Blood Mage (3.5e Class)

Class Skills 4 + Int modifier per level, ×4 at 1st level)
The Blood Mage’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int). |}

[edit] Class Features

All of the following are class features of the Blood Mage.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Blood Mages are proficient with all simple weapons, but not with any type of shield. They can use light armor.

Spells: A Blood Mage can cast only blood magic powers.

The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a Blood Mage’s spell is 10 + the class level + the Blood Mage’s constitution modifier.

Like other spellcasters, a Blood Mage can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is given on the Table above. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Intelligence score.

Blood Mages are unique in that they do not have a spell book, but rather meditate to have blood magic ready and memorized never forgetting after using there spell powers, they use blood from them and also enemy's to cast spells. This means that they need never fear losing their spell book, A Blood Mage must spend 1 hour studying his powers through his mind by meditating.

Summon Familar: A Blood Mage can obtain a familiar. Doing so takes 24 hours and uses up magical materials that cost 100 gp. A familiar is a magical beast that resembles a small animal and is unusually tough and intelligent. The creature serves as a companion and servant.

The Blood Mage chooses the kind of familiar he wants. As the Blood Mage advances in level, his familiar also increases in power and also in time can morph into something new.

If the familiar dies or is dismissed by the sorcerer, he or she may choose a new one after a month. A slain or dismissed familiar cannot be replaced for a month. A slain familiar can be raised from the dead just as a character can be, and it does not lose a level or a Constitution point when this happy event occurs.

A character with more than one class that grants a familiar may have only one familiar at a time.

Blood Magic: At 1st level a Blood Mage gains the ability to turn his life force (his blood) directly into the raw magical energy required to power a spell. He can opt to take an amount of Constitution Burn (as shown on the table “Constitution Burn by Spell Level”) to spontaneously cast a spell without expending spell slots as a full round action. If the Blood Mage dies from this Constitution loss, then the last spell still functions normally, even if this means that the Blood Mage effectively has a negative Constitution score. If the spell is of a level that the Blood Mage could not normally cast (such as from metamagic augmentation with Bloodied Metamagic and similar abilities) the Blood Mage dies instantly as the spell is cast. (still having normal affect, the Blood Mage's loss of life still does not ruin the spell). However, if the Blood Mage is resurrected, then he suffers a number of points of permanent Constitution loss that cannot be removed by any means equal to the number of spell levels that the killing spell was minus the level of the Blood Mage's highest level spell slot.

A blood mage may cast spells normally, but when he is out of spells per day, must sacrifice his vital energy to cast. hp costs by Level Spell level hp costs

1st level spell level:1 points

2nd level spell level:2 points

3rd level spell level:3 points

4th level spell level:3 points

5th level spell level:4 points

6th level spell level:4 points

7th level spell level:5 points

8th level spell level:6 points

9th level spell level:6 points

10th level or higher spell level:7 points

Bloodied Silent: At 5th level a Blood Mage may prepare a spell with the metamagic feat Silent Spell even if he does not posses it. The level of the spell is raised as normal. Upon casting the spell, he takes 1 point of hp damage. If the spell is unused by the end of the day then no points of hp are lost. If the Blood Mage already has Silent Spell or gains it at a later level, then the Blood Mage can spontaneously cast the spell with the effect of the Silent Spell feat without raising its caster level as a full round action. This use deals the number of points of hp that a spell of the total effective level of the spell (including metamagic feats) would if it was cast with the Blood Magic ability. If this spell was cast with the Blood Magic class feature, then it deals twice as much total the ability costs.

Bloodied Still: At 8th level a Blood Mage may prepare a spell with the metamagic feat Still Spell even if he does not posses it. The level of the spell is raised as normal. Upon casting the spell, he takes 1 point of hp damage. If the spell is unused by the end of the day then no points of hp are lost. If the Blood Mage already has Still Spell or gains it at a later level, then the Blood Mage can spontaneously cast the spell with the effect of the Still Spell feat without raising its caster level as a full round action. This use deals the number of points of hp that a spell of the total effective level of the spell (including metamagic feats) would if it was cast with the Blood Magic ability. If this spell was cast with the Blood Magic class feature, then it deals twice as much total the ability costs.

Craft Contingent Spell: At 11th level a Blood Mage gains the item creation feat Craft Contingent Spell (if you are not using Complete Arcane, then you can replace this bonus feat with any other item creation feat for which you qualify).

Bloodied Empower: At 14th level a Blood Mage may prepare a spell with the metamagic feat Empower Spell even if he does not posses it. The level of the spell is raised as normal. Upon casting the spell, he takes 2 points of hp damage. If the spell is unused by the end of the day then no points of hp are lost. If the Blood Mage already has Empower Spell or gains it at a later level, then the Blood Mage can spontaneously cast the spell with the effect of the Empower Spell feat without raising its caster level as a full round action. This use deals the number of points of hp that a spell of the total effective level of the spell (including metamagic feats) would if it was cast with the Blood Magic ability. If this spell was cast with the Blood Magic class feature, then it deals twice as much total the ability costs.

Bloodied Maximize: At 17th level a Blood Mage may prepare a spell with the metamagic feat Maximize Spell even if he does not posses it. The level of the spell is raised as normal. Upon casting the spell, he takes 3 points of hp damage. If the spell is unused by the end of the day then no points of hp are lost. If the Blood Mage already has Maximize Spell or gains it at a later level, then the Blood Mage can spontaneously cast the spell with the effect of the Maximize Spell feat without raising its caster level as a full round action. This use deals the number of points of hp that a spell of the total effective level of the spell (including metamagic feats) would if it was cast with the Blood Magic ability. If this spell was cast with the Blood Magic class feature, then it deals twice as much total the ability costs.

Bloodied Metamagic: At 20th level a Blood Mage gains the ability to use all of his metamagic feats to spontaneously modify his spells. Upon casting a spell modified with this ability, the Blood Mage takes a number of points of hp damage as if the spell was cast with his Blood Magic class ability. If this spell was cast with the Blood Magic class feature, then it deals twice as much total the ability costs.

Blood Magic Powers At-Will: At 1st level a Blood Mage gains the ability to cast at-will (Blood Siphon,Blood Control,Open Wounds,Arcane Spike)Blood Magic Powers

[edit] Campaign Information

[edit] Playing a Blood Mage

Religion: Due to the rather macabre nature of this class, good deities are not overly welcoming towards a traveling Blood Mage. Most of this class worship gods of knowledge such as Boccob or Wee Jas, whereas Vecna is also a common god among the truly evil members of this class. Many Blood Mages worship no god at all, relying soly on their own power to see them through.

Other Classes: Blood Mages are not known for their interpersonal skills. Paladins distrust them at best and are openly hostile at worst, regardless of the Mage’s alignment. They tend to relate poorly to other primary arcane spellcasters as they are almost universally extremely competitive with their peers. They respect the healing power of divine magic and its users but tend to be rather flippant with religion in general. They have little in common with fighters and other primary combatants, and while they realize that without the defensive services provided by such characters they would have no hope of survival, in non combat venues they usually remain apathetic towards the martial classes. In fact, the class they get along best with happens to be the Bard. The bard’s spellcasting is no threat to the blood mage, and the typical antics of bards in general soften the Blood Mage’s callus exterior.

Combat: Blood Mages are similar to sorcerers. They have powerful if costly metamagic abilities built into their class and they use them as often as they dare.

Advancement: As metamagic focused characters, Blood Mages should grab up as many of such feats as they can. Generally multiclassing is not advised due to the inevitable slowing of the Blood Mage’s spell progression. Yet, this class lends itself better than most to the idea of an armored mage with its still spell ability.

[edit] Blood Mages in the World

Blood Mages tend to be reclusive and secretive, coming out only when they have a great and pressing need to. The only known exception to this is in the case of a blood mage apprentice who was expelled but not killed, which is a rare event in and of itself.

Daily Life: <-day in the life of a character of this class->.

Notables: <-notable NPCs of this class->.

Organizations: Blood Mages rarely organize except to form one-on-one apprenticeships. Sometimes such apprenticeships can last many years and be quite stable, especially with a lawfull master and apprentice. More commonly however these relationships break down after a relitivly short time, and what happens afer that is largely a function of the master and apprentice's moral alignments.

NPC Reactions: Blood Mages are fairly obscure, and as such do not garner a specific response from ordinary people. Yet any new spellcaster will be subject to some amount of suspicion due to the magic that Blood Mages wield, they are often even more wanted for help than sorcerers.

[edit] Blood Mage Lore

Characters with ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) can research Blood Mages to learn more about them. When a character makes a skill check, read or paraphrase the following, including information from lower DCs.

[edit] Blood Mages in the Game

The Blood Mage is a fine example of a anti-hero class, one who through dubious means achieves noble ends. Of course, they can just as easily be used as villains to confound players who are bored at just running into one more sorcerer. Blood Mages are obscure enough to be simply dropped into a campaign with the explanation being that the PCs simply have never heard of this specialized form of spellcaster.

Adaptation: This class does not need to have its slightly evil tone. Indeed the loss of constitution could be a holy sacrifice for a divine or otherwise holy cause, and death from spell casting

Sample Encounter: <-DM placement for NPCs of this class.->.

EL whatever: <-Encounter scenario and character info on sample NPC including stat block. The CR of the NPC is typically the same as the EL for the encounter.->.

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