Generally speaking, I am pretty open to my players in D&D games that I run as to what races and subclasses they can choose - my policy tend to be that if it's in an officially published D&D source, I'll allow it.
Maybe it's my lawful nature, but I tend to view "homebrew" character options askance. But perhaps that's silly. After all, I'm known to homebrew monsters using the tools in the DMG (which actually tend to work pretty well - just use the encounter building rules from Xanathar's once you have your monsters designed).
Matt Mercer is, of course, in a highly enviable position within the D&D community. As the DM and de facto face of Critical Role, he's known to most D&D players these days - indeed, I think a fair number of CR fans don't even play the game.
But he also has the goods to back it up - aside from his skill at weaving a narrative (which I'd say is his strongest suit) he also tends to make challenging encounters that are nevertheless beatable - CR has never had a TPK (man, what the hell would they even do if that happened - they came super close during campaign one when the one person who could cast Plane Shift almost died while they were in the Nine Hells) but things often feel on that razor's edge of danger.
In other words, I think he understands the numbers of the game enough that I think it's worth looking at his ridiculous edge-lord full class: the Blood Hunter.
We've seen two player Blood Hunters in Critical Role, though one of them died fairly early in the campaign, and the other is in the third campaign and has only been in a single combat so far. So I can't say I've seen the class in action much, meaning that a lot of this is hypothetical.
Flavor-wise, the Blood Hunter fits perfectly in that "grim monster-hunter" archetype, with options to play as a "tamed" werewolf, a Witcher-like mutant (complete with elixirs,) a Ghost-hunter like Kaya from Magic the Gathering, or a kind of demi-Warlock. While Rangers, Paladins, and potentially just about any class could fit that, Blood Hunters lean into it hard. The core of the class is Blood Magic, or Hemocraft. Blood Hunters perform dangerous magic to empower themselves or debilitate others, and this is reflected in various abilities that require you to sacrifice hit points in order to activate them. Blood Magic is represented with a Hemocraft Die, which starts off as a d4 and upgrades each tier, just like a Monk's Martial Arts die.
The first of these abilities is Crimson Rite. As a bonus action, you roll your Hemocraft die and lose that many hit points, but one weapon you're holding ignites with your chosen Crimson Rite. This lets you add your hemocraft die to the damage rolls of that weapon, dealing that much of the specific rite's damage type (you initially choose between fire, cold, or lightning, but get more options as you level up, including some more obscure damage types).
Now, this was the thing that made me wonder if the class could be overpowered. Adding damage dice to a weapon is a way to significantly increase its effectiveness - a d6 is the difference between a Shortsword and a Greatsword, after all - or a shortsword and a crit.
However, giving it some thought, it occurred to me that this isn't all that different from a Ranger using Hunter's Mark or a Warlock using Hex. In this case, the rite remains active until you either end it as a bonus action, let go of the weapon, or finish a short rest. Given how long Hex and Hunter's Mark can last if you don't lose concentration, I think it's not that much more overpowered (though the lack of a need to place the effect on a target makes it more versatile).
While it's cheap (remarkably cheap the higher-level you get - 1d6 is proportionately way less damage to take at level 5 than 1d4 is at level 1) so is a 1st level spell slot. Being able to choose your rite damage does allow you to prepare a bit - if you're about to play Descent into Avernus, maybe avoid the fire rite, given that most devils are fully immune, though I think it's more of a flavor thing.
The other major feature is Blood Maledict. Here, you'll choose from a list of curses that you can target foes with and curse them - doing things like giving them disadvantage on certain ability checks or stopping them, all for a single turn - unless you augment the curses by paying the blood price, namely rolling your hemocraft die and taking the damage. This often makes the effect stronger, gives it a longer duration, and also lets you use these curses on things that don't have blood, like skeletons, ghosts, golems, etc.
Here I think the number of times you can actually use the curses is maybe not generous enough - by default, you get to use them once per short rest, getting more as you level up. I might just make this Proficiency Bonus times per short rest, which wouldn't be an enormous buff, but make you feel a little freer in spending them.
Again, I think the Hemocraft cost of augmenting these is a lot scarier at low levels than high levels. When you have 150 hit points, taking 1d10 damage is barely anything, so I imagine high-level Blood Hunters would always be augmenting. Again, granted, this is like high-level Monks always using Flurry of Blows, so maybe that's not a problem.
Like the Ranger, this is a d10 hit die class that only gets Medium armor, so while there are fighting styles here that support strength-based weapons, I'd almost always recommend going with Dexterity as your primary stat. I built one for a one-shot that uses a hand crossbow and the Archery fighting style, and would take both Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter (possibly before even picking up the ASI to max out his Dexterity).
My general sense here is that, at least within the class baseline, it's built more around choice than lots of different abilities. There are a few tiny messinesses - like the fact that the Order of the Lycan subclass, which has you playing as a werewolf who controls their own transformation, doesn't really interface with any of the four fighting style options you get when using their claws.
I'll note, though, that the Lycan Blood Hunters solve an issue I often have with "built-in weapon" subclasses, which is that these naturally get +1, +2, and finally +3 bonuses to attack and damage rolls, allowing you to keep pace without falling behind in "scaling" with, say, a Ranger who gets more powerful magic bows.
I don't really have a strong verdict yet, but I think my initial misgivings have softened - this could potentially fit in pretty well as a balanced member of the team with high damage potential and a bit of utility. While the damage seems like it'd be pretty high, I do wonder a bit about how strong the Blood Maledicts and Brand of Castigation perform in terms of utility - I'd guess they're more in line with a Battle Master Fighter's maneuvers than the spells a Ranger could provide.
I'm eager to see how the party's Blood Hunter turns out in the new Critical Role campaign - hopefully he'll survive longer than the last one did.
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