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.
- Order 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 Arcana, History, 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
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:
- 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!
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.
Personally I love the concept of the Lycanthropic Leonin. Considering how Hyaena are essentially cats who think they are dogs, it would be fun to incorporate traits from that creature into this dynamic. This is an awesome class I as not aware of, thank you for the article!
Have the updates to the critical role sub classes been added?
I like the change's and I think I would add the following:
1) Add multiclass restriction based on Hemocraft stat mod, either Int or Wis and maybe place a limit on both of 11+
2) Add Wis formula to Order of Mutant or change Sagicity formula to affect Hemocraft stat mod
3) For Equipment add option for light crossbow be change for 3 daggers
4) Change 9th level ability (Grim Psychometry, GP) to 1st to 3rd level as it is a great way for GM's to provide info to group. Note I do not really see a down side to doing this as the GP ability is a focused and not broad in scope. I would leave it at 9th level if it worked more like the legend lore spell and gave reams of info on anything. I might also adjust how it works by having it be a passive ability with a mod of level+Int+ (1/2 Prof mod if unskilled in History, full mod if skilled in history or double mod if expert in History) or use the passive mod +1d(4,6,8) to get score.
5) Add in blind fighting fighting style as I think it fits thematically with the class
6) Maybe add ability like Druidic Warrior for fighting style that provides a limited number of cantrips to pick from. (The problem here is that cantrips can be added in future books and the list would need to be updated with each book)
The Hit Point issue I like solving by multi-classing and a specific background. The background is witherbloom student and then take a spellcasting class for 3-6 levels and bloodhunter for 14-17 levels. My favorite right now is Dhampire Bloodhunter Path of the Mutant 14, Wizard Bladesinger 6, background Witherbloom student. Why, witherbloom student gives you 2 cantrips +1 1st level spell that you can cast with your spell slots, Wizard Bladesinger gives you bladesinging + spells+ at 6th level ability to cast a cantrip in place of 1 attack and blood hunter mutant for all good stuff it provides.
Other multiclass options I like are Ranger Gloomstocker+ BH, Monk Kensai + BH Order of the Lycan (extra HtoH attacks) and Alchemist Battlesmith 3+ Blood Hunter (Alch stuff + use spell casting stat for magic weapons). But all multiclass options depend on stats and how they fit in with the GM's setting.
Magic items: anything to gain extra HP, heal HP or prevent HP loss from sources you can prevent them from (ie blood hunter abilities require you to lose HP). Home brew items I have been thinking of are, weapon enchantments to alter how some curses work, general items to adjusts save DC's(either broadly or narrow in scope), theme items based on blood/parts of creatures to modify abilities (but requires tracking of freshness of parts and containers and creatures).
Other things I might do (but need to think about) would be expanding curses and providing other options for standard abilities that are presented as well as adding a Order that is based on 1/2 mutant and 1/2 wizard (but maybe too powerful).
I played a dhampir blood hunter and he had a cloak of protection, ring of protection, and scimitar of speed. It created a very interesting build that could take a lot of hits and do a lot of damage.
To share something I've used in games to address the content warnings for both this class and any other blood magic abilities/features/classes: consider replacing any need to actually spill your own blood with saying a magic item, tattoo or something extracting the required essence without inflicting eternal injury. If you still want liquid blood, it appears on the object and can be used, you can say that it slowly accumulates dry, powdery blood, or you can say that it just happens internally, sapping vitality with no external signs. Used this for several blood-magic feature in several things, both to avoid traditional self-harm, and to adress the question why everyone to uses this sort of power just runs around cutting themselves rather than invent a work-around to an unsanitary practice.
Just do what I did with my DM. Leave the fighting style blank and manually add the fighting initiate feat. Easy workaround.
I think too it could be Need a fighting style that give cantrip. Warlock spell list to be themed with profane soul order.
Here's a question how should one go about using the blood hunter class and more specific the order of the Lycan with a character that is not of flesh or blood. I'm curious on building a character with the class and being able to maybe transform into a werewolf; but also am instead in a home brew race of like a robot (fresh cut grass for instance). Would there be any form of playing a blood hunter with a character who doesn't have blood? Is there a suitable substitute for blood like oil in a robot or life force in the player im not sure; any thoughts would be appreciated.
Is there a specific book that I can find Blood Hunter class in?
It's available for free right here on D&D Beyond, but I believe it's also being released in updated physical form (for the first time?) in Call of Netherdeep. It will technically be part of the digital release for that as well, though I assume it will continue to be available for free.
Talk to your DM! Mechanically nothing prevents you from choosing a Warforged to be a Blood Hunter, but thematically you'll want to justify it somehow; what is your character's equivalent of blood? As long as you aren't trying to play as a completely inert and ordinary rock, there should be something you can find that works like blood, be it a substance mundane or magical, an artefact that sustains you but can be tapped into for power, but with an element of risk.
I love the Cr content made by you guys! keep it up!
thx bro you a homie
Please, please just make it official v.v
One of my first classes I ever played and I'm still finding out about making the character better. this is a great article, Thanks for the article!
This sample build is litterally trash tier, hope no one will play this and get frustrated for being useless on the campaign.
Lvl 10 with negative 13 armor with no shield, negative initiative bonus , +0 on wisdom save throw, negative damages bonus on range attacks.
Some correct tier melee attack damage but far away from great weapon master users.
Have intelligence but less than a wizard.
This character is just good for tracking (fey, fiends, or undead) without facing them or making another one faster.
imagine being traumatized by blood and a class requiring you to wound yourself for OP abilities.
The article was very nice and helpful.
I personally really liked the sample character. They’re very interesting.
Thank you for releasing this article. I actually was remembering my warforged ghostslayer blood hunter, named D’Arcy McDarc, today when this article was suggested to me; so it was a wonderful and very fun read.
I hope you have a great day, Sincerely Mu Stardreams.
I'm surprised nobody has mention this yet: archery style + crossbow expert is an amazing build for blood hunter, as it allows you to take full advantage of your blood rite's damage boost from the safety of long range.
It doesn't have the same damage output as sharpshooter, but it has a higher consistency for hits and does much better against more armored targets.