Barbarian: Path of the Trophy Hunter

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<div class='cover-header' style="top:50px;font-size:350%;">Path of the Trophy Hunter</div>

<div class='cover-footer' style="font-size:250% ">5e Barbarian Subclass</div>

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# Barbarian: Path of the Trophy Hunter
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The Path of the Trophy Hunter is regarded with a mix of awe and fear. Its practitioners slay great monsters in feats of skill and daring, but then craft living weapons from their foes’ claws, teeth, tentacles, skulls, pincers, antennae and stingers. They keep these dissected parts alive by feeding them the blood and vitality of their enemies.
 
To many, the Path of the Trophy Hunter is a dark craft of necromancy and wicked artifice. Others see it as a perversion of nature or disrespectful to the dead. But to those who walk this path, crafting living weapons is a sacred rite by which the living turn evil against itself.

In some realms it is believed that the original path descends from the craft of the lizardfolk.
 
#### Finding the Path
Consider how you have come to this path. You may have studied under a master of the Path of the Trophy Hunter or discovered a forbidden manuscript detailing the curious art from among the remains of your foes. Was it time in prison with a half-mad genius or working as a slave in a tannery? Did you apprentice as a mortician or learn your art as a grave robber? Did the ghost of an expert on the path latch onto your soul and whisper secrets in your mind? Did you learn it by living with the lizardfolk?
 
Consider what motivated you to take this path? Were you haunted by a dread foe? Were you saved by a follower of the path of the Trophy Hunter? Were you abused or tormented and sought any means possible to defend yourself? Were you always attracted to the macabre and morbid? Does the process simply seem reasonable? Or were you too poor to afford expensive weapons and arms, and had to find your own path to protect those you love?

### Taxidermist
*3rd Level Path of the Trophy Hunter feature*

When you choose this path at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in Leatherworker's Tools, which you can use for dissection and preservation of carcasses. Your methods are secret and arcane, known only to those sworn to your path and handed down from master to student. You can make Leatherworker's Tools from the bones, teeth, skin, guts, and skull of a medium size or larger carcass in 8 hours of labor.

### Trophy Weapon
*3rd Level Path of the Trophy Hunter feature*

When you choose this path at 3rd level, you gain the ability to craft a living weapon from the remains of your foes. This weapon draws vitality from the blood of those it strikes. When you hold this weapon, its behavior reflects your desires. But above all the weapon craves blood, for it needs this to survive. A trophy weapon long neglected or unused for battle will eventually die and lose its potency. For this reason, you can maintain a maximum number of trophy weapons equal to your proficiency bonus. The process of crafting a trophy weapon requires 8 hours of labor with your Leatherworker’s Tools.
 
You must obtain the parts for your weapon from a recently slain creature.
 
In addition to the normal damage from the weapon’s type, on your trophy weapons’ first hit on each of your turns the weapon deals **additional magical damage of 1d6 + half of your Barbarian level**. The additional damage is of the type associated with the creature. Choose the damage type from the options in the trophy creature table when you craft your weapon.

At 6th level your weapon gains +1 to hit and damage and all of the damage is magical.

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When you hit with your weapon, you can force the target to make a saving throw. The saving throw DC is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Con modifier. On a failed saving throw, the target suffers a condition or effect based on what type of dissected part is used in your weapon (see Creature Part table). The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the condition on a success. You can use this special attack a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain one spent use when you roll initiative and all uses when you finish a long rest.
 
If for one of your trophy weapons you craft a thrown or ranged weapon ammunition such as a dagger, arrow, spear, dart, or crossbow bolt, you may make a number equal to your proficiency bonus. Each thrown weapon or ammunition has a single use of the special ability.
 
If the condition is grappled or restrained, on your turn as an attack you can deliver the additional magical 1d6 + half your barbarian level damage without an attack roll. Or, you can end the grapple or restraint to make a normal attack with the living weapon. Or, you can attack with another weapon.

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When others use your weapon, it deals only the normal weapon damage.
 
Additionally, when you craft hide armor or a shield from suitable remains of creature with a resistance to a type of elemental damage (acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder), the hide armor or shield grants that same resistance to the bearer. A shield is 2d4 days of work and the armor is 2d8 days of work.

### Mortician

*6th Level Path of the Trophy Hunter feature*

Starting at 6th level your skills of arcane taxidermy allow you to extract from dead creatures lingering vitality, and even memories. By spending 10 minutes to dissect a corpse or carcass you can gain a potentially useful insight into the dead creature such as its primary motivation in life, greatest fear, a strong belief, clues to its most recent place of residence, clues to the identity of a close associate such as a boss, family member or clan associate, clues to the location of items it may have stashed, a crime it may have committed, some habits, mannerisms, or its homeland. State what you wish to learn from the creature in your autopsy. The DM should set the DC based on the obscurity of the information and the state of the corpse and, if necessary, ask you to make a skill check using an appropriate ability. Add your leatherworking tools proficiency bonus, per the tools rules in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. For example, you could make a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check to finely section parts of the corpse, or an Intelligence (Investigation) or (Nature) check to check for clues or unique physiology, or a Wisdom (Survival) or Wisdom (Medicine) check to examine for bits of plant matter, soil, or scars. Add first your ability score modifier and proficiency bonus (if you are proficient in the skill), and then additionally add your proficiency bonus for Leatherworker’s Tools (similar to expertise).

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###  Talented Taxidermist

*10th Level Barbarian Path of the Trophy Hunter feature*

Starting at 10th level, your mastery of living taxidermy and warfare reveals insidious and effective ways to adapt your attacks to your target. Each time you use your weapon’s special ability, if a creature succeeds on a save against your special attack condition, you can choose a different condition from the list of grapples, frightened, poisoned, prone, or pushed 5 ft. The creature must additionally attempt a save against that condition.

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### Stolen Vitality

*14th Level Barbarian Path of the Trophy Hunter feature*

Starting at 14th level, your bond with your trophy weapon allows you to draw out some of its captured vitality. When you hit a creature with your trophy weapon, you can expend a use of your special attack to draw vitality from the target creature into the weapon. The 1d6 + half your barbarian level magical damage dealt from your hit is stored in your weapon as a source of renewed focus and vigor. For the next minute or until this effect ends, you gain advantage on Wisdom saving throws if you are wielding the weapon. As a bonus action on one of your turns within the next minute you can discharge stored vitality into yourself or to another creature within your weapon’s reach, restoring 1d6 + half your barbarian level hit points, and the effect ends. After doing so, you must wait until you roll initiative to again use this feature.

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### Credits

This class was created for the Roll20 Guild Life server's Dunhalen setting. All artwork is original (Midjourney tool v6). Thanks also to DM's Fade and Tyler for helpful suggestions and collaborations.

### Version History
| Date | Version | Change |
|:-|:--:|:-|
| 2024.05.10 | 1.1 | +1 weapon at 6th level |
| 2024.05.07 | 1.0 | Initial release. In play testing. |

<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:55px;font-size:150%;">Look at me. I am the captain now! <br>No, stop looking at the staff. Why are you all looking at the staff? Wrong eyeball. </div>

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<div class='cover-header' style="top:50px;font-size:350%;">Trophy Hunter Gallery</div>

<div class='cover-footer' style="font-size:150%;">A dagger from a skeleton's hand has a fearsome grip.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:100px;font-size:150%;">Gayena weilds a deadly stinger from a desert scorpion.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:60px;font-size:150%;">The limb of a treant makes a fearesome club for the son of an orc chieftain.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:80px;font-size:150%;">Well, that got him angry. Now what?</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:80px;font-size:150%;">Lizardfolk, the original trophy hunters, apparently have no qualms about using the head of someone who cheated on them for a living weapon.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:80px;font-size:150%;">Yes, I'm going to the reunion like this. What's wrong with my outfit? Of course, I feel fine. What makes you say this eyestalk staff is affecting me?</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:60px;font-size:150%;">Maybe you want to stand back. It's about to start moving again. Until its guts melt. <br>Then it explodes. After that we have a few minutes to repurpose the pincers.<br>*sigh* I love my job.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:60px;font-size:150%;">It's, um, a...maybe a flail? Do you like it? No, it doesn't like other people picking it up. <br>I'm dead serious.<br>Do you not like your face the way it is? Don't touch my thing.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:90px;font-size:150%;">I love the look on their faces when they realize it's a dragon's tooth.<br> Their eyes kind of bug out and they gulp and tug at their collar, then step back a few feet. <br>They haven't even seen it drip acid yet, or drool when it senses meat, or the way the tendons on the handle flex when I'm angry. It's pretty much a conversation killer. But I get the job.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:50px;font-size:150%;">Gilroy is such a sweet little boy. Aren't you, Gilroy?.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:50px;font-size:150%;">They always ask, "What kind of creature does that claw come from?" (A kruthik, of course.) <br>They can't ask my name? Or what I like to drink? Or talk about the weather? <br>...Which is probably fine because I'm usually there to kill them.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:55px;font-size:150%;">So there I was dissecting a kill, when this giant monstrosity comes charging at me out of the cave. It's like it knew I made my glaive from another hook horror. <br>How did I kill it? Well, um, actually the wizard did—but I distracted it.</div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:70px;font-size:150%;">They say gore never bothers a trophy hunter. <br>But when it's your friend's blood on the ground, it's different. </div>

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<div class='cover-footer' style="bottom:70px;font-size:150%;">That moment when the blood stops leaking out and starts going back in—that's what it's all about. That's when you know you've made something truly beautiful. Dangerous, but beautiful. </div>