I think the spoiler warning time stamp needs to be updated, it says to skip to 6:51 but plays at 6:59. Maybe because of the D&DBeyond update at the beginning?

Something I've seen with alot of homebrew classes I've seen is they tend to just combine abilities from other classes. I think the blood hunter being very different mechanically helped it set itself apart.

The main reason that Blood Hunter (as well as the other Critical Role subclasses) are on D&D Beyond is because they sponsored Critical Role for all of Campaign 2. That meant that people watching they show needed to see the players actively using their tablets while playing the game. Thus, if Talesin is playing a matt mercer homebrew class, then that class needs to be on D&D Beyond so that Talesin is seen using his tablet and not being the one player at the table with a paper character sheet.

I think you're the first D&D content creator that mentions the Pugilist, I love that class, I always allow it in my campaigns

I think another aspect to why it feels so official is that it fills a niche that feels like it should exist in the base game. All the classes in the game exist on a multi-axel spectrum between Martial and either Arcane, Divine or Druidic. (or Psionic i suppose but that's more like a subcategory in this framework) Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue and Monk are all different flavors of pure Martial, each with subclasses that dip their toes into the other archetypes. Bard and Artificer both act as a combination of Martial and Arcane. Wizard and Sourcerer are obviously both pure Arcane except for literally just one subclass each(The Bladesinger who dips into Martial and the Divine Soul). Speaking of Divine, Cleric is our pure Divine class while Paladin is our combination Martial and Divine class. Ranger acts as our combination of Martial and Druidic while Druids are entirely Druidic. And then there's the Warlock... They're a caster but they're not Arcane, Divine or Druidic. They're their own archetype, Pact, but there's no other class that uses it in combination with anything. There's not even really any subclasses that use the archetype either, the Eldritch Knight uses the Arcane archetype and the only other one that gets close imo is the Spirits Bard but that's a bit of a long stretch tbh. Bloodhunter finally fills that niche. It's 100% a combination Martial and Pact class. Even when you're not specifically playing the subclass that grants you Pact Magic the feel and fantasy of the class is still deeply tied to the same idea as a Warlock. The fantasy of dark, harmful powers and being tied to something horribly greater than yourself, something that might one day consume you. Not a lot of homebrew does that. Not a lot of homebrew tries to find and fill a hole in what fantasies can be fullfilled in the game, they're often things that could easily just have been a subclass.

Mercers homebrew has improved a lot. Remember his Gunslinger Fighter? That one's... We don't talk about that one... But Mercer has gathered a lot of system proficiency over his 300 weekly games. He seems to actually understand what makes classes tick and how balance works. The best example for that is Asthon. Why does Ashton get a +2 Weapon at Level 3? Because Mercer analyzed the party composition and saw that Ashton needed help to not be outclassed by the casters. Blood Hunter may have a few imbalances, but what it NAILS down is flavour and uniqueness. You couldn't emulate what it does with any other class, and it perfectly immerses you into the esoteric blood magic stuff, which is bloody awesome :P.

I’m playing a blood hunter in my DMs homebrew world and I’m having an absolute blast! I like the changes that were made recently! They definitely elevated the class to above where it was before. It’s a GREAT striker class and I can output more damage than anyone else in my party while still having a good amount of utility. My inspiration for this character came from Van Helsing, Blade, and the Witcher. Absolutely love this character and it’s exactly what I had hoped it would be.

Currently playing a Lotusden halfling Lucan bloodhunter. He was blessed/cursed by faeries during a stay in the Feywild and his hybrid form is that of a black and white Welsh Pembroke

It may become a new class like artificer did if it gets into official things like a book Also in dnd beyond (as of after the buyout) it has a note notifying that it’s an on official material

Something I've noticed with a lot of homebrew classes that I've seen is that they're too focused on a particular build. When you're working with an official class, you don't always get exactly what you want. There isn't always a pre-built class ability that works perfectly with your build at every single level. For example, you might be building an assassin rogue, but you don't have good charisma, and your main focus is on sneaking up undetected to stab someone who doesn't know you're there. That's a perfectly valid build, and the level 3 and 17 assassin abilities help you out there, but the level 9 and 13 assassin abilities, which help you make a false identity, are entirely useless to such a character. This is pretty normal. Every class was designed to fill as many individual character builds as possible, which means this mismatch is inevitably going to occur for at least a couple abilities per character. But, when you are making a homebrew class, you think "I'd like to do this, and this, and this", and you add all those abilities to your class. Even if all the abilities are completely reasonably powered, because you don't have any abilities slots taken up by things that are bad or useless for your build, you are effectively giving yourself more abilities than a normal character in a base class has. In general, homebrew classes should be similarly broadly focused to the main classes. You shouldn't be designing it for a specific character, but rather for a wide range of possible characters.

I love the blood hunter class! Flavor wise it is one of my favorite classes to play with a CG or LE character. I only wish it was a con caster and not int. As it is your life that is using the abilities, it would be cool if your constitution was the ability that the saves and powers were based on.

Wait... Then Bloodhunter is a homebrew class and not a homebrew subclass of ranger? All this time I have been living a lie...

Intelligence being used for more classes is always a plus

Wow Jay, the editing in these recent videos has been brilliant! It's incredible to see how far Play Your Role has come. Can't wait to hop into your next stream!

I had never heard of it before I saw it and when I read it I thought it was a real class, which goes to show that Mercer did a really good job

All your reasons are good. I would say for me, I love MM's classes because of the intelligent decision making involved turn-by-turn. Normal fighters can be boring. You attack, you attack, and you also attack. Gunslingers you get the Grit resource that you can use in so many ways. One of my most satisfying moments playing D&D was going all-in on a Violent Shot with all the Grit points and landing the hit for nearly 60 damage without a critical at level 5. Blood Hunter has similar decision making processes to it that make it fun to play, plus the extra bonus for strong theming. MM classes also fill a niche not found by the existing D&D classes. It's easy to invent a class and have it just be a mish-mash of the existing classes. MM goes beyond that.

I think the biggest appeal with blood hunter is the risk vs reward aspect of it. Taking damage to deal more damage or do a special ability is really interesting. It also allows balancing in ways other then restricting the amount of times an ability can be used. Instead of X ability doing 1d8 damage it can do 1d6 is a common means of balancing. Mechanics like blood hunter has let's you increase the cost to the player or decrease the damage output. It also favors high level characters who have learned to use the powers. 1d6 of damage is almost nothing at level 12, but it level 2 it's a huge risk.

Love you, Jay! And thank you for letting me field test my weird attempt to make the Ranger cooler, I've been compiling the notes on things I might need to adjust, it's been very helpful

honestly I would consider bloodhunter to be semi-official. it is a class developed for a world that WotC has published 2 books for. (a setting and a adventure) now saying that a class that is part of the WORLD but not part of a setting or adventure IN that world is kind of odd. now, why... well, the bloodhunter was detailed in a book published by a 3rd party not affiliated (at the time) with WotC so there was most likely legal reason it could not be reprinted in the WotC published books.

This is very much my own design/DMing/playing philosophy. I don’t care about balance as much as I care about feel, leading my more experienced DM friend to describe both my own ideas and the ones I send him as either over or underpowered. Personally, I just want it to match the target fantasy.

the vin diesel video is what actually got me into dnd as a game. I knew about it from Dexter's laboratory and other media, as well as many rpg games that I played, but that vin diesel episode and matt's amazing storytelling performance was the thing that inspired me to research and start talking to my friends about it and eventually start playing

The Bloodhunter needs either a D12 hit die or a mechanic in which they get their hit points back. It’s the problem I have with a lot of homebrew classes I’ve seen that use health as a resource. (Especially a blood magic wizard)

I still think bloodhunter needs another pass. Hp as a resource makes it difficult to use regularly and it would've worked better if it was a pool of points to use the crimson rites and amplifying maladicts or have a d12 hit die instead. The subclasses aside from ghostslayer are just watered down version of other classes and a friend of mine really came to dislike it as a dm because of how much it needed to be tweaked to be viable (and this was the updated version). The flavor is really cool, but nothing I couldn't realistically do with other things.

Honestly....Mercer has a love for the craft. All these points are true, but behind everything is a real love for the D&D game/community. It doesn't matter how good or bad you are at something...if you LOVE it and keep doing it....you'll get better. Never be down on yourself to the point you don't love it anymore. Love what do, and do what you love. Do it more, and you'll get better at it. Be a genius of hard work, Rock Lee is un-ironically peak role model material.

Awesome video and advice for people getting into homebrew! Just subbed to channel and look forward to the next upload!

I feel like with time, dnd will form new classes, homebrew or not Matt is helping speed up that process. That's the beauty of D&D. It's forever evolving.

Another good reason that Mathew Mercer is a good home brewer is the fact he was a video game tester. This, I think, gives good evidence that Matt has a mind for good game theory and mechanics

Great video. You explain topic super detailed. Definetly i would rewach this when I decided to make homebrew

I remember the Vin Desal game that makes sense now

I was clickbaited by the thumbnail, thinking that this was a critique on how the Bloodhunter homebrew compares mechanically. The title actually conveys that this is just why we accept homebrew from certain places than others. I have personally played a single session of a lvl 5 character with the ghostslayer subclass, and found the turn by turn combat very boring. The blood maledicts don’t seem worthwhile. Changed to barbarian and am having a lot more fun, being able to decide whether to Recklessly Attack each turn, and considering damage received/taken to keep my Rage active.

This video was really good but I think you left out a MAJOR detail. That Matt has also been playing D & D for the gods know how long. He's probably already had the class made up and tailored it to Vin Diesel and then eventually released the whole thing. I've only been playing for a few months and I already want to create my own class.

I am playing a kalashtar blood hunter at the moment, which has been very fun. It feels like a seperate class in itself and could not work as subclass I don't think. Also the flavour you can bring to the class is great!

i honestly think the one issue with the blood hunter is that it doesn't necessarily fill any roll in the current cast of classes. it has a lot of the same skills and roles as a fighter or ranger, with some warlock stuff too dependent on the subclass, but while its abilities are unique and cool mechanically as a whole the class just doesn't fill a necessary hole. something like the artificer, which was added later, felt unique and necessary as another Intelligence-based class that wasn't a wizard, given that intelligence was pretty much a dump stat for almost any other character before, so it helped fill that niche. regardless of that, i still think it's an extremely fun class and an excellent homebrew that i've had a really good time playing !!

I personally use Valda's Spire of Secrets book in all my campains and my friends as well and I think they did an amazing job adding a lot, and i mean A LOT of new subclasses and 10 new classes. Sure, some of them feel overpowered, especially Investigator [he can remove dmg resistance from enemy with normal attacks at no cost] but all the things this book adds is just wonderfull and it easly helps with expanding your world or just adding fun and intresting things, like stat block for a Pet Rock which is one of my favourite things in this book.

I think some important food-for-thought (though, not an excuse for lazy homebrew) is... most of us can be harsh on homebrew specifically because it's homebrew. Even if we LIKE homebrew, we don't always trust it, and that makes sense. Our approach is to criticize its functionality, and use that criticism to decide if it's worth using. But it means that even if a homebrew is just as 'balanced' as an official class in every way, we'll be like "Here's a thing I have a problem with, I don't think it should be in my games"... where the vast majority of us will allow all of the official classes. And the official classes can have flaws too. If it's unofficial, a flaw is a reason not to allow it. If it's official, it's a reason you personally don't like that class, but still allow it. Part of that is a social contract that official source material is generally a given, and you're free to use it without any consideration from the DM. But that's... actually false. The DM can ban anything. So personally prefer the idea of allowing homebrew content with the caveat that if it seems to have glaring issues, the player has to be okay with it being tweaked during the campaign.

Honestly, everything you've said I've been keeping in mind for what I'm working on: A complete update for Oriental Adventures. Because I know that there are players who want to play classes like a Samurai. A Ninja. A Martial Artist (yes, I created this class based off of the old 3E stuff I found in the original OA sourcebook, using Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat as inspirations, including actual martial arts from Asia). I'm working on the magic classes, and even introducing Magic and Elemental Domains. Even then, I think about, as I'm updating things, what it would be like to play a Water or Air Disciple. Or a Shaman or Wu Jen. I want people to look at what I'm creating, and I want people to approach it in good faith, as they do the base classes in the PHB, or even a homebrew class like Gunslinger or Blood Hunter. And even with that in mind, I'm actually glad for the Blood Hunter and Blood Cleric (I believe the Blood Cleric is either Tal'Dorei Reborn or Call of the Netherdeep), as there was a class in original Oriental Adventures that was called the _Maho Tsukai,_ or "Blood Sorcerer." In updating OA from 3E to 5E, I want to include the _maho_ spellcasting concept, and having other inspiration to draw off of is a good thing for something that is all about the mysticism of ancestry and bloodlines of the Far East. One of the hardest things has been to eliminate all references to AEG's Legend of Five Rings, L5R, because WotC no longer has that license. However, despite that, one cannot deny that there is a draw to playing as a character inspired by that part of the world. Because I also want to respect the people's and cultures of that area of that part of the world, I find that WotC isn't doing enough to include more specific things associated with the Asian and Far East cultures and peoples. Hence, my update. I can only hope beyond hope that trying to fill a niche aspect of D&D does allow for people to appreciate the fact that what D&D is, besides a "Game of Cool Storytelling," is that it is a look into who and what we are as people. If original D&D was inspired by the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Hobbit, then Oriental Adventures should be based off of cultures like Japan, China, Korea, Mongolian, and even Persian and Greek, given that Indian culture, particularly, has a mix of what we call Western, Near East, and Eastern cultural influence. And despite this, Indian culture in India flourishes to this day. They haven't lost their identity because of the influence of Alexander the Great or Great Britain. They have overcome those things, and maintained their own identity. And so it goes with including not just things like the Loxodon race on Oriental Adventures, but even the Genassi, the Tabaxi, dwarves, elves, the whole ball of racial wax. Because if anything, Oriental Adventures should be included in the canon 5E sourcebooks, not avoided because of criticism.

we run a special subclass of blood hunter in our campaigns. It's to aid in specific means of multiclassing. They are essentially a bard type class and blood hunter. It's tremendously amazing. Mostly due to the roleplay aspects.

So, i love the blood hunter thematically, and its mechanics are pretty interesting, but it definately has mechanical issues that i think hurt it overall

Are there any other recommendations for homebrewed classes to the quality level of Blood Hunter? You mentioned Pugilist in the video but is there anything else? PS. I've gotten into dnd quite recently so any response would be nice :) . I'm in the process of homebrewing my own class so any half casters would be appreciated

Hot take I don't think MM is good at homebrew, what I think is he is good at is flavor for that homebrew. Fun is subjective as someone who is writing their own supplement I'd say make it interesting, while keeping the gameplay healthy.

Though the Witch Hunter may be the Blood Hunter's origin, they couldn't be farther from each other. In fact this case study didn't go into detail about much of anything surrounding the class and touched upon the reason of its success, but got a few things wrong and didn't delve far enough into it. The Witch Hunter class played by Vin Diesel in the first episode of CelebriD&D and the Blood Hunter class are so very incredibly different, not just now, but always have been. When fan outcry forced Matt to rush the Blood Hunter, he scrapped it being based off of the Witch Hunter and completely changed it to be based on one of his favourite video game series, the Witcher. He specifically liked the video games at that stage, not the books, so yes, the video game series. In fact, the subclasses of the Blood Hunter are based on the three core aspects of a Witcher, being mutation via potioncraft (The Mutant), blood magic (The Profane Soul), and monster-hunting/combat proficiency (The Ghostslayer). The Lycan was later added so that a guest character for Critical Role's first campaign could play as a functional Werebear. The main reason it is so commonly accepted as a near official class, or simply commonly accepted as a playable class in many campaigns, is because it is unique, at least in regards to its craft as a piece of homebrew, rather than a product that was marketed (though not intentionally to profit) correctly. The Blood Hunter is a unique class type that does not fall under the archetypes of the other classes. It has a unique mechanic that lords over the entirety of its other class features, being the harm of oneself for a gain in power. Due to the fact that it could not be simplified into a subclass for another class, it is accepted to be an entirely separate entity worthy of the same respect, making it one of the fourteen playable classes. The other reason it is accepted is because of marketing and branding. No, not because it was associated with Vin Diesel in any way, but because it is associated with Critical Role. Yes Vin Diesel may be more famous to the uninitiated of this world, but when it comes to D&D players, Critical Role is vastly more influential and more important than Vin Diesel ever will be in the D&D space (Let's be honest, he may have been a famous person who has always been open about being a D&D player, but no one cared, not even the D&D community). Critical Role's success was enough to project the Blood Hunter into the upper atmosphere of D&D long before Taliesin played one in their second campaign. The only thing Mollymauk did for Blood Hunter's was show how to mess it up in the middle of combat accidentally, and also gave it a current reason to help solidify the already fruitful partnership between D&D Beyond and Critical Role by putting on the website, once again due to fan outcry.

Oh cool

I am getting ready to try the pugilist for the first time. I am super excited about it. The flavor is a lot of fun and I can't wait to see how it runs.

Honestly, I think what helps is that he gets to playtest his ideas, the community isn't really homebrew friendly, we'll theorycraft till the cows come home, but people tend to be very anti homebrew, I simply brought up that a 3rd party book made dragon as a player race, and immediately it was shot down without even the chance of reading it, but anyways, great video! best of luck in your brews

I have a doc file with 1 homebrew subclass for each class in the works. It started with making a subclass focused on being a Str based Monk. It's honestly a lot of fun to come up with stuff and try to make it as balanced as official material ( at least to me).

If I made a homebrew class, I'd probably either make it terribly lackluster to "play it safe" or make it overpowered, like by giving it the ability to EAT YOUR BEANS.

Amazing timing on the D&D beyond purchase lol

Have you heard of "Exploring Ebberon" its a fantastic book like taldorei reborn, with interesting subclasses for artificers, druids and monks, which I allow because they can help fit a specific niche and I'd love it if you could somehow bring up the book, specifically on what makes them good subclasses just like this video

"Playtested, well-developed core classes" Sorcerer: *Am I a joke to you?*

Blood hunter was created with just enough "out thereness" as to not go into audacious territory that counteracts 5e game design. A thing so so many miss with their homebrew.

I am not a big fan of the blood hunter if I’m being honest. I don’t hate it by any means, but I feel like the mechanics and particularly the lore of the class just don’t gel with what I think makes the other classes great. However, I still respect mat and what he did. There is a difference between subjective perception and objective quality and I think the blood hunter has a good amount of objective quality.

"play tested well developed classes of WOTC" Me looking at PHB Ranger: ummmmmmmm

The sponsorship of Critical Role season 2 by DND Beyond helped by making the tab for Critical Role content

This is a well-timed video for me! I’m currently knee-deep in homebrewing a subclass for each class for my upcoming campaign and would LOVE feedback. I’m not on social media outside of discord. Would Patreon be the best place to get some feedback on those from you?

well I've a bloodhunter in my party for the past 6 level now. So far from a DM point of view it's "just tanky fighter with elemental damage".

Damn good video. D&D should be about creating your own settings, monsters, and even classes. House rules shouldn’t be a dirty word but just setting customizing rules

Great video, but Imma need a link to that unfolded d20 poster in the background of most of the middle of the vid

Lol, I don't think I've ever heard anyone accuse Matt's homebrew classes of being good.

you also missed that Blood Hunter has seen use in an Official WotC D&D stream - one of the characters on Black Dice Society is a BloodHunter also

I am currently in the middle of a campaign playing as a Lycan bloodhunter. We just hit level 7. "Ahkis is Ahkis." A saying the party uses when NPCs ask about Ahkis. A half werewolf half Halfling hybrid with a mysterious past. They mostly run off of instinct and see the party as their pack. Loyalty to the pack always. When they transform, they become a full werewolf losing the ability to speak and negotiate. Having taken built around inspiration from the Predator movies. They seek powerful creatures, entities, leaders; with the sole purpose to kill and take trophies from them. Ahkis will not suffer anybody to be in chains or held against their will, as Ahkis currently has broken manacles on both wrists and ankles. A reminder of things to come for the one responsible for what Ahkis is now. The biggest thing about the character, and I try to reiterate this to the group as much as possible. During combat, Ahkis does not flee. They will fight to the death no matter the odds. Blood is their power, and the shedding of blood (Their own included) gives that power purpose.

Am I the only one who thinks the "we love beans here" is a reference to that old DND green text about the bean cult?

Hello PYR! Where would you prefer to receive some homebrew if I were to ask your opinion on things? I have two homebrew works that my players have used and brought forth constantly that I would love some feedback on. One is an anti-mage subclass for the Paladin named Oath of Silence and the other is a whole class named the Witch.

So, I've made homebrew before, an INT based caster class, even playtesting it now in a homebrew game with a friend. Sometimes it works as intended, but other times I feel like I just made a subclass for an already established class instead of a class with a subclass inspired by said established class. So I feel in the future I do need to try not to make subclasses with features from other classes when making homebrew. It's nice and safe to take from what already exists since those class features often times has proven to work, but it takes away from what new things you can be bringing to the game, even if it's taking more of a risk making something that might not work as expected.

Thanks.

ive honestly been wanting to make a bloodhunter character cuz the mechanics seem fun and interesting to play, but the learning curve seems like itll take a bit to master, so im waiting for a oneshot so i can experiment a little

So here’s the question on my mind now, with The acquisition of D&D Beyond as well as Mercer’s previous work with WoTC is the Blood Hunter canon or up for possibly being canon?

Loved the video, the background music is quite distracting, though, being so chaotic

im just watching this in september but i recently backed valdas spire of secrets and speaking of homebrew i only tried 2 of the full classes in that book so far but some of the new subclasses are neat... not an expert on balance but seemed alright, except the one rogue subclass letting you do d8 sneak attacks which seems busted :P

Blood hunter is my favorite class

A lot of people talk shit on the BH, but like.... blood curses don't take HP, only amplified ones. Crimson Rite at higher levels just don't affect your HP in a super meaningful way. It requires more strategic thought but it is by no means "bad". It's a rather strong striker build and my only criticism would be early game. My suggestion is some form of being able to create a certain amount of points you can use for crimson rite features by sacrificing your HP during a long rest

Some great points

I just wish D&D Beyond allowed homebrew classes

Literally the only reason I am creating a bloodhunter character is because Travis Willingham makes it look like so much fun and I wanted to get away from spellcasting without going full martial character.

And… thanks for bring up the pugilist!

At this point it's the same as the Tortle package. Both only shown on beyond as digital content. Yes rushed but Matt did a great job because it plays really well and has a good theme. Too much of a theme for a class itself in 5E, which generalised all the classes and subclasses make them more specific, but fits D&D overall.

So whenever I look at Bloodhunter the class seems under powered, regarding it's subclasses: with only two viable options, 1 so-so option cause I can see DM's banning the lycan order and the Profane soul seeming like a lazy way to multi-class into warlock. And of those two viable options, The mutant subclass loses it's potency when you pick a subclass such as the Fighter subclass: Living crucible from Grim Hollow. Which does everything the mutant can (except blood magic) but better. Which really only renders the Ghostslayer viable. Now I've played a Ghostslayer Blood hunter before and I had fun with it but I don't see a point in the other 3. Could someone help me out with this one? Does the Bloodhunter need an update to become officially "official" content?

For me the blood hunter works so well because it feels like an addition to dnd one that is sorely lacking. It is able to come off as something unique where many homebrew classes fail to do so. The fact that Wotc hasn’t made it official is criminal in its own right. Its well designed and balanced.

Warning ⚠️ Got a long comment here and I understand if most folks don't make it through its entirety. So the problem I've always seen with 5e and it's classes, is how streamlined and linear they are. In 3.5 for instance you didn't have Storm Barbarians, you just have Barbarians. However there are enough mechanics and such that while playing Barbarian, you could gain an item here, take a feat there. Seek out a mage to cast a spell then permanency spell on you, that you'd morph into a Barbarian that uses lightning or whatever. Basically you aren't hindered by the class itself giving you feats and class abilities. Your class abilities are basic but unique enough in 3.5 to make you feel like a Barbarian, but the sky is the limit for your imagination in what you wanna do with them. What Matt did is actually creat, instead of just barrow from various classes cuz he's been playing for a long time. The danger of 5e being so streamlined yet accessible is, it doesn't leave room for the imagination enough. Two things the 5e generation need to remember, Rules are guidelines more than set in stone. And the second is what Gygax said himself, DM's don't need the rules if they understand the basic mechanics.

It is grossly overpowered

There is an issue with many homebrews which usually it's really power crept, in the case of Blood Hunter the class is well rounded and not overpowered at all, it isn't the strongest class available when compared to the base classes.

You had me till you said WotC official classes were well play tested lol. (No but really, great video) 👍🏾

remember an afternoon with 2 other players and our dm trying to homebrew a werewolf warlock patron and a vampire themed paladin oath after a hour of going ok this these arnt matching a reg subclass we just gave up and skinned that character as a teifling shifter mix with a werewolf skinned form of dread with ghost wolves as E. blasts and a half-drow oathbreaker with a life stealing sword

To be fair I didn't know the history of the class, I just swa it one day and thought it was cool

As if the base game was balanced -Laughs in twilight cleric

When I played Bloodhunter l, after his first bizarre revision, it was the worst time I ever had and was a terrible class. So…I assume things changed a lot since then…

Wait, who didn't think blood hunter was for anyone other than Diesel from the get go?

You have to turn on CR options when building a character

You forgot a major point to this class. It lets people live their Witcher fantasy.

I have plans of running a game, a hunt, where all players will have to have at least one level of blood hunter. It will be a competition between their respective schools/clans. So they it's not just about hunting the monster but taking it down in style.

Answer: because it has had more playtesting than literally any other homebrew

Huh, I though it was because Matt really likes Bloodborne

Didn't the blood hunter become official with the guide to wildmount? Id say sense it was published in a true cannon book by wizards that makes it official enough.

I really wish the gunslinger was its own class.

Technically it is. In the explorers guide to wildmount there is a bloodhunter NPC.

IMO the bloodhunter is still kind if a mess. It could do with several more passes and more playtesting. It's certainly well written in terms of the fluff, I'll give it that.

The Blood Hunter is still quite imbalanced, even in its now third iteration (original, 2020, D&D beyond update) and in fact the latest updates to it only made the class stronger than it was before which could be an argument that Matt is getting worse at balancing over time. This is best shown by the Crimson Rite feature's evolution, going through three forms: - Original release: A cost you can't heal back and can't reduce, to gain an extra damage die of a certain type, that lasts until you let go of the weapon. - 2020 release: A cost you can heal back and can reduce (with Sanguine Mastery), to gain an extra damage die of a certain type, that lasts until you aren't holding the weapon at the end of your turn or you finish a rest. - D&DBeyond Update: A cost you can heal back and can reduce (with Sanguine Mastery), to gain an extra damage die of a certain type and make your weapon magical, that lasts until you finish a rest. With the most recent changes your weapon bypasses a bunch of resistances/immunities from 2nd level, you no longer have to reactivate your Crimson Rite if you go unconscious, or if you are made to drop your weapons or if you are otherwise disarmed, making you basically only need to use it once per rest and all the while it still gives you the highest consistent damage output of any martial class from 2nd level up to 10th level (at 11th the Fighter only just starts to out-do you, however that's taking no subclasses into account). Not to mention the Blood Hunter's 1st level feature is still, in all versions, equivalent to the Ranger's 14th level Favoured Enemy (sans the languages) which steps on one of that class' core features; plus a myriad of things in the subclasses like out-damaging the Monk's unarmed strikes with the Lycan while also getting Barb-like resistances or getting 22 Dex by 4th level with the Mutant that just make you out-perform everyone else at the table.

The question "Is this Homebrew perfect?" is kind of silly I think. The base classes aren't perfect, so it's unfair to expect your homebrew to be.

Someone’s been watching Whiskey Tribe lol

"Play tested, well developed classes" 😆

The Vin Diesel Authority thing doesn't really make sense. You first said that Most people thought the Blood Hunter was Talisen, (which I would agree with), but it was actually made for Vin Diesel. You then say that seeing Vin Diesel play this class gives it authority, even though, by your own account, There aren't many people that saw Vin Diesel play it.