Endowments of Vigor and Strength [PEACH]

[Amechra]

Endowment of [Ability Score]

This ritual is a sublime sign of loyalty, friendship, and love; for what greater love is there than to give of yourself to enrich another?

To perform it, all that is needed is for two people to clasp their hands together, and for one of them, fully aware of what they are doing, to will a piece of themselves into the other person. One is diminished; one is enriched.

The requirements for this ritual is that the donor must be fully aware of what they are doing, and cannot be compelled to perform this deed; they must be willing to give their might to another.

Rules-wise, there are two creatures involved in this ritual: the donor, henceforth known as the dedicate, and the recipient, henceforth known as the beneficiary.

If the dedicate's ability score (before magic items, effects that increase ability scores, and racial modifiers, henceforth referred to as their natural ability score) is 8 or below, this ritual cannot be performed for that ability score.

Otherwise, the beneficiary receives a +1 bonus to that ability score, which is increased by 1 for every two points higher than 13 that the dedicate has for their base ability score, and the dedicate has that ability score reduced to 1. This bonus is explicitly factored into a creature's base ability score. This bonus stacks with bonuses granted from other Endowments.

This bonus is a transferal of vitality; it is entirely nonmagical. However, upon the death of either party, the ritual's benefits and drawbacks end.

A given creature may only act as a dedicate once in their entire life, and may only be the beneficiary from 6 different rituals simultaneously.
***
The above ritual works best in a setting without magical items that increase ability scores.

The flufftastic names for the transferal of each ability score are:

Endowment of Strength - Strength
Endowment of Vigor - Constitution
Endowment of Grace - Dexterity
Endowment of Wit - Intelligence
Endowment of Wisdom - Wisdom
Endowment of Spirit - Charisma
Endowment of Glamor - Appearance (for campaigns that use it.)

[SolarEdge]

you realize this would never logically happen right?
because first you need them to be willing with now magic involved so now anyone with a high wisdom or intellect just ran away.
but maybe you could trick a stupid person right? no because they have to be aware of what they're doing.
the dedicate has their ability score reduced to ONE that could kill them, or worse if its for intelligence reduce them to an animal.
oh and it pufs away when they die great now everybody loses

also im pretty sure I saw this in a novel somewhere.

[Network]

While I understand this would be totally OP with Leadership if it wasn't for these, why are there can-only-use-it-once and can-only-benefit-from-six rules? Cancelling the ritual should allow you to use it again. Instead of putting an (apparently random) limitation on the amount of rituals received, you should state the benefit of the ritual doesn't stack with itself ; you can still benefit from six rituals, but on different ability scores.

[Amechra]

It is based off of the Endowments from the Runelords series.

And honestly?

There are many ways of getting a guy to be willing, especially if you are an adventurer with a lot of money.

Go up to a peasant, and offer to support his family financially for the rest of their natural lives if he gives you his constitution.

Or, alternatively, tell him you'll kill his family in front of him if he doesn't do it.

In the novel, it works out that the nobility gets a ton of endowments put on them, because it makes sense for you to have super soldiers, rather than a bunch of weak dudes. Also, you want your ruling class to be intelligent enough to make educated decisions; why not make them geniuses with perfect memories?

Also, the fact that they take a big penalty to their ability scores, and that you lose the bonus if they die, will result in you trying to keep them alive.

EDIT: The limitation is based off of the book; you could only be a dedicate once, and you can only "fit" so many endowments.

Plus, part of the idea is Leadership abuse; if this ritual is in effect, and one guy is doing Leadership abuse, the rest of the party is probably doing it to.

You just need to get all of your minions to agree to pass their ability scores along, after all!

To be fair, I completely forgot about Leadership, considering that I have my own houseruled version that isn't crazy-bonkers.

[Network]

To be fair, I completely forgot about Leadership, considering that I have my own houseruled version that isn't crazy-bonkers.
Leadership is not even required if the PCs have enough reputation to gain a cohort without the feat, or if the villain is built using Exemplars of Evil. It may definitely look OP, but this is the only feat whose only benefit is literally to garantee you something you can get without it. Though I remember you posted a revised version on the board some time ago. I'll check it out.