Incantations- How to make one to emulate low level spells

[Nishant]

This is something I just was recently brought attention to; the use of incantations.

I wanted to make an invocation that was basically dispel curse on ghosts but there seems to be an issue; the rules it sets for making an incantation are ridiculous when trying to make it happen. The spell seems like it would be ridiculous to cast at all! Should I just go with the table and try and make this 3rd level spell this way, or should I do something different?

[Blackhawk748]

This is something I just was recently brought attention to; the use of incantations.

I wanted to make an invocation that was basically dispel curse on ghosts but there seems to be an issue; the rules it sets for making an incantation are ridiculous when trying to make it happen. The spell seems like it would be ridiculous to cast at all! Should I just go with the table and try and make this 3rd level spell this way, or should I do something different?

I was looking at the SRD and it doesnt seem like it would be that awful, the three examples are all level 6, take 60 minutes to use, and take 6 successes. By that logic your should take 3 successes and take 30 minutes to cast, but it can only target curses on incorporeal undead. Seems ok to me.

Instead of paying XP (yuck) grab some costly component (maybe a 1000 gp gem) and apply the Hostile Spell Backlash, id recommend Bestow Curse. Its flavorful and it hurts, so it makes for a good drawback.

[Jeff the Green]

I'd recommend against bestow curse as a backlash component. If you allow a save there's a chance of avoiding the backlash entirely (which isn't supposed to happen) and if you don't or you fail the save, you're just transferring the curse, which isn't worthy of a 3rd-level spell.

Look at the incantations in my extended sig (the "Homebrew" link) as well as this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=14901168&postcount=13) one for ideas on backlash and failure.

I'd also recommend a houserule: no taking 10, a natural 1 is a failure, and reduce the DCs. I can post some graphs to show why, but suffice it to say that if you can take 10 it's either a guaranteed success and the failure is irrelevant or you're so unlikely to succeed that it's stupid to try. The natural 1 rule is there because it's so easy to buff skill checks to stratospheric levels and you should never be totally safe using an incantation.