(any Edition) spells with self-imposed penalties

[Breccia]

So a DM friend of mine brought up what I hope is an interesting topic. One of her players in a mid-level campaign has a semipacifist cleric. That player wanted a variant of the flame strike or fireball spell which was incapable of harming a sentient, living being. (This DM and I agree that "sentient" meant "Int at least 3") While my first thought was this would be an ideal spell to hurl into a crowded melee, unable to harm yourself or your allies, the DM said, based on the player, that they weren't looking for an advantage -- just continuing to RP as a cleric who had taken a matching oath.

We had also both seen some Inuyasha, enough to know about a powerful sword that could not harm the living. Naturally the discussion went there.

Anyhow, I'd like to discuss both parts of this topic.

1) Asking specifically for "flame strike, except it can't harm sentient living beings" is a self-imposed penalty, and a significant one since the spell will only harm constructs, the undead, and monsters with Int 2 or lower. (This is based on the DM's ruling of "alive", I pushed for elementals but she didn't go for it) What would you do, in this specific case?

a) Grant the request exactly, and praise the role-playing. [this was the DM's thought]
b) Deny it outright, and stick with RAW. The easiest answer.
c) Following examples of other spells, make the replacement spell do bonus damage (or penalize the saving throw) against the remaining targets it's allowed to harm.
d) Leave the damage the same, but allow sentient, living beings hit to heal (a set value, or let them roll a Hit Die, or something)
e) Leave the damage the same, but add a nonhealing effect [this is where I went biology, saying the flames could burn diseases and poisons out of the sentient living targets]
f) Leave the damage the same, ignore living sentient beings as asked, but upgrade the spell in some other way (range, area, components, etc)

What would your answer be?

2) In a more general sense, how do you handle players asking for what appears to be a pure penalty with no benefit? I'm not talking alignment or behavior, "I refuse to steal from the innocent" is (a) fairly standard in an RPG and (b) could be broken at any time. I'm talking about a significant drawback the player can't simply choose to ignore, like a sword +1 that cannot harm creatures that don't use weapons (so it couldn't harm a dragon or bear). Belkar's geas comes to mind here.

If a player volunteers to take an unremovable handicap, do you compensate with some other benefit? Do you allow them to lower their performance and leave it at that? Do you refuse, to keep the playing field even? Has this ever come up in your games?

[JNAProductions]

I'd ask what the player wants to accomplish with this. I probably wouldn't reward them directly for having penalties, but I would ensure that the gameplay works with their PC.

Depending on how severe the penalty is, I might outright reject it. I want PCs to be competent, and if the penalty is big enough that they'd be a liability to the party, not a boon, I'd likely just say no to it.

[noob]

Just make it a new +1 metamagic.
Like subdual spell it is situationally advantageous but not always desirable to have on your spells.

[Yakk]

A single spell with that restriction makes the restriction a benefit, not a penalty. Most spellcasters in D&D have plenty of spells, having one with this isn't a restriction on what they can do in total, just a restriction on one option.

Every spell you cast having that restriction makes the restriction real.

In 5e, I might have an item that when attuned to prevents your magic from directly damaging a creature. Or make it a property of your cleric subclass.

The fact that your allies are all sentient creatures with an int of 3 or higher means that it isn't a pure restriction.

[Breccia]

Most spellcasters in D&D have plenty of spells, having one with this isn't a restriction on what they can do in total, just a restriction on one option.

I guess it wasn't clear enough in context.

The caster in question wants to replace their option to flame strike, with this. They are not asking for an on/off switch. So instead of asking for more options, they are asking to make one of their options less effective in most situations. From the sounds of things, they've also chosen to forgo many other options that damage living creatures entirely, which might also affect the DM's decision. If this was a random sorcerer with magic missile, acid arrow, lightning bolt, and cone of cold except only works on dragons, I'd be closer to agreeing with you, but in this context it sounds like that's not what's happening.

[Yakk]

I guess it wasn't clear enough in context.

The caster in question wants to replace their option to flame strike, with this. They are not asking for an on/off switch. So instead of asking for more options, they are asking to make one of their options less effective in most situations. From the sounds of things, they've also chosen to forgo many other options that damage living creatures entirely, which might also affect the DM's decision. If this was a random sorcerer with magic missile, acid arrow, lightning bolt, and cone of cold except only works on dragons, I'd be closer to agreeing with you, but in this context it sounds like that's not what's happening.
Sure. But I'm saying that replacing one spell with this isn't a huge restriction. In 5e, a cleric with flame strike has more than a dozen spells known. Picking up flame strike with this quirk means they have more than 11 other chances to pick up a "what to cast when I want to hurt a sentient living creature". (The same is true in almost every version of D&D)

Even if they cannot pick "real flame strike" as one of their other spells, the cleric spell list is long and has plenty of "I cause pain" options.

Hence the position; make it an option on the character level instead of on the spell level. And even then, the inability to directly harm another living sentient creature is not all negative; it makes spells like flame strike ally-friendly. So I don't see a huge need to give a boost to the spells. The cleric won't be able to do certain tasks, but will be better at others. And given cleric's versatility in every version of D&D, even a cleric who can never cast a direct damage spell is viable; this is more flexible than that.

[Breccia]

Sure. But I'm saying that replacing one spell with this isn't a huge restriction. In 5e, a cleric with flame strike has more than a dozen spells known. Picking up flame strike with this quirk means they have more than 11 other chances to pick up a "what to cast when I want to hurt a sentient living creature".

From context, it seems like they're not interested in any of those, either. I see your point in a general context, but I don't think it applies in this one.

I see your point about "viable" so it sounds like you're saying "it's an RP choice to be unable to inflict that damage, even if they want to".

[Yakk]

From context, it seems like they're not interested in any of those, either. I see your point in a general context, but I don't think it applies in this one.

I see your point about "viable" so it sounds like you're saying "it's an RP choice to be unable to inflict that damage, even if they want to".
Sure, so just make it a feature of the PC.

It has its pluses and minuses being unable to hit sentient living creatures with magic. I suggest just making that the feature: nothing "in exchange", and it applies to all of her magic.

[Breccia]

Sure, so just make it a feature of the PC.

That's sounding more and more like the direction it should probably go in. I'll bring that up with the DM next time I talk to her. It could open up more spells for the cleric, whose player I suspect isn't super experienced.

[Thane of Fife]

As another option: allow the player to do study and research and maybe go on quests to invent this as a new spell. Then the DM decides what stats and level are appropriate for the new spell, the player gets to name it, and once everything is done, the character can invent the new spell and add it to their spell list. Maybe it's unique to them, or maybe their god likes it and it becomes popular with other clerics, too. Now the character is semi-famous. All good stuff.

[icefractal]

I'd feel perfectly comfortable giving this as a neutral ability (no cost, no additional benefit), because while it does have positive utility in some situations, it's more often a negative. Of course the Cleric can cast other spells, but "no direct harm" or even "no direct AoE harm" are limitations on their overall utility.

At the same time though, as a drawback, I wouldn't add much to compensate for this - maybe a mostly-flavor benefit. It's not like you're compelled to cast it when it wouldn't be useful.