Blood Priest - Divine Spellcasting Class

[Sriseru]

I made a thread for this before, but at the time the blood priest was little more than an archetype. I've now made so many changes that it has more-or-less become a new class.

The blood priest is inspired by the ancient Aztec religion and its priesthood.
You can find the blood priest class here.

If someone would be willing to give me some feedback on the class so far, I would appreciate it very much.

[Ciaran Barnes]

So there are "good" blood priests out there who will sacrifice a creature, eat it's body, and wear it's skin?

[Sriseru]

Yes.
Good blood priests only sacrifice evil creatures (as well as eat their bodies and wear their skins), but they do so to honor their gods and serve their communities. Afterwards, they usually give the remains of their victims proper burials once they are done with them.

While I admit that this might be a bit of a stretch, I do believe that this is still within the bounds of the good alignments.

[Ciaran Barnes]

Maybe I should stop trying to force my culture on to your blood priests. :)

I suppose the class looks fine. The only issue I can see is that the various class features associated with sacrafice will be diffilcult to fit into a "normal" adventuring party. This would be more ideal for an NPC, as part of an adventuring party that is all from the same culture, or for an evil adventuing party.

[Sriseru]

Thank you. :D

And I completely agree with you that a blood priest probably wouldn't fit in with most adventuring parties. Personally, I'll mostly use the class for a few NPCs.

[Cyrad]

Yeah, this feels more like an NPC class. It would have been more manageable if you could sacrifice animals or something. As of now, it doesn't look fun to play.

1) The text does not indicate what the blood priest has to do for the ritual. What action is it to use sacrifice? How long does it take? Does the victim need to be helpless or willing? As written, it sounds like I could just sneak up on someone, poke them, and instantly get the bonus spell. Heck, the text doesn't even say you need to kill the humanoid. Also, just saying sacrifice "can't be performed during combat" is extremely vague. The text describes the benefits, but not how the ability is used.

2) Making the bloodpriest a 1/2 BAB class was a mistake. Aside from domains, the class doesn't really have much to do during combat at all. The cleric spell list consists of mostly combat buffs and out of combat utility. Unlike a wizard, it's difficult to play a cleric as a dedicated spellcaster, and you took away most of their contribution in combat by removing their weapon/armor proficiencies, nerfing their BAB, and replacing channel energy with a crappy version of lay on hands. Getting an extra spell slot every 5 levels is not worth it, especially when it's cumbersome to gain that benefit.

3) Why does using a positive energy divine touch offensively against an undead provokes an attack of opportunity and yet using a negative energy divine touch offensively against a living creature does not? Even lay on hands doesn't work that way.

4) Feels like interpret the stars should be related to Knowledge check or something. Or that it should work like the augury-like spells. I'm not sure.

If I wanted to make a more PC-friendly class based on sacrificing humanoids, I'd make it so that you can pledge to your god to slay a creature with half your HD or more. If the creature dies within the next minute and you spend a full round action saying a prayer over their corpse, you regain 1 used spell.

[Sriseru]

You make a lot of valid point.

1) I left it vague intentionally, but perhaps I made it too vague. Though, I did state that "to complete the ritual the blood priest must extract the victim's heart", which should kill most creatures.
In any case, I will expand upon the rules of the sacrifice ability to make things more clear.

2) I was afraid of this. I think I could solve this by creating a class-specific spell list for the blood priest with some more combat-oriented spells. Also, I'll find a better substitute for channel energy than divine touch in its current state.

3) Actually, I based that mechanic on the Warpriest's fervor ability (from the Advanced Class Guide). This should be fixed once I replace divine touch with something more practical.

4) I have considered this as well. The problem is that none of the Knowledge skills seem to fit the ability. It still requires a caster level check, though, but I guess I could add that failing the check would result in misreading the stars rather than not gaining any information at all.

The thing is, ritually sacrificing a humanoid out of combat would be too much of an effort just to regain 1 used spell. I have to give characters a bigger incentive than that.

Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to give me so much feedback. I really appreciate it. :)

[Ciaran Barnes]

Sriseru wrote:

4) I have considered this as well. The problem is that none of the Knowledge skills seem to fit the ability. It still requires a caster level check, though, but I guess I could add that failing the check would result in misreading the stars rather than not gaining any information at all.

Straight from the SRD

Arcana - ancient mysteries, magic traditions
Nature - seasons and cycles
Geography - Used for astronomy

The way the entry for Geography is written, it seems as though that bit is from a book that was released after th CRB.

[Silver Surfer]

Kudos..... always good to see a D6 divine build

I would however either ditch channeling completely and trade it in for something more useful or reduce its strength down to 7 or 8D6 but be able to use it for something else.... this could expand your options and RP fun. The priest would have to choose which alternative they wanted from the start and then maybe once every 4-5 levels they could gain another use or maybe power it up somehow? You could call it Blood Channeling or something?

Example

Insight: By expanding 1 blood channel the priest reads signs and omens in the flow of the blood and has visions of the near future. For the next 1 minute he gains an inititaive bonus equal to his Wisdom modifier.

Fury: By expanding 1 blood channel, the heated blood of past warriors surges through him giving him haste and 1 barbarian rage power for 1 minute

Power: By expanding 1 blood channel, the power of the ancients fills his body. For 1 minute, he treats his caster level as being 1 higher and gains 1 metamagic feat which does not increase the effective level of the spell.