Would a blood knight skill be too similar to what's already been done? I'm thinking of making something like Necroeconomics for warriors--attacks and buffs that have a low cooldown, but involve sacrificing your own HP to create a "cast from HP" sort of skill. Negative righteous resistance will also be involved. Any interest?
Actually, I think that it might not be a bad idea - it reminds me of some of the attacks paladin class characters had in certain games. Though I think it should have positive righteous resistance if it was going to be a paladin class (but the whole idea isn't bad, regardless).
The blood magic phylactery skill works kind of this way, except, obviously, that its a magic skill. Also, if we're going to be a warrior or rogue who hurts ourself for effects we will, as noted above, need gobtons of HP. Particularly if this skill is to be worthwhile in Going Rogue, where HPs are in terribly short supply due to how slow characters heal (and the general expensiveness of food.) However, if you can figure out a way to make these things work then I say go for it! It sounds like fun.
One idea to consider: instead of making it derive purely off HP, try something a little different. For example, maybe have the buffs have a nice expensive repeating mana cost. Not something that's extraordinary, but something that is a little more than what a regular warrior type might handle comfortably. Then (not sure if this is possible), see if you can set up a trigger that keys off of the buff wearing off. Something very nasty (not necessarily Root nasty but still something painful). So the trick is they kind of become a walking bomb - using the ability gives them some nice perks, but if they can't keep their mana up, things go south fast. Risk vs Reward - what'll kill me first, my blood exploding, or the monster zoo I'm staring into?
The problem there is that there's nothing keeping a mage from using it. I'm also fairly sure that you can't trigger something off of a maintained spell being turned off.
Instead of directly costing , I think it should have a small direct cost, but with most of the cost being a short/ long temporary debuff, because otherwise it might be hard to consistently heal back up.. as for mages using this, isn't this a melee/ close ranged idea? Besides, mages get far less to work with anyway, so would you really be willing to use most of it for damage, when you have ? It might be a nice last resort skill for a mage though.
No, you can't. But adding a damaging effect to the player that would be a part of the buff, on the other hand, does seem possible.
Hey, all! Thanks for the discussion going on so far! My current plan would be for the first-level skill that grants some sort of psuedo-vampirism on hit at the cost of HP, at a static amount (with perhaps a little scaling depending on taxanomy); I think I can do that with a triggeronhit heal plus taxa-specific drain/heal effect. I don't want it to oust vampirism completely, but I intend for blood knights to use this source to get HP to fuel their spells, so it'll have to be carefully balanced. The costs would probably come from self-damage with a damage type that doesn't have much in the way of equipment that provides said resistance--I'm thinking or . would fit the flavour, but there are too many sources of resistance. They'd either be applied when the spells are used or at the end--for example, one skill I'm considering, Burning Adrenaline, would cause and bonuses that ramp up over the 12-turn duration (by calling 6 different 2-turn spells with differering effect trigger amounts), and on the last turn would create a medium-sized explosion about the user causing that would also constitute the health cost. I also plan to include some passives such as and bonuses on killing an enemy (much like blood mage's spirit steal) and a high-damage AoE centered about the user (a bit like Norwegian Axenado) at the cost of .
In a very abstract sense, would kind of make sense... losing blood, so you have less oxygen being delivered to the cells... um... something like that. Your cells are being asphyxiated. Yes. I don't entirely understand how you'd have a vampirism skill that costs HP - wouldn't that basically just be a damage proc that pays for itself? Unless you mean an activated ability that gives you vampirism for X turns but costs health on cast. I can see that working.
Yes, that'd be it; I failed to explain it clearly. A buff that gives you (psuedo)vampirism for a certain duration or certain number of hits, but costs HP to use.
