Home-brew evil cleric idea

[Farmerbink]

So I'm going to preface this by saying the following: I don't know that everyone will be comfortable reading and discussing the following. It involves rather straightforward discussion of... violent stuff. (It's an evil deity, if you really expect rainbows and sunshine, you're a lunatic- but still)

For the sake of those people who probably shouldn't read it in the first place, I'm going to spoiler it:

As you are likely aware, if you've come this far, evil clerics in PF have to channel negative energy, and spontaneously cast inflict spells. This complicates healing immensely, creating very difficult situations independent of the actual threat of the campaigns. This is intended to solve such a situation in (what I think is) an interesting and thematically appropriate manner.

I will gladly admit that I've never home-brewed much of anything, and this could be ridiculously over/under powered. Thus the thread.

TL;DR: I want evil parties to be evil. Killing innocent townspeople or their livestock for the purpose of fueling their healing magic. The process is described in detail behind the following spoiler.

I'd like to introduce the:

Blood Domain(I realize this the name of a subdomain of war. It's kind of pitiful. I'm ignoring it).

Granted Powers: You can manipulate the very essence of living beings, drawing power from both willing and unwilling targets.

Syphon life (Sp): As a standard action, you can draw energy from a living target through a supernatural connection. You can target any living creature within 30 feet as a ranged touch attack to initiate the connection (treat this action as any ray attack). If you hit, the connection causes 1d4 points of damage +1 point for every two cleric levels you possess (up to 1d8 +1/level on a willing target). This damage is stored as healing energy (independent of positive or negative), which can be transferred as healing to any other living target. The recipient of healing does not require a touch attack, if in melee with the cleric and willing to accept the healing energy. The act of healing requires a movement action at any point within 3 rounds following the successful attack (or a swift action, to heal himself). This damage (and healing) cannot exceed the hit points of the target. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3+ your wisdom modifier.

Lifesurge strike (Su): At 8th level, you can give a weapon that you touch the lifesurge (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateEquipment/magicArmsAndArmor/weaponSpecialAbilities.html#lifesurge) special weapon quality for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 your cleric level. You can use this ability once per day at 8th level, and an additional time per day for every four levels beyond 8th.

Domain Spells: 1st-Light Blood Healing, 2nd-Moderate Blood Healing, 3rd-Serious Blood Healing, 4th-Critical Blood Healing, 5th-Blood of Life, 6th-Blood Infusion, 7th-Bloodied Regeneration, 8th-Mass Critical Blood Healing, 9th-Mass Blood Infusion

(I realize that the spell naming is pitifully unoriginal. I'm not that creative- sue me)

The above mentioned spells all work exactly like the domain spells of the healing domain, with two significant distinctions. 1: Each of them produces either positive or negative energy healing, whichever will actually renew hit points to the target(s). 2: Furthermore, they each have a material component of 1 vial of desecrated blood per spell level. These two effects apply to any spell with the (good) or (healing) subtext, changing all bonuses to profane, and enabling all healing to manifest as positive or negative energy, depending on the target.

Desecrate Blood is a bonus ritual spell available to clerics with access to the domain, with the following relevant details: the spell requires a living creature (size tiny or larger) to be sacrificed as a material component. The casting process takes a minimum of 10 minutes. Each casting generates units of desecrated blood (and requires vials for collection) according to the size and sentience of the sacrificed creature, as follows:



Size
Non-sentient
Sentient (minimum 3 int)
Duration


Tiny
1
3
10 minutes


Small
2
6
20 minutes


Medium
3
9
40 minutes


Large
6
18
90 minutes


Huge
10
30
3 hours


Gargantuan
15
45
6 hours


Colossal
25
75 (good luck restraining a sentient, colossal creature)
12 hours



Finally, desecrated blood lasts for 3 days, when drawn from a non-sentient source; or 2 weeks, when drawn from a sentient source. After this time, the stored magical energies have dissipated. Any spell attempted with inert blood fails, though the spell is not lost and can be attempted again, with a new material component.

All clerics of an evil deity (or evil clerics independent of deity) will have access to the domain, in addition to their deity's other domains (I could see this being limited to the more organized evil deities (Hextor, etc..), but that's largely subjective, and limits the point of providing a thematically appropriate answer to healing issues).


So? My eyes and ears are open for feedback, of any variety other than "wow, this is stupid." I want actual, mechanical feedback, please. Thanks all, for taking the time to read it, if you did. :smallwink:

[Farmerbink]

As an additional caveat, after some reflection, I would like to include an option for clerics with this domain:

They can spontaneously exchange any prepared spell for a blood healing spell, in addition to their normal option of inflict spells. Thus, an evil cleric with this domain could prepare offensive spells (as their good counterparts already do), and not forgo his ability to be a support character. And I don't think the inflict spells are so good as to be overbalancing.

edit: 31 views and no responses? Is it so boring as to not even warrant a comment? D:

[Farmerbink]

...anybody?

[Almarck]

Well, I'm here, so I might as well speak.

For starters, there not any real... data on the Blood healing spells. And quite honestly, it seems shallow given how much "range" we're talking about. I mean, all of those spells sound to me like healing? I am guessing it's healing for evil creatures. It's boring, so to speak, all "blood healing" of some sort.

I mean given the details and the fact we all lack access to what the intended domain spells are, we can only assume healing of some sort. The domain powers seem to support this claim, but, really, so much "healing power"?

In short, too much vampirism, so much that it's actually quite, well, weak. You want to have at least some lateral options in spell choice. Even fitting the theme of blood, you could have done things like say Elemental Body to turn into a blood elemental (water, but red and maybe with extra powers), provide disease (lots of nasty there in blood borne illness), and my personal favorite spell, Blood Money. (Pay expensive material components in blood, specifically, Strength damage. Specify it can be someone else's)

I can get behind evil, a little, anyways, but honestly, the scope of what you intend is probably far more than what domains are capable of. They are kind of designed to be generic and nonspecific beyond a thematic backdrop, yet even in comparison, what you got doesn't really... seem all that appealing.

I am sorry if I sound too... demeaning up above. I do want to see where this all can go, but it does feel rather lacking in uniqueness right now.

[Farmerbink]

I can't really respond to that seriously.

1: There is a paragraph in the original post saying that these spells all function like the healing domain spells (and describes the differences)

2: This is nothing but a manner for evil characters to heal in a thematically appropriate fashion.

3: Home-brewing things that are stronger than other options is.... kind of nonsense. It was intended to be balanced with the other domains, an option- but not a better option (except in terms of thematic content).

[Almarck]

Then forgive me for failing to a perception check because I did go back to read your post a few. Wrote that all under the effects of the morning headaches. Honest mistake.

Regardless I still think that making the blood domain with its focus on exclusively "thematic" style of healing does limit it's potential. Especially since this will be on pathfinder, they cannot cast these spell spontaneously or use them outside of domain slots at all.

I guess you can say that these spell exist on the cleric spell list and can used to replace the inflict spells but how'd that work in regards to undead is a different matter entirely. Nor am I sure how it warrants ifs own domain.

Also, forgive me if I am a bit slow, but can't clerics use every healing spell in the books regardless of their alignment? It's just that they can't cast them spontaneously or channel positive energy without being good aligned.