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View Full Version : Bestow curse to create permanent minor buffs?



mabriss lethe
2007-12-18, 02:41 AM
Bestow Curse from the SRD


You place a curse on the subject. Choose one of the following three effects.

-6 decrease to an ability score (minimum 1).
-4 penalty on attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks.
Each turn, the target has a 50% chance to act normally; otherwise, it takes no action.
You may also invent your own curse, but it should be no more powerful than those described above.

the bolded part is what catches my attention, Do you think it's plausable to use Bestow Curse as a vehicle for creating permanent effects on a creature that, while negative as a whole, could be of some small benefit to the character?

An idea might be to curse someone with a hypersensativity to magic. Maybe acting as a permanent version of detect magic but when exposed to magic, must make increasingly difficult fort saves to avoid being sickened or nauseated when the magical auras around them are too strong.

Possibly cursing someone to wear the face and form of the last person he/she touched as per the spell "Disguise self." gloves and the like, might help control the ability, but might not.


you get the idea.

Bag_of_Holding
2007-12-18, 02:47 AM
I'd make it a lesser version of detect magic in that you can detect the presence of magic yet you cannot discern it by means of Spellcraft check. In addition to that, you get -6 penalty to saving throws against all magical effects. I think it's a fair curse to bestow upon someone.



Edit: I firstly thought -2 penalty was hefty enough, but since the original spell bestows -4 penalty without any benefits, -6 penalty sounds good to me.

Talic
2007-12-18, 02:51 AM
Bestow Curse from the SRD



the bolded part is what catches my attention, Do you think it's plausable to use Bestow Curse as a vehicle for creating permanent effects on a creature that, while negative as a whole, could be of some small benefit to the character?

An idea might be to curse someone with a hypersensativity to magic. Maybe acting as a permanent version of detect magic but when exposed to magic, must make increasingly difficult fort saves to avoid being sickened or nauseated when the magical auras around them are too strong.

Possibly cursing someone to wear the face and form of the last person he/she touched as per the spell "Disguise self." gloves and the like, might help control the ability, but might not.


you get the idea.

Or like hypersensitive hearing? +5 to listen checks, but anytime confronted with a loud sound (total DC to hear =0), must make a fort save or be stunned for 1 round and deafened for 1d4 rounds?

Glue Grip? +4 to attempts to resist disarm, with obvious penalties to removal and donning of armor, using the restroom, delivering fragile documents, and the like?

Pure curses?
-8 to saves versus a specific school of magic.
Aversion to blood. Save vs nausea at sight.
-8 to skill checks for a specific 2 skills.
Always considered Flanked

Bear in mind that two possible effects in curse have bonuses. Blind characters are immune to illusions and gaze attacks, and deaf characters are immune to most sonic effects. Not quite all, as sonic damage can hurt walls... which certainly can't hear. And blinding and deafening is certainly on par (since it's a debuff spell that's level 2, it's certainly not overpowered.)

For bestow greater curse, I liked the invented "Blindness AND deafness". Helen Keller, anyone? It's usually a Save vs Lose.

mabriss lethe
2007-12-18, 02:59 AM
Basically, I'm working on a character who is a member of a very odd religious order. One of his tests is to survive in the world for a year and a day while under the influence of such a curse. Since his superiors aren't total monsters, they craft each curse according to the individual's personality, habits, whatever. The lesson they want to the novice to learn is that he must posess the cunning to turn a weakness into an asset. So, the curse is there, over all it's pretty crummy, but has some redeeming feature that could potentially be exploited by the novice if he can unlock it's secret

Talic
2007-12-18, 03:46 AM
Such as a vain person who receives a penalty to Diplomacy and Bluff checks, as his crutch is removed from him, but finds it allows him to see into the true nature of people a bit easier?

(Translation: -8 to Diplomacy and Bluff checks, but after one year, character gains a permanent +4 insight bonus to Sense Motive)

CASTLEMIKE
2007-12-18, 07:48 AM
Consider making it a semi-permanent buff with original spell research for the Bestow Blessing spell the reverse of Bestow Curse.

Riffington
2007-12-18, 04:18 PM
I completely endorse this idea except:
A curse is a curse. If it ever becomes a net benefit to both the caster and the target, this should break the curse.

AKA_Bait
2007-12-18, 05:16 PM
As a DM, I would not allow this. Although it's a neat concept, allowing that in my game strikes me as ripe for abuse. I'd rather there just be individual homebrewed spells to do x curse/benifit thing and review each individually.

valadil
2007-12-18, 05:22 PM
I'd allow it if it were done in a flavorful manner. If you gave someone the Curse of the Tuna, for instance, which swapped their lungs for gills they'd gain underwater breathing, but lose too much in the process.

Something min maxier like Curse of the Meathead for +2 Str, -4Int, -4Chr would not see play in any game I ran. You lose a lot, but a min maxed melee would take this in a heartbeat.

Snadgeros
2007-12-18, 05:24 PM
Seems a lot like the flaw system, but not as flexible. Really, it's all up to the DM. Run it by him and find out if he'd allow it. If it's obvious and blatant munchkinning, probably not. Otherwise, just stick with flaws and use the feats to give yourself bonuses.

Talic
2007-12-19, 12:51 AM
As long as you don't buff a primary attribute, BAB, caster level, or any major skill, you should be ok. Keep in mind, even blindness has a couple advantages: immunity to gaze attacks and visual illusions. They don't outweigh the drawbacks, but keep in mind, there's an upside to most everything.

Felius
2007-12-19, 01:02 AM
Also depends on one big factor: You're the DM or a Player? Probably this kind of curse should only be dealt by the DM (and if the players try to do the same with bestow curse, say it's another spell, that only the high priest/archmage/god/whatever knows.

Randel
2007-12-19, 02:57 AM
Hmmm... I wonder if something like "From now on, no truth will ever come from your lips." could have a sort of bonus. The character can't speak a true statement but they get a bonus to bluff checks. So if they want to buy some magic item they are forced to say they want to buy something else, but if they are trying to convince some guards they have clearance to get to some area then they are a natural at convincing them (as long as they don't actually have clearance to go there).

Tengu
2007-12-19, 03:06 AM
Something min maxier like Curse of the Meathead for +2 Str, -4Int, -4Chr would not see play in any game I ran. You lose a lot, but a min maxed melee would take this in a heartbeat.

Is that curse activated by putting a handkerchief on your head and glasses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumbys)?

mabriss lethe
2007-12-19, 03:25 AM
OK. so the results are in, about the range of responses I expected, since I went through them all in one form or another while coming up with the idea.

Here are the basic arguments for and against so far. (if I left one out somewhere..I might get around to adressing it later, but this should be enough of a start to see where I'm coming from.)
option one: No way! A curse is a bad thing, so no benefit should ever come to the character.

I disagree. Often in liturature, curses exist that have some sort of positive function if the situation is right. Overall, they're pretty crappy. They make the character's life a thing of torment. But when things go south, that very curse will probably play a roll in saving the character's life. Alternately, some thing, that may have sounded like a good idea at the time, turns out to be a curse. So my plan is to create curses that are, as a whole, debilitating, but also by their very nature could be called upon as an asset.

Option two: Sure, but that means that the curse needs to be stronger in order to make up for the possible benefit

I disagree here as well. In the spell description one statement springs to mind. The words are no more powerful than those described. You could look at that phrase to come infer option two. I don't. I see that as the finite limits of just how much manipulation this spell is capable of achieving. The spell just doesn't have the wattage to force a stronger than normal penalty and achieve a secondary effect. Where does that leave me? If I can't have a stronger overall effect, the sum total of the effects has to be on par or weaker than the benchmarks. That brings up the next point in the discussion. In no way does the spell description say that you must use the maximum possible effect when casting. As long as it doesn't exceed the maximum power limit of the spell then it should work.

My personal preference is that the bad has to outweigh the good. It's not a curse otherwise. So I'm thinking something along the lines of a buying bonuses for twice the price as the penalty. As a generic example: A one point increase to an ability score is worth the same as a two point decrease. possibly even a 1/3 ratio . The one guidelines should be that half or more of the "point allotment" should go towards negatives. There should also be some flavorful touch to the curse aside from the mechanical penalty/benefit in order to really make it sink in.

Option three: It's a possibility, but it's just asking for someone to abuse it. NPC only!

Up to the last part of this, I agree wholeheartedly. It's skirting the very edge of the cheese bowl and it's a delicate dance to keep it from falling into cheesiness. As both a DM and player, I'm trying to come up with a series of benchmarks that I can use as a set guidelines to bend the spell's original intent without breaking it utterly. I try to ask myself, would I allow one of my players to do this? (For the record, this character is one I'll be playing, I won't be GMing this game.) I want to playtest it in someone else's world and see how it operates before I try to introduce it into one of my own games. ( I do have some truly twisted scenarios in mind if I like the way it plays out.)

Option four: As long as you don't buff the good stuff, then it isn't a problem.

In any given situation, I could find that what I've boosted would be the good stuff. Sure, there are certain abilities and such that are of far more utility than others for a given class. In all fairness, the guidelines I'm working on should be able to be universally applied to all characters and classes.

Option Five: Just make a different spell that does what you want.

This isn't a bad idea at all, but it's not what I'm trying to accomplish. I feel that bestow curse has a big enough mechanical hole in it that it could be used in a variety of creative and unorthodox ways. I just want to expand upon the spell's description to really push what it can do. sort of putting the pedal to the floor to see how far the spedometer will climb before you crash and burn.

My rough draft of the guidelines are as follows: Bestow Curse gets X number of points to craft the curse (point pool to be worked on later) The caster must allocate half or more of the points spent into drawbacks. The remainder may be allocated towards buffs. These buffs cost twice the points as a related drawback. Not all points have to be used as long as the ratio of allocated points remains balanced or in favor of the drawbacks. So say arbitrarily, i make the curse drop one attribute by -4, (costing 4 out of 6 points) I could then increase another attribute by +1 or purchase the point equivalent in a save, skill check or whatever.(as long as it costs 2 points or less.) This won't cover everything by a long shot, but it's a good start towards get some guidelines down.

and on a related note, I just broke the warlock class in one thread.

Talic
2007-12-19, 04:22 AM
OK. so the results are in, about the range of responses I expected, since I went through them all in one form or another while coming up with the idea.

Here are the basic arguments for and against so far. (if I left one out somewhere..I might get around to adressing it later, but this should be enough of a start to see where I'm coming from.)
option one: No way! A curse is a bad thing, so no benefit should ever come to the character.

I disagree. Often in liturature, curses exist that have some sort of positive function if the situation is right. Overall, they're pretty crappy. They make the character's life a thing of torment. But when things go south, that very curse will probably play a roll in saving the character's life. Alternately, some thing, that may have sounded like a good idea at the time, turns out to be a curse. So my plan is to create curses that are, as a whole, debilitating, but also by their very nature could be called upon as an asset.

The Midas Touch? You're rich, but dead.


Option two: Sure, but that means that the curse needs to be stronger in order to make up for the possible benefit

I disagree here as well. In the spell description one statement springs to mind. The words are no more powerful than those described. You could look at that phrase to come infer option two. I don't. I see that as the finite limits of just how much manipulation this spell is capable of achieving. The spell just doesn't have the wattage to force a stronger than normal penalty and achieve a secondary effect. Where does that leave me? If I can't have a stronger overall effect, the sum total of the effects has to be on par or weaker than the benchmarks. That brings up the next point in the discussion. In no way does the spell description say that you must use the maximum possible effect when casting. As long as it doesn't exceed the maximum power limit of the spell then it should work.

Not what I suggested. An effect that provides a -8 penalty to one or two specific abilities is no more powerful than one that applies a -4 to all attacks, saves, skill checks, and ability checks. It's just more focused.


My personal preference is that the bad has to outweigh the good. It's not a curse otherwise. So I'm thinking something along the lines of a buying bonuses for twice the price as the penalty. As a generic example: A one point increase to an ability score is worth the same as a two point decrease. possibly even a 1/3 ratio . The one guidelines should be that half or more of the "point allotment" should go towards negatives. There should also be some flavorful touch to the curse aside from the mechanical penalty/benefit in order to really make it sink in.

Not for the realms of players, just as magic items creation isn't. It's too breakable. It needs oversight.


Option three: It's a possibility, but it's just asking for someone to abuse it. NPC only!

Up to the last part of this, I agree wholeheartedly. It's skirting the very edge of the cheese bowl and it's a delicate dance to keep it from falling into cheesiness. As both a DM and player, I'm trying to come up with a series of benchmarks that I can use as a set guidelines to bend the spell's original intent without breaking it utterly. I try to ask myself, would I allow one of my players to do this? (For the record, this character is one I'll be playing, I won't be GMing this game.) I want to playtest it in someone else's world and see how it operates before I try to introduce it into one of my own games. ( I do have some truly twisted scenarios in mind if I like the way it plays out.)

Option four: As long as you don't buff the good stuff, then it isn't a problem.

In any given situation, I could find that what I've boosted would be the good stuff. Sure, there are certain abilities and such that are of far more utility than others for a given class. In all fairness, the guidelines I'm working on should be able to be universally applied to all characters and classes.

But in learning to turn a drawback into an advantage, wouldn't it be more appropriate to use something not as easily applied?


Option Five: Just make a different spell that does what you want.

This isn't a bad idea at all, but it's not what I'm trying to accomplish. I feel that bestow curse has a big enough mechanical hole in it that it could be used in a variety of creative and unorthodox ways. I just want to expand upon the spell's description to really push what it can do. sort of putting the pedal to the floor to see how far the spedometer will climb before you crash and burn.

So, rather than create a spell, you change one? Functionally the same thing.


My rough draft of the guidelines are as follows: Bestow Curse gets X number of points to craft the curse (point pool to be worked on later) The caster must allocate half or more of the points spent into drawbacks. The remainder may be allocated towards buffs. These buffs cost twice the points as a related drawback. Not all points have to be used as long as the ratio of allocated points remains balanced or in favor of the drawbacks. So say arbitrarily, i make the curse drop one attribute by -4, (costing 4 out of 6 points) I could then increase another attribute by +1 or purchase the point equivalent in a save, skill check or whatever.(as long as it costs 2 points or less.) This won't cover everything by a long shot, but it's a good start towards get some guidelines down.

And you've functionally applied a Wish to the end of your curse, as one of its options is a permanent +1 to an ability score. The reason curse has a permanent duration is that it's something you don't want. You try to get rid of it, and eventually succeed. If it's something you DO want, it's not balanced.

Fax Celestis
2007-12-19, 12:35 PM
Remember, though, Permanent != Instantaneous. Permanent effects are breakable, dispellable, etc. Instantaneous ones are not.

Mewtarthio
2007-12-19, 01:06 PM
I'd disagree with a curse that gives, say, -10 Str and +4 Cha. In my mind, the benefits of curses should be things that spring naturally from the downsides. It's not that you've got a cool new power and some nasty drawbacks to make up for it, it's that you've got a nasty curse but have figured out how to use it to your advantage. For instance, someone above mentioned that a curse that prevents telling the truth should give a bonus to Bluff checks. I disagree: You aren't learning how to lie any better, and in fact are likely learning how to lie worse (so that people won't believe the falsehoods you keep spewing... like "I am most certainly NOT cursed at all!"). However, it does provide a few benefits: Anyone who knows of your curse knows that whatever you say is a lie. Quite handy when you can walk up and say, "I'm the traitor. The Grand Vizier is innocent."

In other words, I'm opposed to any sort of point-based curse system, but in favor of curses that can be creatively used to the character's benefit.

Arakune
2007-12-19, 01:21 PM
Why don't make it seen it's a good thing but in return it's an awful thing? Like Midas touch as stated before.

+4 Str, +4 Dex, -6 Con, +4 Hit but you lose 1 point of HP per day and you can't heal normally, healing spells instead hurt you and inflict spells hurts you even more.

mabriss lethe
2007-12-19, 03:25 PM
And you've functionally applied a Wish to the end of your curse, as one of its options is a permanent +1 to an ability score. The reason curse has a permanent duration is that it's something you don't want. You try to get rid of it, and eventually succeed. If it's something you DO want, it's not balanced.

But it only takes the successful application of a 4th level spell (or third level in the case of bards) to undo it entirely. Remove curse can do it vs a successful will save. Break enchantment a 5th level spell (or 4th for Bards) can do it and doesn't need a normal save, it instead requires a caster level check. If it's an invocation cast by a warlock, then all the warlock needs to do is will it to end. since unless otherwise stated, a warlock can prematurely end the effects of his invocations, and I don't believe that there was anything to the contrary of that in the description of Curse of Despair.