Living Revenant

You are a living Revenant. Dying before your time, by some magic, divine intervention, or perhaps the manifestation of your sheer willpower, you've been returned to life. Your time trapped as a ghost in the Ethereal Plane has opened your eyes - and your soul - to the secrets of ghostly entities hitherto unknown to any being still counted among the living. Your exposure to death and your experience in dealing it out have granted you spectral abilities similar to those of the ghosts you once shared the Ethereal Plane with, and blur the lines between the physical and spiritual planes.

Awakened Phantom Revenant State

You learn to straddle the line between the Material Plane and the Border Ethereal; as a bonus action, you may expend a hit die to enter the Phantom Revenant state. While in the Phantom Revenant state, you become incorporeal, wreathed in a ghostly aura, gaining abilities based on your level. You may choose to regain all expended hit die used for this subclass feature and its abilities instead of expending any remaining hit die for healing when you finish a short or long rest.

This ability lasts for 1 minute. Due to your incorporeal nature, you become harder to see, affording you the following benefits:

• You gain a +2 bonus to stealth checks.
• Your weapon attacks are made at advantage.
• It becomes more difficult for enemies to interact with you. Attack rolls made against you are made at disadvantage, and you automatically fulfill any requirements necessary to use your sneak attack.

Improved Phantom Revenant State

• Further harnessing your ghostly aura, all your stealth checks are made at advantage.
• Your ghostly aura allows you to slip deeper into the Border Ethereal. As a bonus action, you may enter or exit the Ethereal Plane. While in the Ethereal Plane, you become completely incorporeal; you are only able to be perceived, to affect and be affected by other creatures also on the Ethereal Plane unless a special ability or magic has given them the ability to do so. You can still see and hear the plane you originated from, but everything there looks gray, and you can't see anything more than 60 feet away.
• While on the Ethereal Plane, you ignore all objects and effects that aren't on that plane, allowing you to move through objects you can perceive on the plane that you originated from.
• If you are reduced to 0 hit points while in the Ethereal Plane or remain in the Ethereal Plane at the end of the turn on which this ability ends, you return to the plane you originated from in the spot that you currently occupy. If you occupy the same spot as a solid object or creature when this happens, you are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that you can occupy, taking necrotic damage equal to twice the number of feet you are moved. If you are at 0 hit points or are otherwise in saving throws when you are shunted this way, you automatically fail 1 death saving throw.

Exalted Phantom Revenant State

• Your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 18 - 20.
• While in the Ethereal Plane, you may speak with the lingering spirit of any nearby corpse, if it had one. As an interaction, you may choose a spirit within 60 feet of you and ask it a question. The spirit speaks only languages it knew in life. The spirit is under no compulsion to offer a truthful answer, and if you are hostile to it or it recognizes you as an enemy, it may attack you. The stat block for this spirit is up to DM discretion.
• When you enter or exit the Ethereal Plane, you may expend a hit die to transport a creature you can touch with you. If that creature is unwilling, it must succeed on a DC {{savedc:dex}} Wisdom saving throw or be transported with you to or from the Ethereal Plane until you return it to the plane it originated from, or until the Phantom Revenant state ends. On a successful save, the unwilling creature is not transported with you.
  • If the creature remains on the plane it was transported to at the end of the turn on which this ability ends or is reduced to 0 hit points, it is returned to the plane it originated from in the spot that it currently occupies. If it occupies the same spot as a solid object or creature when this happens, it is immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space that it can occupy, taking necrotic damage equal to twice the number of feet it is moved. If the creature is at 0 hit points or is otherwise in saving throws when it is shunted this way, it automatically fails 1 death saving throw.
• Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an attack using your weapon, that creature must make a DC {{savedc:dex}} Wisdom saving throw or be wounded. If wounded, add 1d6 damage necrotic damage to the damage roll for each time you've wounded it. On a critical hit, this damage is doubled.
  
  • You may expend a hit die to regain hit points equal to half the damage dealt. 
  • At the end of each of its turns, the creature can make another Wisdom saving throw, ending the effect of all such wounds on itself on a success.

Ascendant Phantom Revenant State

• You gain a flight speed equal to your normal walking speed + your character's level, rounded to the nearest 5.
• As a result of your many close brushes with and experience dealing out death, you have learned to exude a necrotic aura; when any creature that you can see within 60 feet of you damages you, as a reaction, you expend a hit die to force that creature to make a DC {{savedc:wis}} Wisdom saving throw. That creature takes half the damage dealt to you as necrotic damage on a failed save, or a quarter of that damage on a successful one.

Optional Features

Your exposure to death and your experience in dealing it out has given you a greater understanding of life and death itself:

Phantom Revenant State

When you have been reduced to 0 hit points 3 times, or you have killed 20 creatures, you may choose a bonus from the list below and add its effects to those gained while in the Phantom Revenant State. Additional features can be gained each time your hit points are reduced to 0 an additional 2 times, or you kill an additional 20 creatures. These instances must occur during a combat for which initiative is rolled.

• Death's Shroud
  • Choose a single damage type from among bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing, and gain resistance to it. You may choose this bonus more than once, but never the same resistance twice.
• Revenant's Resilience
  • You regain 10 hit points at the start of your turn. If you take damage from a spell, a silvered or magical weapon, this trait doesn’t function at the start of your next turn. You die only if you start your turn with 0 hit points and don’t regenerate.
• Improved Critical

You may choose a bonus from this list, but never the same bonus twice:

• Lesser Improved Critical: Your weapon's attack roll requirement to score a critical hit is reduced by 1.
• Greater Improved Critical: Your weapon's attack roll requirement to score a critical hit is further reduced by 1. This effect stacks with all previously granted improved critical abilities.
• Superior Improved Critical: Your weapon's attack roll requirement to score a critical hit is further reduced by 1. This effect stacks with all previously granted improved critical abilities.

• Ethereal Sight
  • You have truesight to a distance of 120 feet. You can see in normal and magical darkness, see invisible creatures and objects, automatically detect visual illusions and succeed on saving throws against them, and perceive the original form of a shapechanger or a creature that is transformed by magic. Furthermore, you can see into the Ethereal Plane within the same range.

Ephemeral Transformation

When you have been reduced to 0 hit points 3 times, or you have killed 20 creatures, you may choose to gain the Ephemeral Transformation ability. If you have already gained a feature from the Phantom Revenant State list, this feature can be gained when your hit points are reduced to 0 an additional 2 times, or you kill an additional 20 creatures. These instances must occur during a combat for which initiative is rolled.

You have been reshaped by your experiences with death and the Border Ethereal. You have been inundated with the proto-matter of the Ethereal Plane, your form becoming as ephemeral and malleable as the Ethereal Plane itself. Life and death are opposite sides of the same coin, each necessary for the existence of the other.

As you deliver the killing blow to a creature, you are able to capture some of its essence, imprinting it upon your own soul.

• As an action, you can call upon this essence, transforming yourself into any creature that you have killed, assuming its physical form and exact physical likeness, assuming all physical characteristics it had in life, including its voice, though none of your game statistics change.
• Your ability to speak or take any action that requires hands is limited to the capabilities of the form of the creature that you take.
• You retain the benefits and abilities of any features of your class, race, or other source and can use them if your new physical form is capable of doing so.
• You choose if your equipment merges with your new form, falls to the ground, or is worn by it. Worn equipment functions as normal, but your equipment doesn't change shape or size to match the new form, and any equipment your DM decides isn't practical or that the new form can't wear must either fall to the ground or merge with it.
• You remain in this new form until you use an action to revert to your true form, assume another shape, or die.

Your DM may allow you to make a dice roll to determine if you gain any knowledge from the creature's spirit as you capture its essence. With a sufficient roll, you may gain some insight into knowledge that the creature had and, on an exceptional roll, you may gain the ability to use of one of the creature's abilities, decided by your DM. If you learn an ability this way, you must be in the creature's form to use it, and you may only use the ability one time per long rest. You may only use the ability of one creature per long rest.