Dr paradox
2019-07-09, 06:46 PM
Similar to my blood-sucking sword post, I'm looking for feedback on two options. A player killed a kind of fey succubus creature, which imbued his sword with a boon. I'm undecided between these two possibilities. Party is level 4.
First: As an action, you may transform into a small ball of bright-white witchfire. While in this form, you have a fly speed of 60 feet and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical weapons. At the start of your next turn, you transform back into your original form.
Main question, if I go with this, should it be a charge ability or once per day?
Second: Once per day, if you inscribe a certain mark on the skin of a humanoid creature using the sword, they must immediately make a DC 16 wisdom save or be affected by a Charm Person spell with a duration of a year and a day. you may only have one creature thus bonded at a time. If you inscribe the mark on a second creature, the effect ends immediately on the first. If a creature is freed from the effect, or succeeds its initial saving throw, it becomes permanently immune to this effect.
This second one has some obviously overpowered potential benefits, but I'm actually concerned it won't wind up being used at all. My players are morally pretty upright people, and would feel some strong moral revulsion at using this ability, especially considering there aren't any clear-cut humanoid "bad-guys" around (See spoilers for context). At the same time, this ability is thematically powerful, spooky, and just plain cool to know that you have even if you don't use it.
I'm torn!
The players are part of a pioneer expedition of about 700 people on the far northern frontier, dealing with fey weirdness in the region, managing the intricacies of town politics, and trying to keep the peace with an orc tribe that has recently arrived. They've got a fairly closed ecosystem, and no one person they could charm to solve all their problems. In fact, any humanoid they try and fail to charm would just make things a whole lot worse for them. Even if they succeed, they're likely to be in the area for much longer than the year-and-a-day duration.
First: As an action, you may transform into a small ball of bright-white witchfire. While in this form, you have a fly speed of 60 feet and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical weapons. At the start of your next turn, you transform back into your original form.
Main question, if I go with this, should it be a charge ability or once per day?
Second: Once per day, if you inscribe a certain mark on the skin of a humanoid creature using the sword, they must immediately make a DC 16 wisdom save or be affected by a Charm Person spell with a duration of a year and a day. you may only have one creature thus bonded at a time. If you inscribe the mark on a second creature, the effect ends immediately on the first. If a creature is freed from the effect, or succeeds its initial saving throw, it becomes permanently immune to this effect.
This second one has some obviously overpowered potential benefits, but I'm actually concerned it won't wind up being used at all. My players are morally pretty upright people, and would feel some strong moral revulsion at using this ability, especially considering there aren't any clear-cut humanoid "bad-guys" around (See spoilers for context). At the same time, this ability is thematically powerful, spooky, and just plain cool to know that you have even if you don't use it.
I'm torn!
The players are part of a pioneer expedition of about 700 people on the far northern frontier, dealing with fey weirdness in the region, managing the intricacies of town politics, and trying to keep the peace with an orc tribe that has recently arrived. They've got a fairly closed ecosystem, and no one person they could charm to solve all their problems. In fact, any humanoid they try and fail to charm would just make things a whole lot worse for them. Even if they succeed, they're likely to be in the area for much longer than the year-and-a-day duration.