Blood Magic - Spell Points but it uses HP instead

[Greywander]

So I had a kind of crazy thought. A while back, I made a thread exploring a couple different magic systems, one of which was blood magic. You spend HP to cast spells. I didn't really have a concrete idea of how much HP a spell should cost, but then I just now remembered that spell points were a thing.

A 20th level wizard with a CON of 14 has less HP than the equivalent number of spell points for that level. However, by boosting your CON, playing a hill dwarf, or getting the Toughness feat, you can boost your HP quite a bit. So I wondered if perhaps the HP costs should be higher (say, double) what the equivalent spell point cost is. Or maybe you would roll for "damage".

In any case, you'd be restricted to one spell per level for 6th and up, as per the spell point rules. Blood magic bypasses temp HP and damage reduction or resistance.

The main problem with blood magic is healing spells. Or healing in general, as it's typically easier to come by sources of HP restoration than it is sources of spell slot restoration. HP are also a short rest resource thanks to hit dice. Perhaps the best way to handle it is that using a healing spell on yourself gives you temp HP instead. This still allows you to heal others, as well as benefit from your own healing spells, and spells like Vampiric Touch, but without any infinite healing exploits.

Or, instead of using spell points as a base, we could look at the spell damage chart on page 284 of the DMG. A 1st level spell is expected to deal 2d10 damage, which is (roughly) 10 damage, so it might cost 10 HP to cast it. This means a 9th level spell would cost a whopping 75 HP (15 * 5). Then again, damaging yourself to damage an enemy (roughly) the same amount probably isn't a good tactic. Is it worth spending 25 HP to cast Fireball? Maybe, maybe not.

Thoughts on this?

An alternative to spending HP might be spending hit dice or CON (which can't be healed except by resting), but the numbers would need to be greatly reworked compared to spell points.

[Aimeryan]

To solve the healing issue, have the maximum HP reduced as well - recovered on a long rest or by any spell/ability that drains HP from others (transfer the maximum HP reduction to stop these spells/abilities being used on allies so easily).

[Maelynn]

I'm not sure if you want to make it so that all magic casting in a setting is done this way, but if you just want to incorporate it into the existing system then perhaps you could make it a specialisation instead, akin to necromancy.

- provide a restricted list of spells that work only by sacrificing hp (homebrew or refluff some if necessary)
- give the specialisation an ability that allows them to restore more hp during rests (suggestion: when spending HD during a short rest, one of them will offer maximum healing)
- let them use their spell slots for the other regular spells, like healing or fireball
- to prevent abuse, you could set a maximum amount of blood magic spells that can be cast each day (either not allow any more, or allow more but at a great cost like a level of exhaustion)

[moonfly7]

This:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?595815-Help-with-ideas-for-a-new-class-im-creating
Is what you were looking for.
I've checked out the thread, it's good. His current build is on the class contest, so check it out.

[Maelynn]

This:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?595815-Help-with-ideas-for-a-new-class-im-creating
Is what you were looking for.
I've checked out the thread, it's good. His current build is on the class contest, so check it out.

That's a nice read. Here's also the link to his contest entry, as that holds the final build and not the process leading to it:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?594571-D-amp-D-Base-Class-Contest-VIII-Magic-Without-Slots&p=24101785#post24101785

[Fable Wright]

I've actually had this swilling about in my head for a while now. Spending HP to cast spells is a nifty concept, but gets broken basically no matter what you do, courtesy of the Druid. Massive heal over times? Sure. Greater Restoration to get rid of max HP reductions followed by a massive HoT, trading a 5th and a 2nd or 3rd level slot to refresh all your daily resources? Also sure.

Spending HP and HD in combat was a signature of the Blood Hunter class, and that's notoriously fragile and restricted.

And yet the flavor of blood magic is cool, and fits just about any class. So I made it a feat for my games.

Blood Mage

Prerequisite: Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma 13
You have learned a number of spells you can cast as rituals. These spells are written in a ritual book, which you must have on hand when casting one of them. Each spell recorded in the ritual book has an additional material component, which is consumed in the casting of the spell: the corpse of a creature with hit dice equal to or greater than the level of the spell that died within the last 24 hours. A body consumed in this way does not disappear, but is rendered magically inert and cannot be used for future blood magic.

When you gain this feat, you acquire a ritual book holding two 1st level spells with the ritual tag, which may be on the list of any class. Your casting ability for these rituals are the same as the class you learned the spell from (Charisma for bard, sorcerer, or warlock; Wisdom for cleric or druid; Intelligence for wizard).

If you come across a spell in written from, such as a magical scroll or a wizard's spellbook, you might be able to add it to your ritual book. The spell's level must not be higher than half your level (rounded up), and it must have the ritual tag. The process of copying the spell into your ritual books takes 2 hours per level of the spells, and costs 50 gp per level of the spell. This cost represents material components spent on practicing the spell, as well as the fine inks you must use to record it.

[PotatoGolem]

So it's Ritual Caster, except that you can take rituals from more than one class and there's a tough material component?

[Vogie]

I could see a sorcerer subclass doing this - using hit dice rather than spell slots, having more than usual hit dice (and thus, hit points), then recovering more than the normal half during a long rest. You expend hit dice to cast spells, and take damage equal to the what's rolled, and only can heal via rests.

Alternatively, you could use Life Transference as a guide - dealing damage to yourself, and then using a multiple of that as an effect to your targets.

[loki_ragnarock]

I was actually thinking something along the same lines: tying it to hit dice, making it a sorcerer. Tying it to hit dice rather than hp gives a clear limit to the ability

So here's some spitballing:
Make a it a sorcerer archetype, during a short rest they can spend hit die (max 1/2 level) and rather than gain hit points, they gain a special pool of sorcery points that can only be used to replenish spell slots.
Later it can be used to refresh spell slots of higher level but following a spell level +3 formula for 6/7th level slots, spell level +4 for 8/9th level slots. That'd be the higher level features, probably.

Suddenly sorcerer is a short rest caster. Hurray!

[Greywander]

To solve the healing issue, have the maximum HP reduced as well
This is actually a really good idea. After writing the OP, I also remembered that there are a few ways to get passive HP regeneration, which would muck up a blood magic system, but max HP reduction would solve this as well.


I'm not sure if you want to make it so that all magic casting in a setting is done this way, but if you just want to incorporate it into the existing system then perhaps you could make it a specialisation instead, akin to necromancy.
The intent was to offer it as an optional alternative to normal spellcasting. So you could have a wizard or cleric that uses blood magic instead of spell slots. I also kind of had things like gestalt characters in mind, where one might be able to stack up more than 20 caster levels. In most houserules that deal with characters getting more than 20 class levels, spell slots always cap out at caster level 20, so I thought it would be nice to have "secondary" magic systems, like pact magic, that stack on additional ways to cast spells so that you can continue progressing after caster level 20 (e.g. you could be a 17th level vancian mage, an 11th level wild mage, and a 5th level blood mage). In any case, it would exist alongside the normal spellcasting.


This:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?595815-Help-with-ideas-for-a-new-class-im-creating
Is what you were looking for.
I've checked out the thread, it's good. His current build is on the class contest, so check it out.

That's a nice read. Here's also the link to his contest entry, as that holds the final build and not the process leading to it:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?594571-D-amp-D-Base-Class-Contest-VIII-Magic-Without-Slots&p=24101785#post24101785
I've skimmed a bit of those threads. I'll need to go back and review it more thoroughly later when I have time. This kind of reminds of a "channeler" class I was working on: a class with at-will spellcasting (for spells 1st through 5th level), being limited only in the number of ongoing effects they can have up at the same time. The spell list had to be heavily curated, removing most of the instantaneous spells in favor of long duration spells, especially concentration spells, and mostly buff/debuff and utility spells. The end result (as far as I got, anyway) was something that felt a lot like a warlock.

In any case, while it might be necessary to create a whole class built around using blood magic, I'm still hoping I can make it work for all existing caster classes. Most of the problems with blood magic persist if you even just have a healer in the party, you don't even need to be one yourself.


I've actually had this swilling about in my head for a while now. Spending HP to cast spells is a nifty concept, but gets broken basically no matter what you do, courtesy of the Druid. Massive heal over times? Sure. Greater Restoration to get rid of max HP reductions followed by a massive HoT, trading a 5th and a 2nd or 3rd level slot to refresh all your daily resources? Also sure.
Yeah, I think this hits the nail on the head pretty well. Almost anything blood magic could cost (HP, max HP, CON reduction) can be healed with magic, allowing for infinite spellcasting. About the only real resource that can't be restored this way are hit dice. But you don't really get enough hit dice to be able to spend them on spells.

All that said, I kind of like the idea of being able to chug a potion to regain your energy and throw out another spell. And generally I think it's okay if they can cast more spells than a normal spellcaster, as they're sacrificing HP to do so (while spending spell slots carries no risk by itself). The main problem is that healing yourself can create infinite loops. In combat it's not so bad, as the HP reduction is pretty dangerous. Where blood magic is really a problem is out of combat. Then again, warlocks can regain spell slots after only a short rest, so maybe out of combat isn't so much of a problem, as long as setting up an infinite spellcasting loop isn't quick or easy. Remember that we can restrict a blood mage to only one spell per level of 6th or higher, so even with infinite spellcasting, they're still only getting up to 5th level spells, again, similar to a warlock.

Hmm, I think I've got it. Using blood magic costs you HP and reduces your max HP by the same amount. Any time you receive healing, including from your own spells, you can apply that healing to either your current HP or your max HP (or split it between them). Essentially, this means you need twice the healing in order to fully recover from using blood magic, but doesn't reduce your HP so much that it becomes too dangerous to use in combat. You can still partially cheese it with Greater Restoration, but it only fixes half of your problem (your max HP), and also costs you 100 gp in spell components. Healing Spirit is still a bit of a tough one, you'd probably need to houserule or outright ban this spell (maybe a good fix would be to split the healing into real HP and temp HP, still makes it combat viable while reducing out of combat abuse). Life clerics would also make great blood mages.

I'll have to play around with this a bit more in order to find a good balance.

Edit: What if healing from your own spells only restored current HP, not max HP? This at least means Healing Spirit again only fixes half your problem, although combining it with Greater Restoration still lets you create an infinite spellcasting loop. I'm less worried about a spell like Heal, as it's 6th level and you can only cast it once per long rest. The main problem seems to be Healing Spirit, which is so far off-curve compared to other healing spells. I can figure out a way to balance HP costs per spell level against the typical amount healed by a spell of that level, but this doesn't work for spells that fall too far outside of the typical healing amount. Perhaps the only real solution is that you simply can't heal yourself with your own blood magic, but even then exploits could still exist (two blood mages working together, for example).

[Kane0]

Alternatively, instead of using your current or max HP to power your spell points try using Hit Die.

Say for example you have Spell Points as per the DMG variant rule but a smaller number, able to spend Hit Die to recover them during a short rest or as you level up as an action. That way healing and restoration won't give you infinite spells.

[Fable Wright]

So it's Ritual Caster, except that you can take rituals from more than one class and there's a tough material component?

Correct. You can do basically anything with a bit enough sacrifice, but I tend to find it ritual caster because sacrificing squirrels and such for utility things like Unseen Servant and Floating Disk and Speak With Animals tends to put restrictions on its use, unlike being able to spam Unseen Servant at will.

[Fnissalot]

I would say that you either could do it with hit dice.

The other way, if you do it to health/max health, the class cannot be healed/restored for a minute or the spells duration, whichever is longer. If this is too harsh, you can have it end when you go unconscious or that the effect counts as a curse for the remove curse spell.

[Zhorn]

Lots of people are saying it; and now I am too.
Sorcerer spending hit dice.

Roll the hit dice, that's how many Sorcery Points you get.
Temporary Sorcery Points, they can be used like regular Sorcery Points, but only persist for 1 minute.
Functions like Temporary HP in that they get used first and don't stack. ie: you have 2, roll a 3, you have 3, not 5.

[Greywander]

Eh, I feel like using hit dice doesn't actually fit the theme of blood magic. Hit dice don't so much represent your current health, but rather your ability to recover quickly. Blood magic, to me, means self-harm as a means of fueling your spells. In other words, spending hit dice doesn't directly harm you, it only limits your ability to recover from harm. That said, it's thematically similar to spending max HP in that both limit your ability to recover afterwards without directly harming you in the moment. And I'd expect blood loss to not only harm you, but also make recovery difficult.

I did a quick look into healing spells, and aside from Healing Spirit (2nd level, 1d6 * 10 rounds = 35 average), the one that really popped out as potentially problematic is Aura of Vitality (3rd level, 2d6 * 10 rounds = 70 average). Mass healing options might be problematic if you had a whole party of blood mages (and is something that should probably be kept in mind), but they not any worse than single target options for just one blood mage. Oh yeah, then there's Beacon of Hope, which takes this issue to a whole new level.

Another, somewhat bizarre aspect of blood magic is how it looks when you're a mid to high level character who is just dipping into a blood mage class. Since spells are fueled by HP, increasing your blood mage caster level only lets you cast higher level spells. So a single level dip would let you spam a lot of 1st level spells. As I see it, there are a few ways this could be addressed:

You gain bonus hit dice as your blood magic level increases. Assumes hit dice are spent to cast blood magic. May or may not also increase HP.
You gain extra hit points as your blood magic level increases. Assumes only HP and/or max HP are spent to cast blood magic.
Do nothing, this is working as intended.

With all that said, here's a couple brain dumps on how such a system might work.

Each blood magic level gives you an extra 2 HP and a d4 hit die. When you cast a spell, you spend HP equal to twice the spell point cost, and your max HP is reduced by an amount equal to the spell's level. This max HP reduction explicitly cannot be healed except by resting. When you short rest, you can spend hit dice to recover reduced max HP.

Each blood magic level gives you an extra 2 HP. When you cast a spell, you spend HP equal to twice the spell point cost, and your max HP is reduced by an amount equal to the spell's level. This max HP reduction explicitly cannot be healed except by resting. You recover your reduced max HP only after a long rest.

Each blood magic level gives you an extra 2 HP and a d4 hit die. When you cast a spell, roll one or more hit dice, and if the total is below the amount needed for that spell, then you pay the difference in HP. The hit dice rolled are spent on the spell.

Each blood magic level gives you an extra d4 hit die. When you cast a spell, roll one or more hit dice, attempting to meet or exceed the spell point cost for the spell. The spell then casts at the highest level possible for the result you rolled. If you don't roll high enough to cast that spell, the spell fails. The hit dice rolled are spent on the spell.

Each blood magic level gives you an extra 2 HP and a d4 hit die. When you cast a spell, you spend HP equal to twice the spell point cost. Roll one of your hit dice, and if the result is more than the HP spent, nothing else happens. If the result is less than the HP spent, then roll another hit die, and keep rolling hit dice until the total exceeds the HP cost of the spell. All hit dice rolled except the last are spent on the spell.

A couple of alternative solutions: Healing spells are "at will", but you always lose HP equal to the amount healed. Healing spells can't be cast at all with blood magic. Healing yourself with a spell via blood magic always only ever grants temp HP. Blood magic can only be used to cast sorcerer, warlock, and wizard spells (a stricter variant on the "no healing spells" option, although see Divine Soul and Celestial patron).

I'll think about this some more. The main problems seem to be (a) for HP-only spending, some healing spells (Healing Spirit, Aura of Vitality) are way off curve, (b) for max-HP-spending or CON-spending, Greater Restoration restores both reduced max HP and reduced CON, and (c) spending hit dice might be too limiting (only playtesting will tell). The solution to (a) might be to ban these two spells, or simply not allow them to be cast via blood magic. The solution to (b) might be to simply state that Greater Restoration doesn't recover max HP or CON spent on blood magic. The solution to (c) would be to give extra hit dice as your blood magic level increases.

Also, it occurs to me that blood mages probably hate the Chill Touch spell (assuming that blood magic primarily requires spending HP, so healing yourself is a crucial blood magic strategy).

[Phoenix042]

As Vanora carves this rune into her abdomen, the blood pouring from the wound seems to burn away. Instead of smoke, tendrils of violet energy rise from the symbol as the God of Sacrifice accepts his offering. In return, his blessing suffuses Vanora’s body with a supernatural strength. Her flesh hardens painfully, but Vanora only smiles, knowing that her muscles have become living steel.

...

As her flail lands another blow, Vanora adds the last swift gash to a rune on her shoulder, deciding in that moment which variation to activate. The blood burns away and the rune glows with pulsing power. The God of Sacrifice has accepted his offering, and Xixthre’s blessing lends weight to her blow. Her foe staggers, his eyes wide with terror, and she knows that he has failed the test. Vanora turns her back on him in search of worthier cattle to sacrifice.

...

As the angel’s shield breaks under the weight of her blows, Vanora sees uncertainty in the golden eyes of her foe. Dropping his shining sword and drawing his bow, the haloed warrior takes to the air, careful not to leave his guard down for even a moment. With a few mighty strokes of his white feathered wings, he flies high above her, hoping to rain arrows down on her from high above, where he will be safe from her deadly flail.
Were it only so easy.
Vanora grins broadly as her knife bites deeply into her thigh, carving the rune that will deliver this child of heaven to her hungry god.

...

When the dragon emerges from his molten pool, glowing blood-red by the light of the liquid fire all around them, Vanora’s allies instinctively take a step back. Vanora steps forward, carving a few quick gashes into her chest, reveling in the heat of the familiar violet fire as it burns hungrily at the wound. Power floods her body and her heart begins to beat impossibly fast, time slowing to a crawl. In the blink of an eye, before anyone else can react, Vanora has crossed the river of lava with a single leap, landed beside the dragon’s throat, and laid it open with a furious blur of powerful strikes, a whirlwind of steel and blood.The ancient dragon lets loose a mangled roar of pain and fury as his blood pours swiftly from the wounds, it’s scent mixing heavily with the fumes and sulfur in the scorching caldera.

...

Laughing defiantly, Vanora lays into the dozens of soldiers around her with reckless abandon, felling one after the other as their hopeless counter-attacks crash over her like waves upon a rock. At last, one brave veteran dashes forward, spear in hand, and manages to carve a gash into her steel-hard arm. The ragged band of warriors shout with renewed hope at the sight of her blood, but their rallying cries die in their throats as Vanora’s knife flashes in her hand, a rune appearing across her chest in its wake. The wound melts away before their eyes, along with any chance of survival.


These features all operate off of my own custom blood-magic system, each one belonging to a singularly powerful, high level player character in a campaign I DM for.


The features are called, in order:
Rage
Ki (step of the wind)
Menacing Strike
Action Surge
and finally,
Second Wind.


Just use the features and powers that exist in the game, and describe them how you want them to feel. When my player approached me with a concept for a character that could use personal sacrifice to empower her attacks and defenses in melee, I at first tried to homebrew solutions. This character took literally years to build, and in the end it was never nearly as much fun as it currently is in its modern iteration.

The idea was to have a sort of sith-like character, wielding a flail two-handed instead of a lightsaber, and who uses blood magic to empower her attacks and protect her from harm.

I eventually came up with this:

Monk 2 / Battlemaster 6 / Berserker 5

She's got magic boots that further improve her jumps (force jumps, anyone?), and her flail does have a magic feature that allows her to trade 10hp at the start of her turn to deal 2d6 extra damage on each attack that hits during her turn. Pairs very nicely with reckless attack, and does actually give the character a single outlet for that "I bleed so they bleed more" style of sacrifice.

But aside from working a little on custom magic items, I really recommend using the existing rules and re-writing your descriptive text to fit the character.

When you divorce your expectations of fluff and flavor from the mechanics that already exist in the game, you'll realize that the existing game content can go SO MUCH further and cover SO many additional archetypes.

Best thing I ever did as a DM was get my group to change their attitude about flavor text to consider it as merely a suggestion, and to feel like they had license to go nuts with descriptions and roleplaying stuff as long as they kept the mechanics in tact for balance reasons.

[Greywander]

Just use the features and powers that exist in the game, and describe them how you want them to feel.
I think you might be misunderstanding the purpose of the thread. If all I was after was the flavor of a blood mage, then I could just refluff using spell slots into a blood ritual. What I'm really after is a mechanically different spellcasting system.

This is some really good advice, though, and would certainly apply to a lot of other situations where you want to play something that isn't represented already. If you're primarily concerned about flavor and theming, and not so much the mechanics, then reflavoring existing mechanics (perhaps with a rule tweak here and there) will get you a long ways. Heck, it might even be fun to try making a party of mechanically identical characters, but each with vastly different flavoring.

[Kane0]

Start with warlock spell progression converted to SP, but regained on a LR instead of SR.

When spending Hit Die you choose to restore either HP or SP for each hit die.

Optionally, give some ability to roll Hit Die outside of during a long rest.

Playtest and tweak to suit.

Edit: actually that would make for a neat CON caster while youre at it.