Hin bloodmage?

[Zahlfire]

Hello, just recently returned to this lovely little community. Decided to roll up another Hin but a mage this time. I'm wanting to pick up Blood Mage, and maybe Pale Master. That's not necessary though. I've been away for a few and the little bit of character building skill I had has diminished. What would be the best way to go about this character? Strongheart Halfling obviously, but would a Sorc or a Wiz work better to get BloodM in this? I've never attempted a hin mage before.

[MistyMountain]

Might as well pick up shadowdancer since you get extra dex and are better at hiding. Wizard is better with shadowdancer because you have the int you need to buy a lot of cross-classed skills. You'd take shadowdancer 1-3 from lvl 18-20 to follow 3b20 rule. Those three levels plus the one caster level you lose in bloodmage will get covered by practiced spellcaster. For your fourth class I would recommend archmage, but maybe palemaster is possible too. With archmage/bloodmage you can get casterlevel 35 for +5 epic bonus to your spell DCs and devastating Mords.

[Lockonnow]

when you pick you bloodmagus remember you need lots of con couse there is a so ablilits that use con so you need like 22 or 24 or more to make a some dmg from those abilits

[chad878262]

While HiPS Mage is easier for the less skilled mage players (like me!) Wizard is not strictly speaking always better with it. For example if you are going Blood Magus and PaleMaster you are losing 5 caster levels so adding in Shadow Dancer drops that to 8... Thus even using Blood Component and Blood Seeking Spell with Practiced Caster your CL is only 29... In this case you'd be better off dropping SD since PaleMaster has defenses enough to not require HiPS. So I would pick either SD or PM to add to your build, but not both.

Honestly you would be perfectly fine going W20/BM10 and will have 2 extra epic feats at W15 and 20 to help drive up your DC's more. However, if you are looking for powerbuilding advice I would recommend something like W20/SA3/BM7 which will give you 2 DC bonus to Necromancy, illusion and enchantment spells. Though transmutation and evocation DC's will suffer, it just depends on what you're trying to do with your build.

[Zahlfire]

Thanks for the advice! I'm not really trying to powerbuild, just don't want to make a character that will be gimped when it doesn't need to be. I might give the W20/BM10 a shot. I'm not going to attempt a SA again for a while, building the backstory is too much effort for a character that I'm not 100% sure I'm going to be dedicated to.

[Invoker]

Thanks for the advice! I'm not really trying to powerbuild, just don't want to make a character that will be gimped when it doesn't need to be. I might give the W20/BM10 a shot. I'm not going to attempt a SA again for a while, building the backstory is too much effort for a character that I'm not 100% sure I'm going to be dedicated to.

If you pick up Improved Combat Expertise, an Epic Spell Focus in your preferred school, a couple of epic spells (one of which should be Vampiric Feast) and you get a base INT of 30 or more (34 with +4 Band of Intellect), you will be extremely satisfied with the character. It's going to be very powerful.

A small modification I would (not, personally...for RP reasons) make is to stop with BM at 9.

21 Wizard/9 BM means CL 30 with only Blood Component active, and 32 with Bloodseeking Spell (exactly +4 Epic CL DC), which gives you the possibility to forgo Practiced Spellcaster for something actually useful (Extend, Quicken, Empower, Maximise Spell, Spell Focus + Greater Spell Focus of choice, CE and ICE as mentioned above, Improved Familiar...it's a long list).

BM 10 gives you a +1 on Fortitude, +2 HP and a very weak, half-working version of Bloodwalk. -1 CL is a bit much to give up for such return, unless you RP some sort of "Blood King" or have similar reasons for unlocking all BM has to offer, so an RP choice vs mechanical one (but with such a character, you'll always be absolutely fine, mechanically speaking).

[Tsidkenu]

Yeah people forget BM 10 is an 8/10 spellcasting progression class. You lose CL at 5th & 10th (should really be 4th & 9th, cuz the +2 perma CON perk at 9th is superior than the 10th level perk, hence Invoker's suggestion to stop BM at 9).

[MrPsion]

There could be a benefit in taking advantage of the rogue favored class, perhaps even multiclassing into arcane trickster. Blood magic is officially chaotic but it is widely perceived to be evil. A character who is able to lie and conceal things well would be longer lived.

[Invoker]

There could be a benefit in taking advantage of the rogue favored class, perhaps even multiclassing into arcane trickster. Blood magic is officially chaotic but it is widely perceived to be evil. A character who is able to lie and conceal things well would be longer lived.

The CL loss would be crippling, not to mention how problematic it would be to land SA without HiPS. Investing in Feint is completely out of the question (full-slotted with dedicated equipment is necessary, as well as decent CHA).

Blood Magic is easy to conceal, and even without using any of its active, detectable powers the mage would work perfectly well. Moreover, maxing Bluff with such INT value wouldn't be an issue, if need be.

Killing a Blood Magus who does not want to be killed and refuses to take big risks is, for all practical purposes, near impossible (mainly because of the scars, and the fact it's too solid to get one-shot).