An angel's demands

[Silva Stormrage]

Essentially, in one of my campaigns a player is split from the rest of the group and is stuck with a strength of one due to greater bestow curse (The character is a martial character so this is really problematic for him) and has very little ways to remove it. He managed to actually get himself to a room holding an imprisoned Angel (The group is currently in an underwater dungeon ruled by a mad mage). The Angel is able to remove the curse but needs to inflict some kind of "Cost" with removing it. There is a particular reason why but I don't want to post it in case one of my players accidentally looks and spoils something.

A cost in this case would be something along the lines of, "The character can never tell a lie", "The character must always attempt to solve a problem with non violence if he thinks it has the slightest chance of success" and similar things. It doesn't need to be RAW and the Angel doesn't need a particular way of causing the cost, imagine for the time being it is DM Fiat. I just can't come up with any good sacrifices a good angel would impose on a character, even when forced to impose a cost. I already used the "Can't tell a lie" from a previous campaign so I would rather not use it again.

[Troacctid]

Cannot attack a flat-footed opponent. (A true warrior fights with honor.)

Cannot deal lethal damage to living creatures--all attacks and other damaging effects deal nonlethal damage, whether you like it or not.

Cannot steal--no taking items owned by someone else without their permission, whether it's from a living creature, a dead body, or an unattended location.

[Glimbur]

Must grant quarter when asked.

Must make a pilgrimage.

Must offer hospitality.

You could give the effect of a Phylactery of Faithfulness tuned to LG, so a voice in his head questions him whenever he does something not lawful good.

[Fax Celestis]

Give him an exalted vow feat as a bonus feat (pick your flavor, but Vow of Obedience, Vow of Abstinence, and Vow of Purity are probably the best options), and have the greater bestow curse come back if he violates the vow, until he atones.

There's also the hilarious Hand of Tyr vow-feat in Waterdeep:


As long as you refrain from using your right hand, you receive a +1 sacred bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, and Will saves. Since you are using only one hand, you cannot fight with two weapons, wield a two-handed weapon, or fight with a one-handed weapon and a heavy shield. You can fight with a one-handed weapon and a light shield, but you cannot use your shield hand to hold other objects such as a holy symbol, spell components, or a light source. (This means you must use your weapon hand to cast spells, so you might have to drop or sheathe a weapon when you wish to cast a spell requiring your holy symbol or somatic components.) You take a -4 penalty on Climb, Disable Device, Open Lock, and Tumble checks. You can only gain the benefit of wearing one magic ring. If you previously considered yourself right-handed, you suffer no penalty for using your left hand as your primary hand. Handedness isn't defined in the game; the point of the vow is to restrict yourself to using one hand).

[Raven777]

Cannot attack a flat-footed opponent. (A true warrior fights with honor.)

I too would go with You must fight with honor and forfeit bonuses against flat-footed opponents. Considering you want to get the character back in action, that would seal the deal with little hassle while still having a tangible numerical effect. Things like non-lethal damage, must spare foes, never tell a lie, often end up annoying the rest of the party as much as the player themselves, so I advise against that.

[atemu1234]

He must free the angel, stop an Elder Evil, and this could be a campaign. Which deity does this angel serve (also, may I nickname it Mikey)?

[Sith_Happens]

I too would go with You must fight with honor and forfeit bonuses against flat-footed opponents.

Problem is that that's a Lawful demand rather than a Good one, and we don't know if the angel is Lawful.

[Troacctid]

Problem is that that's a Lawful demand rather than a Good one, and we don't know if the angel is Lawful.

So is never telling a lie. This sort of demand is always going to have a Lawful feel to it.

[Silva Stormrage]

Problem is that that's a Lawful demand rather than a Good one, and we don't know if the angel is Lawful.

The angel in this case is Lawful Good,

and in this setting there is only one "God" and it is currently trapped and can't interfere with the material plane and it is essentially a good aligned overdiety. It doesn't have any particular portfolios to base this demand off of.

I kinda like the vow idea or the attack with honor one. The character has Vow of Poverty (Refluffed and using a fix) but it still would be very fitting.

[dascarletm]

Give him an exalted vow feat as a bonus feat (pick your flavor, but Vow of Obedience, Vow of Abstinence, and Vow of Purity are probably the best options), and have the greater bestow curse come back if he violates the vow, until he atones.

I want to second this idea. It sounds great.

[Nettlekid]

You could just stick him with the Knight's Code of Honor, which includes the "no attacking flat-footed," a "do not gain flanking bonuses" (but still give them to allies), and "must not lethally strike a helpless foe." All of those have a very Lawful (and vaguely Good) feel to them, and none of them is too severe. I don't think it would be the end of the world to force all of those on the character, especially since you can just point to the Knight's class feature and reason that they just kind of come together. If you wanted to be fair about it you could include the part of the code which allows you to violate the code at the cost of a (stacking?) -2 penalty to attacks and saves until the next day (as the angel's curse-prevention weakens or something) just to give the player the option.

[Honest Tiefling]

Does the angel know how the guy got split from the rest of the party? Perhaps the angel finds this amusing/problematic/whatever (I don't know if it was intentional on the player's part...) but maybe they 'cannot betray the trust of anyone who has shown them true loyalty' or somesuch. If the party is more...Lawfully inclined, this might not be a concern, but in many I've been with it could be an issue.

Or in the nature of the favor, they must repay all of their debts, no matter how small. I would keep it to strictly voluntarily debts, but could still cause issues.

[Sartharina]

His cost should be a vision to see suffering, and a compulsion to help alleviate it.

[Honest Tiefling]

Or, a vision of a moral dilemma. The character must then tell the angel which is the right path. But the trick is not that one path is right, but the acknowledgement of how difficult it is to be good and the struggle to maintain both law and good for the sake of all.

[Silva Stormrage]

Or, a vision of a moral dilemma. The character must then tell the angel which is the right path. But the trick is not that one path is right, but the acknowledgement of how difficult it is to be good and the struggle to maintain both law and good for the sake of all.

Oh man I would love to do this but that would just fly over this players head so quickly.

The player was accidentally split from the party with only minimal fault of his own (They decided to take a risk… which backfired on them). And the Angel is unaware of the rest of the party.

[Honest Tiefling]

What is the angel's impression of this guy then?

[DeadMech]

If I was an imprisoned angel and a a crippled warrior wandered in, I'd probably just heal him in exchange for getting me out of imprisonment. Seems a fair trade.

[Averis Vol]

How about can never turn down an innocent in need? Or must always defend those good of heart?