03/13/2024

Today, I am looking at some of the classes in the Shadowdark supplement: Into the Shadowlands by House DM. It is a 56-page pdf that contains new classes, spells, and optional rules. The book is available on DriveThruRPG. It will take several post to get through all of the items in this book.

Classes:

There are nine classes included in the book. A few of these are repeats of classes that were released in supplements by The Arcane Library but most of them are new. I really wished the pdf had titles for the different levels like the official material. That would have been a nice touch.

The Apothecary Class

“Potion masters, plague doctors, and mad scientists who obsess over unstable concoctions, strange
liquids, odd herbs, and the secret sciences of alchemy.”

The Apothecary gets a few weapons to select from and can wear light and medium armor. The Apothecary cannot use a shield.

The Apothecary does gain an additional language at creation and gains 4 features: Medic, Brew, Bandolier, and Corruptum Incantatem.

Medic: 3/day the Apothecary can cure 1d4+1 HP to any creature that they can touch and they gain Advantage on to stabilize a dying creature.

Brew: 1/Day the Apothecary can brew a Concoction (there is a list) by spending 3GP and using a small fire. There is also a check with a good INT check to brew an extra concoction.

Bandolier: The Apothecary can carry 3 concoctions per inventory slot.

Corruptum Uncantatem: The Apothecary can perform an 8-hour ritual to remove one point of tier-one corruption from another creature. Corruption is a new option that is included in the pdf.

Overall Take: The Apothecary is an overpowered healing machine. At a minimum, they can cure 6HP with a maximum of 23HP (that is with 2 Heal concoctions from a good roll during Brew check). This fact makes the Cleric seem less needed since a Cleric can fail their Cure Wounds spell check and lose their healing ability for the rest of the day. The Apothecary can’t fail to heal.

I like the concept but it should be a die roll to create the concoctions like the “official” Ranger class we reviewed here. That would make the Apothecary more on par with the other classes in the core book.

The Assassin Class

“Swift shadows, subterfuge, and cloth-wrapped scabbards. Expert death dealers while remaining unseen.”

Assassins get a small selection of weapons and can wear leather armor. They gain one common language and one rare language.

Assassins get 2 features: Assassinate and Cloak and Shadows.

Assassinate gives the Assassin the ability to do double damage to any attack that hits an unaware creature.

Cloak and Shadow is a feature that is just a set of skills that the Assassin has Advantage when making checks. The skills are: climbing, sneaking and hiding, applying disguises, and deception. They also have the necessary tools of the trade (lockpicks) secreted on their person (taking up no gear slots).

Overall Take: The Assassin is very similar to the Ros-Godai from Cursed Scroll #2 – Red Sands reviewed here, but the unaware attack is more useful (similar to the Thief). The Assassin’s weapon selection is close to the Thief’s selection. The Assassin also has a talent where they can teleport like the Ros-Godai, but the Assassin is a better overall class.

Keep on gaming!