In times of mortal danger, some wizards choose to use their own soul to enhance their magic. This is exceedingly dangerous, and it’s possible for one to destroy their own soul doing these acts of magic.
- Start keeping track of a new stat somewhere on your character sheet; soul damage. It starts at 1 for any given character.
- When casting a spell, you may choose to use Soulburn, when doing so, roll a constitution saving throw, the DC is your soul damage. On a successful save, your character casts the spell with Soulburn, however, your soul damage increases by the level of the spell. On a failure, your character dies casting the spell, and cannot be brought back through anything less than a wish spell. If you do die casting the spell, the spell completes, but disappears almost instantly if the spell requires concentration.
But what exactly are the effects of Soulburn? It changes based on the type of spell being used.
- On offensive magic, it doubles the dice used for damage.
- On healing, it doubles the amount healed.
- On magic with a limited duration, it triples the duration.
- If the magic summons a creature or object, the creature or object has double it’s normal maximum hit points. (For example, wall of stone has 60 hp per wall, rather than 30.)
If any of these effects feel too unbalanced, talk with your dm about how to balance them more. If there’s a spell that’s too unique to fit under any kind of category, then talk with your dm on what Soulburn’s effect on that spell is.
Also, this spell cannot be used on a level 9 spell. Can you imagine a wish spell that had roughly double it’s original potential? No way that’s going to end well.
Also, the while the wish spell can slowly heal the damage dealt by Soulburn, it cannot remove all damage entirely in a single wish. It would work something like this: “I wish for (character name)’s soul to heal.” That player would then lose a point of soul damage every tenday or so. Honestly, I would have the damage be irreversible, but I know people in the comments will come up with ideas on how to reverse this, so I’m including my idea on how to do so.
Also, feel free to have various effects of having a damaged soul in your game. Perhaps the character becomes emotionally unstable, or suffers nightmares about death, etc, which get worse the more damage your soul has.
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