Path of the Bloodied Blade

Barbarians who follow the Path of the Bloodied Blade embrace the savage reality of battle, turning the chaos of combat into fuel for their unrelenting rage. Their bond with blood grants them power through the Blood Marks they accumulate by slaying foes, channeling the essence of their enemies into devastating attacks and supernatural resilience. Blood becomes their weapon, their shield, and their undoing.

Blood Marks

At 3rd level, your rage grants you the ability to accumulate and use Blood Marks, empowering your attacks and augmenting your abilities.

• Gaining Blood Marks: When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points while raging, you gain one Blood Mark. Blood Marks last until your next long rest.

• Using Blood Marks: You can spend Blood Marks to activate the following features. These do not require an action, but their effects only last until the end of the current combat:

  • Frenzied Strikes (1 Blood Mark): Your weapon attacks deal an additional 1d6 damage.

  • Blazing Speed (1 Blood Mark): Your movement speed increases by 10 feet.

  • Defensive Surge (1 Blood Mark): You gain temporary hit points equal to your Barbarian level.

  • Relentless Assault (3 Blood Marks): You can make one additional weapon attack as part of your Attack action.

Blood-Fueled Fury

At 6th level, your connection to blood deepens, and your rage empowers your abilities:

• Improved Blood Marks: You can now gain Blood Marks whenever a creature within 10 feet of you dies, even if you didn’t kill it, as long as you’re raging.

• Bloodied Resilience: While raging, you can spend 1 Blood Mark as a reaction to reduce the damage of an attack you can see by an amount equal to your Constitution modifier + your Barbarian level.

• Empowered Rage: When you enter a rage, you gain 1 Blood Mark.

Crimson Adaptation

At 10th level, your mastery over blood magic strengthens your ability to channel it in unique ways:

• Razor Wind (2 Blood Marks): When you take the Attack action, you can hurl a Blood Mark as a projectile. Make a ranged weapon attack (range 30/60) using your Strength modifier. On a hit, the target takes damage equal to your weapon damage plus an additional 2d8 necrotic damage.

• Mark of Vengeance: When you’re reduced to half your hit points or fewer while raging, you automatically gain 1 Blood Mark.

• Blood Surge: You can now activate two different Blood Mark abilities simultaneously when you spend Blood Marks.

Blodletting Cataclysm

At 14th level, you unlock the ultimate expression of your blood magic, sacrificing your life force to unleash devastating power:

• Sanguine Spikes: As an action, you can expend all your remaining Blood Marks to unleash a torrent of blood in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in the area must make a Dexterity saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier). On a failed save, creatures take necrotic damage equal to 10 times the number of Blood Marks spent + the amount of life you lost/2 , or half as much on a success. You can only use this feature once per long rest.

• Life Sacrifice: After using Sanguine Spikes, you drop to 0 hit points. However, for each creature that takes damage from this ability, you regain hit points equal to the necrotic damage dealt to them divided by the number of creatures affected and any excess damage is gained as temporary hit points.