Not sure why you made a poll, you only need one person to tell you 'no', it's not an official wotc class. It's homebrew by Matt Mercer.
The only real concept of 'legal' in D&D is 'AL legal' which means legal for use in Adventures League organised play. That applies to a limited selection of official content
Adventurer's League legal? No. Nothing is AL legal, including AL. If you're ever in a position of being unsure of whether something is legal in Adventurer's League, the default answer is always "Not just no, but hell no."
"Legal" in that you can select it and play it in a home game if your DM says so? Of course. it's a class like any other - the DM can say Blood Hunters are legal, she can say that Warlocks aren't legal, and/or whatever other combination she likes. At that point, legality is entirely up to your DM.
The bloodhunter (and gunslinger) are somewhere between homebrew and 3rd party content. It is not official or playtest content. You can use it (anything really) in your games (with DM permission), but it is not Adventure league legal.
Oh, now knowing that it was made by WotC makes me want to add this to my party's list of classes. That was reassuring, I didn't want anything to do with the Adventure league. Thanks again, I was only wondering because the Artificer class was from UA until it was made official when they released ERLW...
The Blood Hunter was not made by Wizards. It was made by Matthew Mercer, dungeon master for Critical Role. Mercer's chops are well established, even by Wizards now with the advent of Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, but the Blood Hunter is his thing, not Wizards'.
That said, much like the artificer, most players tend to consider the Blood Hunter to be a highly suboptimal class, underperforming and underpowered. It's very fragile, given that it has to constantly sacrifice its own health to fuel its class features; and while it can be used very effectively, that tends to require a player with a strong grip on the game's mechanics. Very much an Advanced Players Only thing.
Blood Hunter is basically homebrew by a well known game designer, that WotC has said "you know what, we like that". It's not really a question of "legal". If you were to attend one of the WotC sanctioned events, you would not be able to use it. But outside of that, WotC has given the green light, essentially. It would be up to your local DM if they allow it or not.
It is pretty balanced from what I've seen, but no one in my group has ever used it, so opinion not based on experience.
Based on what is written in the class description, I would say that Ghost Slayer is above the mark, while Lycan is middle of the road. Profane Soul seems lacking, and Mutant looks like it could be really powerful but is correspondingly hard to use properly.
The bloodhunter (and gunslinger) are somewhere between homebrew and 3rd party content. It is not official or playtest content. You can use it (anything really) in your games (with DM permission), but it is not Adventure league legal.
I wouldn't say "somewhere between." I would just say they are 3rd party content. The only thing different about them is that they are hosted on DDB.
At this point, though? In a post EGtW world? Can Matt Mercer still be considered 'third party' the same way Joe Randoschmuck the DM's Guild Guy is?
They're not AL legal or 'Core D&D', but Mercer's creator's chops and Wizards' general endorsement of them have been pretty dang unambiguously established at this point.
Adventurer's League legal? No. Nothing is AL legal, including AL. If you're ever in a position of being unsure of whether something is legal in Adventurer's League, the default answer is always "Not just no, but hell no."
As for the status of the Blood Hunter/other content from Matt Mercer, methinks that line started to get blurred back when WotC made one of the PC's in Crit Role (Arkhan) an NPC in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, which seemed to hint that Exandria in general was making it's way into D&D canon...
The bloodhunter (and gunslinger) are somewhere between homebrew and 3rd party content. It is not official or playtest content. You can use it (anything really) in your games (with DM permission), but it is not Adventure league legal.
I wouldn't say "somewhere between." I would just say they are 3rd party content. The only thing different about them is that they are hosted on DDB.
They haven't been printed in any 3rd party books that I know of.
And either way, 3rd party and homebrew have the same answer to "is it official/AL legal?" The new wildhunt book coming out doesn't change the bloodhunter's or gunslinger's status in that regard.
Blood Hunter is unofficial ("homebrew") content by Matt Mercer, but he and Critical Role have an advertising partnership with DNDBeyond.
Nothing makes the Blood Hunter class inherently special as compared to any other homebrew class published on DMsGuild or D&D Beyond. It's not any more official or AL-legal than any other homebrew class.
The only reason it has a special placement/presentation on D&D Beyond is that Matt Mercer and Critical Role have an advertising partnership with D&D Beyond. Apparently, as part of that partnership, D&D Beyond has agreed to provide special listings for Mercer's homebrew Blood Hunter class and his Gunslinger fighter subclass. (The same items appear on DMsGuild: Blood Hunter, and Gunslinger.)
DNDBeyond's character creator also lists "Critical Role Content" separately from other "Homebrew Content", presumably for the same reason.
We are also very happy to finally share that we have entered a long-term partnership with Critical Role!
As part of the sponsorship, we will be adding some of the custom content used at the table in the show, starting with the blood hunter class by Matt Mercer.
You can also see in the screen capture above that a new Critical Role Content category has been added. To enable CR content for your character, toggle that category "on" and you will see the blood hunter as a new option in the builder. You can also see the blood hunter under the 'Additional > Classes' section in the main navigation and classes page.
We plan to incorporate more Critical Role content over the course of the partnership, so stay tuned for that here. Also, if you aren't already a loyal viewer, now is an excellent time to jump in and experience a brand new campaign with the cast of Critical Role! Check out the first episode here.
Twitter user: The Blood Hunter is listed as an additional class on D&D Beyond, under official classes, was it made official?
Jeremy Crawford: The only official classes in D&D are in the Player's Handbook. For a new class to become official in the future, it must appear in a D&D book or must be announced as official by the D&D team.
DNDBeyond: The Blood Hunter is actually categorized under 'Additional Classes' everywhere it appears in DDB. It is specifically not under 'Official Classes' and is not considered official.
Matt Mercer: This. :)
In short: it's not official. It's basically "homebrew"/third-party content, just like anyone else's, except D&D Beyond has given it a special placement/designation because of their partnership with Critical Role.
Note: Matt Mercer just released an updated version of the Blood Hunter (the old one's still PWYW on DMsGuild), but it doesn't change any of what I've quoted above. It costs $8, but all proceeds go to the AU Brushfire Relief charity: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/301641/Blood-Hunter-Class-for-DD-5e-2020
Author's Note: This was my first homebrew class waaaaay back before DMs Guild first started, and I had a LOT to learn. Originally spawned as a handful of variant abilities I designed for Vin Diesel guesting on my D&Diesel one-shot to promote his film "The Last Witch Hunter" (in which I was given no context for his character other than the trailer), the internet was loudly requesting me to release what class he played. Needing to heavily expand upon those small features, I cobbled together my first attempt at this class with meager design experience and tossed it to the internet with a wince. A handful of years of iterations, and incredible amounts of very well-thought out feedback from the web later, I've learned so much more about fun design and balance... and I wanted to take a crack at redesigning this class from from the ground up.
Deep consideration brought me to shift the secondary ability score focus from Wisdom to Intelligence, as the hemocraft magic was more arcane in nature, and there was little representation for an Intelligence-based martial class. Along with this came many changes to improve the ease of tracking abilities like the Crimson Rite, while adding some new features and utility to the class and its Orders (including the Brand of Castigation). Massive rebalancing has been applied throughout the class, and each Order eventually receives its own unique Blood Curse, as well as a unique modification to their Brand.
While the first release of any new design will have its problems, I feel much more confident about the direction of this class and its place in my games and world. I hope you enjoy this newly fashioned, improved release of the Blood Hunter!
The updated Blood Hunter is pretty cool. INT based now and some new functionality.The Lycan is a little tighter as well. Should be interesting to see how it plays.
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is the Blood Hunter a 'legal' class?
Not sure why you made a poll, you only need one person to tell you 'no', it's not an official wotc class. It's homebrew by Matt Mercer.
The only real concept of 'legal' in D&D is 'AL legal' which means legal for use in Adventures League organised play. That applies to a limited selection of official content
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I just started using the forum section of D&D beyond today...
It is all new to me and I just wanted to test what the poll would do...
Anyway thanks for answering my question so quickly.
"Legal" how?
Adventurer's League legal? No. Nothing is AL legal, including AL. If you're ever in a position of being unsure of whether something is legal in Adventurer's League, the default answer is always "Not just no, but hell no."
"Legal" in that you can select it and play it in a home game if your DM says so? Of course. it's a class like any other - the DM can say Blood Hunters are legal, she can say that Warlocks aren't legal, and/or whatever other combination she likes. At that point, legality is entirely up to your DM.
Please do not contact or message me.
True, I was thinking like AU compared to Official
Ah, that's fair.
And to answer your later point about
Assuming you're referring to UA, Bloodhunter isn't UA either as it's not a class made by WotC
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
The bloodhunter (and gunslinger) are somewhere between homebrew and 3rd party content. It is not official or playtest content. You can use it (anything really) in your games (with DM permission), but it is not Adventure league legal.
Oh, now knowing that it was made by WotC makes me want to add this to my party's list of classes. That was reassuring, I didn't want anything to do with the Adventure league. Thanks again, I was only wondering because the Artificer class was from UA until it was made official when they released ERLW...
The Blood Hunter was not made by Wizards. It was made by Matthew Mercer, dungeon master for Critical Role. Mercer's chops are well established, even by Wizards now with the advent of Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, but the Blood Hunter is his thing, not Wizards'.
That said, much like the artificer, most players tend to consider the Blood Hunter to be a highly suboptimal class, underperforming and underpowered. It's very fragile, given that it has to constantly sacrifice its own health to fuel its class features; and while it can be used very effectively, that tends to require a player with a strong grip on the game's mechanics. Very much an Advanced Players Only thing.
Please do not contact or message me.
Blood Hunter is basically homebrew by a well known game designer, that WotC has said "you know what, we like that". It's not really a question of "legal". If you were to attend one of the WotC sanctioned events, you would not be able to use it. But outside of that, WotC has given the green light, essentially. It would be up to your local DM if they allow it or not.
Most of my party are new to the game, one is advanced but rarely shows up so I'll leave it up to them to decide if they would like to use it...
My biggest concern was that it would be OP and my party (always at each other's throats) would have an immediate fight...
It is pretty balanced from what I've seen, but no one in my group has ever used it, so opinion not based on experience.
I'd have answered the poll if you'd provided the Palpatine response: "I will make it legal."
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Based on what is written in the class description, I would say that Ghost Slayer is above the mark, while Lycan is middle of the road. Profane Soul seems lacking, and Mutant looks like it could be really powerful but is correspondingly hard to use properly.
I wouldn't say "somewhere between." I would just say they are 3rd party content. The only thing different about them is that they are hosted on DDB.
A week ago that would've been sensible.
At this point, though? In a post EGtW world? Can Matt Mercer still be considered 'third party' the same way Joe Randoschmuck the DM's Guild Guy is?
They're not AL legal or 'Core D&D', but Mercer's creator's chops and Wizards' general endorsement of them have been pretty dang unambiguously established at this point.
Please do not contact or message me.
As for the status of the Blood Hunter/other content from Matt Mercer, methinks that line started to get blurred back when WotC made one of the PC's in Crit Role (Arkhan) an NPC in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, which seemed to hint that Exandria in general was making it's way into D&D canon...
They haven't been printed in any 3rd party books that I know of.
And either way, 3rd party and homebrew have the same answer to "is it official/AL legal?" The new wildhunt book coming out doesn't change the bloodhunter's or gunslinger's status in that regard.
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ModeratorA corresponding question on RPG.SE (with an answer by me): https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/129150/how-official-is-the-blood-hunter-class
Note: Matt Mercer just released an updated version of the Blood Hunter (the old one's still PWYW on DMsGuild), but it doesn't change any of what I've quoted above. It costs $8, but all proceeds go to the AU Brushfire Relief charity: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/301641/Blood-Hunter-Class-for-DD-5e-2020
In the Twitter thread, Mercer also mentions that the version on DDB will be updated too: https://twitter.com/matthewmercer/status/1221885565848571904
The updated Blood Hunter is pretty cool. INT based now and some new functionality.The Lycan is a little tighter as well. Should be interesting to see how it plays.
"Not all those who wander are lost"