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Overall, I did not enjoy the class at all.
The class lacks substance in its game mechanics, which are verbose but provide little gameplay value. Its core gameplay loop does not work as intended due to severe usability issues with Mark Quarry and On the Hunt.
Even if all the game mechanics worked as intended, the core class features feel way too derivative of other classes, like the Thaumaturge's Esoteric Lore, the Outwit Ranger's Hunt Prey, and Investigator's On the Case, all of which have better support for accomplishing the fantasy the slayer is meant to fulfill. I also don't find On the Hunt and relentless actions engaging at all.
Trophies are a neat idea, but the feature lacks substance. The class has almost a whole page of rules about the logistics of trophies, but they don't do anything by themselves. The trophy rules also feel completely superfluous. The game already has a system for attaching items that buff your equipment: talismans.
All of the trophy game mechanics are encapsulated in Slayer's Arsenal, the only class feature with any substance. Yet, even that one has its own set of severe issues, especially with one of the options being the only class feature that enhances the martial class's attacks and damage.
Aside from Mark Quarry feat taxes, I do like many of the class's feats, especially the support for combination weapons and the feats that let you do new things with your Slayer's Arsenal.
I feel a lot of the problems stem from a superficial approach to fulfilling the Monster Hunter fantasy. Mark Quarry and Trophies read more like an adventure description rather than concrete gameplay mechanics.
As a fan of the Monster Hunter series, I feel a better approach should focus on preparation and doing cool things in battle.
In Monster Hunter, making sure you have the right weapon, the right consumables, the right equipment, and the right buffs are crucial, with each combination also characterizing your gameplay expression. My vision of a monster hunter class should enable and facilitate these preparation decisions. It should be the ideal martial class if you already know what you're fighting. Make preparation be the core feature. Make it a martial that can choose options during daily preparations, like an animist choosing apparitions or a wizard preparing spells.
Most martial classes feel "static" and force you to choose a specific fighting style and stick to it. A martial with a preparation mechanic would set it aside from others. This approach also prevents the class from feeling too derivative of the ranger and thaumaturge, which are flavored as adjusting their tactics style on the fly rather than falling back to how they prepared for the fight.
GENERAL NOTES
- On the Hunt is way too situational. By the time you legitimately benefit from this, the battle is already mostly over.
- On the Hunt suffers from the "bag of rats" problem where you can easily cheese it by killing a small helpless critter to trigger the effect.
- On the Hunt is really boring for what seems like a potentially powerful ability.
- Mark Quarry has a lengthy text, but it's mechanically a worse Outwit Ranger's Hunt Prey with a lot more restrictions. The fact that there's so many feats to overcome these restrictions is a telling sign that it desperately needs quality-of-life changes.
- Mark Quarry has crippling usability issues. 1) If you don't know the monster exists or have no clues about it, you cannot use this ability at all. 2) It only works on a single specific monster. So, if you find tracks from a pack of werewolves, you will only get the benefits for one of the werewolves when you fight the pack. 3) If you find out the monster is lower level, you get no benefits at all and basically wasted your time. 4) Most monsters in published adventures have a level lower than APL.
- Trophies are "empty mechanics," with verbose game rules that provide no actual value or gameplay by itself. There's a long explanation for describing trophies, how you collect them, how you store them, and how many you can have at a time. However, the class feature doesn't actually do anything itself. You could just delete this entire class feature, add a couple of sentences to Slayer's Arsenal, and the class would be exactly the same.
- Slayer's Arsenal is the only class feature that has any meat to it, and it's marred by having an obvious choice that the class needs to actually deal any damage.
- Bloodseeking Blade is the obvious choice of Slayer's Arsenal. It is the only option that actually makes you better at killing things in a class that's all about killing things. A class that's literally called "slayer."
- Chymst's Eye is actually quite interesting. Unfortunately, it's essentially a once-per-dungeon ability that lasts only 10 minutes.
- Ignition Vial deals exceptionally little damage for a once per minute ability that's supposed to be your bread-and-butter martial action. Compare to Explode, which essentially deals 2d6 per level with a similar cooldown.
- Consecrated Panoply has awesome flavor with Safeguard Charms being fairly useful.
- Hunting Spikes has cool flavor and good action economy, but being unable to benefit from runes essentially makes this class feature weak and unreliable. 7th level is *way* too late for the spikes to gain +1 striking, especially when the spikes have the stats of a simple weapon.
- Warded Mail must always be a level-0 item, but it grants proficiency in heavy armor, which is always level 1 or higher. Repelling Shield feat raises a similar issue. It could be argued that the text merely says your starting armor must be level-0, but Warded Mail uses the same language as Bloodseeker Blade, which has a feat that lets you use an advanced weapon.
- Armored Shelter seems useful as it saves you from wielding a shield. I really like it.
- Martial classes typically get class features that grant bonus attacks (flurry of blows, Reactive Strike, Retributive Strike, etc.) or a damage bonus (rage, swashbuckler finisher, inventor's overcharge, weapon ikons, etc.). Slayer gains no such ability, with exception for Bloodseeking Blade.
- Instant Enmity and Pack Slayer feel like feat tax. They're way too mandatory to make your main class feature actually work as intended.
- Blood Rush should be part of the class feature. Again, another feat tax.
- There's no support for unarmed attacks. What if I want to play a slayer that punches bears?
- I really like the support for combination weapons