UPDATED 05/08/2025
Finally some playable content! Below you can find the download link for a new class option for rangers, the Conclave of the Monkey Wrench. It is quite setting-specific, but I believe universal classes are not the way. After releasing its antithesis, the Path of the Warmachine for barbarian, I came back to finish this post.
The Conclave of the Monkey Wrench was made with a specific scenario in mind. A more or less pre-industrial setting gets visited or outright invaded by a technologically advanced party. It might be an advanced nation from another continent (think Europeans in Earth’s modern period), aliens from another planet, or beings from other plane or dimension. The outsiders covet the local natural resources and start probing or exploiting them. Among the locals are those who would resist. Many of those would come from the nature-focused groups such as druid circles, rangers, and servants of nature deities.
The ranger of the Monkey Wrench conclave is your D&D equivalent of a noble ecoterrorist. Tree spiking, machine sabotage, escaping from pursuers. Ranger is a class that suits this role well thanks to their versatility. It only needed some anti-tech flavour.
The Conclave of the Monkey Wrench has several points of focus. First of all it aims to confront machinery. Whether in the form of various constructs or installations used for resource mining, you have advantages on dealing with them. At higher levels you also embody the reduce-reuse-recycle philosophy by creating weapons out of destroyed constructs. They should not be too powerful for a 11th level character, but might provide some needed damage variety. And the 15th level feature, Short Circuit, expands your sabotage options in multiple ways – range, scale, magnitude.
Next there is the mobility aspect. The 7th level feature lets you pull off hit and run stunts in the environment where you need it the most. Combined with spells like Jump, that are already at your ranger’s disposal, this makes for a very mobile character.
Last but not least I wanted to build this subclass a bit differently than the official ones. I didn’t want the generic combination of conclave spells and three features. The theme lends itself quite well to having a signature tool, the Monkey Wrench. The exact shape and stats can vary, you can make it into a sonic screwdriver for all I care. Just use the stats for a dagger if you need to hit something with it. The Monkey Wrench should in any case be a tool first and a weapon second. Ideally with ties to the technology you’re up against.
You can write in the comments what are your thoughts about this subclass. Would you play it? Is it playable? Let me know, and please share if you liked it!
Rashundai Games 