Monster Trainer

An stern elf sits next to a chubby penguin. The penguin shoots a small beam of cold, freezing a practice dummy solid, and the elf's sour expression lightens. The elf tosses the penguin a fish, and writes the progress of their training in a large tome.

A man whistles as he walks down a dark street with an oversized lizard on his shoulder. As he passes by each lamppost, the lizard flicks an ember off its flaming tail and lights it. When the man turns the corner, the street is bright.

A gnome walks through a cave that reeks of goblin. She turns a corner, and after a few steps, realizes she's walked into a dead end. As the snickering goblins behind her come into view, she snaps her fingers, and there's a crackle of electricity as an elemental appears between her and her foes.

All of these characters are Monster Trainers, who's powers are defined by their relationships with the elemental monsters they adventure with.

Class Features

As a Monster Trainer, you have the following class features.

Controlling Monsters

Monsters act on your initiative, and will not act on their own unless they are too far away to hear your commands or you are unconscious, in which case they will prioritize defending themself, defending you, or finding you above all else. While within 60 feet of one of your summoned monsters, if that monster can either see or hear you, you can use an action on your turn to command it take an action, bonus action, and move up to its speed. If one of your Monsters can take a reaction, you must use your reaction to command it to take its reaction. If you cannot, the Monster does not use its reaction. If you have multiple Monsters, you can summon more than one monster at a time, but you can still only control one with your action.

Hit Points and Recovery

Monsters have a base hit point total of 10 + their Constitution modifier, and have a hit die of 1d10. When you level up, choose one of your Monsters. That Monster gains an additional hit die and its maximum hit points increase by 1d10 + its Constitution modifier, or 6 + its Constitution modifier (Your choice). During a short rest, each of your summoned Monsters can spend hit dice to heal. During a long rest, each of your summoned Monsters heals to its hit point maximum and regains half its hit dice.

Death

In the unfortunate event that one of your Monsters dies, you can restore it to life by performing a ritual with materials costing 50 gold pieces times your trainer level. You do not need the Monster's corpse to perform this ritual. Alternatively, you can perform a ritual costing 25 gold pieces times your trainer level to imbue a new beast with elemental power, creating a new Monster, after which you can reallocate training points and hit dice to it the next time you finish a Long Rest.

Guided Explorer

Monster trainers are known for traveling across the land, overcoming challenges with their Monster allies. At 1st level, you are skilled in navigating both natural and urban environments with the help of your Monsters. You gain the following benefits:

• You can speak, read, and write Primordial.
• Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.
• You always know which direction your Summoning Foci and Summoned Monsters are in, unless they are in another plane of existence.
• Your Monsters can forage for enough food for themselves and you without direction as long as they are summoned in an area with natural food sources.

Innate Spellcasting

Although Monster Trainers themselves have no magical abilities, the monsters they train have the potential to cast potent elemental magic. See the Spells Rules section of the players handbook for the general rules of spellcasting, and the Spell List section of this document for the spell lists by elemental type.

Training Points

Starting at 2nd level, your training begins to pay off, and your monster unlocks some of its hidden potential. You have a pool of Training Points as shown by the Training Points column of the Monster Trainer class table. These points can be spent on any of your monsters, giving them new abilities or improved stats. You can reallocate training points when you level up, but a single monster cannot have more training points than shown in the Point Maximum column of the Monster Trainer table.

Avoidance

Also at 2nd level, you get much better at staying out of the way and allowing your monsters to fight for you. Your speed increases by 5 feet, and you can take the Disengage action as a bonus action.

Trainer Style

Starting at 3rd level, you cement your training style. Choose between Tactician and Leader, both detailed at the end of this class description. Your choice grants you features at 3rd, 7th, 14th, and 18th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. Alternatively, you can choose to increase your training point pool by 2 instead of increasing an ability score.

Monster Hatching

At 6th level, and again at 13th level, one of your Monster Eggs hatches. Use the Monster Creation section in the back of this supplement to create a second or third monster. You may allocate hit points or training points to the new monster. This also increases the maximum number of monsters you can carry to 2 or 3 respectively.

Overcharge Monster

At 10th level, you can use a special summoning technique to overcharge your Monsters with elemental energy. Make a second stat block for each Monster you own, called an overcharged stat block. This stat block is identical to its normal stat block but treats your proficiency bonus as 1 higher than normal and can use an additional 5 training points to purchase abilities. These points aren't affected by your Point Maximum and don't count against your Training Points total. When a monster is summoned, you can choose to overcharge it, granting it temporary hit points equal to twice your Trainer level and causing it to use its overcharged stat block. The temporary hit points and the transformation both last up to 1 minute, or until the Monster is recalled. Once you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.

Bonded Casting

At 11th level, you and your Monsters learn how to cast powerful spells by channeling your magical energies together. You gain one 6th level spell slot. This spell slot follows the normal rules for innate casting, although you must finish a long rest, rather than a short rest, to be able to use it again.

At higher levels, you gain more spell slots following these rules: one 7th-level slot at 13th level, one 8th-level slot at 15th level, and one 9th-level slot at 17th level. You regain all of these slots when you finish a long rest.

The Power that's Inside

At 20th level, you've discovered a much more efficient way to empower your Monster allies. You have 10 additional training points to allocate for your Monster's overcharged stat block rather than 5. Additionally, you can now overcharge a Monster once per short or long rest, rather than once per long rest.

Training Styles

Different trainers have different ideals when it comes to training monsters, and those ideals affect how they train and fight.

"Watch my Back!"

One of your Summoned Monsters moves its speed towards you without provoking opportunity attacks.

"Strike together!"

One of your Summoned Monsters adds your Charisma modifier to damage rolls made against creatures adjacent to you until the start of your next turn.

Training Upgrades

Training upgrades represent all the ways your monsters grow as a result of your training. Monsters will gain new abilities, grow in size, and become more effective in combat as you level up. This section is split into three parts: Spell upgrades, Ability upgrades, and Stat upgrades.

Water Abilities

Air Abilities

Stat Upgrades

Any Monster can take these upgrades. These upgrades can be selected multiple times if it makes sense given the upgrade's effect. They cost 1 point unless stated otherwise.

Saving Throw (2 points)

The Monster becomes proficient in one type of saving throw it is not already proficient in.

Ability Score Increase

The Monster's Strength, Dexterity, or Wisdom score increases by 1 for every point spent on this upgrade. This upgrade can't increase a score above 18, or 20 if you are of at least 8th level. If this upgrade is selected as one of the upgrades Overcharge Monster grants, the maximum for each score is 24.

Size Increase (2 points)

The Monster's size increases by 1 step, to a maximum of large. Its damage die increases by 1 step. If this upgrade is being selected as one of the upgrades Overcharge Monster grants, the maximum size is Huge rather than Large.

Finesse

The Monster can use either its Strength or Dexterity modifier for attacks and damage with its natural weapons.

Mold Breaker

The Monster's natural weapons count as magical for the purposes of overcoming damage resistance.

Expanded Mind

The Monster learns one spell from its elemental spell list. This spell must be of a level you have spell slots for (through innate or bonded casting), and does not count against the total spells the monster knows.

This spell can be replaced with another spell on the monster's spell list that you have spell slots for when you gain a level in this class.

Multiattack (2 points)

The Monster gains the following action:

Multiattack. The Monster makes 2 attacks using its natural weapons.

You must be of at least 5th level to choose this upgrade. You can take this upgrade twice. You must be of at least 11th level to do so. When you do, the multiattack action increases to 3 attacks, rather than 2.

Wonder Guard (3 points)

The Monster has resistance to nonmagical piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage. This upgrade can only be selected using training points granted by Overcharge Monster.

Spell Lists by Element