Base Class: Blood Hunter (archived)
The forces of the lower planes – demons, devils, and their ilk – are a target of scorn by all who tread the path of inquisition. However, some believe strongly in the ideal of fighting fire with fire; that to defeat a fiend, one must use their own powers against them.
Blood hunters from the Order of the Demon Hunter have undergone a transformation that infuses fiendish essence in their own being. Their methods of obtaining this power varies between individual hunters; some imbibe a concoction not unlike that used to obtain their hunter’s bane. Others perform risk-laden dark rituals and have survived by some miracle, or have even dared to enter a pact with a demon or devil, only to break their oath the moment their power has been obtained. All fiends scorn such thieves of their power, and will hunt them relentlessly…a chase that the demon hunter expects and relishes.
Regardless the method, the Order of the Demon Hunter are looked upon with a special disdain even other blood hunters share with the general populace. However, since its founding, many fiends have fallen to the blades of these maverick warriors; their methods are hard to dispute.
Fiendtongue
Starting at 3rd level when you choose this path, you learn the abyssal and infernal languages.
Fiendish Boons
Starting at 3rd level, you are imbued with the supernatural powers of a fiend. Choose one of the following abilities. As an action, you may use the ability you choose. At 7th, 11th, and 15th level, you can choose another ability from this list to learn.
You may use fiendish boons a number of times equal to 1 + your wisdom modifier. Your uses are recovered after a long rest.
Burning Gaze
You shoot a beam of fire from your eyes that sears all in a line. All creatures in a 5-foot wide, 30-foot long line from your position must make a Dexterity saving throw DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your wisdom modifier or take 1d8 fire damage.
The fire damage increases to 2d8 at 7th level, 3d8 at 12th level, and 4d8 at 17th level.
Fiendish Charge
You move in a straight line up to 30 feet towards a free square, phasing through any creatures (but not other obstacles) as you do. While moving, you may make a melee weapon attack with advantage against any creature you move through or 5-feet either side of your path. You may attack as many times as you would be able to using the attack action, and may use your bonus action to attack with two-weapon fighting. You may attack the same creature multiple times or split your attacks against multiple targets.
Helldive
You leap in the air up to your maximum high jump distance and move to a free space within 10 feet. As you land, you unleash a shockwave that pulses with hellfire and shakes the ground beneath you. All creatures standing within 5 feet of the space you land on must make a Constitution saving throw followed by a Dexterity saving throw, both with a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength modifier. They take 1d6 force damage, or half as much if they succeeded the Constitution saving throw, then 1d6 fire damage, or half as much if they passed the Dexterity saving throw.
The damage of both the force damage and fire damage increases to 2d6 at 7th level, 3d6 at 12th level, and 4d6 at 17th level.
Infernal Aura
You wreathe yourself in flames that emanate from your body. All creatures that move into or start their turn within 5 feet of you must make a Dexterity saving throw equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your wisdom modifier. They take 1d6 + half your blood hunter level’s fire damage, or half on a successful saving throw. The aura lasts for one minute before dissipating.
Spectral Sight
Starting at 7th level, your eyes glow with a fiendish flame, illuminating your surroundings and allowing you to sense life around you. As a bonus action, you gain blindsight out to 60 feet. Creatures you detect with this blindsight appear as a fiery glowing silhouette of their physical appearance.
This feature lasts for 1 minute. Once you’ve used this feature, you cannot do so again until you take a short or long rest.
Demonic Wards
Starting at 11th level, you can channel the power of the Lower Planes to ward off extraplanar threats. You may cast protection from evil and good on yourself as per the spell, but without the need for material components, and you do not have to concentrate to maintain the spell. Once you use this feature, you cannot do so again until you take a short or long rest.
Fiendish Wings
Starting at 15th level, your infused powers enable you to grow fiendish wings from your back. You gain a fly speed equal to your movement speed. In addition, you may use your wings to reduce your rate of falling to 60 feet a round, as per the feather fall spell. You lose these features if you are unconscious, or if your wings are somehow bound.
Metamorphosis
Starting at 18th level, your mastery over your powers allow you to assume the form of a fiend. As a bonus action, you may take one of three unique forms, as listed below. This form lasts for 1 minute, or until you fall unconscious.
Once you use this feature, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest.
Brutish Fiend. You become a visage of unbridled strength; your muscles bulge and your body is covered with spiked growths. You gain the following bonuses while in this form:
- You have advantage on Strength and Constitution saving throws, and Strength (Athletics) checks
- Your maximum hit points increase by a number equal to your blood hunter level, and you gain that many hit points when you enter this form.
- When you make a melee weapon attack, you may force the targeted creature to make a Strength (Athletics) check contested against yours. If it fails, you may push it back up to 5 feet.
- You grow chitinous spikes around your body that damage foes that try to attack you. When a creature makes a melee weapon attack against you, they must make a Dexterity saving throw with a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier. If they fail, they take 1d8 + your strength modifier piercing damage. This damage is magical.
Lithe Fiend. Your body becomes lean and imbued with supernatural speed. You gain the following bonuses while in this form:
- You have advantage on Dexterity saving throws and Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks.
- Your Dexterity bonus to your AC is doubled. If you are wearing armor that has maximum allowed Dexterity bonus, that maximum doubles for the duration of your metamorphosis.
- When you use the attack action, you may make an additional attack. This is in addition to the one granted by your Extra Attack feature.
- Your move speed increases by 30 feet.
- Your movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Cunning Fiend. Your mind is twisted by the otherworldly cunning of creatures eons old. You gain the following bonuses while in this form:
- You have advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws, and on Wisdom (Perception) and Wisdom (Survival) checks.
- You may amplify your blood maledicts without needing to spend health
- Creatures gain disadvantage on saving throws against all your Fiendish Boons.
- You may cast fire bolt as a cantrip. In addition, you may cast burning hands, scorching ray, fireball, and fire shield once each for the duration of your metamorphosis. Each is cast as a 4th-level spell, and Wisdom is your spellcasting modifier for them.
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Posted Jan 22, 2023Cool dude, I was thinking of turning my WoW DH into a DnD character, and you pretty much already made the entire class in DnD. Kudos.
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Posted May 4, 2020If you change the damage to lightning but keep everything else the same, and give it a Norse god theme instead of a fiendish one, this could make for a great MCU Thor, especially with the Cunning Fiend transformation (aka Ragnarok/Infinity War Thor).
Also, I think the Fiendish Boons would make for nice Paladin Smite spells, if you modify the damage type or the theme/appearance. I think it'd be a good idea to post them as homebrew spells.
Anyway, this is a really cool class. I'm very tempted to use this for one of my NPCs or villains in my group's upcoming campaign.
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Posted Aug 14, 2019Happy to hear it worked! And glad you enjoy the archetype so much, it's good to know non-WoW players approve of it :)
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Posted Aug 13, 2019Actually, that worked out! Excellent! I was genuinely heart broken when I couldn't find it. I don't really play wow so I didn't realize where the build came from, but I absolutely love this build so I'm glad I was able to access it again! Thank you!
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Posted Aug 12, 2019Hi Arkon, I haven't removed the subclass, and I'm not having any trouble adding it myself. I'd say check the basics first; make sure the subclass is still part of your homebrew collection in case it's been accidentally removed for some reason, and make sure when you create a new character that you've got homebrew content enabled (on the Home tab when in the Character Builder).
Could be unrelated, but I just had an error when testing this where I forgot to enable Critical Role content before progressing to the class tab, and even when I went back to switch it on Blood Hunter wouldn't appear, so I had to delete the character and start again. Enabling it from the get-go seemed to help; maybe there's a similar bug with homebrew content?
Hope this helps, if it's anything beyond that I'd suggest raising it with D&D Beyond support on the forum.
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Posted Aug 12, 2019Hey, I really like this sub class and have one character using it. I was going to make another but I can't seem to see the option any more, except on the one character who already has the subclass. Was this sub class taken down or was this just an error on my end?
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Posted May 5, 2019I could possibly bake some advantages against fiends, and a spell like Banishment would work being added as a feature, but honestly I'm a bit adverse to making it too focused on countering one type of creature specifically. 5e generally strays away from that approach, and for good reason IMO; crippling overspecialisation against one type of creature usually doesn't work out well for character builds unless you're playing a campaign focused on one specific kind of enemy.
This is definitely meant to be a fan service-y subclass, so I'm not too fussed on making it too unique from the WoW Demon Hunter as much as it's fun, balanced, and captures the spirit of that class.
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Posted May 4, 2019I actually really like the idea of blood hunters themed around the demon hunters shown in WoW. My one critique is to add more that make it different than the illidari, like don’t forget themes of the blood hunter. What if these guys had crimson rites more centered around demons like giving their weapons an advantage to creatures kinda like how holy weapons harm demons and devils gives the blood hunters weapon a similar effect. What if the blood hunter had a blood maledict that caused lesser demons/devils to be subservient to the blood hunter. The ideas are there I just hope this gets more work done on it, I personally am interested in this concept as a whole.