So, i had a rough idea for a character of someone who manipulates their own body and the bodies of other people with their magic, but I am not sure of the best way to do this. my thought would be using the blood magic for debuffing enemies and using the necromancy to control their bones to use as weapons and armor along with the normal resurrecting dead things. If you have read the Locked Tomb series, that is what I am trying to do with the necromancy part.
So, i had a rough idea for a character of someone who manipulates their own body and the bodies of other people with their magic, but I am not sure of the best way to do this. my thought would be using the blood magic for debuffing enemies and using the necromancy to control their bones to use as weapons and armor along with the normal resurrecting dead things. If you have read the Locked Tomb series, that is what I am trying to do with the necromancy part.
Also, i would like to avoid using blood hunter for the build.
The fundamental issue with "I want to play this specific profile of a mage" in D&D is that the core magic system is very inflexible. There's not a ton of room for taking spells based on a theme like "blood magic" and there's pretty much nothing that involves the explicit manipulation of bones. Your main options are Blood, Death, or Grave Domain Clerics, Divine Soul Sorcerer, or something like Hexblade or Undead Warlocks. You can spin spells like Mage Armor or Shield of Faith as bone manipulation on the defensive side, although I'm not sure what for these classes would fit that on the offensive end. Blood magic itself in the "spill blood to gain power" sense is not something that has any significant player-facing support outside of partnered content for the simple reason that the fundamental purpose- allowing a caster to punch above their weight class- is antithetical to the attempt to make class performance progress at a relatively stable and consistently mappable rate.
The fundamental issue with "I want to play this specific profile of a mage" in D&D is that the core magic system is very inflexible. There's not a ton of room for taking spells based on a theme like "blood magic" and there's pretty much nothing that involves the explicit manipulation of bones. Your main options are Blood, Death, or Grave Domain Clerics, Divine Soul Sorcerer, or something like Hexblade or Undead Warlocks. You can spin spells like Mage Armor or Shield of Faith as bone manipulation on the defensive side, although I'm not sure what for these classes would fit that on the offensive end. Blood magic itself in the "spill blood to gain power" sense is not something that has any significant player-facing support outside of partnered content for the simple reason that the fundamental purpose- allowing a caster to punch above their weight class- is antithetical to the attempt to make class performance progress at a relatively stable and consistently mappable rate.
The fundamental issue with "I want to play this specific profile of a mage" in D&D is that the core magic system is very inflexible. There's not a ton of room for taking spells based on a theme like "blood magic" and there's pretty much nothing that involves the explicit manipulation of bones. Your main options are Blood, Death, or Grave Domain Clerics, Divine Soul Sorcerer, or something like Hexblade or Undead Warlocks. You can spin spells like Mage Armor or Shield of Faith as bone manipulation on the defensive side, although I'm not sure what for these classes would fit that on the offensive end. Blood magic itself in the "spill blood to gain power" sense is not something that has any significant player-facing support outside of partnered content for the simple reason that the fundamental purpose- allowing a caster to punch above their weight class- is antithetical to the attempt to make class performance progress at a relatively stable and consistently mappable rate.
The fundamental issue with "I want to play this specific profile of a mage" in D&D is that the core magic system is very inflexible. There's not a ton of room for taking spells based on a theme like "blood magic" and there's pretty much nothing that involves the explicit manipulation of bones. Your main options are Blood, Death, or Grave Domain Clerics, Divine Soul Sorcerer, or something like Hexblade or Undead Warlocks. You can spin spells like Mage Armor or Shield of Faith as bone manipulation on the defensive side, although I'm not sure what for these classes would fit that on the offensive end. Blood magic itself in the "spill blood to gain power" sense is not something that has any significant player-facing support outside of partnered content for the simple reason that the fundamental purpose- allowing a caster to punch above their weight class- is antithetical to the attempt to make class performance progress at a relatively stable and consistently mappable rate.
this is a good point. i had not thought of this
There is a Blood domain Cleric?
Tal'Dorei Reborn; it's a partnered book from Critical Role. Went up on D&DB a few months ago, flagship of the partnered content they've been added.
The fundamental issue with "I want to play this specific profile of a mage" in D&D is that the core magic system is very inflexible. There's not a ton of room for taking spells based on a theme like "blood magic" and there's pretty much nothing that involves the explicit manipulation of bones. Your main options are Blood, Death, or Grave Domain Clerics, Divine Soul Sorcerer, or something like Hexblade or Undead Warlocks. You can spin spells like Mage Armor or Shield of Faith as bone manipulation on the defensive side, although I'm not sure what for these classes would fit that on the offensive end. Blood magic itself in the "spill blood to gain power" sense is not something that has any significant player-facing support outside of partnered content for the simple reason that the fundamental purpose- allowing a caster to punch above their weight class- is antithetical to the attempt to make class performance progress at a relatively stable and consistently mappable rate.
this is a good point. i had not thought of this
There is a Blood domain Cleric?
Tal'Dorei Reborn; it's a partnered book from Critical Role. Went up on D&DB a few months ago, flagship of the partnered content they've been added.
This book also has a Blood Wizard, which has the option to use its hitpoints to pay for the valued components of spells. That probably would be the best option for this kind of play--you get access to all the Wizard necromancy tools, as well as some fun blood flavor. This combo allows you to cast some nifty big spells without using any gold, which seems like it might be a fun way to go.
Whatever you do, avoid Necromancer Wizard. It is one of those subclasses that looks like it might be fun... in actual gameplay it makes your DM hate you because your turns take too long; it makes your other players hate you for the same reason; it makes you hate yourself for the same reason... plus the knowledge that you are wasting others time for a bunch of low-level minions that are not even that effective at higher levels.
I think the problem is the premise. If I understand you correctly you want to do "things" but instead of using "arcane whatnots" you want to use "blood and bones".
It's an arbitrary change and so you're stuck; because you're trying to manipulate an arbitrary system (magic) with another arbitrary system (blood magic).
I get the idea to role-play a "blood mage" but what's "blood" about it?
Why would your magic only affect blood and bone and not stone or farts? I mean that in a funny way....imagine swelling someone into bursting by expanding the gas trapped in their colon.
Anyway....
I once had a thought about how bleeding out would be like suffocating. You can breathe but no matter how much you breathe you can't get enough air. Realizing this helped me better understand what it means to even have blood in the first place; and why so many societies emphasized the spilling of blood in sacrifices. So maybe rather than trying to just manipulate blood into a curse-like spell; the magic system is developed around the playability of what blood means to a living creature.
Let's build on that a little; when carbon-dioxide builds in the body, not hypoxia (lack of oxygen) but hypercapnia the symptoms are fear and paranoia and shortness of breath etc. Hypoxia can be similar but let's just go with the generality.
You spill a little blood on the earth, perhaps the cutting off the head of a rat you kept in a bag of holding; raising your hand toward a target and saying the words and moving the fingers in the necessary ways. The target is suddenly stricken with fear. They don't realize why, but they breathe in short stuttering gasps, the world feels like they can't get enough air. Magically - necromantically (the spell is fear - necromancy level 1 spell) you've built up too much CO2 in their blood.
Doing stuff like that would probably help you solve the question you're asking; how to work hemomancy into your magic system you want to use.
In this way; you can probably just lift the actual spells from the DnD 5e manual and just flavor them into a blood and bone magic.
Like maybe Mage Armor (lvl 1 spell) becomes Bone Armor and you take out a bit of bones into your hand and crush them into a powder while casting the spell.
Eventually you work this method into directly influencing the bone and blood of a target merging higher level DnD spells into the flavor. Keeping in mind what blood and bone means to you as a person; if your bones were all disjointed, if your blood spilled out.
I agree flavoring existing spells to be blood and bone magic will help. At higher levels, Domonate person/monster could be you controlling their bones. Charm person, influencing them by manipulating their blood (it’s magic), Burning Hands, making their blood boil instead of literal flames. Hold Person, licking locking their bones in place so they cannot move, etc
I have a quiet little system that lets spellcasters draw upon Blood Magic to gain new Spell Points by sacrificing hit dice and/or Exhaustion levels. They are drawing upon their own life energy to fuel spells beyond normal mortal powers.
I don't let it happen offensively (drawing hit dice or exhaustion levels), but I could be convinced by my players to let it happen voluntarily, e.g., the Fighter donating a few hit dice so the wizard can cast a bigger spell.
Whatever you do, avoid Necromancer Wizard. It is one of those subclasses that looks like it might be fun... in actual gameplay it makes your DM hate you because your turns take too long; it makes your other players hate you for the same reason; it makes you hate yourself for the same reason... plus the knowledge that you are wasting others time for a bunch of low-level minions that are not even that effective at higher levels.
To be fair, that goes for any wizard (and any other class and subclass with access to loads of mooks), not just limited to necromancy wizard. Any wizard can cast Animate Dead. Necromancy wizard is just a little better at it with a slightly bigger blob. If the player wants to fight with armies, I think the GM can try to cater to that with mass combat rules in UA. And if the GM does not want to deal with it in combat, there can always be a discussion of using Animate Dead outside of combat instead, like using them to set off traps in dungeons or using them as a decoy to escape and end combat.
And to give a little credit to necomancy wizards, the main appeal is not Animate Dead, it is Create Magen since you get far more interesting minions, which I guess is even worse in a way since it gives you more options to slow combat down even further.
Whatever you do, avoid Necromancer Wizard. It is one of those subclasses that looks like it might be fun... in actual gameplay it makes your DM hate you because your turns take too long; it makes your other players hate you for the same reason; it makes you hate yourself for the same reason... plus the knowledge that you are wasting others time for a bunch of low-level minions that are not even that effective at higher levels.
To be fair, that goes for any wizard (and any other class and subclass with access to loads of mooks), not just limited to necromancy wizard. Any wizard can cast Animate Dead. Necromancy wizard is just a little better at it with a slightly bigger blob. If the player wants to fight with armies, I think the GM can try to cater to that with mass combat rules in UA. And if the GM does not want to deal with it in combat, there can always be a discussion of using Animate Dead outside of combat instead, like using them to set off traps in dungeons or using them as a decoy to escape and end combat.
And to give a little credit to necomancy wizards, the main appeal is not Animate Dead, it is Create Magen since you get far more interesting minions, which I guess is even worse in a way since it gives you more options to slow combat down even further.
The main appeal of Necromancy is found in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden? I can see you are trying to help WotC move some product XXXGammaRay. Well played. xD
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So, i had a rough idea for a character of someone who manipulates their own body and the bodies of other people with their magic, but I am not sure of the best way to do this. my thought would be using the blood magic for debuffing enemies and using the necromancy to control their bones to use as weapons and armor along with the normal resurrecting dead things. If you have read the Locked Tomb series, that is what I am trying to do with the necromancy part.
the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
Also, i would like to avoid using blood hunter for the build.
the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
I can't vouch for either of them but if you have interest in homebrewing something here are a couple of links that might give some inspiration:
See the school of hemomancy from Laserllama: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M0ntPkLWIcpaUrn7E9h
And here is a deeper dive on a blood mage from Relic: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LsY1_hjI_ZeA-iZbZxk
The fundamental issue with "I want to play this specific profile of a mage" in D&D is that the core magic system is very inflexible. There's not a ton of room for taking spells based on a theme like "blood magic" and there's pretty much nothing that involves the explicit manipulation of bones. Your main options are Blood, Death, or Grave Domain Clerics, Divine Soul Sorcerer, or something like Hexblade or Undead Warlocks. You can spin spells like Mage Armor or Shield of Faith as bone manipulation on the defensive side, although I'm not sure what for these classes would fit that on the offensive end. Blood magic itself in the "spill blood to gain power" sense is not something that has any significant player-facing support outside of partnered content for the simple reason that the fundamental purpose- allowing a caster to punch above their weight class- is antithetical to the attempt to make class performance progress at a relatively stable and consistently mappable rate.
this is a good point. i had not thought of this
the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
There is a Blood domain Cleric?
the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
Tal'Dorei Reborn; it's a partnered book from Critical Role. Went up on D&DB a few months ago, flagship of the partnered content they've been added.
This book also has a Blood Wizard, which has the option to use its hitpoints to pay for the valued components of spells. That probably would be the best option for this kind of play--you get access to all the Wizard necromancy tools, as well as some fun blood flavor. This combo allows you to cast some nifty big spells without using any gold, which seems like it might be a fun way to go.
Whatever you do, avoid Necromancer Wizard. It is one of those subclasses that looks like it might be fun... in actual gameplay it makes your DM hate you because your turns take too long; it makes your other players hate you for the same reason; it makes you hate yourself for the same reason... plus the knowledge that you are wasting others time for a bunch of low-level minions that are not even that effective at higher levels.
I think the problem is the premise. If I understand you correctly you want to do "things" but instead of using "arcane whatnots" you want to use "blood and bones".
It's an arbitrary change and so you're stuck; because you're trying to manipulate an arbitrary system (magic) with another arbitrary system (blood magic).
I get the idea to role-play a "blood mage" but what's "blood" about it?
Why would your magic only affect blood and bone and not stone or farts? I mean that in a funny way....imagine swelling someone into bursting by expanding the gas trapped in their colon.
Anyway....
I once had a thought about how bleeding out would be like suffocating. You can breathe but no matter how much you breathe you can't get enough air. Realizing this helped me better understand what it means to even have blood in the first place; and why so many societies emphasized the spilling of blood in sacrifices. So maybe rather than trying to just manipulate blood into a curse-like spell; the magic system is developed around the playability of what blood means to a living creature.
Let's build on that a little; when carbon-dioxide builds in the body, not hypoxia (lack of oxygen) but hypercapnia the symptoms are fear and paranoia and shortness of breath etc. Hypoxia can be similar but let's just go with the generality.
You spill a little blood on the earth, perhaps the cutting off the head of a rat you kept in a bag of holding; raising your hand toward a target and saying the words and moving the fingers in the necessary ways. The target is suddenly stricken with fear. They don't realize why, but they breathe in short stuttering gasps, the world feels like they can't get enough air. Magically - necromantically (the spell is fear - necromancy level 1 spell) you've built up too much CO2 in their blood.
Doing stuff like that would probably help you solve the question you're asking; how to work hemomancy into your magic system you want to use.
In this way; you can probably just lift the actual spells from the DnD 5e manual and just flavor them into a blood and bone magic.
Like maybe Mage Armor (lvl 1 spell) becomes Bone Armor and you take out a bit of bones into your hand and crush them into a powder while casting the spell.
Eventually you work this method into directly influencing the bone and blood of a target merging higher level DnD spells into the flavor. Keeping in mind what blood and bone means to you as a person; if your bones were all disjointed, if your blood spilled out.
Bones are very much like a puppet on strings...
I agree flavoring existing spells to be blood and bone magic will help. At higher levels, Domonate person/monster could be you controlling their bones. Charm person, influencing them by manipulating their blood (it’s magic), Burning Hands, making their blood boil instead of literal flames. Hold Person,
lickinglocking their bones in place so they cannot move, etcEZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
I have a quiet little system that lets spellcasters draw upon Blood Magic to gain new Spell Points by sacrificing hit dice and/or Exhaustion levels. They are drawing upon their own life energy to fuel spells beyond normal mortal powers.
I don't let it happen offensively (drawing hit dice or exhaustion levels), but I could be convinced by my players to let it happen voluntarily, e.g., the Fighter donating a few hit dice so the wizard can cast a bigger spell.
To be fair, that goes for any wizard (and any other class and subclass with access to loads of mooks), not just limited to necromancy wizard. Any wizard can cast Animate Dead. Necromancy wizard is just a little better at it with a slightly bigger blob. If the player wants to fight with armies, I think the GM can try to cater to that with mass combat rules in UA. And if the GM does not want to deal with it in combat, there can always be a discussion of using Animate Dead outside of combat instead, like using them to set off traps in dungeons or using them as a decoy to escape and end combat.
And to give a little credit to necomancy wizards, the main appeal is not Animate Dead, it is Create Magen since you get far more interesting minions, which I guess is even worse in a way since it gives you more options to slow combat down even further.
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The main appeal of Necromancy is found in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden? I can see you are trying to help WotC move some product XXXGammaRay. Well played. xD