This is an alternative magic system I designed to be used in my campaign settings since in the world I created it exisits and is an option that can be used for Intelligence based arcane casters like Wizard, Magus, and Witch.
Blood Magic (Arcane)
Blood magic is an alternative form of magic that intellect-based arcane casters can use to summon forth their potent spells. This magic is considered a dark demonic form of magic, granting a powerful and versatile way to cast spells but at a cost. This type of magic is primarily used by Witches and Warlocks.
Blood magic has blood and somatic components no verbal component is needed, every spell that is cast with blood magic uses those components and when taking spells that have a V component replace it with a B, this doesn’t remove the M or F components. Blood magic requires the completely of blood seals to cast spells.
Size Number of Flasks
Tiny ½
Small 1
Medium 2
Large 4
Huge 8
Gargantuan 16
Colossal 32
The blood component can be fulfilled in two ways. One is supply the blood yourself which requires some form of blade, this method causes 1 damage per level of the spell being cast. Alternatively the caster can use blood collected from a recently slain creature or from a volunteer, this blood must be no more than a week old. Collecting blood from a slain creature takes a number of 10 minutes per flask of blood collected or you can drain it from a helpless or willing creature this form the caster makes a Heal check at a DC of 15, if failed it deals 1d10 damage but grants one flask of blood, success reduces the damage by half minimum of 1. Creatures smaller than tiny cannot be drained for blood.
A flask of blood weighs about ½ a pound and stays good one week from the point it was harvested. One vial of blood supplies enough blood for 5 levels worth of spells. Special types of bloods can be collected which can apply special effects to certain spells, this is an optional rule and additional effects are determined at your GM’s discretion.
If this magic is chosen an arcane caster the number of spells a caster can cast is instead limited by the amount of dark energies he can with stand before running the risk of going insane. The amount of spells a caster can cast before running this risk is equal to double the sum of all his spell slots on his class feature table (this does not include level 0 spells). For example a 9th level wizard can cast 4 level 1s, 4 level 2s, 3 level 3s, 2 level 4s and 1 level 5s, the sum of this is 14, doubled that is 28. Meaning his madness limit is 28, each spell he casts grants him a number of madness points equal to the spell level. In addition the caster adds double their intelligence bonus to this madness limit.
A caster still must prepare the spells for the associated spell lots but these spells can be cast as many times as they want, until the madness takes over, much like cantrips. This magic is considered evil because it draws from the life force within blood to full its spells giving them an evil aura to all those under effect of caster’s spell.
When this limit is exceeded the caster must immediately make a Will Save whose DC is equal to half the amount of madness points – their intelligence bonus. If they fail this slave they immediately go mad acting as if under the spell Insanity, this effect lasts 24 hours from that point but after that period of time they are allowed another save. If this save ends in success they remain coherent and can continue casting blood magic but run the risk of going mad again. If the caster rests the 8 hours and hadn’t fallen under the effects of the madness their limit is reset.
I asked my friend is also a GM what his thoughts were on this system, being as the number of spells you can cast is limited by your madness with the level of the spell being the cast it allows a ton of level 1s, a few more higher levels but no lower levels.. and was wondering on the communities thoughts on my system. If there are any problems please tell me and ill consider how to revise it.
If anyone wants to playtest it please send me an email
Edit: Instead of adding double your int modifier, which I discovered is insanely overpowered at level 1, if you have 20 int for a +5 mod, so you would get 12 spells without worry. I would instead change it to the following:
*In addition the caster adds an amount equal to double their bonus spells granted from their high intelligence score to this madness limit. As usual they must have access to that level of spell to gain the bonus limit.
Fix to the DC
*10 + half your madness limit - 1/2 level
Madness rules modified
*When this limit is exceeded the caster must immediately make a Will Save whose DC is equal to 10 + half the amount of madness points – half their level in the class that uses blood magic (rounded down). If they fail this slave they immediately get a glimpse into the dark oblivion granting a spellblight to the blood caster, the spellblight depends on the highest level spell the caster can cast through blood magic, 1-4 minor spellblight, 5-8 spellblight, and 9 both one major and one minor. If this save ends in success they remain unaffected and can continue casting blood magic but run the risk of going mad again. If the caster rests the 8 hours and hadn’t fallen under the effects of the madness their limit is reset.