Grim Harbinger Ranger: Crooked Moon D&D 5e Optimisation Guide

Attune with death with this high damage ranger with their own beast companion to command

At a glance

Grim harbinger features

Grim harbinger spells (Lv 3) – 3/5

There are some decent debuffs in your repertoire here. Bane is a solid option while fear gives you an AoE debuff. Hold person is decent for a single target, large debuff.

Intrusive despair is a unique spell to Crooked Moon and it can cause a target to lose their actions on multiple turns. There’s no initial saving throw, instead the target must take that saving throw each turn until it has succeeded 3 times. Although it’s single target, this is quite strong, especially against creatures with legendary resistance as it could easily eat through these with a single spell slot or severely reduce their output for a turn.

Omen of doom (Lv3) – 4/5

This will conflict with hunter’s mark due to the heavy bonus action usage, but I not only think it’s better damage-wise, it also doesn’t consume your concentration allowing you to use more interesting spells.

The initial extra damage on the target is less than hunter’s mark, but then you get a grim that appears that can make it’s own attack and frighten creatures. You can use this feature a lot if you get a decent wisdom (which you really should for this subclass, even just for the quality of your grim).

You’ll likely have to apply this to multiple targets each combat. This is fine because when you command your grim, you can also command it to use a bonus action to use omen of doom to apply this damage boost to a new target. This allows you to keep switching targets while still commanding your grim and because omen of doom regenerates its multiple uses each short and long rest, you shouldn’t run out often.

Harbinger of doom (Lv7) – 4/5

This is mainly a damage increase feature. Your grim’s attacks increase in damage by 1d6, you can make damage against those affected by your omen of doom become necrotic to bypass resistances, and both you and your grim ignore resistances to necrotic damage.

It all means that you should rarely have your damage reduced because of resistances and makes it even more important to ensure your grim is making attacks. Most ranger subclasses get their power increase at level 11 so this kicks in earlier than most.

Grave bond (Lv11) – 4/5

You and your grim get tougher. Your grim benefits more than you as you only get necrotic resistance while it gets bludgeoning, piercing and slashing resistance.

Forcing the target of your omen of doom to reroll saving throw successes can be very potent. It encourages a focus on tough enemies which tends to be a rangers forte anyway. It should allow yourself and allies to disable some of the nastier creature types more often.

Sealed fate (Lv15) – 4/5

Your grim deals even more damage and you have a chance to make the target of your omen of doom to be vulnerable to damage caused by this feature (so damage from your grim and the extra damage it deals). This makes your grim attacks particularly potent against this target.

Again, most ranger subclasses are not getting damage boosts at level 15 meaning the damage scaling for the grim harbinger is higher than for most rangers.

How good is the grim harbinger subclass?

The grim harbinger is kind of an interesting ranger subclass. It sort of follows the beast master approach by bringing an animal companion into the mix. It deviates from other ranger subclasses in a couple of ways though. First, it brings in damage increases earlier and more often making it a bit more powerful than the average ranger.

The second is that they shift away from hunter’s mark a bit by giving a better alternative. Omen of dread won’t enhance your damage by as much as hunter’s mark, but it is more flexible, and scales and enhances with levels. The big thing here is that there’s no concentration requirements, allowing you to use other more interesting spells (or perhaps just hunter’s mark as well, though bonus action demands will be a problem here). I like it better and it does partially resolve perhaps the 2024 ranger’s biggest complaint.

I still don’t think this makes the grim harbinger amazing, but it certainly is rock solid and gets a lot of things right.

4/5

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Building a grim harbinger ranger

Largely, a grim harbinger can be optimised in the same ways as other rangers. If you want a full breakdown on how to do this using D&D 2024 character options, you can check out my ranger optimisation guide.

As this is a Crooked Moon subclass, I’ve just looked at character options in the Crooked Moon book and given advice on which work well for this ranger subclass.

Species/race

I’d consider the following species from Crooked Moon for the grim harbinger:

• Ashborn: Minor illusion and invisibility work well on a stealth class. Melee rangers will enjoy having some extra resilience from fiendish fortune while your scorpion sting is capable of being more powerful than standard attacks. All of this works great for a ranger.
• Azureborn: Flight works great for a scout and a ranged attacker. Improving initiative rolls for the party is great for anyone and bonus action dash and increased flight speed is good for either closing down the gap between enemies or ducking out of combat. A couple of spells are good for a half caster too.
• Bogborn: A kind of hunter’s mark for attack rolls is good for a martial class. You also get self healing, though be aware that these are activated by your bonus action which is already under heavy demand. Some extra resilience is good on a martial too.
• Curseborn: I’d probably only use the unarmed strike for cursing enemies, but this is quite good against high damage enemies that you need to nullify a bit. Otherwise, attacks with weapons are going to be more potent. Survive nasty saving throws (like fireball or banishment) with grey balance. You’ll have disadvantage on attacks rolls for a turn, but passing a saving throw against something nasty will be more important than worse attacks and this can be partially countered with the vex weapon mastery or knocking prone. Perception is always a great skill and I’d probably pick that for a scout, but survival is also decent for you.
• Gnarlborn: You’re mainly here for the bonus action restraining. This will largely nullify an enemy and give you advantage on attack rolls against them. With a high constitution, you should be pretty good at this too. A free skill, being better at resisting being moved or knocked prone, tremorsense and advantage at ending the grappled condition are all pretty decent too.
• Harvestborn: A decent option for this with your d10 hit dice. Means you can easily revive allies on 0HP. Extra damage on some attacks is handy too.
• Plagueborn: Stealth proficiency, resilience against the poisoned condition and debuff enemies with some attacks by reducing their attack rolls a little. All of this works well for rangers.
• Stoneborn: Bless as a bonus action is excellent, as is a dash bonus action to close down your enemies, and you get some extra damage too. You’ll also get a round of resistance against bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage for more resilience and an extra skill proficiency is nice. The traits here won’t get used often, but can be very useful in big fights for a frontline class.

Backgrounds

Unlike the Player’s Handbook, Crooked Moon backgrounds give you a choice of any ability scores to increase. Based primarily on the origin feats and proficiencies, I’d recommend the following backgrounds for a grim harbinger ranger:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Crossroads gambler	Any	Fate gambler	Deception, insight	One kind of gambling set
Druskenvald dweller	Any	Any	Survival and one other	Choose one
Experiment	Any	Altered	Intimidation, medicine	Alchemist’s supplies

As a general rule, the origin feats and skills don’t often both combine into something ideal for a ranger. On that basis, I’d probably say the Druskenvald dweller is probably your best bet here and maybe grabbing altered. But experiment is probably your next best option.

Feats

I’d consider the following feats for a grim harbinger:

• Altered: An unarmed build can work for a ranger, and this is a way to make that work with higher damage. If you don’t have darkvision, that’s important for a scout. Natural armor is a good idea for a dexterity build. It’ll be better than studded leather or medium armor (and won’t harm your ability to sneak). Rangers become good swimmers from level 6, but you could use this to breathe underwater if needed.
• Fate gambler: You should be reducing enemies to 0HP often enough to give a steady supply of heroic inspiration. Temporary hit points will also benefit you, especially if you end up on the frontlines.
• Death defier: You’re a martial, so more resilience is only going to be beneficial, especially when you’re harder to keep down or kill.

More from Crooked Moon

Interested in what else is available from The Crooked Moon? Why not check out some of our other guides?