Critical Role DM Matt Mercer has released a revised version of his Dungeons & Dragons Blood Hunter class, with sales proceeds going to an Australian brushfire relief charity. Inspired by The Witcher and other dark fantasy tropes, the Blood Hunter class is a unique Martial class that uses blood magic to curse their foes and enhance their own abilities, but at the cost of losing HP. Mercer originally created the class for Vin Diesel as part of the D&Diesel web series, and he made the class available online after strong fan demand. The original Blood Hunter class was ambitious but flawed, so Mercer has re-built the class from the ground up, changing the class’s secondary stat, changing how blood rites hurt the Blood Hunter, and adding a new Brand of Castigation feature.
The biggest change to the Blood Hunter is how blood rites reduce HP. Before, using a blood rite lowered your maximum HP whenever you used it, which made utilizing some of the Blood Hunter’s features very risk. Now, players simply take traditional damage (determined by rolling a hemocraft dice ranging from a d4 to a d10 depending on your level), which makes the Blood Hunter features safer to use. Players also now use Intelligence as their spellcasting modifier instead of Wisdom, which gives a Blood Hunter higher skill check modifiers in areas like Religion, History, or Investigation.
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The revised Blood Hunter also adds a new ability – the Brand of Castigation. When a Blood Hunter damages a creature with a Crimson Rite, they can brand that creature. Whenever the branded creatures deals damage to the Blood Hunter or anyone within 5 feet of the Blood Hunter, it takes psychic damage equal to the Blood Hunter’s Intelligence modifier. The Brand gets upgraded at Level 13, which prevents the branded creature from attempting to flee or teleport.
While the Blood Hunter is still a bit more complicated than a default Dungeons & Dragons class, the revised Blood Hunter is a marked improvement over the original. The Blood Hunter is available on DMs Guild for $8.00, and all sales proceeds will go to the AU Brushfire Relief Charity.
