A place to generally discuss the Blood Hunter class because, as a technically unofficial class, it doesn't have it's own Class forum.
Anyway, personally, I really like the 2020 Blood Hunter updates. I feel that it kept the risk/reward nature of the class while making the drawbacks a bit less debilitating (especially the mutagen formulas). I also like the decision to change it from a wisdom-based class to an Intelligence-based class. We already have enough Wisdom classes. We only had two Intelligence classes, one of which (Artificer) only works in certain settings. I have a few problems with the update (why did you get rid of Blood Curse of Mutual Suffering? Agh!), but on the whole I think it's a much more balanced class than previous incarnations.
I love the blood hunter class and I appreciate you making its own chat.
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I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Anyway, is it just me, or are all four orders substantially better now?
Ghostslayer's most important abilities arrive earlier without feeling too overpowered, and the new features are pretty cool, especially Curse of the Exorcist, which, while rather situational, is still an interesting idea that doesn't make the class itself feel overly specialized.
Lycan is still an awesome order, and still quite powerful, but it doesn't feel quite as dangerously overpowered as it did before. I understand why people dislike nerfs, but sometimes they are necessary, and I think the Lycan overhaul is an example of how to do it right. It's not perfectly balanced, but it's better.
Mutant is still probably the weakest option, but it's not as borderline unplayable as it was before. My only real complaint with the new mutant is that you have to pick one formula at the end of a rest and, at lower levels, that's the only option you have until your next rest. This is a non-issue if your goal is to be sort of a "always prepared" character, but otherwise it's a bit limiting. Other than that, yeah, some of the main effects are less powerful, but the side effects of the old mutagens were absolutely brutal, whereas the new ones, while risky enough to be balanced, are at least tolerable.
Profane Soul is an order which never really interested me before, but this one's also better. I really like the way that this allows you to be a caster/warrior combo. Other builds have subclasses for this, but this one for me really captures what I want from a caster/fighter in terms of flavor. Whereas Eldritch Knight feels like a fighter who can cast spells and Hexblade feels like a spellcaster who can fight, Profane Soul really does feel like a warrior and a spellcaster at the same time, even if it's only a half-caster.
I looked at the Lycan especially before it was nerfed. I always loved the idea of being a lycan, but when it was finally presented in the form of a bloodhunter it did seem over powered. I am so gald that it has been nerfed.
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I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
I don't feel like Lycan has been nerfed at all. Vulnerability to silver has been removed. You no longer have to make a bloodlust save until you are below half hp. And now you get the brand of the voracious and a wider array of of blood curses. The only downside, if you want to call it that, is that blood hunter is now an INT class while bloodlust still depends on a WIS save.
When they updated the Lycan, they wanted it to be more playable by the characters. Before, its damage was crazy but it also had a lot of setbacks. The chance of going crazy and being vulnerable to silver limited what a player could do. When i talk about the nerfing, i am talking about the damage decrease not about the interaction with the enviroment.
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I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
True, but, if I remember correctly, the damage used to be a lot more powerful.
It ends up being pretty much the same as the flat bonuses to melee damage and unarmed attacks scale at roughly the same rate as half proficiency did. The main difference is that Predatory Strikes no longer goes up to a D10 which I feel is offset by getting access to the unarmed to-hit bonus four levels earlier. Not to mention that Hybrid Transformation is a bonus action out the gate when you had to wait until 11th level to do that with the prior version.
I had not noticed the lower cap on predatory strikes. The Lycan at my table is only level 8, so he is just hitting for d6 right now anyway. Since he took the dueling fighting style, his favorite tactic is to use a longsword one-handed for the +2 damage bonus, then follow up with his second attack using his claw (generally on fire), which allows him to use the bonus action for a second claw strike. It works pretty well for him.
I'm honestly confused as to why Dexterity is one of the saving throw proficiencies. Dexterity has little, if anything, to do with any of the class or subclass features, and the Quick Build itself even treats Dexterity as an entirely optional investment depending on the weapons you want to use.
Is there any particular reason why it's not Constitution and Intelligence instead? Blood Hunters' entire shtick is that they sacrifice their own lifeforce to bolster their abilities (or even have abilities in the first place).
Blood Hunter is, at least in part, a martial class, and although it is possible to make either a dex or a strength based blood hunter, the class seems designed to facilitate dex-based builds. Essentially, you don't need dex, but you need either strength or dex.
That being said, I do agree with you, just trying to present a possible argument.
I’m playing order of the lycan and am having some difficulties with the app. The only way I’ve found to transform and apply the bonuses is to open the webpage and edit it on that, which is super inconvenient. Is there a function to toggle it on and off within the app? Not just check the box to mark the use of it.
Late to the party I know, but seems to me that the lycan BA unarmed attack is not including the predatory strikes/improved predatory strikes/feral might are not adding to the BA attack?
I’m loving running the Lycan BH… I’m also an Aasimar, which also means I’ve got massive versatility and loads of options for using Bonus Actions…
I’m at L7 so far, and kind of unsure where to take the character now… I’m thinking of multiclassing into Fighter, to get close to Action Surge and second wind, but are there any Feats folks would recommend as a ‘must take’?
So, I've done some searching to find any builds of a ghostslayer archer with no sucess. So perhpas I'm the first?
Well, its a Dex build ofcoarse and I'm Leath-Al-YandaZor - currently a 4th level Woodelf BloodHunter - order of GhostSlayer
I want to check that I have the mechanics right:
I activate my Crimson rite - Rite of the Dawn by take 1d4 haemo damage.
Each arrow (longbow+1) that hits will now do 1d8+6 + 1d4 haemo damage plus additional 1d4 if undead - P.S. I have sharpshooter Feat, with plus 10 to hit.
Blood hunter gets 1x Blood maladict (I've chosen Curse of Eyeless - to benifit the party) - but I'm a GhostSlayer , so I believe (pls confirm) I get one additional use becuse Ghost slayers are curse specialists i.e. 2x Blood maladicts per short rest?
I can activate the curse at any time (if target in 30 feet) and if i choose amplify it - I need to dake additional 1d4 haemo damage?
I hope I got that all above right:
At LEVEL 5 - which is where I will be after next battle - things change a bit - this is where im looking for guidence/options/input:
I will take additional attack action - to I can fire two arrows = 2xd8+6 +1d6 haemo damage 2d6 if undead
P.S. When I activate crimson right - weapon lights up with a 20ft brigt light - I've read that this is described as "evil dispelling light" does that mean any evil may not come withing 20Ft of me?
Can anyone confirm if the structure and understnding above is correct?
Ill also probably change my curse to Blinding to benifity the party - or Marked which will give me huge DPS with extra action - thoughts?
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A place to generally discuss the Blood Hunter class because, as a technically unofficial class, it doesn't have it's own Class forum.
Anyway, personally, I really like the 2020 Blood Hunter updates. I feel that it kept the risk/reward nature of the class while making the drawbacks a bit less debilitating (especially the mutagen formulas). I also like the decision to change it from a wisdom-based class to an Intelligence-based class. We already have enough Wisdom classes. We only had two Intelligence classes, one of which (Artificer) only works in certain settings. I have a few problems with the update (why did you get rid of Blood Curse of Mutual Suffering? Agh!), but on the whole I think it's a much more balanced class than previous incarnations.
I love the blood hunter class and I appreciate you making its own chat.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Litany Against Fear, Frank Herbert
Thanks! I was looking through the forums for a place to discuss the class in general and found that that didn't really exist.
Anyway, is it just me, or are all four orders substantially better now?
Ghostslayer's most important abilities arrive earlier without feeling too overpowered, and the new features are pretty cool, especially Curse of the Exorcist, which, while rather situational, is still an interesting idea that doesn't make the class itself feel overly specialized.
Lycan is still an awesome order, and still quite powerful, but it doesn't feel quite as dangerously overpowered as it did before. I understand why people dislike nerfs, but sometimes they are necessary, and I think the Lycan overhaul is an example of how to do it right. It's not perfectly balanced, but it's better.
Mutant is still probably the weakest option, but it's not as borderline unplayable as it was before. My only real complaint with the new mutant is that you have to pick one formula at the end of a rest and, at lower levels, that's the only option you have until your next rest. This is a non-issue if your goal is to be sort of a "always prepared" character, but otherwise it's a bit limiting. Other than that, yeah, some of the main effects are less powerful, but the side effects of the old mutagens were absolutely brutal, whereas the new ones, while risky enough to be balanced, are at least tolerable.
Profane Soul is an order which never really interested me before, but this one's also better. I really like the way that this allows you to be a caster/warrior combo. Other builds have subclasses for this, but this one for me really captures what I want from a caster/fighter in terms of flavor. Whereas Eldritch Knight feels like a fighter who can cast spells and Hexblade feels like a spellcaster who can fight, Profane Soul really does feel like a warrior and a spellcaster at the same time, even if it's only a half-caster.
I looked at the Lycan especially before it was nerfed. I always loved the idea of being a lycan, but when it was finally presented in the form of a bloodhunter it did seem over powered. I am so gald that it has been nerfed.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Litany Against Fear, Frank Herbert
I don't feel like Lycan has been nerfed at all. Vulnerability to silver has been removed. You no longer have to make a bloodlust save until you are below half hp. And now you get the brand of the voracious and a wider array of of blood curses. The only downside, if you want to call it that, is that blood hunter is now an INT class while bloodlust still depends on a WIS save.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
True, but, if I remember correctly, the damage used to be a lot more powerful.
Plus, the rest of the class had the drawbacks lessened as well, so it fits.
When they updated the Lycan, they wanted it to be more playable by the characters. Before, its damage was crazy but it also had a lot of setbacks. The chance of going crazy and being vulnerable to silver limited what a player could do. When i talk about the nerfing, i am talking about the damage decrease not about the interaction with the enviroment.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Litany Against Fear, Frank Herbert
It ends up being pretty much the same as the flat bonuses to melee damage and unarmed attacks scale at roughly the same rate as half proficiency did. The main difference is that Predatory Strikes no longer goes up to a D10 which I feel is offset by getting access to the unarmed to-hit bonus four levels earlier. Not to mention that Hybrid Transformation is a bonus action out the gate when you had to wait until 11th level to do that with the prior version.
I had not noticed the lower cap on predatory strikes. The Lycan at my table is only level 8, so he is just hitting for d6 right now anyway. Since he took the dueling fighting style, his favorite tactic is to use a longsword one-handed for the +2 damage bonus, then follow up with his second attack using his claw (generally on fire), which allows him to use the bonus action for a second claw strike. It works pretty well for him.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Here's the link to a DNDBeyond forum that was started the day Mercer posted the update, it's got lots of good discussions going.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/56234-bloodhunter-2020
And here's the link to the DMsGuild page for the Blood Hunter where it has a discussion thread with over 70 comments!
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/301641/Blood-Hunter-Class-for-DD-5e-2020?site="_rel="/includes/ajax/tooltip_request_handler_php?products_id=301641" rel="/includes/ajax/tooltip_request_handler.php?products_id=301641
Thank you
I'm honestly confused as to why Dexterity is one of the saving throw proficiencies. Dexterity has little, if anything, to do with any of the class or subclass features, and the Quick Build itself even treats Dexterity as an entirely optional investment depending on the weapons you want to use.
Is there any particular reason why it's not Constitution and Intelligence instead? Blood Hunters' entire shtick is that they sacrifice their own lifeforce to bolster their abilities (or even have abilities in the first place).
Blood Hunter is, at least in part, a martial class, and although it is possible to make either a dex or a strength based blood hunter, the class seems designed to facilitate dex-based builds. Essentially, you don't need dex, but you need either strength or dex.
That being said, I do agree with you, just trying to present a possible argument.
I’m playing order of the lycan and am having some difficulties with the app. The only way I’ve found to transform and apply the bonuses is to open the webpage and edit it on that, which is super inconvenient. Is there a function to toggle it on and off within the app? Not just check the box to mark the use of it.
No, you have to do it manually.
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Late to the party I know, but seems to me that the lycan BA unarmed attack is not including the predatory strikes/improved predatory strikes/feral might are not adding to the BA attack?
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I’m loving running the Lycan BH… I’m also an Aasimar, which also means I’ve got massive versatility and loads of options for using Bonus Actions…
I’m at L7 so far, and kind of unsure where to take the character now… I’m thinking of multiclassing into Fighter, to get close to Action Surge and second wind, but are there any Feats folks would recommend as a ‘must take’?
So, I've done some searching to find any builds of a ghostslayer archer with no sucess. So perhpas I'm the first?
Well, its a Dex build ofcoarse and I'm Leath-Al-YandaZor - currently a 4th level Woodelf BloodHunter - order of GhostSlayer
I want to check that I have the mechanics right:
I activate my Crimson rite - Rite of the Dawn by take 1d4 haemo damage.
Each arrow (longbow+1) that hits will now do 1d8+6 + 1d4 haemo damage plus additional 1d4 if undead - P.S. I have sharpshooter Feat, with plus 10 to hit.
Blood hunter gets 1x Blood maladict (I've chosen Curse of Eyeless - to benifit the party) - but I'm a GhostSlayer , so I believe (pls confirm) I get one additional use becuse Ghost slayers are curse specialists i.e. 2x Blood maladicts per short rest?
I can activate the curse at any time (if target in 30 feet) and if i choose amplify it - I need to dake additional 1d4 haemo damage?
I hope I got that all above right:
At LEVEL 5 - which is where I will be after next battle - things change a bit - this is where im looking for guidence/options/input:
I will take additional attack action - to I can fire two arrows = 2xd8+6 +1d6 haemo damage 2d6 if undead
P.S. When I activate crimson right - weapon lights up with a 20ft brigt light - I've read that this is described as "evil dispelling light" does that mean any evil may not come withing 20Ft of me?
Can anyone confirm if the structure and understnding above is correct?
Ill also probably change my curse to Blinding to benifity the party - or Marked which will give me huge DPS with extra action - thoughts?