# Forum > Gaming > Homebrew Design > D&D 5e/Next The Bloodsworn (Base class)

## Gnomes2169

Edit: To some people who have seen my homebrew on this forum before, this might seem like a repost of the 5e conversion I made for the Sanguine Knight a while back. And... technically it is. However, this is a revamp to the umpteenth degree, and while some abilities may be unchanged (because quite simply they were rather good as they were), the entire thing got a rework, both in fluff and in crunch. As the other thread is rather cluttered at this point (and I'm not sure how many people are using the SK version right now), I've decided to make this a new thread of its own, leaving the other as a Beta version while this is the 1.0 of the final. 

Of course, while I tried to keep some things as balanced as I could, I'm certain I got something completely off somewhere in there. So feedback on any and everything that could come up would be more than welcome! 

*The Bloodsworn*


((Image does not belong to me and is being used as an example, nothing more))
*Children of the Blood:* Blood. There have always been those who were fascinated or drawn to the crimson liquid, and blood is a vital part of life. It should come as no surprise that there are some who demonstrate a particular supernatural affinity for blood manipulation, both their own and others, and such techniques can be practiced and perfected. Hardened to pain and struggle, the bloodsworn use their supernatural dominion over flesh to influence both their own bodies and life force and those around them. From strengthening allies and sharing magic, to twisting minds and manipulating corpses, their power can either be a boon or a blight to everyone around them. 

*A Blood-Sworn Protector:* A bloodsworn's most prominent feature is its blood bond, a unique ability that allows them to connect with the body and mind of other creatures. While this can provide many different benefits, -or even be twisted to control others- at its core, a blood bond is used to protect those who are precious to the bloodsworn. In an almost supernatural manner, the bloodsworn can transfer wounds from their allies onto themselves, and they can fragment their own luck and energy to protect their allies, helping to keep them alive in the pitched chaos of combat.

*Natural soldiers:* The abilities of a bloodsworn almost seem to steer their lives towards violence, and they become naturally hardened towards the hardships and chaos of the battlefield. Whether they become pillars of invulnerability and beacons of strength for their allies, tyrants who lord over their foes and allies alike, or someone who strolls the narrow line between being a walking weapon and a protector, their powers will ensure that they will be a notable presence in any fight.

*Creating a Bloodsworn*

Level
Proficiency bonus
Class features
Enhancements

1
+2
Blood bond, rapid recovery
--

2
+2
Fighting style, bonded communication
--

3
+2
Crimson pledge feature
--

4
+2
Ability score improvement
--

5
+3
Empowered self, extra attack
1

6
+3
Clear blood, Crimson revelry
1

7
+3
Crimson pledge feature
1

8
+3
Ability score improvement
1

9
+4
Empowered self
2

10
+4
Crimson pledge feature
2

11
+4
Crimson sight
2

12
+4
Ability score improvement
2

13
+5
Empowered self, mettle
3

14
+5
Bonded concentration
3

15
+5
Crimson pledge feature
3

16
+5
Ability score improvement
3

17
+6
Empowered self
4

18
+6
Bonded resurgence
4

19
+6
Ability score improvement
4

20
+6
Crimson pledge feature
4



*Class Features*
_Hit Points_
*Hit Dice:* 1d12 per level of bloodsworn
*Hit Points at 1st Level:* 12+your Constitution modifier
*Hit Points at Higher Levels:* 1d12+your Constitution modifier

_Proficiencies_
*Armor:* All armor and shields
*Weapons:* All simple and martial weapons
*Tools:* None
*Saving throws:* Constitution and Charisma
*Skills:* Choose any two of Athletics, Acrobatics, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Nature, Perception or Survival

_Quick build_
You can make a bloodsworn quickly by following these suggestions. First make your Constitution your highest score, with either dexterity or strength as a close second (depending on your chosen fighting style). Second, choose the Soldier, Folk Hero or Child of War background.

_Equipment_
_(a)_ Chain mail or _(b)_ leather armor, a longbow and 20 arrows_(a)_ a martial one handed weapon and shield or _(b)_ a martial two handed weapon or (c) a martial one handed weapon and 20 goldA brace of 4 throwing daggers_(a)_ a Dungeoneer's pack or _(b)_ an Adventurer's pack.

_Abilities_
*Blood bond:* Starting at level 1 you can link your blood and body to that of another living creature, allowing you to take damage from that creature upon yourself. Whenever a creature within 60 feet of you with whom you have a blood bond would be dealt damage, you may use your reaction to reduce all of the damage dealt to your blood bonded ally by half (rounded down, calculated after resistance). After determining how much damage your ally is dealt, you are dealt the same amount of damage. You must be conscious to use a blood bond.
Creating a blood bond with a creature requires that both you and the target be willing, and you must use your action to establish this connection. You may possess a number of blood bonds equal to your constitution modifier (minimum 1). A creature may only possess a single blood bond.
A blood bond is ended if you or your bonded member die, or if you use an action to end it. 

*Spoiler*
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Just to make an example, for the sake of examples, let's say that we have two level 1 characters, one is Tim the Tiny (a random peasant with 6 hp) and the other is his blood bonded brother, Sam the Sanguine.

While adventuring, a hobgoblin rolls an attack against Tim and lands a hit. When the hobgoblin rolls for damage, it gets a 9 after all of the modifiers/ abilities are added up. This would normally mean that Tim needs to make death rolls. However, since Sam has a blood bond with Tim, he may use his reaction to absorb up to half of the incoming damage, meaning that Sam and Tim take 4 damage each (as you round divided damage down, and they were technically dealt 4.5 damage each), which allows Tim to stay standing. 

If Tim had resistance to slashing damage (and we'll say that the hobgoblin is using a longsword), then he would be dealt 4 damage normally. Sam can still choose to use his blood bond in response to this attack, reducing the damage further to a total of 2 damage going to both PC's. 


*Rapid recovery:* Your blood and body will react more positively to any forms of recovery, working in concert to increase the potency of any force curing your wounds. At level 1 whenever any source causes you to regain hit points, you regain additional hit points equal to your proficiency bonus (rounded down). 

*Bonded communication:* The blood bond creates a living network that the bloodsworn and their allies can use to communicate. Starting at level 2, you and your blood bonded allies within 60 feet of you may communicate with one another telepathically. This communication cannot be verbal, and tends to be primitive, the transmission of images, scents, sounds and emotions. This communication does not require that any members speak the same language.
Each time you or one of your allies wants to use this form of communication, that creature must use their bonus action to send the message. 

*Fighting style:* At level 2 you may choose one fighting style from the following style list:
_Defense:_ While wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC._Dueling:_ When you are wielding a weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus on damage rolls with that weapon._Great Weapon:_ When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gin this benefit._Protection:_ When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on that creatures attack roll. You must be wielding a shield to use this ability.

*Blood pledge:* Upon reaching level 3, you decide on which of your natural talents to nurture and master for the rest of your life. You select between one of three subclasses; the Blood Lord, Immortal, and Sanguine Blade, and gain further abilities associated with your chosen subclass at levels 7, 10, 15 and 20. 

*Ability score increase:* At level 4 you may improve your ability scores. You may either increase one ability score by 2, or two ability scores by 1. Alternately, if using the feats variant, you may learn a feat. You gain another ability score increase at levels 8, 12, 16 and 19. 

*Empowered self:* At level 5 your connection to your body and life force allows you to improve yourself, increasing your capabilities. You learn one of the following enhancements you qualify for. At levels 9, 13 and 18 you learn an additional enhancement you qualify for. 
*Spoiler*
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*Spoiler: Level 5 enhancements*
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_Blood Brothers:_ Your protective instinct allows your blood bond to shield your allies more effectively. Whenever you use your blood bond to take damage for an ally, that ally gains temporary hit points equal to your constitution modifier._Crimson Intellect:_ Your mastery of the blood bond gives you the ability to read a creature's essence, allowing you to apply the greatest amount of damage to the weakest points in a creature's defenses. Whenever you hit a creature with an attack you may roll 1 of your unspent hit dice and add the number rolled and your constitution modifier (minimum +1) to the attack's damage. Rolling a hit die in this manner expends it._Replenishing pool:_ Your ability to heal while you rest is a bit greater than that of others. You increase the amount of d12 hit dice you possess by 2, and whenever you finish a long rest you regain all of your expended hit dice instead of half._Speaker of Blood:_ Learning how to tap into your natural willpower and talent for leadership, you become more influential and capable of directing your allies. You gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill. If you already had proficiency in Persuasion, then you may select a different Charisma skill to gain proficiency in. In combat, you may use your bonus action to direct a blood bonded ally to move up to 10 feet in a direction of their choosing._Strength of Blood:_ All parts of the body are connected, and you know how to use this to increase your physical power. You may add half of your proficiency bonus to all Strength checks, and gain proficiency in the athletics skill. If you already have proficiency in athletics, or gain proficiency in athletics from another source later, then you double your proficiency bonus for athletics.


*Spoiler: Level 9 enhancements*
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_Body and Mind:_ Your blood is charged with the magic of the bonds and your chosen path, and you may use the strength of your body to shield your mind. You may add your constitution modifier to your intelligence, wisdom and charisma saving throws._Bonded maneuvers:_ Members of your blood bond may use you as a bastion of protection, allowing them to flee to you safely. As long as a creature that has a blood bond with you moves within an area that is within your reach, they do not provoke attacks of opportunity._Vital resonance:_ When you attack a creature adjacent to one of your blood bonded allies you can call on your friend's strength to guide your blows. Whenever you make a melee attack against an enemy creature adjacent to one of your blood bonded allies, you gain advantage on the attack roll._Warded bond:_ You are able to shield yourself from some of the harmful effects of using your blood bond. When you deal damage to yourself using your blood bond, the amount of damage you take is reduced by your constitution modifier (to a minimum of 1). This does not affect the amount of damage you redirect when you activate your blood bond class feature, just how much redirected damage you take.


*Spoiler: Level 13 enhancements*
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_Crimson Tide:_ If you reduce a creature to 0 hit points with a melee weapon attack, you may use your Crimson Revelry feature without using any actions. You may only use Crimson Revelry in this manner once each turn._Healing bond:_ You are able to share a part of the magic that infuses your blood with your bonded allies, helping them recover from their wounds. Whenever an ally who possesses one of your blood bonds recovers hit points from any source, they regain an additional amount of hit points equal to 1/2 your proficiency bonus._Rapid recovery:_ When you are struck by an attack, you are able to call on your stamina to soften the blow. When you are dealt damage by any source except your blood bond you may use your reaction to immediately roll 1 of your unspent hit dice and add your constitution modifier to the result. You regain a number of hit points equal to the number rolled. Rolling a hit die in this manner expends it. You may not use this ability if you are making death saving throws._Shared revelry:_ Your enthusiasm for battle is infectious, granting your allies increased stamina. When you benefit from your crimson revelry class feature, all of your blood bonded allies are healed an amount of damage equal to your Constitution modifier. This affect does not heal any blood bonded ally with 0 hit points.


*Spoiler: Level 17 enhancements*
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_Exultant slaughter:_ You live for combat and bringing your foes a swift death increases your own vitality. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points, you may choose to roll 1 of your unspent hit dice and add your constitution modifier to the roll. You regain a number of hit points equal to the result. Rolling a hit die in this manner expends it. 
In addition, you may also choose to regain 6 of your expended hit dice whenever you kill a creature. After regaining hit dice in this manner, you must finish a long rest before you can use this part of this feature again._Perfect Self:_ You know more ways to empower yourself than other bloodsworn, though the enhancements you know are less potent. You learn three new enhancements, one that you could learn at level 13, one that you could learn at level 9 and one that you could learn at level 5._Unbroken Heart:_ Becoming ever closer to the unkillable heroes of legend, you enhance your already great stamina even further. Upon selection of this enhancement, you add half of your proficiency bonus to all Strength, Dexterity and Constitution checks (even checks you are already proficient in) and increase your Constitution score by +4. Your maximum constitution score becomes 24. This is an exception to the rule that a characters attributes may not normally be above 20.



*Extra attack:* Starting at level 5 you may make an additional weapon attack when you take the attack action. 

*Clear blood:* Upon reaching level 6 you are able to police your blood, quickly removing and destroying any foreign contaminants. You become immune to diseases and the poisoned condition.

*Crimson revelry:* Starting at level 6 your body reacts to the chaos of battle, rapidly repairing your wounds and restoring your stamina. If you deal damage to a creature within 30 feet of you on your turn, you may use your bonus action to heal an amount of damage equal to your constitution modifier. (Note: Hit points recovered in this manner _are_ modified by your rapid recovery class feature.)

*Crimson sight:* At level 11 your mastery over life force allows you to sense the animating force of beings around you. The beating heart of life, the sickening sensation of undeath and even the minute spark of animation that comes from elementals and constructs can alert you to the presence of hidden creatures once they draw close. You gain blind sense out to 10 feet. Your blood-bonded allies are also considered to have blind sense in the 10 foot area around you.

*Bonded concentration:* Starting at level 14, if a creature within 60ft of you with whom you have a blood bond is concentrating on a spell, you may take on the burden of maintaining it. If that creature is willing, they lose concentration on the spell and at the same time you begin concentrating on it, transferring control of the spell to you.
If a spell that you gain control of has a range of self, you gain any benefits it confers. Otherwise, the spells targets or effects remain the same. Any options that would normally be available to the caster are available to you. Any effect that references your spellcasting ability score uses your Constitution. You can only maintain concentration on the spell for 1 minute or for its remaining duration, whichever is shorter. 
You may use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all expended uses at the end of a long rest.

*Bonded resurgence:* At level 18 your mastery of the blood bond makes it so that your allies have a rather hard time dying. If a blood bonded ally within 60 feet of you would be dropped to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you may use your reaction to make it so that the ally is at 1 hit point instead. You must complete a long or short rest to use this ability again.

*Subclasses*

*Spoiler: Blood Lord*
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*Blood Lord*

Manipulators of blood and twisters of the blood bond, the blood lord is a blight to the world. Using their allies as little more than a convenience, the blood lord is a spreader of plagues and a generator of nightmares. Their bending of the blood bond allows them to twist mind and body, giving them minions both living and dead. This path is the most seductive and appeals to any who desire power for whatever reason. While still not necessarily practiced only by those who devote themselves to evil, the darkness that accompanies this path can corrupt even the purest intentions... 

Level
Abilities

3
Expanded pool, manipulative bond

7
Infest corpse

10
Bloody hold

15
Blood rites

20
Nightmare child



*Abilities:* For abilities that reference a saving throw, the saving throw DC is 8+Proficiency bonus+Constitution modifier.

*Expanded pool:* Starting at level 3, you increase the number of d12 hit dice you possess by half of your proficiency bonus (rounded up). 

*Manipulative bond:* Also starting at level 3, you may attempt to force a temporary blood bond on an unwilling creature. As an action, you may expend one hit die to force an adjacent living creature without a blood bond to make a wisdom saving throw. If they fail, they are treated as if they were bonded to you, and they are charmed by you and all of your blood bonded allies. This blood bond and its effects last for up to one hour, and at the end of this hour the creature immediately becomes hostile to you and all of your blood bonded allies. 
This feature may be used a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses at the end of a long rest.

*Infest Corpse:* With a gesture and a cruel command you can manipulate the corpses of those fallen in battle, infecting and desecrating them beyond all recognition. At level 7 as an action, you may expend one unused hit die to infest a corpse that you touch with one of the following effects, causing the conditions listed within it. Any corpse that is infested becomes desecrated and must either be brought to a hallowed area or restored by the spell _greater restoration_ before it can be animated or raised from the dead. Infest corpse may be used once per long or short rest.
_Nightmare engine:_ The corpse begins to ooze a black, endlessly shifting pool of shadows that reach out and infect the minds of those around it. For one minute, any creature other than you who starts their turn or moves within 5 feet of the corpse must make a Wisdom saving throw or become charmed. Creatures charmed by this effect treat all terrain as difficult terrain and suffer disadvantage on their attack rolls as their thoughts are overwhelmed with the horrors spawned by your mind. A creature may remake this saving throw at the end of their turn, freeing themselves on a successful saving throw and becoming immune to the effect of nightmare engine for the next 24 hours. Creatures immune to psychic damage are immune to this ability. 
Nightmare engine may be maintained for up to 1 minute._Putrefy:_ You cause the corpse to emit a sickening, blinding aura of disease. Any creature other than you and your blood bonded allies that start their turn or moves within 10 feet of the corpse must make a Constitution saving throw or have disadvantage on all of their attack rolls and ability checks until they manage to start their turn outside of this range. In addition, you may select any one disease that you have encountered to infest the corpse with, causing all hostile creatures within the same radius to make a saving throw against your ability save DC against contracting the disease. Diseases created by this ability go through their full incubation period as normal and are treated in all other ways as if they were normal diseases. Creatures immune to disease are immune to the effects of this ability.
Putrefy may be maintained for 1 hour.

*Bloody hold:* Starting at level 10 you are able to reach out and grasp the blood of others to hold them in place. As an action you may expend 2 of your unspent hit dice to force any number of creatures within 20 feet of you that you choose to make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed saving throw a creature is paralyzed for 1 minute as the blood, muscles, essence or animating force is temporarily frozen in place. A paralyzed creature may make a Strength saving throw at the end of their turn, ending the condition on a success. You must concentrate on this effect as if you were concentrating on a spell to maintain it. 

*Blood rites:* Starting at level 15, you can delve into the secrets of the deceased. As a ten-minute ritual, you spread your consciousness throughout the mind of the deceased creature, probing and delving for information. You may ask the creature a number of questions equal to your constitution modifier, and if it knows the answer it _must_ answer the questions truthfully. After using a corpse in this manner, it becomes useless, and more questions cannot be asked. You may use blood rites once per long or short rest. 

*Nightmare child:* Reaching the pinnacle of your fell craft, you are a horror to even look at. At level 20 you generate a black aura that infects those around you, boiling their blood with their most primal fears, sapping their will to fight and driving them away. Whenever a hostile creature moves within 30 feet of you, they must make a Charisma saving throw or be inflicted with the frightened condition and spend their actions running away from you for 1 minute. A frightened creature may re-make their saving throw at the end of their turn if they cannot see you, ending the effect on a successful roll. A creature may only be frightened once every 24 hours by this ability. 
In addition, you are immune to all fear effects, may use your action to cast the spell _Levitate_ (PHB) on yourself at will, and you gain advantage on saving throws against being charmed.


*Spoiler: The Immortal*
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*The Immortal Champion*
The immortal champion is an undying warrior. Always standing at the front of a battle and protecting his less able allies, the immortal champion is driven by a call to glory and the defense of those less able. An immortal does their best to live up to their name, continuing to stand and fight even when they are dealt mortal blows. Their use of the blood bond enhances the defenses of both them and their allies, working to create a living bulwark of flesh and steel. The most powerful members of this pledge are famed for being able to stand in the center of literal armies, fighting long past when others would have fallen to the blades of their foes.

Level
Ability

3
Diehard, immortal endurance

7
Bonded defense

10
Immortal inspiration

15
Bonded martyr

20
Undying



*Diehard:* When you choose this pledge at level 3, you gain 3 temporary hit points at the end of each long or short rest for each blood bonded ally within 60 feet of you.

*Immortal Endurance:* Also starting at level 3, you increase your maximum hit points by 1 for each Bloodsworn level you possess.  

*Bonded defense:* You and your bonded members share a special link, allowing you to see through each others eyes and avoid the attacks of enemies more easily while you take their durability as your own. At level 7, you and any creature you have established a blood bond with increases their armor class by 1.

*Immortal inspiration:* After reaching level 10 your body has been beaten and forged by battle to become ever closer to perfection. You have no maximum age and are immune to the effects of all forms of aging. Additionally, you may select and learn one additional level 5 or 9 enhancement from your Enhanced Self class feature.

*Bonded martyr:* You are more capable of taking the pains and hardships of your allies than a normal bloodsworn. Starting at level 15, you may activate this ability as a bonus action to divert even more damage from your blood-bonded allies to yourself. Until the start of your next turn all damage dealt to bonded allies is diverted to you, they automatically pass death saving throws, and they may use your constitution bonus when they roll to maintain concentration checks. 
You may use bonded martyr up to 3 times, regaining expended uses whenever you finish a long rest, and the ability automatically ends if you are reduced to 0 hit points. You may end bonded martyr at any time between activation and your next turn.

*Undying:* Enhancing your body and improving your abilities as much as you can, you become almost impossible to kill. At level 20, you are not incapacitated when you are reduced to 0 hit points and must fail 6 death saving throws in order to die. You may act normally while at 0 hit points but cannot use your Blood Bond or Crimson Revelry class features. 
Additionally, if you are forced to make death saving throw, you automatically succeed on the saving throw. If you are damaged while at 0 hit points, you may make a constitution saving throw with [DC 10 + 1/2 damage dealt] to negate any failed death saving throws the hit would impose.
After succeeding on 3 death saving throws, you immediately regain 1 hit point.


*Spoiler: Sanguine Blade*
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*The Sanguine Blade*
Those of the sanguine blade are walking weapons, honed to hunt spilled blood and built to shed it. They eagerly join in battle, thriving and growing on the din and chaos, delighting in the pitch of conflict and becoming more unstoppable as they become more injured. From the moment it is drawn their blade is coated in blood that is as much a weapon as the steel it surrounds, controlled by the will of the sanguine blade to lethal effect. Their use of the blood bond symbiotically empowers themselves and their allies, increasing their strength and skill. They also become masters of identifying and tracking the blood of other creatures, almost becoming an encyclopedia of the crimson liquid.

Level
Abilities

3
Cruor blade

7
Bloodhound, butcher's cunning

10
Adrenaline surge

15
Bonded assault

20
Draining blade



*Cruor Blade:* Starting on the path to be one of the most lethal weapons you can be, you can manifest a flowing coat of blood along your blade. A cruor blade must be a melee weapon that deals piercing or slashing damage, and you increase its reach by 5ft. While you have your cruor blade drawn, you may use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against a creature who moves within your reach unless they use the withdraw action.

*Bloodhound:* When you reach level 7 you are more in-tune with the blood of others and are more capable of following foes fleeing from you. You have advantage on Wisdom (survival) and Intelligence (investigation) checks to track a creature you wounded, and on Constitution checks and saving throws made to chase a wounded creature. You cannot fail to follow a trail of blood no matter how old or faint it may be. If you study a sample of fresh blood for one minute you may determine the type of creature it came from, and if you have encountered the particular brand of creature before, you may determine its subtype or species. 

*Butcher's Cunning:* Also at level 7, you gain the level 5 body enhancement Crimson Intellect for free. If you already have this enhancement, you may select a different level 5 enhancement instead. 

*Adrenaline Surge:* Your body is a honed weapon, meant to fight hardest when you are put under the most extreme of pressures. Starting at level 10, if you lost hit points between your last turn and your current turn, you may use your bonus action on that turn to make a melee weapon attack. 

*Bonded Assault:* Drawing strength from your blood bonds, you and your allies become more coordinated warriors. Starting at level 15 you and your bonded allies gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls. Additionally, you may add 1/2 of your proficiency bonus (rounded up) to your damage rolls made with melee attacks. 

*Draining Blade:* Reaching the peak of your skill, you become much more lethal and difficult to kill. Starting at level 20 your cruor blade begins to radiate your choice of radiant or necrotic energy. You choose which kind of energy radiates each time you draw your weapon. Your melee attacks deal 1d10 additional damage of the chosen energy type. You heal lost hit points equal to the damage that this d10 causes.

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## Gnomes2169

And hey, for the fun of it here are some racial subclasses! These will be themed after what makes each race "unique" (at least in my mind) from more of a genetic/ heritage standpoint, so that does mean that humans, gnomes and halflings (being as bog-standard as possible, or at least uninfluenced by primal desires/ outsiders, and are thus hard to come up with something thematic for) are out of the pool. Everything else, however, should have some kind of theme to work with...

*Spoiler: Angelic guardian*
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*Racial requirement:* Aasimar, or Celestial creature type

*Healing bond*
When you choose this subclass at level 3 you gain the ability to actually heal your allies using the blood bond. As a bonus action you may roll 1 of your unspent hit die and add your Constitution bonus to the result, healing one of your blood bonded allies by the result shown. 

*Divine endurance*
Also at level 3 your body is reinforced by radiant energies, greatly expanding your reserves. The number of d12 hit dice you possess is increased by half of your proficiency bonus (rounded down). 

*Divine influence*
Starting at level 7 your angelic nature lends power to your words. You gain proficiency in Persuasion, and you add half of your proficiency bonus to Charisma checks that you are not proficient in. If you already had proficiency in Persuasion, double your proficiency bonus for that skill. 

*Potent healing bond*
Starting at level 10 the amount you heal with your healing bond class feature is increased by 1d12. Additionally, whenever you use your healing bond class feature you regain a number of hit points equal to your Constitution modifier. 

*Celestial revelry*
Starting at level 15 you are able to regain a bit of strength when you use crimson revelry. When you benefit from your crimson revelry class feature, you may choose to regain up to 3 of your expended hit dice. You must complete a long rest to use this feature again.  

*Guardian angel*
At level 20 celestial energy pulses within you in an almost endless tide. When you heal a creature with your healing bond class feature, any dice rolled for that feature automatically roll their maximum result (so a 1d12 would automatically 'roll' 12). In addition, you become immune to radiant damage and necrotic damage and you no longer age by any means or have a maximum age. 


*Spoiler: Clan sworn*
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*Racial requirement:* Dwarf

*Clan bond*
At level 3 you are able to form a far more potent blood bond with one of your companions. After completing a long rest you may designate one ally with whom you have a blood bond as your clan bond. Whenever you use your blood bond to reduce damage to your clan bonded ally, your ally gains resistance to all damage from the source (this reduces damage before your blood bond applies.) You may change who possesses your clan bond at the end of a long rest.

*Stone's Endurance* 
Also at level 3 you gain 1 additional maximum hit point for every level of Bloodsworn you possess.

*Earthen forged* 
At level 7 you resonate your blood with that of your terrestrial home. As long as you are within mountainous, underground or otherwise rocky terrain, your walking speed increases by 10 feet and you add double your proficiency bonus to all Wisdom (survival) checks even if you are not normally proficient in such checks. You always know which way is north and the shortest path to the surface when you are underground.

*Clan guardian*
At level 10 you may protect your clan bonded member almost completely from harm. You no longer need to use your reaction to reduce damage dealt to your clan bonded creature using your blood bond. You may only reduce damage to a blood bonded creature using this feature _once_ each turn. 

*Expanded family*
Starting at level 15 you may designate up to two of your blood bonded allies as clan bonded allies at the end of a long rest. 

*Clan Savior*
At level 20 you become the ultimate guardian of your clan. When you use an ability that requires a long or short rest to recover, you do not expend it as long as you use it on an ally with a clan bond. Additionally at the end of a long rest your clan bonded allies gain 30 temporary hit points until their next long rest, and you may expend your hit dice to heal these allies during a short rest. 


*Spoiler: Dragonheart*
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Racial requirement: Dragonborn or Half dragon

*Bonded breath* 
Starting at level 3 your blood bonds begin to awaken the draconic heritage buried deep within you. For each blood bond you possess your breath weapon increases the damage it deals by 2. 

*Hardened scales* 
Also starting at level 3 your scales harden. You gain 1 additional maximum hit point for each Bloodsworn level you possess, and you increase your Armor Class by 1.

*Dragon's senses*
Starting at level 7 your senses sharpen immensely. You have darkvision out to 120 feet, advantage on Wisdom (perception) rolls that rely on hearing or smell, and you unerringly know the direction to any treasure trove within a mile of you (though you do not necessarily know which path to take to get there). 

*Quick breath*
Starting at level 10 your breath weapon is faster to use and faster to recover. When you begin your turn, if you have no uses of your breath weapon remaining, you may expend two hit dice to regain 1 use of your breath weapon. 

*Destructive Revelry:* 
Also at level 10, whenever you use the Crimson Revelry class feature, creatures of your choice within 10 feet of you are dealt an amount of damage equal to your Constitution modifier. Damage dealt in this way is the same type as your breath weapon.

*Draconic resonance*
At level 15 your connection with your allies allows you to at least partially share the benefits of your heritage. Your blood bonded allies gain resistance to damage types that you are resistant or immune to as long as they retain their blood bond.

*Blood dragon's form*
At level 20 your body goes through an apotheosis, becoming more powerful and even more closely resembling the great beasts from which you are descended. You gain immunity to the damage type you are already resistant to from being a Dragonborn, and you gain resistance to any two of the following damage types: Acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, necrotic, poison, psychic, radiant or thunder. 
In addition, you add your constitution bonus to damage rolls for your breath weapon. You may choose to change your breath weapon's damage type to any damage type that any dragon possesses whenever you use it. This only changes the damage type for that use of the breath weapon and does not affect your racial damage resistance.
Finally, you grow a pair of wings on your back. Typically these wings are made of blood, but they can also be made of flesh and bone at your discretion. Regardless of their form these wings give you a flying speed of 60 feet, and you can fuse them with your body or manifest them as a bonus action. 


*Spoiler: Exemplar of Humanity*
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*Racial Requirement:* Human or Half Elf.

*Flexible Bond*
At level 3, whenever you would expend one of your hit dice for any reason other than short rest healing, a willing blood bonded ally may give you one of their unspent hit dice for the roll. When an ally gives you a hit die in this manner, it is automatically expended. 
Once an ally has given you a hit die in this manner, they must complete a long rest before they can do so again. 

*Strive for Greatness*
Also at level 3, whenever you or a blood bonded ally make an attack roll, you may use your reaction to roll one of your unspent hit dice and add it to the attack. This feature must be used before you know the results of the original roll. Rolling a hit die in this manner expends it. 

*Jack of Many Trades*
Starting at level 7 you gain proficiency in 2 skills and 2 languages of your choice. 

*Heart of Heroes*
Starting at level 10, whenever an enemy hits a blood-bonded ally with an attack or that ally fails a saving throw, you may roll 1 of your unspent hit dice as a Reaction and add the result to either the ally's armor class or to their saving throw roll. This can change the result of the attack or saving throw. Rolling a hit die in this manner expends it. 

*Innovative Vigor*
Starting at level 15, whenever you use a feature that would cause you to expend one of your hit dice, you may roll a d6 instead of expending a hit die. 

*Champion of the Living*
At level 20 you become the pinnacle of humanity's drive to protect and grow. Any class feature you have that targets one of your Blood Bonded allies no longer requires your Reaction to use and you gain expertise in all of your proficient skills.


*Spoiler: Fey walker*
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*Racial requirement:* Elf, Half Elf, or Fey creature type

*Bonded step*
When you choose this path at level 3 your bonds to other creatures can be used to temporarily enter the feywilds, helping you move a bit faster. As a bonus action you may expend 1 of your unspent hit dice to teleport up to 60 feet. This movement _must_ end within 5 feet of one creature with whom you have a blood bond. Moving in this way does not provoke an opportunity attack. 

*Tricky bond*
Also starting at level 3 you may expend 1 of your unspent hit dice to make a blood bond with an unwilling creature within 10 feet of you as a bonus action. This creature retains your blood bond for up to 10 minutes, and this expends one of your maximum blood bond slots while it is in effect. You add 1d4 to attack rolls against creatures with an unwilling blood bond. 

*Bonded polymorph*
At level 7 your fey blood allows you to emulate one of their trickier abilities, the ability to alter your appearance. When you use this ability, you can change your shape into that of one humanoid creature of your size or smaller you have a blood bond with, flawlessly emulating their appearance. You also have advantage on any check made to emulate their mannerisms and speech patterns, and if your target is still alive and conscious you can access their surface thoughts as an action. A creature can make a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8+Your proficiency bonus+your Charisma bonus) against this mental intrusion, and on a successful saving throw they prevent any further attempt for the next 24 hours.
You may remain in your chosen form for up to one hour, and your blood bond with the creature you are imitating may not be lost or broken during this time for any reason. You may switch which blood bonded creature you are imitating as an action, but this does not reset this ability's duration.
You regain use of this ability after completing a long or short rest. 

*Chaotic wilds*
Starting at level 10 your fey ancestry warps the natural world ever so slightly. Enemy creatures treat all spaces within 15 feet of you as difficult terrain, and you always have at least half cover from ranged attacks.

*Season's stride*
Starting at level 15 you are able to use your blood bonds to manifest a concealing cloak of shadows around you. As a reaction when a creature damages you, you may expend 1 of your unspent hit dice to turn invisible and move up to your speed in a direction of your choice. You remain invisible until the end of your next turn. If you form a blood bond with a creature on your turn you extend this period of invisibility until you either finish a turn without forming a blood bond or you fall unconscious.

*Eternal lord*
At level 20 you finally attain the pinnacle of your potential, and come to resemble the great lords and ladies among the Seelie and Unseelie courts. Your complexion pales or darkens, your eyes give off a bright glow that lets you see up to 30 feet in magical darkness, and you gain an almost timeless look to yourself. Other aspects of your appearance can be changed in a manner fitting your character's personality. You no longer age in any way, you do not require any meditation or sleep to complete a long rest, and you can no longer be surprised.
You are also immune to exhaustion, the charmed condition and psychic damage. Your creature type changes to Fey if it was not already, and you are always treated as one size category larger or smaller than you are whenever it is advantageous to you. Finally, you may double the maximum number of blood bonds you possess at any given time, and the duration of your Tricky Bond class feature is extended to 1 day.


*Spoiler: Hellborn butcher*
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*Racial requirement:* Fiend creature type or Tiefling

*Hellfire blade*
Starting at level 3 your infernal taint begins to leak from you, coating your blade in its blazing, unholy glory. When you damage a creature with your melee weapon attacks you may choose to deal fire or necrotic damage instead of your weapon's standard damage type. 

*Brand*
Also starting at level 3 you gain the ability to mark creatures for execution with your blood bond. If you have an unused blood bond you may, as a bonus action, reach out and touch a creature to brand them. Whenever you deal fire, necrotic or weapon damage to this creature you increase the damage dealt by your Constitution modifier. This brand lasts for 10 minutes. You may only have one brand active at a time. 
You may use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses at the end of a long rest.

*Diabolic chant*
Starting at level 7 you begin muttering and speaking fell words that unsettle any creature near you. You have advantage on checks made to intimidate creatures, and creatures you choose within 15 feet of you have disadvantage on saving throws against the frightened condition.

*Branded terror*
Starting at level 10 when you brand a creature, they must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your constitution bonus) or become frightened of you and your blood bonded allies until the brand dissipates. 

*Bonded brand*
Starting at level 15 you and your blood bonded allies deal an additional 1d8 damage the first time they deal fire, necrotic or weapon damage a creature with your brand each turn.

*Master of Torments*
Finally at level 20 you become a reaper of mortal life, marking and weakening any creature that comes in your reach. When you use your brand class feature you may mark any number of creatures in your reach. If you do so, you may not use your brand feature again until either all of the creatures marked by your brand are dead, or until 10 minutes pass. Additionally, any creature you have branded has disadvantage on attack rolls against your blood bonded allies and suffers disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity checks.
You no longer require an unspent Blood Bond to use your Brand class feature.


*Spoiler: Wrathblood*
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*Racial requirement:* Half Orc or Orc

*Hateful spark*
When you take this subclass at level 3 you begin your journey to awaken your rage, becoming harder to frighten and influence. You have advantage on saving throws against the charmed and frightened conditions. 

*Spiteful bond*
Also starting at level 3, whenever you use your blood bond to reduce damage an ally takes, you gain advantage on attack rolls against the creature that caused that damage until the end of your next turn.

*Overwhelming wrath*
Starting at level 7, when an enemy deals damage to one of your blood bonded allies you add an extra damage die to the damage roll of all melee weapon attack you make against that enemy during your next turn. This damage die is the same size as your weapon's normal damage die (or one of the dice, in the case of a weapon such as the Greatsword.)

*Intimidating presence*
At level 10 your ferocious savagery hangs about you like a mantle. You add your Constitution bonus to your Strength or Charisma (intimidation) checks, and can make an intimidation check in combat whenever you reduce your an enemy to 0 hit points each turn.

*Fury* 
Starting at level 15 your ancestral rage makes you more difficult to finish off. When an attack would reduce you to 0 hit points you may activate fury to be dropped to 1 hit point instead. As long as you remain at 1 hit point enemies have disadvantage on attack rolls against you, you do not take any damage when you use your blood bond to protect an ally, and you may reroll all of your weapon's damage dice, taking the new result. However, you cannot use your crimson revelry or any other class features from this class to regain hit points until fury ends.
While fury is active you make a Constitution saving throw whenever you are damaged with a DC of 15 or 1/2 the damage dealt to you (whichever is higher). If you succeed on this saving throw, you ignore all of the damage dealt and remain at 1 hit point. After 1 minute, if you are not healed, you fall unconscious but are stable.
You must complete a long rest to regain use of this ability.

*Eternal spite* 
At level 20 your vengeance and that of your allies is eternal. Whenever you use your blood bond to reduce damage an ally takes, you gain advantage on attack rolls against the creature that caused that damage until that creature is dead. Additionally, your allies also gain advantage on their next attack against that enemy, and the next attack that enemy makes suffers disadvantage.

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## PoeticDwarf

This class looks really cool, I see you put work in it, I'd say the features are correct looking at fluff and also often balance.

The only problem I see is that because of the many features, combined that none of them is really situational the class is fairly strong (but not OP :Small Smile: ).

You can make some features (non of them are broken so choose yourself) a little bit weaker, so you don't have all those nova and normal powers, or maybe take some features away.

Next to that, a REALLY nice class with cool fluff, if my DM allows it I'm sure I want to play this once (probably the Dwarf subclass, cool you added those special subclasses, but the extra hit points are making a hilldwarf clandude a little bit too tanky)!

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## dsollen

I like the fluff and lore and concept of this class.  However, I have to agree with the last poster, I feel it may be a little to strong.  No one ability is necessarily OP, but all of them are quite useful and with the host of them it just seems a bit to much.  And so I'm going to over analyze it to death, for the record I only nitpick on classes I actually like, so don't take this as criticism but complement :)

I look at it and this class fills three 'roles'

1. Standard melee damage, competent at this, nothing too special unless you focus your subclass on it.
2. Utility, protecting allies and boosting their healing; pretty good at this.
3. Big survival boost to surviving for long lengths of times.

I think that 3 is the problem.  It gets an extra 2d12 plus 4 constitution to boost it's health pool.  It can heal whole 3 die of damage once a *short* rest, this one feels pretty strong and I may move to long rest.  It gets a not-trivial amount of healing every time it damages someone, and if all that wasn't enough it gets a the boost from healing spells, quite powerful post-battle, and doesn't even die easily when reduced to 0 hp.  It even gets some abilities to boost it's saving throws to avoid indirect death-by-magic.  This class just won't die.  Which is cool, it's not an issue thematically for a class to have.  However, this survival and competence at melee (if sub-classed for it) would be almost enough to justify a full class in itself without the extra utility the class also gains.  

*yes I know I listed a number of self-enhancements in this list, so a class could choose not to pick them, but imagine a class that went for survival sustain and this argument still applies, the fact that they get even more flexibility to specialize beyond that only makes the class more potentially powerful.

I realize the survival exists to support the utility, to make full use of the class utility your have to give up personal survival to heal others (though even without using blood pact reactions it still has a decent bit of utility).  However, the problem is that you get a choice, you can use your survivability with blood pact to provide good utility, or you can use your survivability to be a strong melee class or tanking class, and at no point do you have to sacrifice one role to do the other.  One fight he can tank, another he can give his party sustain, he can switch between the two roles at will and that's pretty flexible for a class that felt nearly complete without it's utility.  Put another way, the survival works equally well in a one V one fight as it does in tanking as it does with utility, it's a utility class that didn't have to sacrifice much personal power to be a utility class.

I can't put my finger on just how strong the class is, I don't think it's utterly broken or anything, but I suggest considering separating out some of the party utility and the not-dying a bit more.  I know that sounds odd, since much of the utility is built around the not-dying traits a little more, so one has to choose which to focus on.  I know this seems odd, since the survival exists only to support the utility, but I think party-sustain utility can be built into the class that does not substantially boost the classes one V one or tanking survival to better force a choice between personal survival and party utility sustain.

Assuming you agree with me at all and want to do something I could see two options.  Either remove some of the core abilities, or just give the class weaker core versions, and move the power of those abilities more into the four existing 'sub-classes', or if deciding how to divvy abilities up between subclasses is too hard you could go with a separate sub-class choice at higher levels which chooses between utility and self-sustain and/or force knights to pick between one of two affects at a few levels to force them to make self-sustain or utility choices as they level.  The affect is the same, move core abilities more into a choice between these two options.

The "bloody survival" sustain kit could get more of the effects that boost available HP and sustain.  I'm thinking this may be the only version that gets crimson revelry heal, or make the heal even weaker by default and let this focus boost it current or slightly better levels. However, it would trade most of the utility affects that come with blood pact, and likely will have a rather limited use per day for blood pact reaction.  This build choice focuses on solo power, or perhaps tanking, but trades off much of the utility.

The "blood is thicker then water" or whatever you call it utility focus obviously could get more of the utility abilities linked with bonded allies.  However, the big thing I could see for boosting utility and keeping with the fluff is to replace self sustain options like crimson revelry with party-sustain-through-bloodPact.  As it is now once you get the ability to share your half competence bonus to heals affect with allies there is no reason to 'waste' a reaction on bloodpact,  unless someone would die if you didn't use it or your at 100% max health and would waste the crimson revelry self heal, if your tanking damage in the frontline anyways your never need to use blood pact to take damage which feels odd for your core class ability.  

To address this I'm thinking the "utility" role may gain the ability to decrease damage dealt to the knight when he uses blood pact by an amount based off of your constitution modifier, such that every use of blood pact mitigates a small amount of the total damage dealt to the party (I like this option anyways, fluff wise and utility wise, so consider making it one of the self enhancement options at the least please!).  This still fits the 'feel' of the class at mitigating damage with the power of BLOOD, but by tying it directly to blood pact use it makes the ability only useful for mitigating party damage, not for making the knight a unkillable machine in 1v1 or even if he is playing tank; ie makes it only utility at expense of personal power.  A list of other 'utility' options, which all feel like they could be made potential self enhancement feats, or could be incorporated into a more utility focused knight by removing some of it's survival and self sustain options are below. 

1. After using a reaction to take damage for an ally a passive effect is left on the ally until your next turn This could be:
a.  allowing a small amount of damage to flow to you each time the ally takes damage after the first reaction to protect them, to boost the amount of damage that can be mitigated with a reaction.  This risks slowing the game down if you add too much math per hit, so probably this should be made something very easy to calculate, like you taking a flat X hp of damage that otherwise would have been absorbed by an ally per extra damaging hit the ally takes.
  b. Provide the ally some small bonus to future attacks taken between your reaction and your turn.  Maybe advantage on next attack the ally takes if before your turn, but not sure advantage feels right.  I could see something like the ally gaining temporary hit point equal to your constitution modifier (give or take some extra amount depending on rather this is built into utility route or requires sacrificing an enhancement to get) which lasts until the ally turn or the next time you use a reaction to protect an ally, whichever comes first.

2. As a reaction give an ally advantage on next attack role against the, BUT you take disadvantage on next role against you, this is low power ability suitable to role right into a utility role designed for a non-tanking knight, it's situational since most knights will expect to usually get attacked and thus suffer their disadvantage.  if this is an self-enhancing feat boost it by giving ally bonus on next two damage roles in exchange for your taking disadvantage?  or perhaps you can give advantage to an ally in exchange for disadvantage on next defense role made before your next turn, such that smart planning can give advantage to ally at a time when it's unlikely that your get attacked before your next turn to suffer disadvantage, but limit number of uses of this ability

3. Allow any heal on yourself to be shared with an ally.  This in fact could be done in a number of ways
  A. any heal that increases your HP above 100% is shared with all other allies evenly, but the professioncy bonus increase to healing only happens once even if you have the ability to share this with bound allies.
  B. Share exactly half of a heal with a blood pact ally of your choice, possible using reaction or X times per day to power this.
  C. X times per day you can have your Crimson Revelry heal be given fully to an ally instead of yourself, if this is an enhancement possibly give some tiny boost to the heal shared this way, or alternatively replace it with a very small number per day to sacrifice your crimson heal a turn to give it to every other bound ally.

Finally, the Crimson Revelry and Natural Healing feats synergize in a way you may not have intended.  Do you intend for both affects to activate to gain constitution modifier + 1/2 profession bonus each heal?  I would specify explicitly rather or not they 'stack' in your description.

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## Gnomes2169

Hey, just wanted to let you two know that your comments have been read, and that sone work has been done based off of them! (Particularly to crimson revelry (which costs a bonus action to activate and procs only off of damage _you_ deal on the same turn now), and two of the pre-existing enhancements (large pool and exultant slaughter). I am planning on changing more and giving you both in-depth responses to your feedback when I get the time (likely Monday or Tuesday). 

Oh, and based on some feedback I got on skype the blood lord got a change to them... Blood puppet has been completely removed, replaced instead by an AOE hold person-esqu effect that costs a hit die to activate and concentration to maintain. (Also targets two of the better saving throws enemies can be expected to have (con initially and then str afterwords)). It fits the idea of a bloody tyrant and crowd control theme better IMO, and is far less complex. 

Sentinel might just be made into a fighter subclass by this point instead (with modifications to the necessary parts, of course). If's just... Really, really dysfunctional thematically, and with racial subclasses completely unnecessary for filling up the "quota" I feel obliged to create.  :Small Tongue: 

But just to make this clear, yes I have read your feedback, and more changes/ rebalances and responses are incoming! But do note that I might get some work done on the dragons or elementals of the void projects that are still ongoing first... Partially because that's relatively quick, and partially because it's actually easier to work on them during my 15 minute breaks at work than it is to keep a coherent response to you two going. So if you see either of those pop up before I get back to you, I am not ignoring this or you, I really just don't have the time right now! 

And with that, I really need to get some sleep...

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## Gnomes2169

Before I start this, I would just like to thank both of you for your feedback. It's been more than a year since I started making this class (bordering on two if you include time spent on the Sanguine Knight), and while it's been a long time spent refining and fixing the more broken parts of the class, it's getting close to completion! All of the feedback here helps refine and fix the last few parts that are off.

Also, I would like to apologize again. I was planning to get this done more than a week ago and then life happened. And I haven't had a day off for... a while. Since I didn't want to start and stop with my responses to you two and wanted to be able to devote my attention to answering both responses in depth, I felt it better to wait until I could do so... and so here we are! Now then, onto the posts!




> This class looks really cool, I see you put work in it, I'd say the features are correct looking at fluff and also often balance.
> 
> The only problem I see is that because of the many features, combined that none of them is really situational the class is fairly strong (but not OP).
> 
> You can make some features (non of them are broken so choose yourself) a little bit weaker, so you don't have all those nova and normal powers, or maybe take some features away.
> 
> Next to that, a REALLY nice class with cool fluff, if my DM allows it I'm sure I want to play this once (probably the Dwarf subclass, cool you added those special subclasses, but the extra hit points are making a hilldwarf clandude a little bit too tanky)!


Hmmm... Crimson Revelry I'm changing to be a bonus action used on your turn, but would you say that there are any other stand out abilities that are just a little too good? 

And the racial subclasses are DEFINITELY on the block for re-balancing and getting fluff done, with the dwarven Clansworn likely losing the +1 hp/ level bit since that just makes it a little silly as far as HP goes. 




> I like the fluff and lore and concept of this class.  However, I have to agree with the last poster, I feel it may be a little to strong.  No one ability is necessarily OP, but all of them are quite useful and with the host of them it just seems a bit to much.  And so I'm going to over analyze it to death, for the record I only nitpick on classes I actually like, so don't take this as criticism but complement :)


Thank you very much! I'll be breaking this down as I go along, seeing as this is just a huge post and there is a lot I want to touch on here. 




> I look at it and this class fills three 'roles'
> 
> 1. Standard melee damage, competent at this, nothing too special unless you focus your subclass on it.
> 2. Utility, protecting allies and boosting their healing; pretty good at this.
> 3. Big survival boost to surviving for long lengths of times.
> 
> I think that 3 is the problem.  It gets an extra 2d12 plus 4 constitution to boost it's health pool.  It can heal whole 3 die of damage once a *short* rest, this one feels pretty strong and I may move to long rest.  It gets a not-trivial amount of healing every time it damages someone, and if all that wasn't enough it gets a the boost from healing spells, quite powerful post-battle, and doesn't even die easily when reduced to 0 hp.  It even gets some abilities to boost it's saving throws to avoid indirect death-by-magic.  This class just won't die.  Which is cool, it's not an issue thematically for a class to have.  However, this survival and competence at melee (if sub-classed for it) would be almost enough to justify a full class in itself without the extra utility the class also gains.  
> 
> *yes I know I listed a number of self-enhancements in this list, so a class could choose not to pick them, but imagine a class that went for survival sustain and this argument still applies, the fact that they get even more flexibility to specialize beyond that only makes the class more potentially powerful.


And we came to the first two typos to find! In body enhancements, the Large Pool enhancement should have been +1d12 HD, and the Exultant Slaughter enhancement should have been limited to a long rest basis (both of these typos have been fixed), which is a LOT less self-healing and survival. 

However, there was quite a lot of thought that I put into the rest of the survival abilities. Almost every one of them requires the use of your action economy (crimson revelry, which as mentioned above now requires that you use your bonus action and that you damage a near by creature on your turn), and/ or draws rather heavily on a more limited resource (rapid recovery, which requires your reaction _and_ a hit die). The immortal is really the only survival based subclass now (with blood lord losing the healing option of consume corpse, and the Sanguine Blade needing to reach _level 20_ before getting any healing from anything they do), and passive survival is incredibly late-game, or somewhat uncertain (reflexive core is great... if you have high dex and proficiency in dex saves. Otherwise, it won't be too big. Body and Mind is more so you can justify having a low Wis than anything. And othe are the only two other passive enhancements I could find that increase survival before level 18, so...) 

I also tried to balance it out so that if one was building for survival, then they would lose out on a lot of damage or utility. Yes, ultimate tanking/ damage sponging is a great ability, but an immortal bloodsworn with only survival enhancements will be swinging twice (three times at most with feat support) and without feats dealing 2d6+5 damage/ round. Assuming, of course, they didn't also focus on defense so much that they skipped S+B and the defense fighting style in favor of the great weapons, high damage style. (Pure survival would probably look closer to 1d8+5 with an AC of 21) At level 20, that damage... just isn't all that impressive, especially compared to the sanguine blade, which by that point can get anywhere from 3-4 attacks/ round depending on hoe enemies move and how injured they are (which, of course, oddly encouraged the sanguine blade to damage soak until they get down to ~1/2 HP), and who is dealing and extra 1d10 damage on a hit. It also means that the pure survival class is losing out on a lot of the control and out of combat utility a bloodlord would be pumping out, which I do feel is worth mentioning at least a little bit. 

(Sentinel won't be mentioned here, since I actually almost want to cut it completely, given I was originally thinking of making it into a fighter subclass originally)

So what I was trying to get at in a long winded way here is, yes. I was shooting for an almost-unkillable option for survival (with a few typos that made it better than it should have been), with some survival abilities available to all bloodsworn. However, taking it locks the character out of a lot of other really nice things, and makes it so that the bloodsworn is really just not all that good at straight-up combat. It's a balancing act with a high amount of variety (which I feel like Warlocks should have had with their invocations, but I digress), which is rather close to what I was hoping to get. 




> I realize the survival exists to support the utility, to make full use of the class utility your have to give up personal survival to heal others (though even without using blood pact reactions it still has a decent bit of utility).  However, the problem is that you get a choice, you can use your survivability with blood pact to provide good utility, or you can use your survivability to be a strong melee class or tanking class, and at no point do you have to sacrifice one role to do the other.  One fight he can tank, another he can give his party sustain, he can switch between the two roles at will and that's pretty flexible for a class that felt nearly complete without it's utility.  Put another way, the survival works equally well in a one V one fight as it does in tanking as it does with utility, it's a utility class that didn't have to sacrifice much personal power to be a utility class.


As far as the tanking goes, the bloodsworn actually isn't the toughest thing out there (and that title goes to Barbarians, who all have massive amounts of combat superiority where the bloodsworn have utility and a bit less survival on top of that). However, yes, the on-off ability of their utility (blood bonds) is something built in... more because the class would simply die if they weren't able to turn it off or choose than anything else, and almost as importantly, it just wouldn't be fun if they were forced to take damage _every_ time a blood bonded ally was hurt.  

In a 1v1 fight, the bloodsworn sort of needs its survival to actually compete. Even the sanguine blade doesn't actually deal all that much damage (especially 1v1 when the enemy has already closed in to their melee reach, leaving the sanguine blade at 2-3 attacks, max, and only 2 attacks regardless if the blade wants to use crimson revelry), so keeping itself alive to outlast an enemy is all it _can_ do. Almost all of the class's utility (which ~2/3 of the class is devoted to) is based on helping allies, leaving them surprisingly impotent in duels. 




> I can't put my finger on just how strong the class is, I don't think it's utterly broken or anything, but I suggest considering separating out some of the party utility and the not-dying a bit more.  I know that sounds odd, since much of the utility is built around the not-dying traits a little more, so one has to choose which to focus on.  I know this seems odd, since the survival exists only to support the utility, but I think party-sustain utility can be built into the class that does not substantially boost the classes one V one or tanking survival to better force a choice between personal survival and party utility sustain.
> 
> Assuming you agree with me at all and want to do something I could see two options.  Either remove some of the core abilities, or just give the class weaker core versions, and move the power of those abilities more into the four existing 'sub-classes', or if deciding how to divvy abilities up between subclasses is too hard you could go with a separate sub-class choice at higher levels which chooses between utility and self-sustain and/or force knights to pick between one of two affects at a few levels to force them to make self-sustain or utility choices as they level.  The affect is the same, move core abilities more into a choice between these two options.


Unfortunately, I really, really don't want to go about ripping out and reorganizing class features _again_, especially since it does feel like it's getting close to where it should be in its current form. As well, the subclasses I feel are unique in their roles at the moment, and changing their abilities to make them like the base class, just better doesn't sit right for me. So unfortunately, while I do appreciate the feedback, I don't think I'll be doing either of these suggestions. 

Though before I move on, fun fact. The previous version of the class (the Sanguine Knight) had choices throughout all of the subclasses... and it just wasn't refined enough to work. If I tried to do something similar now, maybe it might work... but I really don't feel like it's necessary at this point. The class is customizable enough as-is with the enhancements, subclasses can afford to be cut and dry for now.




> The "blood is thicker then water" or whatever you call it utility focus obviously could get more of the utility abilities linked with bonded allies.  However, the big thing I could see for boosting utility and keeping with the fluff is to replace self sustain options like crimson revelry with party-sustain-through-bloodPact.  As it is now once you get the ability to share your half competence bonus to heals affect with allies there is no reason to 'waste' a reaction on bloodpact,  unless someone would die if you didn't use it or your at 100% max health and would waste the crimson revelry self heal, if your tanking damage in the frontline anyways your never need to use blood pact to take damage which feels odd for your core class ability.


While the +1/2 prof bonus enhancement to ally healing is nice, it really only helps when they are already being healed by someone else. In combat, that really limits them to just clerics and healing potions... which, while it is a nice little boost, isn't really going to save them all that much damage then and there. So blood pact use _in_ combat is always going to be helpful, especially because things like mass healing spells are typically better bang-for-your-slot, but almost always out of combat or just smaller amounts, so you will want the damage to be as spread as it can be anyway to make your healer's job easier. 

Just wanted to point this out before moving on to the next bit...




> To address this I'm thinking the "utility" role may gain the ability to decrease damage dealt to the knight when he uses blood pact by an amount based off of your constitution modifier, such that every use of blood pact mitigates a small amount of the total damage dealt to the party (I like this option anyways, fluff wise and utility wise, so consider making it one of the self enhancement options at the least please!).


Okay, I like this one, and I'm probably going to add it into the list of options with other enhancements suggested here... this one likely at level 9.




> 1. After using a reaction to take damage for an ally a passive effect is left on the ally until your next turn This could be:
>   b. Provide the ally some small bonus to future attacks taken between your reaction and your turn.  Maybe advantage on next attack the ally takes if before your turn, but not sure advantage feels right.  I could see something like the ally gaining temporary hit point equal to your constitution modifier (give or take some extra amount depending on rather this is built into utility route or requires sacrificing an enhancement to get) which lasts until the ally turn or the next time you use a reaction to protect an ally, whichever comes first.


This is another one I like. Likely going to make it a level 5 enhancement.




> 2. As a reaction give an ally advantage on next attack role against the, BUT you take disadvantage on next role against you, this is low power ability suitable to role right into a utility role designed for a non-tanking knight, it's situational since most knights will expect to usually get attacked and thus suffer their disadvantage.  if this is an self-enhancing feat boost it by giving ally bonus on next two damage roles in exchange for your taking disadvantage?  or perhaps you can give advantage to an ally in exchange for disadvantage on next defense role made before your next turn, such that smart planning can give advantage to ally at a time when it's unlikely that your get attacked before your next turn to suffer disadvantage, but limit number of uses of this ability


Hmmm... perhaps an enhancement that allows you to use your bonus action to grant a blood bonded ally advantage on their next attack roll? If I'm going to be honest I'm not all too enthusiastic about this particular idea, since I feel it's a bit _too_ raw supporty, where the bloodsworn is supposed to focus on party survival and personal survival instead. 




> 3. Allow any heal on yourself to be shared with an ally.  This in fact could be done in a number of ways
>   A. any heal that increases your HP above 100% is shared with all other allies evenly, but the professioncy bonus increase to healing only happens once even if you have the ability to share this with bound allies.
>   B. Share exactly half of a heal with a blood pact ally of your choice, possible using reaction or X times per day to power this.
> *C. X times per day you can have your Crimson Revelry heal be given fully to an ally instead of yourself, if this is an enhancement possibly give some tiny boost to the heal shared this way, or alternatively replace it with a very small number per day to sacrifice your crimson heal a turn to give it to every other bound ally.*


Fun fact number 2: I actually had a _feat_ for the class that did something like this. When the sanguine knight (as it was known then) healed with crimson revelry, blood bonded allies would be healed by 1d6+the SK's con bonus, and it also gave an extra blood bond to use. Making that a body enhancement instead (at level 13) and making it just a flat healing of Con bonus would likely work, so I'll be adding that as an option (as a sort of "master of the blood bond" type of enhancement path, sort of like there's the "raw survival" and "increased offense" build paths in the body enhancements). Should add a bit to the full on support path... though I'll also need one more ability at level 18 to round it out completely. Hmmm... Any ideas there?




> Finally, the Crimson Revelry and Natural Healing feats synergize in a way you may not have intended.  Do you intend for both affects to activate to gain constitution modifier + 1/2 profession bonus each heal?  I would specify explicitly rather or not they 'stack' in your description.


This was fully intended to stack, since it comes to a total of 10 HP/ round, at most, by level 18. Which... just isn't all that much damage at that level. However, it did get nerfed a little bit, given crimson revelry now requires you to damage a creature on your turn _and_ a bonus action to activate, where before it was just free healing. Explicit permission has now been listed in Crimson Revelry.

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## souichi87

Op i just saw this class and its super awesome ^_^ I was wondering if maybe this class could already be playable as it is cause i really wanna wanna wanna  :Smile:  try it ^_^

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## Gnomes2169

It _should_ be playable  as is, given how long it's been in development!  :Small Tongue:  But yes, if your DM approves of you using it then it should be ready for use. If you end up doing so, then please, tell me how it goes!

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## souichi87

> It _should_ be playable  as is, given how long it's been in development!  But yes, if your DM approves of you using it then it should be ready for use. If you end up doing so, then please, tell me how it goes!


we started today. We got through our first encounter and I play it like a fighter/support so my playgroup found it very interesting ^_^ will update more. BTW bloodbond really rocks ^_^

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## Submortimer

Hey there, considering the theme, I'm working on converting almost all the Trick weapons from Bloodborne into a 5e playable form. If you'd like, you can use some of that work when I'm done with it...seems like it would mesh quite well!

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## Gnomes2169

> we started today. We got through our first encounter and I play it like a fighter/support so my playgroup found it very interesting ^_^ will update more. BTW bloodbond really rocks ^_^


Hey, great to hear! Let me know how it feels as far as how safe you feel when using the blood bond as well, especially at lower levels where you have fewer ways to regain the hit points you are sacrificing. Oh, and which subclass were you going to be playing as? 




> Hey there, considering the theme, I'm working on converting almost all the Trick weapons from Bloodborne into a 5e playable form. If you'd like, you can use some of that work when I'm done with it...seems like it would mesh quite well!


Hmmmm... perhaps a sort of collaboration, or a few Bloodsworn-specific weapons (sort of like how the Holy Avenger is specific to the paladin)? Could be interesting! Thank you for letting me know, and I'd be glad to hear about your work in the future!

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## PoeticDwarf

Going to post feedback again. Your fixes make this even more amazing. Think it is right now except that sometimes saying saguime knight and sometimes bloodsworn is a bit irritating

Awesome, just awesome

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## Gnomes2169

> Going to post feedback again. Your fixes make this even more amazing. Think it is right now except that sometimes saying saguime knight and sometimes bloodsworn is a bit irritating
> 
> Awesome, just awesome


Ack, last batch of typos are fixed now! Thanks for pointing that out. >.>

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## sterling vermin

I think the name of the *Natural Healer* feature is a bit misleading as the Bloodsworn is not really a good healer himself just very adept at recovering. I would change the name just to clarify, possibly using a word like "vitality" or "recovery". It's a small nitpick, but I think it helps pin down the flavor of the class.

I also noticed that the class chart uses a different title than the features description does for the 5th level feature.

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## tyresias11

Hello there,

I planned to playtest your class starting this sunday and sadly I realized you removed the guardian subclass which I was aiming for. Did you deleted it completely cause sadly I did not save anything about it and now I am desparetly looking for it. 

Was there a reason you removed it? Hopefully you'll be able to see this message before the day after tomorrow. You can even message me the info of the guardian subclass if you still have it and don't want to post it here for whatever reason.


Thanks very much for making such an awesome class.

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## Gnomes2169

> Hello there,
> 
> I planned to playtest your class starting this sunday and sadly I realized you removed the guardian subclass which I was aiming for. Did you deleted it completely cause sadly I did not save anything about it and now I am desparetly looking for it. 
> 
> Was there a reason you removed it? Hopefully you'll be able to see this message before the day after tomorrow. You can even message me the info of the guardian subclass if you still have it and don't want to post it here for whatever reason.
> 
> 
> Thanks very much for making such an awesome class.


I did delete it because the Guardian just... didn't fit with the rest of the class's design or fluff. It was also nearly impossible for me to think of a way to balance it without pulling abilities out and rebuilding the fluff wholesale. I still remember what the abilities are, and can type them out for you in a private message!

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## souichi87

> Hey, great to hear! Let me know how it feels as far as how safe you feel when using the blood bond as well, especially at lower levels where you have fewer ways to regain the hit points you are sacrificing. Oh, and which subclass were you going to be playing.


Sorry this took so long. Been playing in two worlds and i didnt really choose the subclass coz i chose a demigod race for both worlds. Though different paths. One is taking the immortal and the other the sanguine. For both worlds sponging damage early is really rough but helps a lot if you dont really have a cleric. I've been getting 8+ on hp rolls per lvl so that helps a lot in sponging. Both worlds different dms found that bonded communication was too powerful since you can give a "live feed" during battle. In still frames i mean so they tried to limit it to a bonus action during battle. The immortal just hit lvl 3 and is already sponging like crazy no problems with it so far. The sanguine hit lvl 4 and the cruor blade is amazing and having to trade sponging for extra damage feels very balanced. Will update again. ^_^

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## Gnomes2169

Excellent, good to hear that things are going well! Does it feel like Natural Healer is enough to offset the early damage you are taking with the Blood Bonds, or would Crimson Revelry feel like it would do better at that level? That's honestly been something I've been flopping back and forth on, since both feel like they could fit in either slot (level 2 and level 6) in the current incarnation of the class without being too good or situational. And thank you for the feedback, hope to hear from you soon again!

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## souichi87

> Excellent, good to hear that things are going well! Does it feel like Natural Healer is enough to offset the early damage you are taking with the Blood Bonds, or would Crimson Revelry feel like it would do better at that level? That's honestly been something I've been flopping back and forth on, since both feel like they could fit in either slot (level 2 and level 6) in the current incarnation of the class without being too good or situational. And thank you for the feedback, hope to hear from you soon again!


Personally at early levels the natural healer doesn't offset the damage but putting the revelry in the 2 slot would make it too OP for early levels. having a char that can use revelry at lvl 2 with a con +4 would certainly be OP ^_^ I think its good the way its stands.

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## Cancer115

I like it. Gonna borrow this.

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## Gnomes2169

Do so, and report back to me the results!

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## Gnomes2169

alright, once again updating things because out with the old, in with the new, and hey, sometimes I can make cool things. There have been multiple small updates, mostly just to tweak the various abilities and make the wording more clear, but a few major changed for the mid-to-late game have been made for this class! 

Firstly, and most importantly, Bonded Transposition has been traded out for Crimson Sight. Because Transposition was just super niche and just another thing players had to remember, and a bit too overtly magical for this martial, primal powered class, while Crimson Sight just fits the theme of a sentinel and is a passive benefit that will be easier to remember due to that very virtue. Now note, it only gives BlindSENSE, which means you cannot actually SEE any creatures that are invisible around you, so you still have disadvantage on attack rolls against them. However, you do know which space they are actually standing in, so you and your allies don't have to guess ala pop goes the weasle with them. I also only added the clause about your blood-bonded allies being able to sense enemies around you as well since, with Bonded Communication, they basically could anyway. 

The second major change is that Exultant Slaughterer (the level 17 Body Enhancement) now only gives you 3 hit dice back after you kill an enemy, rather than 5. This part of the feature can still only be used once per long rest. However, it also _gained_ a feature that allows you to expend a hit die whenever you kill an enemy, and recover hit points based off of them during combat. So even if you don't short rest that often or take the other ability that allows you to expend your hit dice upon being hit as a reaction, you can still put the extra hit dice from this ability to good use. 

And those were the major changes. Also, this thread is open for feedback once again if people wanted to look at it and comment!

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## Gnomes2169

Alright, so, an update here. Because I did update things before sending it to friends to review: Some Changes Were Made! 

Actually a lot of changes were made. So lets get through them, patch-notes style!

*General fluff fixing:* Jank has been changed and/ or removed and/ or rewritten. The class as a whole should read a lot better and less schizophrenically than before. 

*Spoiler: General class rebalancing*
Show


*Bonded Communication:* Seemed a bit easy to exploit as a level 1 multi-way interconnected network communication device. Basically since it gives your party in general telepathy with one another, it got slightly nerfed. This feature now requires a bonus action to use, meaning its out-of-combat utility should still be preserved, but it should be slightly more costly for, say, the party Observant guy to accurately pinpont and transmit the location of an invisible foe. 

*Natural Healer:* This had the opposite problem from the above ability, namely that at low levels it had such a negligible effect as to be commonly forgotten. At levels 1-8 this only provided +1 HP to healing, and even at later levels it just didnt feel impactful, leading to this feeling mostly like a dead ability. To alleviate this, the ability has instead become your characters _full_ proficiency bonus at higher levels. 

This does mean that Crimson Revelry can potentially max out at 13 HP instead of the 10 it was locked to before (once reaching level 17, and picking up the +Con enhancement), however, at that level healing 13 HP really isnt all too insane, as barbarians are likely resisting somewhere in the ballpark of 30-40 damage a round (thats damage resisted, without rage they would be taking 60-80), and your paladin can bring your squishy back from 0 HP to max. Thus, the classs self-sustainability being buffed when it doesnt have the healing capabilities of the Paladin and is _taking damage for allies_ instead of resisting everything but psychic is something Im not too worried about. 

*Bonded Resurgence:* As a near-capstone ability that requires the use of your reaction (which a Bloodsworn has a LOT of potential uses for), and which emulates a 4th level non-concentration spell (Death Ward), this is something that needed to be usable a bit more often to make it feel like it wasn't wasted. So this feature has become 1/ long or short rest instead of just 1/ long. Still limited, but your standard 5e adventuring day could see 2-3 potential uses of it.


*Spoiler: Enhancements Changes*
Show


*Crimson Intellect:* The first _major_ change, this ability has been changed in function entirely. Now instead of being advantage against living enemies, it functions more like a paladins smite. However, the resource you expend are Hit Dice, and you add the die and your Con mod to the damage roll, instead of getting progressively more dice to roll. This is one change that made the buff to Natural Healer more necessary, as there are now _multiple_ ways to spend your hit dice outside of short rests and personal healing, so buffing the benefit you can get outside of hit dice healing early and mid game became more necessary. 

*Replenishing Pool (originally Deep Pool)* Now grants 2 additional d12 hit dice and replenishes all expended hit dice at the end of a long rest. While this is powerful, and this class will admittedly be taking a lot of damage over the course of the day, there are only a few subclasses or builds that would even want this feature. For the most part: Pure tanks picking up all of the enhancements to expend their hit dice, sanguine blades that want a few extra smite dice, and blood lords and the racial subclasses that expend hit dice for power. 

But, even for these builds, it is only a small boost over-all, and outside of these builds the extra healing this feature provides can be covered by the party and not require the use of short rests, which you cant always take in a stressful situation. (Again, that Natural Healer buff affects this enhancement, but in this case makes it _less necessary_.)

*Speaker of Blood:* The active component (ally can move 10 feet as your bonus action) no longer requires verbal commands, as Bonded Communication can be assumed to make the coordination instinctual instead of something you have to holler at them. 

*Bonded Maneuvers:* Was... weird. And sort of hard to make work. Now, any blood bonded ally within your reach does not provoke opportunity attacks for as long they remain within your reach. Giving you some utility to potentially extract allies from a bad situation by moving close to them. 

*Vital Resonance:* This got changed from a small, flat bonus to damage to advantage on melee attack rolls against enemies engaged with one of your blood bonded allies. Basically a melee-only Pack Tactics or the totem Barbarians level 3 wolf totem, but it only works for your own attacks. Pointless for a kobold, who has the superior pack tactics already. 

*Exultant Slaughterer:* The number of hit dice recovered has been raised up to 6/ Long Rest, as the number of subclasses that might actually want to use this feature (blood lord, exemplar of humanity, sanguine blade) all have a lot more ways to expend their hit dice. This is still only 1/ long rest, however, and still requires you to actually _kill_ a creature. 

*Unbroken Heart:* Gives +4 con and sets con max to 24. Because it doesnt add to your offense, this class takes a lot more damage at this level if played supportively, and the. Barbarian still has a stronger level 20 capstone, since it also increases Strength by that amount and they get I N F I N I T E. R A G E. Its stronger than before, but only serves as a tankier build (so Immortal or Blood Lord) or a generalist build that doesnt want one additional enhancement of each lower level. It also does not change the potential class playstyle like Slaughterer or Perfect Self can, so just being more reliably powerful and simple is something that should be a point in favor of this change.


*Spoiler: Subclasses*
Show

 
*Blood Lord* 
Gained Expanded Pool at level 3, which increases base d12 hit dice by 1/2 prof mod. This is because almost everything the subclass does requires expending at least one hit die, and I did not want Replenishing Pool to feel necessary for this subclass (now its just nice to have and effectively makes the extra hit dice into spell slots).Infest Corpse now requires expending 1 hit die. The disease portion only explicitly affects hostile creatures, allies have nothing to fear.Bloody Hold: A new level 10 ability that requires expending 2 hit dice to potentially inflict paralysis on any number of creatures within 20 feet of you (Con save negates, Str save ends). Specifically worded to work on non-living entites as well as living.Blood Rites: Replaced Aneurysm (thank lord,) a new ability that allows you to desecrate a corpse and learn up to 3 things that the creature knew. A ribbon ability, but a good one.

*Immortal* 
Diehard: Changed from not going down at 0 HP to instead granting 5 temp HP at the end of a long/ short rest for each blood bonded ally within 60 feet. This gives a small but important HP buffer that should make the immortal better at using their blood bonds, or at least less hesitant to do so. Should also encourage party cohesion and not letting an ally die, since both make more temp HP in the long run!Immortal Endurance:[/b] New feature that gives +1 max HP/ Bloodsworn level and barbarian unarmored AC. Because the immortal takes _the most_ damage.Undying: Got the language of Diehard added in, effectively leaving a capstone immortal unchanged. However, instead of falling unconscious after succeeding on 3 failed death saving throws, the immortal regains 1 hit point. A flavorful and suitably powerful capstone ability, I would hope.

*Sanguine Blade* 
Cruor Blade: Triggers the opportunity attack for non-withdrawl movement through spaces in reach, instead of being _just_ when a creature enters reach.Butchers Cunning: New feature, grants Crimson Intellect (or another level 5 enhancement) to the sanguine blade for free. Because SSSSSSSMITE!Bonded Assault: Changed the expanded crit range on your weapons portion to just a flat damage bonus to your weapon attacks alone (1/ prof).Should be less swingy and encroach on the Champion Fighters ONE THING less.Draining Blade: You can now change the energy type each time you draw your weapon. Still only between Positive and Negative, though.


Also, all the mechanics for the racial subclasses are done! So there. Yay. Check those out.

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## Gnomes2169

*Once more into the breach, my friends, to attempt rebalancing, clarity rewriting and typo fixing as well as I can!* 

So yeah. Hi. Figured it's been a few years, and that things have changed/ been updated/ been reworked in the base system, so I figure I should probably do the same to this class. Hopefully this won't impact games being played with this class (if any are currently), or if they do, it will be a net-positive change! 

Now then, for the changelog itself:

*Spoiler: Base class changes*
Show

First off, changed a typo on the table. At level 17 it said you only had 3 body enhancement, it now has the correct number of 4. A lot of the wording on various class features also just got made more user-friendly. But for actual changes...

*Natural healer* and *Bonded communication* have swapped places as far as which levels you get them. This was to encourage Bloodsworn characters to not be as afraid to use their blood bond at level 1 and to tie in both the Blood Bond and Sustainability themes of the class in from the start of a character's tenure. It also makes a 1 level dip a little bit less appealing, given you don't get free telepathy with your party right off the bat. For straight-classed characters, though, levels 1-3 generally go pretty quickly (if they are even played at all), so this is a minor change over-all, but it is worth noting. 

Over in enhancements land, *Body and Mind* got a change. Now it adds your con mod to your Int, Wis and Cha saves, _but_ it does not replace your natural modifiers for those stats. This is certainly a buff, but one that this power arguably needed. Both this enhancement and Bonded Maneuvers were clearly _not_ comparing favorably to Vital Resonance and Warded Bond (the former greatly increasing your offense, the latter granting your blood bond a much improved use-case), and it also didn't really look so hot compared to the Resilient (Wisdom) feat (which already isn't regarded as among the best feat options and gives you a stat boost on top of the proficiency), so the expansion of the enhancement into two 'minor' saves was how I figured this one should shift. 

Have no idea what to do with bonded maneuvers to make it more appealing, though. 

Also, *Crimson Tide* was changed whole cloth. Originally it allowed you to make a con save against an ongoing negative condition or spell when you used crimson revelry, but that was _super_ niche. I still wanted it to interact with crimson revelry, but instead made it so that you can use crimson revelry without using your bonus action _once_ each turn when you reduce a creature to 0 hit points. If you can kill things on your turn or with your reaction, this will make you [i]much[i] more survivable, though against single creatures without minions this healing buffer isn't so large. This _should_ also increase the appeal for subclasses like the Sanguine blade, who want to use their bonus action for _damage_ not for sustainability, allowing them to focus on offense without sacrificing the chip healing that this feature grants them.


*Spoiler: Base subclasses*
Show

*Bloodlord* just saw one major change, and that was to the Nightmare engine option of their Infest corpse feature. Now it inflicts the charmed creature with treating all terrain as difficult and disadvantage on their attack rolls instead of fully disabling them and leaving them prone. Because being charmed, moving at half speed and having disadvantage on attacks is still brutal at level 7, it didn't need even more raw power on top of that. 

*Immortal* saw a handful of nerfs. First, Diehard was swapped to granting 3 temp hp/ long or short rest per bonded ally. Because 5 hp/ ally each rest was a _lot_, pretty clearly too much in fact, especially since they got extra HP from their other level 3 feature. The barbarian unarmored defense was also removed from Immortal endurance, simply because it wasn't actually all that amazing and it added both complexity and power to an already _quite_ powerful subclass. Finally, Undying was nerfed, now requiring a Constitution save of 10+1/2 the damage dealt to ignore death saves, rather than it being DC (15 _or_ 1/2 attack's damage), just because their con saves saves, and their ability to basically ignore chip damage from CR 5 or lower creatures, were too darn good. 

*Sanguine blade* saw a shift in the level of a feature and the redesign of another. So, their ribbon feature, Bloodhound, was swapped to level 7 and Adrenaline surge was pushed up to level 10. This opened up the ability to redesign Adrenaline surge, since it was now at a higher level _and_ a stand-alone feature, and I've made it so that Adrenaline surge now allows you to make a bonus action attack _if you took damage between your last turn and current turn._ This was primarily to reduce bookkeeping, since you no longer have to track when you have less than 1/2 max HP and try to balance your features that would put you above that threshold, but this also has a secondary benefit where it incentivizes a bloodsworn to use their blood bonds, since that _assures_ that they can make a bonus action attack on their turn. Before, this subclass honestly didn't have much reason to care about blood bond mechanics, now it does. 


*Spoiler: Racial/Species/Metatype subclasses*
Show

Not sure what these are going to be renamed to when 5.5/6e comes out, but since 5e uses race I'll stick to that terminology for now to avoid confusion. Anyway, some of these things did get changes, and I'll just run through them quick:

*Angelic guardian* increases their healing from Potent healing bond by 1d12 instead of doubling it (which is a reduction in how much they heal their ally, since they could add their con bonus and, potentially, their proficiency bonus and practically _nuke_ that ally with more HP), but in exchange they also heal themselves by their con mod whenever they heal an ally with healing bond. So they get some benefit from expending their hit dice healing their allies come level 10.

*Clan sworn's* clan bond was changed from "Take all of the damage the clan bonded ally is dealt" to "The clan bonded ally gains resistance to all damage against the triggering attack". This was to reduce the damage that was being dealt to the party as a whole, which should reduce the healing resource drain that this feature's original implementation inflicts on a party. Their level 10 feature that removed the need to use a reaction to absorb damage for a clan bonded critter, clan guardian, was changed to being usable only once per turn, so that you can't give infinite free resistance to all damage to one (or eventually two) allies against _every_ monster attack. Just the first (or biggest) one each turn. 

*Dragonheart* saw the biggest change simply because of the Fizzban's changes to the scaly lads. Quick breath has changed from giving you a breath weapon as a bonus action and a free recharge, to instead allowing you to regain 1 use at the cost of 2 hit dice if you start your turn with all of your breath weapon uses expended. Because breath weapons no longer require actions to use, and you get multiple uses/ long rest. It was also changed to the level 7 feature, while dragon's senses became level 10. Their capstone level 20 feature had the list of potential resistances you could choose from expand to all of the gem dragon breath weapons, but it lost the con bonus to breath weapon damage (since the breath weapons already jumped up to d10's from d6's, this didn't feel necessary) and also went from a flying speed of 80 to 60.

*Fey walker* had the duration of their tricky bond increased to 1 hour, but the bonus changed from advantage against unwillingly bonded creatures to +1d4 to attack rolls against them. Their eternal lord capstone now lets you see 30 feet into magical darkness, but no longer gives _infinite_ blood bonds, it merely doubles your maximum. 

*Hellborn butcher* added necrotic to the damage types it interacts with, allowing all of its features to trigger off of fire, necrotic or weapon damage, and letting you change weapon damage to fire or necrotic. Their bonded brand was reduced to an additional 1d8 damage, since 2d8 additional damage against a creature with 3 broadly available damage types was a _lot,_ even if it was only once/ turn. Finally, Brand is no longer infinitely usable, it's now prof times/ long rest. 

*Wrathblood* has been changed. Now you need to use your blood bond to absorb damage for an ally in order to gain advantage against an enemy using spiteful bond or eternal spite, instead of just getting advantage against the enemy that dealt the damage for free. Fury now no longer allows you to heal using crimson revelry and other bloodsworn class features until it ends, just to keep you from making the "falling unconscious" clause completely irrelevant, requiring resource expenditure from an ally to keep you up. 


Soooooo yeah, those were the changes for now. Hopefully nothing to extremely awful in there. Happy holidays, everyone!

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## cx3bd

Good updates, been a fan of this class and its 3.5 origin for a while. Had a quick question about Natural Healer: wouldn't this be too abusable with abilities like Lay on Hands? I.e. spend one point of healing from Lay on Hands to heal 1 + proficiency each time?

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## Gnomes2169

> Good updates, been a fan of this class and its 3.5 origin for a while. Had a quick question about Natural Healer: wouldn't this be too abusable with abilities like Lay on Hands? I.e. spend one point of healing from Lay on Hands to heal 1 + proficiency each time?


To be fair, Lay on Hands is abusable with a ham sandwich.  :Small Tongue:  But you can also say the same thing about natural healer and goodberries, to which I say... yeah it's pretty good out-of-combat healing, _extremely_ efficient, but out-of-combat healing in 5e is already kinda broken? Healing spirit needed a nerf, aura of vitality pulses out infinite HP, you typically don't need to spend limited resources if you use hit dice in your short rest, etc. These are just very specific class/ feature interactions that also work extremely will together. 

Also, the Bloodsworn and Paladin occupy a similar party niche (warrior), which MTG and a catchy tune have both taught me that you need your 4-man band of a Warrior, Rogue, Priest and Wizard to have a full party and activate all of the party mechanics. *Sagely nods.* But really, it'd make a slightly strange party for a typical 4 player game, since you're doubling up on the frontline warrior role, even if finesse weapons and backgrounds can let one of you fill in that rogue role in a pinch. Efficient at healing the bloodsworn, who could soak damage for your squishy friends (yes I include the paladin in that list, the paladins in my parties have gone down THE MOST of every party member), so it could certainly be effective, just a bit strange.

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