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View Full Version : [3.5] Need some morally questionable spells



Telonius
2010-11-05, 08:46 AM
Hello fellow playgrounders. As part of an ongoing Shackled City campaign, one of my characters is playing a Half-Orc Bard 10(houseruled to remove Cha penalty)/Sublime Chord 2. One of the aspects of his backstory is that he occasionally hears voices. Specifically, two voices. The first voice was that of a female, that he thought of as his muse. But when he took his first level of Sublime Chord, that voice left, to be replaced by a male voice. This voice is significantly more interested in guiding him towards more powerful spells.

After some consultation with the player about which way he wants the character development to go, I've decided to start dangling some spells in front of him. The team is currently researching a very spooky spellweaver ruin (Karran-Kural for anyone who's familiar with the campaign), and I think this would be an excellent place for him to find an old Spellweaver songbook, with the voice encouraging him to learn the spells within it.

What I need now are some suggestions for morally questionable spells. Not clear-cut evil spells; he's not going to go for Mindrape or Familicide or anything else that's obviously EVIL. What I need are spells that are kind of borderline. Something that, if you see it cast, you think, "Man, that was cold." Things that inflict a large amount of pain (maybe status?) without having the [Evil] descriptor, spells that have a high chance of collateral damage, spells that would destroy something in a particularly gruesome manner without being totally beyond the pale. The idea is that he's going to flirt with power, be tempted by it.

Any ideas?

hamishspence
2010-11-05, 08:50 AM
BoVD isn't all Evil spells- there are some that are just creepy.

Plenty of splatbooks have nasty ones. The Erupt spell in Serpent Kingdoms calls up lava, does a lot of fire damage over a large area- and ensures nothing at all will grow in that area for at least a year.

In Spell Compendium, there is a Mindrape-like spell without the [Evil] tag.

And so on.

mangosta71
2010-11-05, 09:06 AM
A lot of spells from the enchantment school have the potential to allow a character to make people do nasty things. Charm, dominate, suggestion...

For collateral damage, big AoE spells like Earthquake. Whirlwind might be even better, if you houserule that it slips from the caster's control after being summoned.

hamishspence
2010-11-05, 09:17 AM
A lot of spells from the enchantment school have the potential to allow a character to make people do nasty things. Charm, dominate...

True Dominate (Spell compendium) is the nastiest outside of Mindrape- being capable of forcing the target to do bad things to themselves.

I think there's a similar power (maybe psionic) that will cause the target to attempt suicide if there's an easy way close at hand to do so.

Cespenar
2010-11-05, 09:20 AM
Save-or-suck spells, like Fear, Bestow Curse, Contagion, Symbol of Pain, Baleful Polymorph, etc. seem like fitting what you ask.

jiriku
2010-11-05, 09:24 AM
Magic jar, cloudkill. Most any evocation.

gbprime
2010-11-05, 09:37 AM
Often it's a COMBO of spells that marks a ruthless use of magic. For example...

Blood Snow (Frostburn) followed by Hold Person or Web.

Look... Vampiric snow... and they can't move. Pity.

Slightly less nasty combos include...

Glass Strike (SC) followed by Shatter.

Flesh to Salt (and Mass version, awesome spell BTW) followed by ... water.

jiriku
2010-11-05, 09:47 AM
Often it's a COMBO of spells that marks a ruthless use of magic.

Ooooh, good point.

Mass hold person, cloudkill.
Ray of enfeeblement, summon undead IV (shadow).
Horrid wilting, chained extract water elemental.

GodGoblin
2010-11-05, 09:54 AM
Word of pain, is a LV1 sorcerer spell from the Dracominion or races of the Dragon I can never remember the difference.

Its very good for a lv 1 spell so he will want to spam it around. But its effect well hurts ALOT so I think it would be just what your looking for

Telonius
2010-11-05, 09:57 AM
Thanks, keep those suggestions coming! Found a few in SpC as well, to give you an idea of what I'm going for:

Mindless Rage (Brd2, SpC 142)
Miser’s Envy (Brd2, SpC 142)
Nightmare Lullabye (Brd2, SpC 147)
Revenance (Brd6, SpC 175)
Symphonic Nightmare (Brd6, SpC 219)
Spiritwall (Wiz5, SpC 203)
Burning Blood (Wiz4, SpC 40-41)
Probe Thoughts (Wiz6, SpC 162)
Wail of Doom (Brd5, SpC 233)

Not sure if combos are going to work, particularly with higher-level spells. This is a Sublime Chord we're talking about, not a straight-up Wizard or even a Sorcerer, so higher-level slots are at a premium.

The Mentalist
2010-11-05, 10:01 AM
Sanctify the Wicked from BoED.

Tiki Snakes
2010-11-05, 10:03 AM
Sanctify the Wicked from BoED.

Just don't describe it as that particular spell, give it a new name or something and yeah. Pretty much.

The Mentalist
2010-11-05, 10:13 AM
Just don't describe it as that particular spell, give it a new name or something and yeah. Pretty much.

So rename it the Ludvico Method.

Cyrion
2010-11-05, 10:17 AM
You might find it easier to work on getting him to use the spells in morally questionable ways, encouraged by the voice in a means-justifies-the-ends kind of argument. Most spells in D&D are cut-and-dried good/evil, or it's how they're used that's morally questionable.

Base a custom spell on the Channelled X spells from the SC, something that has variable effects, but to get the higher effects requires a greater sacrifice. Maybe for the most basic level of the spell it does damage to the caster. Do damage to a willing companion and the spell gets better. Do damage to an unwilling victim (the selection of which the bard has no control over, of course), and the spell is great.

mangosta71
2010-11-05, 01:37 PM
I think there's a similar power (maybe psionic) that will cause the target to attempt suicide if there's an easy way close at hand to do so.
Fourth level power called Death Urge. In the third level, you also have Crisis of Breath, which forces a target to spend a standard action every round to gasp for breath or making an increasingly difficult save to avoid dropping into negative hp. Imagine that in combination with a charm/dominate/suggestion. :smallamused:

But he's asking about spells, so this talk about psionics is a bit afield. There are spells that deal slashing damage (thousands of tiny crystals ripping through the target's body - all you have to do as a DM is describe the scene). If he can gain access to cleric spells, Destruction and Implosion could easily be described as fairly horrific.

Coidzor
2010-11-05, 01:42 PM
Programmed Amnesia? Geas/Quest?

Zaq
2010-11-06, 02:46 AM
Yeah, I'm gonna go with the generic "most of the iconic parts of the Enchantment school" answer on this one. Wresting control of someone's mind away from them is not, in my mind, something that capital-G Good people would even think about doing. As always, YMMV, but I find Enchantment to definitely be the skeeviest school of magic. (That said, I'll use it if I want to play a morally ambiguous or plain evil character. But on someone that I want to view as a good guy? Get that mind-control out of here, we'll just hack 'em to death with our swords.)

Mordokai
2010-11-06, 03:43 AM
Really? You consider making somebody stop in their tracks via compulsion effects more evil than hacking them to pieces/burning them alive/turning them to stone/whatever? I mean, sure, enchantements can be evil, but the most evil? I would hardly agree with that, but that just may be me.

On unrelated note, I highligted your signature. I now hate your guts :smalltongue:

gbprime
2010-11-06, 11:31 AM
Really? You consider making somebody stop in their tracks via compulsion effects more evil than hacking them to pieces/burning them alive/turning them to stone/whatever? I mean, sure, enchantements can be evil, but the most evil? I would hardly agree with that, but that just may be me.

I have to agree. The SPELL isn't evil, it's what you DO with it that might be evil. Throwing a compulsion on someone and getting them to stop fighting, tell you everything they know, then go visit their great aunt in Waterdeep is a LOT less evil than eviscerating them. IMO.

mangosta71
2010-11-06, 11:40 AM
Perhaps. But most people consider throwing a compulsion on someone and then forcing him to kill his loved ones to be worse than simply eviscerating him. Especially if he's aware of his actions while he's doing it.

gbprime
2010-11-06, 11:49 AM
Perhaps. But most people consider throwing a compulsion on someone and then forcing him to kill his loved ones to be worse than simply eviscerating him. Especially if he's aware of his actions while he's doing it.

The same can be said for holding a knife to someone's throat and forcing their father to do something vile. Neither the knife or the spell are evil, it's the person USING them.

ajkkjjk52
2010-11-08, 11:05 PM
No need to get fancy. Blindness/Deafess is permanent, so inflicting that on anyone you don't have a real grudge against (hapless dungeon guard, for instance) is pretty cruel.

Then again, in a world where most village priests can cast "Remove Curse," permanent is a relative term.

Coidzor
2010-11-08, 11:12 PM
The same can be said for holding a knife to someone's throat and forcing their father to do something vile. Neither the knife or the spell are evil, it's the person USING them.

Of course, unless the person is of questionable moral character, the spell's going to be simpler and more effective.

But, yeah... Not that many spells whose use is inherently morally questionable aside from mindrape and sanctify the wicked IIRC.

Aron Times
2010-11-08, 11:28 PM
Cure Light Wounds and its higher-level versions are very useful for keeping torture subjects alive. I can easily see a god of torture having the Healing domain just for this purpose.

Lev
2010-11-08, 11:31 PM
Boneshatter (sp?) from BoVD has a material component:
Bone of a child that still lives.

Set
2010-11-08, 11:39 PM
Bestow Curse has the option to craft your own curse, so long as it isn't stronger than the sample effects.

The potential for cruel custom curses, very specifically designed to make someone utterly miserable, is limited only by a warped imagination.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-11-09, 02:37 AM
Keeping in mind that at his next level he can learn up to 6th level spells from the Sorcerer/Wizard and Bard lists...

He can learn (Otto's) Irresistible Dance as a 6th level spell from the Bard list, and it can be particularly nasty, especially with a Rod of Extend or Maximize.

The Summon Undead line of spells are decent, the zombies and skeletons are typically better than what you would get with a Summon Monster spell of equal level, and you get more when choosing from a lower level list. He'll need to spend a feat on Requiem for them to benefit from Inspire Courage, but they're still useful without that.

Dirge is mean, stay away from that guy. Again a Rod of Extend or Widen would make it significantly better.

Iceberg in Frostburn is probably at the top of the list of collateral damage spells, it's 9th level but it would be something to look forward to. There's also Shivering Touch, which is more overpowered than mean, and Flesh to Ice. Control Temperature is downright mean if you cast it multiple times.