Improving Blood Abilites

Dungeons & Dragons BRCS 3.0/3.5 Edition
1

After a long time I read the blood ability section again. To be earnest, my opinion is, some blood abilties are too weak for their level, if you start playing in some more high level campagn (if you have to take a +1 or +2 LA or the PrC for a major or great bloodline, you should get something for it :wink: ).

Some Examples:

Regenerate (Great*): The scion has Fast Healing 3 as per the Monster Manual.

Fast healing 3 is granted already through the “sacred healing” feat (CD), although only a number of rounds, but if you Cha bonus is high enough, you can grant a lot with this feat. If this blood ability only can be taken by so few charakters, why not improving it. My idea: The scion has Fast Healing 1/ 2 HDs (maximum 10) as per the Monster Manual.

Major Resistance
Non-magical attacks (great): Same as the Major ability except the effect is increased to 5/magic.

5 magic as a greater ability is… well, better than nothing, but nearly nothing. “Magic Weapon” is a first level spell, yawn and even without DR 5 can be nearly ignored…

My idea: major 5/ magic, great 10/ magic and also dependend from derivation and HD say: If the scion has 11+ HDs, grant Azrai 5 (major) or 10 (great)/ good, Brenna and Masela 5 (major) or 10 (great)/ evil, if 10 HDs or lower, major 5/ magic, great 10/ magic.

Magic (great): Like a number of rare creatures, this scion of the blood is naturally resistant to the effects of magic, whether from spells or items. The scion has spell resistance SR 16. This ability applies to all types of magic except blood abilities. Derivations: Anduiras, Azrai, Reynir, Vorynn.

Maybe this can be improved to: The scion has spell resistance equal to 5+ her character level (maximum 35).

Poison (great): Same as the Minor ability but the saving throw bonus is increased to +8.

As a greater ability I would change this ability to immunity to poison (as druid ability) and the major ability I would improve to bonus +8…

Charm (great): Same as the Minor ability but the saving throw bonus is increased to +8.

Same as above: Great: Immunity to mind-affecting spells and spell-like effects, major +8 bonus…

What do you think of these ideas?

2

It depends a lot if you are using the various rules to amortise the level adjustment over your advancement.

If not then any level adjustment system will be underpowered at high level as typically being a centaur, ogre, tiefling, etc tends to have a few fixed (weak) powers whereas the class powers multiply as levels increase.

So either use some method to cut out the level adjustments as higher levels are obtained, or provide level boosters for the powers (as you suggested).

I prefer to keep it simple, but then I like playing low level and this is mainly a high level issue.

3

Other than hit points (from hit die), bonus hit points (from RP collected), saving throw bonuses, bonuses to blood score, bonuses to leadership score, skill points, and extra class skills (always class skills) that is? A straight LA template would not give such benefits and has a much greater adverse impact on a character than does a “class” like the scion class. Remember that when using LA the La does not count towards gettign character based beenfits (ability score adjustments, feats or max skill ranks) but class levels (or hit die) do.

It is not all about blood abilities.

The scion class levels are so structured.

Class Features

[LEFT]
Base Attack/Saving Throw Bonuses: The scion

gains bonuses as specified in the applicable table.

Class Skills: The scion can designate a certain
number of skills as class skills based on the
derivation. These skills are always treated as class
skills since they are based on the scion’s divine
heritage.

Bonus Hit Points: [/LEFT]
[LEFT]A scion receives bonus hit
[LEFT]points each season based on the amount of RP he
receives up to a maximum of one-half his blood
score, rounded down – minimum of one.[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Special Regent Benefits: A scion gains any
special bonuses granted regents due to variants used
in the game, for example heirlooms and special
equipment.[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Blood Score Increase: A scion receives a +4
bonus to his bloodline score at 1st level. This bonus
increases to +8 at 2nd level.[/LEFT]

[LEFT]Leadership Score Increase: A scion receives a +2
bonus to his Leadership score. This bonus increases[/LEFT]
to +4 at 2nd level.

[/LEFT]

4

This system is not more complicated, than the original rule. If you tell me, a Character with a great bloodline (say, level 3) has SR 16, I tell you, it’s more than enough. If you tell me the Manslayer has SR 16, I ask you if you’re joking. My suggestions are a bit more “fair”. Not too powerful to low level Characters and not (nearly) useless for high level Characters.

Not every scion is a regent. For a regent this system might be “good enough”, for a “normal” scion without a realm it is all but perfect.

It’s clear that you don’t get HDs etc. if you take a LA, so the PrC is much better if you ignore a (nearly) maxed build for your class. The LA rules are written very clearly in Savage Species and naturally there can be a large difference between a LA +1 and another LA+1. Some are only a little bit to powerful for a LA +0, another is hard at the border to LA+2. Major blood abilites might be worth a +1 LA, but not all. Some blood abilites are nice fluff (but weak to useless), some are this powerful to justify the LA. If you have to role your abilites (and that’s still somewhat cool) you can have luck or incredible unluck…

As I remember the scion PrC is a 5 level PrC (but can’t find it momentarly so I’m not sure), so you have to “loose” 5 levels of your normal class(es)/ PrC(s) to take the scion PrC. If you consider this, extra HPs etc. are a nice compensation, but increasing the blood abilites as such still does not make the System unbalanced. Your words sound a bit like the blood abilites are only some nice bonus to the rest, I’m of the opinion the rest is a nice bonus to the blood abilites. If you’re low level, you neither get too much power through the PrC nor through the (adjusted) blood abilities, but these increases explain the “fear” of some more high level regent a bit better. It still changes not this much: A great blooded regent, who controles say Ghoere has much more power, than a great blooded scion without a realm, but if the realmless Scion is level 16 and the regent of Ghore level 9, the realmless scion has still good chances to slay the regent (if he has no army/ bodyguards around etc.)…

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a power level increase for low level characters, thats why I thought of a character level/ HD dependance for those few, who leave low-level. Mid level has nearly no change of power, the level 6 great blooded scion with regeneration has fast healing 3 (old rule and my suggestion).

5

Scion class (not a prestige class) is a 2 level class.

Minor blood strength scion requires no class levels (allows gaining minor level blood abilities but no other benefits).

Major blood strength scion requires 1 level (in order to get major blood abiliites and the “other” benefits).

Great blood strength scion requires 2 levels (in oerder to get great blood abilities).

The regent specific benefits would be: bonus hit points due to regency and any special equipment/funds gained from being a regent (see options in Chapter 8).

benefits that always apply:

Better blood abilities.

BAB/Saving throw advancement

Extra class skills (always treated as class skills - could be a major issue)

Increased blood score (translates into more easily gaining more blood abilities)

Increased Leadership score. If not using Leadership feat at all then this has no real use, but when using almost all power ups available not using that feat (and its benefits) are really lacking power-wise IMO.

See attached for the pdf of the chapter to help refresh yourself on the “sanctioned” set of rules.

[quote]
[FONT=Verdana][COLOR=white]Reduce the levels of scion classes. That is, eliminate the 2nd level and make the first one great bloodline. What this does however is to make essentially no difference between minor and major bloodlines. In order to maintain some sort of balance between the two, it is suggested to use a random method of determining bloodline strength in lieu of allowing players to choose./quote][/COLOR][/FONT]

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6

Thanks, exactly this I’ve searched for! Seems to have changed a bit since I’ve read the last version…

Has indeed something of a PrC instead of a core class, maybe compared a bit with the Paragorn classes. Nice work again, but it does not convince me why not making blood abilites level dependant. I still don’t think, such a change makes the blood system really overpowered. If you’re not a regent, all (relevant) you get from this class are HDs, saves, blood score increase and use of better blood abilites. If you’re Azrai or Vorynn blooded, one nice gimmick extra. That extra class skill seems not to be a permanent class skill to me, only for this scion class, but if you say so, I trust you :wink:

Your quote is right too, that a weak major bloodline is not this difference compared to a strong minor bloodline, but I think, it’s OK as it is, especially if some blood abilited are adjusted a bit… :wink: