On the Blue Mage

A Blue Mage is a Spellcaster that gains abilities by experiencing monster attacks. This allows them to use attacks exclusive to monsters or enemies. The downside is that they must be subject to the attacks first. This is a Labyrinth Lord Class.

Experience  Level Energy Hit Dice (1d6)
0 1  1 1
1,500 2  3 2
3,000 3  4 3
5,000 4  6 4
10,000 5  7  5
20,000 6  10 6
40,000 7  12  7
90,000 8 14  8
180,000 9  16  9
280,000 10  17  +2 hp only
400,000 11  18  +4 hp only
540,000 12  19  +6 hp only
660,000 13  20  +8 hp only
780,000 14  21  +10 hp only
900,000 15  22  +11 hp only
1,100,000 16  23  +12 hp only
1,300,000 17  24  +13 hp only
1,500,000 18  25 +14 hp only
1,700,000 19  26  +15 hp only
1,900,000 20 27  +16 hp only


Level Breath Attacks Poison or Death Ray Petrification or Paralyzation Rods, Staves, and Wands Spells
1 16 14 13 15 15
2-3 14 12 10 15 14
4 10 8 7 13 13
5-6 8 7 6 13 12 
7-8 8 6 5 11 11 
9-12 6 5 4 11 10 
13-16 6 4 3 9 9 
17-19 4 4 2 9 8 
20 2 3 2 7 7 

They fight as a Fighter. They may not use any armor and may only use daggers, light hammers, clubs, and slings. If for any reason they receive training or proficiency in any other weapon, they fight as a Thief.

Blue Energy: Blue Mages have Energy. Their constitution modifier affects their energy pool. A first level Blue Mage with a Constitution of 16 has 3 points in their energy pool.

Blue Missile: Blue Mages can conjure and fire a bolt of force. This bolt is as a long bow arrow and they may fire it as a fighter of their level proficient with a long bow. It costs 1 energy to use and does 2-9 damage. This does not count against the limit of their spells and abilities

Blue Magic:

  • Blue Mages may learn special monster attacks and abilities once they have been the target of them. 
  • Once targeted by an ability they may choose to learn the monster ability. 
  • Learning an ability takes 1 turn after combat.
  • They then may use the monster ability by expending 1 energy point. 
  • Blue Mages may also learn spells, by being the target of a spell. This takes 1 turn after being the target of the spell.
  • They can then use the spells by expending a number of energy points equal to the spell level. 
  • Blue Mages may not know more spells and abilities total greater than their level + their Constitution modifier.
  • The ability or spell is learned, even if the Blue Mage dies from the attack.
  • If the Blue Mage is protected by spell resistance or a globe of invulnerability, they will not learn the ability. They must be affected, personally, by the ability
  • They may learn an ability regardless of the success or failure of their saving throw versus the attack.
  • They must be a target of a spell or ability to learn it, seeing it is not enough.
  • Energy points are refreshed after a nights rest.
Azure Consumption: The Blue Mage can attempt to learn passive or defensive abilities from creatures by eating them. They must save versus poison after consuming a corpse to learn the ability. Otherwise they are sick and vomit up the corpse which is ruined. A whole corpse must be consumed and this takes 1 turn.

Each of these passive abilities counts against the total number of abilities the Blue Mage can learn. Each passive ability 1 point of energy to maintain, reducing the available energy to cast blue magic. These abilities are always 'on' and cannot be turned off to regain access to the reserved energy points.


Examples of Blue Magic:
Surviving a Basilisks gaze, will grant the ability to petrify. Touching an opponent can force a save versus petrify to avoid being turned to stone
Surviving a Bat's Confusion swarm effect, will grant the ability to confuse opponents. Select a target to be the subject of a phantasmal bat swarm. While under the effect of this swarm, an opponent makes all to hit and saving throw rolls with a penalty of -2 and no spell casting is possible.
Surviving a Bear Hug. The caster grows claws and can attack as a bear, with 1-3 damage with each melee attack, and an additional 2-16 damage if both attacks hit.
Giant Killer Bee poison. The caster grows a stinger (on their hand, forehead, wherever) and can make an attack with it. On a successful attack the opponent must save versus poison or die. If they survive, they take 1 damage a round from the stinger. The stinger being ripped out is painful, and the caster takes 2d6 points of damage.
Surviving a Red Dragon's Breath. After surviving a breath from a dragon, the Blue Mage may spend 1/3 of their total Energy Points points to breath flame. This is a cone 90' long, and 30' wide at the terminus. Creatures within this cone take damage equal to the current hit point total of the Blue Mage, but may save vs. Breath Weapon for half damage

Examples of Azure Consumption:
Eating a Fire Beetle, will grant the ability of biolumisence. The caster can cause a part of their body to glow, casting light out to a distance of 10'
Eating a Displacer Beast, will grant the ability of displacement, subtracting 2 from all opponent's to hit rolls and giving a bonus of +2 to all saving throws

After battle, the DM should delineate the complete abilities available for the Blue Mage to learn, and allow them to decide if they want to learn them or not. It takes 1 turn to learn an ability. If a Blue Mage knows the maximum number of abilities they can learn, they have the option to trade out new abilities for old ones. The ability is a magical effect which means, for example, the caster doesn't actually have to fly around opponents to confuse them.

Conversions should be made so that the Blue Mage can have useful abilities of the opponents in the spirit of the original ability e.g. Dragons breath takes 1/3 of the energy points because Dragons can use it 3/day, The stinger of the killer bee doesn't kill the caster, but does hurt him.

Conversions:
1st Edition: Abilities learned are permanent, and may not be traded out.
S&W: Blue mages have a saving throw of 15 (as a magic user) and have a +6 versus any monster effects or attacks

A 3.5 version is here.
A Pathfinder version is here.

This post was originally published on 2/26/13, and is available in digital & print in Hack & Slash Blog Collection III
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