StragaSevera
2022-04-07, 11:04 AM
Hello! I’m an inexperienced DM, trying to make my first campaign for my newbie players, and I want your opinion on an idea for it.
A lot of times, the first-second level of Pathfinder campaign feel different than the rest, because you don't have the "most important item in the game" — a wand of Cure Light Wounds.
My players will be new to the game — so I kinda don't want them to have big issues with out-of-combat healing. And, instead of granting them this wand for free, I thought of an in-universe, campaign-centric idea.
In Russian fairy tales, there are staple magic substances: "living water" (i.e. the water that is alive by itself), and "dead water". The living water heals wounds on living people, and dead water can heal wounds on dead bodies (which can be used both for evil necromancy reasons and, for example, to resurrect a decapitated person — in fairy tales the dead body must be intact for resurrection to work).
So I imagine the start of my campaign going this way — heroes come to remote village that had a spring of living water a long time ago, but it dried out — and now there are rumours that it started producing water again. When they arrive to the village, they discover that the evil goblin shaman dug out the spring's source, and attempts to corrupt it and transform it to produce dead water, craft an undead army, bolster it by the dead water, and make vengeance to humans for driving goblins out of this land. In the end, if all goes right, the heroes manage to stop him and keep the spring uncorrupted.
So I'm thinking about how I want the mechanics of living and dead water to work. I want it to work like this:
A vial of living water, when drunk, works like Cure Light Wounds potion made by 1st-level cleric. A vial of dead water works either like an Inflict Light Wounds potion (if drunk) or as an Restore Corpse oil (if applied to a corpse). There was an ancient alchemical recipe, allowing living water to be transformed to something that would work like a hypothetical Raise Dead oil (if such thing could be possible), but this recipe was lost to the ages.
When a character drinks living or dead water more than two times per day, his body starts to experience negative side effects of boosted regeneration: he starts to receive Constitution (for living) or Charisma (for undead) damage, at the increasing rate — 2 damage for the third drink per day, 4 for fourth drink and so on. After a character drinks this water, for the next week the Cure/Inflict Light Wounds spells and spell-like abilities (but not any other healing spell or ability) are adhering to the same penalty.
The water has its magical properties only while it’s fresh — after a day in a vial/bottle/any container, it becomes an ordinary water, unless it is alchemicaly treated to improve the “shelf life”.
What would you think of this magical substance? Is it imbalanced? I tried to prevent the major abuses (like endless out-of-combat healing or ease of exporting of the water), and at the same time to make both players and the enemy really want to control the substance, but I fear that I may be missing something.
A lot of times, the first-second level of Pathfinder campaign feel different than the rest, because you don't have the "most important item in the game" — a wand of Cure Light Wounds.
My players will be new to the game — so I kinda don't want them to have big issues with out-of-combat healing. And, instead of granting them this wand for free, I thought of an in-universe, campaign-centric idea.
In Russian fairy tales, there are staple magic substances: "living water" (i.e. the water that is alive by itself), and "dead water". The living water heals wounds on living people, and dead water can heal wounds on dead bodies (which can be used both for evil necromancy reasons and, for example, to resurrect a decapitated person — in fairy tales the dead body must be intact for resurrection to work).
So I imagine the start of my campaign going this way — heroes come to remote village that had a spring of living water a long time ago, but it dried out — and now there are rumours that it started producing water again. When they arrive to the village, they discover that the evil goblin shaman dug out the spring's source, and attempts to corrupt it and transform it to produce dead water, craft an undead army, bolster it by the dead water, and make vengeance to humans for driving goblins out of this land. In the end, if all goes right, the heroes manage to stop him and keep the spring uncorrupted.
So I'm thinking about how I want the mechanics of living and dead water to work. I want it to work like this:
A vial of living water, when drunk, works like Cure Light Wounds potion made by 1st-level cleric. A vial of dead water works either like an Inflict Light Wounds potion (if drunk) or as an Restore Corpse oil (if applied to a corpse). There was an ancient alchemical recipe, allowing living water to be transformed to something that would work like a hypothetical Raise Dead oil (if such thing could be possible), but this recipe was lost to the ages.
When a character drinks living or dead water more than two times per day, his body starts to experience negative side effects of boosted regeneration: he starts to receive Constitution (for living) or Charisma (for undead) damage, at the increasing rate — 2 damage for the third drink per day, 4 for fourth drink and so on. After a character drinks this water, for the next week the Cure/Inflict Light Wounds spells and spell-like abilities (but not any other healing spell or ability) are adhering to the same penalty.
The water has its magical properties only while it’s fresh — after a day in a vial/bottle/any container, it becomes an ordinary water, unless it is alchemicaly treated to improve the “shelf life”.
What would you think of this magical substance? Is it imbalanced? I tried to prevent the major abuses (like endless out-of-combat healing or ease of exporting of the water), and at the same time to make both players and the enemy really want to control the substance, but I fear that I may be missing something.