so a short bit about me. I've been playing DnD for a couple of years now, but only have experience in a single long-term campaign with some friends. There is a decent amount of homebrew in there, and the DM is very laissez faire on some of the more strict moment-to-moment combat ruling and stuff. I personally am trying to adhere to most of the raw rules though and catch myself on stuff like conentration checks on spells if they forget and things like that.
I recently decided to introdue and alternate character to the campaign and have been working on a concept. The character would be starting around level 14 - 15, that's how far we are in the campaign. I really liked the idea of the Blood Hunter homebrew, the lore potential is pretty neat and I would like to make a badass monster that slays monsters. The Order of the Lycan especially seemed to be an amazing theme. I was thinking Bloodborne style, a hunter that cuts down beasts and undead (undead are some of the main enemies of our group, though we have other enemies too, like humanoid mercenaries, cultists, constructs, etc)
But looking over the damage capabilities, combos, feats and potential multiclass options I could take I have come up with very little online traffic about the class in general. My own calculations put the damage per round for the character at around 34 - 36 with the duelist feat, Rapier, no transformation. Calculating in Curse of the Marked we get to 44 - 46. Not quite sure where this would scale compared to everything else. My guess would be the middle ranks, though Ive had companions that dealt a lot more than that in a round. Obviously that includes stuff like magic weapons and other benefits, but still.
I liked the idea of two-weapon fighting to be honest, but a fellow player said it might not make sense in part due to the werewolf claws being one weapon not two and it making more damage when transformed anyway, esp. since the difference is just a few points of damage on average with 39 - 42 ( 35 - 38 with Crimson Rite only on one hand ). Since Crimson Rite on two hands might not be worth it considering the price.
The Hybrid Transformation seems to arrive at 51 per round. Now that's really good consistent damage I think. And like I said, I really like the roleplaying potential of the class. Fact is though, the class - from where I am standing - seems to lack any kind of existing bust damage option. It generally uses no spells (except Profane, but my other character is a Warlock so I have no desire to explore that) and the Blood Magic seems little more than differently (although awesomely) flavored versions of what some other melee or partial-melee classes seem to offer.
As such I'm a bit at a loss as to what the Blood Hunter as a class really IS (aside from the lore). There is certainly some fun to be had with transforming, though as things are now the character will probably use similar weapons most of the time, there is no real loop in the combat that I can see that does give me that bit of dopamine that I am looking for in my RPG combat experiences. It's like being a staight Eldritch Blast build. And while the idea of going full spell sniper used to be something fun in the past for me, I feel it wears out it's novelty, especially in campaign where the DM is a lot better with melee classes compared to casting ones and where most combat starts from 30 or 60 ft away because the enemies have been hiding or were behind natual terrain or are in closed houses, so the randed options are... lmited, although not impossible. But I digress.
As for multiclassing, I looked into some, and the best options seem to be Fighter (Battle Master for example, maneuvers sound fun), though even a 3 level dip would probably already remove the potential very strong lvl 18 lycan feature from my options, not to mention that at my entry point (lvl 14/15) a few levels in fighter would kind of cut me off right at points where the BH has probably some of their better features unlocked.
Coming back to the burst damage and comparing it to other classes I was looking for, Warlock has great options for both Sorlock with Metamagic feats combining EB with spells, as well as for melee brawler builds with good spells for utility and smites if dipping Pala. I've seen our Ranger/Rogue doing damage close to 100 a round at times (certainly not their average, but still), and our Monk can unleash quite a Storm with their flurry of blows, although the latter admittedly has very little HP, so is basically a glass canon. Hell even Fighter can straight up just do their multiple attacks and action surge and tack up some decent 1-2 round damage highs.
I'm just searching for something that gives me the feeling of that character I want. The basic scenario is she is an Elf or Human, turned Lycanthrope and raised as a Monster hunter in the wilderness. She has low Charisma, so she edges on a lot, is a loner for the most part, a very good hunter of beasts and has her own goals and reasons. She is quick and efficient in combat, very skilled in surprising and handling enemies close quarters. But if she is not careful the bloodlust can overcome her and she'll forget herself in combat. She might loose her mind and attack indiscriminately. That's the vibe I was going for.
Maybe someone has something thematically appropriate that has the features I'm looking for. I really like combos with attacks and extra damage and advantage stuff. I like having some consistent damage but also some burst options. Most classess I have dealt with in my own free time crafting possible characters have had that so far. But the BH seems very balanced in th the way that it is a class on it's own, has consistent solid damage if done right, but doesn't seem to have any really great multiclass options that'd be worth it compared to the features the class itself has, doesn't seem to have any real gimmick to it that puts it apart in gameplay especially (like I said, lore is different, that is why I like it so much and want it to work), there aren't a lot of feats that it would benefit from (aside from something like "tough") and the lycan for example seems to clash a bit between it's transformation features and the normal form weapon fighting it utilizes, especially when it comes to attack and damage boni as well as fighting styles and such.
Would appreciate any guidance and suggestions, any ideas you guys can come up with for some fun stuff.
Well if I posted it into the wrong Forum Im sorry. It's just, there is no class forum for Blood Hunter. So I didn't know where else to put it. I can move it, if you tell me where
A hunter with transformation and a rite is basically always-on burst damage. You don’t have any nova options, but with your self buffs on and nothing else, you blow everything else out of the water.
From personal experience the Lycan in the group I DM for absolutely shreds in melee combat, and he’s ridiculously hard to kill as well without me using magic weapons. He has some fancy tricks to use with his marks and stuff, but he doesn’t really use/need them because he melts any non-boss in a round or two solo.
Usually, he uses a powerful magic dagger he found for his first attack, claws with his other hand with the second, and then uses the bonus action claw. Before he got the dagger, he just used another claw attack and a shield and was just as well-off.
A hunter with transformation and a rite is basically always-on burst damage. You don’t have any nova options, but with your self buffs on and nothing else, you blow everything else out of the water.
From personal experience the Lycan in the group I DM for absolutely shreds in melee combat, and he’s ridiculously hard to kill as well without me using magic weapons. He has some fancy tricks to use with his marks and stuff, but he doesn’t really use/need them because he melts any non-boss in a round or two solo.
Usually, he uses a powerful magic dagger he found for his first attack, claws with his other hand with the second, and then uses the bonus action claw. Before he got the dagger, he just used another claw attack and a shield and was just as well-off.
Very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Sorry for asking, but I'm not that versed in the Dungeon Master side of things:
From your experience, the "non-boss" type of enemies, how is their general AC/HP at different points. As an example, in the current campaign (which has quite a bit of homebrew) some of the non-boss type enemies we fight have HP well above the 100 mark, AC is hovering around 16 - 18 I think. The level range for our PCs is around Level 13-15 atm. And we often encounter at least 3-5 decent-damage enemies (4th/5th level spells), as well as some sponges (A Golem for example who has a big HP pool, higher AC, some resistances, some devastating abilities. Multi-attacks, and special abilities that can cost you 1/3 of your HP are obviously also present. From time to hime we have boss enemies, with higher spells or very high ACs or special abilities.
Is that in line with your experience DMing games in your groups?
We are currently level 11, and he deals around 50 DPR with +10 to hit (and he hasn’t even maxed Dex yet).
Usually the enemies they face are either CR 1 swarms (with 30-ish health, he does worst against them) or around 4 CR 3-4 mages and melee units (with about 40/60 health based on role), and one “leader” type enemy of CR 6-ish with around 120 health and resistance to a few damage types (which he gets around due to magic claws and multiple damage types).
The bosses of a given area are usually 2 CR higher than the party level, and usually do insane damage. They are usually accompanied by 2 Elementals (CR 5) and a few CR 3 mages based on the level.
These enemy groups were what I was using for the latest dungeon the party went through at level 10. The boss was much stronger than normal, but he retreated once he got low health, so it was around the same power level.
That sounds pretty neat tbh. I think the base damage I calculated was 51 for lvl 14 with a +12 to hit. Enemies currently have a +8 or +9 to hit on average, that's normal minion enemies.
Main enemies we have are necormancer cultists and undead, some occasional demons, humanoid mercenaries and bandits, constructs that fire a weaker variation of EB, Golems (as stated) with various resistances.
We had a homebrewed Lich before that was kind of ridiculous ngl. The party had a talk with our DM after. Cause they basically kept the Lich stats, removed most spells and gave it a lifesteal bonus on their AoE legendary action. I rather would have had the Lich with slightly reduced AC and HP and their normal spells up to a certain level. A desintegrate is terrible, but we do have counterspell in the party, and that's the kind of thing I like in a deadly encounter. Because the way it was the Lich just kept healing, and it was a dragged out fight.
Either way, our DM tends to go overboard with HP. They seem to think if we can kill minions and side-enemies in 1 or 2 turns then it's no fun. Which I kind of dislike tbh. Most campaigns I heard of so far seem to be a b it different there. Thing is, some of our players have magic weapons and mutliclassing that allows them to actually keep up with that kind of scaling on enemy HP. And since they can the DM keeps scaling it to keep posing a challenge I feel. If the Ranger/Rogue multiclass in your party can dish out massive damage that lets your warlock scorching ray of 40 - 50 damage look like a joke, not mentioning EB (3d10+15+3d6 = ~ 57 dmg) then you kind of start to feel a bit bad about your class choices. Maybe that is the underlying issue.
Warlock being my first ever character I did in DnD (5e being my first venture into tabletop roleplay), it's fun to be able to switch between options and have lots of abilities and spells to use for RP inside and outside of combat (though I wasn't quite happy with the EB spell sniper being literally the best thing in the class, because while its fun at first, it gets boring after a while to just use EB, and it also doesn't always work, with a lot of our encounters being close quarters (maximum of 60 - 100 ft away when combat starts, often closer and "hidden in the forest and you can't clearly make them out or have direct line of sight").I guess I was looking for something about the Blood Hunter I can get creative with and get some combos of, or something outside of combat to really have some great RP material for. Maybe being used too much to spellcasting, Im just not thinking creatively enough.
To get back to the topic though, glad to hear that your BH is doing well overall. Ill take another look into it. Do you know if there is any classes that the new (INT based) Blood Hunter works well with that would be worth giving up that lvl 20 capstone for? So far I found the BH seems less multi-classable than any other class I have seen so far, at least in terms of what you'd gain from it vs. what you loose. Overall I can't complain, beause imo a lot of the 5e classes can be overtuned, while the BH seems very balanced, at least on the Lycan and Ghostslayer side of things.
BH seems very non-multiclassable IMO, not because of a lack of high-level abilities (we aren’t going to get that high anyways), but because you get a lot of good abilities in BH, but more importantly your claw damage, claw magic bonus, and rite die are all based on BH level. You want your level up as much as you can, especially because there isn’t that much synergy with other classes that I could find.
Lycan BH in particular is very strong, it’s like if Barbarian Rage lasted an hour, you could still cast spells, you got two free high-rarity magic dual-wielding weapons, and a bonus to AC just because. It’s REALLY good.
Hey guys, what's up,
so a short bit about me. I've been playing DnD for a couple of years now, but only have experience in a single long-term campaign with some friends. There is a decent amount of homebrew in there, and the DM is very laissez faire on some of the more strict moment-to-moment combat ruling and stuff. I personally am trying to adhere to most of the raw rules though and catch myself on stuff like conentration checks on spells if they forget and things like that.
I recently decided to introdue and alternate character to the campaign and have been working on a concept. The character would be starting around level 14 - 15, that's how far we are in the campaign. I really liked the idea of the Blood Hunter homebrew, the lore potential is pretty neat and I would like to make a badass monster that slays monsters. The Order of the Lycan especially seemed to be an amazing theme. I was thinking Bloodborne style, a hunter that cuts down beasts and undead (undead are some of the main enemies of our group, though we have other enemies too, like humanoid mercenaries, cultists, constructs, etc)
But looking over the damage capabilities, combos, feats and potential multiclass options I could take I have come up with very little online traffic about the class in general. My own calculations put the damage per round for the character at around 34 - 36 with the duelist feat, Rapier, no transformation. Calculating in Curse of the Marked we get to 44 - 46.
Not quite sure where this would scale compared to everything else. My guess would be the middle ranks, though Ive had companions that dealt a lot more than that in a round. Obviously that includes stuff like magic weapons and other benefits, but still.
I liked the idea of two-weapon fighting to be honest, but a fellow player said it might not make sense in part due to the werewolf claws being one weapon not two and it making more damage when transformed anyway, esp. since the difference is just a few points of damage on average with 39 - 42 ( 35 - 38 with Crimson Rite only on one hand ). Since Crimson Rite on two hands might not be worth it considering the price.
The Hybrid Transformation seems to arrive at 51 per round. Now that's really good consistent damage I think. And like I said, I really like the roleplaying potential of the class. Fact is though, the class - from where I am standing - seems to lack any kind of existing bust damage option. It generally uses no spells (except Profane, but my other character is a Warlock so I have no desire to explore that) and the Blood Magic seems little more than differently (although awesomely) flavored versions of what some other melee or partial-melee classes seem to offer.
As such I'm a bit at a loss as to what the Blood Hunter as a class really IS (aside from the lore). There is certainly some fun to be had with transforming, though as things are now the character will probably use similar weapons most of the time, there is no real loop in the combat that I can see that does give me that bit of dopamine that I am looking for in my RPG combat experiences. It's like being a staight Eldritch Blast build. And while the idea of going full spell sniper used to be something fun in the past for me, I feel it wears out it's novelty, especially in campaign where the DM is a lot better with melee classes compared to casting ones and where most combat starts from 30 or 60 ft away because the enemies have been hiding or were behind natual terrain or are in closed houses, so the randed options are... lmited, although not impossible. But I digress.
As for multiclassing, I looked into some, and the best options seem to be Fighter (Battle Master for example, maneuvers sound fun), though even a 3 level dip would probably already remove the potential very strong lvl 18 lycan feature from my options, not to mention that at my entry point (lvl 14/15) a few levels in fighter would kind of cut me off right at points where the BH has probably some of their better features unlocked.
Coming back to the burst damage and comparing it to other classes I was looking for, Warlock has great options for both Sorlock with Metamagic feats combining EB with spells, as well as for melee brawler builds with good spells for utility and smites if dipping Pala. I've seen our Ranger/Rogue doing damage close to 100 a round at times (certainly not their average, but still), and our Monk can unleash quite a Storm with their flurry of blows, although the latter admittedly has very little HP, so is basically a glass canon. Hell even Fighter can straight up just do their multiple attacks and action surge and tack up some decent 1-2 round damage highs.
I'm just searching for something that gives me the feeling of that character I want. The basic scenario is she is an Elf or Human, turned Lycanthrope and raised as a Monster hunter in the wilderness. She has low Charisma, so she edges on a lot, is a loner for the most part, a very good hunter of beasts and has her own goals and reasons. She is quick and efficient in combat, very skilled in surprising and handling enemies close quarters. But if she is not careful the bloodlust can overcome her and she'll forget herself in combat. She might loose her mind and attack indiscriminately. That's the vibe I was going for.
Maybe someone has something thematically appropriate that has the features I'm looking for. I really like combos with attacks and extra damage and advantage stuff. I like having some consistent damage but also some burst options. Most classess I have dealt with in my own free time crafting possible characters have had that so far. But the BH seems very balanced in th the way that it is a class on it's own, has consistent solid damage if done right, but doesn't seem to have any really great multiclass options that'd be worth it compared to the features the class itself has, doesn't seem to have any real gimmick to it that puts it apart in gameplay especially (like I said, lore is different, that is why I like it so much and want it to work), there aren't a lot of feats that it would benefit from (aside from something like "tough") and the lycan for example seems to clash a bit between it's transformation features and the normal form weapon fighting it utilizes, especially when it comes to attack and damage boni as well as fighting styles and such.
Would appreciate any guidance and suggestions, any ideas you guys can come up with for some fun stuff.
please move this thread to another forum
Check out my homebrew subclasses spells magic items feats monsters races
i am a sauce priest
help create a world here
Well if I posted it into the wrong Forum Im sorry. It's just, there is no class forum for Blood Hunter. So I didn't know where else to put it.
I can move it, if you tell me where
A hunter with transformation and a rite is basically always-on burst damage. You don’t have any nova options, but with your self buffs on and nothing else, you blow everything else out of the water.
From personal experience the Lycan in the group I DM for absolutely shreds in melee combat, and he’s ridiculously hard to kill as well without me using magic weapons. He has some fancy tricks to use with his marks and stuff, but he doesn’t really use/need them because he melts any non-boss in a round or two solo.
Usually, he uses a powerful magic dagger he found for his first attack, claws with his other hand with the second, and then uses the bonus action claw. Before he got the dagger, he just used another claw attack and a shield and was just as well-off.
Very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Sorry for asking, but I'm not that versed in the Dungeon Master side of things:
From your experience, the "non-boss" type of enemies, how is their general AC/HP at different points.
As an example, in the current campaign (which has quite a bit of homebrew) some of the non-boss type enemies we fight have HP well above the 100 mark, AC is hovering around 16 - 18 I think. The level range for our PCs is around Level 13-15 atm. And we often encounter at least 3-5 decent-damage enemies (4th/5th level spells), as well as some sponges (A Golem for example who has a big HP pool, higher AC, some resistances, some devastating abilities. Multi-attacks, and special abilities that can cost you 1/3 of your HP are obviously also present. From time to hime we have boss enemies, with higher spells or very high ACs or special abilities.
Is that in line with your experience DMing games in your groups?
We are currently level 11, and he deals around 50 DPR with +10 to hit (and he hasn’t even maxed Dex yet).
Usually the enemies they face are either CR 1 swarms (with 30-ish health, he does worst against them) or around 4 CR 3-4 mages and melee units (with about 40/60 health based on role), and one “leader” type enemy of CR 6-ish with around 120 health and resistance to a few damage types (which he gets around due to magic claws and multiple damage types).
The bosses of a given area are usually 2 CR higher than the party level, and usually do insane damage. They are usually accompanied by 2 Elementals (CR 5) and a few CR 3 mages based on the level.
These enemy groups were what I was using for the latest dungeon the party went through at level 10. The boss was much stronger than normal, but he retreated once he got low health, so it was around the same power level.
That sounds pretty neat tbh. I think the base damage I calculated was 51 for lvl 14 with a +12 to hit.
Enemies currently have a +8 or +9 to hit on average, that's normal minion enemies.
Main enemies we have are necormancer cultists and undead, some occasional demons, humanoid mercenaries and bandits, constructs that fire a weaker variation of EB, Golems (as stated) with various resistances.
We had a homebrewed Lich before that was kind of ridiculous ngl. The party had a talk with our DM after. Cause they basically kept the Lich stats, removed most spells and gave it a lifesteal bonus on their AoE legendary action. I rather would have had the Lich with slightly reduced AC and HP and their normal spells up to a certain level. A desintegrate is terrible, but we do have counterspell in the party, and that's the kind of thing I like in a deadly encounter. Because the way it was the Lich just kept healing, and it was a dragged out fight.
Either way, our DM tends to go overboard with HP. They seem to think if we can kill minions and side-enemies in 1 or 2 turns then it's no fun. Which I kind of dislike tbh. Most campaigns I heard of so far seem to be a b it different there. Thing is, some of our players have magic weapons and mutliclassing that allows them to actually keep up with that kind of scaling on enemy HP. And since they can the DM keeps scaling it to keep posing a challenge I feel. If the Ranger/Rogue multiclass in your party can dish out massive damage that lets your warlock scorching ray of 40 - 50 damage look like a joke, not mentioning EB (3d10+15+3d6 = ~ 57 dmg) then you kind of start to feel a bit bad about your class choices. Maybe that is the underlying issue.
Warlock being my first ever character I did in DnD (5e being my first venture into tabletop roleplay), it's fun to be able to switch between options and have lots of abilities and spells to use for RP inside and outside of combat (though I wasn't quite happy with the EB spell sniper being literally the best thing in the class, because while its fun at first, it gets boring after a while to just use EB, and it also doesn't always work, with a lot of our encounters being close quarters (maximum of 60 - 100 ft away when combat starts, often closer and "hidden in the forest and you can't clearly make them out or have direct line of sight").I guess I was looking for something about the Blood Hunter I can get creative with and get some combos of, or something outside of combat to really have some great RP material for. Maybe being used too much to spellcasting, Im just not thinking creatively enough.
To get back to the topic though, glad to hear that your BH is doing well overall. Ill take another look into it.
Do you know if there is any classes that the new (INT based) Blood Hunter works well with that would be worth giving up that lvl 20 capstone for?
So far I found the BH seems less multi-classable than any other class I have seen so far, at least in terms of what you'd gain from it vs. what you loose.
Overall I can't complain, beause imo a lot of the 5e classes can be overtuned, while the BH seems very balanced, at least on the Lycan and Ghostslayer side of things.
BH seems very non-multiclassable IMO, not because of a lack of high-level abilities (we aren’t going to get that high anyways), but because you get a lot of good abilities in BH, but more importantly your claw damage, claw magic bonus, and rite die are all based on BH level. You want your level up as much as you can, especially because there isn’t that much synergy with other classes that I could find.
Lycan BH in particular is very strong, it’s like if Barbarian Rage lasted an hour, you could still cast spells, you got two free high-rarity magic dual-wielding weapons, and a bonus to AC just because. It’s REALLY good.
I know it's an old post, but how are your BHs doing 50+DPR?