Blood Hunter: Order of the Vampire

The Order of the Vampire, morally questionable to many, remains undeterred by the world's opinion, embracing their cause as just. For most members, the vampirism blood curse serves as a means to combat evil with a necessary evil. Though new initiates are rare due to the demanding requirement of death preceding membership, the order maintains a devoted following. Hunters of the Order of the Vampire stand resolute in the face of death, greeting it with a familiar smile, while some elder hunters yearn for its overdue arrival.

These blood hunters possess a depraved mastery of blood magic, wielding harvested lifeblood with supernatural finesse. Tapping into the blood essence of their prey, they transmute it into potent spells and unholy blessings, aiding themselves and allies against malevolent entities. The crimson fluid within their veins acts as a conduit, empowering them to manipulate perceptions, distort reality, and ensnare adversaries in mesmerizing illusions. Through spells of fear or adoration, they charm and deceive minds, enchanting the senses and leaving enemies vulnerable to their every whim. With each consumed life essence, their mastery deepens, rendering them formidable adversaries in their relentless pursuit of darkness.

Vampiric Hemocraft

At 3rd level, you can use your charisma modifier as your hemocraft modifier.

Hemocraft Modifier: Charisma

Your Hemocraft modifier is Charisma.

Hemocraft Modifier: Intelligence

Your Hemocraft modifier is Intelligence.

Hemocraft Modifier: Wisdom

Your Hemocraft modifier is Wisdom.

Vampirism

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain the affliction of vampirism and the feature further improves at 7th and 18th level. Your skin becomes more pale and a deep sanguine glow emanates from your eyes, most common folk will be hostile to this appearance. The affliction grants you some benefits as well as some drawbacks as shown under features on your character sheet.

This feature replaces the rules for vampirism in the Monster Manual.

Humanoid Form

As a bonus action, you can transform into a more approachable humanoid form that shares the same features as your natural form apart from your pale skin and red eyes, you can do so without limit. You can not cast spells when transformed like this. You can dismiss the transformation as a bonus action.

Immortal Being

Prerequisite: 18th level, replaces the Undead Being feature

Your creature type is undead. You don't age, can't die from aging and are immune to diseases. You have no need for air, cast no shadow and have no reflection. In addition, you now have advantage on death saving throws. However if a piercing weapon made out of wood is driven into your heart while you are incapacitated, you instead have disadvantage on death saving throws and are paralyzed even if you lose the incapacitated condition, this lasts until the stake is removed.

Sunlight Sensitivity

You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.

Undead Being

Prerequisite: 7th level

Your creature type is undead. You age ten times slower and are immune to diseases. You have no need for air, cast no shadow and have no reflection. However if a piercing weapon made out of wood is driven into your heart while you are incapacitated, you have disadvantage on death saving throws and are paralyzed even if you lose the incapacitated condition, this lasts until the stake is removed. This feature is replaced at 18th level.

Vampire Fangs

Your fangs are a natural weapon, with which you are proficient. You can use an action to make the Vampiric Bite attack with them that uses your Strength or Dexterity modifier (your choice) for attack and damage rolls. You can not apply your Crimson Rite feature to your fangs.

Vampiric Resilience

Whilst in dim light or darkness, you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks not made with silvered weapons. When you are within a 30ft range of garlic you lose these resistances, and become vulnerable to attacks made with silvered weapons.

Vampiric Sight

You have superior darkvision up to 120ft.

Blood Essence

As part of the vampirism affliction that you gain at 3rd level, you gain access to Blood Essence, this is the life force that sustains you and your magical powers. The maximum amount of Blood Essence that you can store equals your proficiency modifier. Blood Essence is gained and consumed by your Blood Essence features:

Consume Blood. You have no need to drink or eat everyday, although you still are able to do so without gaining any benefits. You can instead choose to consume one Blood Essence to sustain yourself for a day; if you fail to do so, you suffer one level of exhaustion at the end of the day and two levels if you already have any levels of exhaustion.

Harvest Blood. When you hit a target with your Vampiric Bite, you can choose to spend 1 minute with your teeth sunk into the target to harvest the target's Blood Essence if it is alive, has blood and is a beast or humanoid. For the duration, you are both incapacitated and restrained, nor can you speak. The creature is paralyzed, until it takes damage or you finish using this ability. After 1 minute you regain all of your expended Blood Essence slots, the target then suffers two levels of exhaustion. Once you use this feature, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

Transmute Blood. As an action, you can expend two Blood Essence slots to regain your all of your expended Pact Magic spell slots. You can not regain expended Pact Magic spell slots in any other way.

Pact Magic

You form a pact with your vampiric curse, this pact allows you to conjure magic in the form of spells from the blood you have consumed of your victims, you are not able to cast any known spell from this subclass whilst in your humanoid form. Spells like disguise self can however still allow you to cast spells without looking like your natural form. See chapter 10 of the Player’s Handbook for the general rules of spellcasting and chapter 11 of the Player’s Handbook for the sorcerer spell list.

Cantrips. You learn two cantrips of your choice from the sorcerer spell list. You learn an additional sorcerer cantrip of your choice at 10th level.

Spell Slots.  Unlike other casters you do not regain any expended Pact Magic spell slots when you finish a short or long rest. Instead you only regain expended spell slots when you transmute Blood Essence to spell slots using the Transmute Blood feature.

The Vampiric Spellcasting table shows how many spell slots you have. The table also shows what the level of those slots is; all of your spell slots are the same level. To cast one of your sorcerer spells of 1st level or higher, you must expend a spell slot.

For example, when you are 8th level, you have two 2nd-level spell slots. To cast the 1st-level spell silent image, you must spend one of those slots, and you cast it as a 2nd-level spell.

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher. At 3rd level, you know two 1st-level spells, which you must choose from the enchantment and illusion spells on the sorcerer spell list.

The Spells Known column of the Vampiric Spellcasting table shows when you learn more sorcerer spells of your choice of 1st level and higher. Each of these spells must be an enchantment or illusion spell of your choice, and must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For instance, when you reach 13th level in this class, you learn can learn one new spell of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level.

Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the sorcerer spells you know and replace it with another enchantment or illusion spell from the sorcerer spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

Spellcasting Ability. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your sorcerer spells, so you use your Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a sorcerer spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

BLOOD HUNTER LEVEL	CANTRIPS KNOWN	SPELLS KNOWN	SPELL SLOTS	SLOT LEVEL
3rd	2	2	1	1st
4th	2	2	1	1st
5th	2	3	1	1st
6th	2	3	2	1st
7th	2	4	2	2nd
8th	2	4	2	2nd
9th	2	5	2	2nd
10th	3	5	2	2nd
11th	3	6	2	2nd
12th	3	6	2	2nd
13th	3	7	2	3rd
14th	3	7	2	3rd
15th	3	8	2	3rd
16th	3	8	2	3rd
17th	3	9	2	3rd
18th	3	9	2	3rd
19th	3	10	2	4th
20th	3	11	2	4th

Charming Gaze

At 7th level, you learn the Charm Person spell. This spell does not count against the number of spells you know. You can cast Charm Person once without expending a spell slot, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you cast Charm Person in this way, it is cast as a 1st-level spell, you can ignore the verbal and somatic requirements for it as long as you have eye-contact, and Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it. Furthermore, a creature that is charmed by you becomes a willing creature for the purposes of your Vampiric Bite feature and damage inflicted by your bite does not end the creature's charmed status, it persists for its duration even if you have used your Harvest Blood feature on the creature.

You now also gain access to the Undead Being option under the Vampirism feature.

Blood Blessings

At 11th level, you have learned to draw magical power from your Blood Essence in the form of Blood Blessings. You learn one Blood Blessing from the Blood Blessings list of your choice, you learn a second at 15th level and third at 18th level.

Blood Blessing of Accuracy

As a bonus action, you can expend one Blood Essence to roll with advantage for attacks made by you until the end of your turn.

Blood Blessing of Competence

As an action, you can expend one Blood Essence to bless a creature you can touch with competence, granting advantage on the first ability check made by the blessed creature within the next 1 minute.

Blood Blessing of Leeching

When you deal damage with a weapon attack, you can expend one Blood Essence as a reaction to heal for the same amount as the weapon's damage roll.

Blood Blessing of Power

As an action, you can expend one Blood Essence to imbue yourself with power, the next time you hit with a melee attack before the end of your next turn, you score a critical hit.

Blood Blessing of Predation

As a bonus action, you can expend one Blood Essence to enhance your vision. Using your concentration, you can see any creature that has blood as a glowing red silhouette for the next 1 minute, you can see creatures this way even if they are invisible or behind solid objects up to a range of 120 feet.

Blood Blessing of Resilience

When a creature you can see within 30 feet of you takes damage from an attack or spell, you can expend one Blood Essence as a reaction to half all damage taken as part of that attack.

Blood Blessing of Shadow

As a bonus action, you can expend one Blood Essence to phase into a cloud of shadowy fog and bats, increasing your movement speed by 10ft and allowing you to move through other creatures and object as if they were difficult terrain until the end of your turn. You take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside an object or creature and are immediately shunted to the nearest unoccupied space.

Brand of Leeching

Upon reaching 15th level, your Brand of Castigation feature grants you limited control over the branded target's blood as shown under features on your character sheet.

Brand of Leeching

The first time you deal damage on a turn to a creature branded by your Brand of Castigation with your crimson rite, you siphon blood from the branded target if it has blood, you heal for the same amount as dealt by the hemocraft die roll from the crimson rite. If more than one hemocraft die was rolled as part of the attack, you choose which roll to use for the healing effect.

Additionally, if healing this way would bring you above your maximum hit points you gain the excess as temporary hit points until the end of your next turn, as long as you have temporary hit points from this feature you gain a +1 bonus to AC, as your foe's blood swirls around you and forms a protective armor.

Immortal Being

Upon reaching 18th level, you have unlocked the full potential of your vampiric blood, granting you better control over your mortality. You gain the Immortal Being feature: in the character builder, replace the Undead Being option for the 7th level Vampirism feature for this option when you reach this level.

You also gain the Blood Curse of Vampirism for your Blood Maledict feature. This doesn't count against your number of blood curses known.

Blood Curse of Vampirism

When you deal necrotic damage to a humanoid creature with your Vampiric Bite attack, you can use your reaction to attempt to curse the creature. The creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be cursed for up to 1 minute, whilst cursed the creature is paralyzed. At the end of each of its turns, the cursed creature can make another Wisdom saving throw. On a success, the curse ends on the target. If a creature of a CR of 4 or lower dies whilst affected by this curse, you can spend time to bury its corpse and it will rise from the dead a day later as a vampire spawn loyal to you.

Amplify. The creature has disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws made to resist the curse.

Vampire Spawn. A Vampire Spawn maintains its original statistics and abilities but gains the Vampirism and Blood Essence features from this subclass, though it does not gain the Pact Magic feature. The spawn will fight with you independently and will obey your commands as long as they do not directly guarantee its death. If the Vampire Spawn drinks your blood its bond of servitude is broken, however it can never decide to do so against your will. You can only have one Vampire Spawn loyal to you at a given time.

The raising of Vampire Spawn is a strictly forbidden practice for members of the order, outside of the Order of the Vampire's initiation rituals. The consequences of using the curse this way could be grave.