Blood Mage

[Talamare]

How much Health would you need to pay to be able to cast spells without limitations?

As in

Assume that instead of Spell Slots a class had the option of to use magic by paying for it with their HP
How much Health would they need to pay per spell for it to be balanced?


I understand that one of the CORE issues with such a mechanic is drinking copious amounts of Healing Potions. Which means that you're only limited by the amount of money you have.
Altho something like this could be achieved even without such a mechanic by purchasing vast amount of Spell Scrolls. However, Spell Scrolls have 'preplanning' limitations, which a mechanic like this wouldn't.

I think a way to disable this potential exploit would be to just completely disable the ability for this class to be able to heal from items.

[Avonar]

I think health is the wrong way to go about this. A different way would be perhaps using exhaustion, casting a spell like that makes the caster make a Con Save, the DC higher for higher level spells. (DC = 15 + Spell level perhaps?)

Health though means that you could heal through it. And if you compensate for that by increasing the health loss, then it becomes not viable without trying to heal through it.

[Kane0]

I’d advise using hit die, same effect and less moving parts to factor in and balance.

[Greywander]

I created a thread a week or two ago about different types of spellcasting (and also, I can't believe I forgot to do one based on levels of exhaustion, that would have been a good idea). I posted this about blood magic:

Blood Magic
You prepare your spells as normal, but you don't cast them using spell slots. Instead, you spend hit points equal to 4 * the spell's level for each spell you cast of 1st level and higher. Casting spells this way bypasses temporary hit points, and if you cast a spell that restores hit points, you can't restore more hit points than the cost of the spell.
Alternatively, the hit point cost can be determined by rolling a number of d6s equal to the level of the spell being cast.

This would work great with a class that used CON as its spellcasting ability score.
In my case, different spellcasting methods weren't tied to specific classes, so it was altogether possible that a blood magic user could get access to healing spells while paying for spells with HP. Hence the clause about not being able to restore more HP than you pay. It bypasses temp HP for similar reasons (otherwise, a spell like Heroism would basically be free spells for up to a minute). As for the exact cost, I don't know if 4 or 1d6 HP per spell level is a good value or not. This is the type of thing that would need playtesting, most likely with two casters in the party, one using the default magic system and one using blood magic. It should be easier to compare them then.

If you want infinite spellcasting, see Wild Magic from the original thread. It's fun... and dangerous. :xykon:

[Kadzar]

What if you cast from hit point maximum instead (or I guess in addition would work better), and it would come back after a long rest (or possibly short, depending on how balance works out), sort of like how some undead monsters do, except you'd be doing it to yourself instead of it being the effect of an attack. That way, you couldn't just heal it back, and it has the nice side-effect that sacrificing your own blood to power a spell would basically work the same mechanically as getting drained by a vampire.

I guess the only thing to watch out for with this is what happens when someone casts greater restoration and the like on the blood mage. If you allow it to restore their hit point maximum, they could abuse it for extra spellcasting (though it wouldn't be quite as abusable as just casting from hit points). If you disallow it to be restored, it'll make encounters with HP maximum-draining monsters more complicated, as they'll have to not only track their original and current HP max, but also their HP max from monster drain vs. from spell drain.

I guess a way to make it easier would be to just have some sort stat or whatever called Drain or whatever, which goes up when you cast blood mage spells, and if it ever reaches your current hit point maximum (or maybe just hitpoints) you die (or at least go to 0 hp).

[Talamare]

What if you cast from hit point maximum instead (or I guess in addition would work better), and it would come back after a long rest (or possibly short, depending on how balance works out), sort of like how some undead monsters do, except you'd be doing it to yourself instead of it being the effect of an attack. That way, you couldn't just heal it back, and it has the nice side-effect that sacrificing your own blood to power a spell would basically work the same mechanically as getting drained by a vampire.

I guess the only thing to watch out for with this is what happens when someone casts greater restoration and the like on the blood mage. If you allow it to restore their hit point maximum, they could abuse it for extra spellcasting (though it wouldn't be quite as abusable as just casting from hit points). If you disallow it to be restored, it'll make encounters with HP maximum-draining monsters more complicated, as they'll have to not only track their original and current HP max, but also their HP max from monster drain vs. from spell drain.

I guess a way to make it easier would be to just have some sort stat or whatever called Drain or whatever, which goes up when you cast blood mage spells, and if it ever reaches your current hit point maximum (or maybe just hitpoints) you die (or at least go to 0 hp).

Holy Damn that's good
That's crazy good

+1 Dude
No, +10!

Drain/Restoration events seem like they are rare enough that it's fine that they need to keep track of 2 stats.