Deep diving into the the highway rider, misfortune bringer & sanguine thief subclasses.
The rogues of Grim Hollow are a grittier bunch than most. Some embody classic roguish archetypes, like the highwayman. Others develop magical capabilities from curses to sangromancers.
The 2024 version of the Grim Hollow Player’s Handbook has 3 rogue subclasses. They are:
- Highway rider – Become adept in mounted combat and wield pistols to become the archetypical highwayman.
- Misfortune bringer – Learn to use curses to bring misfortune to your targets.
- Sanguine thief – Learn the arts of blood magic, becoming a 1/3 caster akin to an arcane trickster.
In this article, I’ll dive into each subclass to provide advice as well as analyse how strong they are and which is the most powerful.
Highway rider
What are they?
Adept with both blackpowder and a mount, highway riders rarely skulk in alleyways to stalk their prey. Instead, they roam the desolate roads and highways, charging down their target astride a horse.
Key abilities
Hair trigger (lv3)
Blackpowder pistols are great so proficiency with them is handy. Especially for a single attack class. Add to this a reaction at the start of each combat to do a bunch of things. An attack will often be the most useful, especially as it can easily benefit from a sneak attack. Moving without provoking opportunity attacks or dodging could also be great too.
Trusty mount (lv3)
Easily grab a steed once each day. This will aid your movement significantly.
Ride them down (lv3)
This allows you to sneak attack even without advantage. Moving isn’t usually problematic so should be regularly available. It means that if you’re dual wielding pistols for example, your bonus action remains free for that attack rather than using it for steady aim. 2 attacks without advantage is usually better than one with advantage.
Horse lord (lv9)
A tougher steed is useful and one that can use your cunning actions even more so. This makes it easier for you to slip out of melee range or get some distance from enemies. It also makes for a very fast steed!
True grit (Lv13)
This affects 22 spells in the Players Handbook and there will be more occasions when constitution saves are required. But basically, your slipperiness when it comes to dexterity saving throws is now applied to constitution saving throws too making you tough to pin down with these types of effects. A really decent resilience feature against some nasty effects.
Desperado (Lv17)
You really only want to use this to attack. Dodging and moving will do you no good when you’re being knocked unconscious anyway, but a shot that could easily be a sneak attack, could be a matter of life or death.
What are they good at?
Using pistols, riding horses and landing sneak attacks with their pistols and while mounted. They also happen to be great for early damage having a first round attack and have a bit of extra resilience too.
How effective are they?
They’re decent. There’s nothing too special here. More it tackles the pragmatism of being a horse rider and a gunslinger in one. Enabling both of these is good, but mounts don’t fare well in dungeons for example, so it’s worth being aware of this.
In reality, I think it does a great job of making the highwayman role a reality making a really solid subclass while not being nullified when not mounted.
Score: 4/5
Misfortune bringer
What are they?
A rare few rogues learn the magical arts associated with misfortune. These curses complement rogue-craft well; after all, another’s misfortune can be your opportunity.
Key abilities
Evil eye (lv3)
Easier sneak attacks on a creature you target with your evil eye can be handy. There are more and easier ways to land a sneak attack now (including steady aim). I suppose the advantage here is you technically shouldn’t need to use your bonus action as much to ensure a sneak attack opportunity, but how often that is will depend how long some focus fire takes to bring down your target.
I kind of feel like this was a more impactful feature in the 2014 rules. Having said that, cursing with your evil eye does have additional benefits from later features.
Misfortunist (lv3)
You can grab a bunch of great debuffs to apply against the target of your evil eye. Jinx pints recharge every short rest so you can usually afford to expend them all in most decent-sized encounter.
There are some really interesting ones in here, like curse of the clumsy which, in the right moment, could basically incapacitate or seriously debuff an enemy for a turn, especially if they rely on movement. At the same time, you’ll get advantage on melee attacks against them for a round. All of this without a saving throw.
Curse of the maimed may not get used much (basically if you roll a 19 to hit). But when it does, you’ve upped your chances of landing a critical hit by 5%. This is especially impactful on a sneak attack!
Curse of the doomed is great for ensuring you land your precious sneak attack. Conversely, curse of the inept will make sure your target misses when you need them to.
Steal luck (lv9)
Prevent advantage with a reaction and regain a jinx point. A really good use of your reaction, especially if you don’t expect to be using your reaction on a sneak attack (which is often difficult to contrive).
Curse caster (lv13)
Bestow curse isn’t amazing, but it is worth 3 jinx points. I’d normally say a sneak attack is a better use of your action, but against a tough enemy, a curse could cause some encounter long debuffs that might work out better.
Improved steal luck (Lv17)
Prevent advantage more often and recharge jinx points more too.
What are they good at?
Cursing their enemies and causing debuffs. They tend to be best against a single target.
How effective are they?
Misfortune bringers are best against single targets, causing problems for enemies and ensuring they can always be landing sneak attacks. There’s a bit of bonus action demand there on a class that’s already quite bonus action heavy. This may mean disengaging for instance, is harder, or dual wielding (though with nick mastery, this can be viable).
Some of the misfortunes are really good, others are more average. I think the ease at which you can debuff targets just about scrapes them in at a 4.
Score: 4/5
Sanguine thief
What are they?
Like arcane tricksters, sanguine thieves combine roguish stealth with magical acumen. But for sanguine thieves, their magical capabilities tend to be a little more brutal, combining bloodied blade with blood magic.
Key abilities
Spellcasting (lv3)
Sanguine thieves are 1/3 casters. This means that they have access to cantrips, but their most powerful spells won’t exceed level 4.
You’ll need a decent intelligence to make this work well unless you only intend to use spells like invisibility or mage hand that don’t require a strong spellcasting ability.
For some advice on what spells to take, you can check out my arcane trickster spell guide as sanguine thieves and arcane tricksters mostly share the same spells.
The exception here is the Sangromancy spells you get from the Grim Hollow Player’s Handbook (and the other wizard spells it adds). A couple of noteworthy spells to consider include:
- Crimson lash: Get a weapon with reach, d8 damage, a better damage type that can be used as part of a dual wield and could be good for an intelligence focused sanguine thief. It’ll also reduce hit points maximum of creatures which is especially deadly when used in conjunction with a sneaky attack (I’d consider that damage from this weapon, though that may not be the RAI in this case).
- Shroud blood: Great for stealth segments or ahead of a combat where you’ll be ducking in and out of being hidden. The fact that you can stay hidden after being exposed could mean you don’t need to use your bonus action for the hide action as much, freeing you up for a bit more dual wielding
Stolen power (lv3)
Its easier for you to make use of Sangromancy spells as you have a pool of Sangromancy dice to fuel these spells rather than expending hit dice. These aren’t as potent as those of the Sangromancer (d12s compared to your d8s), but this is to be expected. Sangromancers are experts in blood magic while sanguine thieves dabble in the arts.
Steal blood (lv3)
Regain a sangromancy die each time you land a sneak attack (at least a few times per long rest). Sneak attacks aren’t hard to come by so this shouldn’t be an issue.
When it comes to healing hit points from these regained Sangromancy dice, this is free on your action economy. I suspect that in many cases, especially at mid to high levels, players won’t be expending all their Sangromancy dice. And even if they do, they’ll be eating into hit dice that would have done the same level of healing anyway. For me, this means that if you’re wounded, and unless you really needed the resources for your blood magic, I’d use these dice for a bit of healing here and there.
Bloody blades (lv9)
While extra critical hit damage is nice, this will only land on 5% of your attacks. However, what this enables more is that you can cast spells with your hands occupied allowing for dual wielding. Grab the nick mastery and you can be doling out 2-3 attacks per turn (depending on what you do with your bonus action). This in turn, increases the odds of landing a critical hit.
Bloodstitch (Lv13)
The equivalent of shatter (a level 2 spell) in damage, but with a larger radius (even if that radius must be around yourself). Gives you some nice AoE capabilities which rogues tend to struggle with.
Bloody exit (lv17)
Dodge a hit, teleport and make an attack all as part of a reaction. Great for surviving high damage attacks. The cost is high though, but remember that the attack deals more damage and, if you’re cunning, you should be able to land a sneak attack (they’re once per turn, not once per round so if the reaction is on someone else’s turn, you can sneak attack then).
What are they good at?
Casting spells alongside being stealthy. Using blood magic. Naturally, with all this magic, there’s a greater capability for things like crowd control and even self-healing.
How effective are they?
Spellcasting on its own is really quite strong. The fact that you get some extra goodies too is a big bonus. Bloody blades is a low key buff here too. It allows you to dual wield while casting spells which is a big buff to your chances of landing a sneak attack, especially with nick mastery in the mix.
Score: 5/5
Which rogue subclass is best?
For me, the high flexibility and spellcasting capabilities of the sanguine thief make them the best rogue subclass from Grim Hollow.
The highway rider is more enabling the fantasy of riding a horse, shooting pistols and robbing people a reality, and while these are great capabilities, it doesn’t necessarily allow this subclass to excel. The misfortune bringer is great against single targets and debuffing, but lacks the kind of flexibility the sanguine thief possesses.
What do you think of Grim Hollow’s rogue subclasses? Let me know in the comments below.
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