Updated: Vampiric Barbarians
As we approach the release of The Impermissicon, our homebrew compendium of forbidden lore and evil magic, it becomes appropriate to revisit some of our past previews. Today we’re showing off the updates that have been made to a previously shown subclass: the Path of the Blood Drinker for Barbarians. In addition to some minor balancing changes and the revision of some text, this updated version includes optional rules for playing as a vampiric barbarian!
There were several minor changes made to the subclass. The first notable change is the change of many feature names. Blood Fury is now Wounded Fury to match with similar traits on some monsters; the sixth-level feature is now called Scent of Blood; and the Gore Strike feature has been returned to its original name during playtesting: Heart Strike. The second notable change was made to the Demonic Aspect feature at tenth-level. New bonuses were added to both the Fangs option and the Claws option, and the Wings option has new downsides and limitations to balance the considerable power of at-will flight. Scent of Blood is now empowered using Constitution instead of Wisdom. Finally, Heart Strike has been reworded, and the text about critical hits has been moved to a part of the feature itself. In addition, the feature now grants extra hit dice regeneration to the barbarian to help use the feature more reliably.
The subclass now also includes special optional rules for using it to build a vampire barbarian, granting them the Demonic Aspect feature earlier than level 10, but imposing the considerable drawbacks of vampirism upon the barbarian as compensation. This is just one of many options available in the compendium that allows players to build monstrous characters like vampires and werewolves. If this rampaging, blood-crazed barbarian isn’t your vision for your vampire, you could use the Progenitor warlock to create a vampire that leans into its dark magic talents, or even the upcoming dedicated Vampire subclass for rogues.
