The whole idea of Hemocraft has really been something Matt has made his own, and we can almost certainly owe it all to Taliesin and his Vampire the Masquerade obsession
Wasn't it also the Van Diesel oneshot where he wanted to play a Van Helsing type character? Diesel's interest made Matt create the Blood Hunter prototype. However, the class seemed like it was actually interesting and later Matt decided to flesh out the class to a more refined version.
@@Runsten_ We hust gonna ignore the clear Witcher roots of the Blood Hunter? It really continues Sapkowski's tradition of plaguerism, but what Matt did actually took creativity
@@METALGEARMATRIX Solomon Kaine would be my pick for Vin's original character. The Witcher roots I would say came later in the development process after the Bloodhunter itself already existed. And I'd argue the Bloodhunter itself was already walking a line closer to Vampire Hunter D, so it started walking a line between the two (D and Kaine), then got a dash of Witcher.
I can't wait to see a blood wizard proc the Glyph of Hemorrhaging right before a druid summons 16 velociraptors and rolls 32 attacks with advantage against some poor baddie.
Blood hunter: I’m the edgiest thing ever! Blood mages wizard: No I’m the edgiest thing ever! Blood clerics: NO IM THE EDGIEST THING EVER! Rogue: you know what…maybe I do need therapy
Personally, I really like this subclass, glyph of haemorrhage can bring some amazing combos. And great breakdown of the subclass, keep up the good work!
I think this combines really well with a 2-3 level dip into the Blood Cleric. It gives you further increased damage on your spells with bloodletting focus; and gaining access to some of FANTASTIC Cleric spells that can either increase your damage output, like Spiritual Weapon, or increase your staying power with buffs and healing spells like False Life and Healing Word. Really awesome video though, of any of the youtubers covering the new Tal’Dorei subclasses, I think yours are definitely the highest quality, and I’m super excited to see you do the rest of them!
Bond of Mutual Suffering says: "When a creature hits you, you can use your reaction". The hit is the trigger - it can go off even if you drop unconscious from the attack.
As per the Dungeon Master’s Guide: “Use this rule of thumb: follow whatever timing is specified in the reaction’s description. For example, the opportunity attack and the shield spell are clear about the fact that they can interrupt their triggers. If a reaction has no timing specified, or the timing is unclear, the reaction occurs after its trigger finishes, as in the Ready action.” While personally as a DM I’d allow for some “you’re coming with me” shenanigans, as it’s written and most likely intended, Bond of Mutual Suffering can’t be used if you are reduced to 0 HP.
If you want extra effectiveness for your best friend healer, throw in 3 levels of warlock somewhere for pact of the chain and pick up the invocation that maximizes any dice rolled for healing you when your familiar is within 100ft
The using the fingernail as a pen with the cut through it is such great flavor but I could never have a character like that, it gives me the heeby geebies and I don't wanna contend with it on my down days
Tip: Be a Mark of Healing Halfling (E:RotLW) if your DM allows you to use Eberron Dragonmarked Races. It adds healing spells, including Cure Wounds to your wizard spell list so you can choose to add them to your spellbook and prep them. Furthermore you can then combine with Contingency to heal yourself if you ever drop to 0 HP.
An arcane focus replaces a components pouch. That is point of every mention of the phrase in the rulebooks. So it definitely means something that most DnD players would understand.
I’m playing a reborn blood wizard and honestly, it’s so fun! I’ve been reflavoring dunamancy and graviturgy as manipulating the iron in there creatures blood, and having advantage of death saving throws has been a godsend since you can go down at a moments notice if something hits you hard
I also love the capstone. It may not sound too flashy until you realize you're basically getting to double-dip proficiency bonuses on healing spells received, and most importantly, if concentrating on a spell (and let's face it, what full-caster ISN'T during combat) you are essentially getting self-cast Stone Skin FOR FREE requiring no concentration or expensive diamonds for the duration of the concentration spell even if that spell lasts longer than Stone Skin would have. That ain't nothin'.
I love the concepts of hemomancy, as it could be used as a dark offensive attack, control or your opponents and if you want, use it for healing your allies and creating a blood fueled zombie guard.
Yeah, we're gonna need the Tough feat for this one imo, perhaps a Hill Dwarf for your race? Although I am in doubt whether Dwarven Toughness can stack with the Tough feat. Edit: I think it actually does, and there might be some consideration for Dwarven Fortitude and/or Durable
3 levels in warlock, pact of the chain. There's an invocation for chain pact, Any healing roll for you is maximized while your familiar is nearby. Make those warlock levels celestial and you can pick up healing class resource and a few healing spells for yourself too in a pinch.
We had a player who was creeped out by the blood stuff so I just changed it to "Life force" and made it a kind of energy. Then I flavored the energy's color based on the alignment of the person being bled. Gold for good, Dark Green for evil, Light green for Neutral. Once they figured out what I was doing they loved it.
This is amazing. In the right party is game breaking. Never use this in a party that hits with saves. The Blight Druid can be yout best friend, they can use defile ground to give 1d6 additional damage to all the best they summon and this also works (i think) with magic missile (look up "nuclear wizard" for more information, dnd optimized made an episode about this) making the next funny scenario be possible: Druid goes first: uses defile ground and cast conjure animals at 5th level summoning 32 wolves Blood Wizard goes next: ready magic missile Baddie go brrr (best if there's a cleric friend to hold person/monster his ass to also get free crits on hit) Blood Wizard ready action goes off dealing (1d4+1d6+1)3 (if casted at 1st level) giving an additional 1d6 damage to all the wolves atacks (and can crit) So assuming all attaks hit, the damage that the wolves would deal in that turn would be: 2d4+2+1d6+1d6 each meaning 64d4+64+32d6+32d6 for an average of 447 damage Keep in mind, THIS ISN'T NOVA, so it could keep going just like this for several rounds, more so now that silvery barbs is a thing
I think something that would be really fun, go barb mostly then grab 3 levels of mage for the abilitys(might be a BIT too strong but it just sounds fun as hell to do) since you are a barb, using your health is amazingly good, although you cant cast anything while raging sadly
This looks really cool, but I can't get over the idea that it should be a SORCERER subclass. They're the ones who literally explicitly have magic in their BLOOD after all
A blood-themed sorcerer subclass would make sense, but not with this lore. (Warlock: Pact of the Matron of Ravens would make more sense honestly.) For a sorcerer something about a vampiric lineage or fey-touched lycanthropy-like curse would be more appropriate. In Mercer's lore, hemocraft is a specific art / technique that uses blood as a fuel or component. There's nothing magical or special about the blood that is being used; for hemocrafters it is used the way a smith uses metal. It is an acquired skill, not an innate ancestral trait.
This seems like a really interesting subclass. I developed a Blood Mage, but made it a Sorcerous Origin instead of a Arcane Tradition. I went a very different direction by having a special ritual dagger that allowed the Sorcerer to cast ritual spells using blood, and also converting damage into sorcery points.
This tradition is one of the things I most look forward to out of Tal'dorei Reborn. A few years back I played a Blood Magic sorcerer that my DM developed the rules for, and had a lot of fun. With as often as the concept appears elsewhere, I found it odd to be missing from the core rulebooks, but I guess WOTC feels it too 'icky'.
I love the concept, but my only minor quibble with it is that, lore-wise, they say wizards turned to this magic to help fight off hordes of undead, but most of the features don't work on undead because they rarely have blood. I mean, that caveat makes perfect sense, but I just have trouble reconciling that with the lore provided, lol. That said, yes please blood magic go BRRRRRR!
In my homebrew setting I explain hemocraft by saying that the first to use it were vampires, who then taught its secrets to their servants, some of whom became the first blood hunters by turning against their masters. This isn't really helpful since the issue is with the official lore, but I just like the vibe of using vampire magic against vampires.
I feel like Blood Channeling should have a limit on the amount of gold you can discount. Like you can only discount an amount of gold equal to 50 times half your Wizard level, or cut the gold value in half and make it correlate to your full Wizard level.
Epic combo. Cast simulacrum...have that simulacrum use blood channeling to max capacity. Effectively sacrificing a clone of yourself.to cast big magic. Its so Rakdos i love it
I think this is better-suited as a Sorcerer than a Wizard. Your magic is innate to the point of your blood being magical. Plus Sorcerer's have CON proficiency for added encouragement to boost that stat.
Well you want high con on a wizard anyway, or any caster for that matter, and you'd get resilient con to boost those con saves. But in general I agree, a class which subclasses are literally called "bloodlines" doesnt get a blood magic subclass?
I am afraid the Death Ward cheat to get around the Blood Channeling would not work in RAW and would rely on the DM being benevolent. Death Ward triggers after being reduced to 0 hitpoints per the spell description, meaning you still drop to 0 hitpoint before you get restored to 1HP. Cool video though! thanks :D
Hey wintry! Great work as always, I see you're using foundry vtt to show some combat effects, I would love to watch a video with your favourite modules!
If you use a barbarians survival feat to go down to one hitpoint you can cast any spell requiring a blood price and survive. 100d10 no problem too easy. Revivify costs nothing no component needed. As long as you have a healer constantly bring you up past one hitpoint youre good
The low hp pool for wizards is the biggest turn-off of this spell for me... a wizard subclass that depends on your wizard getting hurt? The way I play wizards, the whole point is to get out of harm's way and snipe the enemy. If it were a Paladin, on the other hand, I'd be all for blood magic. I often am dissapointed by how little damage my paladins take.
I feel the same. This doesn't even really boost your spellcasting all that much in a way that any other subclass can't do already. Feels like this should have gone to a tankier class.
it probably should have had a thing like the dragon sorcerer or hill dwarves that let you get 1 more hp per level. because its kinda bad to drain your health like that unless your in a RP/down time session.
Haemo-kinesis would be cool cus if you manage to continue to cause bleed on other creatures you can amass a large blood pool to use as a weapon. I thought this would work like that but sadly not
I do like it a lot, but the existence of this subclass made me kinda dissapointed there wasn't an update to the Blood Hunter on this book. Not neccesarilly something major like a new subclass or a major overhaul (as much as I think the Blood Hunter could fill the Arcane Half Caster role so many people want), but at least an update to Profane Soul, adding the patrons from Tasha's and Van Richten's Undead.
Tough feat is a must have for this Wizard. Bond of Mutual Suffering should probably have a saving throw because that's how 5E works even if its a difficult one to make. Glyph should have been the level 6 feature and Bond should have been the level 10 feature because Bond is much stronger than Glyph.
I'm not really there for the "edgyness" flavor of the class, I just like the mechanic of using your own HP to supercharge your abilities. (and perhaps a Life-on-Kill), blurring the line between reckless and sound strategy.
That subclass looks really interesting! I think the self-damaging feature could go out of hand a bit if the player aquires resistance or even immunity to necrotic damage. While 10d10 is still a very high price for a Planar Binding for e.g. an Aasimar, it's 50 hitpoints max which at 9th Level is reasonable for a Wizard to be able to take (from full mind you)
As much as I love the idea of this class, I can't imagine how an HP sacrifice mechanic on an already notoriously squishy class would work out too well.
RAW I think the death ward trick works, since it doesn't reduce the damage. You suffer the full damage, but if it would reduce you to zero hitpoints, your HP is instead set to 1. If a player chooses this arcane tradition, I would recommend adding a little house rule to blood channeling to avoid misunderstandings and nip any rules lawyering in the bud. Blood channeling says the spell doesn't get cast if it reduces you to zero HP, I would just add a house rule saying that if the amount rolled for the necrotic damage is greater than your current HP (including temporary HP), the spell is not cast -- meaning, you don't lose the spell slot, but the spell effect doesn't happen. Death ward, half orcs, etc. still give some protection -- you won't get knocked unconscious -- but you can't use them to game the system. Seems fair to me.
Maybe, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. Take this into a consideration: this class obviously has a demand for very, very high HP from the Wizard using it. Following this logic, it makes sense to not only take the Tough feat but to also just have a high modifier for your Constitution in general, since the two combined would allow for higher HP. This wouldn't even be that difficult to accomplish, as depending on the race of the character in question, you could reasonably just take the Feat during character creation and also put a high roll/put more points into Con, thus accomplishing both at the same time. You now have, through this, a higher Constitution saving throw modifier, so you have to worry less about failing concentration saves. Furthermore, the Sanguine Burst ability makes you take damage equal to the spell's , meaning any number from 1 to 9, so less than 10. This is important, because the rule for concentration checks is that the DC is either half the damage you took or 10, whichever is higher. 10 is not a difficult roll to make, especially not if you have a good Con mod or Con save proficiency. Or, especially, both, and depending on the options you picked that's something you can just get out of the way during character creation. "Too long, didn't read" version: concentration checks are not that big of a problem when it comes to this class and its abilities. While Blood Channeling could easily cause somebody to have a very high DC on maintaining concentration, as stated in the video, you will most likely be using Blood Channeling outside of combat. After all, in my experience, most spells that are more suited for mid-combat scenarios typically don't have a costly material requirement, or if they do, it typically is very low. (I'm only including the latter because I genuinely don't recall any mid-combat spells anyone in any of my parties cast that required an item of value.) So you wouldn't be concentrated on anything anyway, and if you are it's because you're busy doing something for the party at the moment, so you'll probably be focused on that and less focused on casting any other spell. Besides all of this... let's be real. If you're running a lot of concentration spells and you don't have either a high Con mod, Resilient to give you Con save proficiency, or both, you're just asking for headaches and pain, and nobody wants that. lmao
I've only read the descriptions here on the video. From my plain reading I don't think Death Ward would allow you to bypass the damage cost of the spell. The wording clearly states that if taken to 0 the spell fails. It specifies that you cannot bypass the cost, as Death Ward clearly would. That being said, I'd still defer to the GM's judgement. I personally am not sure I'd allow DW to be used in this way as it's a bit of a cheat. Great video though - well done!
Little nitpick. Undead still have blood, it's congealed and not functioning but it's there. On the other hand elementals REALLY don't have anything close to blood, a ball of air doesn't have a liquidy life force. I think the abilities should not work on constructs and elementals. Also means your abilities are less likely to get shafted as parties run into undead more then elementals usually.
Still a lil dissapointed tbh it is cool and has cool aspects but I don't think the subclass capstones makes up for the self damage and is kinda underwhelming and something I would expect to get at lower levels. Something that let's you heal, maybe by doing damage, or something would maybe go a long ways here. I don't think it is weak but I don't think there is a lot of mitigated cost for how much damage you have to deal to yourself and how squishy you already are.
So, i guess you can polymorph and than on reaction bond of suffering. As its not a spell it should work, and suddenly you are a beeeefy masochist wizard
i have a few questions glyph of hemorrhaging using magic missile. can you curse 3+ people hit with the spell or will you need to just pick 1 target and if it hit 1 target is it 3d4 + 3 and 3d6? avg will be about 18dm for lvl 1 spell. 2ed question let say your spell hit first time will you add the 1d6 to that spell or do you need to wait until the next turn for you to trigger it. 3ed question blood channeling for a half orc Relentless Endurance will you be able to cast the spell if there passive happens?
Why are the features short/long rest, all wizard features (correct me if I'm wrong) recharge on long rest... Also this should've been sorcerer subclass... you know the class that's subclasses are straight up called 'bloodlines'
Arcane Recovery (gained at level 1) and Spell Mastery (lvl 20). And there are several other wizard subclass features that recharge on a short rest. So it isn't that odd at all, really. I would say it makes a lot of sense for this subclass in particular to have features that recharge on a short rest, as that is also an opportunity to use hit dice to heal. .
@@nathansmith9597 arcane recovery is 1/day ability that can be used to recover slots at the end of short rest. So technically neither of us is true there since it can recharge without taking rest (if the day ticksover) Lvl 20 feature thought you are correct. Forgot about it given how bad it is XD I guess it does make sense. Thing is that casters (outside of warlocks) are kinda built around long rests while martials are short rests monsters. Giving already best class in the game bunch of short rest features is questionable to say the least. (Then again mercer isnt known for making balanced stuff)
Well, nothing about this subclass seems particularly unbalanced. All your stuff can recharge on a short rest, so long as it isn't too strong for how often you get to use it. "Thing is that casters (outside of warlocks) are kinda built around long rests while martials are short rests monsters." I was going to say that this is a broad generalization, but after thinking about it a bit more, I don't think I can even say that. For healing purposes (using hit dice), everyone likes short rests. Beyond that, who wants short rests the most? Monks and warlocks, regardless of subclass. Followed by fighters and druids, though _how much_ they like short rests depends a lot on subclass. All of them benefit, but some fighters and druids (e.g., battle masters and moon) want them as bad as monks and warlocks. Others like them, but aren't nearly as hungry for them (e.g., champion and land). After level 5, bards really like short rests, too. But only at levels 5+, so... we'll count it as half. That's 2 "martials" and we'll say 2.5 "casters" who tend to really like short rests. Some Channel Divinity options are very meh. But some aren't. Twilight Clerics or, at low levels, a Light Cleric, is going to want short rests about as much as some fighters do. And definitely more than most barbarians or rogues (two other "martial" classes). So, a lot depends on your subclass. There are plenty of subclass-specific features that are good, and recharge on a short rest, and you really do find those all over the place (even under classes that normally don't care about short rests). But this is already very long, and long-winded, so I'll leave it at that.
@@nathansmith9597 Yea, I'd agree, it's just odd design choice, when other subclasses 'not so strong' features recharge on long rest (f.e chronurgy lvl 6 feature, though that one is int times per long rest so I guess there's that)
I'd say, even with death ward, if you don't have enough hp to pay, the spell does not go off, doesn't matter ifbyou survive the damage or not. It's just logic.
The whole idea of Hemocraft has really been something Matt has made his own, and we can almost certainly owe it all to Taliesin and his Vampire the Masquerade obsession
Definitely this and I see nothing wrong with it, I am a little edgelord myself.
Wasn't it also the Van Diesel oneshot where he wanted to play a Van Helsing type character? Diesel's interest made Matt create the Blood Hunter prototype. However, the class seemed like it was actually interesting and later Matt decided to flesh out the class to a more refined version.
@@Runsten_ That seems very likely. Diesel is a sucker for edgy characters, Riddick was based on one of his D&D characters allegedly.
@@Runsten_ We hust gonna ignore the clear Witcher roots of the Blood Hunter?
It really continues Sapkowski's tradition of plaguerism, but what Matt did actually took creativity
@@METALGEARMATRIX Solomon Kaine would be my pick for Vin's original character. The Witcher roots I would say came later in the development process after the Bloodhunter itself already existed. And I'd argue the Bloodhunter itself was already walking a line closer to Vampire Hunter D, so it started walking a line between the two (D and Kaine), then got a dash of Witcher.
"Aw crud, I left my coin purse in my other robe! Oh well!" *promptly cuts their jugular vein*
I can't wait to see a blood wizard proc the Glyph of Hemorrhaging right before a druid summons 16 velociraptors and rolls 32 attacks with advantage against some poor baddie.
You'd love Blighted Druid! :D
@@WintryRPG Ooh, a new druid subclass too? Now I'm really excited! ♥
Blood hunter: I’m the edgiest thing ever!
Blood mages wizard: No I’m the edgiest thing ever!
Blood clerics: NO IM THE EDGIEST THING EVER!
Rogue: you know what…maybe I do need therapy
Personally, I really like this subclass, glyph of haemorrhage can bring some amazing combos. And great breakdown of the subclass, keep up the good work!
I love the effects and animations you do on the side to help understand the subclass being explained! Very well done video.
I think this combines really well with a 2-3 level dip into the Blood Cleric. It gives you further increased damage on your spells with bloodletting focus; and gaining access to some of FANTASTIC Cleric spells that can either increase your damage output, like Spiritual Weapon, or increase your staying power with buffs and healing spells like False Life and Healing Word. Really awesome video though, of any of the youtubers covering the new Tal’Dorei subclasses, I think yours are definitely the highest quality, and I’m super excited to see you do the rest of them!
Bond of Mutual Suffering says: "When a creature hits you, you can use your reaction". The hit is the trigger - it can go off even if you drop unconscious from the attack.
The hit is the trigger but if you are unconscious, you can't use your reaction because you are incapacitated. Phb. pg. 290.
An unconscious creature can’t take actions or reactions because it’s incapacitated
@@MindscapeX This is a question of interpretation. Do you consider the reaction is taken after the hit or at the same time as the hit.
@@lordtigab by definition a reaction comes after not during
As per the Dungeon Master’s Guide:
“Use this rule of thumb: follow whatever timing is specified in the reaction’s description. For example, the opportunity attack and the shield spell are clear about the fact that they can interrupt their triggers. If a reaction has no timing specified, or the timing is unclear, the reaction occurs after its trigger finishes, as in the Ready action.”
While personally as a DM I’d allow for some “you’re coming with me” shenanigans, as it’s written and most likely intended, Bond of Mutual Suffering can’t be used if you are reduced to 0 HP.
If you want extra effectiveness for your best friend healer, throw in 3 levels of warlock somewhere for pact of the chain and pick up the invocation that maximizes any dice rolled for healing you when your familiar is within 100ft
Gift of the Ever Living Ones is the name.
Yes I've been waiting for this, thank you!
Holy cow I'm first
I know that Grim Hollow introduced their version of Blood Magic in their Player Guide. I love to see the difference between the two
The using the fingernail as a pen with the cut through it is such great flavor but I could never have a character like that, it gives me the heeby geebies and I don't wanna contend with it on my down days
Tip: Be a Mark of Healing Halfling (E:RotLW) if your DM allows you to use Eberron Dragonmarked Races. It adds healing spells, including Cure Wounds to your wizard spell list so you can choose to add them to your spellbook and prep them. Furthermore you can then combine with Contingency to heal yourself if you ever drop to 0 HP.
An arcane focus replaces a components pouch. That is point of every mention of the phrase in the rulebooks. So it definitely means something that most DnD players would understand.
I’m playing a reborn blood wizard and honestly, it’s so fun! I’ve been reflavoring dunamancy and graviturgy as manipulating the iron in there creatures blood, and having advantage of death saving throws has been a godsend since you can go down at a moments notice if something hits you hard
Blood Channeling and Death Ward can make for some IMPRESSIVE and high intensity moments.
I also love the capstone. It may not sound too flashy until you realize you're basically getting to double-dip proficiency bonuses on healing spells received, and most importantly, if concentrating on a spell (and let's face it, what full-caster ISN'T during combat) you are essentially getting self-cast Stone Skin FOR FREE requiring no concentration or expensive diamonds for the duration of the concentration spell even if that spell lasts longer than Stone Skin would have. That ain't nothin'.
I would just like to say thank you. These videos have been very informative and amusing. Keep up the great work Wintry!
I love the concepts of hemomancy, as it could be used as a dark offensive attack, control or your opponents and if you want, use it for healing your allies and creating a blood fueled zombie guard.
Between this and the Sangromancer subclass from Grim Hollow, there’s so much flavor to flesh out Blood Magic!
Yooooo those foundry effects are amazing. Teach us yours ways.
"Blood Wizard, making the normal small seesaw of life and death that much smaller"
Yeah, we're gonna need the Tough feat for this one imo, perhaps a Hill Dwarf for your race? Although I am in doubt whether Dwarven Toughness can stack with the Tough feat.
Edit: I think it actually does, and there might be some consideration for Dwarven Fortitude and/or Durable
3 levels in warlock, pact of the chain. There's an invocation for chain pact, Any healing roll for you is maximized while your familiar is nearby. Make those warlock levels celestial and you can pick up healing class resource and a few healing spells for yourself too in a pinch.
We had a player who was creeped out by the blood stuff so I just changed it to "Life force" and made it a kind of energy. Then I flavored the energy's color based on the alignment of the person being bled. Gold for good, Dark Green for evil, Light green for Neutral. Once they figured out what I was doing they loved it.
Admittedly, I'm hoping that the Empathy Domain and the Path of the Fundamental Chaos from C3 are in this book
This is amazing. In the right party is game breaking. Never use this in a party that hits with saves. The Blight Druid can be yout best friend, they can use defile ground to give 1d6 additional damage to all the best they summon and this also works (i think) with magic missile (look up "nuclear wizard" for more information, dnd optimized made an episode about this) making the next funny scenario be possible:
Druid goes first: uses defile ground and cast conjure animals at 5th level summoning 32 wolves
Blood Wizard goes next: ready magic missile
Baddie go brrr (best if there's a cleric friend to hold person/monster his ass to also get free crits on hit)
Blood Wizard ready action goes off dealing (1d4+1d6+1)3 (if casted at 1st level) giving an additional 1d6 damage to all the wolves atacks (and can crit)
So assuming all attaks hit, the damage that the wolves would deal in that turn would be:
2d4+2+1d6+1d6 each meaning
64d4+64+32d6+32d6 for an average of 447 damage
Keep in mind, THIS ISN'T NOVA, so it could keep going just like this for several rounds, more so now that silvery barbs is a thing
6:01 Life cleric goodberry, life cleric goodberry!!!
oh gosh that's so much healing :DD
This is by far my favorite D&D channel on CZcams.
Definitely a good choice to get the Tough feat with this subclass, that or Eldritch Afept for Fiendish Vigor.
I think something that would be really fun, go barb mostly then grab 3 levels of mage for the abilitys(might be a BIT too strong but it just sounds fun as hell to do) since you are a barb, using your health is amazingly good, although you cant cast anything while raging sadly
This looks really cool, but I can't get over the idea that it should be a SORCERER subclass. They're the ones who literally explicitly have magic in their BLOOD after all
Blood Magic Sorcerer, oh man, the concept sounds so cool already. Perhaps a descendant of a vampire?
A blood-themed sorcerer subclass would make sense, but not with this lore. (Warlock: Pact of the Matron of Ravens would make more sense honestly.) For a sorcerer something about a vampiric lineage or fey-touched lycanthropy-like curse would be more appropriate.
In Mercer's lore, hemocraft is a specific art / technique that uses blood as a fuel or component. There's nothing magical or special about the blood that is being used; for hemocrafters it is used the way a smith uses metal. It is an acquired skill, not an innate ancestral trait.
Thank god I thought I was the only one with this opinion, I mean there is no more literal a definition of drawing magic from within then Hemocraft.
This seems like a really interesting subclass. I developed a Blood Mage, but made it a Sorcerous Origin instead of a Arcane Tradition. I went a very different direction by having a special ritual dagger that allowed the Sorcerer to cast ritual spells using blood, and also converting damage into sorcery points.
Twilight cleric, blood mage and shepherd druid. Can add a frontliner if you want a 4 person party.
Definitely a good idea to use a race with necrotic resistance to lessen damage against yourself
I love this subclass. Also the little changes and additions to this video style but it was great. Keep up the good work
This tradition is one of the things I most look forward to out of Tal'dorei Reborn. A few years back I played a Blood Magic sorcerer that my DM developed the rules for, and had a lot of fun. With as often as the concept appears elsewhere, I found it odd to be missing from the core rulebooks, but I guess WOTC feels it too 'icky'.
Never thought I would watch a video, and go out and order a book.
I love the concept, but my only minor quibble with it is that, lore-wise, they say wizards turned to this magic to help fight off hordes of undead, but most of the features don't work on undead because they rarely have blood. I mean, that caveat makes perfect sense, but I just have trouble reconciling that with the lore provided, lol. That said, yes please blood magic go BRRRRRR!
It is a bit weird.
In my homebrew setting I explain hemocraft by saying that the first to use it were vampires, who then taught its secrets to their servants, some of whom became the first blood hunters by turning against their masters. This isn't really helpful since the issue is with the official lore, but I just like the vibe of using vampire magic against vampires.
great channel, love the editing and commenting. hope you get even more traffic soon!
I feel like Blood Channeling should have a limit on the amount of gold you can discount. Like you can only discount an amount of gold equal to 50 times half your Wizard level, or cut the gold value in half and make it correlate to your full Wizard level.
That was such a helpful video!😃 You got a new sub now.😅
A Blood Hunter, Blood Domain Cleric, and Blood Magic Wizard party would be spending a LOT of gold on new clothes. lol
the simple idea of harnessing your own blood to create a knife is so cool... that even Mortal Kombat did it.
A warlock dip for gift of the ever-living ones could turn out pretty handy.
6:05 really missed an opportunity to call this feature "Thicker than a bowl of oatmeal"
Matt Mercer plays blood angels in 40k, every thing that makes what his stuff unique NEEDS multiple blood references
I actually made this the "become a vampire" class. If the players wanna play a vampire, they have to be this class.
goodberry life cleric giving a level 14 blood wiz berries is sick and would be a nasty combo for insane out of combat healing.
matt mercer sure likes creating blood subclasses
Epic combo. Cast simulacrum...have that simulacrum use blood channeling to max capacity. Effectively sacrificing a clone of yourself.to cast big magic. Its so Rakdos i love it
I think this is better-suited as a Sorcerer than a Wizard. Your magic is innate to the point of your blood being magical. Plus Sorcerer's have CON proficiency for added encouragement to boost that stat.
Well you want high con on a wizard anyway, or any caster for that matter, and you'd get resilient con to boost those con saves.
But in general I agree, a class which subclasses are literally called "bloodlines" doesnt get a blood magic subclass?
Well done. I love your videos
house rule we allow double con modified when leveling up as a blood mage. give a healthier feel
I am afraid the Death Ward cheat to get around the Blood Channeling would not work in RAW and would rely on the DM being benevolent. Death Ward triggers after being reduced to 0 hitpoints per the spell description, meaning you still drop to 0 hitpoint before you get restored to 1HP. Cool video though! thanks :D
Hey wintry! Great work as always, I see you're using foundry vtt to show some combat effects, I would love to watch a video with your favourite modules!
That might be neat as a live stream! There's too many modules to talk about :P
this subclass seems really good and *really* fun
If you use a barbarians survival feat to go down to one hitpoint you can cast any spell requiring a blood price and survive. 100d10 no problem too easy. Revivify costs nothing no component needed. As long as you have a healer constantly bring you up past one hitpoint youre good
Seems a little quiet, not sure if it's my settings or not though...
Good video! The opinions are so on bar and super well thought out!
tough feat sounds real good for this
What an awesome book. After you bought, ask your DM how you can use it. :D. Bring your money
a good race for this would be the shadar kai elf, any aasimar or a topaz dragonborn as they have restistance against necrotic damage
"This damage cant be reduced in any way" really isnt hard to understand
@@The_Yukki didn't see that. then hill dwarf with their +1 hitpoint per level would be great too
I'm really excited to see the Blighter Druid.
I love the idea of multiclassing Blood Magic and Blood Hunter
definitely need vampiric touch to stay healthy
Armor of Agathys looking real good right about now
Reminds me of the dhampire wizard subclass from Pathfinder 1E. Not similar abilities, but blood magic related features
I like the theme that this invokes. I would love a CON based blood magic sorcerer who uses CON rather than CHA as the casting ability
Sadly, con as a spell casting mod would be extremely powerful
The low hp pool for wizards is the biggest turn-off of this spell for me... a wizard subclass that depends on your wizard getting hurt? The way I play wizards, the whole point is to get out of harm's way and snipe the enemy. If it were a Paladin, on the other hand, I'd be all for blood magic. I often am dissapointed by how little damage my paladins take.
I feel the same. This doesn't even really boost your spellcasting all that much in a way that any other subclass can't do already. Feels like this should have gone to a tankier class.
it probably should have had a thing like the dragon sorcerer or hill dwarves that let you get 1 more hp per level. because its kinda bad to drain your health like that unless your in a RP/down time session.
That said, Wizards are rarely lacking in scenarios where they are at half health
Not me wanting to make an evil group of hemocraft people who each have a different "blood" class
Haemo-kinesis would be cool cus if you manage to continue to cause bleed on other creatures you can amass a large blood pool to use as a weapon.
I thought this would work like that but sadly not
I do like it a lot, but the existence of this subclass made me kinda dissapointed there wasn't an update to the Blood Hunter on this book.
Not neccesarilly something major like a new subclass or a major overhaul (as much as I think the Blood Hunter could fill the Arcane Half Caster role so many people want), but at least an update to Profane Soul, adding the patrons from Tasha's and Van Richten's Undead.
this really parallels Vladimir from LoL
Tough feat is a must have for this Wizard. Bond of Mutual Suffering should probably have a saving throw because that's how 5E works even if its a difficult one to make. Glyph should have been the level 6 feature and Bond should have been the level 10 feature because Bond is much stronger than Glyph.
This instantly gives me blood mage fibes from dragon age
As a player of grim hallows, I do not mind this
I'm not really there for the "edgyness" flavor of the class, I just like the mechanic of using your own HP to supercharge your abilities. (and perhaps a Life-on-Kill), blurring the line between reckless and sound strategy.
I gotta use this at some point
That subclass looks really interesting!
I think the self-damaging feature could go out of hand a bit if the player aquires resistance or even immunity to necrotic damage.
While 10d10 is still a very high price for a Planar Binding for e.g. an Aasimar, it's 50 hitpoints max which at 9th Level is reasonable for a Wizard to be able to take (from full mind you)
The self-damaging cannot be reduced by resistance or immunity. It directly says so “cannot be reduced in any way”
@@bromora989 Ah yep I totally overlooked that!
I was listening to the video in the background so I did not catch that at all.
As much as I love the idea of this class, I can't imagine how an HP sacrifice mechanic on an already notoriously squishy class would work out too well.
I personally would say Death Ward does not work because it specifically said "this Damage cannot be reduced in any Way" and this is a reduction-effect
RAW I think the death ward trick works, since it doesn't reduce the damage. You suffer the full damage, but if it would reduce you to zero hitpoints, your HP is instead set to 1. If a player chooses this arcane tradition, I would recommend adding a little house rule to blood channeling to avoid misunderstandings and nip any rules lawyering in the bud.
Blood channeling says the spell doesn't get cast if it reduces you to zero HP, I would just add a house rule saying that if the amount rolled for the necrotic damage is greater than your current HP (including temporary HP), the spell is not cast -- meaning, you don't lose the spell slot, but the spell effect doesn't happen.
Death ward, half orcs, etc. still give some protection -- you won't get knocked unconscious -- but you can't use them to game the system. Seems fair to me.
I would definitely pick up like, the tough feat if I chose this one
The real drawback of these 'blood price' features, such as Anguine Burst, is that they may make you lose concentration. That's a big drawback!
Maybe, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. Take this into a consideration: this class obviously has a demand for very, very high HP from the Wizard using it. Following this logic, it makes sense to not only take the Tough feat but to also just have a high modifier for your Constitution in general, since the two combined would allow for higher HP. This wouldn't even be that difficult to accomplish, as depending on the race of the character in question, you could reasonably just take the Feat during character creation and also put a high roll/put more points into Con, thus accomplishing both at the same time. You now have, through this, a higher Constitution saving throw modifier, so you have to worry less about failing concentration saves. Furthermore, the Sanguine Burst ability makes you take damage equal to the spell's , meaning any number from 1 to 9, so less than 10. This is important, because the rule for concentration checks is that the DC is either half the damage you took or 10, whichever is higher. 10 is not a difficult roll to make, especially not if you have a good Con mod or Con save proficiency. Or, especially, both, and depending on the options you picked that's something you can just get out of the way during character creation.
"Too long, didn't read" version: concentration checks are not that big of a problem when it comes to this class and its abilities.
While Blood Channeling could easily cause somebody to have a very high DC on maintaining concentration, as stated in the video, you will most likely be using Blood Channeling outside of combat. After all, in my experience, most spells that are more suited for mid-combat scenarios typically don't have a costly material requirement, or if they do, it typically is very low. (I'm only including the latter because I genuinely don't recall any mid-combat spells anyone in any of my parties cast that required an item of value.) So you wouldn't be concentrated on anything anyway, and if you are it's because you're busy doing something for the party at the moment, so you'll probably be focused on that and less focused on casting any other spell.
Besides all of this... let's be real. If you're running a lot of concentration spells and you don't have either a high Con mod, Resilient to give you Con save proficiency, or both, you're just asking for headaches and pain, and nobody wants that. lmao
Well now I can play a Damphir blood-wizard
I like to think these wizards use the spark of life within blood to power spells
The fact that you only have 10k subs is criminal.
Working on it! :D
I've only read the descriptions here on the video. From my plain reading I don't think Death Ward would allow you to bypass the damage cost of the spell. The wording clearly states that if taken to 0 the spell fails. It specifies that you cannot bypass the cost, as Death Ward clearly would. That being said, I'd still defer to the GM's judgement. I personally am not sure I'd allow DW to be used in this way as it's a bit of a cheat. Great video though - well done!
Little nitpick. Undead still have blood, it's congealed and not functioning but it's there. On the other hand elementals REALLY don't have anything close to blood, a ball of air doesn't have a liquidy life force. I think the abilities should not work on constructs and elementals. Also means your abilities are less likely to get shafted as parties run into undead more then elementals usually.
Great video. Don't really like this subclass tho, don't think I'd ever play one
Still a lil dissapointed tbh it is cool and has cool aspects but I don't think the subclass capstones makes up for the self damage and is kinda underwhelming and something I would expect to get at lower levels. Something that let's you heal, maybe by doing damage, or something would maybe go a long ways here. I don't think it is weak but I don't think there is a lot of mitigated cost for how much damage you have to deal to yourself and how squishy you already are.
Trinston was here.
are you planning to do a vid for blood hunters after you do the cleric one? that'd be really great imo
catch me yeeting 9th level fire balls with a half orc blood mage. 1 free cast revive a day baby
So, i guess you can polymorph and than on reaction bond of suffering. As its not a spell it should work, and suddenly you are a beeeefy masochist wizard
i have a few questions glyph of hemorrhaging using magic missile. can you curse 3+ people hit with the spell or will you need to just pick 1 target and if it hit 1 target is it 3d4 + 3 and 3d6? avg will be about 18dm for lvl 1 spell. 2ed question let say your spell hit first time will you add the 1d6 to that spell or do you need to wait until the next turn for you to trigger it. 3ed question blood channeling for a half orc Relentless Endurance will you be able to cast the spell if there passive happens?
Why are the features short/long rest, all wizard features (correct me if I'm wrong) recharge on long rest...
Also this should've been sorcerer subclass... you know the class that's subclasses are straight up called 'bloodlines'
Arcane Recovery (gained at level 1) and Spell Mastery (lvl 20). And there are several other wizard subclass features that recharge on a short rest. So it isn't that odd at all, really.
I would say it makes a lot of sense for this subclass in particular to have features that recharge on a short rest, as that is also an opportunity to use hit dice to heal. .
@@nathansmith9597 arcane recovery is 1/day ability that can be used to recover slots at the end of short rest. So technically neither of us is true there since it can recharge without taking rest (if the day ticksover)
Lvl 20 feature thought you are correct. Forgot about it given how bad it is XD
I guess it does make sense. Thing is that casters (outside of warlocks) are kinda built around long rests while martials are short rests monsters. Giving already best class in the game bunch of short rest features is questionable to say the least.
(Then again mercer isnt known for making balanced stuff)
Well, nothing about this subclass seems particularly unbalanced. All your stuff can recharge on a short rest, so long as it isn't too strong for how often you get to use it.
"Thing is that casters (outside of warlocks) are kinda built around long rests while martials are short rests monsters."
I was going to say that this is a broad generalization, but after thinking about it a bit more, I don't think I can even say that.
For healing purposes (using hit dice), everyone likes short rests. Beyond that, who wants short rests the most?
Monks and warlocks, regardless of subclass. Followed by fighters and druids, though _how much_ they like short rests depends a lot on subclass. All of them benefit, but some fighters and druids (e.g., battle masters and moon) want them as bad as monks and warlocks. Others like them, but aren't nearly as hungry for them (e.g., champion and land).
After level 5, bards really like short rests, too. But only at levels 5+, so... we'll count it as half.
That's 2 "martials" and we'll say 2.5 "casters" who tend to really like short rests.
Some Channel Divinity options are very meh. But some aren't. Twilight Clerics or, at low levels, a Light Cleric, is going to want short rests about as much as some fighters do. And definitely more than most barbarians or rogues (two other "martial" classes).
So, a lot depends on your subclass. There are plenty of subclass-specific features that are good, and recharge on a short rest, and you really do find those all over the place (even under classes that normally don't care about short rests).
But this is already very long, and long-winded, so I'll leave it at that.
@@nathansmith9597 Yea, I'd agree, it's just odd design choice, when other subclasses 'not so strong' features recharge on long rest (f.e chronurgy lvl 6 feature, though that one is int times per long rest so I guess there's that)
no leeching and you only get bonus healing at 14th level?
this subclass has one foot in the grave until 14th level, what a cool mechanic
Cool
So if you have death ward and it saves you does the spell you inteon casting still go off? If so...hmm yes nice. Very nice indeed
I love how you take necrotic dmg and then you play the daywalker homebrew which heals from necrotic dmg
*cough* Blood bending *cough*
I'd say, even with death ward, if you don't have enough hp to pay, the spell does not go off, doesn't matter ifbyou survive the damage or not. It's just logic.