What's the deal with vile damage

[AthasianWarlock]

Hello all,

I'm confused looking at vile damage. Mechanically speaking it looks very bad, and it's very costly to get.

The vile enchantment for example does a measly 1 vile damage for +1. Every other +1 damaging enchantment (flaming etc) does more.

Vile ring is 20k and has you dealing 1 damage extra.

Vile spell ring for 15k has spells do 1 vile/spell level

Violate spell is a metamagic feat but it locks in the spell when you take the feat. Half the damage is vile (so it's not actually increasing the damage).

Violate martial strike requires weapon focus and does again, 1 vile damage.

Regalia of evil (artifact) makes all damage vile.

These all seem costly. Vile damage appears to be negated by anything with DR or temporary hit points. Why did the designers make something so bad so costly? Or am I missing something. We're they trying to make it hard to counteract regeneration or fast healing?

[Axle-Gear]

If I recall correctly, vile damage can only be healed with spells cast on consecrated grounds. Until a creature that has taken vile damage can get to such a place, those vile points basically subtract from their maximum HP. It's handy if you expect to go up against enemies that heal a lot, as that damage just 'sticks,' but you're mostly right in that it errs towards over-costed - few combats last long enough for vile damage to matter unless there's some specific catering to it.

It could very well be one of those mechanics that was more intended for the DM to use against players.

[ViperMagnum357]

Hello all,

I'm confused looking at vile damage. Mechanically speaking it looks very bad, and it's very costly to get.

The vile enchantment for example does a measly 1 vile damage for +1. Every other +1 damaging enchantment (flaming etc) does more.

Vile ring is 20k and has you dealing 1 damage extra.

Vile spell ring for 15k has spells do 1 vile/spell level

Violate spell is a metamagic feat but it locks in the spell when you take the feat. Half the damage is vile (so it's not actually increasing the damage).

Violate martial strike requires weapon focus and does again, 1 vile damage.

Regalia of evil (artifact) makes all damage vile.

These all seem costly. Vile damage appears to be negated by anything with DR or temporary hit points. Why did the designers make something so bad so costly? Or am I missing something. We're they trying to make it hard to counteract regeneration or fast healing?

The point is that it is so hard to heal-damage done in Vile form can only be healed in range of a Consecrate or Hallow spell, only by magic-full stop. Hallow has a 24 hour casting period and targets a stationary point; Consecrate is an easily dispellable (2nd level) spell with a small radius, exclusive to the Cleric list, costs 25GP per casting and is plenty expensive as a magic item with narrow usage. Healing is not something you usually want to be doing in most battles, but an enemy with appreciable vile damage can put the screws to even an experienced group like few other things if they are unprepared.

As for PC usage-effectively robbing strong enemies of maximum HP/ability scores across a couple of skirmishes/ambushes should need little explanation.

[Fouredged Sword]

It is mostly useful on enemy spellcasters vs the party rather than the party vs monsters. It IS one of the few ways to "bypass" all fast healimg and regeneration. Vile damage vs a creature with regeneration is still non-lethal but won't heal. This allows you to lock a creature in a coma.

[Falontani]

It is mostly useful on enemy spellcasters vs the party rather than the party vs monsters. It IS one of the few ways to "bypass" all fast healimg and regeneration. Vile damage vs a creature with regeneration is still non-lethal but won't heal. This allows you to lock a creature in a coma.

good way to take a troll alive

[KillianHawkeye]

Keep in mind that the Book of Vile Darkness was from 3.0 and therefore doesn't benefit from the changes in assumptions that differ from 3e to 3.5, nor the general increases in power that became available in the later years of splatbook feature creep. In other words, if vile damage seems weak, it's probably because you're comparing it to stuff that came out later on or stuff that wasn't designed with having every option from every book available in mind.

[Thurbane]

It is mostly useful on enemy spellcasters vs the party rather than the party vs monsters. It IS one of the few ways to "bypass" all fast healimg and regeneration. Vile damage vs a creature with regeneration is still non-lethal but won't heal. This allows you to lock a creature in a coma.

This.

Vile damage tends to work better used against PCs than by Pcs.

For PCs, it's pesky to remove. For NPCs/monsters, they usually only exist for one fight anyway...

[Segev]

For PC usage, I recommend the Necrotic line of spells from Libris Mortis.

[Braininthejar2]

It does hard counter fortune fate, making it useful for focusing squishy casters.

[Eldan]

I'll jion the chorus. It's very rarely something the players want. But it's a way to give the PCs cursed wounds that don't heal. So they have to frantically escape in a wounded state and fight their way through to a friendly temple. For the archetype, see Morgul blade and Frodo.

[Zexionthefirst]

I do believe that there is a feat for Warlocks which turns part of their damage into vile damage. Or it might add a d6 of vile damage... but I'm pretty sure it just turns half of the damage from their Eldritch Blast into vile damage. This means a player could keep an enemy from gaining the full effects of healing spells during combat. And the enemies my not realize that their max hit points have effectively been reduced until after they've wasted a healing potion or spell.

But, really, as basically everyone has said- "It's more useful to use against players than by players."

[Anthrowhale]

Vile damage is freakishly scary to evil monsters since they are unlikely to have any available means to heal. This doesn't get expressed mechanically if every monster is on a suicide mission against the PCs, but it's very strong for roleplay.

A Violated Nonlethal Wounding Searing Blistering Energy Substitution[Fire] Blizzard leaves everything in many epic dungeons in a coma since it goes around corners, pierces immunity, and shuts down fast healing and regeneration. After that, you can stroll through the dungeon picking up equipment and deciding the fate of every creature without stress.

[Braininthejar2]

What happens if you stuck vile damage on an attack that causes intense bleeding, like a bearded devil's halberd?

[Sejoran]

good way to take a troll alive

Its true, Falontani has done this to creatures ive thrown at him before. Was a drunken master/brawler with healing potions...wasted.

I like to keep using some NPCs if i can get them to survive the party though.

[ShurikVch]

About of usefulness for PC: some monsters are have impenetrable regeneration; vile damage is about the only thing which may keep them down

About the low numbers of vile damage:
Firstly, don't forget about the possibility of the precision damage (Sneak Attack/Sudden Strike/Skirmish/...) - add that bucket of d6 to initial damage
Secondly, Vile Lance and Vileblade - all damage is vile damage
Thirdly, psionic powers (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/pse/20030628a) may cause vile damage too. Claw of the Shadow Demon...

[Knaight]

Vile damage is freakishly scary to evil monsters since they are unlikely to have any available means to heal.

They don't have spontaneous clerical healing, and there's fewer healing SLAs. That leaves access to a lot of magical healing, and that's without getting into the amount of healing that you can access with cold hard cash and little else.

[Anthrowhale]

They don't have spontaneous clerical healing, and there's fewer healing SLAs. That leaves access to a lot of magical healing, and that's without getting into the amount of healing that you can access with cold hard cash and little else.

Getting access to healing that works against vile damage is expensive and unnatural for evil creatures since they would commonly need to fund a good church as all vile healing requires [good] cleric spells.

Hallow doesn't work by RAW since it has range: touch AoE spell.
Consecrate Battlefield is a level 6 cleric[good] spell.
Consecrate is the only reasonable choice for magical healing by evil monsters. A 50-charge wand of Consecrate costs 5750 gp which is very expensive until quite high levels for monsters. Maybe a DM would give one evil monster/encounter a wands of consecrate with one charge left (115 gp). That seems implausible and logically the PCs are creating demand for a new 5750 gp wand every time any consecrate wand is finished or falls into their hands. Over a 20-level career of 13.3333 encounters/level against evil creatures using an average of 1 wand/encounter, that's creating >1M gp of demand for consecrate wands. And, this doesn't even count evil monster-on-evil monster vile damage. Altogether, vile damage can create a huge economic demand for good churches.

It would be amusing if an evil PC using vile wounding damage is constantly sending evil monsters rushing to a good church with "Help, I confess to all my sins now heal me before I bleed out!" leading to conversions. Vile damage also creates a strong reason for evil monsters to want good churches even when evil is overwhelmingly powerful. Altogether, lots of interesting roleplay.

[Menzath]

Interesting, the violate spell feat prerqs. Don't require spell casting or knowing the spell you pick.
Sounds like fun for artificers.

Also the wording on violate spell like ability is odd. Each of your spell like abilities can be vile twice per day? I guess if you have a few different long duration abilities it's actually better than violate spell.

[Holya]

Where exactly is Vileblade? I've got book of viledarkness but I don't see it as a spell.. So where exactly is that?

[Nifft]

Where exactly is Vileblade? I've got book of viledarkness but I don't see it as a spell.. So where exactly is that?

According to my friend Google, it's from Dragon Magazine.

[Holya]

According to my friend Google, it's from Dragon Magazine.

Weird I tried googling that and it kept throwing up the spell boneblade instead.. Thanks partner. Now I got a even larger assortment of potential vile damage to use. Its going to be fun having a vile martial and vile natural monk doing two vile damage per punch when he flurries.

[ShurikVch]

Where exactly is Vileblade? I've got book of viledarkness but I don't see it as a spell.. So where exactly is that?It's in the Dragon #300, "Arcane Lore: Secrets of the Skinscribes"