Order of the Mutant – D&D 5e Blood Hunter Subclass Guide

Alter your body with alchemical elixirs to adapt to the enemies you face.

At a glance

Order of the mutant features

Mutagencraft and formulas – Lv3

How it works

You learn to create body-altering elixirs known as mutagens. You know 4 formulas to start with and can have 1 mutagen created each rest. These numbers grow as you gain levels.

You can drink a mutagen as a bonus action and end the effects of all mutagens as an action.

Tactics

• Mutagens are a tricky mechanic. Each mutagen has both positive and negative effects which are roughly equal in magnitude (though there’s definite variation).
• For instance, one mutagen might grant resistance to piercing damage while causing vulnerability to slashing damage.
• This may feel like a net zero trade off, but the point is that you can adapt your elixirs to your enemy. Notice an enemy with a lot of slashing weapons, imbibe a shielded mutagen. Know you’ll be fighting lots of fiery fiends, take an embers mutagen.
• The issue is prep time. To have a mutagen prepared, you need to do so during a rest. The problem here is you start with just one mutagen prepared, so unless you know what you’re facing, it’s hard to know what to prepare.
• Fortunately, there are some mutagens that are universally useful. Or at least always useful for certain character types.
• For instance, rapidity will increase your speed which is always useful in combat while making intelligence ability checks worse (which are often not needed or for which you could easily end your mutagen effect before taking the check).
• Similarly, celerity will grant you increased dexterity, which will always help a dexterity build. It will harm your wisdom saving throws which makes you vulnerable to magic, but it is reliably useful.

Strange metabolism – Lv7

How it works

Become immune to poison and the poisoned condition. You can also suppress the negative effects of a mutagen for 1 minute by using a bonus action once per long rest.

Tactics

• Poison damage and the poisoned condition are among the most common damage types and conditions so immunity is powerful.
• Suppressing the negative effects of a mutagen is useful too. I’d save this for particularly tough combats allowing you to have something like celerity in place for the enhanced dexterity, but then you might face a spellcaster and recognise that you need your wisdom saving throws in peak conditions so could suppress this negative effect.

Brand of axiom – Lv11

How it works

Prevent invisibility or illusion on branded creatures and potentially end or prevent shapechanging.

Tactics

• A bit situational as many creatures don’t have these features. But when they do, they can be quite problematic and you can use your brand of castigation to tackle it.

Blood curse of corrosion – Lv15

How it works

You know the blood curse of corrosion which applies the poisoned condition using a bonus action. When amplified, it will also cause damage.

Tactics

• This is interesting as there’s no saving throw from the initial condition so works great against creatures with legendary resistance.
• The damage is also applied automatically making it great for tough to hit enemies.
• Subsequent turns will allow saves though, meaning a creature can end the condition/prevent the damage.
• This is best against creatures with powerful attacks that you want to cause to miss more often.

Exalted mutation – Lv18

How it works

Use a bonus action to end a mutagen you have in use and replace it with a mutagen you know the formula for.

Tactics

• This makes mutagens significantly more adaptable allowing you to adapt to any given situation.
• It’s a shame that this feature comes quite late in your character progression though. It means you only truly become adaptable in the moment by this level which is a shame for a subclass focused on adaptability.

How good is the order of the mutant subclass?

The order of the mutant has a tonne of potential, but I can’t help feeling that this potential is wasted. I initially thought my issue would be with the mutagen side effects, but I actually think this mechanic works in an awkward sort of way.

The problem is that your adaptability, until level 18, is limited to what you know about your enemies ahead of time. This often isn’t possible though. I think this means that to build optimally for a mutant blood hunter, you have to go with mostly universally useful mutagens unless you know what you’re going to face. And I think this defeats the purpose of the subclass to a large extent.

I do really like the flavour here though and the concept could still be really fun to play. But sadly, from an optimisation point of view, the order of the mutant falls short, despite decent resilience and blood curse features.

2/5

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Optimising a mutant

Your mutagens generally tackle 3 areas; resilience, damage and utility. You can build into whatever area of these you want to with the order of the mutant. But broadly speaking, they are primarily built for combat in much the same way that your average blood hunter is.

Below I’ve gone into detail about how you can optimise an order of the mutant character, including how you can weave mutagens into your build.

Ability scores

Recommended options

• Strength: I’d generally recommend that mutants focus on dexterity for weapon attacks, but in theory, you can go with a strength build. You will still need to invest in dexterity a bit for your AC unless you can grab heavy armor proficiency through a feat.
• Dexterity: You’ll want this at 14 at least, and probably more. If you’re going for a strength build, I’d stick to 14 to maximise on medium armor. If you’re going to be using ranged or finesse weapons then you’ll likely want this as high as you can.
• Constitution: You’ll want as much resilience as you can get, especially if you’re planning on playing a melee build or using a lot of hematurgy features.
• Intelligence or wisdom: You’ll want one of these to be decent, but they’re less important than your martial abilities in most cases. You can choose to use intelligence or wisdom for this. I’d tend to favour wisdom for the more common saving throws, but if you plan on multiclassing as a wizard or artificer (or going heavy on knowledge skills), then intelligence is the way to go.

Options to avoid

• Charisma: You’re very dependant on many ability scores. There’s absolutely no space for being charismatic with a blood hunter. Even with a mutagen like alluring, which enhances your face skills, I still don’t think there’s space for a blood hunter to invest in charisma.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8	10
Dexterity	15	15
Constitution	15	14
Intelligence	10	12
Wisdom	14	13
Charisma	8	8

Skills

Recommended options

• Acrobatics: Most mutants should focus on dexterity over strength. If you are a strength build though, swap this out for athletics.
• Arcana: Good knowledge skill. If you have opted for an intelligence hematurgy ability, then this could be valuable as there aren’t many intelligence-based classes.
• History: Another good option for an intelligence-focused mutant.
• Investigation: An often used skill that’s particularly good for an intelligence-based mutant.
• Religion: Similarly good option for an intelligence-focused mutant.

Options to avoid

• Athletics: Take acrobatics for a dexterity build, but swap this in if you’re a strength build.
• Insight: This is more of a face skill and as you’re definitely not a good party face, I wouldn’t bother with this.
• Survival: Not a hugely used skill and you already get advantage on this sometimes.

Race

I’d consider the following when picking a race for a mutant:

• Toughen up: You’re going to be hurting yourself and probably throwing yourself into harm’s way too. The more hit points, resistances and other protective traits you can grab, the better. You may also find you need to compensate for the negative effects of some mutagens. For example, if you plan on using celerity or cruelty a lot (both are great for increased damage output), you’ll have issues with wisdom (and potentially intelligence and charisma) saving throws. Something like a Gnome could really help balance the scales here with advantage on these saving throws against magic.
• Damage dealing: You’re also there to deal damage. Any race that can enhance this will be useful.
• Innate spellcasting: Most mutants will have a decent wisdom or intelligence score making them a solid option for innate spellcasting.
• Stealthiness: Most blood hunters should have a good dexterity but lack the skills for things like stealth, perception and sleight of hand that go hand in hand with stealthiness. And yet blood hunters make a good fit for a potential scout or stealth role. If you lack a party rogue, you could use your race (and your background or feats) to have a blood hunter compensate in this area.

Recommended options

• Bugbear: Great option for dexterity builds, and with mutagens, you can achieve up to 25 dexterity! It makes the most of your high dexterity with stealth proficiency and bonus damage when you attack before an opponent. Long limbs are great for better reach too.
• Forest Gnome: Magic resilience can be great for offsetting disadvantages on certain saving throws. Minor illusion and speak with animals are both decent spells. You’ll probably want to go with an intelligence hemocraft ability here because of the intelligence increase so works well if you want to lean into knowledge skills. +1 dexterity is good too.
• Hill Dwarf: Wisdom and constitution ability score increases suit a blood hunter well and you get extra HP to aid your durability.
• Hobgoblin: Blood hunters benefit from the support of allies as well as being close to others to dole out damage on those that attack allies. The hospitality fey gift is especially useful as hematurgy can just drain your temporary hit points which can easily be replenished. You’ll make plenty of attacks rolls and saving throws so chances to turn failures into successes is very useful too. Especially as mutagens will likely cause disadvantage on a lot of saving throws.
• Human (variant): A skill of your choice can give you some scout skills and a feat is very useful and will sometimes compensate for the slightly lower ability score with an increase from the feat.
• Ghostwise Halfling: A dexterity and wisdom increase works nicely for a wisdom-based blood hunter. The really handy aspect though is lucky and brave. Your saving throws will often be made at disadvantage, but rolling 1s will be less problematic here. And because frightened is quite a common condition for wisdom saving throws, having brave alongside a mutagen like celerity (which is great on a dexterity build) can offset this quite nicely.
• Goblin: Extra damage on creatures larger than you is useful and a bonus action to disengage can be good for hit and run tactics which can be useful for your durability.
• Goliath: You’re mainly here for the damage reduction which will help you last longer in combat. Cold resistance is useful here too.
• Orc: Survive a bit longer when knocked to 0HP. This does combine with rite revival too so you can use this initially to keep your crimson rites working a little bit longer. You also get dash as a bonus action to get to your enemies sooner and temporary hit points suit a blood hunter nicely for more durability.
• Shifter: Regular temporary hit points and you can take beasthide for higher AC and even more temporary hit points. Wildhunt also makes you more durable by preventing advantage on attacks rolls.
• Simic Hybrid: Constitution increase plus another ability score increase of your choice will suit you well. I’d go for the carapace enhancement for extra AC.
• Warforged: +2 constitution and another ability score increase are great for a blood hunter. You also get +1 AC, some resistances and a skill and tool proficiency (allowing you to partially fill the role of a rogue).
• Yuan-ti Pureblood: Advantage against spells saving throws makes you very resilient to any kind of saving throw. Especially useful if your mutagens are giving you disadvantage on certain saving throws. Poison resilience is useless from level 7 though. The innate spellcasting isn’t much help either, but you’re not really here for that.

Backgrounds

You’ll mainly want your background for some extra skills. I’d recommend trying to grab things like stealth, sleight of hand and perception to make you into something of a scout, especially if you’re going for a dexterity build.

Below I’ve included the backgrounds that work well for a mutant.

Name	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency	Languages	Equipment
Imvestigator	2 of insight, investigation or perception	Disguise kit, thieves’ tools	None	Magnifying glass, evidence from a past case, common clothes, 10gp
Sailor	Athletics, perception	Navigator’s tools, vehicles (water)	None	A belaying pin, 50ft of silk rope, lucky charm, common clothes, belt pouch containing 10gp
Urchin	Sleight of hand, stealth	Disguise kit, thieves’ tools	None	Small knife, city map, pet mouse, token to remember your parents by, common clothes, pouch containing 10gp

If you do really want to go down the route of a scout, the urchin background gets you the closest to fulfilling that ambition.

Feats

Instead of taking an ability score improvement, you can opt to take a feat (if your DM allows it). A variant Human can also take a feat at first level and some DMs will grant these to characters at level 1.

I’d suggest the following feats for a mutant:

• Defensive duelist – Grab a rapier and shield, invest in dexterity and this will give you reactionary protection to turn hits into a miss.
• Fey-touched – Misty step works well for moving where you need to be. I quite like the idea of grabbing hex or hunter’s mark for a blood hunter for greater damage. For more ways to optimise for this feat, check out my fey-touched guide.
• Gunner – Allows you to use firearms alongside your extra attack. A pistol and a shield could work nicely and you can use it capably in close combat.
• Heavily armored – Proficiency with heavy armor will let you completely ignore dexterity if you want to go with a strength build.
• Lucky – Turn potential successes or failures in your favour with an extra d20 roll. This is particularly useful for a mutant that might have disadvantage on a lot of saving throws. It says that you get to pick which d20 roll is used for the check which feels like it overrides disadvantage. A generous DM might allow that. I think it’s intended to mean which of the rolls the lucky roll replaced which is still beneficial, but less so.
• Mage slayer – Get better at dealing with spellcasters.
• Mobile – Great for hit and run tactics if you don’t want to be left too vulnerable.
• Sentinel – Great if you’re going to be working with allies to get some extra opportunity attacks.
• Shadow-touched – 2 free castings of spells expands your spell uses nicely and invisible is a great option for a possible scout.
• Sharpshooter – Good option for ranged blood hunters that want to attack from a greater distance.
• Shield master – Great for shield wielding blood hunters to increase your durability.
• Skilled – Decent way to help you fulfill your potential as a scout class.
• Tough – More hit points is a great option for the often damaged blood hunter.

Weapons

Technically, mutants are proficient in whatever weapons they choose. Part of your decision here will come down to whether you’re focused on strength or dexterity. I’d generally suggest a dexterity build which means wielding ranged or finesse weapons.

I’d suggest opting for the following approaches:

• Sword and shield: Generally, playing it safer is best as you’ll often be hurting yourself. A shield will help here. Grab a rapier as the highest damage finesse weapon for a dexterity build or a longsword for a strength build.
• Ranged: Grab a longbow for your highest damage projectile that can take advantage of your extra attack. Things like crossbows, pistols and muskets can do more damage, but rely on reloading. There are feats for this if you want to go this route and a pistol can be wielded with a shield if you have the gunner feat.
• Two handed weapons: Your highest damage option. Go for a great sword but just be aware, you’ll sacrifice defence for damage output with this build. Especially as you’ll have to lean more into strength and being shield-less.

Two weapon fighting is usually poor on a mutant. You’ll often have your bonus action occupied with other features like blood curses and possibly mutagens. Also, things like your crimson rite will only work on one of your weapons (unless you want to use it twice which means double the damage you take).

Armor

I’d generally opt for medium armor until your dexterity hits about 18-20, at which point, you can switch to light armor and potentially outperform medium armor.

Grab a breastplate if stealth is important for you or halfplate if it isn’t. Once your dexterity is high enough, you can take studded leather instead.

I’d usually opt for a shield for a mutant too for the extra durability.

Other class guides

Not sure a mutant is for you. Not to worry. Why not check out one of our other class and subclass guides.