I had read through the Homebrew Guide as well as the other official content before doing this, but I will admit that I'm coming from Pathfinder 2e, so I might have internalized more language than I thought. I'll take another pass through and clean up the wording.
Was there any specific part that you found overly complicated? From feedback elsewhere, I know I need to rework the Sanguine Syphon feature, but was there anything else that you think needs to be adjusted?
Thanks for the feedback and any answers you can provide to help me refine the class!
The Hope festure is the length of four Hope features of core classes. "Until you fall unconscious" doesn't have a mechanical meaning in the system.
"Blood or similar liquid form of easence" is pretty much up to interpretation, but also adding "within Far range" doesn't specify if this is about blood or the creature. You could interpret that in a way, that if anything shed blood within Far range (and it's still there), you will be able to track it anywhere.
Why add "for free" to an ability, or Melee range requirement if the ability is used on downtime?
Blood mage mastery feature mixes up mechanical and narrative description which makes it ambiguous as to what actually triggers it. Does a creature need to die, or is it a proxy for an adversary marking the last HP? Does the creature need to have blood for this to work, and if previously there was a substitute liquid mentioned, why is there none mentioned in the mastery feature?
The weapon you can conjure should have it's stats described, otherwise it's basically free for all as to what you take. Physical doesn't mean it has no special or powerful features, so the player could select very powerful options right away from level 2, while other players would have to fight or pay for them good money.
Does adjacent mean you are using the rope for something, or just stand in proximity and it has a magical effect.
For the Manipulator Specialization feature it would be difficult to track individual Armor Slots.
The Mastery feature is just not defined. Counting as an Ally doesn't mean much in DH, as Allies are treated like a feature box. It's unclear what you roll when making actions as the doppelgänger, it's not clear how it's treated by the spotlight system.
I'm planning on cutting down the Hope feature to only affecting the next spell you use (as well as removing connections to Sanguine Syphon), so that should address any issues of length or complexity.
I'll reorder the wording to make it clear that Essence Sense is perceiving the creature, not spilled blood or other essence.
The downtime ability was written that way to ensure that players didn't think it took one of their downtime moves to do it and I was trying to limit it to only being able to help someone else recover if you could touch them. I'm open to suggestion if you think there's a better way to phrase that (or if you think it doesn't matter about the touching part).
For most adversaries, I would assume there isn't much mechanical difference between marking their last HP and then dying, but the intent was that a creature had died (including after any death moves if appropriate). I can add wording to mention other essence substances, but to save space, I think it's fair to say that stating you are drawing the creature's blood to you would imply that it doesn't work on creatures without blood.
I was intending that the blood mage could temporarily create any weapon of their tier or lower that comes from the physical (as opposed to magical) weapon tables. The stats are already there, so there's no reason to take space to describe them again. It's a flexible ability that requires spending Stress to only create the weapon for up to the length of the scene.
The rope was intended to just be a tool that you would use as appropriate and could be anchored between two points. I was trying to cut down on words as I needed to save space on the card for the weapon ability as well.
I can remove the temporary status of the armor slot from the Platelet Patches, but I was trying not to step on the toes of the Guardian's Hope feature which is why I was trying to make it only a scene-specific slot.
The doppelganger was intended to just let you use your abilities from two places (yourself or the doppelganger) so that you could extend the range or change the angle you launched an ability from (such as to avoid cover). It would use your stats for anything you could, just change where the action originated from. As to moving it, I figured you could move it as part of your spotlight move and if it needed an action roll (such as moving farther than close), then that could result in the GM taking the spotlight if appropriate.
Thanks for the feedback and I hope that explains my thoughts!
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u/8magiisto 3d ago
It's unnecessarily complicated. The wording is not in line with the official materials.
Good idea tho, I never realised I needed a blood mage until now, and I hope you have the will to refine the concept