New Spell: Greater Curse

What's an evil spell caster without some really nice (er, evil?) curses to throw at you?

The regular ol' curse spell is alright... but how about a "greater curse" spell? Functions a little like contingency. Select a trigger condition, an effect.... and a break condition as well.

Trigger conditions could be things such as engages in combat, tries to heal, goes invisible, I'm sure a good list could be made up....

Effects would be as varied as well... Turn into a toad, inflict poison or disease, suffer spelll failure, suffer damage penalty... suffer damage when dealing damage to others... again, a good list could be worked up with community cooperation.

Now as for a break condition.... The remove curse spell or visiting that priest in Macedone would be a default end to the curse, but the caster could also put other break conditions as well. If the caster selects a condition other than the default remove/priest removal... the remove curse spell would STILL work, but would have a harder time (higher DC) at removing the curse. Conditions could be something such as... sacrifice a treasure worth X amount of GP, kill X number of commoners (rather wicked choice for good aligned PCs)... I'm sure the community could work up some good ideas

For NPC casting... the trigger, effect and break condition could be completely randomized.... never quite know what that drow wizard or orc blood witch is gonna throw at you.

For PCs... the break variable wouldn't be as practical beyond raising a remove curse DC (NPCs aren't exactly gonna run away and get to work on breaking the curse)... but with the right range of trigger conditions and effects, this spell idea could be pretty good for hindering baddies. Curse that dracolich.... every time it tries to cast a spell, it suffers -10 AB or AC for a turn or two. Curse that big bad orc beserker... as long as it holds a weapon in it's hand (condition, has something equipped) it suffers blindness.

Ideas for trigger conditions:

Target HP at % of total HP or greater
Target has X amount of GP
Target has weapon equipped
Target attempts to cast a spell
Target has XYZ buffs active or a given number of dispellabel buffs active
Target goes invisible
Target heals


Ideas for effects

Target turns into a toad
Target suffers spell failure
Target loses X amount of GP per game day (perhaps a %... something to make letting such a curse last be a significant pain for epic level PCs, but not totally screw over lowbies.
Target suffers X damage (but limited... tied into to the target heals... should cancel out the healing, but not cause more damage than the PC attempted to heal)
Target becomes a big sparkly confetti display that negates invisibility/concealment
Target suffers AB, AC, or skill/ability penalties (a bit more stiff than the penalty from the regular Curse spell)
Target suffers random status effects such as blindness, confusion, ect
Target suffers sudden allergy to silver such as what wolfbloods/vampires suffer from
Target can't sleep normally (nightmares prevent resting from working, or from granting full resting benefits)


Ideas for curse breaking actions:

Target must kill X number of commoner NPCs
Target must sacrifice item of X value
Target must sacrifice X amount of GP to an altar of an evil god
Target must slay X type of creature (say... must kill 5 dragons or 10 wild animals) and sacrifice the body part remains (dragon blood for dragon, animal hide for the animals, chitin ect, ect ect)
Target must sacrifice or raise piety by X amount of points
Target must gain/sacrifice X amount of karma
Target must convince a special NPC to grant them a kiss or some such (a nice option here to employ some persuasion/bluff/intimidate skill checks...)

I like this idea a lot!

I ,frankly speaking, has never actually used the default curse spell (outside of RP where it can be great fun) because it's kinda dull and boring compared with other spells at that level.

While the first two posts in the thread do present a possible addition, that route would necessitate some rather complicated script work for less benefit than is gained by the conditional properties of the contingency spell.

That said, I do have some additional curse spells on my to-add list. Just don't know when I'll get them added, since adding new spells is a bit more complicated these days than it used to be (due to caster-level-selectable scrolls, potions, and wands and the 40 extra 2da and tlk entries each new spell requires).

Here's what's on my list for future curse spells:

Curse of Weakness (-12 Str) clr 4, wiz 5
Curse of Clumsiness (-12 Dex) clr 4, wiz 5
Curse of Frailty (-12 Con) clr 4, wiz 5
Curse of Dimness (-12 Int) clr 4, wiz 5
Curse of Obliviousness (-12 Wis) clr 4, wiz 5
Curse of Meekness (-12 Cha) clr 4, wiz 5
Curse of the Swine (mass poly into pigs) wiz 8 (aka, Bavmorda's curse from Willow)
Curse of Withering(-12 all scores) clr 9, wiz 9
Curse of Delirium (-10 Concentration, 50% spell failure) clr 6, wiz 7
Curse of the Hesitant (-15 to attack rolls) clr 5, wiz 6
Curse of the Vulnerable (-10 AC) clr 5, wiz 6

And yes, most are lower level for clerics, which I see as relating curses more with witch doctors and witches than wizards and sorcerers.

Oooh, those sound good.

No toads though? Love the idea of the mass pig poly from willow... but also would rock to turn someone into a toad

Also, another thought... my scripting knowledge is still covered in cobwebs and stuff... how much more difficulty is there in combining some of those into a radial type spell (like the shadow conjurations?).

You can only have 5 sub-radials to a "master spell", which would mean leaving out one of the ability-bombing ones...and frankly, sub-radialed spells are a pain in the posterior on the scripting side.

Yes, I know it means not all of them would likely be picked up by a sorcerer. If one wanted to go the "evil witch" route, I think cleric or wizard would be a better bet anyway (connection to evil powers via cleric or the whole "potions and wands" thing via wizard).

No toads, though. There aren't yet any good models for toads (or frogs) out there that are functional enough. baba-yaga made a nice frog model a while back, but it's not animated properly (and I don't have time to animate the whole thing from scratch).

Sorcerers can do wands and potions too It's scroll-scribing the bookworms get for free. They gotta buy potions and wand making just like sorcs

And awwww..... darn it. I've been itching to turn someone into a toad with Aurora or Angelica

There's other animal appearances. I think turning someone into a boar or a badger would be cool. Or a cow.

MannyJabrielle wrote:I've been itching to turn someone into a toad with Aurora or Angelica

Yeah, Angelica was trying that on Ilolisa for quite some time last night ...

Ramana Jala wrote:There's other animal appearances. I think turning someone into a boar or a badger would be cool. Or a cow.

You're giving Manny fuel for his mischief-fire, methinks!

Oooh...

I was playing around with a rod of wonder. I turned a Dracolich into a chicken...

Could salave some of the script from that item's power for a polymorphing curse too....

The question then would be... would you want ham (piggy polymorph) or chicken for dinner?