What levels of spells can a Profane Soul Blood Hunter have at 11th level?

Question

The Spells Known column of the Profane Soul table shows when you learn more warlock spells of your choice of 1st level and higher. A spell you choose must be of a level no higher than what’s shown in the table’s Slot Level column for your level. When you reach 11th level, for example, you learn a new warlock spell, which can be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level.

Referencing the Profane Soul table, the information does not match with the example given. The example states that an 11th character can learn spells of the 3rd level. Checking the Slot Levels at Blood Hunter Level 11, we see a Slot Level of 2nd. Is the example mistaken, or am I misreading the rules in some way?

Answer 1

The spell slot progression was rebalanced without updating the example text.

The Blood Hunter 1.3 (.pdf) published at Geek & Sundry has a table for the Profane Soul Blood Hunter that matches the quoted example text:

Blood hunter level	Cantrips Known	Spells known	Spell Slots	Slot Level
3rd	2	2	1	1st
4th	2	2	1	1st
5th	2	3	2	1st
6th	2	3	2	1st
7th	2	4	2	2nd
8th	2	4	2	2nd
9th	2	5	2	2nd
10th	3	5	2	2nd
11th	3	6	2	3rd
12th	3	6	2	3rd
13th	3	7	2	3rd
14th	3	7	3	3rd
15th	3	8	3	3rd
16th	3	8	3	3rd
17th	3	9	3	4th
18th	3	9	3	4th
19th	3	10	3	4th
20th	3	11	3	4th

Profane Soul Spellcasting table from version 1.3

As you can see, at 11th level the spell slots upgrade to be 3rd level slots. The more recent version 2.1¹ rebalances the spell slot progression. Matthew Mercer writes in the update notes:

The Profane Soul spell slot and spell level progression has been altered to further balance the class in line with other Hybrid caster classes, and to fix a serious issue with Warlock multiclassing.

The spellcasting table was updated to:

Blood hunter level	Cantrips Known	Spells known	Spell Slots	Slot Level
3rd	2	2	1	1st
4th	2	2	1	1st
5th	2	3	2	1st
6th	2	3	2	1st
7th	2	4	2	2nd
8th	2	4	2	2nd
9th	2	5	2	2nd
10th	3	5	2	2nd
11th	3	6	2	2nd
12th	3	6	2	2nd
13th	3	7	2	3rd
14th	3	7	2	3rd
15th	3	8	2	3rd
16th	3	8	2	3rd
17th	3	9	2	3rd
18th	3	9	2	3rd
19th	3	10	2	4th
20th	3	11	2	4th

Profane Soul Spellcasting table from the version released in 2020

This table matches the table on DND Beyond. Unfortunately, Matthew Mercer did not update the "for example" text in the "Spell Known of 1st Level and Higher" section, which still reads:

When you reach 11th level, for example, you learn a new warlock spell, which can be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level.

Based on Mercer's notes, the table in version 2.1 and on DND Beyond is the most up-to-date spell slot progression for the Blood Hunter with the mistaken "for example" being an artifact of a previous iteration.

---

^{1 The most recent version can be found here. It does not have a version number, but was published in 2020 (2.1 was published in Spring of 2019). It does not fix the discrepancy between the example text and the spell slot progression table.}