Blood Magic (3.5e Variant Rule)

Blood Magic
As wizards draw from the leylines of magic around the universe, clerics draw from gods, psions draw from the mind, and binders draw from beyond time and space, those who use blood magic draw on a source, the living, vital energy held within the body and particularly the blood. Through sacrifice of health, they achieve great acts of magic. The methods employed in blood magic are superficially similar to other systems, but all share one thing in common; hp cost and spell fatigue.

All blood magic spells cost some amount of health, which is subtracted from your current hit points. If a spell would render you unconscious as part of casting, you fall unconscious before you can complete the spell. Hit points may be restored in any usual manner.

Spell fatigue builds up as you cast, preventing blood magic users from casting indefinitely. When the spell fatigue exceeds the maximum spell fatigue allowed for the character, they will be unable to cast that blood spell. Spell fatigue is removed through the usual 8 hours of rest required by most spellcasters.

Besides hp loss and spell fatigue, all other properties of blood magic function identically to traditional spellcasting.

Blood magic is also versatile. Quick sacrifices provide rapid results, but a sacrifice can be drawn out, often involving longer casting times, additional components, additional fatigue or hit point loss, or experience loss. These "ritual" versions of the spell are usually more powerful but ill suited for tense situations. Any differences between the standard and ritual casting of a blood magic spell is noted in the spell description, with ritual differences noted in parenthesis.

See blood spells for a list of all blood spells.