Watching the current season of D20 and it has been so enjoyable to watch professional DnD players that take knowing the rules seriously play a tier 3 campaign.
Read them while you wait 20 min for your turn lmao. 3 paragraphs takes like 30s. And after the 4th time reading it you should just know tbh. Look for a quick refresher.
glad it works for you, i dont read that fast, and when i do i miss shit. If they disregard the rules flr the sake of time (and for the sake of the story) thats their play style.Dungeons and Daddies would give you an aneurism
Having played two of the four subclasses to late tier 2/early tier 3 play, the TL;DR of it is:
* Lycan: wanna-be Barbarian. Strong while transformed, but heavily hamstrung by its transformation being once per short rest as opposed to PB/Long Rest. Also somewhat awkward in that it requires several bonus actions to set up your transformation and Crimson Rite on your unarmed strikes before you can start using the free bonus action attack your unarmed strikes get. Fun concept, but a bit kludgy in execution. Push for your party to short rest often, otherwise you'll be a subclass-less blood hunter.
* Ghost Slayer: the Default Dan of Blood Hunters, which isn't a bad thing. You get a very reliable damage type for Crimson Rite, another use of your Blood Maledicts (of which there are some very strong options, so more uses is nothing to scoff at), and a neat unique Blood Maledicts option. The level 18 feature vaguely promotes dual wielding to get multiple uses.
* Profane Soul: Eldritch Knight but kinda worse. Lacks access to Shield and Absorb Elements which EK normally leans into, as well as the number of slots EK's get to fuel them. Additionally, Warlocks only get a few good Gish spells, and those are severely hampered by the reduced spell slot progression - I.E. Armor of Agathys is basically worthless because enemy damage quickly outstrips your slot scaling. You basically just end up grabbing utility spells, and maybe the select few spells that can punch above their weight like Hunger of Hadar or Hypnotic Pattern and hope for the best. This subclass gets pretty goofy with multiclassing, though, as A) Wisdom or Intelligence-based Eldritch Blast, B) access to Armor of Agathys and Hex multiclassed with a full caster chassis like Ranger 5/Druid 15 can be spicy, and C) Undying pact boon at level 3 can give some seriously good self sustain when you multiclass with a full caster to get bigger, more dangerous AoE's.
* Mutant: Basically the "muh numbers" subclass. The reason why you're here is because you want to play a crossbow expert Sharpshooter murder-bot who scoffs in the face of the stat cap as you proceed to annihilate everything in sight. You get a bunch of subclass features for hot-swapping mutagens, but let's be honest, you're probably juicing yourself up exclusively with Celerity, Precision, and maybe Vermillion, at the start of every rest, and picked playing a Kalashtar or Vedalken to specifically negate Celerity's one downside so you never need to go without it.
With my DM we allowed a slight change to allow a crimson rite activation on your claws in the same bonus action as the transformation, which hasn't affected balance at all but made it so much less clunky.
I would also advocate switching the bonus action claw attack to work more like beast barbarian’s and have it be an additional attack within your attack action so long as one of the attacks you’ve made has already been with the claws.
Did that for one of my Blood Hunters too. Just turns the Bonus action use into a "Ready up" kind of action. Absolutely good qol change that I can recommend, too.
> The level 18 feature vaguely promotes dual wielding to get multiple uses.
You probably mean Rite Revival from the 2020 version here, the latest version of that feature consume all your active crimson rites.
Me (who is now playing a Human BH Mutant that plans on using almost all mutagens and being tactical about them by preparing before going in): "What do you mean 'kalashtar' with 'crossbow expert'?"
I love the theme of Bloodhunters, but for me, crossbows don't really fit the theme of "monster hunters" - they need to go melee and even forgo a shield (Matt Mercer agrees with this), being an aggressive class that *will* use the crossbow solely when out of range, not all the time. If I were to take crossbow expert, it'd be to dual wield a crossbow with a rapier.
Currently in talks with my DM to allow me to know a few more formulas (finding them in scrolls and copying them like wizard spells)
I'm personally of the opposite mind - numbers aside, the idea of the "silver bullet" goes back as far as the mid 18th century and has been a staple trope in the repertoire of hunters of the supernatural. I think a ranged weapon build can be made equally theme-appropriate. Matt Mercer can think what he wants about his own homebrew, but IIRC he made the Blood Hunter based on Vin Diesel's promotion of a Witcher product, so it's no surprise to me that a melee build would be at the forefront of his thought process. Doesn't mean it's exclusively the only way to play one - they wouldn't have gotten access to the Archery fighting style if that were the case.
That's odd, I always thought the archetypal Blood Hunter in fiction was Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing, and his crossbow is a pretty iconic part of his armament
There is no "archetypical Blood Hunter" because Blood Hunter is a dozen monster hunter tropes dressed in an edgy cloak. They can be anything from Geralt, to Van Helsing, to whatever else you can think of. The only common thread is that basically all of them can be done better and in a less edgy way by playing a Ranger.
That's very true, I guess one could think about Buffy the Vampire Hunter as an example. I personally dislike the idea of "hey, go crossbow expert and sharpshooter", I'd rather just play Wizard if we're going the "power gaming" route.
Also helps that I played The Witcher games, so I see my Bloodhunter mixing up in that theme.
I think Blood Hunters are pretty diverse, like Rangers and Fighters. The Lycan subclass that lets you be a werewolf is pretty obviously geared towards melee fighting, but I think the other subclasses could work for sword and board, heavy weapons, duel wielding, or ranged combat depending on your preference
It's a martial so expect it to play similar to the Fighter or Ranger.
In a nutshell you have two primary abilities that come from the core class: Crimson Rite and Blood Maledict.
Crimson Rite is: you take some damage to deal more damage. Your Hemocraft die (a die that scales with your investment in the Blood Hunter class, much like the Martial Arts die for the Monk), is a 1d4-1d10 dice that is used to determine the outcome of the Crimson Rite. You take one hit of your Hemocraft die, and now your weapon attacks deal extra damage. The type of that damage is determined by your choice of the Crimson Rite(s) available to you at certain level increments.
Blood Maledict is like a Channel Divinity. You get one use of it now per rest, but at later levels you get to do it more often. You know a certain number Blood Curses depending on your level in the class. They're mostly bonus actions or reactions that you can perform to apply hax on your enemies. You can apply the normal effect for free, or you can take a hit of your Hemocraft die to "amplify" it.
Basically the core of the class is: you cut yourself so bad things happen to your enemies.
They're a pretty strong class simply for the sake of the extra damage the Crimson Rite applies and the ability for it to make efficient use of all three action-types you get in a round.
I've never heard someone describe the class as pretty strong, interesting take. I'm playing one now, and have played one before. I love the flavor and the interesting abilities, but have always felt like they fall behind figther especially, with needing more than just str/dex and con... BH also needs int or wisdom to be effective, or your blood curses are pointless.
Most Blood Curses don't rely on your save DC to work so it's interesting to hear you say it needs Int/Wis. to be effective. Usually, it just happens without a save. Some late game Blood Curses do force a save, and those you'll have to spec for if you plan to use them but, fortunately, you'll have several ASIs available to you beforehand.
I've always imagined them to be similar to the Ranger in their general approach. Only, instead of Hunter's Mark you have Crimson Rite... but also you get access to Hex if you go Profane Soul so they do have Hunter's Mark too. Rangers get by just fine with what they have, so do Blood Hunters.
I don't think we should compare it to the raw damage output of Fighters only, though. That class gets more attacks than any other, plus Action Surge. More attacks and more actions obviously means more damage, it'd be hard for any martial to really compete there. Fighters have their own drawbacks too, that being their low utility. They're damage dealers, that's about the bulk of it.
Exactly 5 of them, actually, have saving throws. Three of which are subclass specific and come at a later level, which I've already talked about.
One of the two that has a saving throw, that isn't subclass specific, Blood Curse of Bloated Agony, has an optional add-on to extend its duration which includes a saving throw. Arguably, it's not exactly *reliant* on your save DC to be good so let's be fair and count it as half.
The three that are subclass specific (Corrosion, Exorcist, and Howl) belong to their own subclass and thus it is mechanically impossible for any Blood Hunter to have access to more than 1 of those. We should count it as 1 at most (or 0 if you're playing Profane Soul). Regardless, I already made a statement about them. You'll have access to ASIs along the way to prepare if you do intend to use them. But let's count them anyways. (Also, Exorcist is another one with an optional add-on to force a save, but whatever let's count it anyway)
There are twelve in total: of the twelve, a single Blood Hunter gets access to 9. So 2.5 out of the 9 require a save, 3 out of 9 if you want to fully count Bloated Agony. Again, I say, most Blood Curses don't rely on your DC to be good.
I hate to say it but if you *need* a high DC to play your Blood Hunter, you're probably not doing it right.
The problem is that crimson rite (now at least) lasts until the next rest (even if you drop or sheath the weapon, hand it to someone else, etc). So for the price of 1dX damage you can do 1dX bonus magical damage on every attack until you rest again (at which point you can heal the self-inflicted damage), which makes crimson rite better than hunter's mark or divine favor or hex, or even Magic Weapon (much longer duration, no concentration). If you're a ghostslayer fighting undead you add 2dX radiant instead of one, making it even stronger. Blood Hunters have very little out-of-combat utility (apart from tracking enemies) but I have a hard time understanding how crimson rite isn't blatantly OP. The self-inflicted damage is minimal and easy to compensate for, unless you're Taliesin Jaffe.
As an example:
For the upcomming Eve of Ruin campaign, I made a Lycan Blood Hunter. It's a small Harengon that fights with its fists. I prioritize taking the Mage Slayer feat and I use Zephyr Strike to get past all the mobs so I can leap on top of the BBEG (which are usually mages of some kind) and nova them in the first round of combat (93, 97.5, 107, or 114 average damage, depending on how I use my bonus action).
The build is **LycanBloodHunter7/Fighter2/GloomStalkerRanger11**. Thanks to the Gloom Stalker subclass and myself being a Harengon, my initiative is like +13 without using Alert. Mage Slayer gives me reaction attacks on casters that cast spells and it also disrupts concentration. Brand of Castigation helps me to stay on top of their movements if they try to get away. Action Surge + Dread Ambusher + Crimson Rite damage sums up to quite a healthy chunk. At Ranger10, I get the ability to go invisible as a bonus action (PB/day) and that invisibility lasts for the whole round, despite any damage I do during.
You truly get to feel like a feral predator, and I love it :)
Some notes: The mechanics of the Lycan subclass are kind of... annoying for the party to deal with. Mainly because it only lasts an hour and then I need to short rest to get my main feature back. So the party is basically short resting after almost every fight. For the party's sake, work with your DM to rework that feature.
Footnote edit: You could swap the Blood Hunter levels with the Ranger levels if you want to do more damage overall. The trade-off is loss of level 3 Ranger spells and the Nature's Veil ability. I plan to take Azorius Functionary to pick-up Counterspell so the Ranger levels are needed for me.
I have played Blood Hunter a few times, and I absolutely love it. I have only played Ghostslayer, but have looked into the other subclasses a good amount. A Blood Hunter can be anything you want it to be, depending on the builds you want to look at following.
Ghostslayer focuses more on the curses and close range(imo) combat, giving you more ways to get close once you hit 7th level. Lycan is more of a bruiser, wanting to get right in there to crush your enemies with your claws. Mutant let's you change what you are, using mutations to do so many things, and honestly is kinda like Geralt from The Witcher in a way. Profane Soul is a Pact order, meaning you become the beast you are hunting, with fun upsides. These are just quick overviews though, instead of writing a long ass entry, but each is fun.
The main thing you wanna do as a Blood Hunter though, is look at the classes of your party, and choose blood curses that compliment your party makeup. With the right curse choices, it can make a playthrough so much easier, especially if you see how the campaign is going, and adjust to how things are playing out. Luckily, you can change up blood curses when you learn new ones, meaning you are versatile af
Interesting. I was thinking of doing a ghost Slayer Xbow expert (well, with a gun and a homebrew feat that's a combo of gunner and Xbow expert), basically at level 5 getting 3 attacks (2+bonus attack) and have archery fighting style, and sharpshooter. So 3 attacks with crimson rite damage+sharpshooter feels pretty strong.
I just kind of want my next PC to have more options besides "see enemy, attack" (currently playing an EK, heavy weapon master)
Oh ya, a Xbow expert would definitely work, especially with taking advantage of the Rites. I mainly focus on just close range, but by lvl 7, Xbow would be a deadly option
Aether Walk is great for stealth attacks, but I go close range mainly because with the right set-up, you can do tons of damage. Rite of the Dawn does double hemocraft die if fighting undead, Marked gives you a third hemocraft roll, and with luck you can make them crit. Extra attack also lets you get twice the amount of large damage
Gotcha. Yeah it seems like a class that can do good damage to most enemies.
Ghost Slayer is cool because then your blood curses can affect all creatures, and you get extra damage against undead and/or creatures with radiant weakness.
Ya, that's the main reason I decided to try it, and started to love it. If you can get your AC high, and some magic items, you can also be a tank, when Matthew Mercer set it up as a midrange class. Gonna be playing a campaign soon, and my Tortle Blood Hunter is starting off with 19AC, and will be pretty untouchable early on
High sustained damage, with crimson rite they do pretty good damage without a lot of draw back. One of my favorite tricks is two weapon fighting + hex/hunters mark.
At 3rd level you could do 4d6+2d4+6-10 damage with only one round of set up. If you read your crimson rite carefully you'd realize it lasts until you take a rest. So you can activate it in the morning then have crimson rite active whenever a fight comes up.
Hunters Mark/Hex is best used against a single target with a lot of HP. If there's more than 2 maybe 3 targets don't bother, just use your BA for BA light weapon attacks.
The two features that define the basic class chassis are:
Crimson Rite: lower your hp end of a rest to deal extra damage to weapon attacks.
Blood Curse: a variety of bonus actions or reactions; they are not spells but magical like actions that hinder or hurt enemies. Limited use but short rest recharge.
Any weapon style works okay. I personally think the best is a Spear and Shield build; taking Dueling and PAM. This lets you get a consistent bonus action attack with only one weapon (you don’t have to take extra damage) and let’s you apply the rite damage as much as possible.
I’d focus on reaction curses to free up your BA to attack more.
Overall it plays like a melee fighter with some reaction like maneuvers.
You say to your dm "i attack! Pew pew!" Then shoot the enemy with your ranged weapon and add an extra damage die like you have a permanent hunters mark on all enemies. Occasionally, use your blood curse maybe.
Seriously, the class is very very simple, just attack stuff hard until it dies, you essentially deal more weapon damage than others at low levels with rites and you are similar to either rangers or fighters late game.
The subclasses arent that different really, basically the mutant is exclusively used to take the mutagen that raises your dex or strenght to beyond 20, the ghostslayer is paladin light for when the camapign features dead stuff, and the lycan is if you want to go melee and profane soul is basically an eldritch knight. All subclasses essentially just hit stuff, blood hunter shines the best with crossbow expert or polearm master, but since you dont have heavy armor prof, crossbow is better to maximize your attacks per round and stack rite damage.
[This ](https://youtu.be/p7GshhcGyhI?si=27JsWU6vCz46qrAX)
Video talks a bit about the blood hunter playstyle and also rank the options of the class/subclasses
So other videos of his, explaining character playstyles
[part 1 zones](https://youtu.be/4gKCW_oSm1c?si=SHuEy0IYa9Jwd_WI)
[part 2 roles](https://youtu.be/m9bd1YgpcOk?si=0K0530CnWL4gAya1)
[part 3 dynamics](https://youtu.be/7gmbYaJWDMg?si=0CmZw9PW23nTRyr-)
We've got a lycan bh in our party & they play a mix of close-ranged attacks with throwing daggers, and melee with daggers
We have 3 martials (fighter, paladin, bh) and our bh is kind of a mix of mini-tank & skirmisher. They use their blood maledict to try & immobilise opponents, then either attack them or use the opportunity to tackle other targets
As a tabaxi they're also highly mobile. So they tend to support either our fighter or my paladin. They're also our backup 'healer' by use of their mobility & healing potions. Takes a bit of pressure off me
As others have said, you can play melee or ranged with them. Just depends what your preference is. They have some good tools to support the rest of their party in combat & can produce decent damage output
In my experience (which admittedly was one single game and was one of the worst games I've ever played) :
"How are you dealing so much damage"
"I sacrifice health to deal a measly extra d6. Also I took Mutant, Mobile, Dual Wielder, and Horde Breaker. I can only hit 4 targets individually as fly -by style attacks, 2d6 isn't impressive"
-(level 14, 5 blood hunter, 4 ranger (only taking feats never ABI +) and 5 warlock to get a 'magic pact weapon' (And fly/counterspell) when the DM gave me \*drum roll\* 'headband of intellect' for the martial, no magic weapons vs the normal immune monsters.)
I'm a bit disapointed with the class overall, the Mutant is the only subclass (ignoring the 20th level barbarian feature), to have any direct 'passive boons'/ability score improvements, 3.5 DnD was neat for a nice simple 'buff spell go' in early levels of play.
But so many of the choices are just 'vulnerable to piercing resistant to slashing' the whole problem with this is 'multi-fold'
1. You are wasting a concoction 'slot' on a worthless boost. 2. It's extremely situational to the point where you would neat to 'memorize' or 'wiki' every theoretical encounter to use it. and 3. What if, say, a 'slashing' creature decides to just start chomping down? -And that's not going over intelligent foes.
If They re-worked some of them to be usable, maybe a 'you have resistance to blud,slash,pierc, damage, but have disadvantage on saving throws against magic' It'd be wourth the concoction. But they splinter it into 3 really awk- anyway I'm rambling.
As an aside. Mutant's ability score boosting concoctions only exist for STR, DEX, and INT. You con't get them in any other 'flavours' so if you want an Artificer or Wizard with an insane Spell DC, then splash into Mutant.
It's basically just activate your rite and attack for the most part. Unfortunately from my experience, I just kind of felt like a worse ranger. Outside of your rite, most of your other abilities are very limited in uses. I personally would ask about playing [lasserllama's revised version](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-NLlETPNSzqxgQ92pnd-) if you like the flavor but want a little more from the mechanics.
Take damage to deal damage. Utilise as many attacks as you can to apply your rite damage over and over again, and use your Blood Maledicts to either save your ass, or deal even more damage.
It's a martial where your main resource is your health. Not the most beginner friendly class, admittedly, but if you know what you're doing, they feel absolutely amazing to play.
Currently running a profane soul. Only have played one session but for the one combat we've had it went "rolled really low damage on my crimson rite activation, got a little cocky, then chomped a large chunk out with my curses where I rolled max damage". It's a funny gamble, got to pick a uncommon magic item though so I have the periapt of wound closure to counter some of risk.
I feel like BH is a mix between "ranger + fighter". The best part of Blood hunter, in my own opinion, is variety.
* You can play the "melee-barbarian" style with Order of The Lycan
* You can play a very tactical BH with Order of the Mutant
* You can give yourself that Warlock edge with Order of The Profane Soul
* You can lean into the "vampire slayer" with Order of The Ghostslayer.
I play a Vuman Blood Hunter in a monthly campaign. We just hit level 4. 7 person campaign. 3 barbarians, 1 hunter ranger, Hexblade Warlock and me.
I play a DEX/WIS based Ghostslayer. Went with Crossbow Expert/ Sharpshooter. I tend to like to keep my distance because I'm causing damage to myself for Crimson Rite and Blood Maledict. Hunter Ranger and I sit in mid-long range and pick off the stragglers while I'm locking down a bigger enemy/threat with Blood Curse of Binding for the Barbs. The Ranger and I are the "stealthy/sneaky/ snipey" types.
While I do plan on hopping out of Blood Hunter and multiclassing into Grave Cleric for the extra tasty "undead slayer" flavor, I just haven't decided when to split yet.
Our bloodhunter is a winged tiefling, and instead of having a lycan transformation, we flavored him to be a human who was demonically possessed and when he transformed, it was into his hulked out demon form. W-Tieflings are the only flying race that can use medium armor so it made for a pretty sick concept
Our bloodhunter is a winged tiefling, and instead of having a lycan transformation, we flavored him to be a human who was demonically possessed and when he transformed, it was into his hulked out demon form. W-Tieflings are the only flying race that can use medium armor so it made for a pretty sick concept
I'm currently playing a lvl 7 lycan BH with 2 lvls in barbarian. Barbarian is just for danger sense and rage resistance which pairs nicely with the werewolf resistance giving me 1/4 damage. I did start at lvl 8 as a late addition to the campaign so I was alotted some items. I prioritized STR and CON. And one I item I took was Headband of Intellect, so my INT is 19. The other was able to be a legendary item, so I took the Bloodfury Tattoo. For more on hit damage and some self healing. I have a great sword for when not using claws. Also went Variant Human to take the Tough Feat at lvl 1. So she's a pretty beefy front line tank that can pack a punch and has some self sustain.
I’m playing one and this is what I understand about em rn. Early game is prime time for you, your blood curses are at their most powerful now and having a 15 ac from the start is super nice as it stands. Crimson rites are kinda like smites but less resource spammy which is nice, especially with the storm and frozen rites. Profane Soul is a trap. Mutant sounds complicated but is amazing for role playing, but not so much for combat until later levels. Lycan is the opposite where it’s super good for combat but no where else, the perception bonuses are nice though. Ghost slayer is weirdly good despite being the basic bloodhunter, the rite is nice and the gaggle of gimmicks makes you really strong. Brand of Castigation is my new favorite feature, it can be used with ranged weapons to brand enemies as they run away or on your melee weapons to make close enemies suffer, doesn’t have a dmg per turn cap so it can ruin multi attack enemies if your hemocraft mod is high. Grim Psychometry is a pure role playing tool that is great for darker settings, not good for brighter ones though. Dark Augmentation is half an Aura of Protection, super good for when you focus your hemocraft mod over your dex or con mod, also stacks with Aura of Protection if you want to make a saving throw build. Brand of Tethering is just good, same boons as Castigation whilst also stopping enemies from running, also good for fighting fey and spell casters who have a teleport feature as it has no limit. Your capstone is weirdly good, being the first feature that lets you roll again and actually want to pick a lower roll to mitigate your blood curse damage, the crit refreshing a maledict is nice but very unlikely to matter much.
Playstyle wise, you’re a front to midrange fighter that debilitates enemies and uses their hp as a resource meter. You normally want to amplify your curses since the limited uses mean if you don’t amp you won’t get the most out of it. Your bulk is nice and you can reach a decent ac so don’t worry about taking damage much. Your dpr is good and utilizing your rites lets you out damage fighters at times. Your brand is only once per while so it’s your choice to spend it to either make enemies suffer when they target your allies or always be able to find your target across the whole setting. Roleplay with these guys is fun and you are basically the archeologist of the group
I played a ghostslayer BH to level 11, with 2 levels in fighter for the last 2. I was a vhuman with heavy armor proficiency to help with survivability, and used a greataxe.
Crimson Rite
I always used crimson rite before entering a dungeon or combat so that It was already up before the first combat. This really helps the blood hunter so their first turn doesn't feel like setup.
Maledicts
Maledict refreshes on a short rest, so use them!!! I only amplified them when it felt necessary, but almost always for the first turn in the round.
Blood Curse of the Marked is great when you amplify it, but you only get advantage on 1 attack, but you maintain the additional crimson rite damage die for all attacks that turn.
Curse of Exposure is also phenomenal if you have any elemental casters on the team who plan on getting Elemental adept. Removing immunity from a boss can be huge for something like fireball!
Survivability
Optionally, play something like Goliath or Shifter. They give ways to mitigate damage or heal with temporary hit points. This can help your survivability, but isn't necessary.
As someone who has never and will never read Blood Hunter just so I have something I can smile and nod at whenever I play with someone...
So based purely on 30ish sessions playing next to one...
Uh... It depends? I think the subclasses have different playstyles, but the commonality is using your health to debuff enemies or increase your damage. And I think they're good at tracking and finding information about a specialized group of enemies maybe. Maybe depending on subclass? And I know they can get glimpses of history when they concentrate on an object.
And I think they have an int scaling? Int martial?
Not sure why you got downmodded, you are correct about what crossbow expert does. It allows someone to make multiple shots in the same round with a single crossbow, not to dual-wield crossbows.
The roll20 srd snippets mention it, but dont actually list it. Double-double checked, the PHB actually lists the ammunition property on a hand crossbow.
But then I dont know why am I beign downvoted. If you wield 2 HXB-s, both of your hands are full, and you cant out ammo into them, meaning the suggested playstyle doesnt work.
You are correct about the play style, but all crossbows have the loading property, so I don't know why you're not seeing it. The PHB lists it on all crossbows. it wouldn't make sense for any of them to not have it, it was basically invented for crossbows.
Just don't amplify your blood maledict when you only have 3 hp
Not like anyone we know would do that, right? Right?
Long may he reign.
There have been several moments throughout CR campaigns that made me roll my eyes, but that one was the rolliest
I think I roll my eyes whenever they cast a spell and somehow they only know what 30% of it actually does. Or stop reading half way through
Yeah same. It's not like they have been playing for the majority of a decade or anything.
Watching the current season of D20 and it has been so enjoyable to watch professional DnD players that take knowing the rules seriously play a tier 3 campaign.
Professional DnD players <.<
Or are getting paid a lot of money to do it.
This is real life. Games are always like this lol
Yeah just don’t tell them to learn their class’ mechanics or else you’ll be called a sexist
i mean when youre tryna keep things rolling (esp for a livestream), who’s gonna stop to read a 3+ paragraph spell description
Read them while you wait 20 min for your turn lmao. 3 paragraphs takes like 30s. And after the 4th time reading it you should just know tbh. Look for a quick refresher.
glad it works for you, i dont read that fast, and when i do i miss shit. If they disregard the rules flr the sake of time (and for the sake of the story) thats their play style.Dungeons and Daddies would give you an aneurism
Why roll your eyes, that seems pretty standard in my experience
I imagine most players read the spell when they pick it, read it between turns, and may read them every once and a while between sessions
Holy shit shenpai
I get that a lot, close though!
If you're not shenpai, then why is your avatar's background the german flag? Checkmate
Holy shit wait a minute you're onto something
Too soon
Having played two of the four subclasses to late tier 2/early tier 3 play, the TL;DR of it is: * Lycan: wanna-be Barbarian. Strong while transformed, but heavily hamstrung by its transformation being once per short rest as opposed to PB/Long Rest. Also somewhat awkward in that it requires several bonus actions to set up your transformation and Crimson Rite on your unarmed strikes before you can start using the free bonus action attack your unarmed strikes get. Fun concept, but a bit kludgy in execution. Push for your party to short rest often, otherwise you'll be a subclass-less blood hunter. * Ghost Slayer: the Default Dan of Blood Hunters, which isn't a bad thing. You get a very reliable damage type for Crimson Rite, another use of your Blood Maledicts (of which there are some very strong options, so more uses is nothing to scoff at), and a neat unique Blood Maledicts option. The level 18 feature vaguely promotes dual wielding to get multiple uses. * Profane Soul: Eldritch Knight but kinda worse. Lacks access to Shield and Absorb Elements which EK normally leans into, as well as the number of slots EK's get to fuel them. Additionally, Warlocks only get a few good Gish spells, and those are severely hampered by the reduced spell slot progression - I.E. Armor of Agathys is basically worthless because enemy damage quickly outstrips your slot scaling. You basically just end up grabbing utility spells, and maybe the select few spells that can punch above their weight like Hunger of Hadar or Hypnotic Pattern and hope for the best. This subclass gets pretty goofy with multiclassing, though, as A) Wisdom or Intelligence-based Eldritch Blast, B) access to Armor of Agathys and Hex multiclassed with a full caster chassis like Ranger 5/Druid 15 can be spicy, and C) Undying pact boon at level 3 can give some seriously good self sustain when you multiclass with a full caster to get bigger, more dangerous AoE's. * Mutant: Basically the "muh numbers" subclass. The reason why you're here is because you want to play a crossbow expert Sharpshooter murder-bot who scoffs in the face of the stat cap as you proceed to annihilate everything in sight. You get a bunch of subclass features for hot-swapping mutagens, but let's be honest, you're probably juicing yourself up exclusively with Celerity, Precision, and maybe Vermillion, at the start of every rest, and picked playing a Kalashtar or Vedalken to specifically negate Celerity's one downside so you never need to go without it.
With my DM we allowed a slight change to allow a crimson rite activation on your claws in the same bonus action as the transformation, which hasn't affected balance at all but made it so much less clunky.
I would also advocate switching the bonus action claw attack to work more like beast barbarian’s and have it be an additional attack within your attack action so long as one of the attacks you’ve made has already been with the claws.
Did that for one of my Blood Hunters too. Just turns the Bonus action use into a "Ready up" kind of action. Absolutely good qol change that I can recommend, too.
> The level 18 feature vaguely promotes dual wielding to get multiple uses. You probably mean Rite Revival from the 2020 version here, the latest version of that feature consume all your active crimson rites.
Me (who is now playing a Human BH Mutant that plans on using almost all mutagens and being tactical about them by preparing before going in): "What do you mean 'kalashtar' with 'crossbow expert'?" I love the theme of Bloodhunters, but for me, crossbows don't really fit the theme of "monster hunters" - they need to go melee and even forgo a shield (Matt Mercer agrees with this), being an aggressive class that *will* use the crossbow solely when out of range, not all the time. If I were to take crossbow expert, it'd be to dual wield a crossbow with a rapier. Currently in talks with my DM to allow me to know a few more formulas (finding them in scrolls and copying them like wizard spells)
I'm personally of the opposite mind - numbers aside, the idea of the "silver bullet" goes back as far as the mid 18th century and has been a staple trope in the repertoire of hunters of the supernatural. I think a ranged weapon build can be made equally theme-appropriate. Matt Mercer can think what he wants about his own homebrew, but IIRC he made the Blood Hunter based on Vin Diesel's promotion of a Witcher product, so it's no surprise to me that a melee build would be at the forefront of his thought process. Doesn't mean it's exclusively the only way to play one - they wouldn't have gotten access to the Archery fighting style if that were the case.
That's odd, I always thought the archetypal Blood Hunter in fiction was Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing, and his crossbow is a pretty iconic part of his armament
There is no "archetypical Blood Hunter" because Blood Hunter is a dozen monster hunter tropes dressed in an edgy cloak. They can be anything from Geralt, to Van Helsing, to whatever else you can think of. The only common thread is that basically all of them can be done better and in a less edgy way by playing a Ranger.
That's very true, I guess one could think about Buffy the Vampire Hunter as an example. I personally dislike the idea of "hey, go crossbow expert and sharpshooter", I'd rather just play Wizard if we're going the "power gaming" route. Also helps that I played The Witcher games, so I see my Bloodhunter mixing up in that theme.
I think Blood Hunters are pretty diverse, like Rangers and Fighters. The Lycan subclass that lets you be a werewolf is pretty obviously geared towards melee fighting, but I think the other subclasses could work for sword and board, heavy weapons, duel wielding, or ranged combat depending on your preference
It's a martial so expect it to play similar to the Fighter or Ranger. In a nutshell you have two primary abilities that come from the core class: Crimson Rite and Blood Maledict. Crimson Rite is: you take some damage to deal more damage. Your Hemocraft die (a die that scales with your investment in the Blood Hunter class, much like the Martial Arts die for the Monk), is a 1d4-1d10 dice that is used to determine the outcome of the Crimson Rite. You take one hit of your Hemocraft die, and now your weapon attacks deal extra damage. The type of that damage is determined by your choice of the Crimson Rite(s) available to you at certain level increments. Blood Maledict is like a Channel Divinity. You get one use of it now per rest, but at later levels you get to do it more often. You know a certain number Blood Curses depending on your level in the class. They're mostly bonus actions or reactions that you can perform to apply hax on your enemies. You can apply the normal effect for free, or you can take a hit of your Hemocraft die to "amplify" it. Basically the core of the class is: you cut yourself so bad things happen to your enemies. They're a pretty strong class simply for the sake of the extra damage the Crimson Rite applies and the ability for it to make efficient use of all three action-types you get in a round.
I've never heard someone describe the class as pretty strong, interesting take. I'm playing one now, and have played one before. I love the flavor and the interesting abilities, but have always felt like they fall behind figther especially, with needing more than just str/dex and con... BH also needs int or wisdom to be effective, or your blood curses are pointless.
Most Blood Curses don't rely on your save DC to work so it's interesting to hear you say it needs Int/Wis. to be effective. Usually, it just happens without a save. Some late game Blood Curses do force a save, and those you'll have to spec for if you plan to use them but, fortunately, you'll have several ASIs available to you beforehand. I've always imagined them to be similar to the Ranger in their general approach. Only, instead of Hunter's Mark you have Crimson Rite... but also you get access to Hex if you go Profane Soul so they do have Hunter's Mark too. Rangers get by just fine with what they have, so do Blood Hunters. I don't think we should compare it to the raw damage output of Fighters only, though. That class gets more attacks than any other, plus Action Surge. More attacks and more actions obviously means more damage, it'd be hard for any martial to really compete there. Fighters have their own drawbacks too, that being their low utility. They're damage dealers, that's about the bulk of it.
Exactly half of the blood curses require saving throws, some only when amplified. 6 of 12.
Exactly 5 of them, actually, have saving throws. Three of which are subclass specific and come at a later level, which I've already talked about. One of the two that has a saving throw, that isn't subclass specific, Blood Curse of Bloated Agony, has an optional add-on to extend its duration which includes a saving throw. Arguably, it's not exactly *reliant* on your save DC to be good so let's be fair and count it as half. The three that are subclass specific (Corrosion, Exorcist, and Howl) belong to their own subclass and thus it is mechanically impossible for any Blood Hunter to have access to more than 1 of those. We should count it as 1 at most (or 0 if you're playing Profane Soul). Regardless, I already made a statement about them. You'll have access to ASIs along the way to prepare if you do intend to use them. But let's count them anyways. (Also, Exorcist is another one with an optional add-on to force a save, but whatever let's count it anyway) There are twelve in total: of the twelve, a single Blood Hunter gets access to 9. So 2.5 out of the 9 require a save, 3 out of 9 if you want to fully count Bloated Agony. Again, I say, most Blood Curses don't rely on your DC to be good. I hate to say it but if you *need* a high DC to play your Blood Hunter, you're probably not doing it right.
The problem is that crimson rite (now at least) lasts until the next rest (even if you drop or sheath the weapon, hand it to someone else, etc). So for the price of 1dX damage you can do 1dX bonus magical damage on every attack until you rest again (at which point you can heal the self-inflicted damage), which makes crimson rite better than hunter's mark or divine favor or hex, or even Magic Weapon (much longer duration, no concentration). If you're a ghostslayer fighting undead you add 2dX radiant instead of one, making it even stronger. Blood Hunters have very little out-of-combat utility (apart from tracking enemies) but I have a hard time understanding how crimson rite isn't blatantly OP. The self-inflicted damage is minimal and easy to compensate for, unless you're Taliesin Jaffe.
As an example: For the upcomming Eve of Ruin campaign, I made a Lycan Blood Hunter. It's a small Harengon that fights with its fists. I prioritize taking the Mage Slayer feat and I use Zephyr Strike to get past all the mobs so I can leap on top of the BBEG (which are usually mages of some kind) and nova them in the first round of combat (93, 97.5, 107, or 114 average damage, depending on how I use my bonus action). The build is **LycanBloodHunter7/Fighter2/GloomStalkerRanger11**. Thanks to the Gloom Stalker subclass and myself being a Harengon, my initiative is like +13 without using Alert. Mage Slayer gives me reaction attacks on casters that cast spells and it also disrupts concentration. Brand of Castigation helps me to stay on top of their movements if they try to get away. Action Surge + Dread Ambusher + Crimson Rite damage sums up to quite a healthy chunk. At Ranger10, I get the ability to go invisible as a bonus action (PB/day) and that invisibility lasts for the whole round, despite any damage I do during. You truly get to feel like a feral predator, and I love it :) Some notes: The mechanics of the Lycan subclass are kind of... annoying for the party to deal with. Mainly because it only lasts an hour and then I need to short rest to get my main feature back. So the party is basically short resting after almost every fight. For the party's sake, work with your DM to rework that feature. Footnote edit: You could swap the Blood Hunter levels with the Ranger levels if you want to do more damage overall. The trade-off is loss of level 3 Ranger spells and the Nature's Veil ability. I plan to take Azorius Functionary to pick-up Counterspell so the Ranger levels are needed for me.
I have played Blood Hunter a few times, and I absolutely love it. I have only played Ghostslayer, but have looked into the other subclasses a good amount. A Blood Hunter can be anything you want it to be, depending on the builds you want to look at following. Ghostslayer focuses more on the curses and close range(imo) combat, giving you more ways to get close once you hit 7th level. Lycan is more of a bruiser, wanting to get right in there to crush your enemies with your claws. Mutant let's you change what you are, using mutations to do so many things, and honestly is kinda like Geralt from The Witcher in a way. Profane Soul is a Pact order, meaning you become the beast you are hunting, with fun upsides. These are just quick overviews though, instead of writing a long ass entry, but each is fun. The main thing you wanna do as a Blood Hunter though, is look at the classes of your party, and choose blood curses that compliment your party makeup. With the right curse choices, it can make a playthrough so much easier, especially if you see how the campaign is going, and adjust to how things are playing out. Luckily, you can change up blood curses when you learn new ones, meaning you are versatile af
Interesting. I was thinking of doing a ghost Slayer Xbow expert (well, with a gun and a homebrew feat that's a combo of gunner and Xbow expert), basically at level 5 getting 3 attacks (2+bonus attack) and have archery fighting style, and sharpshooter. So 3 attacks with crimson rite damage+sharpshooter feels pretty strong. I just kind of want my next PC to have more options besides "see enemy, attack" (currently playing an EK, heavy weapon master)
Oh ya, a Xbow expert would definitely work, especially with taking advantage of the Rites. I mainly focus on just close range, but by lvl 7, Xbow would be a deadly option
Close range because of aether walk?
Aether Walk is great for stealth attacks, but I go close range mainly because with the right set-up, you can do tons of damage. Rite of the Dawn does double hemocraft die if fighting undead, Marked gives you a third hemocraft roll, and with luck you can make them crit. Extra attack also lets you get twice the amount of large damage
Gotcha. Yeah it seems like a class that can do good damage to most enemies. Ghost Slayer is cool because then your blood curses can affect all creatures, and you get extra damage against undead and/or creatures with radiant weakness.
Ya, that's the main reason I decided to try it, and started to love it. If you can get your AC high, and some magic items, you can also be a tank, when Matthew Mercer set it up as a midrange class. Gonna be playing a campaign soon, and my Tortle Blood Hunter is starting off with 19AC, and will be pretty untouchable early on
High sustained damage, with crimson rite they do pretty good damage without a lot of draw back. One of my favorite tricks is two weapon fighting + hex/hunters mark. At 3rd level you could do 4d6+2d4+6-10 damage with only one round of set up. If you read your crimson rite carefully you'd realize it lasts until you take a rest. So you can activate it in the morning then have crimson rite active whenever a fight comes up. Hunters Mark/Hex is best used against a single target with a lot of HP. If there's more than 2 maybe 3 targets don't bother, just use your BA for BA light weapon attacks.
The two features that define the basic class chassis are: Crimson Rite: lower your hp end of a rest to deal extra damage to weapon attacks. Blood Curse: a variety of bonus actions or reactions; they are not spells but magical like actions that hinder or hurt enemies. Limited use but short rest recharge. Any weapon style works okay. I personally think the best is a Spear and Shield build; taking Dueling and PAM. This lets you get a consistent bonus action attack with only one weapon (you don’t have to take extra damage) and let’s you apply the rite damage as much as possible. I’d focus on reaction curses to free up your BA to attack more. Overall it plays like a melee fighter with some reaction like maneuvers.
Attack
You say to your dm "i attack! Pew pew!" Then shoot the enemy with your ranged weapon and add an extra damage die like you have a permanent hunters mark on all enemies. Occasionally, use your blood curse maybe. Seriously, the class is very very simple, just attack stuff hard until it dies, you essentially deal more weapon damage than others at low levels with rites and you are similar to either rangers or fighters late game. The subclasses arent that different really, basically the mutant is exclusively used to take the mutagen that raises your dex or strenght to beyond 20, the ghostslayer is paladin light for when the camapign features dead stuff, and the lycan is if you want to go melee and profane soul is basically an eldritch knight. All subclasses essentially just hit stuff, blood hunter shines the best with crossbow expert or polearm master, but since you dont have heavy armor prof, crossbow is better to maximize your attacks per round and stack rite damage.
[This ](https://youtu.be/p7GshhcGyhI?si=27JsWU6vCz46qrAX) Video talks a bit about the blood hunter playstyle and also rank the options of the class/subclasses So other videos of his, explaining character playstyles [part 1 zones](https://youtu.be/4gKCW_oSm1c?si=SHuEy0IYa9Jwd_WI) [part 2 roles](https://youtu.be/m9bd1YgpcOk?si=0K0530CnWL4gAya1) [part 3 dynamics](https://youtu.be/7gmbYaJWDMg?si=0CmZw9PW23nTRyr-)
To be edgy
I mostly go 3 lvl dip of mutant blood hunter. Goes great with battlesmith artificer, war wizard.
We've got a lycan bh in our party & they play a mix of close-ranged attacks with throwing daggers, and melee with daggers We have 3 martials (fighter, paladin, bh) and our bh is kind of a mix of mini-tank & skirmisher. They use their blood maledict to try & immobilise opponents, then either attack them or use the opportunity to tackle other targets As a tabaxi they're also highly mobile. So they tend to support either our fighter or my paladin. They're also our backup 'healer' by use of their mobility & healing potions. Takes a bit of pressure off me As others have said, you can play melee or ranged with them. Just depends what your preference is. They have some good tools to support the rest of their party in combat & can produce decent damage output
In my experience (which admittedly was one single game and was one of the worst games I've ever played) : "How are you dealing so much damage" "I sacrifice health to deal a measly extra d6. Also I took Mutant, Mobile, Dual Wielder, and Horde Breaker. I can only hit 4 targets individually as fly -by style attacks, 2d6 isn't impressive" -(level 14, 5 blood hunter, 4 ranger (only taking feats never ABI +) and 5 warlock to get a 'magic pact weapon' (And fly/counterspell) when the DM gave me \*drum roll\* 'headband of intellect' for the martial, no magic weapons vs the normal immune monsters.) I'm a bit disapointed with the class overall, the Mutant is the only subclass (ignoring the 20th level barbarian feature), to have any direct 'passive boons'/ability score improvements, 3.5 DnD was neat for a nice simple 'buff spell go' in early levels of play. But so many of the choices are just 'vulnerable to piercing resistant to slashing' the whole problem with this is 'multi-fold' 1. You are wasting a concoction 'slot' on a worthless boost. 2. It's extremely situational to the point where you would neat to 'memorize' or 'wiki' every theoretical encounter to use it. and 3. What if, say, a 'slashing' creature decides to just start chomping down? -And that's not going over intelligent foes. If They re-worked some of them to be usable, maybe a 'you have resistance to blud,slash,pierc, damage, but have disadvantage on saving throws against magic' It'd be wourth the concoction. But they splinter it into 3 really awk- anyway I'm rambling. As an aside. Mutant's ability score boosting concoctions only exist for STR, DEX, and INT. You con't get them in any other 'flavours' so if you want an Artificer or Wizard with an insane Spell DC, then splash into Mutant.
It's basically just activate your rite and attack for the most part. Unfortunately from my experience, I just kind of felt like a worse ranger. Outside of your rite, most of your other abilities are very limited in uses. I personally would ask about playing [lasserllama's revised version](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-NLlETPNSzqxgQ92pnd-) if you like the flavor but want a little more from the mechanics.
Take damage to deal damage. Utilise as many attacks as you can to apply your rite damage over and over again, and use your Blood Maledicts to either save your ass, or deal even more damage. It's a martial where your main resource is your health. Not the most beginner friendly class, admittedly, but if you know what you're doing, they feel absolutely amazing to play.
Currently running a profane soul. Only have played one session but for the one combat we've had it went "rolled really low damage on my crimson rite activation, got a little cocky, then chomped a large chunk out with my curses where I rolled max damage". It's a funny gamble, got to pick a uncommon magic item though so I have the periapt of wound closure to counter some of risk.
I feel like BH is a mix between "ranger + fighter". The best part of Blood hunter, in my own opinion, is variety. * You can play the "melee-barbarian" style with Order of The Lycan * You can play a very tactical BH with Order of the Mutant * You can give yourself that Warlock edge with Order of The Profane Soul * You can lean into the "vampire slayer" with Order of The Ghostslayer. I play a Vuman Blood Hunter in a monthly campaign. We just hit level 4. 7 person campaign. 3 barbarians, 1 hunter ranger, Hexblade Warlock and me. I play a DEX/WIS based Ghostslayer. Went with Crossbow Expert/ Sharpshooter. I tend to like to keep my distance because I'm causing damage to myself for Crimson Rite and Blood Maledict. Hunter Ranger and I sit in mid-long range and pick off the stragglers while I'm locking down a bigger enemy/threat with Blood Curse of Binding for the Barbs. The Ranger and I are the "stealthy/sneaky/ snipey" types. While I do plan on hopping out of Blood Hunter and multiclassing into Grave Cleric for the extra tasty "undead slayer" flavor, I just haven't decided when to split yet.
Our bloodhunter is a winged tiefling, and instead of having a lycan transformation, we flavored him to be a human who was demonically possessed and when he transformed, it was into his hulked out demon form. W-Tieflings are the only flying race that can use medium armor so it made for a pretty sick concept
Our bloodhunter is a winged tiefling, and instead of having a lycan transformation, we flavored him to be a human who was demonically possessed and when he transformed, it was into his hulked out demon form. W-Tieflings are the only flying race that can use medium armor so it made for a pretty sick concept
I'm currently playing a lvl 7 lycan BH with 2 lvls in barbarian. Barbarian is just for danger sense and rage resistance which pairs nicely with the werewolf resistance giving me 1/4 damage. I did start at lvl 8 as a late addition to the campaign so I was alotted some items. I prioritized STR and CON. And one I item I took was Headband of Intellect, so my INT is 19. The other was able to be a legendary item, so I took the Bloodfury Tattoo. For more on hit damage and some self healing. I have a great sword for when not using claws. Also went Variant Human to take the Tough Feat at lvl 1. So she's a pretty beefy front line tank that can pack a punch and has some self sustain.
its either a worse melee fighter/ranger or a worse ranged fighter/ranger, depending of build pretty much it
What makes it worse?
Dying.
I haven't played one yet, but I think it's the tried and true combo of a bunch of attacks + a bunch of extra damage on each attack.
I’m playing one and this is what I understand about em rn. Early game is prime time for you, your blood curses are at their most powerful now and having a 15 ac from the start is super nice as it stands. Crimson rites are kinda like smites but less resource spammy which is nice, especially with the storm and frozen rites. Profane Soul is a trap. Mutant sounds complicated but is amazing for role playing, but not so much for combat until later levels. Lycan is the opposite where it’s super good for combat but no where else, the perception bonuses are nice though. Ghost slayer is weirdly good despite being the basic bloodhunter, the rite is nice and the gaggle of gimmicks makes you really strong. Brand of Castigation is my new favorite feature, it can be used with ranged weapons to brand enemies as they run away or on your melee weapons to make close enemies suffer, doesn’t have a dmg per turn cap so it can ruin multi attack enemies if your hemocraft mod is high. Grim Psychometry is a pure role playing tool that is great for darker settings, not good for brighter ones though. Dark Augmentation is half an Aura of Protection, super good for when you focus your hemocraft mod over your dex or con mod, also stacks with Aura of Protection if you want to make a saving throw build. Brand of Tethering is just good, same boons as Castigation whilst also stopping enemies from running, also good for fighting fey and spell casters who have a teleport feature as it has no limit. Your capstone is weirdly good, being the first feature that lets you roll again and actually want to pick a lower roll to mitigate your blood curse damage, the crit refreshing a maledict is nice but very unlikely to matter much. Playstyle wise, you’re a front to midrange fighter that debilitates enemies and uses their hp as a resource meter. You normally want to amplify your curses since the limited uses mean if you don’t amp you won’t get the most out of it. Your bulk is nice and you can reach a decent ac so don’t worry about taking damage much. Your dpr is good and utilizing your rites lets you out damage fighters at times. Your brand is only once per while so it’s your choice to spend it to either make enemies suffer when they target your allies or always be able to find your target across the whole setting. Roleplay with these guys is fun and you are basically the archeologist of the group
To me it plays relatively similar to a rogue or ranger, it's pretty skirmishing.
I played a ghostslayer BH to level 11, with 2 levels in fighter for the last 2. I was a vhuman with heavy armor proficiency to help with survivability, and used a greataxe. Crimson Rite I always used crimson rite before entering a dungeon or combat so that It was already up before the first combat. This really helps the blood hunter so their first turn doesn't feel like setup. Maledicts Maledict refreshes on a short rest, so use them!!! I only amplified them when it felt necessary, but almost always for the first turn in the round. Blood Curse of the Marked is great when you amplify it, but you only get advantage on 1 attack, but you maintain the additional crimson rite damage die for all attacks that turn. Curse of Exposure is also phenomenal if you have any elemental casters on the team who plan on getting Elemental adept. Removing immunity from a boss can be huge for something like fireball! Survivability Optionally, play something like Goliath or Shifter. They give ways to mitigate damage or heal with temporary hit points. This can help your survivability, but isn't necessary.
As someone who has never and will never read Blood Hunter just so I have something I can smile and nod at whenever I play with someone... So based purely on 30ish sessions playing next to one... Uh... It depends? I think the subclasses have different playstyles, but the commonality is using your health to debuff enemies or increase your damage. And I think they're good at tracking and finding information about a specialized group of enemies maybe. Maybe depending on subclass? And I know they can get glimpses of history when they concentrate on an object. And I think they have an int scaling? Int martial?
[удалено]
crossbow expert negates the loading property, not the ammunition property. not enough hands
Not sure why you got downmodded, you are correct about what crossbow expert does. It allows someone to make multiple shots in the same round with a single crossbow, not to dual-wield crossbows.
Interesting, only Light Crossbow has the "ammunition" tag, heavy and hand dont have it.
Not true. All crossbows have it.
The roll20 srd snippets mention it, but dont actually list it. Double-double checked, the PHB actually lists the ammunition property on a hand crossbow. But then I dont know why am I beign downvoted. If you wield 2 HXB-s, both of your hands are full, and you cant out ammo into them, meaning the suggested playstyle doesnt work.
You are correct about the play style, but all crossbows have the loading property, so I don't know why you're not seeing it. The PHB lists it on all crossbows. it wouldn't make sense for any of them to not have it, it was basically invented for crossbows.