Alternate Bloodtheft Method....There Can Be Only One!!!

[MatanThunder]

On of my older sons DM'd my campaign, and we accepted a very logical (if borrowed) method of bloodtheft.

Of course I am talking about the cutting off of the blooded's head and thereby accomplishing bloodtheft.

We felt it was totally in line with the severing of a bloodline/power and the draining of the blood powers into the beheader.

Of course it is also a part of cinema, but it does have the same fantasy connections for draining away the powers of the defeated to the winner.

Later

YOUR soul in mine.....oh another cinema power theft technique.

[prince_dios]

Hmm... traditionally, there was extra significance attached the heart by humans of bygone days. "Lion-hearted", "Heart of Gold", and so on. I'd assumed some of this was reflected in the metaphysics of Cerillia.

And my *expletive* players give me enough Highlander jokes as it is.

[Jaleela]

What about those characters that possess Invulnerability?

They can only be slain in a certain way. If all those conditions aren't met, that head might not be "dead". If the character that was slain was popular with their friends or minions, they just might come callin'.

Side thought: Which always makes me wonder about that specific blood ability. Can a character withstand a thrust to the heart and survive if it is not part of the condition that can kill them?

[AndrewTall]

What about those characters that possess Invulnerability?

They can only be slain in a certain way. If all those conditions aren't met, that head might not be "dead". If the character that was slain was popular with their friends or minions, they just might come callin'.

Side thought: Which always makes me wonder about that specific blood ability. Can a character withstand a thrust to the heart and survive if it is not part of the condition that can kill them?

There is also the death-door rule position...

To me the death od a scion had to be suitably dramaticfor blood theft to occur - the death of the thousand cuts wasn't good enough, it had to be a critical hit of some sort to do the job. Furhter from a practical point of view any called shot was at a penalty of 4, or 8 if the target was difficult... Making bloodtheft very difficulty, particularly given that most people wouldn't know the hp of their foe. As far as I could see the original rules made bloodtheft a coup-de-grace transfer only - unless the DM simply ruled that the killing blow was to the heart. The BRCS avoids the issue neatly probably b/c of these problems.

Invulnerability has been discussed a few times before - personally I think that it is overpowered, I'd say that you come back less half your bloodline - which is taken / wasted as usual. That way dying is still something to try and avoid rather than a temporary inconvenience explaining why certain awnies don't rampage constantly in the knoweldge that they are unkillable.

Alternatively I quite like the concept of invulnerability by corruption of the new host approach for scions of Azrai - kill the spider, grow more legs as the invulnerable bloodline finds a new host, in his case you may even find several new personalities walking around inside your head...

[MatanThunder]

For me the idea of "Bloodtheft" lie in that final death rapid death dealing strike where the power of blood abilities doesn't leach slowly away as death approaches.

That is why I allow it in my game.

There is also a spell in the "Tome of Dark Magic" off the net, that goes even farther, and allows for the transference of experience points (and possilbly class abilities temporarily) to the slayer on that final single death blow idea.

As to the post about invulnerability or true special death issues, bloodtheft becomes more problimatic. If the Gorgon or others need to be slain in specific manners, then it may be that their blooded essences are beyond the normal methods of acquistion. Although I am sure there is some spell hurler in the Multiverse who could come up with a spell that could contain it for assumption at a later time.

Just my two cents on that issue.

Later