting the action economy).



Well it sounds like you put more effort into it than Games Workshop used to.

(I feel nostalgia for my Warhammer Fantasy days, I loved the game and how it focused on units over dudes, wish it was still going so I could make an Empire army)

I'll listen to my players if they want to play some kind of homebrew. Half the time, I direct them to a method of building their character within the system that accomplishes their ideal. About a quarter of the time, I have to call them out on munchkinry and tell them they can't just take on an overpowered race/class/whatever that would invalidate other players (back in the 3.x days this often would include a lot of official material as well).

That last quarter varies based on what I see and how strongly I feel I grasp the system in question. If I still don't feel like I have a good feel for the balance in it, I'll say no on those grounds. If I'm confident, I'll make an educated estimate on it's balance and tweak if needed.

I'm all for letting players play the way they want, so long as it isn't some ridiculous Mary Sue power fantasy. I've designed three completely homebrewed classes in 5e so far, and field tested two of them with another DM's permission. I err on being underpowered.

Also, I gotta pour out a forty for my homeboys in Ulthuan. We had some good times before the End.

[Yagyujubei]

I did think it was kind of OP. Though I never could tell properly. I just played a paladin oath of conquest lvl 9 where one of my party members played a demon hunter.

The DM kind of forced us to pvp early on. And i couldn't get close to him since he had spear mastery and sentinel. He also had resilience in wisdom and warcaster. I thought it was OP since he had 4 feats = similar to a fighter. Plus some abusive abilities like casting eldritch blast as bonus. I couldn't do anything on our fight.
He said..well it's not too OP since you could kill me in one to two hits (which was true). So I thought..maybe not too OP afterall? But then again..I never got a single hit.
That 3 attribute bonus to lvl 9 is kind OP tho'

your DM failed from the second he let someone play that class tbh

[Consensus]

I've designed three completely homebrewed classes in 5e so far... I err on being underpowered.
In my opinion homebrews that aren't x class fixes should be, by and large. They should be ways to fulfill an otherwise impossible character concept, not for power grabs. I don't even know why someone would want to play any overpowered homebrew in a team game, as since you requested this non-offical thing to be added, and you're invalidating other players contribution to combat. It seems like that would just feel like you cheated at the game, and in my opinion sure it's fun for a bit but that gets old fast, you never really work hard for something, or if you do then the other players must be screwed over to make it hard for you (which would be way too hard for them)

[Waterdeep Merch]

In my opinion homebrews that aren't x class fixes should be, by and large. They should be ways to fulfill an otherwise impossible character concept, not for power grabs. I don't even know why someone would want to play any overpowered homebrew in a team game, as since you requested this non-offical thing to be added, and you're invalidating other players contribution to combat. It seems like that would just feel like you cheated at the game, and in my opinion sure it's fun for a bit but that gets old fast, you never really work hard for something, or if you do then the other players must be screwed over to make it hard for you (which would be way too hard for them)

I absolutely agree, and it's led to problems with certain players of mine in the past that are too focused on winning D&D. My game design mantra when homebrewing is to only create when it is necessary. As such, each class I've tried designing since 3.x has hinged on a unique function that otherwise doesn't exist in the game.

Drifting further off topic, this is actually my primary problem with the ranger class. They don't behave all that differently from a fighter, really. Barbarians get their rages, paladins get smites, monks get ki abilities, rogues get sneak attacks, fighters are the baseline from which all martials are judged, and rangers... get a handful of okay buffs and otherwise auto-attack like a fighter with little variation, barring the beastmaster. It's not that I think they're all that bad, it's that you can mimic it's primary combat functions with 5 levels of fighter, and it's utility with a few in druid or rogue. They really ought to have a fun, unique mechanic.

[Anonymouswizard]

In my opinion homebrews that aren't x class fixes should be, by and large. They should be ways to fulfill an otherwise impossible character concept, not for power grabs. I don't even know why someone would want to play any overpowered homebrew in a team game, as since you requested this non-offical thing to be added, and you're invalidating other players contribution to combat. It seems like that would just feel like you cheated at the game, and in my opinion sure it's fun for a bit but that gets old fast, you never really work hard for something, or if you do then the other players must be screwed over to make it hard for you (which would be way too hard for them)

When I homebrew for an existing game it tends to be 'oh, spell/power/feat that lets you do amazing and unusual thing that player wants X isn't in the game, I'll just add that in'. The dividing line between 'roll for it' and 'I'll homebrew a feat' is vague, but roughly if it's 'I throw Bob' then roll for it, if it's 'I want the ability to teleport small objects' it's homebrew.

I also don't get power gaming. I optimise, sure, because I don't want to be dragging the group down, but if I'm not trying to be 'the best [concept] I can while still being useful' what's the point? Will the game be as fun if I don't have to struggle? Do I want to hog the spotlight and be better than everyone at everything? For me the answer is no for both.

(On the other hand, I also love running games, and sort of collect settings, my next game won't be 5e because the setting I want to run needs to keep PCs relatively squishy to work thematically [as well as decent 'sanity' mechanics], and the one after that will be 2e because the setting is lower magic than 5e)