How do bloodlines work?

[gurgleflep]

I'm sitting here reading through Unearthed Arcana trying to make sense of the bloodlines bit and it's not going so well :smallfrown: Could somebody please explain to me how they work in simpler terms?

[Yawgmoth]

If you take a bloodline, you get the listed benefit at the listed level, and the listed LA at the listed level as well. So, for example: if you have a minor celestial bloodline, you get +2 Sense Motive when you hit 4th level, Alertness at 8th, +1 Wisdom and +1 LA at 12th, Prot. Evil 1/day at 16th, and the social skill bonus against celestials at 20th.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Bloodlines (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm)

Pick a bloodline type and strength (minor, intermediate, or major). At the designated character levels down the left side of its respective table, your character gains the benefits under the column for the selected bloodline strength. An entry of — gives no benefits at that character level.

Your character level is your character's total hit dice, i.e. levels that actually grant hit points and skill points. This includes both class levels and racial hit dice. Things that increase your effective character level, such as level adjustment, do not change your character level and do not make you count as a higher level for bloodline benefits. Increases to your effective character level do count when determining how much experience you get per encounter, as well as how much experience you need in order to gain your next level.

If you have a bloodline, you must take one or more bloodline levels before the level indicated on the table, depending on your bloodline strength. That means a character with an intermediate bloodline for example must take one bloodline level before his 6th character level, and another before his 12th character level, or suffer the indicated xp penalty. Nowhere is it stated that you're allowed to gain more than the minimum number of bloodline levels, and nowhere is it stated that you may only have a single bloodline.

Bloodline levels do not increase your character level or your effective character level. A 1st level character who reaches 1,000 xp can gain a level, if he chooses to gain a bloodline level then he's still a 1st level character and needs only another 1,000 xp before gaining his next level. For this reason you should always gain all of your bloodline levels before gaining your second character level, as every bloodline level will only cost you 1,000 xp at that point. Bloodline levels do have certain benefits, such as increasing your max skill ranks as though it was a character level, as well as increasing your caster level and level-dependent class features, but not class features gained or improved at a specific level. For example, a Rogue would not count his Bloodline levels for how soon he gained Uncanny Dodge or its improved version, but once he does have Improved Uncanny Dodge he would include his bloodline levels when determining the minimum level an opponent would need to be to flank him.

[Treme]

Weird, I was just reading about these yesterday for the first time. I'm always up for new options and thinking of offering to my players in a future game as something a bit different.
I've not read through them all yet but as this thread is here I might as we'll ask.. are there any to look out for as exploitable or broken? Are they worth it? And if one player takes one should all players take one also?

Cheers

[Azoth]

Titan is always fun for the gargantuan warhammer. Also funny depending on the size of the character.

Bloodlines are exploitable for benefits that apply based on character level. I think their is a way to use it to jack up initiator level for ToB chars.

[gurgleflep]

Uber late reply, sorry! After posting, I left with a couple family members to prepare for the blasting of snow we got >_< I'm 6'4" and it's up to my bloody thigh!

Took me a couple read-throughs, but I found the LA bit you mentioned :smallsmile: Thanks for the help everyone :smallcool:

[AmberVael]

Bloodline levels do not increase your character level or your effective character level.

It's worth noting that this interpretation is debated and you should probably ask your DM for their personal interpretation.


Weird, I was just reading about these yesterday for the first time. I'm always up for new options and thinking of offering to my players in a future game as something a bit different.
I've not read through them all yet but as this thread is here I might as we'll ask.. are there any to look out for as exploitable or broken? Are they worth it? And if one player takes one should all players take one also?

Cheers

Largely bloodlines are fine- or in fact, underpowered. They're notably better if you use the interpretation that they only cost XP and don't take up levels, but even then they don't do all that much.

The main use I've seen for them is artificially extending the benefits of the Hellfire Warlock prestige class in order to get far larger amounts of bonus hellfire damage, and even that isn't all that bad. I can't say I've ever seen bloodlines break anything except in really extreme cases (at which points you can break almost anything, so...)