I designed a Hag encounter for my game, with a series of cursed magic items serving as the enforcement of a skewed deal the Hag makes with the party.
Here’s how it plays out:
During a random forest encounter, any badly wounded character is approached by a witch offering healing potions in exchange for the PCs assistance/service. The witch offers more potions to assist with the task she requires as payment.
The curse applies to the potion, in that the healing it offers depends on the agreement being honoured. Should the PCs break the deal, the curse takes back as many HP as it healed, down to a minimum of 0 (e.g. it won’t insta-kill a character it it would technically take back double their HP).
The curse can take effect if, at any time, the deal is broken by any action taken by the character - e.g. they can’t hire mercenaries to seek revenge on the hag, or if they gift any of the loot they procure as part of completing the witches task to a friend, and that friend uses the loot to attack the hag, then the deal is broken.
The witch wants the PCs to clean out an old tomb (dungeon crawl!) for her to use as her new home, and the deal is phrased so that she wants the PCs to clear out a secure a place for her to live safely. As long as her safe occupation of the tomb is not interfered with by the PCs, the deal remains intact.
Can any one see any potential issues with this setup?
Ngl, I'd let it kill them if they break the deal and it takes away enough hp. They should know not to mess with a hag.
The reason I don’t want them dead is that the breaking of the curse (which is fairly inevitable once the PCs find out she’s been rounding up and eating children) is going to trigger a visit to a death-linked meta-plane for an astral quest story. We’re playing a bit more of a heroes-saga type game than a mechanical ‘live and die by the dice’ approach, so death is usually a setback rather than an end.
It seems like a solid setup to me. Is it just a one-time thing for the damage taken or do they take damage any time they attempt to turn on the hag? Because if its a one time thing they could easily just take the damage, drop to zero, then just heal up and continue with whatever they were trying to do. 5e is pretty generous in the sense that it gets pretty hard to just kill a character outright.
It seems like a solid setup to me. Is it just a one-time thing for the damage taken or do they take damage any time they attempt to turn on the hag? Because if its a one time thing they could easily just take the damage, drop to zero, then just heal up and continue with whatever they were trying to do. 5e is pretty generous in the sense that it gets pretty hard to just kill a character outright.
It’s meant to be a one time damage thing - didn’t want to make it too OP - but one snag I didn’t mention, is that instead of potions, one of the PCs was offered a ring of regeneration. So while the potions were one use only, the ring continues to heal until they can get a remove curse spell to take it off. That additional healing would continue to be a problem for the characters, although if they can kill the hag without taking too much damage, the contract is broken anyway.
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I designed a Hag encounter for my game, with a series of cursed magic items serving as the enforcement of a skewed deal the Hag makes with the party.
Here’s how it plays out:
During a random forest encounter, any badly wounded character is approached by a witch offering healing potions in exchange for the PCs assistance/service. The witch offers more potions to assist with the task she requires as payment.
The curse applies to the potion, in that the healing it offers depends on the agreement being honoured. Should the PCs break the deal, the curse takes back as many HP as it healed, down to a minimum of 0 (e.g. it won’t insta-kill a character it it would technically take back double their HP).
The curse can take effect if, at any time, the deal is broken by any action taken by the character - e.g. they can’t hire mercenaries to seek revenge on the hag, or if they gift any of the loot they procure as part of completing the witches task to a friend, and that friend uses the loot to attack the hag, then the deal is broken.
The witch wants the PCs to clean out an old tomb (dungeon crawl!) for her to use as her new home, and the deal is phrased so that she wants the PCs to clear out a secure a place for her to live safely. As long as her safe occupation of the tomb is not interfered with by the PCs, the deal remains intact.
Can any one see any potential issues with this setup?
Ngl, I'd let it kill them if they break the deal and it takes away enough hp. They should know not to mess with a hag.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
The reason I don’t want them dead is that the breaking of the curse (which is fairly inevitable once the PCs find out she’s been rounding up and eating children) is going to trigger a visit to a death-linked meta-plane for an astral quest story. We’re playing a bit more of a heroes-saga type game than a mechanical ‘live and die by the dice’ approach, so death is usually a setback rather than an end.
It seems like a solid setup to me. Is it just a one-time thing for the damage taken or do they take damage any time they attempt to turn on the hag? Because if its a one time thing they could easily just take the damage, drop to zero, then just heal up and continue with whatever they were trying to do. 5e is pretty generous in the sense that it gets pretty hard to just kill a character outright.
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It’s meant to be a one time damage thing - didn’t want to make it too OP - but one snag I didn’t mention, is that instead of potions, one of the PCs was offered a ring of regeneration. So while the potions were one use only, the ring continues to heal until they can get a remove curse spell to take it off. That additional healing would continue to be a problem for the characters, although if they can kill the hag without taking too much damage, the contract is broken anyway.