Bloodlines the Friendly Template leveler?

[silverwolfer]

Just a curious insight, do you think bloodlines are the friendly way to add flavor and "template" to a character without being stifiled by La requirements by RAW?

[Silverbit]

Never used them myself, but I have always thought they looked interesting. I have no idea how balanced against templates they are, but they do make it possible to play a very unique PC at first level.

Oh, and they have Gith options. Everything's better with Gith. :smallsmile:

[INoKnowNames]

Actually, looking at the rules for custom Bloodlines (and obviously having to play a bit with them for Bloodlines that don't entirely fit), I could see using them for LA Templates, gaining some abilities over time...

[eggs]

The bloodline rules are weird enough that their usefulness swings wildly with group - both because of interpretation of bloodline rules, and because of common experience houserules.

The first thing that gets weird is that Bloodline levels say they do not raise character level. That means that groups following DMG experience progressions, where lower-level characters gain more experience from encounters, bloodline levels are much stronger than they are in groups assigning experience at flat rates or using more arbitrary measures to say "you finished this job, so you all level up." The latter two situations aren't RAW, but I've seen them both often. Either of them makes bloodlines much weaker by comparison (especially the one that treats levels as story-driven absolute steps).

The second thing that makes bloodlines very strange is that they have different experience costs, depending when they're taken. A character who takes all 3 levels of a major bloodline immediately can hit 8 skill ranks at 4000 experience instead of the normal 10000 experience - and the bloodline-user will gain that 4000 experience faster than normal, due to the DMG's experience guidelines. In a high-level game, they can be a nearly free +3 to anything based on a character's level, on top of whatever the bloodline itself gives.

Then there's the bit about the timing of bloodline levels. Depending whether the bloodline levels can be taken at any time, or only immediately before hitting the level deadlines, a major bloodline could be a minor dent in a character's experience (3000 experience, taken immediately before level 2) or a pretty sizable sum (21000 experience, taken before levels 3, 6 and 12). Even with experience as a river, the latter system's costs take quite a while longer to make up.

And the last part that really makes them bizarre is the implementation of their interaction with level-stacking. If they are added to class level calculations once, regardless of the number of classes advancing a particular feature, they can be implemented in a pretty balanced manner without trouble. If they're added separately to every class level involved in a calculation, they can get ridiculous very quickly. For instance, by the first of those systems, a Wizard 3/Master Specialist 2/Divine Oracle 2/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 2 with 2 bloodline levels would have a CL of 3+2+2+2+2 = CL 11 at 45000 experience (what would normally be level 10), but using the second system, would have a CL of (3+2)+(2+2)+(2+2)+(2+2) = 17 at 45000 experience, which is probably crossing a line.

I'd recommend checking out Plzbreakmycampaign's Bloodline guide (brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7167); its interpretation/implementation is about as balanced as it gets. By the reading plugged there, bloodlines are a bit of a power boost, but they're flavorful and have enough drawbacks that they still pose a genuine decision over whether they're worth using on powerful classes like casters.