Ranger Conclave: Gloom Stalker 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Playing a ranger tends to come with at least a tinge of edge; nobody sees Aragorn and thinks that character is entirely above board. Cloaked woodland travelers armed to the teeth come with a bit of mystery, a bit of angst. Gloom Stalker is for all of us out there you take that little bit of angst and just take off running with it, getting as dark and edgy as we possibly can.

Mechanically, Gloom Stalker is a “fixed” version of the Assassin rogue concept. You like working in the dark, striking with advantage on unsuspecting foes, and get mechanics that pay you off for navigating about in the dead of night and setting up successful ambushes. Where it improves from Assassin is all your features still do something when that set tup doesn’t work out as planned.

3rd Level: Gloom Stalker Magic, Dread Ambusher, and Umbral Sight

Gloom Stalker Magic gives you a bunch of free spells that do sneaky, tricky stuff. Disguise Self is your first free spell you get, which is a perfectly reasonable infiltration and espionage tool you’ll be fine using for a couple levels. It doesn’t scale great as the game goes on and you start to get a bunch more potent spells that solve a lot of the problems it does, but early, it’s great.
Dread Ambusher is “fixed” assassinate. In place of just auto critting creatures that haven’t acted in combat yet, you get yourself a boost to initiative, and on your first turn in each combat, regardless of whether or not you surprised some people, you get a bit of extra speed and an extra attack in that round. That attack dealing a bonus d8 is pretty sweet, and will encourage builds where you’re keeping encounters short by picking off enemies one at a time with a flurry of strikes.
Every fight, regardless of environment, will get some benefit from Dread Ambusher. It is the central pillar that this class is built upon. It pays you off for killing things quickly, contributes to that quick killing, but doesn’t cease to function when you’re on the back foot.
Umbral Sight is the final of the three starting abilities you pick up at 3rd level with this subclass, and man, the goodness just keeps flowing. Bonus darkvision is fine and dandy, but gaining the ability to passively turn invisible in darkness to deny creatures with darkvision sight of you is excellent. Umbral Sight gives you a reason to care about keeping things dark, and gives you a reasonable route to infiltrate beyond just spamming Invisibility. It's effective, rewards keeping lights low, and is deeply flavorful. Paired with Dread Ambusher, you’re set up to get the drop on anything from the shadows, not just regular sighted individuals.

5th-7th Level: Rope Trick and Iron Mind

Rope Trick offers you and your friends a quick hiding spot in a pinch. It's a great little spell that is normally locked to wizards. Opening up to Gloom Stalkers definitely will highlight its impact. Sometimes you just need to not be present; Rope Trick is a way to do that when things get rough.
Iron Mind is our first “miss” ability of the lot. Offering a new saving throw proficiency is entirely fine, especially given that Wisdom saves are one of the more common types, but man, this ability just isn’t interesting. It feels out of place to me. Surely defenses against being frightened and ways to leverage that fear would make more sense here. It's not nothing, the ability can be powerful, but it's deeply boring and underwhelming. Not a fan.

9th and 11th Level: Fear and Stalker’s Fury

Fear has and always will be a spell I defend as underused. It's a giant cone of a decent condition that forces enemy actions and disarms them; that’s exceptional. On a ranger, who is getting their 3rd level spells when full-casters are getting access to 5th level spells, it's harder to get excited about. Still, it can provide a powerful effect you’ll want, even if your save DC isn’t all that stellar.
Stalker’s Fury comes in at 11th level as an outrageous ability. It's stupid how good this ability is, and it's not even the capstone. When you’re making 2-3 attacks every round, and you’re hitting ⅔ of the time (ish), rerolling the miss is crazy good. With advantage, this will help you fish for crits, taking misses and giving you potentially two more dice to see a 20 on. Like Iron Mind, though, I don’t see this fitting into the fantasy of the assassin, I don’t get this being on the shady character getting the drop on an enemy or using the darkness around them to their advantage. It's just a crazy powerful generic martial ability stapled to a subclass bloated with other powerful effects.

13th-17th Level: Greater Invisibility, Seeming, and Shadowy Dodge

Greater Invisibility is a spell that delivers this fantasy, though, and in a way that tends to be more powerful on the non-full casters. Being invisible means all of your attacks are being made with advantage, and things that can’t see you have disadvantage on attacks against you. Stick this on top of your extra attack from your Dread Ambusher and any bonus attacks you get when you miss from Stalker’s Fury and you’ve got a recipe for a character with exceptional consistency.
Seeming, then, gives you a tool more aimed at out of combat assistance in a big way. It being a 5th level spell unlocked at 17th level definitely douses most of my excitement for it, especially given that three full caster classes can take it if they want to, but if nobody else in the group has this type of effect, and eight hour long mass Disguise Self is pretty freaking cool.
Shadowy Dodge is the 15th level capstone that is a bit overkill. New reactions are typically great, and while this is no exception, the entire point of the subclass is attacking in darkness, being invisible, and getting the drop on creatures. Shadowy Dodge covers your ass when you aren’t in your desired situation, imposing disadvantage on an attack a round against you regardless of circumstances. That’s a baller feature on basically anyone that can get it, even if it does have to be decided before the roll is known to miss or hit.

All Together

Gloom Stalker all together packs a hell of a punch, and does so while delivering on the sneaky, edgy, “I’m one with the darkness” fantasy it promises. Gloom Stalker Magic is a superb selection of bonus spells to empower them throughout all stages of the game. Dread Ambusher is a feature that will give you a ton of front loaded power that scales well with classic ranger options like Hunter's Mark. Umbral Sight empowers these bonus attacks by giving you advantage on attack rolls against most things while you’re in darkness.

And that’s just where the subclass starts. Iron Mind may be a generic miss, but Stalker’s Fury is completely and utterly outrageous, giving you an unending flurry of strikes with incredible consistency. Topping it out with Shadowy Dodge is likely overkill, and I’d probably stop at 13th level when you pick up Greater Invisibility, but it’s still a great ability in a good chunk of fights where Darkness isn’t given.

I think the one major piece Gloom Stalker ranger is missing is Darkness itself. Without great ways to get Darkness where you want it, you’re going to be encouraged to plan for fights at given times and in specific environments to get the most juice out of the subclass.

If you want to be the ranger sitting in the corner with a dark cloak and chip on their shoulder, Gloom Stalker ranger is a great way to dial up that edge all the way up to 11. It’s a near home-run of a subclass.

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