Talk:Blood Mage, Variant (5e Class)

"Spells known" says that new spells "must be of a level for which you have spell slots", but this class does not have any spell slots.

How does spellcasting compare with a sorcerer?

• With a standard array and the quickbuild suggestion, I have Con 15 (+3) and Cha 14 (+2)
• I have 8 hit points
• A 1st level sorcerer has 2 1st level spell slots, i.e. I can cast two 1st level spells before requiring a rest.
• A 1st level blood mage looses between 2 and 5 hit points to cast a 1st level spell. On average this is 3.5 hit points, so I can cast two 1st level spells (then I'm at 1 hit point).
• If I've taken damage from another source, I might not get to cast any 1st level spells today.
• A sorcerer also has the benefit of their sorcerous origin.
• The blood mage's spell attack and DC is one point behind the sorcerer.
• Therefore at this stage, not only is the blood mage worse than the sorcerer, they are a liability to the party. Marasmusine (talk) 05:43, 17 August 2017 (MDT)

I will adding a feature akin to the Reserves feature but different to help address the weakness of the class at 1st level. I will probably also have to add another feature at 1st level, given how inherently weak the class is at this stage. I also agree on the fact that this class in its current state is not balanced, and requires a lot of further refinement. --Blobby383b (talk) 16:35, 17 August 2017 (MDT)

Also in 5e, at 1st level you are supposed to have your max hit die(1d10 is 10) + your Constitution modifier HP. See the PHB page 12.--Blobby383b (talk) 17:20, 17 August 2017 (MDT)

So I am not sure that this really needs a "balance stub" but just a normal stub that some features aren't traditional. I am curious about the archetype feature Leech Life. Since there is a cap (10 hit points) would it be easier to gain hit points equal to spell level vs the 1/10 ordeal? or something else just to eliminate the fraction? Overall I think this is very interesting. I don't think it will be too effective do to hit point costs though. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 07:44, 7 November 2017 (MST)

I changed quite a few things around, so Leech Life is not a concern anymore. The idea of the class would be that they can cast more spells of any level at the cost of their HP.--Blobby383b (talk) 12:36, 7 November 2017 (MST)

A lot easier to follow now. The hyperlinks though, no way to get the info on the class page? drag to have to open another web page (for instance using mobile) BigShotFancyMan (talk) 13:51, 7 November 2017 (MST)

The links are for if you want an interactive spreadsheet that you can use to calculate Spell HP cost, there is no info on the page not included in the class, and as such, you don't have to use it.--Blobby383b (talk) 14:22, 7 November 2017 (MST)

Gotcha. Right on. BigShotFancyMan (talk) 16:05, 7 November 2017 (MST)

Not to be that guy, but the third level feat (Healthy) appears to be completely redundant, as the class is already proficient in constitution saving throws. --Chara TFFC (talk) 14:19, 19 December 2017 (MST)

Healthy gives you advantage on Constitution saving throws, not proficiency.--Blobby383b (talk) 15:13, 19 December 2017 (MST)

So it does. My apologies.--Chara TFFC (talk) 16:29, 19 December 2017 (MST)

Spell HP Cost

Why does the cost of the spells increase with the character's levels?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by ShadowVR2 (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

They scale that way for 2 related reasons: so low level spells don't cost little to no hit points with the class's subclass features that reduce the hit point cost of spells in one way or another and for a similar reason, so you can not cast a broken amount of lower level spells at higher levels.

Also, say for example you are a high level bard or druid and you multiclass into this class. It would not be balanced to allow them to cast 30 1st level spells(if the spell cost was static) if they had 150 HP for a single level dip into this class.--Blobby383b (talk) 02:36, 27 December 2017 (MST)

I get that it needs to be scaled, but you're not factoring the use of HP for taking damage there. Of course you don't want someone casting 30 1st level spells with 150 HP because that would reduce them to 0 HP. Not only that, but they'll also likely be taking damage during battle. Ranged attackers tend to target the mage, after all. So scaling the HP cost is important, but the amount required in the current formula is incredibly high. Maybe 3 * spell slot level instead of 5 * spell slot level.

I also agree that the scaling would be important for reasons of taking damage and a level dip. But but also why would a stronger blood mage be using more effort to cast a 1st level than a low level blood mage using less to cast

Balance/Main Class Feature Comparisons

After playing with this class for a little while, running over the features, and comparing it to other classes, this class feels underpowered in terms of its versatility.

While the main focus of the class is the flexibility of spellcasting from health, most of the features of this class are either straight up used to mitigate the amount of hp cost or are rather unhelpful side effects. The side effects aren't the important part of the class, so for the most part the fall to the wayside in terms of focus, but they are underwhelming to say the least. But because of these two issues the versatility that other classes get is lacking in this one.

The Spellcasting versatility is, for the most part, great (the ability to ignore concentration checks is awesome, but the spell list is rather strange). Instead of only having one 9th level spell at later levels, you can cast multiple. That's incredibly powerful to be sure. However, comparing the spell list overall to what a sorcerer or wizard can cast (other straight casters), if you take average hp every level and have a con mod of 5, a Blood Mage falls incredibly shy of being able to cast the same amount of spells as a Sorc/Wiz. Having done the calculations with Steadfast (and I imagine Vampiric will be similar if you succeed with every spell cast for recovery purposes), the Blood Mage has 473 hp at 20th level (including Blood Buffer), but is required to use 454 hp to cast the same list, leaving 19 hit points to take damage. This problem is similar at earlier levels (Sorc/Wiz costs 7 more points than a BM has at 14th level, and almost 100 at 10th). Features like Minor Regeneration and Spell Sap can only do so much to help at that point. And once again, I understand BM sacrifices spells cast for flexibility, but that's a lot of spells lost. Now of course Blood Buffer is a great mitigating feature here, but it's in no way comparable to Sorc/Wiz early abilities because those exist on top of the regular casting, not to make regular casting more viable.

While we're comparing with Sorcerer and Wizard, we should look at the strength of those abilities granted. In BM, most features are used to mitigate hp costs, but the ones that don't are fairly bland and/or conditional. Healthy and Death's Door, for instance, are quite tame. Compared to "Font of Magic" and "Arcane Recovery" (both of which scale with the caster using them), Healthy is severely limited and conditional. Sure, advantage is quite useful, but for a very small amount of instances that don't really scale aside from prof. bonus and con stat, which already scale. If you look at any other class they have some form of early feature that scales in this regard, be it the Bard's inspiration dice scaling or Monk's Ki points, or they have something that gives them a hefty advantage in battle even when they're at high level like a Ranger's Fighting Style or Barbarian's Reckless attack. Meanwhile Death's Door is good for the resistance, but the Necromancy spell list is small and many of them are beneficial rather than harmful or apply only to dead creatures, so being immune is pretty conditional as well (the only two spells that jump out as being GREAT for an immunity are Inflict Wounds and Finger of Death because they're so often used). Obviously you wouldn't want immunity to evocations, but still. Whereas at this stage a Paladin has the ability to outright end a spell against themselves or a willing creature they touch, and can use the ability a number of times equal to their Cha mod before a long rest. Meanwhile, a Bard has received their second set of any two spells of a level they can cast (level 7 at that point) from another class's spell list, and a Barbarian only stops raging if they're unconscious or see fit to end the rage. Obviously these are different power fantasies, but you can see how much more versatile they are for their class compared to very conditional resistances and immunities of BM.

I think much of the BM class would be freed up if the expense costs were lowered so that fewer features were needed to mitigate them (each subclass currently uses 5 features just to deal with HP costs including Blood Buffer and Blood Boil, though those are both better features and should stay as they are). If the spell cost formula was half your total level rounded down + (3 * spell slot level) rather than 5 * spell slot level then it would be less expensive and fewer features would be required. Robust Constitution and Drain Kill could then be replaced (after some shuffling of what level the feature happens) with other features that match the power fantasy of the class and subclass perhaps replacing them with bonus action abilities or advantages that scale. Something like blood rituals that function like warlock invocations could work, or maybe adding your proficiency bonus to AC with magical Blood Armor that is cast using a bonus action to summon, lasts 8 hours, and the casting is recovered on a short rest. Heck, if you take away most of features so there's a baseline to run from, then compare a Blood Mage's HP to Sorceror's (which it basically is), adjust the Blood Buffer and Spell Costs to scale fairly evenly with each other for casting, then keep a couple good damage mitigation features in the class and you can use the rest for cool abilities like other classes get.

I know this class was made a while ago and might not be changed at all, or the person who originally made it might not even see this. This post is MOSTLY to organise my thoughts, and if it's in the wrong place I apologise. I think there's a lot of potential in this class idea and still want to play it, so I'm gonna work on it with my DM and report back again.

Old Title Separation

Heya. Not sure if this will ever be seen, but...it's been years since this has been touched and some of the features are wildly unbalanced. Spellcasting is not viable on its own and features only exist to equalize that with basic spellcasters, not to create equity with them. I'll be beefing this caster up a bit because I believe it could be amazing. Fenryk (talk) 03:11, 30 August 2020 (PST)

Balance

Hi, I've loved this class for a few years and want to finish helping it get polished out and balanced. I am also playing it soon in a campaign and have had it as a villain too for playtesting.

18th level Steadfast Blood Pact ability: increasing max HP by 50? that's an insane amount of HP. That is almost enough HP to cast an additional 9th level spell and taking only a minute amount of damage or using the blood pool. Not to mention it increases HP more than the Tough feat by 10hp. Especially if the character already had the tough feat along with this, which we can all agree is really likely to happen. I think changing it to add something to the Blood Pool feature instead of Max HP would be much more balanced. maybe add a scaling bonus. something like changing the blood pool to (6x CON mod)+ Blood mage level or even 7 would be more balanced than this.

-After making a random quick 18th level barbarian and BM. Their HP is staggeringly unbalanced in comparison. Barbarians are intended to be the class with the highest base HP before feats or class abilities like these. Using the quick build on Dnd beyond giving both characters a +2 Con mod, the Barbarian has 167 health, and the BM (using bard because same hit dice and that's what I'm comparing) has 165 because of the robust constitution, which is just the tough feat, when a wizard of this level and even the same Con bonus only has 110. This is before adding any feats, just class features. almost identical health, until the Blood mage, gets this at 18th level and has a lead of 48hp and 215HP total now, and that's still without the other 40HP if they take the tough feat. This caster can have more HP than any other class and be an insanely high DPS caster at the same time. I mean just from picking this subclass you gain 90HP. they have twice the HP of a wizard or sorcerer of this level This hardly seems balanced.

Hit Dice: I would even go as far as to say that the Hit Dice should be changed to the d6 of other full arcane casters who have no martial prowess. BM doesn't have any martial prowess and cant be played like a warlock, mixing between magic and weapon fighting because they have no armor proficiency and weapon proficiency is lacking. This wouldn't even really affect their spellcasting much because you use your blood pool anyways as a form of mana per day/spell point system and have the capability to go beyond that, which already puts them above other casters. It also helps balance my points about the steadfast blood pact

Enhanced Healing from Vampiric Blood Pact: Is Enhanced Healing supposed to leave Drain Kill out of the increase? It and spell sap are very similar so it can be assumed the original creator wanted to be enhanced healing to include drain kill, but it doesn't say so. I think either way we add a clause to Enhanced healing on whether or not it does increase Drain kill.

Also, some other stuff in this is absolutely way overpowered. To many abilities don't have a limit to their use, from Vampiric blood pact, Life energy spell sap, drain kill, and blood siphon all have unlimited use for them. Not saying they all need to be, because even life domain clerics have unlimited bonuses like when they heal it's always a bit stronger, but where that's limited to the type (healing) spells, life energy, and spell sap are unlimited. you could argue spell sap is limited because it cant heal your blood pool, but it's still a healing effect and reduces the cost of all your spells is basically what it does, which is the theme of Steadfast not Vampiric. Drain kill is also really OP without any sort of limit. 1st i would say it gives temp HP not standard because that's saying that killing would heal your wounds instead of bolstering your defenses and health. It also removes the possibility for players to just go murder an innocent village because minimum per kill they heal 2HP.j Just from a basic challenge rating 10 creature with standard 4 players level 10, this is a medium difficulty, the BM would heal 27% of their average health (using same referenced +2 no feat bonus as before, but at lvl 10 which is of 73HP)

Blood Siphon: This ability is really cool in the idea, although I find the idea that if you roll well enough you can a lot of damage at no cost. Also, there are issues right off the back with the wording that needs some work to stop any confusion when people read it and so people don't try to argue with their DM what the phrasing means. It also deals not a lot of damage at all, this is basically saying: "you can cast this spell, and if it hits you keep the spell slot you used if it misses you expend the spell slot" which is way too overpowered especially with the constant damage on it. upwards of 55 damage flat just from hitting their AC, it also does not say what kind of damage you are causing anyways. I think this should have limited use, maybe even once a day, but maybe a number of d10s per spell level. or using the DMG guide for creating a spell using the spell damage table. It is also not clear if you can use the Life energy on this or not, Personally, i think you should be able to.

Life Energy: this has to have a limit to per day, i would say you can use it as many times as your proficiency bonus per short or long rest. It can add upwards of 10 damage a hit and at lower levels, that's a huge whopping blow, it is also not clear if you can use your blood pool for this or if you have to use your actual HP. Maybe even changing it to add your CHA mod in damage if you spend one extra hit point instead of this.

Spell Sap: This should be changed as well. Only works when you are dealing damage with a spell, because the ability is that you are sapping the health of your enemies and healing yourself. You heal in HP half of the damage dealt. In the event of multiple creatures damaged, then it would only be from 1 creature. this effect only able to be used once a day.

Heart of Gold: This ability is so out of place on a class that has a rule in its spellcasting feature that the class cant heal others with their magic, but they have an ability that gives temp HP?? these don't make sense together. not to mention it's really costly and makes it not worth it because its temp HP and temp HP cannot get someone out of being unconscious and making death saves. at 20th level this has the possibility of donating 125HP guaranteed but also hurts you that much? this doesn't make sense especially for healing. I like the idea of this ability but with the spellcasting feature saying you can't heal with the blood magic, it doesn't make sense. This should totally work it's a form of magical blood transfusion from a caster whose entire thing is blood magic.

Blood Magic under Spellcasting: it says you cannot cast any form of healing spells through blood magic, this is really weird especially not being a thing in normal DND, and is a strange restriction for someone who gains healing abilities later on. It is written this way also suggests that all blood mages are dark and evil for not being able to perform any form of healing as a rule. I suggest we just remove that snippet saying no healing, maybe we just make sure the spell list has no healing spells unless a subclass adds it (I'm planning on adding 2, a more healing focused and a blood curse focused like hexes and such).

Spell list: the spell list hasn't been updated in years, and as more DND content comes out and new spells, this class cant cast any of them unless someone goes through every new list and every spell and desires whether or not they get it. I suggest we say they use warlock spell list by default, which covers it when new books are added with new spells it will already be decided if they get it. On top of this to counteract the low spell list of warlocks, an expanded spell list for each subclass. Vampiric has some like Vampiric Touch, maybe inflict wounds, more necrotic spells. Steadfast would get stuff like stone skin, barkskin, maybe some transformation as well --Nax54 (talk) 16:59, 25 April 2021 (MDT)

Adding additional variant

I'm going to add another variant of this, or rename it maybe, to continue the work but heavily modified for balancing issues and mainly going in another direction and to leave this so that its not 2 people arguing over one document on how it works. --Nax54 (talk) 18:22, 25 April 2021 (MDT)

Before you, it’s been a year since someone’s worked on it. Don’t make more variants, please. Just improve this page. --SwankyPants (talk) 19:11, 25 April 2021 (MDT)

Improving/Replacing much of the content here has been on the backburner for awhile, so at this point it is looking like I will be unable to get around and fix this up. Because of this, I would say go wild reworking the current class.--Blobby383b (talk) 07:41, 29 April 2021 (MDT)