Blood Magic

[Illsbane]

This is a new feat I've been thinking of - I'm going to type up some spells to go with it later.
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Blood Magic
Metamagic

Prerequisites: Spellcaster level 1st.

Benefit: If you select this feat, you may cast spells from the Blood Magic school (as opposed to the known schools, ranging from Abjuration to Transmutation, to be typed up later), which are added to your class list.
Additionally, you may use your own blood to replace a vocal, somatic or non-expensive material component of a spell you wish to cast. Even spellcasters who must prepare their spells ahead of time may choose on the moment of casting to replace one spell component with their own blood. The blood, however, must be shed. It can't be magicked out of your veins ...

Special: Anytime you wish to replace a spell component with blood, you must take 1 damage. If you are struck with a weapon with the Wounding quality, you may consider the secondary damage to be the required shedding of blood. Usually, you have to cut yourself.

[MrNexx]

It looks interesting, dependant upon the spells. However, you might consider this akin to the FR "Spell Traditions" feats... you get a bunch of spells added to your list, and a +1 CL with them.

[Splendor]

Ahhh I'd just look at the Blood Magus prestige class from the Complete arcane. It sounds already like you want this feat to be more powerful then a prestige class.

[Illsbane]

I'm unfamiliar with that spellcasting traditions feat and that prestige class ... Screw it. You don't just get a wad of spells, just a wider selection -- from a school of magic that is sure to be widely misunderstood. Can you just picture trying to explain to a bunch of clerics that you cut your hand during battle in order to cast the spell that killed all the goblins? (Because your fingers were cramped or something) Let alone how they'll look at you if they hear the term 'blood magic'.

[tgva8889]

Well...truthfully, I'd say:

Requirements: caster level #th (more than 1), 1st-level Blood Magus

Since it makes much more sense. The Blood Magus gains an ability similar to this feat early on, don't they? I was sure of it.

[Illsbane]

Like I said, I don't have access to that prestige class, I'm working this out myself.

Anyway, what level spellcaster would be good? 5th? 6th? Maybe a prerequisite feat ... Silent, Still spell or Eschew materials, one of the three.

[Ugly_Panda]

I think the blood required to use this feat should either scale or be more than 1. Also, that should be "inexpensive spell component", otherwise you're letting people cast resurrection without having to cough up the diamonds.

[The_Logic_Ninja]

That's pretty ridiculous. Where to start?

Oh, right. You get all the spells of a school of magic added to your class list. Arcane, divine, whichever. What Warmage WOULDN'T take this feat? Or cleric?

1 damage is next to nothing, even for wizards, at moderate levels. Also, keep in mind that XP is a component. I cast Wish! 5000 XP? Nah, I'll take 1 damage instead.

I wouldn't let a feat give access to an entire school of magic. I'd also determine whether "blood magic" should be primarily arcane or divine, or work out different spell lists.
Finally, I'd make damage be related to spell cost. Take 1/10th damage of the value of the material or XP component of a spell, whichever one is bigger. 500 damage to cast Wish is more sensible... except, of course, that it *is* eventually possible for an HP-focused spellcaster with this feat to have over 500 HP, at which point: Wish! Cleric Heals. Wish! Cleric Heals. And so on.

There's already a Blood Magus prestige class; check the Complete Arcane. It's not bad.

[Illsbane]

I think the blood required to use this feat should either scale or be more than 1. Also, that should be "inexpensive spell component", otherwise you're letting people cast resurrection without having to cough up the diamonds.

Drat, I forgot to put that in ... Maybe they could actually substitute diamonds with blood, but then it'd cost them mucho hit points and Charisma drain. I'd just need a good conversion formula, but I suck at math. Can anyone make one?

[tgva8889]

Treat it like the Blood Magus ability. They can substitute blood for material components, but they take 1 damage to increase the caster level by 1 for the said spell. If it takes a costly component, they still need that component, and they can use the ability on spells without said components.

I'd say, level 6th.

[Illsbane]

That's pretty ridiculous. Where to start?

Oh, right. You get all the spells of a school of magic added to your class list. Arcane, divine, whichever. What Warmage WOULDN'T take this feat? Or cleric?

1 damage is next to nothing, even for wizards, at moderate levels. Also, keep in mind that XP is a component. I cast Wish! 5000 XP? Nah, I'll take 1 damage instead.

I wouldn't let a feat give access to an entire school of magic. I'd also determine whether "blood magic" should be primarily arcane or divine, or work out different spell lists.
Finally, I'd make damage be related to spell cost. Take 1/10th damage of the value of the material or XP component of a spell, whichever one is bigger. 500 damage to cast Wish is more sensible... except, of course, that it *is* eventually possible for an HP-focused spellcaster with this feat to have over 500 HP, at which point: Wish! Cleric Heals. Wish! Cleric Heals. And so on.

There's already a Blood Magus prestige class; check the Complete Arcane. It's not bad.




I am planning to make a separate spell list for Blood Magic. A few I have planned are 'Ancestral Rage', 'Assume Ancestral Aspect', 'Celestial Rage' and 'Fiend fury'.
The first two spells could be cast by anyone, but the latter two require specific blood as a component. To wit, respectively, blood of a Celestial in your ancestry and blood of a fiendish creature in your ancestry.

[starwoof]

If my wizard didnt feel like cutting himself could I use someone elses blood? Like a train of villagers that I tie to my horse.

And what exactly is this blood magic school and why would I trade evocation for it?

[tgva8889]

Now, where does it say that XP is a MATERIAL COMPONENT??????? Thank you.

[Illsbane]

If my wizard didnt feel like cutting himself could I use someone elses blood? Like a train of villagers that I tie to my horse.

And what exactly is this blood magic school and why would I trade evocation for it?

No, you could only use your own blood. Blood magic is a new school that would open up in addition to the traditional ones. These are spells that center around your own blood, your bloodline, the mystical properties of blood, et cetera, as opposed to channeling pure energy.

Heh ... new idea ... Vampiric Pact; by casting this Blood spell, you draw one vampire to you in an agreement. The un-dead serves you for an agreed-upon amount of time ... in exchange for you allowing it to drain your blood in recompensation. Not all your blood, but enough to make it worth the thing's time.

[Illsbane]

Now, where does it say that XP is a MATERIAL COMPONENT??????? Thank you.

And I just now saw again that I did write 'inexpensive material component'. Thanks, tgva.

[flamestrike]

Actually, I think it's a neat idea. I'd agree, though, that just taking a point of damage or two is not really much of a penalty.

A penalty of some sort is necessary because Blood Magic itself suggests sacrifice (whether it be from oneself or others). I think the best realization of this concept I've ever seen comes from the dark fantasy RPG Earthdawn (Second Edition (http://earthdawn.lrgames.com) or Classic (http://www.earthdawn-classic.com/cms/whatisearthdawn.html)).

I'm going to try to give you a flavor of the blood magic concept in Earthdawn while adapting it to a D&D/d20 system and without stepping all over any copyrights. Anyways, the gist of blood magic in Earthdawn is that it's sacrifice magic. Some lifeforce of the user is always given up in order to power its magics. As such, it's viewed as tainted, but it's powerful enough that many use it. When used on the self (i.e. you're using your own lifeforce to power it) it's generally accepted, but when powered through the exploitation of others (i.e., sacrificial magic), it's considered abhorrently evil.

The price of blood magic is indeed hit points, but these damage points are points that you can't heal until the effect is over. Just taking damage is no big deal, but when you start taking permanent damage left and right, it adds up quickly. In the D&D/d20 context, you could generalise the concept to 'life force' and include hit point damage, stat damage, or XP loss.

As for what it does, it has tons of different applications. For mages, they can use it like a sort of catch-all permanency effect, making any spell they cast last for as long as they wish (this is really nasty when combined with a curse!) For non-mages, many minor magic-item charms which help the user operate on the prinicple of blood magic. For example, a "death cheat" magic charm contains a minor healing spell that activates when the character is hit by a blow that would otherwise kill. If the healing is enough, the character is still alive. If not, oh well...

Another example of a blood magic charm is a sort of spectacle that's implanted on top of an eye (I've forgotten what it's called). Actually, there are a couple of versions of this: one helps scouts and archers see farther, and another allows the user to physically see the eddies and flow of magic around them (very useful in Earthdawn... too much to explain here, though).

Anyways, what I'm getting at is that in this model, Blood Magic is a sort of metamagic effect: it uses life force (from permanent damage of one type or another) to empower pre-existing spells or magical charms that enhance the abilities of its user. This model has the added benefit that you don't have to make up a whole new list of spells, which, believe me, is harder than you think... especially if you're a stickler for trying to maintain game balance.

Well, I think I've babbled enough about that. Good concept. Let us know what you come up with!

*edit* fixed url tags

[The_Logic_Ninja]

Now, where does it say that XP is a MATERIAL COMPONENT??????? Thank you.
Not a *material* component, but a component. I'm pretty sure he didn't specify material component, at first.

[Ing]

possibly make the blood loss in the form of Con damage (which is a result of lossing blood in some cases right?) possibly replace the XP cost with a Con damage cost (big incentive to use stand in sacrifices such as cattle, goats, and ....people)




see any goats around no! that's because i sacrificed them all!

[Orion-the-G]

Working over exactly what components may be substituted is important (XP, focus?) however so long as you limit it to the non-costly and non-xp components that's fine but it's got some other problems.

here's the sort of formula you've got:

Blood magic provides all the benefits of eschew components, silent spell, and still spell in exchange for 1 point of damage. (I'm assuming you mean one per component not just one)

so compare it to each feat:

Eschew components requires no caster level increase. Blood Magic requires 1 hp of damage.
Eschew wins

Silent spell boosts a spell by 1 level. blood magic requires one hp of damage.
Blood magic Wins.

Still Spell boosts a spell level by one level. Blood magic requries one hit point of damage.
blood magic wins.



Basically you've got a feat which is better than either feat it substitutes for (therefore no reason to take still or silent spell rather than blood magic) and in fact substitutes for THREE feats all at once.

This is ignoring the fact that you don't have to memorize it ahead of time and presumably it doesn't take longer to cast. Which makes it several times more potent and flexible.

you've got a feat here which no spellcaster would ever choose not to take. it's really broken.

This on top of the fact that it grants a whole school of new spells.

Verdict: this shouldn't be a feat it should be a prestige class. maybe it gets the ability to replace material components first, then somatic, then vocal, etc along with acess to the new magical spells and some other abilities.

At the very least it needs to scale a lot more (1 hp is fine for substituting for material components but for something like still or silent you need a lot more, maybe something like 1d6 per level of the spell modified or even more.

[MrNexx]

First of all, I think calling it blood magic a "school" is a bit broad. Is it going to have 5 or 6 spells at every level up to six, with effects that can't really be duplicated by one of the exsisting schools? Then it's not a school by 3.5 standards... it's a magical tradition, which has some neat spells to it.

Now, however, let's take a look at the contenious point: Blood Magic and Metamagic.

So, let's see how to balance this, since it makes metamagic very powerful.

1) We bar it from Warmages. Sorry, this stuff isn't taught at Warmage college (the same should go for all the spellcasting tradition feats).

2) We fiddle with the cost. As the OP has said, the initial cost of 1 HP is too small. I like the suggestion of Constitution damage, though. It will sap the person of HP, and while it's still worth it to use, you have to think very carefully about doing so. I would make the Constitution damage 1 point per level of metamagic saved, or 1 HP per spell level, if the metamagic feat doesn't have a level adjustment (or is Eschew Materials, which isn't metamagic anymore). Want to cast a Stilled Burning Hands? Sure, it will cost you 1 Constitution point. Want it to be a Stilled Burning Hands with the Electricity type? Then it will cost you 1 Constitution and 1 HP. Worth it? Sometimes.

3) However, that's going to show us a few other things. First of all, this becomes way too much in the hands of anyone with access to the Restoration spell. Rather than making it completely ineffective, though, I'm going to say it's only half as effective... 1d2 per Lesser, and half per normal or Greater Restoration. Furhermore, this style of magic is only available to wizards and sorcerers... it's a style of magic that's unique to those spellcasters (and maybe spellcasters from certain areas).

Is this going to a useful feat to have? Yeah, the ability to burn Constitution to do metamagic is going to be useful, from time to time. But it's not going to be a must-have for every wizard in the world.