Has anyone played a blood hunter from Matt Mercer

[Sir cryosin]

I have the updated pdf from dmg site I like a lot of the blood hunter. But I can't tell if it's overpowered or what not. So what are your opion on your experience and play. For the DM's would you let your players play one. And would you let them play one in The Curse of Strahd campaign.

[Oramac]

One of the guys in my home group is playing a Ghostslayer right now. He's using the version released prior to the DMsG pdf, which is actually more powerful than the one you have.

That said, it's actually really well balanced from what I can tell as a player.

[Sir cryosin]

How does it function with in the party. Does it provides anything to the party other then dpr. And is it just me but is it to focus on fae fiends and what know.

[RulesJD]

Currently playing on in a homebrew based on Fiends/Undead/Fey. He's level 4 and went the Oath of the Profane.

It is probably the ultimate class for players that like being versatile. I get some abilities from each class of Fighter, Warlock, Paladin, Cleric, etc. As a powergamer that builds for versatility but still loves the dark, brooding fluff, it's is my favorite class by FAR. So much fun.

With that said, it is vastly OP. It's hard to keep track of the idea that Rite damage is only supposed to work against creatures with "blood" in them (baring going the one subclass that's pretty boring). The mechanic of extra damage at the cost of reducing your max HP is nice, but generally speaking comes out in favor of the Bloodhunter. At level 5 with Hex I'll be doing the equivalent of a greatsword critical with each regular hit, and each critical will be like a Fireball to the target. Go Pact of the Undying for the self-heal on a kill (which with GWM gets even better) and you're talking some disgusting firepower for very little lost.

Then add in the level 6 abilities and the tankiness really comes online. The +wisdom to saves is basically the Paladin Aura twice per short rest. The full damage return for 1 big hit is also kind of ridiculous. Sadly, he got rid of the hurt yourself to heal an ally (I love that mechanic) which would have basically been the ability to use Healing Word.

[Sir cryosin]

Currently playing on in a homebrew based on Fiends/Undead/Fey. He's level 4 and went the Oath of the Profane.

It is probably the ultimate class for players that like being versatile. I get some abilities from each class of Fighter, Warlock, Paladin, Cleric, etc. As a powergamer that builds for versatility but still loves the dark, brooding fluff, it's is my favorite class by FAR. So much fun.

With that said, it is vastly OP. It's hard to keep track of the idea that Rite damage is only supposed to work against creatures with "blood" in them (baring going the one subclass that's pretty boring). The mechanic of extra damage at the cost of reducing your max HP is nice, but generally speaking comes out in favor of the Bloodhunter. At level 5 with Hex I'll be doing the equivalent of a greatsword critical with each regular hit, and each critical will be like a Fireball to the target. Go Pact of the Undying for the self-heal on a kill (which with GWM gets even better) and you're talking some disgusting firepower for very little lost.

Then add in the level 6 abilities and the tankiness really comes online. The +wisdom to saves is basically the Paladin Aura twice per short rest. The full damage return for 1 big hit is also kind of ridiculous. Sadly, he got rid of the hurt yourself to heal an ally (I love that mechanic) which would have basically been the ability to use Healing Word.

Are you using the DMSG updated pdf? Because I'm wanting to make my next character a blood hunter but DM has never really liked the class when he first read it when it first came out so. I'm reading and getting other people feel for it to make a case if I should or shouldn't bring it to DM.

[Kane0]

One player in my group uses one of the previpus versions and is now level 9. He uses a glaive and the subclass that gets him bonus radiant damage on a hit and does some pretty good damage. The flavor of the game makes his bonuses vs fiends/fey/undead very handy but he isnt straight up better than anyone else.
Mind you the DM made some tweaks, like basing his rite off hit die rather than HP and a couple other things. Should probably post it somewhere, if the player was an optimizer he could turn into a powerhouse real fast.

[Jarlhen]

I'm playing one currently, level 6. It's a good class and at first glance it looks a bit OP. But in reality it's absolutely not. I could easily have made someone who cause more damage than my BH. However, its damage is good. It's real nice even. It's definitely up there with one of the stronger and more consistent damage classes, so just because I could do better doesn't mean it's bad. Not at all. It's also incredibly versatile. I went with the profane order which means I get access to a 2 warlock spells per day, which is nice. The ghostslayer looks very good as well, I'm not sold on the mutant one and the latest one he released which is about lycanthropy I just don't see how it could compete with the others.

However, the main strength is versatility and just overall strength. Currently I'm running polearm master because that's always OP. So assuming I get hex down and assuming I can blood rite both ends of my weapon that's a very solid 1d10+str+1d6+1d6x2 + 1d4+str+1d6+1d6 and potentially another normal attack as a reaction on top of that. So it's pretty sweet. Then in addition to that I've got 3 warlock spells, a couple of cantrips, 2 blood maledicts and other nifty little things like fighting styles and cooler abilities when I get higher in the levels. So yeah, it's a damn solid class, so versatile.

I do feel squishy though. I have a permanent -10 HP (and it'll grow) assuming I want my rite damage and can only wear medium armor. Unless you get fantastic stats, which I did not, you won't be able to invest too heavily in feats. So in my case I'm wearing a breastplate, I've got +2 dex, and the armor has +1. So that's an AC of 17, but with only 40 hp after the blood rite (which really isn't bad at level 6) it doesn't take much to bring me down. It's weird that I feel squishy, I really don't think it's /that/ much worse than other martial classes. Maybe it's all in my heard but I feel like I go down really quickly.

Either way, it may look OP at first glance but the class doesn't feel OP in practice, but absolutely in the higher tiers of power. Not at our level at least, can't speak for the higher levels yet. My only "concern" would be how the class is when it comes to multiclassing. I have no idea, I haven't given that much consideration. But I suspect it could become pretty crazy. Specially a ranged build like a crossbow/sharpshooter. Hrm... I should have gone for that instead :P

[Oramac]

How does it function with in the party. Does it provides anything to the party other then dpr. And is it just me but is it to focus on fae fiends and what know.

The party I'm playing is the Blood Hunter, a Vengeance Paladin (me), a Druid/Wizard, a Rogue/Psionic (from the UA), a Warlock, and an Eldritch Knight.

The Blood Hunter holds his own. My paladin still has higher nova, and the other characters have about the same versatility that I can tell.

The Blood Hunter does have the best sustained damage of the group.

[RulesJD]

Are you using the DMSG updated pdf? Because I'm wanting to make my next character a blood hunter but DM has never really liked the class when he first read it when it first came out so. I'm reading and getting other people feel for it to make a case if I should or shouldn't bring it to DM.

Most updated DMSG. The update changed the hurt yourself/heal ally for 2d6 which I might ignore because I love that as a premise.

The strengths of the Blood Hunter is massive for a martial class and literally its only downside (no heavy armor/lower HP) is easily compensated for with 2 level dips (War Cleric for Heavy Armor + Bless + Healing Word) and Warlock Fiend (both Temp and Actual HP heals per kill).

It gets worse at level 7 because they pickup the best gish ability (EK's War Magic) to combo a GFB/BB and another melee attack. Then at level 11 the ability to force disadvantage on saves against spells/auto-hit on other spells is extremely good. Level dip into Cleric gets you upcasted Inflict Wounds, auto-hit Vampiric Touch when your on low HP, etc. Admittedly the Warlock spell list is pretty weak but multiclassed into Sorc (Scorching Ray = OP for Profane Soul) and it gets pretty bad pretty quickly.

For to mention that one of the strongest parts of this class is that it is a martial class with automatic proficiency in Wisdom. Having their casting stat be Wisdom on a martial chassis can't be understated, as most other gish builds rely on Charisma which isn't nearly as useful in combat (Wisdom saves more prolific, Perception to avoid traps/ambush, etc).