Bardic Masterpiece: Perish Song PEACH

[Draconi Redfir]

Context:
I fully expect this song to not be fully feasible / balanced, it's my first take on it. if you have any thoughts on how it could be better, I'd love to hear it.

At the end of my previous campaign, my level 17 Bard was recruited to sing lullabies to a sleeping Great Old One to keep it from waking up and destroying the city it was napping under. I thought a good "long term goal" for her could be to try and use these lullabies to permanently kill the Old One.

I realize it probably doesn't make much sense for Undead to be targeted by this, but at the same time it feels wrong to have them just be completely immune.

I understand this masterpiece is ridiculously strong, but i thought the high performance cost, the long performance time, the fact that the Performer can ALSO suffer the effect, and the fact that it was designed to kill an Old One helps balance it out a bit.

The masterpiece is heavily inspired by this youtube video.



Bardic Masterpiece: Perish Song (Sing)

This beautiful yet haunting lullaby summons the essence of Death itself into your presence, it will be the last thing you ever hear.

Prerequisites:
Perform (Sing) 15 ranks, Perform (String, Key, or Percussion) 10 ranks, Bardic Performance.

Cost: Feat or 6th-level bard spell known.

Effect: Living and Undead creatures (including the performer) who can hear this performance must make a Will save upon the performance's completion. If the performance is interrupted at any point, all creatures (including the performer) act as if they heard less then the entire performance. Creatures who hear less then sixty seconds (10 rounds) total of the performance do not need to make a save.

If the creature heard less then the entire performance, or was in some way able to muffle the sound (such as through covering one's ears) in time, then upon a failed Will save, they suffer Constitution damage equal to half of their total constitution score. (Charisma score for Undead) On a successful save,they become Nauseated for 1d6 rounds.

If the Creature heard the entire performance, then on a failed Will save, their Constitution score (Charisma score for Undead) is immediately reduced to 0, killing them instantly, silently, and painlessly. On a successful save, their Constitution score (Charisma score for Undead) Is reduced to a 1.

Use: 40 Bardic performance rounds

Action: 40 full rounds. (4 minutes)



Originally i thought of having different outcomes for "heard less then 14th of song" and "Heard about 3/4 of song" and "Roll a d100 if you're the performer to see if you die on the song's completion". But that felt like it just made things too complicated, so i tried to keep things simple.

Thoughts?



Edit: Thanks for all the quality feedback everyone, been a big help! thanks! 👍

[Debihuman]

I had to look up Bardic Masterpieces since I've never used one. This basically allows you to use deadly performance on multiple creatures. If all you need to do was target a single Great Old One, this doesn't fulfill that requirement. What is the range of this ability? How many can it affect?

I'm not opposed to killing an enemy but it's really awful that it affects everyone, especially innocent people who happening to be listening. This is an EVIL act and would definitely only be used by evil bards. I mean you could just kill the couple who just got engaged and just happen to wander by and innocent babies who happen to be around (and how far around isn't mentioned). I'm betting that the Great Old One can probably make the save over your bard's masterpiece.

You also need to change "heard less then" to "heard less than" in several places.

Deadly Performance (Su): A bard of 20th level or higher can use his performance to cause one enemy to die from joy or sorrow. To be affected, the target must be able to see and hear the bard perform for 1 full round and be within 30 feet. The target receives a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the bard’s level + the bard’s Cha modifier) to negate the effect. If a creature’s saving throw succeeds, the target is staggered for 1d4 rounds, and the bard cannot use deadly performance on that creature again for 24 hours. If a creature’s saving throw fails, it dies. Deadly performance is a mind-effecting death effect that relies on audible and visual components.