Blood Witch (Half-Orc, Witch Archetype)

While half-orcs wizards seek to increase their battle prowess through the use of fire-based spells, blood witches shed their own blood or the blood of their enemies to fuel and enhance their magic. (*The Blood Witch racial archetype was inspired by the Blood Mage concept by isdestroyer.)

Class Features

The blood witch has the following class features.

Blood Athame (Su)

A blood witch uses a special slashing or piercing weapon to perform her blood rituals (see Blood Sacrifice). She gains proficiency with all light slashing and piercing melee weapons, in addition to those weapons granted by the witch class. At 1st level, a blood witch selects one slashing or piercing weapon that she is proficient with as her blood athame. Whenever the blood witch deals bleed damage with her blood athame, the save DC of any hex used against the target of the bleed damage increases by +1.

At 3rd level, whenever a blood witch deals damage with her blood athame, she can also choose to deal bleed damage to her target. As a swift action, the blood witch can use her blood athame to deal slashing or piercing damage to herself, up to her Intelligence modifier. This damage counts against her daily total of self-inflicted bleed damage (see Blood Sacrifice). Any successful blood athame attacks made against a creature during this round also deals bleed damage equal to the amount of damage she inflicted on herself.

Blood Sacrifice (Su)

At 1st level, a blood witch learns the secrets of the long forgotten art of blood magic to fuel her spells and her blood athame. At 1st level, a blood witch can deal an amount of bleed damage to herself per day equal to her blood witch level + her Constitution modifier. She can use her blood to cast a prepared spell without expending the spell slot by sacrificing 1 point of bleed damage per level of the spell. The maximum number of spells of each spell level that the blood witch can spontanteously cast using blood sacrifice cannot exceed her Constitution modifier. For example, a blood witch with a Constitution score of 16 can only spontaneously cast three spells of each spell level using blood sacrifice.

A blood witch can also forego a spell’s costly material component requirements by sacrificing 1 point of Constitution damage per 100 gp of the component’s value. If her Constitution is reduced to 1 through the use of this ability, she immediately falls unconscious. Constitution damage taken through blood sacrifice cannot be healed magically (cure light wounds, restoration, etc.), only by natural healing at the rate of 1 point of Constitution per day. Temporary hit points cannot be used as part of the bleed damage required to use this ability.

At 5th level, a blood witch can spontaneously cast a prepared spell as if it had been prepared using the Empower Spell, Enlarge Spell, Extend Spell, Intensified Spell, Maximized Spell, Silent Spell, Still Spell, or Widen Spell metamagic feat by sacrificing an amount of bleed damage equal to twice the feat’s level increase, plus bleed damage equal to the spell’s level. She must prepare the spell in a higher level spell slot as normal. If the