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Blood Magic (5e)

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Suggested Price $1.45

Suggested Contribution: $1.95

Featured in Issue 7 of Dragon+ Magazine and Unearthed Arcana in the March 2016 Review by Mike Mearls and Chris Lindsay!

Unleash the power of blood magic.

Thanks for the support - we've expanded Blood Magic to provide Players and Game Masters with the following for thrilling play:

  • Blood Magic. A wizard tradition for 5th Edition.  This product contains two versions of this tradition.  The original as highlighted in the Unearthed Arcana article and a second, updated version involving a different mechanic.
  • King's Blood.  A sorcerous origin for 5th Edition.  Bloodline sorcerers seek to harness the potent lineage of another. 
  • Blood Thrall. A fighter archetype for 5th Edition.  Born from vampire or demonic masters, but now free from their grasp, blood thralls desire to control the power that still pumps in their veins.  Perfect for the Curse of Strahd.

  • Bloodrage Savage. A barbarian primal path for 5th Edition.  Rage burns in the heart of these savage barbarians through ancestral ties and feed from the pain and anguish suffered in combat.
  • New Subrace. The half-spawn are born under the duress of their mother transforming into a vampire spawn.  Half-spawn possess supernatural gifts due to the vampiric blood that runs through their veins.  Was Strahd your vampiric father?
  • New Spells. Several new spells, including a playtest for blood spells.
  • Magic items. Blood-Dreader, Blood Leech, Potion of Cruor, Sanguine Blade.
  • Characterization. Suggestions on how to create characters steeped in blood magic.
  • Variants. Blood as spell components as well as an alternative wizard feature to replace Arcane Recovery: Blood Channeler.

With continued contributions, we intend to develop this product into a fully-fledged guidbook.

ENHANCE THIS PRODUCT

When you enhance this product, we will improve upon it with updates and even expand its content.  There are several ways to help enhance this product:

  • Gold Pieces. We appreciate any contribution to help produce content.  Money allows us to hire outside writers, include more artwork, and allows us to eat once in a while (wink, wink).  More importantly, being a small company, it allows us to see how to divide our time and support the right products.
  • Feedback, Feedback, Feedback.  You don't have to give your hard-earned coin to support this product.  Being a gamer for over thirty-years, I know its hard to stretch those pouch strings. Your time can be as valuable.  Comments and feedback helps us become better designers and can improve the content.  Suggestions and discussion can also lead to better game balance.
  • Spread the Word. If you like what you read, let your friends and followers on social media know.  Talk about your experience with it to others.  The more people download a product and use it, we then know how to focus our energy.

PRODUCT EXPANSION

We can expand this product in a number of ways: new spells and magic items; variant background features; several encounter scenarios or an adventure focusing on blood magic; we could expand the role of blood magic within other character classes (new archetypes, traditions, etc.).

Although designed for the Forgotten Realms SettingTM, this product easily adapts into the Ravenloft SettingTM or your favorite campaign.

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Reviews (20)
Discussions (37)
Customer avatar
Naja Rathje L October 09, 2023 3:44 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi!
Just purchased this, and I am already finding it super helpful. I have wanted to implement some blood-magic into my CoS-game for a while, and this really helps flesh out some ideas to use. I can't wait to get started. Thank you for creating this!

I particularly like the 'potion of cruor' magical item. Do you have any recommendations for using this, particularly with a "gritty realism"-version of DnD? I am thinking of running a short campaign, that uses gritty realism, but I am finding it hard to make encounters and narrative stable enough, without the "usual" rest times, so any advice would be great. Otherwise I am just really happy that a resource such as this is available - assisted imagination is always good!
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Customer avatar
Joshua R November 07, 2023 3:55 am UTC
CREATOR
Awesome! A Curse of Strahd campaign is a perfect fit for gritty-realism. More to your point, perhaps players, once entering the domain of dread, realize that they cannot regain lost hit dice, beginning to look pale with each hit die they use. They must procure potions of cruor to do so.

Maybe potions are procured from the blood of unconscious enemies, forcing them to drain their victims just as Strahd does, thus causing them to further slip into madness. More powerful enemies increase the potency of the potion. To further the strain, perhaps the potions remain viable if the victim is alive. This would force players to make a choice about setting free certain enemies to fight the greater evil. Having such dilemmas make for good role-play and creates moral ambiguity - just what Strahd wants to cause for those that travel into his domain.
Customer avatar
James S January 30, 2021 6:51 am UTC
PURCHASER
After wanting to purchase this for awhile I finally did. I feel like you made a great book, some really cool fleshed out content. I just feel like the subclasses are a little underpowered, but I'm usually dm'ing and don't get to be a pc much. So I might be wrong.

Overall love the content. good job!
Customer avatar
Darren C January 13, 2019 3:16 pm UTC
I wonder about a product when the creator hasn't replied to anything in 5 months.
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Customer avatar
Joshua R January 18, 2019 1:29 am UTC
CREATOR
Wonder no longer! LOL - I am a one man show, so it is hard to always reply. Much of my time is devoted to developing a true, deck building RPG. I do have ideas for this project and want it to grow, however, I’ve decided to put my other projects on hold until I finish the playtest phase of Aspyrica.
Customer avatar
Ashlee G January 12, 2019 5:51 am UTC
PURCHASER
Just a heads up - I had a hard time downloading this until I used the "older" option for downloading the non-printer friendly file. I'm looking forward to this for my own games!
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Customer avatar
Joshua R January 18, 2019 1:47 am UTC
CREATOR
Thanks - I’m not sure what happened.
Customer avatar
Markvincent L December 26, 2018 8:22 am UTC
PURCHASER
Sort of confused for the blood thrall blood drinker feat. When I hit a living, I deal damage and they must make a saving throw. Now can you clarify this feat? Is it the saving throw part I can only use once per round, and can use it twice per short or long rest. And the extra damage I do is not counted for?
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Customer avatar
Joshua R January 18, 2019 1:46 am UTC
CREATOR
You can use the ability once per turn, and only twice between rests. So, living creatures hit with a melee weapon attack, you deal an extra 1d8 damage. Now, if the creature is also larger or smaller, then it has to make a Strength saving throw. If the creature is not large or smaller, then it doesn’t need to make a saving throw, but you still deal the extra damage. I hope this clarifies.
Customer avatar
mark G March 19, 2018 3:53 am UTC
PURCHASER
I would be happy to pay for this PDF and a few others like it, however this website is not secure so I will not be sending money through it, if this changes I will be happy to donate.
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Customer avatar
Joshua R January 18, 2019 1:49 am UTC
CREATOR
I am not control of website security- however I have been with RPGNow/DriveThru from the very early years and never had my info comprised.
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Jim H March 10, 2018 5:07 am UTC
PURCHASER
I have some confusion on the Sorcerous Origin section - under Wellspring of Life. I'm confused and not sure if this is a typo and if not then how is this ability ever recharged. "If you possess at least one life spark at the end of a short rest, you or one other creature within 10 feet can regain hit points as if you expended 1 hit die. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again after a long rest." In the last sentence, it says you can't use the feature again after a long rest. Is that true?
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Customer avatar
Joshua R September 24, 2018 2:25 am UTC
CREATOR
Sorry for the late reply - it is a typo. It should read: "You cannot use it again until after a long rest."
Customer avatar
Elijah G March 04, 2018 7:06 am UTC
PURCHASER
Could I use some of the stuff in here to make a warlock? It focuses a lot on sorcerers and wizards but not much warlock love. I like it, the idea of blood magic is interesting. I'm currently making a warlock and I'm wondering how I can incorporate the concept of blood magic into the character.
Customer avatar
Guy H January 12, 2018 12:49 pm UTC
PURCHASER
After looking over the document, I got really excited by the concept of Blood Magic. It's a fun way to expend something that doesn't get used too often (by me, anyway), and it provides a unique theme for some games. However, there are a few things that are missing, or don't seem to fit in, so, get ready for some extensive feedback and some possible ideas for expanding it.

The Bloodrage Savage was pretty good. It augments the primitive, violent behaviour seen in Barbarians. Although I'd change it to something like 'Path of the Bloodbath', just to capture its name as a Primal Path.
I didn't see anything wrong with the Blood Thrall (but I don't usually play Fighter so you shouldn't trust me on it).
The Kings Blood Origin was alright, but it didn't present any ways to use Sorcery Points. Perhaps you could expend Hit Dice for Sorcery Points or vice versa. Maybe you could make it so that you have to use Sorcery Points to capture or/and use Life Sparks. Also, the Prophetic Reflexes Feature didn't...See more
Customer avatar
Adam F August 06, 2017 5:44 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Greetings,
I wanted to say thank you for your work on this document. I'm DMing a game and our bard is a half-vampire who is embracing his heritage of being a blood mage. I saw below that you mentioned expanding on the spell list. Is that a work in progress, or are there any updates? I love the blood magic spells that you've listed in this doc thus-far.
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Customer avatar
Joshua R August 16, 2017 12:22 am UTC
CREATOR
Thanks - I am working on other projects at the moment, but I do plan on updating this product, especially the spells. Though, I'm planning a different route for Blood Magic spells - making it more simplistic. It will tone down the power scale on one hand, but with the possibility of being harder to save against.
Customer avatar
Zachariah A April 09, 2017 4:11 am UTC
PURCHASER
Loved the idea of this class but feels like it is kind of lacking in spell variety and options past level 5 besides the class feature. If i could offer a suggestion and add more spells, maybe a healing spell that allows the blood magic user to heal or make a blood elemental. Similar to that of the blood magic used in Dragon Age.
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Customer avatar
Joshua R April 11, 2017 4:49 pm UTC
CREATOR
Thanks for taking the time to give me feedback. I'm in the process of reworking the blood magic spells to create a versatile system. I will add more spells in a future update, but I thought the original blood magic spells were too clunky, therefore I restrained myself to add more spells. I've come up with something a bit more elegant. I'm just getting it right in my head - oh, and a blood elemental would be cool.
Customer avatar
Alexander S March 15, 2017 10:06 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Regarding the Blood Magic (Version 1) there doesn't seem to be a cap on how many blood points you can have.
So it is possible to start the day killing 100 or so chickens or rabbits at a farm, then have basically unlimited blood points the rest of the day.
Which means 5 d6 (or d8) on every hit, and all abilities up at all times.
Seems a little problematic at such low levels.

Otherwise great design, just thought I'd point out the potential exploit.
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Customer avatar
Joshua R March 18, 2017 12:55 pm UTC
CREATOR
Thanks for the reply - it is a bit of an oversight that I will tinker with in the future. I always love the "chicken example" because no one takes into consideration where to find a 100 chickens every morning or the consequences for slaughtering an entire coop of chickens.

I tend to look at this way: if your DM allows you to do this, then do it. On the other hand, as a DM, I would say: "You slaughtered a hundred chickens, unfortunately their blood proved inadequate to provided you with blood points and now several guards approach seeking an explaination for the chaos - oh, and the local parrish priest is already spreading the word that only a witch would slaughter so many chickens for a perverse ritual to curse the town.

Or, my most favorite option - Death by Chicken like in Zelda and the Ocarina of Time.

Anyway, pay no mind to me - I'm just jesting. Thanks for pointing it out and taking the time to let me know about. I'll give it some thought and make...See more
Customer avatar
Mayanaka S February 09, 2017 12:30 am UTC
A friend and I actually recently tweaked the Blood Thrall for a player in the game. I think some aspects of it were readily weaker than other things, but with a little bump it has turned into quite a nice class overall. It was an amazing building tool to work with. If you are ever interested in the rebalancing we did just let me know and I will show you what we came up with.

I will say that I wish there were more options as far as spells and magic items went in this book (particularly with most of those magic items being cursed heh).

I recently just built a blood mage wizard for a friends game and am going to be testing that out soon. Even starting to make some blood ritual spells that we are going to play test.
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Customer avatar
Joshua R February 21, 2017 7:20 pm UTC
CREATOR
Sure, I'm always glad to see anything that would improve the product and make play balanced and enjoyable.
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Customer avatar
Mayanaka S February 24, 2017 12:42 am UTC
Is there a way to do direct messages on here? Or should I just post it here?
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Customer avatar
Joshua R February 27, 2017 12:53 pm UTC
CREATOR
You can get a hold of me directly at aleapublishing (at) gmail (dot) com or through our contact us page at our website at apg-games(dot)com.
Customer avatar
Markvincent L January 19, 2017 10:10 am UTC
PURCHASER
So I just want a little clarification on Blood Thrall, the 3rd level feat Blood Drinker.
1. You only allowed to use this feat twice after the creature(s) failed their saving throws?
2. The additional damage applies for every attack, or only two successful attacks and the feat is gone?
3. Or is it the additional damage applies to all attacks, and the added lifesteal to temp hp lasts only twice?
Reply
Customer avatar
Joshua R February 21, 2017 7:19 pm UTC
CREATOR
Sorry it took this long to respond - but here are the answer to your excellent questions:
1. You are allowed to use this feature twice, regardless if the creature made or failed the saving throw. Then you must replenish after a rest.
2. The extra damage is a part of the feature. You can use it once per turn, then after two uses, you must replenish it after a rest.
3. When you apply the additional damage applies to one attack, you activate the feature, then if the creature is also Large or smaller, then you further apply the additional lifesteal. It all counts as one use of the feature. Once you use this feature twice, your regain all uses after a rest. Hope this clears a few things up. Thanks for response.
Customer avatar
Dalton R November 30, 2016 12:23 am UTC
PURCHASER
I liked the idea of a blood magic class i think what you did is great though, i did however try my own hand at a warrior who uses his hit points to fight.
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/199442/Blood-Blade-Class-5e-Dnd
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Customer avatar
Joshua R December 01, 2016 2:35 am UTC
CREATOR
Cool. I'll check it out.
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Customer avatar
Dalton R December 01, 2016 9:47 pm UTC
PURCHASER
If i may ask where you got the idea of blood magic, I got my idea from the reaver class option from dragon age.
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Customer avatar
Joshua R December 03, 2016 10:00 pm UTC
CREATOR
Sure - for me, I sought to play around with the mechanics of 5th Edition and thought about what overall is absent from D&D in general. In my game, I always like to tempt players with power for a sacrifice or moral dilemma. It is something I enjoyed with 2nd Edition Dark Sun (my favorite campaign setting) and the option to defile over preservative magic. In 3rd Edition, there were a few ideas that touch on this with the Book of Vile Darkness and a few prestige or paragon classes (4th Edition). After the idea, I drew inspiration from already existing mechanics to formulate how it would translate into 5th Edition.
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This title was added to our catalog on January 13, 2016.