Listen To The Dead Within Your Blood [Sorcerous Origin]

[Amechra]

Bloodspeaker (Sorcerous Origin)

Though it is unusual, it isn't unheard of for Sorcerers to manifest after great atrocities, murders, or executions. Touched by such great death, they find themselves drawn to it. They whisper into that void, and hear an answer. And they are pulled - their struggle against their suicide-urge fuels their magic.

Through unforgettable horror, they find strength.

1 - The Give And Take:
The Sorcerer gains a "bank" of Gloom; any time she makes a death saving throw, she does so as if she had previously failed a number of death saving throws equal to the amount of Gloom she has banked. At 1st level, she may only hold a single point of Gloom - at 5th, 11th, and 17th levels, the amount of Gloom she can hold increases by one. Whenever a feature tells you to bank Gloom, add one point of Gloom to your bank; you cannot attempt to bank Gloom if your bank is full.
After a long rest, empty your entire bank.

1 - Fragments of Wisdom:
Any damage-dealing Cantrip the sorcerer casts deals +1d4 Necrotic damage for each point of Gloom in her bank. She may also bank Gloom to use a Cantrip as a Reaction - the trace-ghosts in her blood lash out to defend her.

6 - Knowledge of the Dead:
As long as the sorcerer has at least one point of Gloom banked, she knows an additional Metamagic. She may bank Gloom to glean faint bursts of power from the dead, gaining a spell point in the process.
As a side effect of trading her life so often, the sorcerer may fail an additional death saving throw before dying.

14 - Memories of Violence:
The bonus damage from Fragments of Wisdom increases to 1d6 Necrotic damage for each point of Gloom. As long as the sorcerer has two or more Gloom banked, she deals +1d6 Necrotic damage with all of her damaging spells and Cantrips.
Continued exchanges bring her to her limit; the sorcerer may fail an additional death saving throw before dying. This stacks with Knowledge of the Dead.

18 - Grave-Drawn Virtuosity:
AS long as the sorcerer has at least three points of Gloom in her bank, she may apply up to two Metamagic effects to her spells and cantrips. She may bank Gloom to add one to the level of any spell she casts.

[JNAProductions]

Bloodspeaker (Sorcerous Origin)

Though it is unusual, it isn't unheard of for Sorcerers to manifest after great atrocities, murders, or executions. Touched by such great death, they find themselves drawn to it. They whisper into that void, and hear an answer. And they are pulled - their struggle against their suicide-urge fuels their magic.

Through unforgettable horror, they find strength.

1 - The Give And Take:
The Sorcerer gains a "bank" of Gloom; any time she makes a death saving throw, she does so as if she had previously failed a number of death saving throws equal to the amount of Gloom she has banked. At 1st level, she may only hold a single point of Gloom - at 5th, 11th, and 17th levels, the amount of Gloom she can hold increases by one. Whenever a feature tells you to bank Gloom, add one point of Gloom to your bank; you cannot attempt to bank Gloom if your bank is full.
After a long rest, empty your entire bank.

1 - Fragments of Wisdom:
Any damage-dealing Cantrip the sorcerer casts deals +1d4 Necrotic damage for each point of Gloom in her bank. She may also bank Gloom to use a Cantrip as a Reaction - the trace-ghosts in her blood lash out to defend her.

6 - Knowledge of the Dead:
As long as the sorcerer has at least one point of Gloom banked, she knows an additional Metamagic. She may bank Gloom to glean faint bursts of power from the dead, gaining a spell point in the process.
As a side effect of trading her life so often, the sorcerer may fail an additional death saving throw before dying.

14 - Memories of Violence:
The bonus damage from Fragments of Wisdom increases to 1d6 Necrotic damage for each point of Gloom. As long as the sorcerer has two or more Gloom banked, she deals +1d6 Necrotic damage with all of her damaging spells and Cantrips.
Continued exchanges bring her to her limit; the sorcerer may fail an additional death saving throw before dying. This stacks with Knowledge of the Dead.

18 - Grave-Drawn Virtuosity:
AS long as the sorcerer has at least three points of Gloom in her bank, she may apply up to two Metamagic effects to her spells and cantrips. She may bank Gloom to add one to the level of any spell she casts.

What triggers the Fragments of Wisdom reaction? Is is just whenever the heck you feel like?

Overall, I feel like this is pretty powerful. Maybe too powerful. It comes at a cost... But a relatively minor one. And the cantrip bonus damage DEFINITELY needs to be toned down. +5d6 (17.5) damage on every cantrip? That's an increase of (4d10=22, 39.5/22=1.79) nearly 80%!

[Amechra]

I... forgot that Reactions had to have triggers. Oops. That should trigger in response to an attack.

Yeah, I was worried about that. I can dial that back loads. +2 damage per Gloom caps out at +8, or about a 36% increase, which seems good without being crazy.

I think I'll just replace Memories of Violence with something weaker - I can also make Gloom more dangerous to build.

[JNAProductions]

I... forgot that Reactions had to have triggers. Oops. That should trigger in response to an attack.

Yeah, I was worried about that. I can dial that back loads. +2 damage per Gloom caps out at +8, or about a 36% increase, which seems good without being crazy.

I think I'll just replace Memories of Violence with something weaker - I can also make Gloom more dangerous to build.

Maybe make it apply to damaging spells only, and not cantrips? That would make it a lot more balanced.

[Final Hyena]

Until level 6 you seem to bank gloom by death saves which I'm not a fan of, having to go down (and wanting to stay down longer) to have any bloodline features feels awkward.

At level 6 it seems you can get gloom for free.

She may bank Gloom to glean faint bursts of power from the dead, gaining a spell point in the process.
I suspect it was meant to be from killing a creature, or from doing an action over a recently killed creature.

Might I suggest that at 1st level you can get it by taking an action next to a creature (minimum CR equal to half your HD) killed in the last minute. Then at 6th you also can get it from bringing a creature (minimum CR equal to half your HD) to 0.

[Revlid]

The Sorcerer gains a "bank" of Gloom; any time she makes a death saving throw, she does so as if she had previously failed a number of death saving throws equal to the amount of Gloom she has banked.Just to clarify, in case I'm missing something in the death saving throws – this isn't a penalty to her death saving throws, right? It just means that if she's got two Gloom at 5th level and is knocked down to 0HP, she instantly dies if she fails even one death saving throw.

If so, I can't say I like that. It either offers you no penalty at all, or it means you suffer the ultimate penalty. Also, the downside is largely meaningless past two points of Gloom, because that's enough to kill you the instant it matters. The only reason it becomes relevant is because you get extra death saves to compensate, which strikes me as solving a problem that didn't need exist.

Basically, the downside of Gloom is so severe that it justifies extreme power... but it's not going to be relevant at all, most of the time.

I'd suggest softening this to a penalty to your death saving throws (and perhaps any non-magical attempt to stabilize you... or which you make to stabilize another character, too!) based on how much Gloom you have. This means that your death becomes creeping and inevitable without help, but it's not appreciably more abrupt. Alternatively (but aiming for a similar principle, the sickly weirdo), have Gloom reduce your maximum hit points and any temporary hit point gain.

It's difficult to comment on the rest unless that's resolved (and boy will I feel silly if Gloom works different than I think it does at the moment), but Fragments of Wisdom seems really powerful. Assuming it's a reaction to an attack, it's basically the 14th level power of the Berserker Barbarian, except you can do it at range and deal some horrible damage – at 5th level, I can toss out a 2d10+2d4 firebolt whenever I'm attacked, and suffer no penalty until I get knocked to 0HP and immediately die.

[Amechra]

Gloom works exactly like you think, I'm afraid (and not the way that Final Hyena thinks - sorry, I explained it poorly.)

You know that feeling when you're working on something, and you know it's a bad idea? But still keep working on it because why not? Yeah.

As it stands, I notice the following problems here:

1) Gloom is both too punitive, and not punitive enough. You're either at 0 HP and cursing the fact that you have enough Gloom that you'll die on one failed save, or it doesn't matter at all.

2) I'm adding another resource to track to a class that already has you tracking two resources. Most classes have you track one thing (spells, ki, superiority dice, whatever) - I have you tracking three.

3) Gloom is explained very poorly. This is fixable, but it might be better to rewrite it from scratch.

4) Individual features are too strong - that'll shake out differently if Gloom is rebalanced.

=---=

I still want the Bloodspeaker to get power from nearness to death, rather than them harvesting it from death. One idea I've had is to have it run off Exhaustion rather than Gloom - as you build up Exhaustion, your features get stronger but your body gets weaker. If I go that route, I'm probably going to throw something in there that prevents you from suffering disadvantage on spell attacks due to have 3 or more levels of Exhaustion.