SangoProduction
2021-09-12, 11:01 AM
Preamble: Blood is the single SoP sphere that was not only worse than Telekinesis, but is also not interesting enough to rewrite after the forums ate it. So I am happily taking this opportunity to give it a proper review now that Crimson Dancer came out and showed us some potential!
Post-Review Analysis:
It likely looks better than it actually is, simply because all those (S) talents are just trying to make up for the base sphere. Although there are a bunch of talents here, there aren’t enough talents that you’d actually want to full dive into the sphere. Instead, you’ll dip for a couple tricks here and there. Which makes all the extra support talents feel like serious taxes.
I just...dislike the entire Blood Control mechanic in general, I think. The Blood Arts concept, on the other hand, has potential.
Link: Not working right now, because Google Docs is screwing around. (I was planning on having the forums be the abridged version but... since GD isn't working, just tell me how simply having the full version in the forums is. I could probably put the full justifications in spoilers, leaving just the abridged version fully visible in their sections.)
Flex Talents: Manipulate Health vs Mummies / disease carriers.
Blood Puppet vs dangerous mages.
Maximize Caster Level: Unless you’re using exactly Gory Armaments, Self Control, and Red Mist (OK fine, or also buffing your(self and) allies with Manipulate Alchemy), everything wants to have the maximum possible CL and save DC
Blood Control (N)
Standard action, close range. Fort save to resist (with a -4 if they have less than half hp). But requires concentration, or only lasts 1 round by spending a spell point. And they can use an action to attempt to end it early. Granted, it at least soaks their standard action.
Redeeming factor? You can apply additional (quicken) or (still) abilities and it counts as concentration. Now… just need a good set of those…
(Special Note: Celetial Obedience to Vildeis lets you target yourself with bleed effects, and instead affect enemies within 30 ft of you. Depending on how your DM interprets that...)
Bleed (N-M) [quicken debuff]
Death sphere has this as a cantrip, and the same talent also grants the ability to spend a spell point to double the bleed... without a chance to end it early.
Coagulate (N-) [still buff]
JUST HEAL HIM!
Inject [S+]
Effectively a rider effect that costs 1 Con damage (per target) in order to increase Blood DC by 4, and have it ignore Spell Resistance and any outright immunity to blood-type effects. AND... And… it’s a continuous effect unless they spend actions to remove it.
Arguably, this is a slightly overpowered ability (so long as you can deal with the Con damage). But considering that it’s the Blood sphere… Fair enough. And really, it’s less that this is overpowered, and more that the base ability is so underpowered that this seems insane by comparison.
Mana Bleed [S]
Swift action as a cantrip to remove a spell point or spell slot. With Absorb Blood, also gain temp spell points.
If you’ve got a consistent supply of enemy mages, this is fantastic (if you accept that you just want to use Blood Control for any other reason - this isn’t great on its own). Even if it’s not every single session, the cost-to-reward weighs incredibly in favor of this talent.
Eye Bleed (S)
20% miss chance as a cantrip or Blind for a spell point… ignoring the whole requirement to use the Bleed effect.
Trying to inflict blind is just going to have them try and remove it each round… which… I mean, I guess it does its job. It’s just going to be obnoxious. (Unless you have Lingering Control, and you only want to inflict Bleed… Which is a pretty… one-dimensional approach that’ll leave you bored to tears.)
Lengthened Control (S)
Basically required, unless you either: have a substantially high level (in which case this is probably pointless offensively), or you have a large set of (still / quicken) talents you wish to apply consistently, which reduces the levels you need to have before this is pointless offensively.
If you intend to use Blood for buffing, then this is always required.
Mass Blood Magic (S)
Spending your action in order to perhaps inflict a debuff is fine and expected. To have your action immediately undone by an enemy action is frustrating. But if you effectively daze an entire group, and 2/3 of said group still remain debuffed… that feels fantastic.
I normally don’t review generic talents. You either take them if you need them, or you don’t. There’s not much to be said after the 3rd or fourth time. But this was an exception, because it is positively needed.
Lingering Control (G-S)
Useless for buffs, but this does let you just quickly dump a free (and short duration) effect on enemies, and not have to keep soaking actions into them.
All together, it makes attempts to remove it seem self-defeating as they are told “in 2 turns, this isn’t going to affect you any more, just accept it for now.”
Hemorrhage (G)
With this second talent, Bleed is now equivalent to Death sphere’s Bleeding Wounds’ spell point version. (Except that Blood Control has a duration / concentration, while Death sphere is indefinite.)
Red Mist (G)
Move action to grant targets under your blood control a mist effect for 20% miss chance. You only really want to use it on targets not affected by miss chance (like save-based casters) or enemies that are low priority, or any ally who can ignore your miss chance.
The constitution damage to penalize the saves of those in the area? It’s nice if your buff target is a frontliner. Also on yourself with Self Control, simply because… why not. It’s permanently active.
Absorb Blood (G)
Quite solid, all considered. Free temp hp based on enemy bleed damage? You can get that up quite well.
Maybe not entirely from the Blood sphere, but that’s not the point. The second paragraph is pretty meaningless, in general, even if your DM isn’t dumb and doesn’t interpret the last sentence as “you may only be healed once from this, period.”
Although hypothetically, it’s upwards of a 3*HD health swing, which is comparable to Destruction… assuming that HD is roughly equal to CL… and that you value healing in exact exchange to damage… and you take into account that 1/2 of the time, you’re not actually dealing hit point damage, or any kind of penalty.
Complex Control (G)
Standard action save -> full action save. That’s a good improvement.
Now you just need some blood controls that you actually care about.
Improved Bleed (M-G)
Strictly worse than Duelist sphere’s Long Cuts until at least level 10. But if you weren’t going to take Duelist anyway, this is only 1 talent rather than 2.
Hemo Goblin (M)
Summoning a goblin with some bonuses to its stats? Not overly impressive. But hey, it’s an extra target… even if the only threat it’s generating is its disgusting nature and dealing 1d4 damage 80% of the rounds.
The most interesting thing is the ability to mass summon these without limit for just another spell point. Granted, they can’t focus particular targets, and all targets must meet the conditions, but the point remains.
Hemokinesis (N-M, F)
If you are playing as the antagonist in a detective game, then you can really manipulate a crime scene.
I do also like the potential of transferring an alchemical device / potion / poison out to any creature. But at a standard action and spell point, and setup, it’s rarely better than just...using it directly.
Crimson Vortex (N-M)
Sloppily written. With certain assumptions being made, it’s neat… but consider that you’ve basically got the base sphere ability, without the ability to add more controls, and a no-save way to end the effect early as just a move action. At least it’s some light AoE - useful for swarms.
It’s not entirely clear what parts come packaged with the cantrip version, and what requires spell points. And even if you need 2 spell points to access all of the parts of the talent is not positively clear.
Blood Tracking (N-M)
Outside of cheese tactics, this has very little to no use.
Extract Blood Construct (u)
You know undead minionmancy? Well, let’s make it 10x less acceptable in society, and to force you to have swarms of the constructs, if you fully utilize the talent. Turn timers will love you!
Greater Blood Control (u)
Apply two (quicken) or (still) now you just need some that you want to use!
Self Control (u)
Lets you have perpetual buffs going on you. Now we just need to find some good ones.
Rush To The Head (G)
Flexes Fort and Will saves, and fort save or fall prone is quite nice for those engaged with your frontline. And being able to confuse is just gravy.
Piercing Blood (G)
Honestly, compared relatively well to Destruction sphere. Obviously, it’s worse. But it’s not Destruction. Of course it would be worse. But it compares well, and it’s not Destruction.
Gory Armaments [G]
There is one practical benefit: free (and free action) reload. The enhancement score gain is extremely slow. And otherwise it’s just mundane weaponry.
Note: Slow-reloading weapons, such as arguably siege weapons which are still “weapons” do gain benefit from the free action summon and load deal. If your DM allows siege weapons to work with this… for any amount of time...
But there are other non-siege weapons which reload slowly, like crossbows and muskets or shotguns. These are unimpressive compared to spells, but if casting is more of a side-gig, and you just want the biggest honker you can get… There are worse weapons than a musket with 1d12 damage, ranged touch attack, and free action reload.
And if you want to really get fancy, the Culverin’s big drawback is its reloading scheme… which you get to ignore. It doesn’t say anything about the Double Hackbut’s carriage, so, by default it doesn’t do anything about that. Crossbows are generally not worth the effort, but you do you.
Blood Rebuff (M, F)
I like the concept. But you are spending an immediate action to...prevent your CAM damage? That seems like a bad return on your talent and action investment, especially compared to War sphere. At least it’s a cantrip.
Bloodbind (M)
Unimpressive, but not bad. Definitely better sources of Entangled out there.
Internal Propulsion (N-M, F)
Saved from the pits of No by the ability to turn bloody diarrhea into rocket-propelled flight. Which is probably actually a reason to put it in the pits and hope it never crawls out.
Pretty much worse than every possible alternative method of these types of effects, and aside from Flight, none of them are particularly great. It has some very niche uses… although saving your frontliner from danger by giving him literal blood loss… I mean. Sure. Try it.
Martyr’s Tithings (N)
You can gain or grant temp HP equal to CAM + 1/2 CL… But Greater Invigorate does CAM + CL, as a cantrip, with no damage. And you can invest more into invigorate. And both can be augmented by [Mass] talents.
And this is ignoring that War sphere also lets you reduce damage by CAM for only the cost of setting up the momentum - which is incredibly efficient, both for action and spell points.
But the heal and temp hp together, that could be efficient, right? In optimal situations? Yes. Kind of. But only if they would lose their temp hp. Otherwise it’s truly inefficient, especially next to Life sphere or Alchemy sphere’s Salve.
But: If, and only if, you don’t want to have any sort of investment in Life sphere, this can serve as a cheap knock off. Although you’ll always be nagged by that voice in the back of your head.
Cystic Growth (u)
Great synergy with the Plague Lord style (which is sort of problematic, but meh)... but that’s the only synergy it has. At least it doesn’t buck the trend of the (still) being dreadful.
I don’t really know where I would put this, so I’ll leave it unranked.
Manipulate Alchemy [S] [Quicken/Still]
Delaying the effects of a potion indefinitely, on everyone, up until you decide it’s appropriate to use as a free action out of your turn that doesn’t provoke? Ooo… That’s good… If you’ve got good potions or formulae to use in such a way.
Can also be used reactively so that you can Immediate action delay a poison until later when you can try and extract it… with this same ability. And if you’ve met your limit of delay, you can also slow the effects of poison by a step, and easier to resist.
And inversely, you can speed up the poison by a step, and make it harder to resist. This is kind of an incredible and versatile ability, if you can make use of it.
Manipulate Density (M) [Quicken/Still]
Useless (quicken), decent DR for (still).
Manipulate Health (<M>) [Quicken/Still]
Best case scenario is flexing this when you are facing a mummy. Disease Lords just cast more diseases to force a cascading meltdown.
Internal Propulsion (N-M) [Quicken]
See above.
Redirect Flow (N-) [Quicken]
Move speed...except using the move speed fatigues you for a round. Which reduces your speed. Even if you do common sense order of operations, and have it proc after you finish moving, it’s horibad.
Control Oxygenation (N) [Quicken]
Ignore one level of fatigue, or staggered. Also can grant one extra attack on a full attack for [their Con] rounds. Outdated. Decent if you have a classical martial.
Manipulate Alchemy [S] [Quicken/Still]
See Buffing section. Also lets you make poisons more effective. Which is a debuff. Even though it’s also buffing your poison. That’s hard to categorize. It’s just good.
Cardiovascular Mastery (G-S, F) [Still]
Paralyze with a save each turn for just a spell point, and an indefinite duration? Yeah, that’s good. Imagine that.
Granted, you need to keep the blood control or they’ve got a +40 percentage point chance of success, but still. And it’s not not made clear whether this extra save each turn benefits from the bonus DC from them being below 50% hp, or if this extra save is completely separate from blood control, since it’s apparently not… My head hurts.
Slick [G] [Quicken]
Are you stacking bleed-based penalties to CMD in some sort of duelist build? Well, here you go.
Blood Puppet (<G>) [Quicken]
I see the idea behind it. But generally, using your action to force your enemy to save against your stuff is a bad idea. Super high priority, low Fort save enemy? Go for it.
As a caster, you can probably do something more effective than whack someone with the enemy’s body. But now they have no choice but to take the mental action to tell you to stop your blood control.
But if you nab someone who has bad fort saves, along with an Inject, who is really dangerous (like a mage), it’s probably worthwhile to spend your actions keeping them locked down. I do say probably, because you are still only able to control their body, and can’t access their spells (with good reason). So you’ve really got to weigh that decision heavily.
Of course, with certain mages, taking control of them does mean you can rid them of their foci, materials bag, spell book, wands, staves, soul-stealing swords, and so on, and even if you let off on the control, they will still not be able to cast.
...Sod… I’ve talked myself into saying that it is very (very) situationally good.
Migraine (G)
Gold standard of debuffs. Sickened is nice. Nice enough to spend your action every round to keep up? Um… Maybe not. But there are duration extensions in the general talents.
Control Oxygenation (M) [Quicken/Still]
(Still) is a fatigue or exhaustion for the blood control. (Quicken is a fatigue after [their con] rounds. Which could be instant, or backwards in time.)
Redirect Flow (N) [Still]
-2 CMD against disarm, or potentially trip? Why not just take Blood Puppet and literally use their action to throw away their stuff and drop to their knees?
OK, fine, that’s not [Mass]-able. And the penalty to trip can definitely be helpful. But it starts at a flat penalty, and stays there. Slick does almost everything here (as a debuff) better. With scaling. In a single effect. Aside from the mental stat checks, which… I mean… I’ve literally never had a situation in which I wanted to apply those penalties.
But they do stack, so if you really just want to all-in on that... Might be worth it to just instead like… take the penalty from Slick and actually trip them, rather than adding another 10% chance to trip.
Numb (u) [Still]
Know what? I’m not even going to rate this.
You are using your action to potentially allow someone else one more action before the enemy goes down. And I do mean potentially. Granted, you know precisely when the penalty would be the difference, but still. I know there are initiative freaks out there. I am not one of them.
Stagger is useful, particularly against non-SoM enemies.
Fount Of Stolen Life (S)
Hurt the enemy and restore the collective pool of hit points, comrade!
Burning 2 con from a target is 1 damage per HD. You then gain twice that as HP into your Fount of Life. A swing of 3 point / HD. Why am I saying this is god tier when that’s not what I said about a similar talent?
Well, one: 2 con damage, not 1d2 con damage. Two: You don’t have to immediately have someone who’s taken that damage in order to benefit. Three: You can save leftover healing for later. Four: Move action. Five: Any number of targets (that you have blood controlled).
Granted, one target can only be a donor (willing or otherwise) once per day. So it’s not like you’re going to be draining dry every single creature, single-handedly, even at the relatively mild 1 damage per HD per turn. And 2 healing per HD per turn would not generally out heal something (on its own).
It’s really much more of a side-effect. But a very happy one.
Hypochondriac’s Terror (G-S)
Add a condition from a set of choices, which lasts for a round, and refreshes each round. As a (paid) rider effect. And then a free one each time you add a new ability to it.
Blood Potion (G)
I’ll go out on a limb and say this is probably pretty decent. I don’t totally know. It’s funky, and self-targeting.
Bonds Of Blood And Power [G]
Assuming you are facing mages enough that you already have mana sphere, then this does seem like a no brainer, if you’re using the Blood sphere any substantial amount and/or don’t want to use the Mana sphere to proc your manabond.
...I’m not sure there’s a situation in which you want to do that, except to immediately stop said mage from casting using Blood Puppet. Well, I guess the low fort and high will of many casters do work in favor of Blood.
Elemental Blood (M, F)
+1d6 elemental damage to a weapon. Neat for a martial, I suppose. Enchantment sphere might already have you covered there though, even as a half caster.
Surgeon’s Trade Secrets (M)
Eh. Even for a heal-skill-focused build, or one that wants to maximize it, I don’t think going through the effort establishing Blood Control is generally going to be worthwhile, unless you were already using Lengthened Blood Control to establish some sort of buff on them.
Hemothermia (M)
Neat. And the Freeze Veins adding bonus damage to martials beating up the poor sap is pretty fun.
Transfusion (M)
You can now heal that Inject con damage you took. Yay. Granted, Life sphere would have been a better source of this healing. More reliable too. And flexible. But yay.
Blood Thirst (N)
Inconsequential.
Reservoir (N-)
So much effort and accounting… to get very little from it. Just take an extra talent in the Life sphere.
Bloodrunner (F)
Now that’s what I call a bloodhound. Hahaha.
Salvaging Execution (F,D)
Hey. You make the dead explode into a puff of gore which tosses their loot right to your allies.
Create Humor Familiar (u)
I am not certain what the purpose of this is. I’m surely missing it.
Crimson Theurgy (u)
I actually don’t know how useful this is. I’m pretty sure the duelist build just generally skips over the blood sphere (since it’s just so incredibly cost-inefficient). But if you really wanted the blood sphere, then you wouldn’t need the death sphere, and thus this talent.
Vampire’s Guile (u)
I honestly don’t understand the synergy it’s supposed to be having. Like… which of these debuff quicken/still talents would a mind specialist want? I guess… Migraine, to reduce saves even further before digging into them? So a net -4 to saves against your Mind sphere effects so long as they didn’t save against his. I don’t see the point in that, when you could have just did another attempt at the Mind sphere effect in the first place. Especially since they can immediately try and make the save again before you get to use your Mind sphere effect.
And I’m also not certain what a blood sphere specialist would want from the Mind sphere.
Post-Review Analysis:
It likely looks better than it actually is, simply because all those (S) talents are just trying to make up for the base sphere. Although there are a bunch of talents here, there aren’t enough talents that you’d actually want to full dive into the sphere. Instead, you’ll dip for a couple tricks here and there. Which makes all the extra support talents feel like serious taxes.
I just...dislike the entire Blood Control mechanic in general, I think. The Blood Arts concept, on the other hand, has potential.
Link: Not working right now, because Google Docs is screwing around. (I was planning on having the forums be the abridged version but... since GD isn't working, just tell me how simply having the full version in the forums is. I could probably put the full justifications in spoilers, leaving just the abridged version fully visible in their sections.)
Flex Talents: Manipulate Health vs Mummies / disease carriers.
Blood Puppet vs dangerous mages.
Maximize Caster Level: Unless you’re using exactly Gory Armaments, Self Control, and Red Mist (OK fine, or also buffing your(self and) allies with Manipulate Alchemy), everything wants to have the maximum possible CL and save DC
Blood Control (N)
Standard action, close range. Fort save to resist (with a -4 if they have less than half hp). But requires concentration, or only lasts 1 round by spending a spell point. And they can use an action to attempt to end it early. Granted, it at least soaks their standard action.
Redeeming factor? You can apply additional (quicken) or (still) abilities and it counts as concentration. Now… just need a good set of those…
(Special Note: Celetial Obedience to Vildeis lets you target yourself with bleed effects, and instead affect enemies within 30 ft of you. Depending on how your DM interprets that...)
Bleed (N-M) [quicken debuff]
Death sphere has this as a cantrip, and the same talent also grants the ability to spend a spell point to double the bleed... without a chance to end it early.
Coagulate (N-) [still buff]
JUST HEAL HIM!
Inject [S+]
Effectively a rider effect that costs 1 Con damage (per target) in order to increase Blood DC by 4, and have it ignore Spell Resistance and any outright immunity to blood-type effects. AND... And… it’s a continuous effect unless they spend actions to remove it.
Arguably, this is a slightly overpowered ability (so long as you can deal with the Con damage). But considering that it’s the Blood sphere… Fair enough. And really, it’s less that this is overpowered, and more that the base ability is so underpowered that this seems insane by comparison.
Mana Bleed [S]
Swift action as a cantrip to remove a spell point or spell slot. With Absorb Blood, also gain temp spell points.
If you’ve got a consistent supply of enemy mages, this is fantastic (if you accept that you just want to use Blood Control for any other reason - this isn’t great on its own). Even if it’s not every single session, the cost-to-reward weighs incredibly in favor of this talent.
Eye Bleed (S)
20% miss chance as a cantrip or Blind for a spell point… ignoring the whole requirement to use the Bleed effect.
Trying to inflict blind is just going to have them try and remove it each round… which… I mean, I guess it does its job. It’s just going to be obnoxious. (Unless you have Lingering Control, and you only want to inflict Bleed… Which is a pretty… one-dimensional approach that’ll leave you bored to tears.)
Lengthened Control (S)
Basically required, unless you either: have a substantially high level (in which case this is probably pointless offensively), or you have a large set of (still / quicken) talents you wish to apply consistently, which reduces the levels you need to have before this is pointless offensively.
If you intend to use Blood for buffing, then this is always required.
Mass Blood Magic (S)
Spending your action in order to perhaps inflict a debuff is fine and expected. To have your action immediately undone by an enemy action is frustrating. But if you effectively daze an entire group, and 2/3 of said group still remain debuffed… that feels fantastic.
I normally don’t review generic talents. You either take them if you need them, or you don’t. There’s not much to be said after the 3rd or fourth time. But this was an exception, because it is positively needed.
Lingering Control (G-S)
Useless for buffs, but this does let you just quickly dump a free (and short duration) effect on enemies, and not have to keep soaking actions into them.
All together, it makes attempts to remove it seem self-defeating as they are told “in 2 turns, this isn’t going to affect you any more, just accept it for now.”
Hemorrhage (G)
With this second talent, Bleed is now equivalent to Death sphere’s Bleeding Wounds’ spell point version. (Except that Blood Control has a duration / concentration, while Death sphere is indefinite.)
Red Mist (G)
Move action to grant targets under your blood control a mist effect for 20% miss chance. You only really want to use it on targets not affected by miss chance (like save-based casters) or enemies that are low priority, or any ally who can ignore your miss chance.
The constitution damage to penalize the saves of those in the area? It’s nice if your buff target is a frontliner. Also on yourself with Self Control, simply because… why not. It’s permanently active.
Absorb Blood (G)
Quite solid, all considered. Free temp hp based on enemy bleed damage? You can get that up quite well.
Maybe not entirely from the Blood sphere, but that’s not the point. The second paragraph is pretty meaningless, in general, even if your DM isn’t dumb and doesn’t interpret the last sentence as “you may only be healed once from this, period.”
Although hypothetically, it’s upwards of a 3*HD health swing, which is comparable to Destruction… assuming that HD is roughly equal to CL… and that you value healing in exact exchange to damage… and you take into account that 1/2 of the time, you’re not actually dealing hit point damage, or any kind of penalty.
Complex Control (G)
Standard action save -> full action save. That’s a good improvement.
Now you just need some blood controls that you actually care about.
Improved Bleed (M-G)
Strictly worse than Duelist sphere’s Long Cuts until at least level 10. But if you weren’t going to take Duelist anyway, this is only 1 talent rather than 2.
Hemo Goblin (M)
Summoning a goblin with some bonuses to its stats? Not overly impressive. But hey, it’s an extra target… even if the only threat it’s generating is its disgusting nature and dealing 1d4 damage 80% of the rounds.
The most interesting thing is the ability to mass summon these without limit for just another spell point. Granted, they can’t focus particular targets, and all targets must meet the conditions, but the point remains.
Hemokinesis (N-M, F)
If you are playing as the antagonist in a detective game, then you can really manipulate a crime scene.
I do also like the potential of transferring an alchemical device / potion / poison out to any creature. But at a standard action and spell point, and setup, it’s rarely better than just...using it directly.
Crimson Vortex (N-M)
Sloppily written. With certain assumptions being made, it’s neat… but consider that you’ve basically got the base sphere ability, without the ability to add more controls, and a no-save way to end the effect early as just a move action. At least it’s some light AoE - useful for swarms.
It’s not entirely clear what parts come packaged with the cantrip version, and what requires spell points. And even if you need 2 spell points to access all of the parts of the talent is not positively clear.
Blood Tracking (N-M)
Outside of cheese tactics, this has very little to no use.
Extract Blood Construct (u)
You know undead minionmancy? Well, let’s make it 10x less acceptable in society, and to force you to have swarms of the constructs, if you fully utilize the talent. Turn timers will love you!
Greater Blood Control (u)
Apply two (quicken) or (still) now you just need some that you want to use!
Self Control (u)
Lets you have perpetual buffs going on you. Now we just need to find some good ones.
Rush To The Head (G)
Flexes Fort and Will saves, and fort save or fall prone is quite nice for those engaged with your frontline. And being able to confuse is just gravy.
Piercing Blood (G)
Honestly, compared relatively well to Destruction sphere. Obviously, it’s worse. But it’s not Destruction. Of course it would be worse. But it compares well, and it’s not Destruction.
Gory Armaments [G]
There is one practical benefit: free (and free action) reload. The enhancement score gain is extremely slow. And otherwise it’s just mundane weaponry.
Note: Slow-reloading weapons, such as arguably siege weapons which are still “weapons” do gain benefit from the free action summon and load deal. If your DM allows siege weapons to work with this… for any amount of time...
But there are other non-siege weapons which reload slowly, like crossbows and muskets or shotguns. These are unimpressive compared to spells, but if casting is more of a side-gig, and you just want the biggest honker you can get… There are worse weapons than a musket with 1d12 damage, ranged touch attack, and free action reload.
And if you want to really get fancy, the Culverin’s big drawback is its reloading scheme… which you get to ignore. It doesn’t say anything about the Double Hackbut’s carriage, so, by default it doesn’t do anything about that. Crossbows are generally not worth the effort, but you do you.
Blood Rebuff (M, F)
I like the concept. But you are spending an immediate action to...prevent your CAM damage? That seems like a bad return on your talent and action investment, especially compared to War sphere. At least it’s a cantrip.
Bloodbind (M)
Unimpressive, but not bad. Definitely better sources of Entangled out there.
Internal Propulsion (N-M, F)
Saved from the pits of No by the ability to turn bloody diarrhea into rocket-propelled flight. Which is probably actually a reason to put it in the pits and hope it never crawls out.
Pretty much worse than every possible alternative method of these types of effects, and aside from Flight, none of them are particularly great. It has some very niche uses… although saving your frontliner from danger by giving him literal blood loss… I mean. Sure. Try it.
Martyr’s Tithings (N)
You can gain or grant temp HP equal to CAM + 1/2 CL… But Greater Invigorate does CAM + CL, as a cantrip, with no damage. And you can invest more into invigorate. And both can be augmented by [Mass] talents.
And this is ignoring that War sphere also lets you reduce damage by CAM for only the cost of setting up the momentum - which is incredibly efficient, both for action and spell points.
But the heal and temp hp together, that could be efficient, right? In optimal situations? Yes. Kind of. But only if they would lose their temp hp. Otherwise it’s truly inefficient, especially next to Life sphere or Alchemy sphere’s Salve.
But: If, and only if, you don’t want to have any sort of investment in Life sphere, this can serve as a cheap knock off. Although you’ll always be nagged by that voice in the back of your head.
Cystic Growth (u)
Great synergy with the Plague Lord style (which is sort of problematic, but meh)... but that’s the only synergy it has. At least it doesn’t buck the trend of the (still) being dreadful.
I don’t really know where I would put this, so I’ll leave it unranked.
Manipulate Alchemy [S] [Quicken/Still]
Delaying the effects of a potion indefinitely, on everyone, up until you decide it’s appropriate to use as a free action out of your turn that doesn’t provoke? Ooo… That’s good… If you’ve got good potions or formulae to use in such a way.
Can also be used reactively so that you can Immediate action delay a poison until later when you can try and extract it… with this same ability. And if you’ve met your limit of delay, you can also slow the effects of poison by a step, and easier to resist.
And inversely, you can speed up the poison by a step, and make it harder to resist. This is kind of an incredible and versatile ability, if you can make use of it.
Manipulate Density (M) [Quicken/Still]
Useless (quicken), decent DR for (still).
Manipulate Health (<M>) [Quicken/Still]
Best case scenario is flexing this when you are facing a mummy. Disease Lords just cast more diseases to force a cascading meltdown.
Internal Propulsion (N-M) [Quicken]
See above.
Redirect Flow (N-) [Quicken]
Move speed...except using the move speed fatigues you for a round. Which reduces your speed. Even if you do common sense order of operations, and have it proc after you finish moving, it’s horibad.
Control Oxygenation (N) [Quicken]
Ignore one level of fatigue, or staggered. Also can grant one extra attack on a full attack for [their Con] rounds. Outdated. Decent if you have a classical martial.
Manipulate Alchemy [S] [Quicken/Still]
See Buffing section. Also lets you make poisons more effective. Which is a debuff. Even though it’s also buffing your poison. That’s hard to categorize. It’s just good.
Cardiovascular Mastery (G-S, F) [Still]
Paralyze with a save each turn for just a spell point, and an indefinite duration? Yeah, that’s good. Imagine that.
Granted, you need to keep the blood control or they’ve got a +40 percentage point chance of success, but still. And it’s not not made clear whether this extra save each turn benefits from the bonus DC from them being below 50% hp, or if this extra save is completely separate from blood control, since it’s apparently not… My head hurts.
Slick [G] [Quicken]
Are you stacking bleed-based penalties to CMD in some sort of duelist build? Well, here you go.
Blood Puppet (<G>) [Quicken]
I see the idea behind it. But generally, using your action to force your enemy to save against your stuff is a bad idea. Super high priority, low Fort save enemy? Go for it.
As a caster, you can probably do something more effective than whack someone with the enemy’s body. But now they have no choice but to take the mental action to tell you to stop your blood control.
But if you nab someone who has bad fort saves, along with an Inject, who is really dangerous (like a mage), it’s probably worthwhile to spend your actions keeping them locked down. I do say probably, because you are still only able to control their body, and can’t access their spells (with good reason). So you’ve really got to weigh that decision heavily.
Of course, with certain mages, taking control of them does mean you can rid them of their foci, materials bag, spell book, wands, staves, soul-stealing swords, and so on, and even if you let off on the control, they will still not be able to cast.
...Sod… I’ve talked myself into saying that it is very (very) situationally good.
Migraine (G)
Gold standard of debuffs. Sickened is nice. Nice enough to spend your action every round to keep up? Um… Maybe not. But there are duration extensions in the general talents.
Control Oxygenation (M) [Quicken/Still]
(Still) is a fatigue or exhaustion for the blood control. (Quicken is a fatigue after [their con] rounds. Which could be instant, or backwards in time.)
Redirect Flow (N) [Still]
-2 CMD against disarm, or potentially trip? Why not just take Blood Puppet and literally use their action to throw away their stuff and drop to their knees?
OK, fine, that’s not [Mass]-able. And the penalty to trip can definitely be helpful. But it starts at a flat penalty, and stays there. Slick does almost everything here (as a debuff) better. With scaling. In a single effect. Aside from the mental stat checks, which… I mean… I’ve literally never had a situation in which I wanted to apply those penalties.
But they do stack, so if you really just want to all-in on that... Might be worth it to just instead like… take the penalty from Slick and actually trip them, rather than adding another 10% chance to trip.
Numb (u) [Still]
Know what? I’m not even going to rate this.
You are using your action to potentially allow someone else one more action before the enemy goes down. And I do mean potentially. Granted, you know precisely when the penalty would be the difference, but still. I know there are initiative freaks out there. I am not one of them.
Stagger is useful, particularly against non-SoM enemies.
Fount Of Stolen Life (S)
Hurt the enemy and restore the collective pool of hit points, comrade!
Burning 2 con from a target is 1 damage per HD. You then gain twice that as HP into your Fount of Life. A swing of 3 point / HD. Why am I saying this is god tier when that’s not what I said about a similar talent?
Well, one: 2 con damage, not 1d2 con damage. Two: You don’t have to immediately have someone who’s taken that damage in order to benefit. Three: You can save leftover healing for later. Four: Move action. Five: Any number of targets (that you have blood controlled).
Granted, one target can only be a donor (willing or otherwise) once per day. So it’s not like you’re going to be draining dry every single creature, single-handedly, even at the relatively mild 1 damage per HD per turn. And 2 healing per HD per turn would not generally out heal something (on its own).
It’s really much more of a side-effect. But a very happy one.
Hypochondriac’s Terror (G-S)
Add a condition from a set of choices, which lasts for a round, and refreshes each round. As a (paid) rider effect. And then a free one each time you add a new ability to it.
Blood Potion (G)
I’ll go out on a limb and say this is probably pretty decent. I don’t totally know. It’s funky, and self-targeting.
Bonds Of Blood And Power [G]
Assuming you are facing mages enough that you already have mana sphere, then this does seem like a no brainer, if you’re using the Blood sphere any substantial amount and/or don’t want to use the Mana sphere to proc your manabond.
...I’m not sure there’s a situation in which you want to do that, except to immediately stop said mage from casting using Blood Puppet. Well, I guess the low fort and high will of many casters do work in favor of Blood.
Elemental Blood (M, F)
+1d6 elemental damage to a weapon. Neat for a martial, I suppose. Enchantment sphere might already have you covered there though, even as a half caster.
Surgeon’s Trade Secrets (M)
Eh. Even for a heal-skill-focused build, or one that wants to maximize it, I don’t think going through the effort establishing Blood Control is generally going to be worthwhile, unless you were already using Lengthened Blood Control to establish some sort of buff on them.
Hemothermia (M)
Neat. And the Freeze Veins adding bonus damage to martials beating up the poor sap is pretty fun.
Transfusion (M)
You can now heal that Inject con damage you took. Yay. Granted, Life sphere would have been a better source of this healing. More reliable too. And flexible. But yay.
Blood Thirst (N)
Inconsequential.
Reservoir (N-)
So much effort and accounting… to get very little from it. Just take an extra talent in the Life sphere.
Bloodrunner (F)
Now that’s what I call a bloodhound. Hahaha.
Salvaging Execution (F,D)
Hey. You make the dead explode into a puff of gore which tosses their loot right to your allies.
Create Humor Familiar (u)
I am not certain what the purpose of this is. I’m surely missing it.
Crimson Theurgy (u)
I actually don’t know how useful this is. I’m pretty sure the duelist build just generally skips over the blood sphere (since it’s just so incredibly cost-inefficient). But if you really wanted the blood sphere, then you wouldn’t need the death sphere, and thus this talent.
Vampire’s Guile (u)
I honestly don’t understand the synergy it’s supposed to be having. Like… which of these debuff quicken/still talents would a mind specialist want? I guess… Migraine, to reduce saves even further before digging into them? So a net -4 to saves against your Mind sphere effects so long as they didn’t save against his. I don’t see the point in that, when you could have just did another attempt at the Mind sphere effect in the first place. Especially since they can immediately try and make the save again before you get to use your Mind sphere effect.
And I’m also not certain what a blood sphere specialist would want from the Mind sphere.