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Sornjss Lichdom
2007-12-28, 11:20 PM
When do you use him? When is he most effective? With whom is he most effective? What's your favorite gish?

I love the idea but I don't have a good grab on his situation and how he is most effective.

thank you in advance fellow boardy's.

Stephen_E
2007-12-29, 01:43 AM
Where is he strongest? - The party has been captured and disarmed. Blood Magus bites his lip and drinks potion.

This is the character that can never be disarmed of potions and scrolls.

The 2 lost casting levels is tough, but you do get better hps and a unnamed boost to your con.

Personally I'm looking at making my next mage a Human Wiz 5/Blood Magus 4/Initiate of the Veil. Chews up all 5 feats for prereqs but gives you full caster advancement and a raft of special abilities.

Stephen

Airenus
2007-12-29, 06:26 AM
Let us not forget his 10th lvl ability. You can be in someone's body with him not even knowing it. Then choose the right time to make your bloody exit! Think what you can do from rping till power-play.

Cuddly
2007-12-29, 07:09 AM
3.0 magus lets the caster ignore using any material component in place of bleeding a little. Dropping 1 CL isn't that bad for having free forcecages.

Witch
2007-12-29, 11:31 AM
3.0 magus lets the caster ignore using any material component in place of bleeding a little. Dropping 1 CL isn't that bad for having free forcecages.
3.5 one doesn't allow that, though. It only works with inexpensive material components.


As to how to use the Blood Magus properly - I get the impression his strong point is an immense accessibility to spells and effects without people knowing it, or being able to do a lot about it. I made rather heavy use of this in a recent creation of mine (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68037). However, beyond these, I'm afraid his abilities don't appear to be all that "awesome" in a mechanical sense. By the time you've got Bloodwalk, there's Greater Teleport, and while 10d10 damage without a save isn't bad, it's also not going to be all that extremely awesome by the time you get it. Blood Magus appears to be more of a cool class than mechanically powerful. I don't think it's underpowered, though.

I do think it's been badly designed. For one, if bloodwalk is the capstone ability, the damage it can deal should scale somewhat at epic levels, which isn't accomodated by the current version of the class. Giving the class an [Evil] SLA is rather nonsensical as well (Death Knell), as is the fact that LG people can't become blood mages. Why there is a desire to have so many 1x/day abilities, I cannot realize. Beyond that, there are increases to ability scores - not ideal in a class progression. Then, there are things like Bloodseeking, which is given at a fairly high level but is basically crap. 1d6 points of extra damage for 3 points of damage to yourself?

In fact, to be any good, the blood magus class would likely need to be remade entirely. One could keep the Scarification and Blood Draughts abilities, as well as the ability that allows you to substitute blood for mechanical components. The one that allows you to deal more damage by cutting yourself should be given at a lower level and scale. Bloodwalk and Call the Blood can stay in a slightly revised version, both scaling according to your level somehow - I'd have Call the Blood start at 5d10 1/day or so at 4th level, and increase in useages and damage as you level. Some other aspects, like the +2 Con, can simply be dumped. The Homunculus should likely also become your familiar automatically.

Burley
2007-12-29, 01:21 PM
The Blood Magus is pretty cool in my opinion. I tried building up a warmage to become one, but, sadly, that campaign ended prematurely.
The good thing about the Blood Magus is this: If your character could hold his own before the prestige class, he'll hold his own just as well in each level of the prestige class. There are some levels where you feel like you're getting ripped off, but in reality, you've got more hitpoints than most other casters and you're getting some class abilities, contrasting the wizard, who gets... how many? :smalltongue:

You'll really need to WANT to be a Blood Magus, though. Its the kind of thing you'll need to be role-playing before you take the PrC. For the Blood Walk ability to work (and it'd be sooo super cool to use it), you need a vial of blood from the target you're leaving.
I noticed that it was stated above that you float around and leave at an opportune time. That isn't quite right. The desrciption says that you jump into something and emerge from something else the next round...or something. (I'll check the book and edit if I was wrong.)

Kaelik
2007-12-29, 04:29 PM
There are some levels where you feel like you're getting ripped off, but in reality, you've got more hitpoints than most other casters and you're getting some class abilities, contrasting the wizard, who gets... how many?

As an economist, this pains me to see. The oppurtunity cost of Blood Magus isn't levels of Wizard, it's levels of Incantatrix, or a Mindbender Dip, or even Mage of the Arcane Order. 4 levels is good because you aren't giving up caster levels. After that you are really hurting and the only reason to take it is flavor. (A fine reason to do so, just know why you are doing it.)

Stephen_E
2007-12-29, 05:11 PM
Re: The Bloodwalk ability.

1) You enter one target and leave another the same round. No hanging around.

2) If you want to leave a specific target you must have a vial of their blood (or other substance, it does work on Warforged if you use their "sap"). You can just specify a distance or location and you get the nearest creature to the location. No vial of blood required.

3) The advantage over greater teleport is you don't need to be familiar with your target location, it isn't a spell and can't be blocked by most things that stop spells, and it isn't teleporting per se, so it can't be blocked by anti-teleport effects.

All in all it is a very well designed caster prestige class. Of course that means that few will take it for the full 10 levels because there is so many BROKEN poorly designed caster prestige classes that give you funky stuff with not the slightest penalty.

Stephen