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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Blood Magus (Sorcerous Origin) [PEACH]



Edea
2020-08-18, 05:00 PM
Blood Magus
Sorcerers are commonly cited as having "magic in the blood," but you are an embodiment of this aphorism being taken to a logical extreme. Your blood isn't merely a vehicle for your latent mystical power; it's an incredibly potent substance in its own right. As a blood magus, you gradually learn to power yourself with your own physical essence. This form of sorcery generally manifests itself when someone has a particularly traumatic near-death (or death-and-raised) experience, or when close to someone else who suffers such an event. Unlike most other sorcerous origins, blood magic is generally not passed down to the blood magus's descendants (making this an ironically apt origin for a character whose powers are flavored to not be an inherited trait).
Scarification
At 1st level, you gain the ability to incorporate additional arcane knowledge through the use of your blood by creating scar-like magical etchings over your skin, hereafter referred to as 'spellscars'. A blood magus is able to intuit the functions of a spell they channel through their blood in this way that they would not be able to understand, otherwise.

A spellscar is capable of holding a prepared spell. These spells can come from either the sorcerer or wizard spell lists, but you must have spell slots available of the appropriate level for the spells you choose to prepare. You treat spells prepared in your spellscars as if they were additional sorcerer spells known.

You can have any number of spellscars holding prepared spells on your body at once, so long as the total number of spell levels being held by your spellscars is equal to (or less than) 1 + one-half your sorcerer class level (rounded up). You can change your spellscars (and the prepared spells contained therein) after a long rest; preparing spells in this way requires time spent manifesting the spellscars to hold them (at least 1 minute per spell level of each spell you decide to hold).
Durable Caster
Blood magi are interoceptive savants, and have incredibly fine-tuned mastery over their own biofeedback systems, helping them safely overcome internal system shock.

From 1st level, you have advantage on Constitution checks and saving throws. In addition, you have both proficiency and advantage with death saving throws, and you treat a roll of 1 on a death saving throw as if it were a 20.
Font Infusion
Starting at 6th level, you become able to increase the flexibility of your magic by using some of your blood to infuse yourself with sorcerous power.

Whenever you take a short rest, you can choose to spend a sorcerer hit die to replenish a number of spent sorcery points equal to your proficiency bonus (instead of regaining lost hit points).

At first, you can only do this once per short rest; at 11th level, you become able to do this twice per short rest (remember that you cannot hold more sorcery points at once than the maximum indicated for your current sorcerer level on Table: The Sorcerer).
Thicker Than Water
Starting at 14th level, you learn how to partially exsanguinate yourself in such a way as to create additional 'body parts' made entirely out of animated blood. Choose one of the following effects when you gain this feature; you can change the chosen effect after taking a long rest.
Crimson Wings: You sprout wings made of blood from your back. You gain a fly speed equal to your normal speed and can hover. These wings can be manifested or dismissed as a bonus action.
Crimson Claws: You wrap your hands in sharp, claw-like protrusions of blood. These claws are natural melee weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. You use your Charisma in place of your Strength/Dexterity for attack rolls made with your crimson claws. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d8 + your Charisma modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. These claws can be manifested or dismissed as a bonus action.
Crimson Visage: Your blood layers over your eyes, turning them a glowing red, and small matching horns made of blood appear on top of your head. You gain low-light vision and the ability to see normally in both magical and nonmagical darkness to a distance of 120 feet. This effect can be manifested or dismissed as a bonus action.
Blood Awakening
Once you've reached 18th level, your blood has become so potent that it permanently augments your very being, body and soul.

Your Constitution score increases by four points, and your maximum for Constitution is now 24. In addition, the number of spent hit dice you can regain after a long rest is now doubled.
I will put this up-front: this is supposed to be a 'band-aid' for a lot of the problems sorcerers are cited as having compared to the other caster classes, along with some hopefully-flavorful window-dressing abilities to round out the archetype.

I dislike that this is a bloodline. Some of these abilities should be core fixes to the class. However, using the archetype system to deliver these 'fixes' is a lot easier (for me, anyway) than trying to gut the core chassis and start all over from scratch.

Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with published 5e content will find the Blood Magus offering...a lot...compared to the other available bloodlines. I am 100% aware of this, and because I'm not a fan of said published bloodlines (at least the ones I've read), that's kinda just going to be the way it is.

What I AM interested in finding out from other posters is (accepting this 'powerful' aspect of the archetype):
Whether or not you'd find it fun to play.
Whether it makes "flavor-sense" without being completely degenerate (Scarification being very versatile? Yep, I get it. Scarification able to let you know every spell in the game simultaneously through some simulacrum-based shenanigans or other loophole I didn't know needed to be closed? That's something I need to fix, pronto).
Whether any of the rules language is inappropriate or unclear.
Whether this post is formatted alright/easy to look at.

With that out of the way, I'll try to go over my rationale with each piece of the archetype, which I hope helps with critiques and suggestions for refinement.

Scarification: This one's trying to address the 'why the hell does my sorcerer barely know any more spells than the 1/3 caster' problem. It's still not on the level of a full prepared caster, and due to the limit specified for total spell levels, it's really still not on-par with even the bard. However, it's very, very flexible; you can pick these spells from any arcane class, and you're able to switch them around every day just like a prepared caster. A 12th level sorcerer (with a spell level limit total of roundup(1+(12/2)) = 7, max spell level of any one spell due to slots being 6th) might have Otto's Irresistible Dance (6th) and Dissonant Whispers (1st) spellscarred one day, and then after a long rest replace the Otto's with Vampiric Touch (3rd) and Remove Curse (3rd) while keeping the Whispers (1st), etc..

Durable Caster: Window dressing. Even in 3.5 the blood magus was well-known for not bleeding out (I mean, they can kinda control their blood flow to a supernatural degree), and they had strong Fort saves. I can see perhaps toning it down to just 'advantage on Con checks, spend a sorcery point as a reaction for advantage on Con saves,' but I honestly kind of like it as-is.

Font Infusion: This one's trying to address the 'where have all the cowboys sorcery points gone?' problem. I am actually in agreement with those who defend the sorcerer class as-presented that sorcery point recovery being completely passive at early levels is too much, mostly due to how Flexible Casting works. Unfortunately sorcery points also fuel most of the sorcerer's other class features, which leads to agonizing indecision and making the class kind-of a pain in the ass to play (especially if you're in a group that's actually engaging in an appropriate number of encounters per day and not doing the 'one fight every long rest' crap). This tries to find a middle ground by allowing limited sorcery point recovery mid-adventuring day, but with a resource trade instead of just dumping the points on your for free. Probably the main issues are if this trade's sufficient, and whether the number of points recovered scaling to your proficiency bonus is a good idea (I dislike the idea of using your Cha mod, NGL).

Thicker Than Water: More window dressing. This is flat-out stronger than a normal 14th level feature, due to its versatility (it can make the wings like Dragon/Divine/etc., and also has two other options, though none of them can be used simultaneously); just re-iterating I'm aware of it. I just really like the idea of the sorcerer being able to "meldshape" his own blood like this, and we're also starting to get into the range/tier of play where your spell repertoire probably says a lot more about you than anything else you're getting from your class. ATM, I feel like letting it slide.

Blood Awakening: The one I'm most open to flat-out changing, hands down. My actual problem with this is that it comes on at friggin' 18th level; it might as well be a capstone, so I wrote it like one (also bearing in mind the sorcerer's actual capstone is...not terribly inspired, at least IMO). The ability to recover more hit dice after a long rest is the important part, for me, as it ties into the blood magus's Font Infusion.

JNAProductions
2020-08-21, 11:24 AM
Scarification is way too good. It's Magical Secrets on steroids.

Durable Caster is probably a bit too good, but that's just a numbers thing.

Font Infusion feels okay.

Thicker Than Water is comparable to the Draconic Origin's 14th level feature... Only it's way better, since it gives a flight speed or other options. Also, True Seeing for 1 SP? That's bonkers.

Blood Awakening is ABSOLUTELY OP. Barbarians can get away with breaking the stat cap because they have no saves that trigger off their Strength or Constitution. Sorcerers have that. Not to mention, you nab it two levels earlier than a Barbarian, which also means you could dip Warlock for your last two, netting you 4d10+28 damage (plus Hex, if you want) at-will.

Edea
2020-08-21, 06:28 PM
OK, let's see...

Scarification: might reduce the spell lists available to specifically sorcerer and wizard, still thinking about it.

Thicker Than Water: probably going to change that to 'pick one of these three, that's the one you have until you take a long rest', and then either raise the sorcery point cost for that last bit or just remove it, not sure yet.

Blood Awakening: removing the Cha bump for now, pondering the rest of it.