Point him at my post where I suggested different rates of corruption/corrosion for different materials, etc. Maybe he'll draw some inspiration from it - especially as it'd involve you doing a few quests, to gather the requisite materials to build that chest, or one very like it. :)
I did actually paste that comment to him. I thought it was a great idea! I understand I can't go waving the thing around like it is a simple +1 dagger or something, but come on! Give the Evil Necro a break! HAHA!
I actually mentioned your idea about the book digging itself into oblivion to Jeremy Crawford as well on Twitter, as I thought it was a great observation.
Frodo could only use the One Ring a few times and even then it nearly drove him mad. Anyone else was basically done the first time they put it on.
Do you think that story would have been better if he had been able to use it without dire consequences?
Bad analogy.
If the ring worked the way Crawford apparently wants the Book to work? The Ring would never have been brought to Rivendell. Frodo would have been done in the Prancing Pony.
By Crawford's ruling, just laying a single finger, without gloves, on the Book for six seconds or less, means: you're dead. Frodo carried the One Ring for months. Bilbo had it for decades. And Smeagol, before Bilbo, had it for centuries.
Proximity over time is what corrupted each of them, to varying degrees. (Frodo weakened faster, partly because he actually went into Mordor, closer to Sauron himself, and partly because he was physically weakened by both the dreary slog across Mordor itself, and, his multiple prior wounds (Shelob's venom, the Nazgul dagger-wound that never quite healed, etc).
...
Again: If merely touching the Book is essentially instantaneously fatal; if anything you try to carry teh book with - iron tongs, a chest, gloves on your hands, whatever - is destroyed within six seconds ... then there is no story to tell, except:
"The party beheld the Book, and could do nothing with, to, or about it. So they left it behind. The end."
That's not a story. That's the absence of a story.
Whereas, if it takes a week or so to corrode it's way through an ordinary, iron-bound oaken chest ... now the story becomes:
"The party retrieved the Book, and thus began the tale of their long efforts to find a way to seal it's evil away forever ..."
That is an actual story. You could literally base an entire campaign around the act of assembling something to contain the Book, while simultaneously fending off evil beings who come in search of it ... and struggling to resist the Book's own corropting influence.
...
As I said, one option creates a story; the other options precludes any stories.
Here is what we are doing in our game if anyone ever runs into this item and needs ideas on how to handle it.
The book is constantly destroying things.
A humanoid character is able to carry the book for 1 week before being destroyed. There will be serious noticeable side effects after 3 days at which point I am going to have to work hard to "convince" them to keep carrying it for me.
If I carry the book, I need to make a Con save every 8 hours or suffer immediate exhaustion, normal destruction rules also apply.
My undead can carry the book for 2 weeks before being destroyed.
My GM did like the idea of creating a special "container" for the book out of strange materials so he is working that in too, so thanks for the idea.
My GM and I thought this was a good way to handle the book and it is really causing some interesting interactions in our party already. We got done with a big fight and needed to go back to town to pick up a couple of party members that had gotten left behind. As soon as I got near the town my counter ran out and I was exhausted.
"My party was like WTF just happened." I ,of course, wouldn't speak of it.
Retreated to my room in our hideout to study the book after convincing our evil Paladin to use a lay on hands on me to restore me. While I was studying the book another party member "didn't have a good feeling" about what I was doing and snuck up to investigate me. He used an ability to see through my door and saw me reading an evil looking book, but totally failed his check and just assumed it was a wizard tome of some sort and I was re-loading my spells.
My GM's way of handling the item has already created some interesting things happening in the party. I think he chose a much better option than having me die after 6 seconds of handling the item.
I am sure the book is going to kill me eventually anyway, but it will be a fun ride into oblivion!
A bag of Holding will work if you cover it in sovereign glue it becomes invincible so you dont lose your book lol my dm said this is acceptable and now i carry it around the funny thing is im a paladin
A bag of Holding will work if you cover it in sovereign glue it becomes invincible so you dont lose your book lol my dm said this is acceptable and now i carry it around the funny thing is im a paladin
So, you just randomly posted one person's RAF interpretation of the rules on a thread that's been dead for eight months?
You know, what it comes down to is ... you have to talk to your GM about how long things take.
Clearly, the Book shouldn't be destroying everything it touches, within hours. I mean, if it did that, then just setting it on the ground would - within weeks - burn a hole straight down through the world, and the Underdark ... and spawn a volcano.
AND THEN KEEP BURNING IT'S WAY DOWN. Forever. Infinitely. Such that no person would ever again see it, or be influenced by it to spread evil and perfidy in the world .... defeating the very purpose of the Book.
...
So. There must be some way to store it long-term - different material should last different lengths of time, as should different amounts of that material. The book might corrode it's way through an inch of hardwood in a week, but an inch of bone from sentient creatures might hold it for two weeks, half-inch of stone would hold it for a season (three months), the same thickness of obsidian might hold it for the traditional "year and a day", and a full inch of stone mined from the Abyss, or one of the Hells, might last thirteen years (or 666 weeks, to be cute about it).
And then, preparing the container, pedestal, etc with a spell like Unhallow could perhaps double the time it lasts.
So ... if you get yourself a chest of stout iron mined from Acheron and smelted in the fires of the Abyss, line the inside with quarter-inch slabs of wailing stone from Tarterus, all of it christened with the blood of an innocent (extra props if you can go for the whole "virgin sacrifice" angle) while casting Unhallow on the interior of the chest .... you might have somethig that will last, oh, fifty years? Possibly a century?
Of course ... you've also pretty much constructed a very powerful evil magic item, so if you weren't evil to begin with ..... well, you are now, mwa ha ha ha...!!
Every time I have seen or heard of the book, it is locked in place above a stone pedestal, floating there, and it can not be moved physically. However, liches and other powerful undead can turn the pages and even summon the book to their hand for a very short time.
It's never seemed to me that the book of vile darkness is meant to be carried around all over the place.
Why not leave it in your lair and learn a summoning spell to summon the book to your hand momentarily and then send it back as soon as you're finished with it?
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
as a GM, I would probably rule that one wielding the book of vile darkness would suffer in ways other than being a literal sphere of annihilation. for example, I would probably say that casting high level spells with the book would give levels of exhaustion, or draw the attention of figures such as Vecna, who wrote it. additionally, I might rule that someone wielding the book might age twice as fast but live just as long, resulting in early fatigue. this could allow the same amount of stat reduction, allowing the wielder to be basically the book's legs rather than a mage in their own right. this can create some cool plot twists and serious setbacks while not disintegrating you while you read the instructions to a first level spell.
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Point him at my post where I suggested different rates of corruption/corrosion for different materials, etc. Maybe he'll draw some inspiration from it - especially as it'd involve you doing a few quests, to gather the requisite materials to build that chest, or one very like it. :)
Pax -
I did actually paste that comment to him. I thought it was a great idea! I understand I can't go waving the thing around like it is a simple +1 dagger or something, but come on! Give the Evil Necro a break! HAHA!
I actually mentioned your idea about the book digging itself into oblivion to Jeremy Crawford as well on Twitter, as I thought it was a great observation.
Frodo could only use the One Ring a few times and even then it nearly drove him mad. Anyone else was basically done the first time they put it on.
Do you think that story would have been better if he had been able to use it without dire consequences?
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Bad analogy.
If the ring worked the way Crawford apparently wants the Book to work? The Ring would never have been brought to Rivendell. Frodo would have been done in the Prancing Pony.
By Crawford's ruling, just laying a single finger, without gloves, on the Book for six seconds or less, means: you're dead. Frodo carried the One Ring for months. Bilbo had it for decades. And Smeagol, before Bilbo, had it for centuries.
Proximity over time is what corrupted each of them, to varying degrees. (Frodo weakened faster, partly because he actually went into Mordor, closer to Sauron himself, and partly because he was physically weakened by both the dreary slog across Mordor itself, and, his multiple prior wounds (Shelob's venom, the Nazgul dagger-wound that never quite healed, etc).
...
Again: If merely touching the Book is essentially instantaneously fatal; if anything you try to carry teh book with - iron tongs, a chest, gloves on your hands, whatever - is destroyed within six seconds ... then there is no story to tell, except:
"The party beheld the Book, and could do nothing with, to, or about it. So they left it behind. The end."
That's not a story. That's the absence of a story.
Whereas, if it takes a week or so to corrode it's way through an ordinary, iron-bound oaken chest ... now the story becomes:
"The party retrieved the Book, and thus began the tale of their long efforts to find a way to seal it's evil away forever ..."
That is an actual story. You could literally base an entire campaign around the act of assembling something to contain the Book, while simultaneously fending off evil beings who come in search of it ... and struggling to resist the Book's own corropting influence.
...
As I said, one option creates a story; the other options precludes any stories.
Here is what we are doing in our game if anyone ever runs into this item and needs ideas on how to handle it.
The book is constantly destroying things.
A humanoid character is able to carry the book for 1 week before being destroyed. There will be serious noticeable side effects after 3 days at which point I am going to have to work hard to "convince" them to keep carrying it for me.
If I carry the book, I need to make a Con save every 8 hours or suffer immediate exhaustion, normal destruction rules also apply.
My undead can carry the book for 2 weeks before being destroyed.
My GM did like the idea of creating a special "container" for the book out of strange materials so he is working that in too, so thanks for the idea.
My GM and I thought this was a good way to handle the book and it is really causing some interesting interactions in our party already. We got done with a big fight and needed to go back to town to pick up a couple of party members that had gotten left behind. As soon as I got near the town my counter ran out and I was exhausted.
"My party was like WTF just happened." I ,of course, wouldn't speak of it.
Retreated to my room in our hideout to study the book after convincing our evil Paladin to use a lay on hands on me to restore me. While I was studying the book another party member "didn't have a good feeling" about what I was doing and snuck up to investigate me. He used an ability to see through my door and saw me reading an evil looking book, but totally failed his check and just assumed it was a wizard tome of some sort and I was re-loading my spells.
My GM's way of handling the item has already created some interesting things happening in the party. I think he chose a much better option than having me die after 6 seconds of handling the item.
I am sure the book is going to kill me eventually anyway, but it will be a fun ride into oblivion!
A bag of Holding will work if you cover it in sovereign glue it becomes invincible so you dont lose your book lol my dm said this is acceptable and now i carry it around the funny thing is im a paladin
So, you just randomly posted one person's RAF interpretation of the rules on a thread that's been dead for eight months?
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Every time I have seen or heard of the book, it is locked in place above a stone pedestal, floating there, and it can not be moved physically. However, liches and other powerful undead can turn the pages and even summon the book to their hand for a very short time.
It's never seemed to me that the book of vile darkness is meant to be carried around all over the place.
Why not leave it in your lair and learn a summoning spell to summon the book to your hand momentarily and then send it back as soon as you're finished with it?
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
Well, since this thread got necroed, how would you get it into your lair?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
as a GM, I would probably rule that one wielding the book of vile darkness would suffer in ways other than being a literal sphere of annihilation. for example, I would probably say that casting high level spells with the book would give levels of exhaustion, or draw the attention of figures such as Vecna, who wrote it. additionally, I might rule that someone wielding the book might age twice as fast but live just as long, resulting in early fatigue. this could allow the same amount of stat reduction, allowing the wielder to be basically the book's legs rather than a mage in their own right. this can create some cool plot twists and serious setbacks while not disintegrating you while you read the instructions to a first level spell.