Blood Hunter 101: A Guide to Matt Mercer's Brutal Homebrew Class!

When things go bump in the night, the blood hunter bumps back. They're the monster you send to hunt monsters, the ones who become that which they despise in order to best it, for it takes a nightmare to kill a nightmare.

The homebrew blood hunter class by Mathew Mercer has an interesting origin. Based on the character of Geralt of Rivia as he was depicted in The Witcher 3 video game, the class was designed for a one-shot adventure featuring Vin Diesel to promote the release of his movie The Last Witch Hunter. The blood hunter was designed to emulate the main character of the film—an immortal Viking called Kaulder—who in turn was based on Diesel's old D&D character Melkor. That’s right, it's a class based on a video game to replicate a character from a movie based on a D&D character!

For an introduction to this class and tips for building a blood hunter, keep reading!

Content Warning

Blood hunter class features not only contain themes of blood but also those of self-harm. These are themes that can be harmful and traumatic to many, so consult with your Dungeon Master on the appropriateness of this class at your table. A good time to bring this up is session zero.

Blood Hunter Features

At its core, the blood hunter is a martial class specializing in weapon-based combat rather than spells. Getting features such as Fighting Style and Extra Attack, the blood hunter is deadly with a sword and shield or bow and arrow. But a blood hunter’s true strength lies not in hand, but in their veins. A blood hunter can use their own blood to power the magical art known as hemocraft.

Below is a look at the features of the blood hunter that make them truly unique:

  • Hemocraft die: The first thing you might notice when looking at the blood hunter table is the Hemocraft Die column. Many features of the blood hunter ask you to roll your hemocraft die, often to either determine additional damage dealt to an enemy, or the amount of damage you take invoking one of your more dangerous abilities.
  • Blood Maledict: The 1st-level Blood Maledict feature unlocks blood curses, which are among your most powerful blood hunter abilities. You gain one blood curse at 1st level and an additional curse at 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. Each imposes maladies on your foes, potentially turning the tide of battle in your favor. Additionally, each blood curse can be amplified for a greater effect, but this requires you to lose hit points equal to a roll of your hemocraft die—a risky proposition that could end poorly for some…
  • Crimson Rite and Brand of Castigation: At 2nd level, you get the Crimson Rite feature. It allows you to add additional damage of a given type to your attacks. However, this comes at the cost of a number of hit points equal to a roll of your hemocraft die. At 6th level, Crimson Rite is augmented by Brand of Castigation, which lets you brand a creature damaged by your rite. This brand not only lets you track the creature more effectively but it also damages them whenever they harm you or a creature you can see within 5 feet of you.
  • Blood Hunter Order: At 3rd level, you gain access to a blood hunter subclass. Each is tied to different types of horrific monsters. You can review the subclasses below.
  • Sanguine Mastery: Your 20th-level feature makes your hemocraft die even more effective. You can reroll any hemocraft die result and choose which one you use, allowing you to increase the benefits to your abilities while minimizing the health you lose. You're also able to recharge your uses of Blood Maledict.

Blood Hunter Subclasses

The blood hunter has four subclasses, each of which focuses on hunting a different type of foe. There's a lot of diversity to these subclasses, especially the Order of the Lycan and the Order of the Profane Soul.

  • Blood hunter artOrder of the Ghostslayer: The Order of the Ghostslayer focuses on the hunting of undead and their necromancer creators. Their abilities make them better at fighting the unliving, including granting radiant rite damage and the ability for their blood curses to affect creatures without blood, something not normally possible. At later levels, they gain the ability to jaunt into the Ethereal Plane like the spirits they hunt, and their Crimson Rite feature grows even stronger.
  • Order of the Lycan: Blood hunters of the Order of the Lycan hunt lycanthropes by becoming them, going through a ceremonial infliction of the curse and subduing it to their will known as "The Taming." An Order of the Lycan blood hunter gets the Hybrid Transformation feature, allowing them to transform into a lycanthrope's hybrid form to augment their attacks, resilience, and speed. At later levels, the Hybrid Transformation grows stronger, gaining more powerful features and even regeneration.
  • Order of the Mutant: This blood hunter order specializes in using a fusion of hemocraft and alchemy to create concoctions that warp and alter the flesh, allowing them to adapt to their enemies' strengths and weaknesses. An Order of the Mutant blood hunter learns the alchemical formulas for a number of mutagens that can grant them wings to fly, alter their appearance to others, enhance their abilities, or even regain hit points.
  • Order of the Profane Soul: For the blood hunters of the Order of the Profane Soul, the power needed to defeat a greater evil is worth making a deal with a lesser one. Much like the warlock class, the Order of the Profane Soul can make a pact with one of six powers: the Archfey, the Celestial, the Fiend, the Great Old One, the Hexblade, or the Undying. This is the only blood hunter subclass that can access true spellcasting. As they level up, a blood hunter of the Order of the Profane Soul gains more "gifts" from their patron, granting them special abilities and additional spells depending on who they serve.

Pros

The blood hunter is an excellent support-type martial class, able to provide powerful detrimental effects to hamper your foes. It works well with either a Dexterity or Strength focus and is effective with all types of weapons. Combining their martial strength with their Crimson Rite and blood curses, they can control the battlefield by weakening their enemies and allowing their allies to fight more effectively.

The 2022 blood hunter errata added a variant rule that allows you to use Wisdom in place of Intelligence for your blood hunter features. (This requires DM permission.) This adds more flexibility to the class, allowing you to better shape your character as you see fit. For example, you could make your blood hunter equally suited as a tracker-hunter type with a specialty in Survival, Insight, and Perception checks, or as an investigator type with a specialty in ArcanaHistory, and Investigation checks.

Cons

The first and most overt weakness of the blood hunter class is that many of its abilities require you to expend hit points to use them. Random health loss via your hemocraft die is a dangerous feature that can backfire dramatically and at the worst times. No mechanic that costs hit points should be treated lightly, and the blood hunter is no exception.

This leads to the second major weakness of the blood hunter: its themes. As mentioned in the content warning at the start of this article, the blood hunter features a strong thematic through-line of self-harm. It’s a class that uses blood magic and your own life force to power its abilities, and these kinds of narratives can be upsetting or triggering to others at your table. If I had but one piece of advice when it comes to making a blood hunter, it would be to check that your table is OK with the themes present in the class first.

Building a Blood Hunter

Dragon blood artwork from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons

Ancestry

Look for one of three things when comparing player options: the ability to absorb more damage, natural weapons to which you can apply your Crimson Rite, or a way to make your hits land more reliably. The following suggested options do one of these things but assume you’re using the optional rule from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything that allows you to pick and choose your ability score bonuses. (Player options from Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse do not have set ability score increases at all. You'll simply choose to increase one score by 2 and another by 1, or increase three different scores by 1.)

  • Hill dwarf: Dwarves tend to be a solid choice for any martial character, but hill dwarves make for an exceptionally good choice for blood hunters thanks to their Dwarven Toughness trait. This trait increases their maximum hit points by 1 and increases it by 1 each time they gain a level. When you’re spending hit points to fuel your hemocraft abilities, every extra hit point counts.
  • Kobold: The kobold offered in Monsters of the Multiverse has Draconic Cry, a bonus action that grants you and your allies advantage on attack rolls against nearby enemies for a round. That's a handy trick for martial characters. Kobold Legacy, meanwhile, offers some customization for your little kobold blood hunter. Pick up a sorcerer cantrip, an additional skill proficiency, or just make it harder to fall victim to the frightened condition.
  • Leonin: The leonin from Mythic Odysseys of Theros not only has good mechanical synergy with the blood hunter thanks to their Claws and Daunting Roar traits but are also a flavorful pick due to Hunter’s Instincts. What better option to use for a hunter of monsters than one that is a natural-born hunter?
  • Dhampir lineage: Another option with a natural weapon, the dhampir lineage from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft has some strong thematic ties with the blood hunter due to their vampiric heritage. Perhaps you’re a blood hunter who willingly accepted the bite of a vampire to become stronger? Maybe you’re an Order of the Ghostslayer blood hunter who is out to destroy those who cursed you? Whatever your origin, the dhampir lineage is a strong thematic choice.
  • Half-orc: The half-orc is another strong martial player option, much like the hill dwarf. Where the hill dwarf has Dwarven Toughness, the half-orc has an arguably even better trait when playing a blood hunter, Relentless Endurance. This trait allows you, once per long rest, to avoid going to 0 hit points, instead dropping to 1. This can prevent a bad hemocraft die roll from spelling disaster. This, combined with Savage Attacks, makes for a particularly deadly blood hunter.

Crimson Rite, Natural Weapons, and Unarmed Strike

You can apply your Crimson Rite to natural weapons, as confirmed by the Sage Advice Compendium. However, this doesn’t apply to unarmed strikes, which do not count as weapons.

Ability Scores

The blood hunter class is uniquely flexible in terms of ability scores. For your primary ability score, you’ll want to focus either on Strength for melee weapons without the finesse property or Dexterity for finesse melee weapons and ranged weapons.

For your secondary ability, focus on Intelligence in order to boost your various hemocraft abilities. If your DM is allowing the optional rule, you can focus on Wisdom instead. This flexibility gives you access to a wider range of skills, so keep your skill selection in mind when picking your secondary ability score.

Finally, you’ll want to make sure you have high Constitution. You’re going to burn through hit points fast, so you’ll want to have plenty to spare!

Feats and Fighting Styles

As a class with access to fighting styles, there’s often some strong interactions with key feats. Below is a selection of fighting styles and the feats they work particularly well with for various blood hunter builds:

Sword artwork from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons

  • Two-Weapon Fighting + Dual Wielder: Combining Two-Weapon Fighting with Dual Wielder makes for a powerful dual-weapon blood hunter, maximizing your damage output. Combined with Extra Attack, you can attack three times per turn, stacking up that rite damage.
  • Archery + Sharpshooter: If you decide to build a ranged blood hunter, the boost to your accuracy from Archery helps offset the -5 penalty from Sharpshooter, making it easier to land that attack with the +10 additional damage.
  • Dueling + Mobile: The Dueling Fighting Style emphasizes fast and precise strikes with a single weapon. The Mobile feat can help with this by allowing you to move out of striking range without provoking opportunity attacks. This works well for both Strength- and Dexterity-based melee weapon blood hunters.
  • Great Weapon Fighting + Savage Attacker: If you’re using a Strength-based blood hunter that focuses on heavy and two-handed weapons, these two options combine to maximize your chance of rolling those high numbers. Great Weapon Fighting lets you reroll 1s and 2s, while Savage Attacker lets you reroll a third die, whatever the result. This, combined with your additional Crimson Rite damage, can lead to consistently high damage output.

The following feats also work exceptionally well on their own as part of a blood hunter character:

  • Tough: It should go without saying that for a blood hunter, a feat that increases your maximum hit points is a good pickup!
  • Crusher, Piercer, or Slasher: These three damage-specific feats from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything all work well with the blood hunter. Each of them allows you to increase Strength, Constitution (Crusher only), or Dexterity (Piercer and Slasher only). They also add an additional effect to your critical hits and a unique way to use your weapon.

Blood Hunter Sample Build

Linked below you'll find a 10th-level blood hunter build that I’ve made. This character is an Order of the Mutant blood hunter that focuses on two things: smashing stuff with a warhammer and creating mutagens so they can smash stuff with their warhammer even harder. The hill dwarf trait Dwarven Toughness plus the Reconstruction mutagen gives them a lot of hit points, which could be increased further with the Tough feat.

Build Your Own Blood Hunter

Become the enemy to destroy your enemy. That's the theme that oozes through the blood hunter class. With unique subclasses and loads of customization options, you're not likely to see two blood hunters that look remotely alike.

You can build your own blood hunter in minutes using D&D Beyond's character builder. Just make sure you have "Critical Role Content" enabled under the "Home" tab. Happy hunting!

Fighter 101: A Guide to the Echo Knight From Explorer's Guide to Wildemount
by Michael Galvis
What Is the Cobalt Soul From the World of Critical Role?
by Davyd Atkins
Xhorhasians Unite! Creating a Character From Xhorhas
by Jeremy Blum

Davyd is a moderator for D&D Beyond. A Dungeon Master of over fifteen years, he enjoys Marvel movies, writing, and of course running D&D for his friends and family, including partner Steph and his daughter Willow (well, one day). They live with their two cats Asker and Khatleesi in the south of England.

Comments

  • To post a comment, please or register a new account.
Posts Quoted:
Reply
Clear All Quotes