The Blood Fuelled Mage
A mage that gets more powerful the more blood she spills
* Image source edited in Fireworks by me.
Continuing from the idea sparked in the last example, I am thinking of a real sultry and evil witch of a mage.
The idea is a simple one. The more blood is spilled the more powerful she gets. Now to get this passed a GM we going to keep it simple – either she spills her own blood, or she gets more powerful with more dead bodies about her.
Option 1:
Lets ignore the basics etc and what progression you buy and focus on gaining more power. For mages, that is simply Caster Level. Best bought with Hysteria.
Hysteria is a base of 6 cp. You gain +6 Caster Level. There are no other options on this one so we can at the very least corrupt it to 4cp.
Also, we corrupt it again to cause damage or to be focussed on how much death hangs around you, no cost reduction but we don’t pay the mana/power points to get it going. That is paid by blood.
How much blood – well, if it is her own, she must pay the “power cost” in blood (ie 4 hit points). If there is at least one dead body about, killed in that encounter, she can forego paying her own life force / blood.
We also need to limit this. So we basically corrupt it again f or effect (up to +9 caster levels) but limited in that she can only gain up to her level in additional casting power. In addition each level costs 4 Hit points or another dead body. (The GM could be nice and say anyone reduced to 0 or less hit points that is still on the battle field is considered ‘dead’ for this purpose).
So for a total cost of 4 cp, you can double your Caster Level by KILLING things.
Option 2:
This one literally just came to me. Actually this option has more than one option, but will do it as two separated ideas.
Spell Death Knell. Level 2 Cleric Spell, Range Touch. This is the base spell.
We change this to an Area Affect, 10 foot radius. Increases Spell Level to 4
We reduce the range from 10 mins per HD to 1min per HD and then from 1 min per HD to 1 round per HD, and then once more to 1 round. for a total Spell Level reduction of –3 bringing our spell to a Level 1 Spell.
We then increase the radius by 50% for +1 SL making it a level 2 Spell.
We buy this with Inherent Spell (6cp, usable twice per day)
Now anyone who is on less that 0 hit points within 15ft of you is in BIG trouble. Will save or die.
You gain 1d8 temp hit points, +2 Strength bonus and +1 Caster Level
Now we could sculpt this a bit more, pushing it up a level to a third level spell (usable once per day) and allow you to STACK effects, seeing that they only last for 1 round anyway its not going to be a big deal imo. also 1 round does mean 1 full round, and in the case should be read as Until the End of your next turn – therefore allowing you to gain the Caster Level benefits.
Option 3:
Remember I did say option 3 is actually second part of option 2?
Well we take Death Knell again.
This time we buy Channelling, specialise it for conversion, and apply it only to Death Knell.
So cost wise: 3 + Charisma mod per day, total 6 cp
Intensity and magnitude is actually irrelevant
we specialise this for Conversion only, for cost. total of 3 cp
Conversion costs 6cp (we are buying Knack as effectively third level to allow stacking, and also reduce its effect to 1 round per Hit Dice slain)
That’s a total cost of 9cp usable 3+ Cha times per day
Thus you can kill people with other spells, and then use your Channelling to really kill them and to get stronger. Much stronger. +2 Strength per death, + 1d8 Temp Hit Points per death, +1 Caster Level per death.
And it all lasts for 1 round per Total Hit Dice slain, and Stacks. We could probably have it last 1 round per death inflicted to make it easier and have nothing to do with the Hit Dice
So if you have 4 minions and you kill them you gain +8 to strength, +4d8 temp hit points and +4 Caster Levels, this will last a total of 4 rounds. Additional uses of the ability will only take effect if more dying creatures are slain (ie the total is greater than the previous total)
Really powerful, although better suited to the bad guy. Or in this case, girl. A very very bad girl!
Actually I kind of like this and would love to play a character like this, just for fun. Where does the 9cp come from for an ordinary wizard? Well you drop the familiar (6cp) and drop the Scribe Scroll feat (6cp) that leaves you with 3 points over even. Go ahead, buy some more spells.
Edit:
Additional option.
Take Mana for 6 cp, limited to Spell Levels
Specialise it for effect, you only gain spell levels from creatures/people killed by channelling/death knell/ “you” etc and a max of 2d6 x 2 spell levels per day. Average that out to around 15spell levels.
Awesome. Now I want to set about actually creating this character fully
Edit 2:
Make this a PSIONIC character, thus Spell levels above are 3d6 additional power points (max of lots per day… erm.. its late.. maths is not doing well tonight. lets just average that out to 20 power points per day).
Thus in a decent encounter with mixed low level and high level crits, you can take out the small ones, Channel Death Knell them, and BOOM. Super mage! Ok I better not boast too much, it is still quite restrictive…
I will try not do another “edit”