The Plague Warden (Ranger)
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Plague Warden Ranger
Art Credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gkGVQ
In fantasy worlds with plague-spreading undead and land-corrupting fiends, people must take even more drastic measures to ward off the spread of disease and toxic pollutants. Someone must take up arms to fight off these monsters without succumbing to the noxious miasma that accompanies them, and that role is taken up by the Plague Warden, a subclass for the D&D 5th edition ranger that will be appearing in the second D&D Unleashed homebrew compendium, The Impermissicon. Plague wardens not only offer protection against poison and disease, but also use those forces to augment their ranger magic and their martial prowess, turning poisons and contagions back on their pestilent foes. The subclass’s spells also include a poison spell that also appeared in The Elements & Beyond (our first compendium), and two disease spells that we previewed last week.
The main limitation of the Plague Warden subclass is definitely its reliance on poison damage and the poisoned condition. Of course, the subclass’s main bonuses to damage at level 3 and level 11 are both poison damage, but against poison-immune targets they can still deal reduced necrotic damage, or even the same amount of necrotic damage (allowing these poison rangers to specialize in slaying creatures that are often immune to poison, such as fiends or undead). Despite that, the other features of the subclass are still weaker against poison-immune targets. For example, most of its granted spells deal poison damage or use the poisoned condition, and its 15th-level feature is significantly weaker if the attacker can’t be poisoned.
However, these disease rangers still aren’t weak against the agents of corruption overall. Their ability to easily detect poisons and diseases combined with their resistance to poison damage and necrotic damage mean that plague wardens have great defensive power against diseased undead or poisonous fiends, for example. The Impermissicon also features a number of new undead and other monsters that have the Stench trait (as found on troglodytes, for example), and the plague warden is completely immune to that trait, allowing them to slay such unclean monsters with impunity. It also has a handful of new specialized poisons that can be used on certain types of creatures that are immune to poison, like undead.
So put on your plague doctor’s mask, pick up your longbow or handaxes, and grab a vial or two of your favorite toxin. There are foul monsters out there, and someone’s got to take them out before they bring sickness to the community. The Plague Warden is here!
PDF Link | D&D Beyond: Plague Warden Ranger
