The Demon Hunter

Creating a Demon Hunter

As you make your demon hunter, think about the events that drove them to pursue the tainted power they now possess. What otherworldly forces have they faced? What have they lost or sacrificed in the pursuit of their prey? Who were they unable to protect? Do they simply quest for vengeance or do they seek to protect others from their fate? What are they willing to do to destroy the ones they hunt?

You may also wish to consider how they relate to society and the world at large. Are they an elusive unknown entity, or shunned by their own people? Are they working openly, or under the guise of a more noble profession? Do they view others as potential allies or mere annoyances?

Class Features

As a demon hunter, you gain access to the following class features.

Unarmored Defense

Beginning at 1st level, while you are wearing no armor and not wielding a shield, your AC equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Charisma modifier.

Immolation Aura

At 1st level, you can activate the runic sigils engraved into your flesh, engulfing yourself in infernal energies that sear nearby foes as well as your own body. You can activate this ability as a bonus action on your turn, and can deactivate it at any time (no action required). The effect also fades if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die. While this ability is active, you gain the following features:

Luminous Flames. You shed dim light in a 10-foot radius.

Fiery Defense. Any creature that moves within 5 feet of you or starts its turn there must make a Dexterity saving throw. The DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier. On a failed save, the creature takes 2 fire damage. The amount of fire damage increases as you gain levels in this class, as indicated in the Immolation Damage column of the Demon Hunter table. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage.

Sear the Flesh. Each time your fiery defense deals damage to a creature, roll a d20. If you roll a 1, you suffer damage equal to half your demon hunter level (rounded up).

Fighting Style

At 2nd level, you adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.

Hatred

Demon hunters are driven by perpetual anger, directed not only towards those they hunt but also towards themselves. Starting at 2nd level, this hatred can be focused into a kind of energy, empowering the demon hunter’s abilities. The amount of hatred you have is determined by your demon hunter level. Spent hatred is exhausted and unavailable until you finish a long rest.

Infernal Talents

At 2nd level, you gain one infernal talent of your choice. Your talent options are detailed at the end of the class description. As your demon hunter level increases, you gain additional talents of your choice, as shown in the talents known column of the demon hunter table.

Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the talents you know and replace it with another talent that you could learn at that level.

Break the Chains

Beginning at 3rd level, your will is strong enough to unshackle the infernal power within you without it overwhelming you completely. As an action, you undergo a metamorphosis and your body takes on fiendish aspects. While transformed, you can speak, use equipment, and wear armor as normal, but cannot cast spells except through demon hunter class features.

This demon form lasts for up to 1 minute. You can revert to your normal form as an action on your turn. You automatically revert to your normal form if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die.

You can use this feature twice at 3rd level. The number of uses increases at 6th level, 9th level, 13th level, 17th level, and 20th level, as detailed in the features column of the demon hunter table. You regain expended uses when you finish a long rest. While you are transformed, you gain the following features:

Fiendish Might. You gain a bonus to melee damage rolls equal to half your proficiency bonus (rounded down).

Hellish Resistance. You have resistance to fire damage.

Temptation. If you take damage from one or more spells or magical attacks, at the beginning of your next turn you must make a Wisdom saving throw to suppress your lust for power. The DC equals 10 or half the total damage taken from magical sources, whichever is higher. If you are under an effect that prevents you from concentrating, like the Barbarian’s rage feature, you automatically fail this saving throw.

On a failed save, you must move directly towards the nearest living source of magic and use the Attack action against that creature. If there is more than one possible target, the DM chooses the target. If there are no possible targets, you suffer damage equal to half your demon hunter level (rounded up). You then regain control for the remainder of your turn.

Demon Hunter’s Path

At 3rd level, you choose how best to focus the fel energies coursing through your body. Choose the Path of Havoc, Path of Vengeance, or Path of Corruption, all detailed later in the class description. The path you choose grants you features at 3rd level, and again at 7th, 11th, 15th, and 18th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Glide

At 5th level and beyond, you can spend 1 hatred as a reaction to sprout a pair of vestigial fiendish wings from your back. If you take damage while these wings are active, the wings are destroyed and you cannot manifest them again for 1 minute. Otherwise, they last until you dismiss them as a bonus action on your turn. While you have these wings, your falling speed slows to 60 feet per round and, if you touch the ground while falling, you suffer no falling damage.

In addition, if you intentionally jump off a ledge, you can control the direction of your descent; you move 30 feet horizontally in your initially chosen direction for every 30 feet you fall vertically. Wind and other factors of the DM’s choosing may affect your trajectory.

Hellfire Infusion

At 6th level, your mastery of infernal fire increases. Fire you create takes on an eerie hue and fire damage you deal using weapons and demon slayer abilities ignores fire resistance.

Eye of the Storm

Beginning at 10th level, when you fail a Wisdom save to avoid temptation, you can spend 3 hatred to reroll the save. If the new result causes you to succeed, your demon form ends and cannot be activated again until your next turn.

Soul Siphoning

Starting at 14th level, the deaths of your enemies empower you to keep fighting. When a hostile creature within 30 feet of you is reduced to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to absorb a portion of their soul, gaining hit points equal to 1 of the creature’s hit dice + your Charisma modifier.

Indomitable Will

By 20th level, your never-ending struggle against the demonic powers within you has hardened your will. You can no longer become charmed or frightened, and you have advantage on Wisdom saves to avoid temptation.

Demon Hunter Paths

The powers that demon hunters take from their enemies eventually causes them to diverge from their brethren. After surviving as a hunter for some time, they seek out foes with abilities that lend themselves towards ending battles quickly or those that allow them to wade into a sea of enemies without fear. Still others gain power through dark pacts and contracts with creatures that would normally oppose them.

Path of Havoc

Those who seek to embody the Path of Havoc are vicious combatants, flinging themselves headlong into the fray. In combat, they unleash a series of rapid, magically-empowered strikes to quickly overwhelm their foes. Those who cross these hunters rarely have time to realize their mistake before their souls are sent hurtling back into to whatever pit they crawled out of.

Fiendish Alacrity

Starting at 3rd level when you choose this path, you gain the following benefits while in demon form:

• You have advantage on Dexterity checks and Dexterity saving throws.
• Your movement speed increases by 5 feet.
• You can spend 1 hatred to take the Disengage or Dash action as a bonus action on your turn.

Essence of Chaos

At 7th level and beyond, you gain the following benefits while your immolation aura is active:

• If a creature has taken damage from your immolation aura since your last turn, you have advantage on melee attack rolls against them.
• When you score a critical hit with a weapon attack, you deal additional fire damage equal to half your demon hunter level.

Blade Dance

Beginning at 11th level, whenever you use the Attack action to make one or more melee attacks, you can spend 1 hatred to gain a burst of speed. When you do this, you can attack three times instead of twice, and your reach with your melee attacks increases by 5 feet until the start of your next turn.

Eternal Fire

Starting at 15th level, when a creature takes damage from your immolation aura, you can spend 3 hatred as a reaction to set them ablaze. For the next minute, at the start of each of its turns, the creature must make a dexterity saving throw or take fire damage equal to your demon hunter level on a failed save. On a successful save, the effect ends. These magical flames can’t be extinguished by non-magical means.

You can only affect one creature with this ability at any given time. If you use this ability on a different creature, the effect moves from the original creature to that creature.

Havoc Strikes

At 18th level, you become an unparalleled hunter of creatures from beyond the mortal coil. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Charisma modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make against an aberration, celestial, or fiend. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied.

Path of Vengeance

Demon hunters who pursue that Path of Vengeance understand that good things come to those who wait. After all, in order to achieve victory over one's foes, one has to survive long enough to meet them in battle. These hunters seek out abilities that make them more resilient, with the goal of becoming an insurmountable wall of strength that strikes fear into the hearts of their enemies.

Path of Corruption

Demon hunters who become poisoned by their own power begin to believe that consorting with certain fiends is justified, so long as it gives them an edge. These corrupt hunters find themselves becoming unwitting pawns in the schemes of the fiend with whom they forge their pact, and mortal enemies of those whose codes don’t allow for such bargains. Those who confront them, however, seldom live to tell the tale.

Infernal Patron

When you reach 3rd level, you have made a pact with a fiend from the lower planes of existence, a being whose aims are evil, even if you strive against those aims. Such beings desire the corruption or destruction of all things, especially you. You can choose between the Archdevil or the Demon Lord. Your choice affects many of your path features.

The Archdevil. Devils powerful enough to forge a pact include Asmodeus, Dispater, Mephistopheles, and Belial, as well as pit fiends that are especially mighty.

The Demon Lord. Demons powerful enough to forge a pact include Demogorgon, Orcus, Fraz’Urb-luu, and Baphomet, as well as balors that are especially mighty.

Fiendish Familiar

At 3rd level, your pact grants you the find familiar spell and you can cast it as a ritual. When you cast the spell, the form of your familiar is dictated by your infernal patron.

The Archdevil. Your familiar takes the form of an imp.

The Demon Lord. Your familiar takes the form of a quasit.

While your familiar is above 0 hit points, you gain the following abilities:

Life Link. When you activate your demon form, both you and your familiar gain temporary hit points equal to your demon slayer level. When your demon form ends or either of you drop to 0 hit points, you both lose any remaining temporary hit points gained from this feature.

Transference. While your immolation aura is active, on your turn you can spend 1 hatred to move it from yourself to your familiar, or vice versa (no action required). While the aura is on your familiar, its damage is halved, and you suffer damage from it in place of your familiar.

Familiar Spellcasting

Beginning at 7th level, you can spend 3 hatred as an action to have your familiar cast one of the following spells at 2nd level using its reaction: continual flame, darkvision, inflict wounds, or shocking grasp. Spending additional hatred increases the level of the spell.

If a spell requires an attack roll, it uses your spell attack modifier, which is calculated as follows:

Spell attack modifier = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

Dread Steed

At 7th level, once per short rest you can use your action to summon a lesser nightmare from the Lower Planes. This creature willingly serves as a steed for you or one of your allies for up to an hour. It is loyal to you, but cannot attack or use abilities in combat.

If the nightmare is attacked, roll a d4. If you roll a 1, it flees back to the Lower Planes. Otherwise, it moves away from its attacker on its turn. You can also dismiss this creature as an action on your turn.

Resilient Familiar

At 11th level, your familiar gains a bonus to AC equal to half your Charisma modifier (rounded up). In addition, when you activate your demon form, your familiar now gains additional temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier.

Lesser Summoning

At 11th level, once per long rest you can use your action to summon a fiend to a location you can see within 30 feet of you. This fiend can be dismissed as an action on your turn. The type of fiend you summon is determined by your choice of patron and is listed below. When you reach 20th level, this ability summons two such fiends.

While you maintain concentration, this fiend serves you loyally for up to 10 minutes, after which point it returns to the Lower Planes. If your concentration is interrupted, the fiend becomes hostile to everyone and disappears after 1d4 rounds.

Roll initiative for the fiend, which acts on its own turn. When you summon the fiend and on each of your turns thereafter, you can issue a verbal command to it (requiring no action on your part), telling it what to do on its next turn. If you issue no command, it spends its turn attacking any creature within reach that has attacked it.

The Archdevil. Your lesser summoning calls forth a hell hound.

The Demon Lord. Your lesser summoning calls forth a bulezau (Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, pg. 131). While the bulezau is not hostile to you, you are considered a demon for the purposes of its rotting presence ability.

Personal Aura

Beginning at 15th level, immolation aura can be active on yourself and your familiar simultaneously. These auras must be activated separately, but you can choose to activate your familiar's aura as a reaction instead of a bonus action.

Battle Summoner

At 15th level and beyond, you gain advantage on concentration checks to maintain spells and abilities that summon creatures.

Demon Hunter 2.4 - Design by Jeremy Kings

Greater Summoning

At 18th level, you gain the following summoning abilities based on your choice of patron.

The Archdevil. You can spend 5 hatred to cast infernal calling (Xanathar's Guide to Everything, pg. 158) at 5th level. Spending additional hatred increases the level of the spell. You can also spend 2 additional hatred on top of that cost to eschew the material components of the spell.

The Demon Lord. You can spend 4 hatred to cast summon greater demon at 4th level. Spending additional hatred increases the level of the spell. You can choose to use a vial of your own blood in place of the normal material component for this spell.

Infernal Talents

Below is a list of the talents available to all demon hunters. The following rules apply when learning and using infernal talents: If a talent has prerequisites, you must meet them to learn it. You can learn the talent at the same time that you meet its prerequisites. A level prerequisite refers to your level in this class.

Many infernal talents require you to spend hatred in order to use them. If a talent allows you to spend additional hatred for a greater effect, you can spend up to half of the maximum for your level (rounded down) to empower it. A talent that causes you to manifest wings, claws, or other appendages cannot be used while wearing equipment that would obstruct them, or you risk destroying the equipment.

Some talents may also require your target to make a saving throw to resist its effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:

Hellfire Breath

You can spend 2 hatred as an action to exhale hellish green fire in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw, with disadvantage if they took damage from your immolation aura since your last turn. On a failed save, they take 3d6 fire damage, or half as much damage on a successful save. The damage increases by 1d6 for each hatred spend above the base cost.

Purified by Fire

When using a demon hunter ability that deals fire damage, you can spend 2 hatred to change its damage type to radiant damage. When used with your immolation aura, this ability affects it until the aura is deactivated.

Rend Magic

When a creature that you can see casts a spell within 60 feet of you, you can spend 2 hatred as a reaction to attempt to rend the spell from the air. Make an ability check using your Charisma. The DC equals 10 + the spell’s level, and is lowered by 1 for each hatred spent above the base cost. On a success, the creature takes fire damage equal to half your demon hunter level and their spell fails.

6th Level

The following talents are available to you starting at 6th level.

Demonic Flight

While in demon form, you can spend 2 hatred as a bonus action on your turn to grow a pair of large leathery wings from your back, gaining a flying speed equal to your current speed. They last until you dismiss them as a bonus action on your turn or you leave your demon form.

Burning Rush

When you use the dash action, you can spend 3 hatred to leave up to 60 consecutive feet of hellish fire in your wake. The fire reaches up to 10 feet tall and is 5 feet thick. Any creature that starts its turn in the fire or that attempts to cross through it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw.

On a failed save, the creature takes 4d6 fire damage, or half as much damage on a successful save. The damage increases by 1d6 for each hatred spent above the base cost. The fire lasts for up to 1 minute; it disperses immediately if you deactivate your immolation aura.

Spiked Carapace

While in your demon form, you can spend 2 hatred as a bonus action to manifest spiky protrusions on your limbs. If you are not wearing armor, your AC increases by 1. In addition, anyone who succeeds on a melee attack roll against you takes piercing damage equal to 1d6 + your Constitution modifier. These spikes last until you dismiss them as a bonus action on your turn or you leave your demon form.

8th Level

The following talents are available to you starting at 8th level.

Poisoned Spines

Prerequisite: Spiked Carapace talent

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While spiked carapace is active, you can spend 4 hatred as an action to forcibly remove one of your spikes and hurl it at a creature you can see within 30 feet of you. If the attack hits, the target creature takes 4d6 piercing damage and, if your immolation aura is active, takes fire damage equal to your demon hunter level. In addition, the target must succeed on a Constitution save or be poisoned.

Sate the Hunger

Prerequisite: Consume Magic talent or Soul Siphoning class feature

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Whenever you gain hit points from your consume magic talent or soul siphoning ability, you gain advantage on your next saving throw against temptation.

Spectral Sight

Prerequisite: Preternatural Senses talent

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Once per long rest, if you meditate without distraction for 30 minutes or more, you gain truesight and can notice secret doors hidden by magic out to a range of 120 feet. These effects last for 10 minutes.

10th Level

The following talents are available to you starting at 10th level.

Imprison

You can spend 5 hatred as an action to cast hold monster without providing material components. Aberrations, celestials, and fiends have disadvantage on the saving throw to avoid the spells effects.

Demon Hunter 2.4 - Design by Jeremy Kings

Wing Barrage

Prerequisite: Demonic Flight talent

While your wings are manifested, you can spend 4 hatred as a bonus action to leap into the air and hurl your wings forward. Each creature in a 15 foot cone must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pushed up to 30 feet away from you and knocked prone. On a successful save, a creature is still pushed, but suffers no additional effects.

12th Level

The following talents are available to you starting at 12th level.

14th Level

The following talents are available to you starting at 14th level.

Demon Hunter Multiclassing

Should you wish to multiclass into a Demon Hunter, the prerequisites and proficiencies gained are listed below.

Multiclassing Proficiencies

Proficiencies Gained
Light armor, simple weapons, martial weapons

Demon Hunter 2.4 - Design by Jeremy Kings