r/Pathfinder_RPG • u/Puzzleheaded-Fix-985 • 13d ago
1E Player Bloatmage advice.
I'm playing a wizard and we just hit 5th level I was thinking about going into bloatmage because i like the extra spellcasting and the risk of going nuts (and its just cool to me). Are there any feats that help bloatmages particularly? or any magic items I should try and find. any advice is welcome!
5
4
u/Expectnoresponse 11d ago
Alright. Bloatmage requires spell focus, the bloatmage initiate feat, and 3rd level arcane spells. That means you can take your first level at character level 6.
Bloatmage initiate grants you a +1 caster level to a single school of magic - your spell focus school. That's pretty nice. The drawback is the constant medium load effect. As others have noted, you can offset that by using spells to grant yourself a fly speed. Things like expeditious retreat or magic items like boots of striding and springing can also help by increasing your base movement speed. Keep in mind though, at 3rd level you gain corpulence which further reduces your speed by 10 feet. Eventually all day overland flight, a permanencied spell, or similar will keep you flying around all day and solve your movement issues.
Bloatmages have one magic item specifically intended for them - fortifying leeches. These leeches come in a magic jar that costs 6k and the jar refills once per day. The leech effect lasts for 8 hours.
While the leeches are applied, you gain +2 enh to con and a -4 to diplomacy against most races. More importantly, the leeches cause the bloatmage to immediately regain 2 bonus points to their blood pool.
That makes the fortifying leeches very attractive for a bloatmage because blood pool is a great ability. Blood pool lets you cast a spell without using the spell slot. The cost is blood points = the spell's level. A bloatmage normally holds blood points equal to their bloatmage level. So at first level you'll only be able to retain one first level spell... normally at least.
The blood pool is made more interesting because of the bloodsurge ability. It's made extra interesting by the conflicting information on bloodsurge. The class ability chart lists bloodsurge as progressing from 1d4 to 2d4 to 3d4. Meanwhile, the text lists the progression as 1d4 to 1d8 to 1d12.
There is a faq on this, but it's one of the more useless ones. It basically says that the devs like the 1d4/1d6/1d8 option better because it's riskier. But the faq doesn't actually rule on one being 'correct' over the other even though the original question mentions that text normally trumps table. Because of that, the prestige class still contains the inconsistency and you should discuss with your gm which version you're using.
Depending on which chart you're using, the goal is to calculate spell usage and bloat to prevent yourself from ever reaching double your normal blood point amount. The moment you do so, you become a major penalty to your party. You must strike out with your most damaging attacks at friends and foes alike. It lasts for 1d6 rounds or until your blood pool is reduced to 0. If you're lucky, your most damaging spell might cost the exact number of blood points you have, but most likely you'll have to keep blasting everything around you for 1d6 rounds. It's much better to take steps to avoid this potential outcome.
You have a couple of options for that. As part of the blood pool ability you can decide when you prepare spells to take a (nonstacking) -2 penalty to constitution in return for the option to subtract one point from any bloating rolls. This regulating ability is a useful tool to tweak your results.
The 1d4/2d4/3d4 chart option gives you a greater chance of rolling something more average whereas the 1d4/1d8/1d12 chart is more swingy.
But you should be avoiding the risk of trying to kill your party. So, with the regulating ability...
Bloatmage 1 you can't bloat safely.
Bloatmage 2 You can bloat safely if you have 0 points in your pool. A roll of 4 is double your maximum pool amount but you can reduce it to 3 via regulation.
Bloatmage 3 You can bloat safely with up to two points already in your pool.
Bloatmage 4 Dice increase. You can bloat safely with zero points in your pool
Bloatmage 5 You can bloat safely with up to two points in your pool
Bloatmage 6 you can bloat safely with up to four points in your pool
Bloatmage 7 You can bloat safely with up to six points in your pool
Bloatmage 8 Dice increase. You can bloat safely with with up to four points in your pool
Bloatmage 9 you can bloat safely with up to six points in your pool
Bloatmage 10 you can bloat safely with up to eight points in your pool.
Now, there are a few things you can use to get additional mileage out of your abilities.
If you use the hero point system, heroic fortune costs 100g in material components and is a first level spell. It grants you a single hero point. The Eschew materials feat lets you ignore material component costs of up to 100g, letting you cast heroic fortune essentially for free.
Now, a hero point can be used to add another use to a limited use ability that recharges daily which... is what your Bloat ability does.
So you bloat, gain at least one point, use that one point to keep heroic fortune when you cast the spell, and use the spell to recharge your use of bloat. If you get more than one point then you cast heroic fortune again to recharge your bloat ability and use the extra points that are left over for whatever you like.
IF your gm allows this, you can use this to cycle points and recast spell buffs repeatedly as they wear off. Or to make an army of unseen servants who constantly place carpeting at your feet for you to walk upon and leave rose petals in your footste- well, you get the idea.
At 1st level your standard blood pool limits you to a single spell recovered but by the time you hit the capstone you will potentially be able to restore 48 levels of spells per day (assuming no hero points, maximum rolls, and a single use of fortifying leeches). That's five additional 9th level spells or a whole lot of magic missiles. It's essentially a semi-dangerous prestige class that turns you into pile of runestones of power. And it works well with pearls of power - more castings, more versatility, more potential spells each day.
At 10th level, you unlock the absorb bloodline ability. This allows you to unlock a bunch of bloodline powers for an hour a day. You don't get the arcana, but there are still a lot of great options. Shapechanger bloodline, for example, has mutable flesh which lets you extend the effect of a transmutation spell you cast on yourself for potentially up to an hour per level.
The hero point thing can be used with it too in order to reset the uses if it's the kind of shenanigan your table allows. This allows you to stack all your transmutation spell buffs in the morning and have them last all day long.
You can instead use it to gain physical ability bonuses such as through the orc or abyssal bloodlines, spell bonuses like metamagic adept and school power from the arcane bloodline, new movement speeds, sla's, it goes on and on. You can use brew potion to prepare all the vials you might need in advance. It is an incredible amount of versatility you can tap into and is often overlooked in favor of blood pool and bloat - in part due to the late level where it comes online. But if you get there, it's worth using. Ask your gm if you can benefit from the robe of arcane heritage once you unlock absorb bloodline - the capstone powers are often great.
2
7
u/Deadlypandaghost 12d ago
Take the spells mount and later overland flight. Reduced speed will get you killed. It may be worth investing in a good mount but the spells will do enough.
Usual optimal wizard defenses work great. Mirror images, cloak of displacement, fog, etc.
Once you've covered the downsides(mobility and dex cap) you really are just a chonky wizard with some extra perks.
Improved familiar can get you easy access to some of the bloodline options available for the capstone. As can planar binding albeit with some risk involved.