I'd probably go with an Alchemist Artificer with experimental elixirs and other features reflavored as being blood magic. Like, for your experimental elixir, it's not simply a potion you made... it's your own corrupted blood.
Grab Acid Splash as your go-to damaging cantrip, which is basically just hurling acidic blood at an enemy.
There's a lot you could do with reflavoring, but it will still lose out on the major feature that I think most Blood Mage concepts rely on, which is being able to harm your character as a means of either casting spells or improving your spellcasting. It can be a little ridiculous to say that you're throwing blood at enemies round after round without taking any damage yourself.
An alternative is to go with Sorcerer... I'd probably pick Shadow Sorcerer. In that case I would just reflavor Sorcery Points specifically as being what employs blood... so in that case you don't have traditional "sorcery points", but rather your Sorcery Points represent how much of your own blood you can spend on your magic before it becomes harmful to yourself.
I would think a Blood Hunter Order of the Profane Soul(maybe one of the other Orders as well), possibly multiclassed with a caster class that has more spell focus would be an interesting idea.
I don't even know what a "blood mage" is. Is this from another game? Are we just doing word-association from the phrase "blood mage"?
If we're just using our imaginations to define our goal here, then maybe the blood mage is someone who has magic blood -- aka a Sorcerer. Or maybe they can use blood for magic -- there's a few existing spells, I think, that use blood as a component. Maybe they do magic that's sort of thematically related to blood, in which case you could probably reflavor some water spells like Tidal Wave along with anything that deals necrotic damage. Maybe their magic only works when they're bleeding, or only works on other people who are bleeding, or only works on targets that have blood. That's just a limitation you can place on yourself.
But if you're looking to replicate or interpret something that already exists, you'll need to be more specific.
I don't even know what a "blood mage" is. Is this from another game? Are we just doing word-association from the phrase "blood mage"?
If we're just using our imaginations to define our goal here, then maybe the blood mage is someone who has magic blood -- aka a Sorcerer. Or maybe they can use blood for magic -- there's a few existing spells, I think, that use blood as a component. Maybe they do magic that's sort of thematically related to blood, in which case you could probably reflavor some water spells like Tidal Wave along with anything that deals necrotic damage. Maybe their magic only works when they're bleeding, or only works on other people who are bleeding, or only works on targets that have blood. That's just a limitation you can place on yourself.
But if you're looking to replicate or interpret something that already exists, you'll need to be more specific.
I don't know if this is exactly what the OP had in mind, but in most stuff I see a "Blood Mage" is basically a spellcaster who casts from their HP. They somehow harm themselves in a way that empowers their spells, usually by cutting themselves and using their own blood as fuel for magic.
Wtfdndad is correct that some version of Blood Hunter is probably the best way to accomplish that... but the tricky part is that it's technically a homebrew class that only exists on DnDBeyond because of their Critical Role sponsorship.
I don't even know what a "blood mage" is. Is this from another game? Are we just doing word-association from the phrase "blood mage"?
If we're just using our imaginations to define our goal here, then maybe the blood mage is someone who has magic blood -- aka a Sorcerer. Or maybe they can use blood for magic -- there's a few existing spells, I think, that use blood as a component. Maybe they do magic that's sort of thematically related to blood, in which case you could probably reflavor some water spells like Tidal Wave along with anything that deals necrotic damage. Maybe their magic only works when they're bleeding, or only works on other people who are bleeding, or only works on targets that have blood. That's just a limitation you can place on yourself.
But if you're looking to replicate or interpret something that already exists, you'll need to be more specific.
I don't know if this is exactly what the OP had in mind, but in most stuff I see a "Blood Mage" is basically a spellcaster who casts from their HP. They somehow harm themselves in a way that empowers their spells, usually by cutting themselves and using their own blood as fuel for magic.
Wtfdndad is correct that some version of Blood Hunter is probably the best way to accomplish that... but the tricky part is that it's technically a homebrew class that only exists on DnDBeyond because of their Critical Role sponsorship.
Most stuff, such as what, exactly? With specifics we can narrow in on some mechanics.
Yeah, that looks pretty good. I saw some Blood Magic and Mage stuff in DM's Guild, DnD Wiki and a few other places as well. Lots of material out there if you don't have anything against homebrew.
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Which class? Subclass? Spells?...
Play any caster, flavor the spells to be blood-centric.
I'd probably go with an Alchemist Artificer with experimental elixirs and other features reflavored as being blood magic. Like, for your experimental elixir, it's not simply a potion you made... it's your own corrupted blood.
Grab Acid Splash as your go-to damaging cantrip, which is basically just hurling acidic blood at an enemy.
There's a lot you could do with reflavoring, but it will still lose out on the major feature that I think most Blood Mage concepts rely on, which is being able to harm your character as a means of either casting spells or improving your spellcasting. It can be a little ridiculous to say that you're throwing blood at enemies round after round without taking any damage yourself.
An alternative is to go with Sorcerer... I'd probably pick Shadow Sorcerer. In that case I would just reflavor Sorcery Points specifically as being what employs blood... so in that case you don't have traditional "sorcery points", but rather your Sorcery Points represent how much of your own blood you can spend on your magic before it becomes harmful to yourself.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I would think a Blood Hunter Order of the Profane Soul(maybe one of the other Orders as well), possibly multiclassed with a caster class that has more spell focus would be an interesting idea.
I don't even know what a "blood mage" is. Is this from another game? Are we just doing word-association from the phrase "blood mage"?
If we're just using our imaginations to define our goal here, then maybe the blood mage is someone who has magic blood -- aka a Sorcerer. Or maybe they can use blood for magic -- there's a few existing spells, I think, that use blood as a component. Maybe they do magic that's sort of thematically related to blood, in which case you could probably reflavor some water spells like Tidal Wave along with anything that deals necrotic damage. Maybe their magic only works when they're bleeding, or only works on other people who are bleeding, or only works on targets that have blood. That's just a limitation you can place on yourself.
But if you're looking to replicate or interpret something that already exists, you'll need to be more specific.
I don't know if this is exactly what the OP had in mind, but in most stuff I see a "Blood Mage" is basically a spellcaster who casts from their HP. They somehow harm themselves in a way that empowers their spells, usually by cutting themselves and using their own blood as fuel for magic.
Wtfdndad is correct that some version of Blood Hunter is probably the best way to accomplish that... but the tricky part is that it's technically a homebrew class that only exists on DnDBeyond because of their Critical Role sponsorship.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Most stuff, such as what, exactly? With specifics we can narrow in on some mechanics.
I wouldn't!
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
Yeah, that looks pretty good. I saw some Blood Magic and Mage stuff in DM's Guild, DnD Wiki and a few other places as well. Lots of material out there if you don't have anything against homebrew.