If you’ve followed me for a while then you know that I’m a big fan of the Dungeon Craft Youtube Channel. Not only am I fan, I’m also a Patron so I’ve seen these rules for a while but now that they are in the wild, I figured I give them a quick review.

So what the heck is Deathbringer? Well, it’s a bit a toolkit. It’s an attitude. And it’s an implied setting. Rumor is that the full setting will be coming in the future. And since I’m Patron, I’ve seen multiple versions of Deathbringer as it evolved.

Every mechanic is easily recognizable to anyone who has played any edition of D&D. It’s the same stats but drop the 3 to 18 and just use the modifier. Plus the modifier improves as a character progresses to simulate a character’s proficiency with that Stat. So there’s no skills. Just attribute checks.

There are five classes: Deathbringer (Fighter), Grimscribe (Magic-User), Scoundrel (Thief). There aren’t clerics but we have two other classes that can sort of fill that role: Witch Hunter and Plague Doctor. Hit points follow the same mechanic as 5E Hardcore mode (Con Bonus doesn’t count.) Grimscribes “roll to cast” with possibility of bad things happening. And there are no non-human races.

Spells & Monsters: Here’s where I think it shines. If you’re like me then you have shelves of various editions, retro-clones, supplements, and various other rule books. Just convert whatever spells and monsters you want with handy and quick notes in the PDF. Really, I don’t need another version of Magic Missile nor another stat block for an orc.

And then there’s the Deathbringer Dice. I like this and I’m using a variation in my current home game. At it’s very basics, it’s a pool of dice for characters to use to add to most die rolls. It’s a cool and flexible little tool for the characters to pull their bacon out of the fire.

All of this (plus a little more) is crammed into four pages. I know the price may seem a bit steep but they are a good four pages with good tools to add to your game not matter what happens to be your rules of choice.

Now you could (and should) watch a bunch of videos and you could maybe reverse engineer this or even tweak it further to your tastes. And that’s a good thing. And I’m pretty sure there’s going to be plenty of updates to this PDF.

So go ahead and check it out on DrivethruRPG.

And remember folks. Roll dice. Kill monsters, Take their stuff. And have fun!