Blood Throne: the Dread Mage in Depth
Hey everyone, Reecius here with another article in the in-depth series. We were going to cover the Rogue, but AndresM over on Gamefound asked if we could learn about one of the magic users so I decided to oblige and so we will take a look at the most unique class in the Core Box: the Dread Mage!
To read the Fighter in depth article, click here.
To read the Barbarian in depth article, click here.
To read the Ranger in depth article, click here.
The Dread Mage is easily the least familiar class of all of the 12 classes in the core box. We intentionally wanted to go with familiar fantasy archetypes for the core box so that players would feel comfortable with them and hopefully intuitively understand what they all did. The Dread Mage is the exception to that.
So, much like the Ranger, the Dread Mage started out as a Necromancer that summoned undead. However, due to limitations in budget and space in the box, as with the Ranger, we had to pivot away from a summoner. I feel it was a blessing in disguise in the same way it was with the Ranger, and I was really happy with where the Dread Mage ended up. (But don’t worry, there will be a Necromancer class in the future, they are too fun not to include!)
The Dread Mage basically dropped the summoning skill tree and exchanged it for the crowd control skill tree. Crowd control is a very powerful set of abilities as they can dramatically impact the game. For those unfamiliar, crowd control abilities are those that stop, stun, control, or move other monsters or heroes. They don’t necessarily do damage but they stop the other model from doing what it wants to do. Particularly in PvP games, it can be frustrating to play against these types of abilities so we wanted to make them powerful but limited in number. No one wants to constantly have their own heroes not doing what they want!
Thematically, the Dread Mage is a magic user that uses the power of the void to control the minds of their enemies with fear, and to be able to drain their life force to increase their own vitality or that of their allies. In practice what this ends up being is a very versatile magic user that is surprisingly durable, does ranged damage, crowd controls enemies, and also serves as a minor healer.
The Dread Mage is the most intimidating hero to use initially as play testers didn’t really grasp the concept at first blush. It can also be very easy to misplay the Dread Mage. All that said, once play testers fully understood what the class was capable of, they loved to use them. I would say this is the highest skill cap class in the core box as they can do so many different things and you have to be familiar with all of their skills to get the most mileage out of them but when you do get your head wrapped around it, the Dread Mage is immensely rewarding to play.
Equipment Restrictions
The Dread Mage is an arcane archetype class, and all arcane classes have baseline equipment restrictions. They may not wear heavier than light armor, and they only have access to Arcane archetype weapons. We did this so that magic users look like magic users. There is flexibility of course, but in a game where you play with multiple heroes it is important to be able to identify what is what visually. Now, there are exceptions of course such as the Priest being able to wear up to Medium armor and equip a light shield to enable them to be played like a DnD style cleric hero, but as a baseline assume your mages will look more or less like mages.
Arcane classes do have access to some cool equipment that only they can access, such as the Arcane Staff, Arcane Focus and Wand. The Arcane Staff is only 3 damage dice base, but allows you to make Parry actions, has reach range and more importantly gives the bearer +1 Metaphysics which makes them better at casting spells which is what they will be doing most of the time.
The Wand is a ranged weapon that does a modest amount of raw damage (which bypasses armor and shields!) but uses the Metaphysics stat as the action modifier instead of Accuracy as would normally be the case with a ranged weapon. This lets Arcane classes have a unique ranged weapon that uses their main offensive stat to hit and doesn’t need them to have a high Power stat (which modifies damage) to get any mileage out of. It is a fun weapon players take quite frequently, and you can even take paired wands to make a magical cowboy style gunslinger mage if you want to!
Lastly, the Arcane Focus is a “stat stick” in video game parlance, meaning it takes up a hand slot and gives you +1 Metaphysics. Imagine a spell book or holy symbol a magic user is holding to get the idea. Frequently play testers would opt for a wand and arcane focus pair as a low encumbrance combo when making custom magic users.
So, that development note aside, the Dread Mage has limited equipment options compared to Martial classes but obviously, martial classes are defined by their equipment and magic users are defined by their magic so we felt it balanced out.
Mobile Casting
Another important rule mechanic to point out that applies to all classes but obviously will be used by Arcane Classes most frequently is the Mobile Casting rule. In Blood Throne most actions are classified as Standard Actions, which take up one of the 2 a hero has per Activation in addition to a single SImple Action. There are also Compound Actions which combine two actions into a single Standard Action, like Charging which is a Move+Melee Attack Action. Mobile Casting allows you to make a Move+Casting Action as a single Standard Action. You do so with an increased chance of failure, but it allows Arcane classes to stay mobile and not just sit in one place casting spells while all of the other models on the table run around having fun. It makes the game much more dynamic and we felt it was one of the best lessons we learned during play testing. However, keep in mind if you hold still and cast a spell on an ally or yourself it will often be an Automatic Success, meaning you don’t have to roll any dice. So choose wisely when deciding but you have the choice which is the important part!
Class Ability
The Dread Mage’s class ability is extremely good. Drain Vitality is a medium ranged spell that deals damage and heals the Dread Mage or an allied model within short range of the target model. The Dread Mage can take themself above their starting HP as well (called Temporary HP) to give themself a buff. Temporary HP only lasts a turn though FYI, if on their next turn they are above their starting HP they go back to their max value.
This ability can be upgraded multiple times with Feats. This is common with Arcane and Skill Classes where their schtick is their class skills so we wanted them to be able to be upgraded as the class leveled up to mirror martial classes being able to upgrade their equipment with enchantments and runes as they progress.
The Dread Mage can give allied models temporary HP, or increase the damage and healing of Drain Vitality twice which can ratchet up to a very powerful damaging spell and healing spell which is a very cool and unique ability to the Dread Mage.
The Dread Mage’s class ability is extremely good. Drain Vitality is a medium ranged spell that deals damage and heals the Dread Mage or an allied model within short range of the target model. The Dread Mage can take themself above their starting HP as well (called Temporary HP) to give themself a buff. Temporary HP only lasts a turn though FYI, if on their next turn they are above their starting HP they go back to their max value.
This ability can be upgraded multiple times with Feats. This is common with Arcane and Skill Classes where their schtick is their class skills so we wanted them to be able to be upgraded as the class leveled up to mirror martial classes being able to upgrade their equipment with enchantments and runes as they progress.
The Dread Mage can give allied models temporary HP, or increase the damage and healing of Drain Vitality twice which can ratchet up to a very powerful damaging spell and healing spell which is a very cool and unique ability to the Dread Mage.
Instill Fear is a level 1 spell and puts the Fear status effect on the target. Fear is a very powerful affliction. A model that has Fear cannot move within short range of the model that put Fear on them. What this means is that the Dread Mage can hit a key enemy monster or opposing hero, Fear them, and essentially block off a big section of the map to that model. Once you use it a few times you can start to get really creative, and other heroes can stand next to the Dread Mage to also benefit from the ability. Or, you can move the Dread Mage next to an objective and prevent an enemy model from getting near it!
To balance this obviously extremely powerful ability, a model can only be feared once per game from the same source. Meaning, once the Dread Mage fears a monster or enemy hero once, they cannot do it again to that same model. We did this to prevent a situation where one model basically does nothing all game which is not super fun.
Glimpse of the Void is also a level 1 spell and one I find myself using a ton. It is a medium ranged spell that does a modest amount of raw damage but more importantly pushes the target 2 movement points. This is like a long ranged version of Ranger Kick. You can push enemies out of combat with an ally, into combat with an ally, out of line of sight, into line of sight of an ally, off of an objective, etc. Just a very versatile spell.
Paralyze comes at level 2.Paralyze is crazy strong. A model that is paralyzed loses a turn, they get no actions. In a game that lasts 6 turns that is brutal. As this is so powerful, it is a once per game class skill so use it wisely.
Terrify comes at level 6 and as with all crowd control abilities, is brutally good. Terrify forces the target model to immediately turn away from the Dread Mage and move as far as possible away from them. So this does multiple things. For one, obviously it moves a key enemy away. But, it also makes them face away from you which means you are now out of line of sight so in most cases they have to use an action to turn around to get you back into line of sight to target you with any actions. It also means the Dread Mage and their allies can hit that model in the back which in Blood Throne is brutal as typically a model being hit in their rear arc cannot defend and the attacker gets a bonus. It also can get the Dread Mage out of engagement. This is critical as if you are engaged in combat and attempt to cast a spell, it triggers Attacks of Opportunity so obviously arcane classes typically do not want to be tagged in combat. There are lots of creative ways to use this ability, you can aim a monster into engagement with an allied martial hero for example so they get stuck, force a model off of an objective, etc. In a turn you use both this and paralyze in the same Activation it can completely change the flow of the entire game!
Secondary Skill Tree
The Dread Mage’s secondary skill tree is tanking, or defensive abilities. They can be surprisingly resilient for a magic user.
Dread Armor is a level 1 spell and one you will be putting in your deck frequently. It gives the Dread Mage the Armored blessing, which gives them +1 damage reduction for the entire game. This doesn’t require a lot of explanation! What I often like to do is give my Dread Mage light armor so they can use this spell and go up to damage reduction 2 which is really strong. You can upgrade this spell at level 6 with Reactive Dread Armor which deals 2 raw damage dice of damage to any model that hits the Dread Mage in melee. You can pop this and walk into a bunch of wimpy monsters, let them hit you for very little damage and they just splat themselves! There are some killer combos you can do with this which I will explain as we go! However, obviously a good spell and one you will be taking most games unless you plan on keeping your Dread Mage well in the back lines.
Pain Link is an absolutely fantastic spell that comes at level 4. It puts a unique curse on the target in which every time the Dread Mage takes damage, the pain linked model takes 2 raw dice of damage. You can upgrade this to 3 raw dice with the level 6 feat, Greater Pain Link. This spell is sneaky strong. As the Dread Mage can heal themself consistently, you can Pain Link a very durable enemy model and then intentionally put the Dread Mage into position to get hit and melt the pain linked target. One of my favorite tricks is to do this and run the Dread Mage with Dread Armor up into a bunch of wimpy enemies who hit the dread mage with a ton of attacks which don’t do much damage due to armor 2, but the pain linked monster gets roasted with a bucket of raw damage dice! It is a very strong spell and works great in PvE and PvP.
Death Denied is the Dread Mage’s ultimate ability and is a doozy. If the Dread Mage takes damage that would result in them being knocked out, they can make a free casting action targeting an enemy in range and line of sight, if it works the target model dies and the Dread Mage lives with 1 HP! Brutally effective if it works and such a psychological tool in PvP as if you have the card your opponent will be wary of trying to take the Dread Mage out.
Tertiary Skill Tree
Ranged DPS is the Dread Mage’s third area of expertise, and they have a single, but powerful spell in this category.
Vitality Vortex is a once per game spell that hits all viable targets with Drain Vitality, which is extremely strong. Not only can it deal a ton of damage it can give the Dread Mage a massive amount of temporary HP! This spell can truly wreak vast amounts of carnage if you time it right and get multiple targets into range.
Dread Mage Class Feats
Arcane Class feat trees tend to be different from Martial Classes. Whereas Martial Classes usually focus on giving you the option to do one of two things better at each juncture, like more offense or more defense, Arcane Classes will often have options to upgrade different spells or general upgrades to casting. This gets sprinkled in with thematic upgrades for that specific class but there is a lot more room for freestyling with Arcane classes when selecting feats. Since they always focus on casting spells, you can lean into different build ideas with a lot of freedom.
At level 2 you can either upgrade Drain Vitality to grant allies Temporary HP via Unnatural Vitality or you can increase the range of all spells by +1 square with Reaching Spells. Now, to a new player +1 square seems kind of lackluster but remember, denial abilities are almost always Medium Range. As offensive spells are almost always Medium Range as well, if you can cast at 1 square outside of the range of an opposing model’s ability to attempt to deny your spell, it is actually really good! It just depends on how you play. If your Dread Mage is getting up in the mix then it won’t matter as you will be in range for denial most of the time anyway. If you play a hang back and shoot style Dread Mage, the range enhancement is solid gold.
At level 4 you can either take Life Siphon which increases the damage and healing of Drain Vitality by +1 raw damage dice or you can get a flat +1 Metaphysics which increases the odds of successfully casting all spells via Necrothaumatic Resonance. Both are fantastic choices and it comes down to if you want your Dread Mage to be more of a DPS build or you want to more reliably get your crowd control spells off.
At level 6 you can either upgrade Pain Link to deal more damage via Greater Pain Link, or have Dread Armor deal reactive damage to anyone that hits you in melee with Reactive Dread Armor. Obviously it comes down to which of these two spells you prefer to use more!
Finally at level 8 you can upgrade Drain Vitality again through Life Stealer which adds +1 raw damage dice to damage and healing (and yes this can stack with Life Siphon to really make this spell powerful!). Or you can take the thematic Revenge Beyond Death which creates a medium Range bubble around the Dread Mage in which any time an allied model is Knocked Out they deal automatic reactive 3 raw dice of damage to the model that knocked them out!
Playing Tatianne
Tatianne is built very specifically to have high offensive stats and to be able to take a surprising amount of damage. She has a whopping 6 metaphysics which is extremely good. This means she will almost always get her spells off.
As a refresher, when seeing if you successfully complete an action you compare your offensive action modifier to their defensive modifier and roll the difference plus the action dice. As her spells often target the Will defense, all you have to do is go back and look at some of the Heroes we have already previewed to see they typically have a Will of 1 or 2. This means she will frequently be rolling the Action Dice plus 4 or 5 modifier dice which means she is getting her crowd control spells off with an extremely high probability of success. Her offensive spells typically target Fortitude and that is usually lower than Evasion so even against Martial Classes which tend to have high Fortitude, it is still easier to overcome than their Evasion. This is what makes Arcane Classes so versatile, they can pick and choose which spells to use to most effectively pick at the weaknesses of their beefier opponents. Long story short, Tatianne rarely fails to do what she wants with her spells if you use them correctly.
She also has a respectable Power of 2, which is added to the damage of spells like Drain Vitality. You can bump this stat once again as you go through the game meaning you can add more damage dice to an already strong spell!
She also has a surprisingly high HP at 16! That is equal to Grey Wolf and higher than Dalnon (the Rogue) both of which are martial Classes which start with quite a bit more HP than Arcane Classes. She wears Light Armor to further reduce incoming damage and of course with her various spells to steal life and deal damage back when she is hit she is surprisingly tough. She also has a very solid Will and Fortitude defense of 4 to defend against special actions.
The downside to all of this awesome is she has an abysmal Evasion of 1, pretty much the lowest you can get. This means she is very vulnerable to physical attacks. Much like Kijo, she is not trying to avoid being hit but to be able to absorb the hits. With Dread Armor she goes up to Damage Reduction 2 which is very good but she still can’t just wade into strong enemies at low level and expect to take it all as if she were a tank like Ajax. She can take a few hits without worrying and then heal herself with Drain Vitality, so you still need to be careful but she is not nearly as vulnerable as most Arcane Classes are.
She has a solid Constitution of 2 so she will be gaining +3 HP every odd level, meaning once she has leveled up a few times and if you sprinkle in some good defensive magical items she can start to become very tanky and then many of the combos I mentioned earlier open up to you!
Tatianne also has a very strong 4 Class Skill selections. This means at level 1 you just take all of your available Class Skills and an extra General Skill. As you level up you get access to more skill selections so she doesn’t feel like she has to miss out on choices and you can keep increasing the number of skills she can pick so that by end game you can basically have a deck with all of her Class Skills in it if you want to! This flexibility makes her incredibly fun to play but as I had mentioned earlier, a bit intimidating to a newer player. She is for sure the highest skill cap hero in the core box as she has so many cool abilities and creative ways to use said abilities. She is the type of hero that if played poorly does nothing and feels weak, but if played correctly controls the flow of the battle, deals damage, heals allies, and uses tricks to take out tough monsters without even directly attacking them!
A great tip is to focus on the most powerful or most threatening monster to take it out of play for a while with a crowd control ability, allowing your other heroes to focus on either sweeping out the chaff monsters or running for critical objectives. Alternatively, you can hit a key monster or hero and while they are vulnerable, gang up on them with all of your other heroes!
As a Revenant, Tatianne has the Cold Touch of Death Heritage ability. This allows her to attempt to Stun an enemy once per game in a reach range, which is really strong. Revenants are humans that are dead, but their soul is trapped in their body, unable to move into the Celestial Plane. They are not like Zombies who are rotting and eat flesh, they look largely normal other than a deathly pale pallor and an aura of unease they put off, but they require Dehvathae to survive. This forces them to use the horrible resource while they desperately seek a cure for their undeath. They are essentially unwilling soul vampires to put it in simple terms. The lore for her faction is really fun but we will save that for a later date.
When making your own Dread Mage you want to think about what their role will be. Are they going to hang back and focus on crowd control and stealing life from enemies to give to heroes that are in the fight? Or are they going to get in the fight themself and use their defensive abilities to deal damage to enemies and focus on stealing life for themself? You can build a super tanky Dread Mage that runs into the thick of things or a super fragile Dread Mage that puts more stat points into offense and go for a control/DPS build that tries to avoid damage.
In PvP, a Dread Mage that has leveled up even just a few times is very intimidating as you know they will have the ability to use the game changing status effects Paralyze, Fear and Terrify. These are brutal when used at the right time so you want to focus on either trying to take the Dread Mage out ASAP, or having a denial class in range to try and stop them when they inevitably come up. Mobile, hard hitting classes like the Rogue are built to take out arcane classes, the Ranger is also a mage assassin so if you see your opponent take a class like the Dread Mage, counter with one of these classes if you can.
We had a lot of fun mechanics to cover in this game which made it a bit longer than usual but if you made it this far, thanks for reading! If anyone has a request for the next class to cover, please just ask.