[3ED/4ED] New Blood Magic

[Kosmit]

My Nethermancer is really into the blood magic and I would like to create some tricks for him. First thing that popped into my head is new form of Blood Matrix.

Blood Filter
Magician can gain a temporary spell Matrix by inflicting himself a Blood Wound (without damage) which cannot be healed until spell is attuned to it. He filters Raw Magic through his dripping blood instead of his body but it weakens his pattern (hence wound penalty).

What do you think?

[Tattered Rags]

It shouldn't be able to be healed until the Blood Filtered Matrix is dissolved back into the caster's Pattern and can no longer be used for a spell.

[Kosmit]

That's what I've meant.

You inflict a Wound, attune a spell (reattuning on the fly with test) and then you can't reattune it until you heal it (or inflict another Wound for new matrix).

It's like Blood Matrix blood charm but created on the fly in exchange for Wound not damage. I thought about Strain for using it but -1 Wound penalty is enough.

There is no limit to how many of them you can have but every Wound comes with a penalty to all tests.

And still better to have a Wound than to cast Raw Magic.

I am a bit hangover so while I am dying some crazy ideas are popping into my head.

Blood Connection/Blood Mark
Magician and his companions inflict themselves a Blood Wound and mix their blood. Then he covers his face with runes written with that blood. Magician don't have to see them to cast spell on them and maybe even is able to cast Range: Self as Range: Touch (Imagine a team of black crows falling from the sky).

[The Undying]

Blood Filter
Magician can gain a temporary spell Matrix by inflicting himself a Blood Wound (without damage) which cannot be healed until spell is attuned to it. He filters Raw Magic through his dripping blood instead of his body but it weakens his pattern (hence wound penalty).

My personal opinion? This is too strong. Spell matrices became more scare in ED4 and bypassing that scarcity, even at the cost of a blood wound, should be considered carefully. Especially if group allows for chain casting with the restriction that the spell must be in a matrix, this can lead to more persistent buffs on the party than desirable. Honestly, with some buffs, hampering a magician in combat from wound penalties while having a nice selection of immediately-on high quality buffs for everyone in the party, especially since karma can mitigate a chunk of this, is a bit much. Plus, the fact that this creates a spell matrix that could theoretically hold any Circle level (probably up to the magician's Circle) is INSANE. The amount of LP it offsets is wackadoo. Lastly, you're inviting a loop hole: there ARE (very messy and expensive) ways to heal Blood Wounds, meaning a Nethermancer could just start stacking these for tons of matrices.

An alternative that I could suggest would be to swap out the blood wound for blood damage, duration in rounds equal to damage taken, and Circle limit equal to damage taken. This still marries with the flavor and, in my opinion, enhances on it: want greater power, then greater sacrifice is required. Plus, it avoids pretty much all house variants of chain casting I've seen discussed: since the matrix only exists for X rounds, I can't see how a player could ever justify using it to hold a chain cast spell.

[The Undying]

Blood Connection/Blood Mark
Magician and his companions inflict themselves a Blood Wound and mix their blood. Then he covers his face with runes written with that blood. Magician don't have to see them to cast spell on them and maybe even is able to cast Range: Self as Range: Touch (Imagine a team of black crows falling from the sky).

If you don't mind ruining some elements of surprise (I'm assuming you're player, given the forum and the setup), it might be helpful to look at the other magician Disciplines and get a sense of what spells are available to each. Essentially, it tends to break down as kind of "Discipline X is the only one who can do R, is best at doing S, and borrows T from others." Thread Items are primarily the way this is broken, giving access to Adepts (magician or not) spell-like access at the cost of strain. Circumventing these types of balances in more-accessible ways can lead to a bit of power creep. In this context, I'd say the objective you're trying to accomplish is exclusive domain of the Wizard.

[Kosmit]

I am glad I finally get some answers

I am Earthdawn GM mostly and there is only one group that I am player in. I realize I am tapping with other disciplines field but at different approach (not through spells or knacks but Blood Rituals) which fits my nethermancer obsessed with blood magic and magic theory to heal Blood Wood.

I will have to think more about it but I like the idea of damage taken-better prize.

Thanks for answers

[The Undying]

Holidays + stomach flu = no rambling posts from The Undying.

My personal recommendation would be to come up with things that either enhance existing stuff, augment cost for existing stuff, or are just interesting or fun. You've got lots of great source material in other blood charms, blood oaths, and Talents that cause blood damage/wounds, they are a great sanity check on "does this ability really belong in blood magic" and "does this cost make sense in terms of power level." You also have the GMG which provides good creation guides for Thread Items, which helps inform you on how things can other wise be bled (heheh) into that domain, and at what cost tier (in terms of both required LP as well as recurring Strain cost for use). Finally, you've got the per-Discipline spellbooks to give you an idea of whether a Discipline really should have access to things, from a flavor perspective.

That being said, I'm all about pushing the envelope a bit, especially if players come forward with what they think are great ideas that they're excited about. The GM honestly has the hard job of figuring out how to make those neat ideas a reality, sufficiently within the aspirations of the player but without warping the game. Plus, it's GREAT original adventure fodder: in my opinion, the type of stuff your describing even if doable is likely not something an adventuring Adept can develop properly on their own, they'd really need to research what others have done in that line before them, search for the groundwork to either get a complete or mostly complete solution, and then adopt or adapt that. For GMs that don't have the time or inclination to come up with original adventures (which is fair), I'd still personally allow players to "experiment" to achieve this stuff ... but it's going to be DANGEROUS for quite a while ... we're talking Raw Magic level bad for the first X times, then maybe lower Raw Magic difficulty the next Y times, then erratic results the next Z times, until they actually have it perfected (and completion of that process should net them a healthy amount of LP -- unless they're going to keep the knowledge to themselves, in which case maybe a much smaller LP gift as rumor spreads of a Nethermancer able to perform this mysterious, unique ability that kinda sorta does this cool thing people don't really understand the scope of).

[Kosmit]

In my opinion creating temporary matrix for sacrificing blood is flavourish as hell

And remember that there are may powers that were borrowed from others (onion skin, wizard mark, fake-elemental illusion spells) so overlapping is more common. The way you get something (to know it was mostly thread items) need to be different

To me blood magic was always kinda omitted except strain and blood wounds. And it could be way to power half-adepts abilities or even give mundane mooks access to some cool stuff (other than pushing abilities).

Now I am thinking about thread dagger that unlocks that abilities (when you cut yourself with it).

[The Undying]

I am TOTALLY down with the idea of a thread dagger that unlocks some of these abilities. I still think it'd require some attention, but you have a bit more room to maneuver because of the LP cost and chance to lose the item. You also don't want to make The One Thread Item To Rule Them All. Keep in mind that, if it's a "crafted" item, there are limits there as available in the GMG (adding blood damage cost could give you more wiggle room), and if it's a weapon, it really should lose a rank to "+1 Attack with this weapon" (unless it's purely a ceremonial dagger, in which case it should have some provisio against being used as a weapon). If it's not "crafted," it really falls into a "kick this over to the GM for the game you're playing the Nethermancer as and see if, how, and when, he'd be willing to introduce a magical treasure of this caliber into his game" category.

Brief warning: remember we're in the player forum. If you want to start talking thread item design, might want to start a different thread in the GM forum. I omitted some of my ramblings for that sake, figured adding this caveat might be A Good Idea.

[Kosmit]

Player forum has always been for me a place to discuss mechanical staff and crunch.

GM is for spoilers, scenarios and fluff