Curses, afflictions and debilities

[Patsy]

Ok, so I've got a druid player who's planning to make a journey alone through enemy territory, during the end-game portion of our campaign. I want to emphasize how dangerous this is by having her ambushed along the way by some recurring villains- a cabal of half-fiend orc clerics of Mephistopheles.

The encounter shouldn't necessarily be overwhelming for her, particularly since her character puts a premium on staying very much alive. If things go the worse for her, however, I'd rather not have her actually die at this point, but I'd like for her to come away from the battle with something memorable.

The party's all level 8-9, and so would have little trouble curing ability damage, poison or normal diseases. I had some great results infecting a PC with lycanthropy earlier in the campaign- can you clever guys think of something similar to that I could use?
My other options include killing her animal companion, having the clerics merely hold her at their mercy and then order her to take a message to the rest of the party, things like that.

In short, then- what are some nasty non-lethal things I can inflict on a player?

[whibla]

Either a Mark of Justice or a straight Bestow Curse can make life 'difficult' for a player. Mark of Justice has the advantage that there is no saving throw vs. the effect.

However, as a standard spell it suffers from the fact that it can be removed by a Break Enchantment spell, unless it is Heightened, using the metamagic feat. Break Enchantment will only work if the spell is 5th level or lower, so a Mark of Justice heightened to a 6th level spell is not subject to Breaking.

There are a couple of high level curse spells that also operate in a similar fashion, or can only be dispelled by a caster of a higher level than the one who cast the curse.

The effects of the Curse, or triggering condition of the Mark, are at your discretion.

[rweird]

Maybe Greater Bestow Curse from a scroll, if you have the book it is from. Use it to reduce an ability score to 1, I'd recomend Str, Dex, or Char. Not Con because it will make the character sufffer an unfourtunant end due to lack of HP, not Wisdom because fully deniying casting is a bit harsh considering removing it will be a real pain snd take a long time, and not Int because it will make her unable to communicate, cutting out role play opportunitys, seeing as she won't know what is going on or be able to speak IG. Normal bestow curse on Int, Wis, and Con could work. You could use the curse that stops animals from obeying or approaching her, if you feel mean and have BoVD (I think that's the book it is from though I'm not certain, I don't have BoVD myself). I know Greater Bestow Curse is in Races of Destiny, though SC, snd CD have it as well, i don't think any of them have the animal part.

[Downysole]

Make sure the bad guys take a bit of the natural body...then later when the character dies, she can be reincarnated and used as an NPC. Just imagine if they tried to resurrect her only to find that her soul was not available... Talk about a non-lethal way to mess with someone...

In retrospect, I will never do this to one of my players. That's way cruel.

Then again, if she wants to play another character at that point, the reincarnated druid could become a good NPC who got "left behind" by the party and really mad at them. Good reason to make an ex-druid for once too.

[Patsy]

That animal curse is incredibly tempting to my evil side, since she's mostly playing a druid because she loves animals.
However, looking at the good ol' BoVD, a more tempting solution presents itself: all orcs become invisible to the druid until the curse is broken. Hilarity ahoy!

[Downysole]

That curse would make something like Sting very useful (glows when orcs are about). You might want to give her a plot hook for that item if you can.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Make sure the bad guys take a bit of the natural body...then later when the character dies, she can be reincarnated and used as an NPC. Just imagine if they tried to resurrect her only to find that her soul was not available... Talk about a non-lethal way to mess with someone...

In retrospect, I will never do this to one of my players. That's way cruel.

Then again, if she wants to play another character at that point, the reincarnated druid could become a good NPC who got "left behind" by the party and really mad at them. Good reason to make an ex-druid for once too.

This doesn't work. You can't bring a person back to life against their will unless you have the whole body and an obscure spell that I'm pretty sure isn't on any of the standard lists.

Edit: The spell I was thinking of is 3rd party. I don't think there is a way to ressurect someone against their will in WotC official material.