Yet another Geas/Quest question

[RealMarkP]

I've read through a bunch of posts on Geas/Quests and I cannot figure out what the interpretation is. I have a player which had it cast on him. The fact that he is ignoring the spell and taking the 3d6 hp damage is making it irellevant. He just zaps himself with a wand of cure light wounds each morning and deals with the sickness like a pregnant woman.

My questions are:
- Is the 3d6 damage HP based or Ability based?
- Is the Compulsion effect forcing the player to complete it or can it be ignored willfully?

[TaiLiu]

It is Hit Point damage.

[TopCheese]

For plot reasons my DM put this on a friendly NPC. (Had PC levels) and it was the party's job to help him finish his goal.

The DM made it take away from his max hp total. So if he took 5 dmg from it and had 20 his new max was 15... if he went to finish his task he would gain some back.

Later in the game a PC got hit by it... It was fun to see how long we could go before he croaked. When we got to low we would go back to the task givien to him.

[RealMarkP]

For plot reasons my DM put this on a friendly NPC. (Had PC levels) and it was the party's job to help him finish his goal.

The DM made it take away from his max hp total. So if he took 5 dmg from it and had 20 his new max was 15... if he went to finish his task he would gain some back.

Later in the game a PC got hit by it... It was fun to see how long we could go before he croaked. When we got to low we would go back to the task givien to him.

This is probably the best Idea I ever heard of. It's the mother of all escort quests. Kudos to your DM.

[TuggyNE]

If at all possible you should use lesser geas/quest for this reason; the full version has much weaker penalties (but no HD limit).

That reminds me, is there a greater geas/quest out there somewheres?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Can geas/quest be metamagicked into doing vile damage?

Hp damage that's much harder to get rid of can be quite a bit more compelling than the 3d6 a 10th level character will completely sleep off more than half the time.

[Sith_Happens]

This spell functions similarly to lesser geas...

The geased creature must follow the given instructions until the geas is completed...
...
If the subject is prevented from obeying the lesser geas...
So yes, the Geased PC is in fact compelled to carry out the instructions; the 3d6 damage/day is when he can't follow the instructions (e.g.- the rest of the party is intervening).