The Killmangler
The Killmangler is a fighter who engages in obscene and often unnecessary levels of brutality, inspiring terror in enemies and impressing allies. The Killmangler is the kind of person who triggers Great Weapon Master on a kobold, even though their strength modifier is +5 meaning that they’re already capable of just automatically destroying it even if they roll a 1 on the—
Killmangler’s Killgear:
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you can use assorted tools and materials to transform a weapon or piece of armor into a more terrifying version of itself by spending one hour modifying it; weapons and armor modified in this way retain their normal properties but count as Killgear. When you modify a weapon with this feature, you can choose to make it deal slashing or piercing damage instead of its normal damage type.
Common transformations include the addition of spikes, rusty hooks, or bloodied nails, and/or the replacement of parts of the weapon with sawblades or parts made from humanoid bone. You do not need to spend money to obtain basic materials like these; you always have them when you want to create Killgear.
While you hold a weapon or wear armor transformed in this way, you have advantage on intimidation checks. Other creatures do not gain this benefit.
You also gain proficiency with Intimidation checks.
Fleshchopper:
Starting at 3rd level, before making an attack roll, you can subtract 1d4 from that attack roll. If this attack hits, it deals extra damage equal to twice the number rolled. You can use this feature once on each of your turns. At 18th level, you can use this feature whenever you make an attack roll.
Bloodspurt:
Starting at 7th level, when you kill a small or larger creature that has blood or a blood-like substance in its body, you can choose to rip the creature open and spray the creature’s blood in a large cloud. Creatures of your choice within 5 feet of the killed creature must succeed on a dexterity saving throw against your Bloodspurt DC or be blinded until the end of their next turn. When killing a creature larger than medium, the range of the blood cloud increases by 5 additional feet for every size category above medium.
Your Bloodspurt DC is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your strength or dexterity modifier (your choice).
Fearspreader:
Starting at 10th level, you double your proficiency bonus for all Intimidation checks, and your allies have advantage on intimidation checks if they are holding or wearing weapons or armor transformed via your Killgear feature.
Bloodcurdler:
Starting at 15th level, creatures have disadvantage on saving throws against your Bloodspurt feature.
Bojangler:
Starting at 18th level, when you use Killgear to kill a creature with a Fleshchopper attack and cause a Bloodspurt, you can Bojangle the killed creature, causing it to explode into bone or other sharp fragments, increasing the Bloodspurt radius by 10 feet, and dealing 6d6 magical piercing damage to creatures who fail their Bloodspurt save.
Bojangled creatures are scattered in small, unrecognizable chunks across the Bloodspurt radius.
FAQ
“Where did you get the art?”
The Japanese woodblock print is by 19th century artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi. He's been dead since 1861 so I assume it's public domain.
The spiky knight dude is fanart of Kirk from Dark Souls, and was made by Nathan Anderson: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nm0Wo
“Isn’t it silly that a level 18 fighter can make someone explode into a red bone-filled paste by using a nail-covered sling to launch a pebble at them?”
yeah lmao
“The Killmangler’s Killgear feature gives you a convenient supply of hooks, rusty nails, sawblades, etc whenever you want to make a Killgear. Does this mean they can use these for other things, like home construction or hanging coats on the wall?”
They can use them for other things, and are assumed to have enough of these supplies for everyday Killmangler activities, but if the Killmangler ever says “I have unlimited sawblades, we can use hundreds of them as a staircase to climb this big wall” then if you’re a DM, don’t let them do that.
...okay actually it would be really funny if they could conjure infinite sawblades with magic so maybe as a DM you should just let them do that lol
“If a Killmangler plans on killing a creature to activate bloodspurt, but someone else gets the killing blow, won’t that deny the killmangler one of their most fun subclass features?”
This is a legitimate problem; in an ideal scenario, the Killmangler would always get the killing blow whenever enemy creatures are nearby, but at the same time, it’s not very fun to make other party members hold off on killing a creature just to let the Killmangler get the killing blow.
If this is a problem at the table, DMs may allow Killmanglers to trigger Bloodspurt by attacking recently deceased creatures who have not already been used to trigger Bloodspurt. However, this does require the DM to track the positions of creature corpses, which can slightly slow down combat due to the additional bookkeeping.
“Can weapons with the ammunition property have their damage type be changed when converted into Killgear?”
Yes! Describe to your DM how you do this: perhaps your modified crossbow comes with a little compartment full of glue and rusty circular sawblades, and it just sticks a sawblade to every arrow when you fire it, causing those arrows to do slashing damage instead of piercing. Or maybe you just manually replace your arrowheads with clusters of rusty razor blades as part of your rests, and are always assumed to have this altered ammo.
“I really want to play the Killmangler subclass, but my DM won’t let me. What do I do?”
Bojangle your DM
