Hey guys, I've been playing Blade a bunch more lately. I watch top Blade players and have been lurking around this subreddit for quite some time. I've seen so many tier lists put him around C-tier (sometimes B, sometimes D). And it got me thinking, how do we get Blade into the ideal range (high B to A tier, not broken) while also addressing some of his biggest issues?

Just some issues I have noticed myself:

• Despite being the anti-heal merchant, the "answer" to triple support, he still struggles against high burst healing comps.
• Why would Blade players ever use Ancestral Sword WITHOUT Bloodline Awakening active? (aside from the reduced self-healing, which is minimal)

I was thinking about it a lot, also looking up other proposed solutions (especially this post), and these are some changes that I came up with.

My Personal Ideas

Ability Change: Ancestral Sword (Primary - Sword)

• Reduce single slash damage to 24 (was 26).
• Reduce single slash damage to 12 (was 13).
• New Effect: While not in Bloodline Awakening form, Blade now deals additional damage equal to 0.85% of the target’s Maximum Health.

^(^)NOTE: 26.125 dmg against 250 HP targets and 29 dmg against 600 HP targets. This is probably too strong, but I wanted to make Ancestral Sword useful outside of Bloodline Awakening.

Ability Change: Hunter’s Shotgun (Primary - Shotgun)

• Increase initial projectile damage to 55 (was 45).
• Reduce shrapnel amount to 10 (was 11).
• Increase damage per shrapnel hit to 9 (was 8).

Ability Change: Scarlet Shroud (Secondary - Block)

• New Effect: For every 25 damage blocked, gain 1 stack of Bloodline Awakening.
• New Effect: If Blade takes more than 150 damage within a 0.4s window after activating Scarlet Shroud, gain Invincibility for 0.35s.

^(^)NOTE: I fully stole this idea from u/blade_main6969 you can read his post above for more details. The Invincibility frames would be instead of the Unstoppable effect Blade currently has is you hit a perfect parry.

Ability Change: Bloodline Awakening (E)

• Reduce self-healing reduction to 20% (was 25%).
• New Effect: Blade gains a 10% Damage boost.

^(^)NOTE: The damage boost is so that the sword attacks do roughly the same amount of damage as it does now, since you don't get the percentage-based damage while BA is active.

Ability Change: Thousand-Fold Slash (Q - Ultimate)

• Increase Healing Reduction to 50% (was 40%).

But these are just thoughts from a relatively beginner Blade player. Disregarding my opinions, what do YOU all think Blade needs to be better?

Hey again everybody! Just wanted your thoughts on an idea I had.

I'm running Curse of Strahd currently and I'm using a lot from Dragnacarta's Reloaded. In that, its Van Richten who has Arabelle inside his carnival cart in Vallaki instead of his saber-tooth tiger. In Reloaded, Arabelle has a plush tiger that she holds as a sort of nod. Overall, I like this change, except for one thing...

I like the tiger!

However, I understand that the tiger, as written, wouldn't be a nice roommate with Arabelle. Even if Van Richten didn't train it to eat Vistani, being in a small enclosed space with even the best-behaved tiger would be a hazard. Also, wouldn't Van Richten give Arabelle a way to defend herself if he weren't there?

So here's my idea: turn the plush saber-tooth tiger that Arabelle has into a Figuring of Wondrous Power. Mechanically, I would have it be the same as the Bronze Griffon (rare, 6 hour duration, 5 days until you can use it again). Depending on player choices, this could come into the players' possessions, giving them a magic item that's not RAW.

My question: Does this make sense? Is it reasonable to potentially give this to players in the future? Idk, what are your general thoughts?

Basically, the title. If someone were to steal a single bone, would the entire consecration of the church no longer work until the bones are reunited? Or does the consecration work with only the majority?

I'm aware there is no official answer for this, just wondering how other DMs would rule this