Bloodrager v0.7 - Celestial Bloodline and Mystic Discipline
Celestial Ravager, by Zana Arnautovic
The Bloodrager is a new class for 5E, blending barbaric fury and sorcerous might to dominate your foes!
This is the v0.7 release of the Bloodrager class, adding two more subclasses and quite a few buffs and refinements to the base class. It's a Strength- and Charisma-based martial, who tears into enemies with physical attacks while unleashing devastating spells and magical powers. Not as tanky as barbarians but packing quite a bit more flexibility and customizability. This class is the classic barbarian-sorcerer hybrid, entering a blood trance to alternate powerful blows with buff and blasting spells. It's got a few key features:
Blood Trance: Sort of a mini-rage. Scales with the class rather than on Strength, and blocks spellcasting that's not your bloodline spells. Greatly buffs your bloodline spells, though. It gets an AC boost and regeneration at low health.
Spellcasting: Standard half-caster, with a spell list featuring lots of self-buffs and direct damage.
Dual-Subclass: Every bloodrager selects a Bloodline at level 1 and a Discipline at level 3. Bloodlines generally have more interaction with Blood Trance and are mostly magical effects; Disciplines are almost entirely about combat style and have fewer situational restrictions on their abilities.
Sorcerous Swordplay: This is the bloodrager's answer to fighting styles or reckless attack - a bread-and-butter way to boost its attacks or defense as needed, which occasionally (but not always) hooks into Discipline features as a resource pool.
After about a year of development, the Bloodrager's come pretty far along - it's up to six bloodlines and seven disciplines. The bloodlines are:
Gravemarked Bloodline: Bloodragers empowered by necromantic magic, with a zombie-like constitution and the ability to separate their soul from their body.
Draconic Bloodline: Of course, draconic bloodlines are iconic. Draconic bloodragers get scales, wings, and breath weapons, taking advantage of their draconic heritage in a way regular sorcerers never can.
Scintillant Bloodline: Touched by wild prismatic magic, scintillants get elemental magic and random buffs (though with ways to influence the result).
Fiendish Bloodline: Tainted by the lower planes, fiendish bloodragers throw out fire damage like nobody's business, and get a variety of fiendish defenses.
Celestial Bloodline [NEW]: With holy blood in their veins, celestial bloodragers can heal their allies, blind their enemies, and take on angelic aspects.
Jotun Bloodline [NEW}: Imbued with a giant's essence, jotun bloodragers can grow to gigantic size, commanding powers based on their giant forebear (Cloud, Fire, Frost, Stone, or Storm).
The Disciplines are:
Discipline of the Ravager: A savage and careless warrior, the ravager tears into their foes with little regard for their own safety. They cleave into their foes recklessly, striking any enemy within reach.
Discipline of the Reaver: The reaver is equally relentless, but with a narrow focus on one target at a time. They home in on one foe and hammer brutally until that enemy is no more.
Discipline of the Meditative: A warrior whose blood trance is akin to a dance or song, with a focus on mobility and one-handed weapons.
Discipline of the Tempered: A bloodrager who saves up their power before unleashing massive strikes.
Discipline of the Bombardier: A alchemist-rager, who hurls bombs mid-combat to sow chaos on the battlefield.
Discipline of the Feral [NEW]: A brutal bloodrager, able to transform their hands into fearsome claws and enter a slashing frenzy.
Discipline of the Mystic [NEW]: A bloodrager focused more on arcane power, mystics can hurl magic bolts at their enemies.
The base class changes for this round include a rework (simplification and buffs) to Sorcerous Swordplay, a major rework and buff to the high-level Born Ready feature, and some small buffs to low-level features. The class is in a good spot - very playable and I think balanced enough for 98% of tables. It's in a heavy playtesting phase
f you like this, check out my other work! Join us in discord! And follow the pre-launch page for my upcoming Kickstarter! It'll have three classes (including this one), dozens of subs, hundreds of spells, at least two mini-settings, full seafaring rules, and more!
