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It's been a while since I've uploaded a class to the boards so I figured I'd pop in and present my latest creation: The Hemotheurge
It's a spontaneous divine full caster that uses its literal lifeblood to cast spells. In addition it can willingly bleed profusely to power up its spellcasting and unlocks a bunch of neat little tricks in the form of blood talents, many of which also get a boost from self mutilation. The class is a bit on the simplistic side and I'd like to add in a couple more blood talents so I'm looking for feedback on how to spice things up a bit and/or expand the options available slightly.
All in all though, it's complete enough for a first draft that I'm at a point where I'm comfortable with sharing with the world at large, so have a looksie and then feel free to tear me a new one ;)
Con-based caster. I'll admit it's a nice concept. That said...
- I'm not seeing much reason to stack anything besides Con and a little Dex for their blood bullets, and I feel like a caster ought to rely on a mental score. Wis seems like it'd be most fitting here. Also I feel the witch or shaman spell lists might be a bit more fitting than the cleric list, but that's just me.
- Have some means of flavoring the stigmata. Perhaps have the player pick the form the stigmata takes or the body part upon which it manifests when they first get it, and have it expand the benefits of stigmata based on that. For example, blood pouring from one's eyes could blind the hemotheurge when the stigmata is activated and for 2d4 rounds after, but replace their sight with blindsense or blindsight to 60 feet. Or an intricate pattern of gashes on their back may act as their divine focus and increase the DC of spells connected to certain schools. Or bleeding from the mouth may allow them to cast as if their spells were affected by the silent spell metamagic without increasing cast time or level. Something like a watered down version of oracles' curses.
- Perhaps you could allow hemotheurges to count as an orc or a non-orc for the purposes of effects upon them that rely on their race, taking the more favorable effect? It would only be situationally useful, but there are some places it'd matter. For example, an orc hemotheurge being hit by a creature with the orc hewer feat wouldn't count as an orc for the purpose of that feat, and thus wouldn't grant the attacker an attack roll bonus. Or casting boiling blood on a dwarf hemotheurge would count them as an orc for the purposes of the spell and grant them +2 Str rather than dealing fire damage to them.
- Another option if you like the idea of flavoring this as an orcish thing might be to allow non-orc hemotheurges to count as orcs for the purposes of qualifying for feats, traits, equipment, and spells normally exclusive to orcs, and to grant orc and half-orc hemotheurges +1 to the benefits of their stigmata? Personally I'm not a huge fan of this one, but it's an idea.
- How would this class work for creatures that don't have blood or unusual blood? For example, vishkanyas have poisonous blood, so what happens when they fire a blood bullet? Would the oil or fuel running through an android's systems count as blood? Or is this all something that'd just be left up to the DM's discretion?
- I was initially going to comment on the addition of melee attacks, but then I saw whip of blood and greater whip of blood. All I have to say is a hemotheurge with eight whips of blood, greater whip of blood, and an amulet of mighty fists is bloody terrifying (hurr hurr). The only thing holding it back is the fact that a skinwalker with this class wouldn't ever qualify for the bestial pounce feat, and the fact that tentacles are always a secondary attack means you'll suffer a -2 on all of them (I'm assuming if you're building around whips of blood you're going to take a skinwalker, take extra feature and one of the specialized versions of skinwalker that have access to two different natural attacks, and take multiattack at 3rd; not doing so would be idiotic). The fact that these things are touch attacks can mitigate the lower attack rolls by a lot, though. Hell, I may even try and make a build of this just to see how it'd go...
Between bullet of blood and whip of blood, I'm getting a slight Deadman Wonderland feel. I like it.
One thing I noticed is the hit dice and base attack bonus. Unfortunately for this class, Paizo tied them together so HD 10+ have to have full base attack bonuses. Maybe give toughness out a few more times and say the effects stack?
Between bullet of blood and whip of blood, I'm getting a slight Deadman Wonderland feel. I like it.
One thing I noticed is the hit dice and base attack bonus. Unfortunately for this class, Paizo tied them together so HD 10+ have to have full base attack bonuses. Maybe give toughness out a few more times and say the effects stack?
Eh...? I was under the impression that for PCs, hit dice are determined by their character level? Only the full BAB classes (fighter, barbarian, etc.) get BAB equal to their HD naturally. That's part of why the tentacles for this kinda need to be touch attacks, and why the greater whips use HD as BAB for combat maneuvers; they'd never be able to grab otherwise. Not that I think grabbing would be a good idea at all for this, outside of getting to reposition the target and potentially get flanking bonuses.
I'll admit when I did my build I was steady digging through feats to see what'd add to HP, but honestly all I could find was toughness (which they get as a bonus feat anyway) and tribal scars (which is a flat +6). Maybe if you stuck on a blood familiar in the form of a toad, too for another +3. I can't really see not taking the HP favored class bonus either, since that'd just a extra 20 HP overall.
Speaking of familiars, this does present a problem. If you get to make this into a tumor familiar with the protector archetype, so long as you never cast spells, you're basically able to keep your stigmata active infinitely, and I don't think that was the intent. Probably would be a good idea to put some limiters on both the stigmata bleed damage and the damage taken from casting. I'm not a fan of just strictly turning regeneration and fast healing off for 24 hours; I'd rather it be staunched when stigmata is active, turn back on a few minutes after it's off, and prevent the hemotheurge from being able to recover HP through any means until the end of his next turn if he uses hemotheurgy or a blood talent.
One idea I have for the HP cost for spells; perhaps instead of being SL * 3 - 2, make it SL * 3 - Con / 2? That'd keep your current costs accurate if the hemotheurge has 19-22 Con, and it'd provide an incentive to stack Con even moreso. Perhaps make it SL * 4 instead, though, and set the minimum cost equal to SL? That'd essentially give your Constitution score a soft cap of... 64? And honestly if you've got it that high, your spells may as well be free anyway. You could possibly link the cost reduction to a mental score too, to uncouple gaining HP from reducing HP costs for spells.
While this is something up to DM discretion, I'd suggest preventing the class skills from functioning if the hemotheurge is immune to bleeding outside of the perfect circulation blood talent. While it certainly wouldn't stop people from making undead and construct hemotheurges, it'd stop them from being effective. A DM could easily house-rule in things that have some circulatory fluid besides blood (such as a treant's sap or an android's oil).
- I'm not seeing much reason to stack anything besides Con and a little Dex for their blood bullets, and I feel like a caster ought to rely on a mental score. Wis seems like it'd be most fitting here. Also I feel the witch or shaman spell lists might be a bit more fitting than the cleric list, but that's just me.
The class is part of a line of SAD classes that I'm slowly developing (only Con and Cha really fleshed out at this point though) so having little incentive to spec outside of Con was very much on purpose. Kineticists and pre-errata Scarred Witch Doctors are Con casters that don't really rely on a secondary mental stat, so I'm comfortable with not incentivising a wider stat array. I haven't delved into the shaman spell list too extensively yet so I can't say for sure if I'd prefer that list, but I do know that the witch list is a bit too specialized for what I had in mind. If you're going to have to suck back the pain to cast anything, you should at least always be able to have the potential of having picked up something that's useful to the situation at hand. With a witch there's no guarantee.
- Have some means of flavoring the stigmata. Perhaps have the player pick the form the stigmata takes or the body part upon which it manifests when they first get it, and have it expand the benefits of stigmata based on that. For example, blood pouring from one's eyes could blind the hemotheurge when the stigmata is activated and for 2d4 rounds after, but replace their sight with blindsense or blindsight to 60 feet. Or an intricate pattern of gashes on their back may act as their divine focus and increase the DC of spells connected to certain schools. Or bleeding from the mouth may allow them to cast as if their spells were affected by the silent spell metamagic without increasing cast time or level. Something like a watered down version of oracles' curses.
Yes, yes, all my yes to stigmata flavoring.
- Perhaps you could allow hemotheurges to count as an orc or a non-orc for the purposes of effects upon them that rely on their race, taking the more favorable effect? It would only be situationally useful, but there are some places it'd matter. For example, an orc hemotheurge being hit by a creature with the orc hewer feat wouldn't count as an orc for the purpose of that feat, and thus wouldn't grant the attacker an attack roll bonus. Or casting boiling blood on a dwarf hemotheurge would count them as an orc for the purposes of the spell and grant them +2 Str rather than dealing fire damage to them.
I wasn't specifically trying to make them orcish, just the deathless line of feats works very well for what I wanted, continued functionality at -hp. Plus Deathless Zealot is just a nice general feat (bad for being the end of a 5 feat chain though). Having an entire class give off a racial feel is a bit much, definitely worth considering for an archetype though.
- Another option if you like the idea of flavoring this as an orcish thing might be to allow non-orc hemotheurges to count as orcs for the purposes of qualifying for feats, traits, equipment, and spells normally exclusive to orcs, and to grant orc and half-orc hemotheurges +1 to the benefits of their stigmata? Personally I'm not a huge fan of this one, but it's an idea.
Again, for an archetype, absolutely. For the base class, not so much.
- How would this class work for creatures that don't have blood or unusual blood? For example, vishkanyas have poisonous blood, so what happens when they fire a blood bullet? Would the oil or fuel running through an android's systems count as blood? Or is this all something that'd just be left up to the DM's discretion?
Inherent within the base class there's nothing to help make poisonous blood intrinsically better to fire at your enemies (although with greater blood bullets you can sicken the enemy so that does help with the poisonous blood vibe) but that's an easy fix with an archetype (I'd rather not bake that directly into the class, because then you have to account for how poisonous blood A is going to harm folks differently than poisonous blood B and that's just messy). It's alluded to within some of the blood talents, but as constructs are immune to many talents specifically due to the fact that they don't have regular blood, I'm inclined to say that androids shouldn't benefit from this class, much like how they gain little benefit in being a barbarian since they can't gain morale bonuses.
- I was initially going to comment on the addition of melee attacks, but then I saw whip of blood and greater whip of blood. All I have to say is a hemotheurge with eight whips of blood, greater whip of blood, and an amulet of mighty fists is bloody terrifying (hurr hurr). The only thing holding it back is the fact that a skinwalker with this class wouldn't ever qualify for the bestial pounce feat, and the fact that tentacles are always a secondary attack means you'll suffer a -2 on all of them (I'm assuming if you're building around whips of blood you're going to take a skinwalker, take extra feature and one of the specialized versions of skinwalker that have access to two different natural attacks, and take multiattack at 3rd; not doing so would be idiotic). The fact that these things are touch attacks can mitigate the lower attack rolls by a lot, though. Hell, I may even try and make a build of this just to see how it'd go...
I think the lack of armor proficiency will be enough to dissuade people from trying to go full blender. If you wanted all 8 tentacles as a skinwalker with multiattack, you're looking at either level 16 before you get your last tentacle if you only grab them from talents (there'll be an extra blood talents feat like there is for everything else) or level 10 if you focus all your resources into it (in which case you still don't have armor). DR, distance and multiplicity of enemies all work against natural attack builds and a round you spend flailing is a round you're not casting spells.
Between bullet of blood and whip of blood, I'm getting a slight Deadman Wonderland feel. I like it.
There was actually more Avatar the Last Airbender influence in the class than Deadman Wonderland, but I appreciate the feedback none the less :)
I guess this is as good a spot as any to talk about the intended flavor of the class (and also expand a bit on why I currently have the class set to the cleric spell list). While I'm very comfortable with the idea that people might flavor their fireball as a bloodball that's heated magically so that it deals fire damage, that's not the visual I was actually going for. The idea was akin to sacrificing yourself to your god(s) bit by bit and that sacrifice in turn allowing magical energy to flow through you. Spells would look pretty normal as a result. Blood bullets/wings/tentacles/what have you would then be seen as physical manifestations of your devotion to your ideal and not something you actively strive towards. Since the gods are varied and vast in number I wanted to make this class capable of varied styles of play, both within their talents and within their spell selections.
One thing I noticed is the hit dice and base attack bonus. Unfortunately for this class, Paizo tied them together so HD 10+ have to have full base attack bonuses. Maybe give toughness out a few more times and say the effects stack?
Hit dice and base attack bonus are ALMOST intrinsically tied but actually aren't within Paizo's class design. If they were, they would have updated the Dragon Disciple prestige class to reflect this design philosophy but that class is still d12 with 3/4 progression, so there's precedent. If I were to drop the class down to a d6 to match the attack progression I'd have to revamp the cost of every ability unless I did something to bring their health artificially back up to where it was before, in which case, why bother when the original worked fine?
Classes, yes, prestige classes no. I wouldn't use a prestige class(likely the only, I think) as reasoning for why this class has a d12 hit dice without full BaB.
Then you need to consider just how powerful this class really is, even without d12 HD. There are a few ways to regain hit points pretty quickly, with spells like Infernal Healing and items like Boots of the Earth giving fast healing. The ability to get spells back is either very limited(Arcanist trading points exploit pool points for spells) or expensive(pearls of power). Not a 1st level spell or relatively cheap magic item.
Between bullet of blood and whip of blood, I'm getting a slight Deadman Wonderland feel. I like it.
One thing I noticed is the hit dice and base attack bonus. Unfortunately for this class, Paizo tied them together so HD 10+ have to have full base attack bonuses. Maybe give toughness out a few more times and say the effects stack?
Eh...? I was under the impression that for PCs, hit dice are determined by their character level? Only the full BAB classes (fighter, barbarian, etc.) get BAB equal to their HD naturally. That's part of why the tentacles for this kinda need to be touch attacks, and why the greater whips use HD as BAB for combat maneuvers; they'd never be able to grab otherwise. Not that I think grabbing would be a good idea at all for this, outside of getting to reposition the target and potentially get flanking bonuses.
I'll admit when I did my build I was steady digging through feats to see what'd add to HP, but honestly all I could find was toughness (which they get as a bonus feat anyway) and tribal scars (which is a flat +6). Maybe if you stuck on a blood familiar in the form of a toad, too for another +3. I can't really see not taking the HP favored class bonus either, since that'd just a extra 20 HP overall.
Speaking of familiars, this does present a problem. If you get to make this into a tumor familiar with the protector archetype, so long as you never cast spells, you're basically able to keep your stigmata active infinitely, and I don't think that was the intent. Probably would be a good idea to put some limiters on both the stigmata bleed damage and the damage taken from casting. I'm not a fan of just strictly turning regeneration and fast healing off for 24 hours; I'd rather it be staunched when stigmata is active, turn back on a few minutes after it's off, and prevent the hemotheurge from being able to recover HP through any means until the end of his next turn if he uses hemotheurgy or a blood talent.
One idea I have for the HP cost for spells;...
Keep in mind that when spells cost less they can sling more high level spells per day. At high levels they likely have close to 200 more health than your average cleric. Would you rather that extra health translate into 8 miracles or 10?
Stigmata forever was definitely not the intent, but I'm not seeing an easy way of single classing to getting a tumor familiar (3 feats and a Cha of 13 is the fastest way I'm seeing) so unless there's something else I'm missing (you could dip a level of sorcerer to reduce that to a single feat but then you're behind on spellcasting progression and hp) I guess I'm not SUPER concerned? Saying no to fast healing was essential in balancing the class. If I can rest for 15 minutes to recover all my health without any item use (yeah, I can tell that wands of cure light wounds are going to be bought up by the dozen with this class) then what's stopping me from going all day every day when the rest of my party would be long out of resources? Avoiding the 15 minute adventuring day is important, but being able to sling your strongest spells all day every day is not the way to do so.
EDIT: Tinkering with class skills is definitely something I hadn't considered. I'm curious as to your reasoning for that. Was it just to remind folks that the class shouldn't be played by things that logically shouldn't be able to use the class' abilities or was there a different logic behind that?
Classes, yes, prestige classes no. I wouldn't use a prestige class(likely the only, I think) as reasoning for why this class has a d12 hit dice without full BaB.
Again, not the reason it has that. The reason is because it needed to have oodles of health for a 1/2 BAB class and I wanted an easy way to do so that wouldn't give me wonky math anywhere along the way.
I would suggest adding fly as a class skill, as most classes if not all classes that get access to a fly ability under any means gets it as a class skill.
Riiiight... forgot to adjust the skill list after I wrote up that particular talent. Thank you for the reminder. Speaking of talents, I'd love to add a couple more to the class (not a ton more for now, maybe bring it up to 50 from the current 37) but I've kind of run out of inspiration for them so if anyone has any ideas I'm all ears.
Keep in mind that when spells cost less they can sling more high level spells per day. At high levels they likely have close to 200 more health than your average cleric. Would you rather that extra health translate into 8 miracles or 10?
Stigmata forever was definitely not the intent, but I'm not seeing an easy way of single classing to getting a tumor familiar (3 feats and a Cha of 13 is the fastest way I'm seeing) so unless there's something else I'm missing (you could dip a level of sorcerer to reduce that to a single feat but then you're behind on spellcasting progression and hp) I guess I'm not SUPER concerned? Saying no to fast healing was essential in balancing the class. If I can rest for 15 minutes to recover all my health without any item use (yeah, I can tell that wands of cure light wounds are going to be bought up by the dozen with this class) then what's stopping me from going all day every day when the rest of my party would be long out of resources? Avoiding the 15 minute adventuring day is important, but being able to sling your strongest spells all day every day is not the way to do so.
EDIT: Tinkering with class skills is definitely something I hadn't considered. I'm curious as to your reasoning for that. Was it just to remind folks that the class shouldn't be played by things that logically shouldn't be able to use the class' abilities or was there a different logic behind that?
Dipping Sorc 1 and taking the feat to make the aberrant familiar into a tumor familiar is exactly what I was thinking. You lose two spells, one BAB, one to each good save,one blood talent, and access to grand blood talents, and in trade you get a handful of low-power sorcerer spells and a hit point battery that works so long as you don't cast anything via hemo. In all honesty though? I don't think it's especially worth it.
And yeah, that was a slip on my part; I meant the class features, not class skills. What you said is pretty much the only reason I'd want to cut characters off from hemotheurge abilities. It's in the same vein of kineticists not being able to accept burn if they're immune to nonlethal damage.
So random update/patch notes I guess. I adjusted hemotheurgy so that instead of restricting how the hemotheurge gets healed by spells (fast healing is still a no-no), she instead only heals for temporary hp. I think this works okay since it means you can't get an obscene amount of mileage out of healing effects but it also does effectively double her already large hit point total. It's better but it isn't a great fix.
Also personalized stigmata a bit as suggested, but I decided to let the player swap out where they bleed from whenever they want instead of forcing them to pick one and stick with it.
So here's a question. Why would anyone take Blood Familair/Companion? Neither one of them really seems worth it, especially since healing doesn't grant HP back(a good thing). Companion takes too long to be combat effective unless you know what's coming or really need an aquatic companion(though out at see this might cause more trouble).
You don't need to open your stigmata all the way in order to get a familiar or animal companion, so if you can handle 10 damage per minute you could use them for scouting or whatnot. Actually since you can siphon bleed damage from temp hp, you can keep scouting for as long as your spells hold out.
Ah, I'd forgotten Temporary HP would slow Bleed. That certainly makes them more viable options.
I think I have an idea. Apologies if it goes against any edits you've done on the hemotheurge, since I've been typing for the better part of two hours here XD Let's call it:
First of all, we're going to nix that 1d12 hit die. When it comes down to it, it's really a 1d6+6. So we're going to give this class a 1d6 hit die, and put that +6 to better use.
Divine cruor is essentially going to be a subdermal layer of blood. The depth of this excess blood varies from individual to individual; some people will live with it barely concealed, their flesh appearing permanently bruised, while some may appear to have their flesh heavily reddened (or have their flesh color closer to that of their race's blood, at least) and be prone to developing blood spots, and some may appear to just be bloated or overweight if the divine cruor is deep enough under their fat layers. It's this blood that slowly spills from you when you open your stigmata, acts as fuel for your magic, and protects you from harm.
From a gameplay perspective, divine cruor is a pool of temporary hit points amounting to your con mod times your hemotheurge level. Unlike most temporary hit points, it lasts the entire day, and it is always the first thing expended when any effect would make you lose hit points, from an enemy's attacks to stigmata's bleed to expending it to cast magic via hemotheurgy. It can't be recovered once it's been expended except natural healing, which restores it in the same way as your normal hit points are restored. As long as it's up, it has several effects on other forms of hit points you have:
- As long as you have some of your divine cruor remaining, your normal hit points cannot be healed through magical means. This includes fast healing and regeneration. The only way to recover it is naturally, such as with a full night's rest.
- If you gain temporary hit points from another source, they are added separately from divine cruor, even if they'd stack with temporary hit points from another source normally. These, too, remain unaffected while divine cruor is up, but if they have a duration, that still runs.
- For the purpose of determining if nonlethal damage would knock you out, add your remaining normal hit points to your remaining temporary hit points from divine cruor, and treat the sum as your total hit points for that purpose. Do the same for your maximum hit points and maximum temporary points that divine cruor could provide to determine when nonlethal damage automatically converts into lethal.Example: Mary is a 5th level hemotheurge with a Con score of 18 (and thus a Con mod of 4). Accounting for the bonus hit points gained from toughness, and assuming she rolled the average on her hit die for each level (3.5) and took hit points for her favored class bonuses, she should have roughly 50 hit points, and her divine cruor should be 20 temporary hit points. Despite having 50 hit points, however, Mary can sustain 70 points of nonlethal damage before it can convert to lethal.
As you develop your control over blood, you begin to find ways to manipulate your divine cruor more effectively. At 7th level, when you would receive damage from a source other than a bleed effect or a spell cast through your hemotheurgy, as a free action you can allow it to ignore your divine cruor, dealing damage directly to you. It still interacts with other effects normally (such as damage reduction and temporary hit points not provided by divine cruor).
At 11th level, once per turn as a swift action, you can drain some of your body's blood into your divine cruor, sustaining damage equal to your Con mod to recover that many of the temporary hit points provided by your divine cruor.
At 15th level, your divine cruor can be healed by spells just like you can. If you would be affected by magical healing while your divine cruor still has temporary hit points, rather than completely neutralizing the effect on you, your divine cruor's temporary hit points are recovered for 1/4th the amount of healing. In addition, if an effect would give you temporary hit points, you can choose to instead have the effect heal your divine cruor's temporary hit points for half the amount it would have provided. Neither of these effects can cause the divine cruor to have more temporary hit points than its maximum. The effects of fast healing and regeneration are still supressed while your divine cruor
At 19th level, you have fully mastered manipulating your divine cruor. Your ability to drain your normal hit points into your divine cruor becomes a free action you can perform at will, and you can have the bleed from stigmata and any hit point loss from casting with hemotheurgy affect your normal hit points rather than your divine cruor's temporary hit points.
Another thing I think we need is some way to replace the loss of armor. Thematically it makes sense - your blood drools down your body, so it's going to soak into your clothes and ruin anything your wear. A hemotheurge is likely to either wear as little as society will allow them to get away with or wear clothing that can be removed in a blink so they can fight comfortably. However I don't think shields should be a problem, honestly, unless their stigmata manifests on their forearm specifically. And don't forget that armor can be enchanted, so you're missing out on more than just the one or two points of armor AC it'd give you, but anything you'd have gained from an enhancement bonus, including armor qualities...
Anyway. I'm revising the build I had now, hopefully I'll have it posted soon~
+1 on the Divine Cruor. Not sure on the name but I think it would solve many of the problems I see in the current build. Especially if this is what was also used to cast the spells.
+1 on the Divine Cruor. Not sure on the name but I think it would solve many of the problems I see in the current build. Especially if this is what was also used to cast the spells.
Well, my idea of it is that they still use their normal HP for casting, they just need to eat through this first. Up until 7th it's more of a hindrance than a help, but by the time one needs healing they've likely already gone through their divine cruor anyway. From that point on, I'm basically giving the hemotheurge ways to transfer the damage to their cruor over to themselves so they can have a beefy shield while deathless initiate is active.
If you're familiar with the Binding of Isaac, I think of this like playing as Eve, with normal HP being red hearts and divine cruor being soul hearts. Each progressive ability tagged onto divine cruor is a devil deal that you use to lessen your reliance on red hearts until you're finally comfortable running soul hearts only, allowing you to benefit full-time from Whore of Babylon and Polaroid.
Anyway yeah, I was iffy about the name too (though honestly more about the "divine" part, since that's not something that a demonic entity with these kinds of powers might want to call it). To be fair I just pulled "cruor" out of a thesaurus after flipping to blood; it literally means "blood clot."
In any case. Here's hoping Johnny likes the idea!
This isn't the first time I've reviewed a spellcaster with a d12 Hit Die that uses hit points as a spells-per-day resource. I have the same initial impressions as my response to the last one.
This isn't the first time I've reviewed a spellcaster with a d12 Hit Die that uses hit points as a spells-per-day resource. I have the same initial impressions as my response to the last one.
I thought I balanced out the cost of spells fairly well actually. At 20th level a specialist Wizard with 36 Int has 316 levels of spell slots (6 9th, 7 8th, 7 7th, 7 6th, 7 5th, 8 4th, 8 3rd, 8 2nd and 8 1st) while a hemoetheurge with 36 Con has 419 health (19x7.75 + 12 + 12x20 + 20) which if magically used exclusively for casting spells can translate between 151 levels of spell slots (16 9th level and 1 7th) and 419 (419 1st). To get the same spread as the wizard, you'd need to spend 816 hp (6x25 + 7x22 + 7x19 + 7x16 + 7x13 + 8x10 + 8x7 + 8x4 + 8) or almost twice your hit point total. Not to mention the fact that you can't recover lost hit points and sacrificing hp fuels more abilities than just spells means you're likely to only really be able to safely contribute half of your hit point total to spellcasting. This means you're more likely to choose between 8 9th level spells per day or a more conservative spread. I think you'd agree with me that 2 9th level spells are worth a whole lot less than 7 8th and 7 7th (plus all the other lower level spells).
Going back to divine cruor though, I think mechanically it probably works out quite nicely, not a huge fan of the flavor though. The idea I had in mind wasn't that you would be giving up your excess, but your necessity, to power your spells. It also would make the hemotheurge too obvious in its role physically, you'd easily be able to pick the hemotheurge out of a crowd, whereas an unarmored rogue vs slayer vs monk vs swashbuckler is going to be much less obvious. Originally in my mind I had stigmata kind of come out of everywhere at the same time so that's why no shields, but now that it's localized I don't have a problem with adding shields to the list of wearables.
That doesn't address the concerns I explained with the other similar homebrew classes I reviewed.
Also, am I reading this right? Casting a 1st level spell costs 1 hit point. You can easily start off with 17 hit points (more than even most 2nd level characters). So that means you can cast 17 1st level spells per day at 1st level?
If you both a) never activate your stigmata and b) never get hit then yes, but as soon as either of those happen, your number of spells per day drops drastically. However there aren't really any abusable 1st level cleric spells (murderous command is about the worst of them) in the first place so actually being able to cast spells every encounter as a full caster isn't a bad thing, besides, it's kind of your job. You should be able to do it out of the gate.
That doesn't address the concerns I explained with the other similar homebrew classes I reviewed.
Also, am I reading this right? Casting a 1st level spell costs 1 hit point. You can easily start off with 17 hit points (more than even most 2nd level characters). So that means you can cast 17 1st level spells per day at 1st level?
The two points I saw you making there were the concern over the hit die size and the cost for spells, right?
For the first one, that's part of why I suggested divine cruor. Technically the player is getting a similar level of hit points per level, but this forces them to put some focus into Con where before they wouldn't need any if they had a means to guarantee bonuses to their attack and damage rolls. I mentioned above, considering the die has a minimum, it's less of a 1d12 and more of a 1d7+5 (I'd stated 1d6+6 before but that was a bit off). There's even the added benefit of it increasing natural recovery to an extent when they have a means to lower their hit points and divine cruor points. The fact that the cruor's size is linked directly to the Con stat makes it more important too. I don't suppose that's a solution you'd be satisfied with, but honestly this was both to make the hit die size more logical and to help the player trigger the bonus from deathless master more easily and with less risk.
Regarding the math, that's something I honestly do agree with. I can think of two ways that this could be solved. First, the spell costs could be increased to (spell level + 1) ^ 2, so they'd go up to 4, 9, 16, 25, and so on, with 9th level spells costing 100 hit points. The other option would be to limit the hemotheurge to a certain number of spells per day total; perhaps have him suffer fatigue if he's cast a number of spells equal to 1 + his Con mod, and exhausted if he casts up to twice that much. That'd make sense thematically; eventually you're going to be suffering the effects of blood loss if you keep using your blood for magic.
If you both a) never activate your stigmata and b) never get hit then yes, but as soon as either of those happen, your number of spells per day drops drastically.
Having the potential to cast up to eighteen 1st level spells at level one is utterly ridiculous. That's only the tip of the iceberg, too. I compiled a spreadsheet of how many spells you can cast across 20 levels at given Constitution and hit point values. It's pretty obvious to see how broken the math is. A 20th level character can cast 360 1st level spells. Heck, it can cast more than 14 9th level spells per day, which is more than twice the amount a twinked out sorcerer can do.
This shouldn't be surprising because (as I explained in my other post) hit points don't function well as a resource pool for gating abilities. Not only that, you also essentially made a spell point system, which carries its own set of design challenges since you can't really put multiple spell levels on the same resource pool. D&D/PF basically treats each spell level as a different resource pool. You can't really put them all into the same pool unless you change some fundamental things of how the spell system works, which is what Psionics Unleashed did.
However there aren't really any abusable 1st level cleric spells (murderous command is about the worst of them) in the first place so actually being able to cast spells every encounter as a full caster isn't a bad thing, besides, it's kind of your job. You should be able to do it out of the gate.
So it's totally okay they can cast like five times more spells than any other spellcaster because they have the best divine spell list in the game?
Again, potential versus practice. In practice you will be hit, you will take damage, and you will lose spellcasting potential. That's not a thing that can be said of other casters. You were knocked unconscious? Congratulations, you can't cast spells for the rest of the day. Players understand risk. The more you cast, the easier you are to take out of a fight permanently. I would be very surprised if a player continued to nova while under half health.
The point that your missing with casting huge numbers of high level spells (besides the fact that no hemotheurge would ever actually cast all 14 9th level spells since you know, they want to stay alive) is that if they do so, that's all they get. So yeah, one could cast double the number of 9th a sorcerer can, but then they wouldn't get the 8th, 7th, 6th and 5th that are all still very relevant and that make for a substantial number more spell levels per day. Also, the cleric list is so good because of all the situational coverage that the cleric has. This works for the cleric since it can swap out spells willy nilly. For spontaneous casters though, it's a problem since that means much fewer spells will be good at all times. This is doubly applicable for the hemotheurge since having 1/2 BAB means that self buffing is both more time consuming to get to the same bonuses and less effective since you have one less swing on a full attack.
@Onyx Tanuki: (Level + 1)^2 is a bit extreme in the other direction. At 36 Con you can cast a grand total of 4 9th level spells before casting another will outright kill you. 4 spells per day is not enough, especially when all your best abilities require you to expend even more health and you're left with a whopping 19 hp to fuel them with. I am planning on readjusting the temp hp soft cap to "no higher than current damage" so that should help stymie some of the concerns with balancing the spells per day since you would have to take damage before you can start giving yourself a buffer (just trying to find a nice way to word it). I don't think I would mind a fatigued/exhausted mini system in the class but tying it to spells cast is a little odd since you'd reach the effect at the same time regardless of how powerful your spells were (and thus how much hp you lost). Getting fatigued just as fast from casting 1st as 9th level spells feels wrong. I could see tying it to remaining hit points though (would kind of suck for low levels though since 1 hit could drop you from fine to exhausted for the rest of the day).
The point that your missing with casting huge numbers of high level spells (besides the fact that no hemotheurge would ever actually cast all 14 9th level spells since you know, they want to stay alive) is that if they do so, that's all they get. So yeah, one could cast double the number of 9th a sorcerer can, but then they wouldn't get the 8th, 7th, 6th and 5th that are all still very relevant and that make for a substantial number more spell levels per day.
It doesn't matter. The math of your class still makes its power ceiling much, much higher than the sorcerer and wizard and cleric. That's a problem.
Again, potential versus practice. In practice you will be hit, you will take damage, and you will lose spellcasting potential. That's not a thing that can be said of other casters. You were knocked unconscious? Congratulations, you can't cast spells for the rest of the day.
This is a game where ending combats efficient enough to not take damage is the goal. We're dealing with a 9-level spellcaster with the cleric spell list who can cast an insane amount of spells and can turn the healing of their cure spells into temporary hit points to offset the HP cost. This class is highly incentivized to play safely and has the means to do it.
This also leads to another big problem with your class: stigmata. I do like the stigmata effects. However, the bonus to attack and damage don't mesh with the rest of the class. This class has a 1/2 BAB, incentivizes you to play as safely as possible, taking damage cripples your spellcasting, and has a spell list with very few attack spells. Why would you ever want to engage in combat and make use of this attack and damage bonus?
Sure, the DC and CL boost is great, but it's also way too good. DC and CL boosts don't need to scale because they're good at all levels of play. It doesn't matter if you're level 1 or level 10, getting a bonus to your spell CL and DCs is always awesome. This is why other such abilities only give a +1 or a +2. This class can get a +5.
Also, the way stigmata is worded, you can open a stigmata, cast a spell to gain the benefits of the DC and CL boost, and then close the stigmata without taking any damage.
I actually meant to ask: how would a hemotheurge interact with a feat like arcane blast? They can clearly take the feat, but would they be able to actually use it? As it's worded, either they couldn't use it at all, or they could use it by spending the appropriate amount of hit points on the skill basedon the spell slot they would have sacrificed (and honestly I'd lean toward the former).
Well they'd have to be an arcane spellcaster to take that feat in particular, but for any similar feat they should be able to sacrifice hit points as if they were casting a spell of the level that they would be sacrificing if they had spell slots. So for example, if an effect would ask you to sacrifice a 3rd level spell/slot to do something, using the current hit point formula you would sacrifice 7 hp instead.
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Ah, you're right, I wasn't paying attention to that part of the requirements. Thanks for the clarification on it. :P Anyway, here's the build I ended up going with:
Race: Hobgoblin
Str 15 (2 mod)
Dex 16 (+2, 4 mod)
Con 17 (+2, 4 mod)
Int 16 (3 mod)
Wis 10 (0 mod)
Cha 13 (1 mod)
Authoritative
Darkvision
Trait: Adopted [Social] > Finish the Fight [Race]
Trait: Blighted Physiology [Region]
Since hobgoblin gets a bonus on the two stats I want most on this guy (Dex and Con) without being hindered by a penalty, that's the race I went with. I was actually incredibly lucky to get a pretty fantastic set of rolls for his stats, but regardless I would want him with at least 15 Str since he's going to rely on that for damage until I can get an agile amulet of mighty fists. For the traits, blighted physiology fixes one of this class's biggest issues, that being an inability to equip armor without taking a proficiency feat (which frankly I could have done, but just didn't feel like), and because he's unlikely to benefit from magical healing at all, the drawback of blighted physiology isn't too bad. The other trait, finish the fight (picked up via the adopted trait), is ideal for builds where you deal out a high number of hits per turn. I'd considered taking a drawback along with improvised defense as well, and that could still be a viable option, but with shields being added in as an option there's not much point in it beyond 1st level.
--1st--
Hemotheurge 1
BAB: +0
F/R/W: +2/+0/+2
Stigmata +1
Hemotheurgy
Bonus Feat: Toughness
Feat: Weapon Finesse
At this point, I'll likely be shield bashing rather than using a traditional weapon, or else just popping out spells like magic stone, firebelly, inflict light wounds, or murderous command. I just wanted to grab weapon finesse as early as I could. I won't likely be worrying about using stigmata until my hit points are a little bit higher.
--2nd--
Hemotheurge 2
BAB: +1
F/R/W: +3/+0/+3
Stigmata +1
Bonus Feat: Endurance
Blood Talent: Whip of Blood
Although I'm grabbing the first whip already, I'm still not too likely to be using it, since I need to have my stigmata open for that. The strategy's going to remain about the same as last level.
--3rd--
Hemotheurge 3
BAB: +1
F/R/W: +3/+1/+3
Stigmata +1
Bonus Feat: Diehard
Feat: Extra Blood Talent > Shield of Blood
This of course assumes that extra blood talent will be a feat associated with the hemotheurge, but since it was already stated as a planned feat, I think it's safe to assume as much. That said, shield of blood will beef up our AC and make it worthwhile to open his stigmata. None of them especially help this build yet, but tongue and feet are the most likely ones I'd have open up.
--4th--
Hemotheurge 4
Ability Score Increase: Con
BAB: +2
F/R/W: +4/+1/+4
Stigmata +1
Blood Talent: Whip of Blood
The increase to his base Con score increases his Con mod as well, and in turn increases his hit points by a decent chunk more than it's increased in all the previous levels (up a guaranteed 7 accounting for Con mod bonus, FCB, and toughness). This means I should be able to going into and stay in stigmata 1 through most battles, and my whips of blood will be much better at hitting enemies than the rocks from magic stone or a shield bash.
--5th--
Hemotheurge 5
BAB: +2
F/R/W: +4/+1/+4
Stigmata +2
Feat: Pestilent
Pestilent is going to be quite an interesting tool to combine with the whips; as long as an enemy is suffering from a disease I inflict upon it, I'll get a bonus to attack and damage from natural weapons, in addition to each hit dealing an extra 1d6 negative energy damage. Unfortunately, because my diseases are caused via spells and not supernatural abilities, I have to inflict them myself, but it's still a heck of a bonus. What's nice is I have access to advanced scurvy, a 1st level disease, so there's little excuse in not trying to spread it to at least my intended targets, and I have the contagion spell to confer other diseases if I wish.
--6th--
Hemotheurge 6
BAB: +3
F/R/W: +5/+2/+5
Stigmata +2
Bonus Feat: Deathless Initiate
Blood Talent: Whip of Blood
Our third whip is available now, as well as deathless initiate. This means it's going to be rather favorable to go into stigmata 2, since I'll now be getting another +2 attack and damage if I'm acting in negative hit points, and my whips extend out to 10 feet now, letting me threaten non-adjacent squares.
--7th--
Hemotheurge 7
BAB: +3
F/R/W: +5/+2/+5
Stigmata +2
Feat: Combat Reflexes
Combat reflexes goes hand-in-hand with that additional reach, since now I'm going to be able to get considerably more attacks of opportunity in. Our individual whips aren't especially damaging without the boosts from pestilent, deathless initiate, and finish the fight, but more damage is more damage, right?
--8th--
Hemotheurge 8
Ability Score Increase: Con
BAB: +4
F/R/W: +6/+2/+6
Stigmata +2
Blood Talent: Whip of Blood
Now up to four whips. Nothing too exciting, but having the ability to hit four times with a full attack is great.
--9th--
Hemotheurge 9
BAB: +4
F/R/W: +6/+3/+6
Stigmata +3
Bonus Feat: Deathless Master
Feat: Improved Natural Attack (Tentacles)
This level comes with some pretty exciting boosts. Deathless master means we can act freely while in negative hit points, and improved natural attack will beef up the whips' damage to 1d6s. In addition, stigmata can be stronger now, and so long as we've been stacking on the Con-boosting magic items, there shouldn't be much reason not to go for the maximum stigmata bonus possible.
--10th--
Hemotheurge 10
BAB: +5
F/R/W: +7/+3/+7
Stigmata +3
Advanced Blood Talents
Blood Talent: Improved Whip of Blood
Improved whip of blood is a massive power-up for us. Where improved natural attack brought the whips to 1d6s, this boosts them to 2d6s, and if we can use a magic device to cast enlarge person or a similar effect on ourselves, that'll take them to 3d6s. Ideally we should at least have the agile amulet too, if not one with some of the elemental damage add-ons (corrosive, flaming, shock, and/or frost).
--11th--
Hemotheurge 11
BAB: +5
F/R/W: +7/+3/+7
Stigmata +3
Feat: Intrepid Rescuer
This feat makes our AoOs even easier to get, and with our whips threatening out to 15 feet, it's not going to be difficult to trigger them while we're nearby fallen allies.
--12th--
Hemotheurge 12
Ability Score Increase: Con
BAB: +6/+1
F/R/W: +8/+4/+8
Stigmata +3
Bonus Feat: Deathless Zealot
Blood Talent: Power in the Blood
Power in the blood will not only bolster the damage our attacks deal, but also our spells, giving us options even when enemies are outside of the range of our whips. Deathless zealot isn't the most exciting thing, but it'll make it a little harder to hit us with criticals, especially if we have some level of fortification on our shield.
--13th--
Hemotheurge 13
BAB: +6/+1
F/R/W: +8/+4/+8
Stigmata +4
Feat: Hammer the Gap
Stigmata 4 means more accuracy on our whips, more damage via power in the blood, and an increase to 20 feet in reach for our attacks. Hammer the Gap is a minor damage boost, but it's a boost nonetheless, and it builds up as our number of hits in a round increase.
--14th--
Hemotheurge 14
BAB: +7/+2
F/R/W: +9/+4/+9
Stigmata +4
Blood Talent: Whip of Blood
More whip, more damage.
--15th--
Hemotheurge 15
BAB: +7/+2
F/R/W: +9/+5/+9
Stigmata +4
Feat: Eldritch Claws
At this point we may begin experiencing trouble making it through DR, and eldritch claws is here to help with that, allowing our whips to count as magic and silver in addition to bludgeoning.
--16th--
Hemotheurge 16
Ability Score Increase: Con
BAB: +8/+3
F/R/W: +10/+5/+10
Stigmata +4
Blood Talent: Whip of Blood
Up to six whips now.
--17th--
Hemotheurge 17
BAB: +8/+3
F/R/W: +10/+6/+10
Stigmata +5
Feat: Extra Blood Talent > Forced Hemotheurgy
Stigmata is now up to 5, which gives us the maximum possible benefit from it; +5 to attack rolls, +5 to damage rolls via power in the blood, and 25 feet of reach on the tentacles. In addition, I've picked up forced hemotheurgy. This is actually a fantastic ability, and one I was sorely tempted to take much earlier in this build (and quite possibly could), as it's essentially allowing us to use our most powerful magic and deal some extra damage to our enemies in the process. The downside is that we can't use it to have an enemy inflict itself with a disease, but if we're facing a lone enemy we could easily save our use of forced hemotheurgy against it for if/when we need to cast mass heal, greater communal spell immunity, or some other effect that benefits the party.
--18th--
Hemotheurge 18
BAB: +9/+4
F/R/W: +11/+6/+11
Stigmata +5
Blood Talent: Whip of Blood
Another whip getting added here because reasons.
--19th--
Hemotheurge 19
BAB: +9/+4
F/R/W: +11/+6/+11
Stigmata +5
Feat: Extra Blood Talent > Whip of Blood
And finally our last possible whip. Devo would be so proud of this guy right now.
--20th--
Hemotheurge 20
Ability Score Increase: Con
BAB: +10/+5
F/R/W: +12/+6/+12
Stigmata +5
Master Blood Talent
Blood Talent: Perfect Circulation
The master blood talents are all decent, but this one is the stand-out for me, along with vortex of blood (which we don't qualify for because we lack wings of blood). The immunity to precision damage, critical hits, poison, disease, and bleed damage (besides stigmata) is all excellent, but it's the natural recovery that really pushes this over the top for me. Rather than spending maybe an hour active, now we can spend quite a bit longer thanks to getting 20 hit points back per hour. It does make me wonder how an actual full night's rest functions with this, though...
-----
Equipment goals for this are pretty simple. There's little need for a weapon, but if we pick one up it'll likely be a light or one-handed defending and/or guardian weapon with the highest enhancement bonus possible, allowing us to just transfer its enhancement bonus onto our AC or saves every turn. Armor of course isn't a possibility, so meh. As for shield, I think ideally we'd be using a clawhand shield, especially if we can procure a weapon.
As for wondrous items, aside from the obvious Dex/Con belt, one stands above all others: an agile amulet of mighty fists. This will let us ignore any need for Strength beyond the prerequisite for eldritch claws, since the agile trait will grant us the ability to use Dex instead for our damage. We'll also likely want to add on any weapon qualities we can to enhance damage. If we choose to take tainted blood as an extra blood talent over either hammer the gap or eldritch claws, conductive could prove a useful quality to have, too, allowing us to deliver some extra damage as well as nauseate or sicken the opponent.
Dotting