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Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons  > Perusing D&D Player’s Companion for 5E D&D

Perusing D&D Player’s Companion for 5E D&D

Worldbuilding: Customizing the D&D Dwarf and Dwarven Culture
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Welcome to the trials and tribulations of a new series. In this one, I will be scouring the Dungeon Master’s Guild, StoryTeller’s Vault, and the net itself to review homebrew content of all levels of skill and professional build. I decided to open up this series with the current, as of the time my fingers hit the keyboard, No. 1 searched item on DM’s Guild.

D&D DM's Guild Player's Companion

The Player’s Companion for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons is available from the DM’s Guild. Click the image to check it out and find a coupon code for a discount below.

The creator, M.T. Black and crew, have provided a copy of the Player’s Companion for fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons to review to Nerdarchy. Though I don’t think they knew we would be using them as the proverbial guinea pig. Nonetheless, we will be evolving the format as we go along so please bear with us as we try to give an honest review of this product. After a few discussions I have been left with the impression that honesty is paramount in these reviews, though we will still try to be constructive and positive when possible. I hope you will appreciate the honesty though.

The honesty I spoke of and aim for is like that of a teacher. The way they try to encourage while pointing out flaws is ideal. To this end I will be rattling off 10 categories, each with a 1 to 10 score. The average of which will form the grade to which this product is given. To this end, let’s delve in and find the good, the bad, and the ugly in the D&D Player’s Companion.

Art 6/10

The artwork found in the Player’s Companion is many images found within works from Wizards of The Coast, mostly third through fifth editions of D&D. I found myself observing the images and remembering where I witnessed it five, ten, or even 15 years ago. There are also original works from Patrick E. Pullen, Dean Spencer, Rick Hershey, Sade, Fat Goblin Games, and other resources from the DM’s Guild.

This is not to say the use of previous products is a bad thing, in fact I find the nostalgia of it to have a certain novelty. The appeal is almost a game unto itself. What bothered me is the artwork seemed to be out of place at times. I often had to question, what does this piece of artwork have to do with the content on the surrounding page(s)? The quality and style was not consistent throughout the book, though all of it was enjoyable to see.

Writing 6/10

The writing within the Player’s Companion was decent. The way it is presented is enjoyable to read, and kept me glued to it from beginning to end. Not to try to say it is a New York Times best seller, far from it. It just has a way of going about things that draws in the gamer within us all and can inspire in many ways.

In fact, it even quotes Mr. Tarrasque as speaking of wanting to create a character from the pages within on the Player’s Companion’s DM’s Guild page. What more can one hope for than to inspire fun? The only points I can take off of this is a few points here and there seem to have been edited at some point with half the original remaining. This, a problem I have myself at times, leads to a disjointed cadence in the speech at the best of times while it can be downright confusing at the worst of times.

Another point is knocked off for kind of ignoring longstanding canon. The big one that bothered me was the section on half-dwarves. The mul comes from a play on the word mule, a comment on both their sterility and their role as hard working slaves. The comment of it being an old dwarven word for strength made me pull out one of my old books to verify. Sadly it, The Races of Stone book by Wizards of The Coast, corrected the entry by stating the word for strength is “fal” or “fall.”

Also worth note, forgeborn are a race within Dungeons & Dragons already, and they are nothing like the mechanical beings listed here.

Balance 2/10

Oh boy… before I even picked up my laptop to write this, I knew this was where this entry would fail. And fail hard it does. The races are not that bad. In fact I like them for the most part. Though I will say the ability of the half-dwarf to eliminate an exhaustion level is way overpowered. Exhaustion is not only one of the toughest things to cure in 5E D&D, but it can be abused all to Hel with the barbarian Path of the Berserker. I do enjoy the forgeborn besides their name. The nixie, forgeborn, myconid, and Shadar-Kai are all decently done. I would not be upset to see them at my gamer table. The rest, not without a few tweaks.

The rest of the book is some of the worst balanced things I have ran across in a long time. Over-powered, every bit of it. From too much too soon, to too many powers of one type. Even game-breaking mechanics are being introduced where they are not necessary. To be honest, this needed playtesting, very badly, as the options in here can steamroll most everything in their specific fields.

The greatest example is the Thief Taker option of the ranger. The poorly named ranger conclave becomes the “why would you play anything else?” example within its class with not one, not two, but three features at level three trumping anything the other ranger options get. There is a pseudo-time jumping monk who can kinda carry your whole team as a teleport superior to the wizard equivalent. The part that bugs me is it has a weight limit, thus implying you indeed carry them, but you are not slowed by weight limits. If you are at your push/pull limit, you dang well should be slowed down and the feature’s distance affected. I don’t anticipate much in the way of hotfixes on this, as I had observed literal hundreds of comments on this specific class be ignored when previews were posted on Facebook.

Fun 5/10

All right this one will be short as it is very much so dependent on your definition of fun. If you enjoy facerolling everything and power gaming, then it will be fun. If you like a balanced game, you will hate this. If you take the time to take the themes and ideas in the Player’s Companion to make them your own than this will be a wonderful source of inspiration. Beyond that, all I can say is it will be very polarizing.

Originality 7/10

The Player’s Companion brings a host of ideas from various sources to fifth edition D&D. Some are old, some are new, but all of them are done in such a way as to make them fresh and new. I have to knock points off in this category only because some of the content struck me as “seen this before word for word” but I noticed a side note giving credit where it was due. So that is forgiven for the most part. I will say the Player’s Companion is not short on inspiring content. It is like gold ore, direly needing to be wrought before it is made into the jewelry it can become.

Necessity 9/10

Is the Player’s Companion necessary? Yes, I do believe it was. There was a hole in the content by Wizards of The Coast, one the DM’s Guild was designed to fill. Big products such as this are the wave of the future, and this product could be the first of small independent names busting out into the main stream. From you reading this, to a person working at the big companies who wants something of their own. This product is needed on multiple levels. I am sure many of us can find inspiration here, and that is necessary.

Learning Curve 6/10

The Player’s Companion is actually pretty easy to slide into any fifth edition D&D game. The only parts that become a burden here are the vague attempts at psionics and the sheer number of abilities given to some of these classes. Kinda a Three Stooges kind of thing, you are given so many options it may be a bit daunting to remember them all in the time of need. Still, the Player’s Companion is very easy to pick up and run with. I would like to see more done in regards to explaining the psionics, as I could see many getting lost.

Synergy 4/10

Does the Player’s Companion mix well with the Player’s Handbook and other established material? No, I would say not. The content within the Player’s Companion is drastically over-powered and should not be used alongside regular content as you will “steal the spotlight” from other players. Who wants a sorcerer with better senses than the rogue? Everywhere you turn the Player’s Companion has something that makes you wonder how this ever made it past playtest.

Theme 5/10

There really is no theme within the Player’s Companion. This is kinda a mish-mash of various ideas without any overarching theme. This both grants it more freedom and gives it no direction. Take that as you care to, as you should with every bit of the information here in. Take it, make it your own, and be free.

Completion 7/10

Is the Player’s Companion a fully complete product? No, but it is so close you can taste it. This needs a good hard pass of balance and you will have a product easily enhancing any game it is added to. There are very few grammatical errors, a few oddly placed pictures, and poof, a powerful product is born! Nonetheless, the fact that the only real thing keeping it from being truly complete is a bit of editing and game testing says a lot. This product looks nice, it just needs polish. Just the odd pictures thing being fixed would bring this up to a 8 or 9.

Final Score: 57/100

That’s right, the Player’s Companion fails the grade. But not by much. If it just did a bit more balancing or cleaning up I could move it up but as it is now, I cannot suggest it. At the price of $14.95 the Player’s Companion is somewhat pricey on top of being so ill-balanced. If you use this product, you will need to up your DC’s for everything as well as up your CR’s. This provides a lot of homework for the Dungeon Master at your table. As a player, you may find these options as an easy mode when you use them. For this reason I will state you will only see challenge when the dice are very evil, and you have wandered out of your element. Use those times as a challenge, and enjoy them.

Behind the desk

There is the first in a series of homebrew reviews here on Nerdarchy. I know it may sound harsh but I guarantee you will see I am not a Debbie Downer, and am not going to down every item across my desk. Next week we will be touching another item in the top ten of DM’s Guild, can you guess which?

Play on PS4 or PS3? How about Destiny 2 or Warframe? Did you know Nerdarchy has a community and clan that plays together often? Go ahead and search in the community section for Nerdarchy and for the player Nubz_The_Zombie!

Did I miss something? Have any Questions or Comments? Feel free to message me at www.facebook.com/NubzTheZombie or at nubz.the.zombie@gmail.com. I am now on Twitter too: @nubzthezombie

Stay Nerdy,

Nubz

NERDITOR’S NOTE: Did you know Nerdarchy has an exclusive coupon code for the DM’s Guild, DriveThruRPG or any of the OneBookShelf sites? You can use the coupon code DTRPG-Nerdarchy for a one-time 10 percent discount on any order of digital products $10 or more. Get your own copy of the Player’s Companion and let us know what you think in the comments below, or snag any other digital books you’ve had your eye on. If you are a content creator, or have a favorite third party RPG product you’d like us to take a look at, drop a line and we’ll check it out!

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Nigel Sanford

Nubz hails from the American Pacific Northwest where he has spent the last 24 years living the gamer life and running campaigns of all kinds. Through this he has managed to sate his acting bug and entertain many. Now a father, he wishes to pursue writing to leave a legacy in Nerd culture for his offspring to enjoy.

16 Comments

  • creative25672016
    January 1, 2018 at 2:30 pm

    Hi Nigel, thanks for taking the time to review our product. As you said, time will tell whether you are a harsh marker or not!

    I think you made some fair points. With regards to the artwork, margins on this sort of product are so small that you are usually forced to use stock art. If you are going to review these sorts of products regularly, you will encounter this a lot.

    I will push back more firmly on your comment about balance. We spent literally hundreds of hours refining the balance of these options, with many sets of eyes helping us out. The two examples of balance issues you provided I did not find convincing without more context.

    For example, you said that “Thief Taker” getting three features at level 3 trumps anything that other rangers get. Have you read Xanathar’s yet? We used Xanathar’s as our template, and three features is the standard it has set. For example, compare “Thief Taker” with “Horizon Walker”.

    It’s worth pointing out that you had a bit over a day to review entire 90,000 word document. This is the reviewers lot, of course – if you spend too long looking at something, the review is no longer relevant! But it’s worth people bearing this in mind when evaluating some of these comments.

    Otherwise, thankyou again for taking the time to look at our product, and stay well!

    M.T. Black

    • Doug Vehovec
      January 1, 2018 at 6:16 pm

      Thank you for taking the time to add your thoughts here, it is much appreciated! It is great for players to have all sorts of options for their games and thankfully we live in a time when sharing our ideas and work with others is super easy. I interpreted the portion about ranger features as the opinion in the review being the ones in the Player’s Companion outweigh other class features in effect, not number. It is always welcomed to get creator feedback and input like this, too. That means a lot, thank you.

      At any rate, doing a review of any sort is a challenge and I feel Nigel is up to the task of refining his voice and perspectives going forward.

      • creative25672016
        January 2, 2018 at 3:38 am

        Hi Doug, I’m happy to contribute and thanks for looking at our book! Good luck with the new column! cheers, MTB

  • Carson Reeves
    January 1, 2018 at 3:10 pm

    Is there a typo when talking about that ranger archetype Thief Taker (agreed, not a great name)? This review indicates that three features at 3rd-level is more than any ranger archetype gets. In Xanathar’s Guide, the Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker, and Monster Slayer all get three features at 3rd level.

    This makes me think this reviewer doesn’t know D&D 5E content well enough to review new products for it.

    • Doug Vehovec
      January 1, 2018 at 5:57 pm

      Thank you for your comment, much appreciated! My interpretation is not the number of features, but their comparison to other ranger class features gained at 3rd level. That’s how I took it at any rate.

    • Nubz
      January 1, 2018 at 10:42 pm

      Doug is correct. It is not the number, but the potency of each ability is far beyond what it out there.

  • creative25672016
    January 2, 2018 at 3:42 am

    I believe the poor old Thief Taker has been a bit hard done by here, but it is up to you, the consumer to decide! Here is an image that contains most of the 3rd level abilities – https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRwtP9lUQAED8bg.jpg. Please compare it to those for Gloom Stalker etc in Xanathar’s, and see if it would work for your campaign.

    You can follow me on twitter here: https://twitter.com/MTBlack2567. You can subscribe to my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/dftqpP. In the January edition, I’ll be breaking down exactly how much I made on the DMs Guild in 2017, as well as revealing one of my top secret projects for 2018.

    cheers,
    MTB

  • jgsnyder
    January 4, 2018 at 10:32 am

    There’s a typo in first sentence of final score paragraph. Says Player’s Handbook, should be Player’s Companion.

    Good thorough review! Very appreciated!

  • Scott Bean
    January 4, 2018 at 10:13 pm

    Hello Nigel,

    I am one of the content creators for the Player’s Companion. I have been considering the development of a website for my company, and part of that site may be dedicated to an industry blog. The blog may be used for communicating important industry news and events and for posting various reviews. I’ll have to conduct a considerable amount of research before launching the site. I would certainly like to learn about the reviewing process.

    I notice you are using a numbering system to post your ratings of the various categories, adding up the total, and then posting that as your final rating. I would like to understand your methodology. Would you be willing to share how you came to the decision for which categories to include in the review, and how you decided on the specific point additions or deductions from each to come up with the final numbers?

    You won’t be the only reviewer I contact about this. I am looking to understand this niche of the industry; consequently, I’ll be contacting quite a few reviewers to gain insights into the various methodologies involved in the reviewing process.

    Kind regards,
    Scott Bean

  • Scott Bean
    January 6, 2018 at 3:01 pm

    Hello again Nigel and company,

    I have reviewed other reviewers’ websites, and I am starting to get the idea of the nature of these reviews, but please correct me if I am wrong. For most reviewers, the reviewing process seems to be more about the communication to an audience of a personal experience when reviewing a product.Instead of an exact science, it is more of an organized effort to communicate the various aspects of the product. In this case, while there are numbers to rate each category, they are more like the numbers on a chart coupled with happy and frown faces at a doctor’s office to match a patient’s level of comfort to pain.

    Personally, I am going to try and codify the process using a scientific method while formulating my reviews, crafting each from a neutral standpoint as much as possible; it is going to take a great amount of research and effort to accomplish that task. Do you think I am overthinking the review process? Time will tell; however, I just want to make the reviews from a standpoint that is sustainable without the influence of my general feelings at a specific moment. Though it will take some work, I think it would be the best approach for what I am trying to accomplish. That may not be the case for you — it just depends on your audience, its expectations, and the voice you maintain over time.

    Best wishes for 2018!
    Scott

    • Doug Vehovec
      January 6, 2018 at 3:32 pm

      Hi Scott, I’ve done a few reviews in my time as well. It my belief that most reviews are going to be subjective to a certain extent. Giving an honest opinion of one’s impression of a product is important. The reviewers I gravitate towards in time are those whose impressions I recognize either as similar to my own, or I understand enough to gauge how I might enjoy any particular product, whether a film, book, etc. I enjoy discovering what a reviewers general feelings are; that is where a voice emerges. For myself, I like the “Good, Bad and Ugly” process, plus an overall impression. I feel like a purely objective review would be more akin to an overview, stating objective facts like “this is a book. The book has chapters on this, that and the other thing.”

      Are you looking at creating a sort of aggregate review space for products you are involved with like the Player’s Companion, Elminster’s Guide to Magic, etc.? Or review a variety of products? It is always good for consumers to have options for where to find information about their interests. Good luck with your project!

      • Scott Bean
        January 11, 2018 at 8:57 pm

        Hi Doug, thanks for your reply. I wouldn’t review my own products on my site, they would be discussed and advertised; however, I might create a news or RSS feed and linked to reviews done by others (the good and bad ones alike). As far as my reviews, I would try to be objective as possible and post them as industry news; if I find it difficult to be objective, then I might just focus on industry news. I’ll need to research this some more; reviews wouldn’t be the website’s primary purpose. However, I would like to post interesting content for people who enjoy role-playing games, and D&D in particular. I have a great deal of data to collect before I can make inferences about the state of the industry and what is newsworthy content. I’ll probably end up having to hire someone to maintain the website, since the roles I am responsible for keep adding up. As a nerd, I find the details so fascinating!

      • Scott Bean
        January 11, 2018 at 9:00 pm

        Hi Nubz, thanks for the reply and general insight into how you approach the review process!

  • Jeremy Forbing
    January 15, 2018 at 8:59 pm

    Hi, my name is Jeremy Forbing, and I wrote most of the archetypes in the Player’s Companion. Thanks for reviewing! Can you explain what you find overpowering about the Thief Taker’s 3rd level features? They seem on par with those of the Monster Slayer ranger in Xanathar’s Guide to Monsters, but if you let us know where the issue is, we can look at correcting for a future revision!

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