Blood Hunter

This is the 2022 Blood Hunter class written by Matthew Mercer, which includes two subclasses: Order of the Lycan and Order of the Ghostslayer.

This is quite an endeavor, and my first time really trying at something this big. I expect there will be some bugs or inconsistencies. If there are, please let me know and I'll do my best to try and fix them.

I tried to adapt the class as faithfully as I could, but there were some things I couldn't figure out. For the abilities I have adjusted, I tried to keep them in scale with the original ability's power and theme. I've listed some of the notable changes below, as well as some known issues.


Overview

The Blood Hunter is an Intelligence-based d10 martial class that wields blood magic to fight monsters. They wear medium armor and shields, and gain Extra Attack. It has DEX and INT saves and gains 3 skills at level 1.

The core features of the Blood Hunter are its Blood Maledict and Crimson Rite abilities.

Blood Maledict gives a resource, similar to Battlemaster's Superiority Die, as well as a number of Blood Curses which expend this resource, regained on a Short Rest. The curses scale using a Hemocraft die, which starts at a d4 and ends at a d8 by level 12. Blood Curses also gain additional effects when you Amplify them, dealing damage to yourself determined by your Hemocraft die in the process.

Crimson Rite is a weapon enhancement that allows you take an amount of necrotic damage determined by your Hemocraft die to enchant your weapons with elemental magic, adding elemental rite damage of the rite you select as bonus damage on each of your weapon strikes in an amount determined by your Hemocraft die. Brand of Castigation, a feature gained at level 6, can add to the benefits of your Crimson Rite by searing a brand into your enemy which punishes enemies for attacking you or your close allies.

Subclasses are included which hone in on your monster-hunting prowess.
Order of the Lycan allows you to control the beast within, turning lycanthropy into a weapon.
Order of the Ghostslayer focuses on hunting that which cannot be seen and those which should never have come back.

F.A.Q. and Known Issues

Where's the starter Longsword? It's on a thrall corpse just outside the first battle in the Nautiloid. Unfortunately this is due to some programming on Larian's side when you also start with a Hand Crossbow. Unsure why this happens, but you should be able to pick up the sword just after the first encounter.

Can I use Wisdom instead of Intelligence? I know Blood Hunter can be built with both STR/DEX and WIS/INT. This flexibility is hard to achieve without releasing multiple versions, which I do plan to do. For now, the class only includes the DEX/INT option. You can still build to Strength, the only thing that's locked out is Wisdom for your Hemocraft. If you really want the WIS Hemocraft sooner, it's not too hard to break open the pak and adjust it yourself.

Where are the other subclasses? They're not being worked on at the moment. Once the original release is stable, I may consider it, but I have no plans for it just yet.

What's wrong with the werewolf animations? Most Lycan animations are broken because of it using a different skeleton. I got some working, but definitely expect it to be rather buggy in that area. It is very unlikely this will be improved, as it would require custom mapping every skill in the game, even outside this mod. If Larian ever releases DLC with more werewolf animations, that would improve this.


Changes in this Mod

Many features required different workarounds or adjustments for the BG3 environment. This is a breakdown for those familiar with the original class description, or who want a comparison to the original.

Hunter's Bane, Heightened Senses, etc. Anything that gives contextual skill advantage with Fey, Fiends, Undead, I changed to be Advantage all the time. This would be pretty powerful at the table, but playing by yourself with NPCs in the party, this ends up pretty underwhelming anyway.

Crimson Rite. It applies to whichever weapon is in your main hand. To apply it to an Off-Hand or Ranged Weapon, simply swap your weaponset and it will cast the rite on whatever you're actively holding. The Rites also last until Long Rest instead of a Short Rest due to current technical limitations. I've included a Dismiss Rite action as well, so you can remove the Rite without having to Long Rest first. Crimson Rite also becomes a container spell when in Lycan form, as a secondary application becomes available (applying it to your unarmed strikes).

Blood Curse of the Muddled Mind. I could not get the status to fall off after the first Concentration save, so I buffed it: Apply disadvantage to target on all concentration saves for one turn, while amp also forces the target to make a concentration save immediately against your DC. I figure even with this buff, it's not even as strong as many first level spells, like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, or any spell that does damage even on a save, so I'm not too worried.

Blood Curse of Exposure. This was really tough to try and get working, and while it was nearly perfect, there were issues with the interrupt triggers on the damage type. Instead, I've changed it to be a thematically similar feature of similar power. It is now a buff on yourself, which will allow you to ignore all Resistances for a turn. Amp will allow you to ignore all Immunities instead.

Blood Curse of The Fallen Puppet. Due to how Larian handles similar mechanics (commander's strike), I was unable to have the puppet interrupt the caster's turn to immediately attack, nor was I able to have you select a target for them to attack. I was, however, able to get the rest of it working. So expected behavior for this is for the slain enemy to revive with a couple HP, then make a weapon attack on the nearest enemy in their range on their turn, and immediately die again. The AI ignores the resurrected puppet, but I made them invulnerable for the duration of the turn, just in case they're hit by an AOE. Aside from interrupting the existing turn and selecting a target for them to attack, this should be working almost exactly RAW.

Aether Step. Since there is no true Etherealness equivalent in game, I tried to adapt it while keeping the spirit of the original ability. While active, you'll gain access to a spell that's basically Misty Step, but doesn't require line of sight, allowing you to pass through walls. The spell uses movement instead of any actions, so you can teleport as much as you have movement. It should thematically still allow you to enjoy being a phantom.

There are several other very small changes, but I've tried to include the mechanics in the description of each ability so that the differences are visible. Please let me know if there are missing icons/statuses/localizations, or if anything is worded in a confusing manner.


Shoutouts

Finally, I'd live to give big shoutouts to:
- The Larian Modding Discord for helping me through many problems.
- Anase Skyrider for doing 90% of the work on Exposure, helping me with targeting and triggering conditions, and getting the tooltips working and just generally helping with a lot of things. (And helping clean up this description).
- Gycicada. I would not have been able to do this without their Class Template mod breaking down a ton of the complexity.
- Aheram for helping me get icons working.
- LostSoulman, whose Werewolf potion mod I used as a base for the Lycan class.

This mod is also reviewable, and potentially open to contributions at Github.