Conradine
2020-11-12, 08:08 PM
Just a thought experiment, not intended for actual play.
Steal Life is a level 8 Necromancy spell. The goal of the thought experiment is to reach a spell, or an incantation ( Unearthed Arcana ) which satisfies these three conditions:
1- difficult and heinous enough to not be something every petty king and rich merchant is able and/or willing to do
2- something that a small, isolated and well organized cult can reasonably arrange
3- plausible in terms of power balance when compared with other similar spells
So, basically, we take the base spell and add drawbacks, additional requirements and limitations in order to reduce it in level.
Steal Life
(Book of Vile Darkness, p. 106)
Necromancy [Evil]
Level: Sorcerer 8, Wizard 8,
Components: V, S, Location
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One living humanoid
Duration: Concentration
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
The caster taps into the life force of a subject and drains it away, adding it to her own. Each round the caster concentrates, she deals 1 point of ability score drain to the subject. Although the caster can choose which ability score to drain, she must choose a different ability score to drain in each round and cannot choose a score already drained until she has drained all the others equally, at which point the process starts over. Thus, if the caster drains 1 point of Strength, she must choose another ability in the next round and cannot choose Strength again until she has drained 1 point each of Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Then, the caster can drain a second point of Strength (or any other ability), but not a third until she has drained a second point from all the other ability scores.
If the caster casts this spell on the night of a full moon, she becomes effectively one week younger for every point she drains. (Her age is reduced, but memories and abilities acquired during that week are not lost.) Otherwise, the subject takes the ability score drain, but the caster gains nothing.
The subject withers and shrivels as the caster drains its ability scores. When the subject's Constitution score reaches 0, the subject becomes a horrid, dry husk and cannot be further drained. If the caster dies while concentrating on this spell, all the subject's lost ability score points are immediately regained.
Location Component: An area under the effect of a desecrate or unhallow spell.
Additional requirements:
1- Patronage from an evil outsider of at least mid-high power ( 12 HD or more ) which must be contacted by a Planar Ally spell or - more likely - with the appropriate DC 30 sacrifice. The evil outsider must agree to help in developing the spell or the incantation, in return of further sacrifices.
2- The ritual requires a specifically prepared place, including a massive stone altar carefully engraved with arcane symbols, stone floor with a complex pentacle carved with precision - to protect the officiant from the dark energies released - and a small temple ( a 5*5 room with stone walls and a roof will suffice ).
3- The ceremony last eight hours and requires chanting and invocations to the dark powers; it must not be interrupted exept for brief pauses which the officiant can use to drink, rest or use a chamber pot. Any fight or serious disturbance will end the ritual instantaneously.
4- The altar and the temple must be consacrated with the blood of no less than 100 HD of sentient creatures, ritually sacrificed to the fiendish patron of the ritual. It's not necessary to make all the sacrifices at once but they must be done in one year or less.
5- The ceremony requires a specifically prepared masterwork knife forged in the blood of the officiand ( 1d6 Constitution damage to provide the blood ) which must be used to sacrifice a newborn child to the fiendish patron; the newborn must share the blood of the officiant ( son, brother or nepew ).
Additional limitations:
1- Very specific victim: only an healthy, human newborn will do ( no goblins, orcs or similar substitutes allowed ). The victim must die ( no Restoration sheningans ) and his soul will either become property of the evil outsider or be utterly destroyed ( no resurrection is possible ).
2- The ritual must happen in very specific nights ( probably the sacred days of the evil outsider deity / archfiend; or solstice and equinoxes; anyhow, not more than 2 or 3 days in a year ).
3- Only a single victim can be sacrified for each ritual, and a successful ceremony will rejuvenate the officiant for one single year ( so the deed must be done twice a year to become younger, or once a year to stall age ).
Additional drawbacks:
1- The lifeforce of the officiant is tied to the sacrifical knife used for the ritual. If the knife is broken, the officiant will immediately re-age all the years he gained, probably killing him unless he found some other means to achieve immortality ( or undeath ).
2- The officiant will be exausted and defenseless after the ritual and will have to rely on his followers / allies / slaves to protect him for at least 8 hours.
3- Although the consacration of the temple and the knife is done only once, each ritual require expensive - but renewable - material components: oils, incenses, perfumes and candles made out the fat of sacrificed victims.
With all these additions, how much could the spell level be reduced, reasonably?
Steal Life is a level 8 Necromancy spell. The goal of the thought experiment is to reach a spell, or an incantation ( Unearthed Arcana ) which satisfies these three conditions:
1- difficult and heinous enough to not be something every petty king and rich merchant is able and/or willing to do
2- something that a small, isolated and well organized cult can reasonably arrange
3- plausible in terms of power balance when compared with other similar spells
So, basically, we take the base spell and add drawbacks, additional requirements and limitations in order to reduce it in level.
Steal Life
(Book of Vile Darkness, p. 106)
Necromancy [Evil]
Level: Sorcerer 8, Wizard 8,
Components: V, S, Location
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One living humanoid
Duration: Concentration
Saving Throw: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
The caster taps into the life force of a subject and drains it away, adding it to her own. Each round the caster concentrates, she deals 1 point of ability score drain to the subject. Although the caster can choose which ability score to drain, she must choose a different ability score to drain in each round and cannot choose a score already drained until she has drained all the others equally, at which point the process starts over. Thus, if the caster drains 1 point of Strength, she must choose another ability in the next round and cannot choose Strength again until she has drained 1 point each of Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Then, the caster can drain a second point of Strength (or any other ability), but not a third until she has drained a second point from all the other ability scores.
If the caster casts this spell on the night of a full moon, she becomes effectively one week younger for every point she drains. (Her age is reduced, but memories and abilities acquired during that week are not lost.) Otherwise, the subject takes the ability score drain, but the caster gains nothing.
The subject withers and shrivels as the caster drains its ability scores. When the subject's Constitution score reaches 0, the subject becomes a horrid, dry husk and cannot be further drained. If the caster dies while concentrating on this spell, all the subject's lost ability score points are immediately regained.
Location Component: An area under the effect of a desecrate or unhallow spell.
Additional requirements:
1- Patronage from an evil outsider of at least mid-high power ( 12 HD or more ) which must be contacted by a Planar Ally spell or - more likely - with the appropriate DC 30 sacrifice. The evil outsider must agree to help in developing the spell or the incantation, in return of further sacrifices.
2- The ritual requires a specifically prepared place, including a massive stone altar carefully engraved with arcane symbols, stone floor with a complex pentacle carved with precision - to protect the officiant from the dark energies released - and a small temple ( a 5*5 room with stone walls and a roof will suffice ).
3- The ceremony last eight hours and requires chanting and invocations to the dark powers; it must not be interrupted exept for brief pauses which the officiant can use to drink, rest or use a chamber pot. Any fight or serious disturbance will end the ritual instantaneously.
4- The altar and the temple must be consacrated with the blood of no less than 100 HD of sentient creatures, ritually sacrificed to the fiendish patron of the ritual. It's not necessary to make all the sacrifices at once but they must be done in one year or less.
5- The ceremony requires a specifically prepared masterwork knife forged in the blood of the officiand ( 1d6 Constitution damage to provide the blood ) which must be used to sacrifice a newborn child to the fiendish patron; the newborn must share the blood of the officiant ( son, brother or nepew ).
Additional limitations:
1- Very specific victim: only an healthy, human newborn will do ( no goblins, orcs or similar substitutes allowed ). The victim must die ( no Restoration sheningans ) and his soul will either become property of the evil outsider or be utterly destroyed ( no resurrection is possible ).
2- The ritual must happen in very specific nights ( probably the sacred days of the evil outsider deity / archfiend; or solstice and equinoxes; anyhow, not more than 2 or 3 days in a year ).
3- Only a single victim can be sacrified for each ritual, and a successful ceremony will rejuvenate the officiant for one single year ( so the deed must be done twice a year to become younger, or once a year to stall age ).
Additional drawbacks:
1- The lifeforce of the officiant is tied to the sacrifical knife used for the ritual. If the knife is broken, the officiant will immediately re-age all the years he gained, probably killing him unless he found some other means to achieve immortality ( or undeath ).
2- The officiant will be exausted and defenseless after the ritual and will have to rely on his followers / allies / slaves to protect him for at least 8 hours.
3- Although the consacration of the temple and the knife is done only once, each ritual require expensive - but renewable - material components: oils, incenses, perfumes and candles made out the fat of sacrificed victims.
With all these additions, how much could the spell level be reduced, reasonably?