Daggerheart Releases Bloodhunter Class for Playtesting

The Bloodhunter, a custom class long associated with Critical Role, is being playtested for Daggerheart. Darrington Press released playtest material for the Bloodhunter class on Daggerheart's website yesterday. The class can voluntarily take extra damage to deal extra weapon damage. While other playtested classes come with two subclass options - the Bloodhunter comes with three subclasses - the Order of the Ghost Slayer, which becomes more powerful the closer they are to death, the Order of the Mutant which can consume various mutagens for beneficial effects, and the Order of the Lycan, which gains an enhanced werewolf form.

The Bloodhunter originated as a custom class built for Vin Diesel in the Geek & Sundry one-shot D&Diesel. Created by Matt Mercer, he improved upon the class after the one-shot and changed the name to Blood Hunter after building mechanics around blood magic. It was released as a DMs Guild supplement and was used by Taliesin Jaffe for Mollymauk in Campaign Two and later by Chetney Pock'O'Pea for Campaign 3. The 5E version of the class is available on D&D Beyond.

 

[Rhineglade]

Maybe it is just me but I always thought the bloodhunter was one of the most ridiculous classes. Built around "cutting yourself" (which is a very serious psychological trauma might I add), I am reminded of Mollymauk from the 2nd season of critical role. He basically died because he brought himself too low on hit points because he kept cutting himself.

 

[Bolongo]

Yeah, the whole idea of using your own HP as a resource is a really tricky mechanic.
I've never seen it actually work well, yet so many people seem to think they're the ones who can finally make it work...

Edit: I think it can work as a desparation mechanic, for example if a magician has run out of mana but desperately needs to get off one more spell they will draw on their own lifeforce to power it. But not as a core mechanic for a whole class.

 

[The Soloist]

Some people should definitely play more RPGs. In some very popular RPGs wizards must spend HPs (blood) to cast spells. It's a common mechanic.

You can also watch Chinese Ghost Stories (1987) to see it in Pulp action:

 

[masshysteria]

These new classes are interesting, but I'm still waiting for a monster book with a few more campaign frames in the back.

 

[Bolongo]

Some people should definitely play more RPGs. In some very popular RPGs wizards must spend HPs (blood) to cast spells. It's a common mechanic.

Did I say it wasn't common? No. In fact I pointed out that a lot of designers try it out.

That doesn't make it a good mechanic. Something that's popular can still be bad.

 

[The Soloist]

Not liking a mechanic, doesn't make it bad. Some players enjoy it, others don't. It's a question of style of play preference.

 

[SteveC]

The Blood Hunter class is one of the most popular things that Critical Role has put out, so I would 100% expect to see it in Dagger Heart. Not universally popular, it seems. I think that the classes they've been releasing are good additions to the game and eventually I'll be picking up the book when they package them up. I wouldn't think that by itself, the Blood Hunter would be a "first release" new class, except that it's an existing thing that they are adapting.

 

[Vael]

I was never a fan of the 5e Bloodhunter. The various maledictions and crimson rites and blood curses ... it was a lot of "words for blood" soup and just seemed like a frustrating class to play.

I think the advantage of Daggerheart design is the various pieces are really cut down. A Class (aside from starting stuff and domains) is literally just 2 to 3 features ... a couple of Class abilities and a Hope feature. More complexity lies in subclasses, but they're optional and modular.

So I like this interpretation of the class better. It's not my kind of class, don't see myself playing one, but this looks interesting.

I'm also finding the Blood domain a bit more varied than I thought, more useful than I worried.

 

[Weiley31]

I like the Blood Hunter and include it in my list of "DLC Classes" for my 5E games. I've been meaning to check out the version by LaserLlama to see if it was given some much needed TLC with his take on it.

But I am also glad to see that Daggerheart is getting it as well.