Analysing and rating all the monster hunting subclasses from Heliana’s Guide
Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting is a 600-page third-party sourcebook that introduces a wealth of spells, subclasses, races and even a structure for hunting and harvesting monsters.
This guide covers the new subclasses provided in the book, breaking down their key abilities and how effective they are in general.
The subclasses included are:
- Bard (College of Cuisine) – A chef bard who feeds and buffs the party with magical treats.
- Bard (College of Fleshweaving) – A super surgeon who wields a magical needle and thread to shift their own shape and heal others.
- Cleric (Hunt Domain) – A hunter priest who marks prey and outflanks enemies with tactics.
- Druid (Circle of the Hive) – A druid who shares their body with a swarm of bugs.
- Paladin (Oath of the Harvest) – A healer paladin built around sustaining and protecting the party.
- Ranger (Trapper) – A trap setting ranger who rigs the battlefield with magical and physical obstacles
- Sorcerer (Skinshifter) – A mutating sorcerer whose spellcasting triggers wild bodily transformations.
- Warlock (The Parasite pact) A warlock bonded to an alien parasite that manifests as a living weapon.
Bard: College of Cuisine
What are they?
College of Cuisine Bards channel inspiration through food, creating magical treats that buff allies in combat and eventually command the battlefield like a master chef in a busy kitchen.
Key abilities
Culinary Exploration (3rd level): Proficiency with cook’s utensils as a spellcasting focus, tied to the crafting system. However if you’re not using the crafting rules as laid out in Heliana’s Guide, this feature mostly doesn’t do much.
Petit Fours (3rd level): You create magical treats, each carrying a buff flavour, and can teleport them to allies within 60 feet as a bonus action – who eat them as a reaction.
This is the main ability of the subclass and the key play. If you keep all the treats in your character’s inventory and teleport them out, your whole party benefits without spending their own actions or bonus actions. The sour treat in particular seems really useful – it adds Bardic Inspiration die worth of acid damage to all weapon attacks which works well with characters who make multiple attacks. Umami is a useful option to boost the AC of an ally by +2, but Bitter and Salty snack are a little more situational.
Sweet treats are the only ones that last an hour rather than until the end of next turn, making them useful for pre-combat buffing. Everything else is designed to be used at that moment.
Culinary Specialisation (6th level): Choose a culinary style at 6th level that defines your combat role, choosing between a more resilient melee role or leaning into spellcasting. It’s a clever piece of design that makes the subclass feel flexible to the needs of the player. Generally Patissier is the best of the options so you can double down on the strengths of the bard rather than trying to generalise.
Executive Chef (14th level): When a creature uses your Bardic Inspiration or eats a treat, you can shout encouragement for free, letting them use their reaction to attack or move.
This is where the subclass becomes more powerful. At 14th level you have upgraded to +5 Charisma modifier, meaning you can make five treats per rest.
You could teleport all five in one bonus action, every party member eats as a reaction, every one of them gets a free weapon attack, and you still get the rest of your turn. For a rogue, that could even be a Sneak Attack. For a paladin, that could activate Divine Smite. The fact that this refreshes on a short rest makes it a reliable combat tool to be used as often as possible rather than saving it for later.
What are they good at?
Action economy manipulation and supporting allies.
How effective are they?
Surprisingly effective in combat for a subclass built around cooking. The Petit Fours system is genuinely clever, the action economy optimisation ceiling is high. The Executive Chef feature seems very powerful in combination with abilities like Divine Smite or Sneak Attack, so a point where some DM’s may take issue.
The only real limitation is that the Culinary Exploration feature goes unused if your table ignores the crafting rules – but that barely registers against everything else on offer.
Score: 5/5
Bard: College of Fleshweaving
What are they?
Fleshweaver bards are a bit like a battlefield surgeon – though the flavour of sewing needles and flesh certainly leans into a grimdark aesthetic. Mechanically, the subclass is built almost entirely around a magically boosted spiritual weapon: a giant needle and thread you wield and enhance with Bardic Inspiration.
Key abilities
Malleable Visage (3rd level): Surgeon’s tools as a spellcasting focus, plus a concentration-free version of alter self limited to Change Appearance. Alter self normally requires concentration, which is a bit of a drawback. Getting a concentration-free version – even limited to Change Appearance, is a real upgrade for sneaking about or social encounters. It’s not a combat feature, but it’s a reliable ability to have and can be used more often than you think. As a Bard your character will probably have leaned into charisma a lot and thus will be in ideal position to capitialise on situations where you are trying to fool NPCs with your disguised visage.
Suturer (3rd level): Spiritual weapon as a free spell, with Bardic Inspiration spent to trigger escalating effects through it, like restraining targets, granting temp HP, or paralysing enemies.
This is the base of the subclass. You’re trading Bardic Inspiration for a bigger effect rather than handing it to a player – this plays a little differently than you might expect from a Bard but offers good rewards. A restrained target gives your party advantage on attacks, or a paralysed target triggers free critical hits on it for one round.
Ritual Reskin (6th level): A 10 min ritual granting you and allies one physical adaptation each, including things like underwater breathing, initiative advantage and temporary HP.
This is a solid pre-combat buff, but the 10 min setup time means it’s only useful when you know a fight is coming. Most of the options are genuinely helpful like Owl’s Sight, that gives your party advantage on initiative and Fish Form to help even the odds in underwater battles. But the timing is awkward.
Soulsew (14th level): Creatures who use your Bardic Inspiration or fail saves against your needle become magically tied to you, letting you teleport to them or swap places as a bonus action.
This is a flexible mobility tool, teleporting to an ally to protect them or flanking an enemy is useful, even at these higher levels.
The problem is that this comes online late and you might expect something more directly impactful at this stage in the game. This is effectively a long range misty step that has less choice over destination and could fail which is a bit flimsy for a 14th level feature.
What are they good at?
Debuffs through the spiritual weapon and pre-combat buffs.
How effective are they?
A passable subclass as a genuine attempt to try something different with the class but doesn’t feel special in the grand scheme of Bard subclasses. The spiritual weapon augmentations are its best abilities. Ritual Reskin rewards good preparation, even if it’s a bit restrictive in timings. Soulsew is a late but interesting mobility tool. Its a fun theme for a subclass, but there are better options for the Bard in your party, even in this book.
Score: 3/5
Cleric: Hunt Domain
What are they?
Hunt Domain clerics are trackers, scouts, and predators with a divine twist. Think worshippers of hunter gods like Artemis or Mixcoatl and you are on the right track
Key abilities
Mark Prey (1st level): This is effectively concentration-free Hunter’s Mark – one of the best features a Ranger gets, given to a cleric with no restrictions. The value of this feature for multiclassing is worth considering, but even as a pure cleric it’s a strong low maintenance damage boost.
Channel Divinity: Honed Instincts (2nd level): You can learn a target’s saves and resistances, and guarantee maximum damage on your next weapon attack against them.
The guaranteed maximum damage on your next weapon attack turns any decent hit a big deal, and any multi-dice hit (Smiting or Sneak Attacking if multiclassing) into an alpha strike.
Pack Hunter (6th level): As a reaction you can share your mark’s bonus damage or let an ally evade an attack before it lands by moving out of reach. The damage boost is minor (1d6) but the prevention of an attack and maybe follow up attacks is almost certainly more, possibly by a fair bit. The damage boost is pretty minor (1d6) but the prevention of an attack and maybe follow up attacks is almost certainly the more useful of the two.
This seems like a useful defensive tactic that is very good in fights with one big enemy.
Unflinching Mark (8th level): Mark Prey’s bonus damage increases at 8th and 14th level, interacts with the damage increase component of pack hunter and makes your channel divinity maximum damage more potent.
Rite of the Hunt (17th level): Force your marked target to make a Wisdom save, if it fails, make them focus on you or keep them at a distance. You’re effectively deciding whether the most dangerous creature on the battlefield focuses on you or stays away. Again, a useful control element for this subclass. Not the most explosive ability but will be used often and probably will always come in very useful.
What are they good at?
Free bonus damage weapons attacks, enemy intelligence
How effective are they?
The class is quite mixed, not only does it pull the Cleric into an attacking role, which is a little ill suited for, but it doesn’t really compare to other melee combatants in terms of power.
The main limitation that comes to mind is the lack of extra attack, so while there are some cool finesse abilities here, it’s not the most explosive subclass and could be more grindy and consistent instead. But attackers need to be more explosive to be worth their spot in the party. Really great as a multiclass option though, you get a lot for minimal level investment.
Score: 2/5
Druid: Circle of the Hive
What are they?
Circle of the Hive druids share their body with bugs – that live within their skin, hair, and clothing. The flavour is interesting, as a living insect nest with pets that are more than willing to help in a fight.
Key abilities
Swarm Shape (2nd level): Wild Shape can now become a swarm of creatures (normally a restriction). Swarms are surprisingly durable for their CR, so this adds a bit to the Wild Shape ability.
Symbiotic Biosphere (2nd level): Activate as a bonus action to retaliate with poison damage against melee attackers for one minute.
This is the subclass’s main battle feature, and it’s a bit problematic. The damage type is poison – the most commonly resisted damage type in the game. And you are a druid, a class which is most powerful when concentrating on a spell and not getting hit (outside of Circle of the Moon Druids).
Getting hit while concentrating means concentration checks. Using this feature to deal 2d6 poison damage to an enemy once per round is rarely worth the risk of losing the hypnotic pattern or insect plague you were holding in place. A good feature on the wrong type of build.
Protect the Monarch (6th level): A reaction that reduces incoming damage by a set amount while Symbiotic Biosphere is active. This is triggered on any damage rather than just the melee attacks that usually trigger the symbiotic biosphere. The reduction from this is enough to potentially prevent damage (and thus avoid a concentration saving throw), so it’s an improvement on the last feature.
Honeydrenaline (10th level): Send your swarm to a willing creature within 30 feet to restore hit points and grant free movement without opportunity attacks. This is the most straightforwardly useful feature in the subclass, solid healing and a free escape option in one move.
This is similar to casting healing word at level 2, plus offers the safety from opportunity attacks, which is quite good for evacuating a friends from danger. Also, this does not use a spell slot so leaves your action available for casting a spell.
Swarmsense (14th level): A combo of blindsight, tremorsense, poison resistance and immunity, and advantage on concentration saves and initiative. This is a good package, though concentration advantage is ironic given how often this subclass puts you in the position of making those rolls in order to activate the Symbiotic Biosphere.
What are they good at?
Mixing it up between close and range combat, varied wildshaping.
How effective are they?
The subclass has a structural problem: almost everything that makes it distinct requires you to be in melee, but the spell list and general druid class push you toward concentration spells that you can’t afford to lose.
If you’re concentrating on a hypnotic pattern and an enemy hits you, the subclass feature deals a small amount of a commonly resisted damage type in the game back at them, which hardly seems worth the risk. The hive theme is cool, but the mechanics don’t really synergise with how the class functions.
Score: 2/5
Paladin: Oath of the Harvest
What are they?
Oath of the Harvest Paladins are nurturers first and combatants second. They feed the wounded, aid allies, and prefer to offer enemies the chance to change before delivering judgment. This is the Paladin as more of a healing support character.
Key abilities
Channel Divinity (3rd level): Two options: Vow of Sustenance grants a creature temporary hit points each turn for a minute; Share Vitality lets you take necrotic damage to heal up to four nearby allies for half that amount.
Vow of Sustenance is pretty reliable, at +4 or +5 Charisma, it will grant 8-10 temporary hit points every round accumulating quite a lot across a full fight. Share Vitality scales with party size in a way that can feel either powerful or a bit irrelevant depending on your table – at its best it’s a great burst of healing, but in a smaller party it mostly just redistributes damage without a big gain overall.
Aura of Rejuvenation (7th level): Allies within 10 feet regain bonus hit points whenever healed, and an extra hit point per Hit Die spent on short rests.
The most effective use of this is with Aura of Vitality, which already heals 2d6 as a bonus action on each round, by combining both becomes 3d6.
Host of Heroes (15th level): A feast that grants Constitution save advantage, poison resistance, frightened immunity, and temporary hit points to up to ten creatures for eight hours.
This is a lot like Heroes’ Feast, but without the Wisdom save benefit. However it is cheaper and without using a 6th-level slot. It stacks with the real Heroes’ Feast if a Bard or Cleric also provides it, which makes for one extremely well-fortified party. Not a bad way to use downtime.
Avatar of Nourishment (20th level): For one minute per long rest, heal nearby allies each turn, cast revivify as a bonus action without a slot, and grant damage resistance as a reaction. At 20th level the revivify and reactive resistance features are very powerful to sustain your allies, even if most parties never reach this level.
What are they good at?
Sustained party healing, temporary hit point generation, and amplifying healing spells through the aura.
How effective are they?
This is a specialised subclass with quite a strong identity. It doesn’t make your smites better or give you anything offensively, but it leans into the healer/support role well.
If you’re playing the party healer in a group full of martial characters, this subclass makes that role feel really functional. If you’re looking for a Paladin that hits harder or brings more versatile utility, look elsewhere.
Score: 3/5
Ranger: Trapper
What are they?
Rather than an expanded spell list or a handful of passive bonuses, the Trapper gets an entire new Ranger toolkit of traps that you build, and deploy. This is a subclass for a specific kind of player: one who likes to plan, but with a little investment you get one of the more effective Ranger subclasses.
Key abilities
Trapped Weapons (3rd level): Augment a weapon or ammunition after a rest with concealed elemental damage that triggers once per turn. Not too fancy but will be used constantly to top up all your damage – even from traps.
Set Trap (3rd level, and scaling): The core feature of the subclass, a growing table of physical and magical traps that can be learned across multiple levels. This includes everything from bear traps to a concentration-free version of the spell Entangle. Physical traps take an hour to build, while magical ones magically reset daily.
One important note – traps deployed in combat are thrown as an action but arm at the start of your next turn. This means enemies who see them can move away before triggering them. Outside of combat, when you can rig an area in advance the trapper is exceptional though. Concentration-free entangle and spike growth alone are really strong and leave your Ranger to maintain concentration on Hunter’s Mark.
Higher-level options like Gravity Well and Banisher are great for controlling a whole group of enemies.
Trapper’s Avoidance (7th level): No damage on successful saves against trap effects, and trap attacks against you have disadvantage. Basically you’re not going to detonate your own bear trap.
Leave No Trace (11th level): Spend a spell slot when deploying a trap to make it invisible on release, with disadvantage on saves for physical traps. This is the feature that makes combat trapping actually work, an invisible, unknown trap that enemies are less likely to avoid. As an extra you also learn the invisibility spell, a powerful addition for a sneaky attacker.
Booby Trap (15th level): Augments your body with one of four effects that trigger when hit or dropped to zero, including; shocking attackers, spraying acid or exploding for fire damage. Quite fun to trap your own body but not hugely damaging.
What are they good at?
Preparation-based battlefield control, crowd control effects
How effective are they?
The Trapper rewards preparation but is not too flexible. In a campaign that gives you time to research and scout an area before a fight, this can feel like an S tier subclass. In a dungeon delve where combat erupts without warning, the setup cost for traps becomes a bit of tax on your action economy.
The key question isn’t whether the traps are strong, they definitely are – it’s whether your campaign gives you the space to use them properly. With a party that can herd enemies into position, the Trapper flourishes. Alone in a reactive combat, it will struggle. However for the right player in the right campaign, this is one of the more satisfying subclasses in the book.
Score: 3/5
Sorcerer: Skinshifter
What are they?
The Skinshifter is a sorcerer whose body mutates wildly as they cast spells. The subclass introduces a table of 30 body adaptations that trigger randomly at low levels and become more controlled as you gain levels. By 6th level, you are mostly choosing your mutations and by level 18, you’re transforming whenever you likely.
Key abilities
Skinshift (1st level): After casting a spell, roll to potentially trigger a random adaptation from a table, they range from detrimental effects at the low end to flight or damage resistance at the better end. At early levels the trigger chance is low and landing on something bad is much more likely. From levels 1-6, this feature is occasionally interesting and occasionally unfortunate.
Modify Shift (6th level): Add up to half your sorcerer level to the mutation table roll and choose any value within that window. This turns the random table into something more under control and likely to be useful.
Selective Shift (6th level): Spend sorcery points to choose adaptations from the table, lasting 10 minutes each. This is where the subclass really starts to hit its stride, one sorcery point for 10 minutes of flight definitely feels worth it.
Reactive Mutations (14th level): After taking damage, spend a sorcery point as a reaction to gain resistance to that damage type for 10 minutes. You no longer need to anticipate what damage you’ll take – you can just choose to resist it as long as you have the sorcery points to spent.
Shapeshift (18th level): A once per long rest transformation, letting you choose six adaptations simultaneously and granting resistance to incoming damage types as they arrive. It’s quite a nice capstone ability that plays into the theme of the class and pushes it into a new level of power.
What are they good at?
Flexible abilities and damage resistance.
How effective are they?
The Skinshifter has an interesting structure: mostly fun until 6th level, then pretty effective. However, if we are being frank, while it might be fun the first few times you accidentally grab a negative feature, it could be quite frustrating over 6 levels of play.
While the worst outcomes are a temporary vulnerability or a minor AC penalty, nothing that ends encounters or holds back a party, you are also not contributing as much as some others and could start to feel left in the dust by your allies.
You’ll need to manage resources carefully especially if you’re also converting points for metamagic – but for a player who wants to spend one point and simply have wings for the next 10 mins, the value is hard to argue with.
Score: 4/5
Warlock: The Parasite
What are they?
You are host to an alien entity. It manifests through you as weapons, armour, and a living familiar. The Parasite is a melee focused warlock subclass that replaces the Eldritch Blast archetype with a close combat skirmisher. It’s basically a D&D version of the Marvel character Vernom.
Key abilities
Parasitic Weapon (1st level): A reach melee weapon manifested as a bonus action, with Eldritch Invocations confirmed to boost it over levels. You lose range by not building around Eldritch Blast, but you gain melee weapons that can be upgraded and built around. There’s up to 4 attacks available as you gain levels, which puts you on par with a fighter.
Symbiotic Reinforcement (1st level): Charisma replaces Strength for saves, and you can manifest a shield as a bonus action for eventually +3 AC. A melee warlock who can hold a shield and still attack with their weapon arm adds a lot of durability to a class that tends to be a bit squishy.
Liquefied Body (6th level): Transform into liquid form as a bonus action, squeezing through tiny gaps and ignoring difficult terrain for 10 minutes. Situationally useful for exploration and escape, but ultimately not that important. Good flavour though.
Birth Parasite (6th level): Generate a parasitic ooze familiar with hit points that is scaled to your Warlock level. Some useful scout utilities, and works well with Pact of the Chain’s inherent abilities.
Transmit Parasite (10th level): Command your ooze to blow up for necrotic damage and a blinding effect, or attach to an ally to absorb all damage dealt to them. The protection in particular is a strong defensive option.
Virulent Form (14th level): A one-minute transformation increasing size, generating temp HP each turn, improving weapon damage and crit range, plus enabling reaction attacks against anything that hits you. This is really powerful to be used for the length of a battle, especially if it’s crowded, those reaction attacks will add up fast.
Parasitic Leech (Eldritch Invocation): Gain temporary hit points equal to damage dice rolled on a critical hit or a kill with your parasitic weapon. Combined with the shield and regenerating temporary hit points in Virulent Form, this pushes your melee survivability into pretty competitive territory. Not quite at the level of a Fighter or Barbarian, but great for a spell caster.
What are they good at?
Melee combat, pushing and pulling enemies, familiar utility
How effective are they? The Parasite is a strong, cohesive subclass that takes the Eldritch Blast template and swaps it into something melee based.
It’s worth noting that every Pact Boon feels relevant here: Pact of the Blade could possibly stack with the parasitic weapon interactions; Pact of the Chain enhances the familiar; Pact of the Tome offers flexibility when casting spells. The subclass has lots of flexibility even as a melee specialist.
Score: 5/5
Which subclass is best?
There’s a mixture of power levels among the subclasses. I feel though, that the College of Cuisine Bard is the most powerful here. The manipulation at 14th level (teleporting sour treats to your entire party as reactions) seems very effective and satisfying to execute, and the Culinary Specialisation gives the subclass lots of flexibility. At its best a Bard in this subclass will be enabling the party to do more and make their actions more effective.
The Circle of the Hive Druid is probably the weakest choice, with an awkward tension between wanting you to take melee hits and building you as a concentration dependent spellcaster really makes it a tricky choice. It has great flavour though. The Hunt Domain Cleric also seems a bit dysfunctional, asking you to push into melee territory without the foundation of extra attacks to work with. Really, in terms of damage you would just be better using the Cleric’s spells.
Overall, Heliana’s Guide leans toward giving subclasses lots of options and I think that they all at least feel worth consideration for the thematic nature, with a couple being some of the stronger choices for their respective classes. Some however feel a little obligatory in terms of flavour or lacking in power. Generally a mixed bag, with some great options.
