I am curious how other people handle "curses" for Player Characters.
Most of the curse section in Van Richten's is more focused on curses that your party may encounter, but I want to give players the opportunity to actually cast a curse. I picked up the Grim Hollow Campaign Guide, and I love their 4 stage curse concept, and I plan to incorporate those into my campaign, but I want to flesh out the concept of "curse magic" a bit more.
Obviously we have the spell Bestow Curse, but are there other spells that ya'll would consider to be a "curse"? In my setting, Remove Curse is treated similarly to Dispel Magic, and has an ability check associated with it. I don't want Dispel Magic to work on "curses" in my setting, but I am really struggling to define which spells I should make Remove Curse effective on.
Thoughts?
Also, Id love to hear about any other curse-type mechanics that you have others have found interesting or fun!
Warlocks have as spell called "hex". Rangers have Hunter's Mark, which is sort of a curse on their enemies. Critical hits curse you with double damage. A Bard can use Mind Sliver and follow up with Vicious Mockery to do damage to their minds with Harsh Language, that's gotta make their target curse about it.
Gleann, Can you explain more what you meant about Critical Hits?
Most of the spells I have considered come from either School of Necromancy or Enchantment...would others maybe see it as wise to limit "curses" to those schools?
In essence, what I mean is that a crit does more than normal damage. That's pretty much a small game mechanic that lets non casters do something that casters do with curses in general. More damage.
There was a discussion once about how Charm type effects could be considered a type of mental damage, because they force you into doing something you wouldn't do normally. When a monster casts charm, the base effect is that now magic makes you consider them your friend. It damages your mind by taking away your freedom of choice.
Geas lasts for a month, forces you to consider them your friend the entire time, and does psychic damage every time you avoid doing what your friend told you to do.
Feeblemind, if you fail your save, makes your Intelligence and Charisma equal to one. For the next 30 days you're unable to do anything other than act on instinct.
Antipathy/Sympathy forces you to be scared of something or forces you to get closer to something by making you like it so much.
Any spell that imposes force from the outside to keep you from being able to choose is a sort of curse from where I am standing, like Soul Cage, a cage around your Soul that keeps you from moving by affecting your physical body with the force of your own Soul.
I have to deal with spells like these, but I am never going to like them, so when it happens, I curse. In the real world, I have a lot of limitations, mostly physical, some mental. I cannot post them in a public forum according to the Terms of Service. If you really want to know, send me a private message and I'll tell you what you want to know.
Geas lasts for a month, forces you to consider them your friend the entire time, and does psychic damage every time you avoid doing what your friend told you to do.
Just a side note, charmed does not make anyone consider them as a friend. It only prevents the charmed creature from attacking the charmer.
The spell charm person adds the friendly acquaintance effect while the person is charmed, but it is independent of the condition.
I’d say keep remove curse working as it does by RAW, and if you want some homebrew extra-special curse (where it can only be broken by some special circumstance), have the regular spell not work on that.
I am curious how other people handle "curses" for Player Characters.
Most of the curse section in Van Richten's is more focused on curses that your party may encounter, but I want to give players the opportunity to actually cast a curse. I picked up the Grim Hollow Campaign Guide, and I love their 4 stage curse concept, and I plan to incorporate those into my campaign, but I want to flesh out the concept of "curse magic" a bit more.
Obviously we have the spell Bestow Curse, but are there other spells that ya'll would consider to be a "curse"? In my setting, Remove Curse is treated similarly to Dispel Magic, and has an ability check associated with it. I don't want Dispel Magic to work on "curses" in my setting, but I am really struggling to define which spells I should make Remove Curse effective on.
Thoughts?
Also, Id love to hear about any other curse-type mechanics that you have others have found interesting or fun!
If a party was going this route in a CoS/Dark Domain or similarly themed campaign, I'd be very reluctant to have them just be able to toss a major curse on an NPC with one spell, or even a combination of PC spells. That's the kind of thing that a quest should be built around -- researching how to do the curse (consulting with dangerous forces for a price, perhaps? Finding some rumored tome?), collecting the necessary materials (including something personal from the target?), then actually pulling off the ritual, which could feature a time crunch if the NPC is now aware of what they're up to and trying to stop them.
If the party can cast a significant curse through spells alone, and it's effective, then you're just opening the door for them to do it all the time.
I'd also have repercussions from them successfully casting one beyond the effect on the enemy they used it on -- maybe word gets out and locals start coming to the party to get them to curse a neighbor for letting that stupid cow graze on their field one too many times. Then maybe a hag coven sees the party as competition that needs to be eliminated. Etc etc.
Big curses are capital-E Evil Magic, as well as significant drivers of plot, and should be treated as such.
As far as remove curse goes, it's fine to only make it effective on lower-power, 'normal' curses. It's a 3rd-level spell. greater restoration is 5th level and can handle bigger curses, but in some cases, the only solution should be a quest, not a spell slot.
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Other spells that could be considered curses (aside from those mentioned so far): Bane, Ray of Enfleeblement and Elemental Bane all come to mind. Effectively any spell that makes a target take extra damage or imposes disadvantage on an ability/skill/attack roll could be considered a curse.
Hi Dennis, so it sounds like the OP knows how to inflict curses on characters. What the OP is asking for is guidance for enabling PCs to inflict curses (expanding their agency, one could say ;). So the question is literally asking in the opposite trajectory of your answer.
OP, I'm not familiar with the Grim Hollow product beyond advertising and hype press, but the design team is well regarded so probably exemplary "professional homebrew" to use. My pause is considering power levels. At what point in the game are you thinking of enabling PCs to bestow curses that are presumably more powerful than the 3rd level spell? Have you reconstructed your favorite curses in lore and established what power level, or collaboration of power levels (think Hag or other covens) likely enabled the casting?
The other question would be "why?" Curses of the sort I think you're outlining are rarely resolved or even come to full fruition within the scope of an encounter or even an entire adventure. Is there a desire to be particularly nasty or at least mocking to recurring NPCs? I mean I can see it in a campaign that's about intrigue or power struggles or complex relationships. What game benefit do the characters get being able to curse? I see exercising narrative driving curses as shift in focus away from the PCs to the afflicted NPC, because the players will want to know how the target is doing when the NPC is "off camera" and that can just go far afield where the characters actually aren't doing much other than making other non-player characters confront adverse circumstances. It'd be like you're the DM and now the PCs are mini-DMs and you have to play the mini-DMs PCs who were your NPCs, and that gets sort of mobius strippy.
I imagine one route would be to sorta treat curses ritualistically requiring a lot of exotic components as well as items from the targets person or body or what have you.
Or are you simply looking for more options within the constraints of the 3rd level spell and Bane, for instance?
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think any spell that lasts longer than a day and can be cast on an unwilling creature fits the intent of a curse. D&D Beyond's advanced spell search unfortunately doesn't let you filter on duration. However, it does let you sort by duration, which is just as good for our purposes.
I think any spell that lasts longer than a day and can be cast on an unwilling creature fits the intent of a curse. D&D Beyond's advanced spell search unfortunately doesn't let you filter on duration. However, it does let you sort by duration, which is just as good for our purposes.
Here are spells that I think meet the criteria.
Imprisonment
Geas
Antipathy / Sympathy
Contagion
Unfortunately D&D Beyond gives the duration of some spells like Feeblemind as instantaneous, when really it should be "until dispelled", so don't rely on this sort.
yeah, Dennis' point kinda gets to why "why?" argument. However, I imagine there's some illusionary magic that you could also plague a character with,
The thing is most of the curses beyond the simple spell techniques come from artifacts, magical traps of high level design etc. Again, you could probably figure out some magical construction of these things, but I'd make it more a shopping list and a lot of downtime to build rather than spell slots and the standard spell list. Maybe something like The Book of Vile Darkness contains the means to do it.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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I am curious how other people handle "curses" for Player Characters.
Most of the curse section in Van Richten's is more focused on curses that your party may encounter, but I want to give players the opportunity to actually cast a curse. I picked up the Grim Hollow Campaign Guide, and I love their 4 stage curse concept, and I plan to incorporate those into my campaign, but I want to flesh out the concept of "curse magic" a bit more.
Obviously we have the spell Bestow Curse, but are there other spells that ya'll would consider to be a "curse"? In my setting, Remove Curse is treated similarly to Dispel Magic, and has an ability check associated with it. I don't want Dispel Magic to work on "curses" in my setting, but I am really struggling to define which spells I should make Remove Curse effective on.
Thoughts?
Also, Id love to hear about any other curse-type mechanics that you have others have found interesting or fun!
Warlocks have as spell called "hex". Rangers have Hunter's Mark, which is sort of a curse on their enemies. Critical hits curse you with double damage. A Bard can use Mind Sliver and follow up with Vicious Mockery to do damage to their minds with Harsh Language, that's gotta make their target curse about it.
<Insert clever signature here>
Thank you for your response! I had thought about Hex. I had also considered Geas, Feeblemind, Antipathy/Sympathy, [spell[Ray of Enfeeblement[/spell] and Soul Cage. The Hunter's Mark hadn't really occurred to me before for this.
Gleann, Can you explain more what you meant about Critical Hits?
Most of the spells I have considered come from either School of Necromancy or Enchantment...would others maybe see it as wise to limit "curses" to those schools?
In essence, what I mean is that a crit does more than normal damage. That's pretty much a small game mechanic that lets non casters do something that casters do with curses in general. More damage.
There was a discussion once about how Charm type effects could be considered a type of mental damage, because they force you into doing something you wouldn't do normally. When a monster casts charm, the base effect is that now magic makes you consider them your friend. It damages your mind by taking away your freedom of choice.
Any spell that imposes force from the outside to keep you from being able to choose is a sort of curse from where I am standing, like Soul Cage, a cage around your Soul that keeps you from moving by affecting your physical body with the force of your own Soul.
I have to deal with spells like these, but I am never going to like them, so when it happens, I curse. In the real world, I have a lot of limitations, mostly physical, some mental. I cannot post them in a public forum according to the Terms of Service. If you really want to know, send me a private message and I'll tell you what you want to know.
<Insert clever signature here>
Just a side note, charmed does not make anyone consider them as a friend. It only prevents the charmed creature from attacking the charmer.
The spell charm person adds the friendly acquaintance effect while the person is charmed, but it is independent of the condition.
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I’d say keep remove curse working as it does by RAW, and if you want some homebrew extra-special curse (where it can only be broken by some special circumstance), have the regular spell not work on that.
If a party was going this route in a CoS/Dark Domain or similarly themed campaign, I'd be very reluctant to have them just be able to toss a major curse on an NPC with one spell, or even a combination of PC spells. That's the kind of thing that a quest should be built around -- researching how to do the curse (consulting with dangerous forces for a price, perhaps? Finding some rumored tome?), collecting the necessary materials (including something personal from the target?), then actually pulling off the ritual, which could feature a time crunch if the NPC is now aware of what they're up to and trying to stop them.
If the party can cast a significant curse through spells alone, and it's effective, then you're just opening the door for them to do it all the time.
I'd also have repercussions from them successfully casting one beyond the effect on the enemy they used it on -- maybe word gets out and locals start coming to the party to get them to curse a neighbor for letting that stupid cow graze on their field one too many times. Then maybe a hag coven sees the party as competition that needs to be eliminated. Etc etc.
Big curses are capital-E Evil Magic, as well as significant drivers of plot, and should be treated as such.
As far as remove curse goes, it's fine to only make it effective on lower-power, 'normal' curses. It's a 3rd-level spell. greater restoration is 5th level and can handle bigger curses, but in some cases, the only solution should be a quest, not a spell slot.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
A little shameless self promotion if you want to give your players some extra "oomphf" with their curses: https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/226363-alternative-uses-of-bestow-curse
Other spells that could be considered curses (aside from those mentioned so far): Bane, Ray of Enfleeblement and Elemental Bane all come to mind. Effectively any spell that makes a target take extra damage or imposes disadvantage on an ability/skill/attack roll could be considered a curse.
Hi Dennis, so it sounds like the OP knows how to inflict curses on characters. What the OP is asking for is guidance for enabling PCs to inflict curses (expanding their agency, one could say ;). So the question is literally asking in the opposite trajectory of your answer.
OP, I'm not familiar with the Grim Hollow product beyond advertising and
hypepress, but the design team is well regarded so probably exemplary "professional homebrew" to use. My pause is considering power levels. At what point in the game are you thinking of enabling PCs to bestow curses that are presumably more powerful than the 3rd level spell? Have you reconstructed your favorite curses in lore and established what power level, or collaboration of power levels (think Hag or other covens) likely enabled the casting?The other question would be "why?" Curses of the sort I think you're outlining are rarely resolved or even come to full fruition within the scope of an encounter or even an entire adventure. Is there a desire to be particularly nasty or at least mocking to recurring NPCs? I mean I can see it in a campaign that's about intrigue or power struggles or complex relationships. What game benefit do the characters get being able to curse? I see exercising narrative driving curses as shift in focus away from the PCs to the afflicted NPC, because the players will want to know how the target is doing when the NPC is "off camera" and that can just go far afield where the characters actually aren't doing much other than making other non-player characters confront adverse circumstances. It'd be like you're the DM and now the PCs are mini-DMs and you have to play the mini-DMs PCs who were your NPCs, and that gets sort of mobius strippy.
I imagine one route would be to sorta treat curses ritualistically requiring a lot of exotic components as well as items from the targets person or body or what have you.
Or are you simply looking for more options within the constraints of the 3rd level spell and Bane, for instance?
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think any spell that lasts longer than a day and can be cast on an unwilling creature fits the intent of a curse. D&D Beyond's advanced spell search unfortunately doesn't let you filter on duration. However, it does let you sort by duration, which is just as good for our purposes.
Here are spells that I think meet the criteria.
Unfortunately D&D Beyond gives the duration of some spells like Feeblemind as instantaneous, when really it should be "until dispelled", so don't rely on this sort.
It does.
Which is fine, if nobody at your table objects to that.
yeah, Dennis' point kinda gets to why "why?" argument. However, I imagine there's some illusionary magic that you could also plague a character with,
The thing is most of the curses beyond the simple spell techniques come from artifacts, magical traps of high level design etc. Again, you could probably figure out some magical construction of these things, but I'd make it more a shopping list and a lot of downtime to build rather than spell slots and the standard spell list. Maybe something like The Book of Vile Darkness contains the means to do it.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.