With no new Warlock patron from the Tal'dorei guide, we come to the final subclass found in the book: Blood Magic for Wizards. Blood Magic is associated with the Claret Orders, a secretive group of monster hunters who use this magic to protect the innocent, though the techniques can also be abused by evil people too.
Indeed, on a flavor note, this would be a great option if you wanted to play a dark wizard (though Necromancy is obviously already there) and perhaps wanted to play up that creepy warlock feel while having the flexibility of a wizard.
At 2nd level, you get Blood Channeling: while under your maximum hit points, you can use your own body as a spellcasting focus. Additionally, you can spend life to make up for the costly components of a spell. If you cast a wizard spell that requires costly components, you can choose to take 1d10 necrotic damage per 50g of the cost of the component instead of providing it. The damage can't be reduced in any way, but if you go to 0 HP because of this, the spell fails but you retain the spell slot.
This is not something I'd recommend using a ton - if you wanted to cast, say, Summon Fiend without its material component, you'd need to take 12d10 necrotic damage. Most high-level spells have costs in the thousands, which would mean at least 20d10, though I think one spell for which this could be clutch is Plane Shift - taking only 5d10 (an average of 27.5) in order to potentially get your party out of the Abyss. Not too bad, frankly.
At lower levels, though, with component costs of 50 or fewer gold, this might be more practical - 1d10.
Additionally at 2nd level, you get Sanguine Burst. When you roll damage for a spell that's 1st level or higher, you can take necrotic damage (irreducible) equal to the spell's level to reroll dice equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of 1). This, I think, is a far easier one to use - at most you're paying 9 life. If we're talking about, say, a Fireball when you're level 5 and have a +4 to Intelligence, and we're assuming you're rerolling 1s and 2s, this would mean paying three life to change the spell's average damage from 28 to, well, 30.67. But you'd only actually use it if you rolled a bunch of 1s and 2s, so...
I'll be honest, I don't know how powerful things like this and Empowered Spell are, but the cost here is pretty low (though note that any damage will force a concentration saving throw if you have a concentration spell up, so bear that in mind if you have bad luck with dice).
At 6th level, you get Bond of Mutual Suffering. If a creature hits you with an attack, you can use a reaction to force the creature that hit you to take the same amount of damage you took. You can't use this on constructs or undead, and you can only use this once per short or long rest.
So, first off, I've discovered that I don't really like abilities you can only use once per rest, unless they're really overwhelmingly huge. This is something you might save for if you get hit with a critical strike, but that might never come. Also, make sure not to use this on something like a fire elemental, which is immune to the damage it deals.
At 10, you get Glyph of Hemorrhaging. When you damage a creature with a spell, you can curse it for 1 minute. While cursed, whenever the creature is hit by an attack, it takes an extra 1d6 necrotic damage. It can make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC at the end of its turns to end the curse.
Like the previous one, you can't use this on constructs or undead, and you can only use it once per short or long rest.
So, a party-wide Hex as a free bonus for hitting something with a damage spell. Not bad - and in fact, incredible if you have fast-hitters like a Monk or Fighter in the party. I think this is one of those things that you should be able to do multiple times - maybe PB times per long rest?
At 14, your Bond of Mutual Suffering can now be used twice per rest - ok, sounds like they heard my complaints.
Also at 14, you get Thicker than Water. Whenever a spell or magical effect causes you to regain hit points, you regain an additional number of hit points equal to your proficiency bonus.
Additionally, while you concentrate on a spell, you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks.
Ok, now this is pretty good. Concentrating on a spell is Wizard Rage? That's pretty awesome - and also will often make it easier for you to maintain that concentration. The extra healing you get should also help to offset the HP you're spending on your 2nd level features, which could encourage you to use them more.
Wizards are one of those classes where the subclass is not quite as important as the base class, and so it can hard to evaluate just how powerful a subclass is. The flavor here is very strong. Again, I think the level 6 and level 10 features would be more fun if you could use them more often. Vampiric Touch feels like a really flavorful spell to use for this subclass.
And with that, we've gotten through all the subclasses out of Tal'dorei Campaign Setting Reborn. Sadly, my own Wildemount game has been on something of a hiatus lately amidst Covid cases, a DM's missing wallet, and theatrical projects, but I'm expecting to start playing again next week (hoping my Spelljammer game also picks up again, though at this point one of the players has decided to run a Kids on Bikes game on night when our DM is unable to run, which I suspect will continue to be most weeks at least for a while).
I've found that the subclasses from this book have some strong flavor. Mechanically they feel just slightly behind the evolution WotC's own subclass philosophy has gone on in the past couple years, but all are certainly playable and could be a lot of fun.
I'm a little sad that the Blood Hunter wasn't published in the book, as I'm coming around to the possibility that it's actually a decently balanced class.
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