The Blood Mage [3.5 Base Class] PEACH

[TechnOkami]

The Blood Mage


http://www.fantasydimensions.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Blood-Lord-Vladimir-Skin.jpg

Prerequisites
To become a Blood Mage, the race of the player character must have blood of some form (for instance, most living things can become a Blood Mage, elementals could not, skeletons cannot, but vampires could).

Alignment
Any non-good.

Hit Die
d12.

Class Skills
The Blood Mage’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (con), Craft (int), Decipher Script (int), Diplomacy (cha), Gather Information (cha), Heal (wis), Intimidate (cha), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (int), and Profession (wis).

Skill Points at 1st Level
(2 + Int modifier) ×4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level
2 + Int modifier.

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Spells Known
1|+0|+2|+0|+2|Sanguine Pact, Vitality Boon |0 and 1st Level Spells
2|+1|+3|+0|+3||
3|+1|+3|+1|+3||2nd Level Spells
4|+2|+4|+1|+4||
5|+2|+4|+1|+4|Hemoretention|3rd Level Spells
6|+3|+5|+2|+5||
7|+3|+5|+2|+5||4th Level Spells
8|+4|+6|+2|+6||
9|+4|+6|+3|+6||5th Level Spells
10|+5|+7|+3|+7|Sanguine Sacrifice|
11|+5|+7|+3|+7||6th Level Spells
12|+6/+1|+8|+4|+8||
13|+6/+1|+8|+4|+8||7th Level Spells
14|+7/+2|+9|+4|+9||
15|+7/+2|+9|+5|+9||8th Level Spells
16|+8/+3|+10|+5|+10||
17|+8/+3|+10|+5|+10||9th Level Spells
18|+9/+4|+11|+6|+11||
19|+9/+4|+11|+6|+11||
20|+10/+5|+12|+6|+12|Blood Lord|[/table]

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Blood Mage.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
The Blood Mage is proficient with all simple weapons and any one slashing or piercing weapon. They are not proficient with any type of armor or shield.

Spells
A Blood Mage casts arcane spells, which are drawn from the Blood Mage spell list. A Blood Mage can cast any spell he knows without preparing for it. To prepare or cast a spell, a Blood Mage must have an Intelligence score of at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a Blood Mage's spell is 10 + the spell level + the Blood Mage's Intelligence Modifier.

Unlike other spellcasters, a Blood Mage can cast, effectively, an unlimited amount of spells, as long as he has the hit points to cast them with. He sacrifices a certain amount of hit points per the spell's level. A Blood Mage can also utilize a foreign source of blood to their disposal for casting spells, though it costs twice as much normally to cast spells in this manner. The person from whom this source of blood is coming from must either be willing or helpless in order for this to work. All damage dealt this way cannot be healed for a full 24 hours, and all forms of hit point gain are rendered ineffective.

{table=head]Spell to Hit Point Conversion
0 Level Spells: 1 Hit Point
1st Level Spells: 1 Hit Point
2nd Level Spells: 3 Hit Points
3rd Level Spells: 5 Hit Points
4th Level Spells: 7 Hit Points
5th Level Spells: 9 Hit Points
6th Level Spells: 11 Hit Points
7th Level Spells: 13 Hit Points
8th Level Spells: 15 Hit Points
9th Level Spells: 17 Hit Points [/table]

When a spell is cast by a Blood Mage, the Blood Mage gains back half of the spell's cost in Hit Points, rounded down (one minimum, with the exception of zero and first level spells). For instance, if the Blood Mage were to cast Vampiric Touch, the Blood Mage would sacrifice 5 hit points and gain 2 hit points back.

Sanguine Pact (Ex):
The Blood Mage has undergone a pact with an outsider, granting him magical prowess through the sacrificing and regenerating of his life. However, such power does not come without a price. From now on, effects which would cause the Blood Mage to gain lost hit points, and not caused by the Blood Mage's class abilities, do not cause him to gain them back (with the following exception(s): health gained after a night's rest). Along with a healing inhibition, the Blood Mage will now have drastic consequences for dying. If the Blood Mage dies, his soul will become as property of the Outsider to do with as he wills. The Blood Mage will become an NPC controlled by the Dungeon Master. However, as the Blood Lord gains more power, the Blood Lord will slowly rely less and less on the Outsider's prowess until he reaches the peak of his own power. For every four class levels, if the Blood Mage happens to die, an avatar of the Outsider he serves will come to bring him back. All hit points he lost will be restored, any ailments he might be suffering will be removed, and any ability damage/drain/negative levels gained will be restored. If the Blood Mage dies more times than he can be resurrected in this way, his soul will belong to the outsider. Effects that would bring back the Blood Mage in any way, shape, or form, does not stop the Outsider's Avatar from coming, and thus expends the "free resurrection". If the Blood Mage's soul is taken by the Outsider, no spell can bring him back.

Vitality Boon (Ex):
The use of Blood Magic upon the Blood Mage's body has begun to alter its physiology, making it stronger than before. Starting at first level, the Blood Mage may add her constitution score to her natural healing rate. Also starting at first level, the Blood Mage gains a +1 to his natural healing rate, increasing by one for every class level.

Hemorentention (Ex):
His body is filled with blood, and the arcane powers he wields through its sacrifice now readily works to keep it locked inside him, except when he wills it. The Blood Mage is no longer subject to bleeding effects, and gains the benefits of the Diehard feat, even if he does not fulfill the requirements.

Sanguine Sacrifice (Ex):
The Blood Mage's developed knowledge of the use of blood has enabled him to use the blood of others for his own purpose. The Blood Mage can now utilize the blood of someone other than himself to cast his spells. The source in question must either be willing or helpless to be used in this manner. However, using the blood of someone else is a dangerous and expensive method. Twice the amount of hit points are required to cast spells in this method. Furthermore, if the source of this blood were to be healed in any way after the Blood Mage begins casting from this external source, the Blood Mage can no longer utilize his blood until a full 24 hours has passed.

Blood Lord (Ex):
The Blood Mage has reached the pinnacle of his power. At level 20, the Sanguine Pact is fulfilled, granting the Blood Mage the freedom to do as he wills without fearing his soul being shackled to eternal servitude or torture. He gains the Native Outsider subtype, gaining all the benefits for being one as well as allowing him to create Sanguine Pacts of his own. His power over blood, life itself, has concentrated immense power inside of him, granting him immortality. He also gains the following: Immunity from Death Effects, Ablility Damage, Ability Drain, Disease, and Poison.

Spell List
0 Level Spells:
Daze
Detect Magic
Detect Poison
Disrupt Undead
Read Magic

1st Level Spells:
Cause Fear
Charm Person
Command
Deathwatch
Detect Undead
Doom
Expeditious Retreat
Hide From Undead
Hypnotism
Inflict Light Wounds
Longstrider
Mage Armor
Obscuring Mist
Ray of Enfeeblement
Sleep
Summon Monster I

2nd Level Spells:
Daze Monster
Death Knell
Delay Poison
Desecrate
Enthrall
Gentle Repose
Hold Person
Inflict Moderate Wounds
Status
Summon Monster II
Touch of Idiocy

3rd Level Spells:
Animate Dead
Bestow Curse
Command Undead
Contagion
Dispel Magic
False Life
Remove Disease
Scare
Speak With Dead
Summon Monster III
Vampiric Touch

4th Level Spells:
Black Tentacles
Death Ward
Dimensional Anchor
Fear
Fly
Gaseous Form
Inflict Critical Wounds
Neutralize Poison
Poison
Slow
Solid Fog
Summon Monster IV

5th Level Spells:
Blight
Command (Greater)
Contact Other Plane
Disrupting Weapon
Dismissal
Dominate Person
Fatigue
Hold Monster
Inflict Light Wounds (Mass)
Planar Binding
Plane Shift
Rise Dead
Slay Living
Summon Monster V
Symbol of Pain
Symbol of Sleep
Telepathic Bond
Teleport

6th Level Spells:
Antilife Shell
Banishment
Circle of Death
Create Undead
Dispel Magic (Greater)
Eyebite
Forbiddance
Harm
Inflict Moderate Wounds (Mass)
Planar Ally
Summon Monster VI
Symbol of Fear
Symbol of Persuasion
Undeath to Death
Word of Recall

7th Level Spells:
Control Undead
Destruction
Disintegrate
Finger of Death
Hold Person (Mass)
Power Word Blind
Regenerate
Repulsion
Symbol of Stunning
Symbol of Weakness
Teleport (Greater)
Waves of Exhaustion

8th Level Spells:
Antimagic Field
Antipathy
Binding
Charm Monster (Mass)
Clone
Create Greater Undead
Dimensional Lock
Horrid Wilting
Inflict Critical Wounds (Mass)
Planar Ally (Greater)
Planar Binding (Greater)
Power Word Stun
Prying Eyes (Greater)
Spell Immunity (Greater)
Summon Monster VIII
Symbol of Death

9th Level Spells:
Astral Projection
Dominate Monster
Energy Drain
Gate
Hold Monster (Mass)
Implosion
Mage's Disjunction
Power Word Kill
Soul Bind
Summon Monster IX
Trap the Soul
True Resurrection
Wail of the Banshee

[Lert, A.]

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
Looks fine

Spells
1) Becomes MAD though Con is kind of nice to have anyways so not that bad.

2) Scales oddly because of hp. At 1st level you can be pretty blasty. By 20th you have a base hp average of about 120. The class is essentially working like the spellpoints variant but by that metric a Bard would have a base amount of 144 while the sorcerer has a base of 249. Even if you get the full 1 + 1/2 spellpoint equivalent the blood mage has only a base of 180, quite a bit less than any full caster. If this class is alone in using the SP variant I suppose it's OK, being able to nova, but if you have other SP classes or Psionics in your game you will be soon outclassed.

3) You should figure out what method(s) you will use for metamagic and include it in the text. Casting time should increase as with other spontaneous casters.

Sanguine Pact (Ex):
Kind of harsh not being able heal like everyone else though it is understandable as to why. Probably need a mechanic as to gain hp without it being used for spells. The free resurrections can be nice until you reach your limit and then you have no more call-backs, so it's a mixed bag. Combined with the limited healing and it would be difficult to ever reach a high level.

Vitality Boon (Ex):
Not bad but not a huge boon.

Hemorentention (Ex):
Another not bad ability but not as useful in campaigns where bleed effects are not so common.

Sanguine Sacrifice (Ex):
Good way to gain extra spells. I would probably make it add to casting time (stacks with metamagic feat time extension). Could see other spellcasters preparing a Contingency-style Curdle spell to "spoil" their blood, but I can't recall any spells like that which exist so not a problem unless the DM makes it a problem.

Blood Lord (Ex):
Looks fine.

Spell List
Quick perusal finds nothing broken on spell list.

Other thoughts:
Familiar would be nice with a class like this, maybe attained at level 4, counts as familiar of caster level -3.

Some other sort of healing. Maybe a blood draining type of ritual where you "consume" another creature's power as healing. If you make it a 3, 4, or 5 drained hp to 1 restored for the caster it makes it less likely to be a drain and refill spellpoints ability. Also works in an interesting yet disturbing way if combined with a familiar.

I'll try and think of more later.

[DiBastet]

I like the class. Actually it looks to me that you took inspiration from the Dragon Age games. If you didn't, you actually made it seem that you did.

As for peach, besides what the other post said, I think this would work good as a prestige class. You could then make blood magic an activated ability. When activated with a swift action your spells cost HP Burn instead of spell slots, and you can't heal any kind of damage. When deactivated (another swift action), you use spell slots and can heal normally (except the Burn, that can't be healed anyway). That could enable different kinds of characters and spellcasters using the secrets of blood magic, and would allow some customization of when to use blood magic. That woudn't take away much of the "dangerous gambit" idea of the class, but would help a little the "less pp than the psion" thing.

Even if you don't like the idea, in any case I'm here crediting you because I'm going to use it for a prestige class in my setting.

[TechnOkami]

~snip~Well, I do know it becomes a little MAD, but I thought of how stupid it would be for a Barbarian to pick up a level of this class, and suddenly be able to cast spells despite his whole lack of intellect and purely based on the strength of his health. Hence, why the need for both Con and Int.

Do you think increasing the Con bonus at higher levels would mitigate the lower amount of spellcasting?

As per metamagic, I would think it work just the same as for a wizard... but then again, I'm not too familiar with metamagic, so I'll need to check it out more.

Sanguine Pact kind of needs to be there, else things will become broken quickly.

As per self healing and a familiar... well, I don't think a familiar works with the concept of a Blood Mage, or at least not with the one I have in my head. About a self-healing mechanic... I'll be frank: I don't know how to make one which isn't either broken or completely useless.

If you read down a little, I'm considering making this a PrC (overall it works more well with the concept and makes for a more "specialized" mage).


I like the class. Actually it looks to me that you took inspiration from the Dragon Age games. If you didn't, you actually made it seem that you did.

As for peach, besides what the other post said, I think this would work good as a prestige class. You could then make blood magic an activated ability. When activated with a swift action your spells cost HP Burn instead of spell slots, and you can't heal any kind of damage. When deactivated (another swift action), you use spell slots and can heal normally (except the Burn, that can't be healed anyway). That could enable different kinds of characters and spellcasters using the secrets of blood magic, and would allow some customization of when to use blood magic. That woudn't take away much of the "dangerous gambit" idea of the class, but would help a little the "less pp than the psion" thing.

Even if you don't like the idea, in any case I'm here crediting you because I'm going to use it for a prestige class in my setting.Actually, I've never touched the Dragon Age stuff before (though I have seen many a youtube video as to what they do). No, if anything, I took more inspiration from my own idea of what a Blood Mage should be, as well as, say, Vladimir from League of Legends.

So... it seems this should be a Prestige Class... in retrospect, that actually makes a lot of sense, making it a 10 level PrC. It's not quite what I was shooting for, but I can more or less summarize all of that in a PrC more easily than a base class. I'll get to posting one.

[DiBastet]

Interesting. Then you have a mind very similar to the designers.

Dragon age's blood mage have four signatura abilities, more or less:

-Blood mage mode: You spells use HP instead of the game normal method (mana). You can't be healed while in this mode, but it can be activated and deactivated. Blood counts for more points than mana. Similar to what you did, since a 5th level psion power costs 9 points and using your blood magic a 5th level spell costs 5 points (after you regain half the cost).

-Blood Sacrifice: You can damage your allies to heal yourself, so being able to cast more spells. Similar to using a friend's blood to cast spells. Blood magic must be active.

-Blood Wound: Just a large AoE spell that causes big damage to oponents with blood. Blood magic must be active.

-Blood Control: Control enemies that have blood. Blood magic must be active.


I can see very nice similarities here, so congratulations anyway.

[TechnOkami]

Interesting, thank you again.

Anywho, the PrC will be coming in the next post... or should I just give it its own thread?

[SamBurke]

The problem with this is that it's going to die. A lot.

Its main casting stat is its survivability (HP), so to make this work, you have to optimize your HP out the roof. It makes sense, of course, but it's still a little harsh... The more spells you cast, the closer you are to death (with low HP anyway), and, as Belkar put it, "These few hit points from resting are not gonna cut it!"

[Grod_The_Giant]

Agreed. It's a cool class, but needs way to heal itself. Maybe a class ability that lets it suck life out of a restrained target? Or the ability to accept magical healing, but in doing so shut down his abilities for some length of time.

[Yitzi]

This could become extremely nasty if he can somehow get a reliable source of helpless enemies (or, for an evil Blood Mage, bystanders.)

[Daverin]

I concur (also, liking the new source for art, eh? :smallamused:)

It is very common for any "cast from hp" schematic to have a method of recovering hp, since it is also what keeps you alive. For example, you mention Vlad, who of course has his nuke that costs nothing and heals. Although that may not be the way you want to go about it, hp cannot be a fire and forget resource like spell slots, because it fulfills a vital function outside of powering spells, and as such needs to be able to be maintained within that function.

One method I think I really like is inspired from Huskar from DotA: Not a healing nuke or flat heal, but a healing dot that gets better the lower your health. That way, it is still breakable and cannot keep you from death, but provided you avoid being a target it will get you back up, and can be used as emergency life support. Perhaps as long as it is active, like said above, no casting? And you can "toggle" it on and off, and it gets more powerful as you leave it up. Or something like that.

I will say this only applies to the base class. Honestly, given your current mechanic for it, it actually would be easier to be a prestige, so you can choose when you want to sacrifice hp. Perhaps some other things as well?

[TechnOkami]

Harumn... 2 things.

For the Base Class: What about an ability which gives fast healing when you reach a certian hit point % of your health, and then increases the lower it is?

For the Prestige Class: I don't know if this is needed, but... should the Sanguine Pact change the Mage's hit die to d12's?

[DiBastet]

No fast healing. It would be fast recovering spell slots. make something that sucks hp from restrained targets. Even some kind of vampiric touch would work okay.

Prestige: No. It doesn't change your previous training. Changing previous class HD is funky.

[MesiDoomstalker]

You finally made the class! Yay!

Looks solid except like others mentioned, you have little recovery ability. My suggestion: Blood Drain a la Vampire. But instead of grappling to deal Con damage, just a touch attack that deals damage and heals you on a proportion that scales upwards as youl level. Lets say you get it at 1st, you get a 1:5 ratio (minimum 1) and the attack deals 1d6 damage. The damage goes up at the same rate as a Rogue's Sneak Attack and the ratio goes down to 1:2 by 20th.

On making it Prestige Class, I'd do pre-reqs something like this:

Non-Good
Endurance
Base Fortitude Save +3
Concentration (mimimum level you wish them to enter)+3
Ability to cast Vampiric Touch as an Arcane spell
Toughness

Abilities gained at 1st level:
Arcane Toughness: turn all HD that advance casting (so base class and PrC levels that advance casting) into d12s and reroll as appropriate. So all your Sorcerer levels and Archmage levels would become d12s but you Dragon Disciple levels will not as it only gives spells known).

Thats what I have for now.

[Chronologist]

I actually like the class as a base class rather than a prestige class. I think it's a very good way at looking at spellcasting, personally. Like spell points, but deadly. Very nice.

I have a suggestion though. Have you considered the idea of making the damage Non-Lethal? It would be easier to track that way. You could put in the stipulation that if your character would be knocked unconscious due to non-lethal damage from the ability, coupled with physical wounds, that they start bleeding to death. It could work. It could just as easily stay lethal damage though. My main reasoning for non-lethal damage is because it recovers faster than lethal. This character shouldn't have the ability to shrug of stab wounds, but I think characters heal their level in non-lethal every, what, hour? Every 10 minutes? Fast enough to heal them up between adventures, slow enough to probably not matter when it comes to the 15-minute adventuring day.

The "gain HP back after casting" thing should really just be changed to "the cost of spells is HP loss equal to the level of the spell". Much clearer.

The class should have the option of swapping out spells known for Vile spells from the Book of Vile Deeds. Just because.

All in all a very nice class. Just throw in some weak class features to fill up the dead levels and I'm sold.

[Lert, A.]

The "gain HP back after casting" thing should really just be changed to "the cost of spells is HP loss equal to the level of the spell". Much clearer.
It works, just deal with 0-level spells as a level 1 spell or perhaps as cost free X times a day, 1hp afterwards.

As for other suggestions:

Blood drain attack- good, but almost too good as a touch attack. The grapple requirement for vampires was there for a reason. But then again, it involves getting in close so trying to heal means that you risk dying. Perhaps a type of class ability like a special spell that lets you rip blood from an enemy's body and draw it into the blood mage, close range, Fort save.

Fast healing - bad if always on or at-will, but as an ability that scales it can work. How about putting it in at 2nd level,duration one round per every 2 blood mage levels. Fast healing is 1 + 1 at 5th level and every 4 levels thereafter. So it maxes out at a max of 50 hp recovered over 10 rounds. With that amount it wouldn't be a huge boost to spellcasting so long as it is limited to only a small number of times a day. If you're worried about it being too powerful in combat then you can also add a stipulation that it is energy intensive and that the blood mage cannot cast spells while your fast healing is active.

With that added your blood mage would be more viable as a base class (which is what I would prefer here myself).

Still, you are stuck with the whole die X times and you are lost to your pact holder, no way for your party to bring you back short of marching into the pact holder's plane and smacking him/her/it until it gives you back.

It would be interesting to make the resurrection more like a time-based pact. The Outsider brings you back but you lose X years of your life each time. If you reach your dying age you automatically become property of the Outsider whether it is from lost years or from natural aging. At low levels you lose a lot of years and risk becoming a servant more easily but as your own power grows you have more to bargain with and the time lost decreases. When you hit the capstone you are so powerful you just take back your lost years. Gives a major incentive to carry on in the class.

Would have to scale it to match different species age categories but would add some extra flavor to the pact. Immortal races, as rare as they are, would probably be excluded or need a special pact. It doesn't completely solve the problem of having the party being unable to bring you back but it does give you more of a chance at surviving to later levels.

Another one to pull from other list-based classes is adding an Expanded Knowledge at certain levels feature so that you can add any one spell of a level you can cast from the wizard list. Adds a small amount of versatility to the class.

Just a few more thoughts....

[The Witch-King]

Really like the idea and the way you've implemented it. Well done!

I'll add my voice to those who think it should be a prestige class and provide you a means of thus adding blood magic as an option for additional arcane spellcasting. I think that would be amazingly cool.


I have a suggestion though. Have you considered the idea of making the damage Non-Lethal? It would be easier to track that way. You could put in the stipulation that if your character would be knocked unconscious due to non-lethal damage from the ability, coupled with physical wounds, that they start bleeding to death. It could work. It could just as easily stay lethal damage though. My main reasoning for non-lethal damage is because it recovers faster than lethal. This character shouldn't have the ability to shrug of stab wounds, but I think characters heal their level in non-lethal every, what, hour? Every 10 minutes? Fast enough to heal them up between adventures, slow enough to probably not matter when it comes to the 15-minute adventuring day.

I really like this idea too--I can see it fitting the image of a blood mage in my head better. You've still got a reason not to go crazy with it but it would improve the 'you can't heal' situation.

[Doc Roc]

The problem with this is that it's going to die. A lot.

Its main casting stat is its survivability (HP), so to make this work, you have to optimize your HP out the roof. It makes sense, of course, but it's still a little harsh... The more spells you cast, the closer you are to death (with low HP anyway), and, as Belkar put it, "These few hit points from resting are not gonna cut it!"

Or you're going to go for immunity to death from HP loss. And then things are going to get really. really. bad. And basically, that's the good ending here.

The bad ending is hyper-cautious play, where players rest for days after each encounter in a desperate effort to get their stupid blood mage to heal.

There's basically no reason I can see to play this over a competently built sorcerer or wizard. You get kicked in the teeth for playing aggressively, you get kicked in the teeth for dying, you only get more spells per day, and because you don't technically get spell slots, tons of abilities won't work for you. I'll take abrupt jaunt over this any day of the week.

[Lert, A.]

Interesting flavor would be that when resting the blood mage instead goes into a stasis-like state so after the full 8 hours he recovers all his hp but perhaps takes a large penalty to any checks to wake up before he comes out of his stasis.

It means that he gets fully healed after each resting period, which essentially happens with every group anyways because of magical healing effects and gets his full casting power back which is also on par with the rest of the party.

Combined with one or two smaller hp recovery methods and the blood mage is back on track with everybody else so long as he doesn't die too often.

[DiBastet]

Or being a prestige class, as in "I just need some more juice right now!". Of course, the part "recover back half of what it cost you" shouldn't come at first level in the prestige class, so you have reason to stay on it. Something closer to the capstone could be decreasing in half the cost in hp.

I can see someone wanting "just that little extra juice".