Druid Subclass: Circle of Blood v2 [PEACH]

[Ferrin33]

Looking for feedback of any kind regarding the balance, flavor, and any suggestions for changes of any magnitude. Specifically wondering whether any of the abilities don't mesh well with each other when considering the whole package, either mechanical synergy or flavor.

Edited.

Google Document Link, feel free to comment (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g17ZU4rzEfJz9oMWOIp8--dTvh-FFBUAAEqJ8O_Xxc8/edit?usp=sharing)

Circle of Blood (http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/BkZzUdZT0-)

Not all spirits of nature are benevolent beings, a fact only some druids truly embrace, forming the circle of blood. Those who wander this wilder path are often seen as savages, sacrificing both beasts and more intelligent creatures for their own ends. However, not all druids of the Circle of Blood spill the blood of others so eagerly, seeing it as a last resort.

Druids of this circle often see themselves as ensurers of the balance of nature. Pacifiers of the darker aspects of the wild, performing rites that keep the malicious beings in check and granting boons in return. Other who join the circle are as violent as the spirits themselves, where both they and the spirits revel in the blood that is spilled. However, a price must always be paid, warm, red fluid dripping to the floor, keeping the ravenous spirits at bay.

Blood Magic: Starting at 2nd level, the wild spirits have begun whispering their secrets to you, and reveal how to draw power from your own blood. You have a maximum pool of blood magic represented by a number of d8 equal to your druid level. When you roll damage or healing for a spell, you can increase that damage or healing by spending dice from the pool. You can spend a number of dice equal to half your druid level or less. Roll the spent dice and add them to the damage or healing dealt by the spell, the current and maximum hit points of your normal form are decreased by 1 for each die spent. You regain all maximum hit points you lost from this ability after a long rest, you can not regain them in any other way.

Ritual Offering: You have learned to sate the bloodthirsty spirits of nature. Beginning at 2nd level, you can perform a Ritual Offering to regain blood magic dice. To perform a Ritual Offering, choose a number of Blood Magic Dice you wish to regain, up to half your druid level, rounded up. The ritual takes 5 minutes, and you deal a minimum of 1 damage to a willing, incapacitated, or restrained living creature for each Blood Magic Dice you regain. You can use this ability again after you finish a short or long rest.

Rites of Blood: You can gain the favor of nature by willingly spilling your blood as an offering. When you choose this circle at 2nd level, you can cast any Druid ritual spell of a level that you can cast as a ritual without needing to have it prepared. If you cast a spell as a ritual, you take 1 damage at the start of the ritual and you only take 5 minutes to cast it.
Daggers, scimitars, and sickles can be used as a spellcasting focus for your druid spells.

Ravenous Influence: Beginning at 6th level, the spirits whose hunger you sate leave you with a craving of your own. You can use your Wild Shape ability to transform into a beast with a challenge rating as high as your druid level divided by 5, rounded down.
While you are in wild shape form you can use an action to eat the flesh from a corpse, or a bonus action after you deal damage to a living creature with a Bite attack. You can then spend up to one Hit Die for every 6 druid levels. For each Hit Die spent in this way, you roll the die and add your normal form’s Constitution modifier to it. Your normal form regains hit points equal to the total, and your beast form gains that amount in temporary hit points.

Ritual Sacrifice: The spirits are pleased with your dedication, and become more open with their secrets as you perform more sacrifices. Beginning at 10th level, you may choose one of the following spells when you begin your Ritual Offering; 1st level: Find Familiar, 2nd level: Augury, 3rd level: Plant Growth, 4th level: Death Ward, 5th level: Scrying. If the living creature dies during your Ritual Offering, you may cast cast that spell without using a spell slot or material components by taking 1d4 damage per spell level. These spells are considered druid spells for you when you cast them.

Tooth and Nail: Just as you are dealt a fatal blow, your body shifts as you cling to life. Beginning at 14th level, you can use your Wild Shape ability as a reaction if you take damage that would reduce you to 0 hit points, it reduces you to 1 instead before you transform. You can't use this ability again until you finish a short or long rest.

[JNAProductions]

Rites of Blood I would make cost Spell Level HP. Maybe even Spell Level times 2.

Blood Magic seems a little too strong. 5 HP to add 17.5 points of damage is okay... Maybe... But 5 damage to heal an extra 17.5? If you cast it on yourself, you get a net gain.

6 damage seems real low for half of your blood dice back. I would say 4 points of damage PER DIE RESTORED, at a minimum.

Tooth and Nail is too strong. You get pretty much the main benefit of Moon Druid, and more.

Boon of the Elder... Eh, seems fine.

[demonslayerelf]

I more or less agree with JNA, with one prime exception.


Tooth and Nail isn't Moon Druid and then some. You don't reach as high of a CR, and your natural weapons aren't magical, and you still need to do it as an action(Or reaction- The point is, not a bonus action), and you can't heal, and you can't turn into an elemental.

You get a slightly higher CR, but only when you're below half health. You can also do it as a reaction, which is pretty okay, but not too great. But you're probably doing it to save your life from a big hit, like a high level spell, or a powerful breath weapon. At 20th level, that's a CR 4 beast shield... Which is, again, kinda okay, but a Moon Druid can just stay in Triceratops or Giant Ape form for all time.

And, keep in mind, it's not magical. This isn't going to help you for anything except a shield, especially when you reach the higher tiers.

[Ferrin33]

Rites of Blood I would make cost Spell Level HP. Maybe even Spell Level times 2.

Blood Magic seems a little too strong. 5 HP to add 17.5 points of damage is okay... Maybe... But 5 damage to heal an extra 17.5? If you cast it on yourself, you get a net gain.

6 damage seems real low for half of your blood dice back. I would say 4 points of damage PER DIE RESTORED, at a minimum.

Tooth and Nail is too strong. You get pretty much the main benefit of Moon Druid, and more.

Boon of the Elder... Eh, seems fine.

Thanks for your response!

The benefit Rites of Blood gives is that you don't need a spell prepared to be able to cast it as a ritual. The benefit is saving prepared spell slots, which is the same for any spell you would prepare. Higher level spells do not cost more slots, just one of your Druid level + Wisdom modifier prepared spells. Additionally, the cost of casting a 1st level spell as a ritual versus a 5th level spell is the same; the cast time, nothing else. (aside from possible material components, which you would still need to pay)

Blood Magic gives a net benefit of 2.5 healing per dice, of which you get Druid level * long rest + ½ druid level * short rest of per day. After two short rests you average about the same healing as a Paladin's Lay on Hands, but it's harder to spread around this healing because you also need to use spell slots to use it.

I looked at the Circle of Twilight from Unearthed Arcana as a similar ability for the damage(and outright stole a bunch of text from it), which gives 5.5 damage per druid level on a long rest cooldown with even an upside of healing a nearby ally if you kill something with it. Blood Magic gives 3.5 damage per druid level on a long rest, with an additional 3.5 damage * ½ druid level per short rest thereafter, but you take 1 damage per dice used as well. Just looking at the damage potential, after a single short rest Blood Magic has the potential of 5.25*druid level, and 7*druid level after two short rests.

To summarize; Less flexible healing than a paladin and requiring two short rests to get the same average. More damage overall after taking two short rests than a Circle of Twilight druid, but less with 1 or no short rests, and also damages yourself. Without short rests it's clearly weaker, but has some flexibility in that you can choose to do either. The recharge on a short rest also only becomes available from 6th level onwards, and the spells you cast with it and the level 14 class feature are also tied to using your Blood Dice, further decreasing your potential if you choose to do so.

So compared to Lay on Hands and Circle of Twilight's Harvest's Scythe;

Blood Magic has higher potential after 2+ short rests.
Blood Magic is more flexible as you can either heal or deal damage.
Compared to Harvest's Scythe it damages you instead of potentially healing you when used for damage.
It's the resource used for your 6th and 14th level class features as well.


I don't think there's a big problem here unless you're allowed to take a lot of short rests in a party dependent on long rests, in which case a warlock or monk would also be an issue.

The idea behind the minimum 6 damage dealt with Ritual Sacrifice is so that you can sacrifice your own blood to get the dice back, or choose to kill the sacrifice by doing more damage in order to then spend blood dice to cast a specific spell. The value of a single Blood Magic Die is 2.5 healing, or 3.5 damage+1 self-harm, changing this ability to be 4*Blood Magic Dice restored would mean you would never want to use this ability on yourself, as each of these dice will deal 3.5 damage for 5 self-harm, or a net-loss of 1.5 healing. At 6th level when you get this ability each dice you get back deals 2 damage to yourself(unless you offer someone else), which gives a net heal of 0.5 per dice, or 3.5 damage + 3 self-harm. This gets better over time as you progress in levels, as the damage of this ability does not go up, but that's intended as you get better.

Moon Druids get CR2 shapes at 6th level, CR3 at 9th, and CR4 at 12th. Blood Druids get CR2 shapes at 10th level, CR3 at 15th, and CR4 at 20th level. Not to mention the elemental shapes. For a blood druid to be able to go into these stronger forms he needs to be at half health or lower as well so can't even start combat in them unless you start combat at half your health. Here's a list of animals the Blood Druid can change into:

CR2 10th level
Giant Boar
Giant Constrictor Snake
Giant Elk
Hunter Shark
Polar Bear
Rhinoceros
Saber-Toothed Tiger
Allosaurus (Dinosaur)
Plesiosaurus (Dinosaur)

CR3 15th level
Giant Scorpion
Killer Whale
Anklyosaurus (Dinosaur)

CR4 20th level
Elephant

I think that the weaker forms and needing to be at half health or lower are limiting enough to not make it to powerful. Not having Elemental Wild Shape is also a really big difference.

Boon of the Elder is intended to be a nice flavorful ability which lets you do some things other druids can't (Raising the dead without reincarnate, casting hallow, and planar ally), it's not supposed to be to powerful as Blood Magic already scales by level.

[JNAProductions]

Ah, I did misremember the Moon Druid Progression. I still feel it's too powerful, but at least it's not Moon Druid good.

And a flat 6 HP to recover 3 Blood Dice is... Debatably okay. Still feels too strong. The issue is, it scales in power significantly as you level. At level 20, that's an extra 35 points of damage or healing at the cost of 6 HP. My main issue with that is that there's no real choice. Sure, you can technically choose to not do that, but there's no benefit to doing it. Even at level 6, you regain an extra 10.5 HP-cast one healing spell on yourself (boosted with two dice) and you come out ahead, with a blood die to spare.

[Ferrin33]

Ah, I did misremember the Moon Druid Progression. I still feel it's too powerful, but at least it's not Moon Druid good.

And a flat 6 HP to recover 3 Blood Dice is... Debatably okay. Still feels too strong. The issue is, it scales in power significantly as you level. At level 20, that's an extra 35 points of damage or healing at the cost of 6 HP. My main issue with that is that there's no real choice. Sure, you can technically choose to not do that, but there's no benefit to doing it. Even at level 6, you regain an extra 10.5 HP-cast one healing spell on yourself (boosted with two dice) and you come out ahead, with a blood die to spare.

You're supposed to come out ahead though, otherwise why bother using the ability? :smallbiggrin:

Hm, though I agree with keeping it more of a choice. Perhaps change the damage to 2*blood die restored. It'd be the same at 6th level, but go up with levels for the same relative benefit. I think I will let the player choose how many they want to regain "Up to half your druid level, rounded down" alongside that change.

You still need to actually cast a spell that restores health to spend the blood dice on as well, something to keep in mind. It's not like Lay on Hands where you can just touch someone and they will be healed. The randomness of the healing also makes it very inefficient to top people off.

[JNAProductions]

Because it lets you nova better? Because you can spend health now to regain more later?

You could, even at 4 times number of dice restored, spend some HP to do that, use hit dice to heal, and then have extra dice.

Or, hell, use the ability on a prisoner. Free recovery.

[Ferrin33]

Because it lets you nova better? Because you can spend health now to regain more later?

You could, even at 4 times number of dice restored, spend some HP to do that, use hit dice to heal, and then have extra dice.

Or, hell, use the ability on a prisoner. Free recovery.

At 6th level the average druid with a Con of 14 will have 36 health, at 4*dice you would deal 1/3 of your health in damage to yourself to regain dice that will deal a further 3 damage to you, which if you spend them to heal, will only heal for 10.5 on average, while you lost a total of 15 health. At 2*dice you deal 1/6 of your health in damage which is still a fairly big deal, you still deal a further 3 which brings the total to 9 which is 1/4 of your health, which if you spend them to heal is a net benefit of 1.5.

If we use the ability on a prisoner, then it does not matter how much damage we do. I designed the ability like this on purpose, to benefit those who sacrifice others, but keep the option open for more self-sacrificing druids. In addition to that, there's even a requirement for part of the 6th level class feature and the 14th level improvement to kill the creature in the Ritual Sacrifice. But benefiting from those abilities then costs you Blood Dice, I did this so that players who do not kill their sacrifices or who offer their own blood do not lose out on to much potential power. A lot of the power of this class is built on these Blood Dice.

The gap between free recovery from a prisoner versus the health cost of sacrificing your own blood is a balancing act, which I think works out fairly nicely at 2*dice, as it's always more beneficial to sacrifice someone else than yourself anyway. I would consider lowering it to 1*dice before increasing it to 3*dice or 4*dice precisely because you can ignore the downside of it by sacrificing someone else.

[AvatarVecna]

Rites Of Blood: I like the concept (paying HP to have access to unprepared rituals), but I think the cost should be more significant. Getting the closest most people get to free spellcasting should hurt. THE FORCES OF THE WORLD DEMAND BLOOD...and one teeny point of damage doesn't seem right. I would change it to 1d4 HP - not so costly that you won't get your money's worth out of the feature in-game, but costly enough that you can't just spam rituals even at the highest levels.

Blood Magic: This ability seems largely okay, given that it's not giving extra spell slots like RoB does, but the issue that's been brought up of it enhancing healing you can give to yourself is definitely a problem. A Druid casting Cure Wounds in a first lvl slot can spend 0 HP to heal 1d8 HP, or spend 1 HP to heal 1d8+1d6 HP, and can continue "spending" 1 HP to heal +1d6 without ever taking any risk. Don't get me wrong, this extra healing is fine is cast on an ally, I think (although that leaves open the possibility of multiple Blood Druids working together for a similar effect - although that's acceptable because Ritual Circle Magic), but getting it to heal yourself is a problem. There either needs to be a limit that you can't sacrifice HP on a healing spell targeting yourself, or a line that HP sacrificed via Blood Magic can only be healed naturally. Actually, if you instituted a change like that to all of these abilities sacrificing HP (where they can't be healed magically), then Rites Of Blood might be okay as just 1 HP.

Ritual Sacrifice only working during a short rest is kinda weird. Also, I already feel like you get quite a lot of Blood Magic dice, so having a recovery mechanic already feels weird, but then making it so cheap is weirder still. I think I agree that it should cost more than 2 HP per die regained at the minimum...but that's not the way I would handle this mechanic, this is:

Starting at level 6, the following spell is added to the Druid spell list. You always have this spell prepared, and it does not count against your total spells prepared. Members of the Circle Of Blood will often employ this spell in one of three ways: ritualized combat between two Circle Members (both casting the spell) so as to recharge both of their Blood Magic die pools, sacrificial combat where the Blood Druid engages a foe and uses the extra Blood Magic to gain the upper hand, or a ritual blood sacrifice involving a hostage target.


Ritual Sacrifice

3rd level Necromancy (ritual)

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 ft
Components: V, S, M (a melee weapon)
Duration: 1 minute

You target a humanoid, monstrosity, or beast within range who you can see and hear. They must make a Wisdom saving throw; if they fail, you have advantage on melee attacks made against them. Regardless of the save results, until the spell ends, any damage you deal to the target with melee attacks (and any damage they deal to you with melee attacks) is added to the Blood Pool; for every 6 points in the Blood Pool, you regain 1 Blood Magic die, to a maximum of the spell's level.

Additionally, if the target dies during your Ritual Sacrifice you may cast one of the following spells by spending Blood Magic Dice equal to the spell's level instead of expending a spell slot or needing material components (although the spells duration must still be cast): Augury, Create Food and Water, Lesser Restoration, Plant Growth, or Prayer of Healing.

Making it a spell means we can use it both in-combat and potentially out-of-combat, rather than just during short rests. the cost per die has been tripled, and you have to actively deal the damage, but damage dealt to you also charges dice (making them charge quickly while still giving you the advantage). Making it a spell/ritual means that you can potentially get more than just half your level in additional dice per day, but means that doing so will generally take a lot more time than usual. Let me know what you think of this idea.

Tooth And Nail: I think this is fine enough. Haven't looked into it too deeply, but slower than Moon seems fine.

Boon Of The Elder: Another free spell, I think:

Starting at level 6, the following spell is added to the Druid spell list. You always have this spell prepared, and it does not count against your total spells prepared.


Elder Ritual Sacrifice[/SIZE]

7th level Necromancy (ritual)

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 ft
Components: V, S, M (a melee weapon)
Duration: 1 minute

You target a humanoid, monstrosity, or beast within range who you can see and hear. You gain resistance to damage that target would deal to you, and they must make a Wisdom saving throw; if they fail, you have advantage on melee attacks made against them. Regardless of the save results, until the spell ends, any damage you deal to the target with melee attacks (and any damage they deal to you with melee attacks) is added to the Blood Pool; for every 6 points in the Blood Pool, you regain 1 Blood Magic die, to a maximum of the spell's level.

Additionally, if the target dies during your Ritual Sacrifice you may cast one of the following spells by spending Blood Magic Dice equal to the spell's level instead of expending a spell slot or needing material components (although the spells duration must still be cast): Greater Restoration, Hallow, Heroes Feast, Planar Ally, Raise Dead.

The advantage to casting this spell is 1) it grants you resistance to damage the target would deal, regardless of the save results, 2) can be ritual-cast as 7th lvl, making it a lot easier to get your dice back quickly if you don't wanna spend high level spell slots, and 3) grants access to more powerful free spells.

[Ferrin33]

Rites Of Blood: I like the concept (paying HP to have access to unprepared rituals), but I think the cost should be more significant. Getting the closest most people get to free spellcasting should hurt. THE FORCES OF THE WORLD DEMAND BLOOD...and one teeny point of damage doesn't seem right. I would change it to 1d4 HP - not so costly that you won't get your money's worth out of the feature in-game, but costly enough that you can't just spam rituals even at the highest levels.

Blood Magic: This ability seems largely okay, given that it's not giving extra spell slots like RoB does, but the issue that's been brought up of it enhancing healing you can give to yourself is definitely a problem. A Druid casting Cure Wounds in a first lvl slot can spend 0 HP to heal 1d8 HP, or spend 1 HP to heal 1d8+1d6 HP, and can continue "spending" 1 HP to heal +1d6 without ever taking any risk. Don't get me wrong, this extra healing is fine is cast on an ally, I think (although that leaves open the possibility of multiple Blood Druids working together for a similar effect - although that's acceptable because Ritual Circle Magic), but getting it to heal yourself is a problem. There either needs to be a limit that you can't sacrifice HP on a healing spell targeting yourself, or a line that HP sacrificed via Blood Magic can only be healed naturally. Actually, if you instituted a change like that to all of these abilities sacrificing HP (where they can't be healed magically), then Rites Of Blood might be okay as just 1 HP.

Ritual Sacrifice only working during a short rest is kinda weird. Also, I already feel like you get quite a lot of Blood Magic dice, so having a recovery mechanic already feels weird, but then making it so cheap is weirder still. I think I agree that it should cost more than 2 HP per die regained at the minimum...but that's not the way I would handle this mechanic, this is:

Starting at level 6, the following spell is added to the Druid spell list. You always have this spell prepared, and it does not count against your total spells prepared. Members of the Circle Of Blood will often employ this spell in one of three ways: ritualized combat between two Circle Members (both casting the spell) so as to recharge both of their Blood Magic die pools, sacrificial combat where the Blood Druid engages a foe and uses the extra Blood Magic to gain the upper hand, or a ritual blood sacrifice involving a hostage target.



Making it a spell means we can use it both in-combat and potentially out-of-combat, rather than just during short rests. the cost per die has been tripled, and you have to actively deal the damage, but damage dealt to you also charges dice (making them charge quickly while still giving you the advantage). Making it a spell/ritual means that you can potentially get more than just half your level in additional dice per day, but means that doing so will generally take a lot more time than usual. Let me know what you think of this idea.

Tooth And Nail: I think this is fine enough. Haven't looked into it too deeply, but slower than Moon seems fine.

Boon Of The Elder: Another free spell, I think:

Starting at level 6, the following spell is added to the Druid spell list. You always have this spell prepared, and it does not count against your total spells prepared.



The advantage to casting this spell is 1) it grants you resistance to damage the target would deal, regardless of the save results, 2) can be ritual-cast as 7th lvl, making it a lot easier to get your dice back quickly if you don't wanna spend high level spell slots, and 3) grants access to more powerful free spells.

Thanks for the response.

Rites of Blood does not do more than what a wizard does when he scribes a new ritual spell into his spellbook, except the druid pays in blood whenever he wants to cast it without having it prepared, whereas the wizard does not pay anything extra for it. Any spellcaster with the Ritual Casting class feature can cast spells for free. The limitations are that bards need to have it as a spell known, clerics and druids need to have it prepared, warlocks with Book of Ancient Secrets and wizards need to have it in their spellbook. Rites of Blood means it's more similar to the Wizard's ritual casting, except that unlike the wizard, the Circle of Blood druid takes damage whenever he casts a spell this way. While it is stronger than a regular druid, it is a class feature to improve an aspect of the character, and even has a cost associated to it that other classes with similar limitations do not.

Blood Magic enhancing healing gives a net benefit of 2.5 healing per dice spent, taking the damage is just part of the cost, the real price is the Blood Magic Dice you spend. You are supposed to benefit from using this power to enhance your magic. You don't get "free" healing with blood magic dice if you heal yourself and you do not ignore the damage you deal to yourself with it, the amount healed to the "target" is lower because you also deal damage to yourself, and the blood magic dice are still spent, which you can only get back by taking a long rest for all of them, or half per short rest if you either take damage for each die you get back, or sacrifice something to take this damage for you.

Ritual Magic works on a short rest because it's a regeneration mechanic and intended to be limited in game terms, think of it as a monk meditating, but instead involving offering blood to nature. You do get a lot of Blood Magic Dice, but its net benefit is more akin to a d4 because of the damage you deal to yourself. Similar abilities I looked at were a paladin's Lay on Hands and Unearthed Arcana's Circle of Twilight Harvest's Scythe abilities. It is only after 2+ short rests that you get more effective healing or damage from this class feature than either of these other two, with its own limitations. It's on-par after two short rests, but weaker before. In addition to that you need to either sacrifice some animal or prisoner, potentially killing it, or deal damage to yourself or an ally which presents either opportunity cost or reducing the net benefit of each Blood Magic Die you regenerate with a short rest.

Interesting idea on the spells, but they completely break the assumed short/long rest economy that a DM can plan around, and effectively limits you to using your spell slots on those two spells to the exclusion of others. Rather than a spell those two effects would be better suited to a short/long rest cooldown class feature.

[JNAProductions]

How do they break anything? They're more options, but nothing FORCES YOU to use them.

[Ferrin33]

Thought of some changes based on some feedback here and in other places.

Changed Blood Magic to regain up to half of your Blood Dice on a short or long rest instead of all on a long and half on a short, changed die to a d8 and it reduces your current and maximum hit points when you spend them. Tooth and Nail and Ritual Sacrifice split into two with some changes. Boon of the Elder is removed in favor of a more streamlined Ritual Sacrifice.

With these changes Blood Magic should always feel like a sacrifice, will edit the main post later. Edited original post.

[Ferrin33]

Big revamp of abilities just now.