Playing a 'Blood Mage'

[supersonic29]

What sort of options are there for a sort self sacrificing mage character? There's Blood Magus (http://dndtools.eu/classes/blood-magus/), but honestly that seems very underwhelming, especially for a prestige class. Even if there's no better class option are there maybe in flavor spell/feat selections to fill the void?

[Hazrond]

What sort of options are there for a sort self sacrificing mage character? There's Blood Magus (http://dndtools.eu/classes/blood-magus/), but honestly that seems very underwhelming, especially for a prestige class. Even if there's no better class option are there maybe in flavor spell/feat selections to fill the void?

You could take levels of Jade pheonix mage and make suicidal tactics a thing, like grappling the enemy then proceeding to go jade inferno on them :smallbiggrin:

[supersonic29]

Hmmm I like it, but I also feel if the masochism was just all in decision making I could just fireball point blank :smalltongue:

I was moreso hoping for spells that do semi-mutual damage or metamagic feats that involve paying life or something.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A Tainted Sorcerer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#taintedSorcerer) has Blood Component and Tainted Metamagic, which should be exactly what you're looking for. Take a single level of Binder in Tome of Magic and bind Naberius for Fast Ability Healing 1 if you plan to use Tainted Metamagic a lot.

[DMVerdandi]

Tainted Scholar from heroes of horror (essentially an update on Oriental Adventure's Maho-tsukai)
Do some research on it. It's essentially what you want.

[supersonic29]

A Tainted Sorcerer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm#taintedSorcerer) has Blood Component and Tainted Metamagic, which should be exactly what you're looking for. Take a single level of Binder in Tome of Magic and bind Naberius for Fast Ability Healing 1 if you plan to use Tainted Metamagic a lot.


Tainted Scholar from heroes of horror (essentially an update on Oriental Adventure's Maho-tsukai)
Do some research on it. It's essentially what you want.

Both of these are great, I'll have to read into taint more, but I like them both a lot. The only difficulty is choosing between the two. The sorcerer gets more BAB, but the scholar gets secrets/lore, so I guess I should choose how combat based I want to be. Opinions?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Corrupt and Sanctified spells both require sacrifices to cast.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Both of these are great, I'll have to read into taint more, but I like them both a lot. The only difficulty is choosing between the two. The sorcerer gets more BAB, but the scholar gets secrets/lore, so I guess I should choose how combat based I want to be. Opinions?

Tainted Sorcerer uses Unearthed Arcana's version of the taint rules, Tainted Scholar and Heroes of Horror have slightly different taint rules. It's really up to your group/DM which of those is present in the setting, if any.

[supersonic29]

Tainted Sorcerer uses Unearthed Arcana's version of the taint rules, Tainted Scholar and Heroes of Horror have slightly different taint rules. It's really up to your group/DM which of those is present in the setting, if any.

If it were in my hands which taint system is preferable or more exploitable or what have you?

[Zanos]

If you are immune to stunning you can flavor the damage from the reserves of strength feat as using your blood. That's what I do on my vampire.

[Karnith]

If it were in my hands which taint system is preferable or more exploitable or what have you?
Heroes of Horror generally has the most exploitable Taint mechanic (even aside from using exploits to get an arbitrarily high Taint scores); it's more difficult for Tainted Scholars/HoH tainted casters to increase both their Corruption and Depravity scores (where previous Tainted casters only had a singular Taint score), but they also have much higher limits on their Taint scores. HoH Taint also has a system where you get bonus feats and some mechanical downsides to having Taint, while the older taint systems just have Constitution and Wisdom penalties.

As to the classes themselves, Tainted Sorcerer and Maho-Tsukai have more abuseable class features than Tainted Scholar, and are additionally extremely front-loaded, so there's not much reason to take more than one level of either if you can avoid it.

[supersonic29]

As to the classes themselves, Tainted Sorcerer and Maho-Tsukai have more abuseable class features than Tainted Scholar, and are additionally extremely front-loaded, so there's not much reason to take more than one level of either if you can avoid it.

This seems accurate and it's probably what I will go for, but if I opt to cease levels in Tainted Sorcerer (saves willing) what class or prestige class should I progress in instead?

[ShurikVch]

If you interested, Bane of Infidels (http://dndtools.eu/classes/bane-of-infidels/) have CFs: Sacrifice, Major sacrifice, and Mass sacrifice

[Zombulian]

Another +1 to Maho Tsukai, just because I like OA taint better than HoH taint.