Duskblade thought

[DragonsAion]

I was looking over Complete Arcane and came across the blood magus and thinking back over to the thread for the Suel Arcanamach I was wondering if this would be a good PRC for the Duskblade class?

Your thoughts?

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Blood Magus loses way too much for its rather steep entry requirements (two bad worthless feats, need to have died). On top of that, you lose some casting and don't gain too terribly much out of it.

Suel Arcanamach could work for a Duskblade, but then you're splitting casting stats. I'm not an expert on the Suel, so I can't really say.

[Snake-Aes]

Suel is an independent casting. It works better with second prestiges that instead increase it, and rely only on suel magic. Duskblade/Suel/AbjChm5 works well if you mostly only uses Dusk to feed suel's spell slots and channeling. If you splitthe 5 abj caster increases into 1 dusk + 4 suel(or 1 suel + 4 dusks), you can have either caster level based on BAB and the other beefed by the 4 level increases.

Overall, if you are going dusk/suel, you just need 13 or 14 int to get access to the first spells, get to channeling, then go off to something else and pimp the suel side.

[DragonsAion]

more HP never hurts and with blood magus your fort save will be really high. not that that means much really. But you do get the following from it

free eschew materials feat
free scribe scroll
free brew potion
you auto stabilize at 0 HP
you subtract your blood magus level from HP damage on concentration checks
free homunculus
extra 1d6 to spell damage
DR 1/b
and use of the death knell spell

This doesn't go well with the duskblade?

[Snake-Aes]

Not really. They have a very limited spell list, arcane strike beats the bonus damages, and a familiar can do what the homunculus does. Blood Magus has some interesting fluff to it, but power-wise, they don't really add anything to dusks.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Well Blood Magus has 1/2 BAB progression, so that kinda makes it far less appealing to a gish/melee blaster like a Duskblade.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

more HP never hurts and with blood magus your fort save will be really high. not that that means much really. But you do get the following from it

free escrew materials feat
free scribe scroll
free brew potion
you auto stablize at 0 HP
you subtract your blood magus level from HP damage on concentration checks
free hemunculus
extra 1d6 to spell damage
DR 1/b
and use of the death knell spell

This doesn't go well with the duskblade?

The 3 HP from Toughness are generally not significant, save for the first level or two. The bonuses to Fort from the feat, while nice, aren't terribly much either when you have feats like Power Attack and Improved Trip, which open up new combat options.

As a Duskblade, you are unlikely do much item crafting in general. Eschew Materials is generally worth about 5 GP, too. The auto-stabilize is simply cute, and can be done with a cross-classed skill instead. The "bonus" to concentration is largely "meh" as you should easily be able to make the concentration checks necessary to cast defensively or just quick cast/channel instead.

Similarly, an extra 1d6 on spell damage (average 3.5) is marginal at best, much like Toughness. The DR is similarly rubbish, as it's one point per attack.

Death Knell is an interesting spell, and Eberron has rules with using Humonculi to craft for you, but that might not apply to the one granted by this class. So, all in all, you have two abilities, tops worth anything and nothing really worth the entry requirements.

[DragonsAion]

to be honest that all up to level 7 of the PRC. the last three levels give you
+2 to con
awaken blood 10d10 damage 1/day
and blood walk

with the channel spell power thats 1d6 extra to each target on top of everything else on a full attack.

[Evard]

I LOVE blood walk.. You can do so much with that :) Great as a party trick for little kids!

[DragonsAion]

love blood walk too.

I also love the fact that scarification gives you 6 scrolls to play with and blood draught lets you store as many as "blood magus + con score" potions in your blood. so the -2 to you caster level doesn't really hurt you so much and you can get that back easily enough.

was just rereading the blood magus and it seems that you can trade off damage equal to your level to your homunculus and yes it can craft for you if you give it the skills.

I think another class this would go well with is the warmage.