Hello all! I am currently DMing my first campaign and I was hoping I could get some pointers on homebrewing a cursed mask that would affect the wearer based on percentile die.
My players just reached level three, and our warlock asked me if it would be okay if when he took "Pact of the Blade" he instead created a mask, and applied the weapon bonuses to whatever weapon he was holding at the time. I figured this wouldn't be an issue, but I wanted to make sure it was balanced so I workshopped the idea with him for a bit and we agreed that the mask would be "cursed" in some way. By which when he puts it on, he has to roll percentile to determine his alignment. I had an idea for making it more powerful the eviler he got and was hoping for some pointers on how best to apply it to the mask. as of right now I've thought up the following:
When you don this mask and every hour you continuously wear it, roll a percentile die.
On a roll of 51-100, you have no change in your personality.
On a roll of 21-50, you gain +1 to your AC, however, you now feel an intense desire to inflict suffering on your enemies.
On a roll of 6-20, you gain +1 to your AC and +1 to all attack and damage rolls, however, you refuse to leave any hostile creatures alive and will pursue them if they attempt to flee, even if you are meant to capture/keep them alive.
On a roll of 1-5, you will attack any and all creatures around you.
I feel like this is possibly too powerful or maybe too risky for a party of 5 level-3 characters, but I might just be paranoid. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts/opinions on this. Thanks!
That is a 1 in 20 chance of attacking any and all - does this mean the closest??? - creatures around him. That seems a bit much. Was their a reason for the curse? Having the mask generate the weapon versus just generating it would not be that different. They would have to spend an action donning the mask. At that point the weapon would appear or there would need to be another action to generate the weapon itself.
Cases like this I would ask 1 question. Is there a mechanical advantage to having the mask that needs to be balanced for game play. If not, just re-flavor it and have an action don the mask and generate the weapon. If there is, you may want to let the play know that it can be taken away if or when it proves too powerful. If anything I see this as taking something away because it seems unlikely that they would be able to bond a magic weapon to the mask.
The random rolls give a bonus that can be rather large with the bounded accuracy in 5e. Getting a +1 to AC and/or a +1 to hit and damage is something you would not get until 6+ levels of play and you get it 45% of the time at 3rd level.
Thanks for the feedback! I reworked it and tried something different, let me know what you think:
When you don this mask and every minute you continuously wear it, roll percentile die. On a roll of 26-100, you have no change in your personality. On a roll of 1-25, you feel an intense desire to inflict suffering on your enemies and have an intense desire to not remove your mask. If you wish to dispel your mask after rolling low, make a DC 10 Charisma check to see if you can remove it. Otherwise, you can dismiss it immediately. Dismissing your mask does not require an action.
Because of the lower stakes, I figured it could be rerolled every minute and has a relatively easy DC to remove (he has a +4 to charisma), but has the chance to essentially influence the character to be CE/CN for a while (the influence of his patron, a fiend). I know it's not really a curse but my player really wanted something like this for some reason and I wanted to help any way I could.
OK, that makes more sense and sounds good. He wanted something where the patron is actually trying to get them to do something for the benefit of the patron. I felt that was really lacking in the theme for a warlock, but too much would hinder the class. This takes care of that. You may want to give him a few soft benefits for deciding to do this. It may not be that obvious, but the player has chosen a disadvantage for role playing effects. I like to reward that.
If the patron is one geared to chaos, carnage, or death; it also makes good sense for the effect. The desire to kill is what the patron likes. As long as there is an enemy he wants to kill the warlock is fine. Once all enemies are gone though ... we look at attacking others. The DC is low enough to be overcome almost always, but 25% of the time it will adversely affect them a bit. Almost guarantees the level 4 ASI is to CHA though.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
That is a 1 in 20 chance of attacking any and all - does this mean the closest??? - creatures around him. That seems a bit much. Was their a reason for the curse? Having the mask generate the weapon versus just generating it would not be that different. They would have to spend an action donning the mask. At that point the weapon would appear or there would need to be another action to generate the weapon itself.
Cases like this I would ask 1 question. Is there a mechanical advantage to having the mask that needs to be balanced for game play. If not, just re-flavor it and have an action don the mask and generate the weapon. If there is, you may want to let the play know that it can be taken away if or when it proves too powerful. If anything I see this as taking something away because it seems unlikely that they would be able to bond a magic weapon to the mask.
The random rolls give a bonus that can be rather large with the bounded accuracy in 5e. Getting a +1 to AC and/or a +1 to hit and damage is something you would not get until 6+ levels of play and you get it 45% of the time at 3rd level.
There was a short discussion on cursed items here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/32075-cursed-items
Thanks for the feedback! I reworked it and tried something different, let me know what you think:
When you don this mask and every minute you continuously wear it, roll percentile die. On a roll of 26-100, you have no change in your personality. On a roll of 1-25, you feel an intense desire to inflict suffering on your enemies and have an intense desire to not remove your mask. If you wish to dispel your mask after rolling low, make a DC 10 Charisma check to see if you can remove it. Otherwise, you can dismiss it immediately. Dismissing your mask does not require an action.
Because of the lower stakes, I figured it could be rerolled every minute and has a relatively easy DC to remove (he has a +4 to charisma), but has the chance to essentially influence the character to be CE/CN for a while (the influence of his patron, a fiend). I know it's not really a curse but my player really wanted something like this for some reason and I wanted to help any way I could.
OK, that makes more sense and sounds good. He wanted something where the patron is actually trying to get them to do something for the benefit of the patron. I felt that was really lacking in the theme for a warlock, but too much would hinder the class. This takes care of that. You may want to give him a few soft benefits for deciding to do this. It may not be that obvious, but the player has chosen a disadvantage for role playing effects. I like to reward that.
If the patron is one geared to chaos, carnage, or death; it also makes good sense for the effect. The desire to kill is what the patron likes. As long as there is an enemy he wants to kill the warlock is fine. Once all enemies are gone though ... we look at attacking others. The DC is low enough to be overcome almost always, but 25% of the time it will adversely affect them a bit. Almost guarantees the level 4 ASI is to CHA though.