Post/Author/DateTime	Post
GreatSiron 01-08-06, 02:10 AM	I have come to the understand that curses don't always result from stupidty (thought quite a few do). That makes me wonder, what is the worst or most unusual curse you have ever encountered? Just would be interesting to hear. Guess I'll start: it's call "Construct Contagien" though it isn't a disease. It slowly turns you into a construct. Not sure what happens then.
Azerin 01-08-06, 10:42 AM	I saw recently a certain curse (or was it blessing?) in a certain region that makes it impossible to hide in shadows, as you glow with a certain deity's light. Or something of that nature... (not to give away spoilers, as its a year 5 mod) Now that's just wrong, although hilarious. Kudos to a certain triad for it. :) -Jeremy Jordan "Alladan D'Paladin" Knight of the Malagari
gomeztoo 01-08-06, 10:59 AM	The worst curse I saw was the Curse of the Idol from Real Heroes Blues. Unless you find a 16th level caster with a remove curse, you slowly die (you lose 1STR + 1Con for every TU you adventure).
JohnduBois 01-08-06, 11:32 AM	The worst "curse" I have ever seen is actually a punishment in a year 5 module, and you can only get it by being incredibly stupid. In addition to locking you away for 10 TU's, It takes away 4 points from each of INT, WIS, and CHA... and since it's not a curse per se, Remove Curse does nothing. I know some PC's who would be reduced to 1 WIS or 1 CHA from this... now that's a fun PC to role-play with... The wackiest curse I've encountered is the Ire of Nakky from FUR4-03 Bells in Gold. There is a 50% chance, each time you fight a feline opponent, that the opponent will attack you to the exclusion of more threatening foes. You get it by angering an awakened housecat that is friends with a druid that serves Iuz. The way you anger the cat? Complete the mission in the module...
Arvagor 01-08-06, 01:45 PM	The wackiest curse I've encountered is the Ire of Nakky from FUR4-03 Bells in Gold. There is a 50% chance, each time you fight a feline opponent, that the opponent will attack you to the exclusion of more threatening foes. You get it by angering an awakened housecat that is friends with a druid that serves Iuz. The way you anger the cat? Complete the mission in the module... I've got a similar one from last year's Winter Fantasy special -- "Enmity of Tlaloc", which causes all snakes encountered to be hostile to the PC. It has a funky flip-side too, in that avian creatures won't attack you, unless you attack them first...
waytoomuchcoffee 01-08-06, 02:38 PM	Or the one that if you roll a nat 20 it changes to a nat 1. At least they errataed this one to leave out saving throws. Having a 10% chance of failing every SV was just too much.
NiTessine 01-08-06, 07:28 PM	I've got a similar one from last year's Winter Fantasy special -- "Enmity of Tlaloc", which causes all snakes encountered to be hostile to the PC. It has a funky flip-side too, in that avian creatures won't attack you, unless you attack them first... We had another variant on the theme in one of our recently retired metaregionals, Cat's Grace. Disfavour of the Catlord caused all normal cats to shun the character and all large ones to attack him on sight, and prevented him from ever gaining a cat of any type as a familiar or an animal companion.
wagnert 01-09-06, 03:41 PM	In a now retired Meta-regional, if a character violated a sworn oath, given at the beginning of the module, they were cursed at the end with the word "Oathbreaker" appearing on their bodies. The worst part, was if a Remove Curse was cast on them, it would remove the word, but in their next adventure, an additional encounter with an untiered monster would occur, at the judges discretion. No gold or xp could be gained from this encounter. The monster would focus on the cursed character, so the other characters could ignore it if they wanted or assist in killing it. This applied for each character that was an oath breaker, so if there were two or more cursed characters, they would be two or more monsters in the next adventure. It was a tough encounter for the entire party at APL 6. I think the monster is something like EL 10 or so.
Moryath 01-09-06, 04:00 PM	In a certain Sheldomar mod not to be named, it is possible to be afflicted with the following THREE curses: #1 - Lose an eye (depth perception penalties), plus -1 permanently to all Int checks. In exchange, you get to cast two spells (one 1st and one 2nd level at random from a short d6-list) per adventure, but if you do, you have to report it to their triad. Requires a decently high remove curse to fix. #2 - Clerics require an Atonement, cast by a cleric of the god they worship of at least 13th level, before they can function as a Cleric again. PLUS, once per adventure, the DM makes you roll a will save at the start of combat - fail it, and you're Stunned for 17 rounds. The "Upside"? Once per adventure you can use True Seeing as a 17th level caster as a spell-like ability. Removing this requires a Wish/Miracle, now unavailable at all in the campaign since they borked the retirement age. #3 - Lose one hand. You are now known as "Stumpy" to all your friends. The hand becomes a shriveled "Hand of the Glory" item. In order to get your hand back, you first have to destroy the Hand of Glory, then you have to have a Miracle or Wish cast, and even the regrown hand will have a tattoo of Vecna on it. Whoops. Forgot. Nevermind getting your hand back now, everyone retires before Wish/Miracle can be cast. In order to successfully finish the module, someone HAS to get #1 and #2, and someone else (or the same person) HAS to get #3. No way around it, at least one PC walks away from this module completely screwed, or everyone walks the mod and they get something around 1/2 gold and 1/4 XP and no Access. I'd say that is pretty bad.
wagnert 01-09-06, 05:11 PM	In a certain Sheldomar mod not to be named, it is possible to be afflicted with the following THREE curses: #1 - Lose an eye (depth perception penalties), plus -1 permanently to all Int checks. In exchange, you get to cast two spells (one 1st and one 2nd level at random from a short d6-list) per adventure, but if you do, you have to report it to their triad. Requires a decently high remove curse to fix. #2 - Clerics require an Atonement, cast by a cleric of the god they worship of at least 13th level, before they can function as a Cleric again. PLUS, once per adventure, the DM makes you roll a will save at the start of combat - fail it, and you're Stunned for 17 rounds. The "Upside"? Once per adventure you can use True Seeing as a 17th level caster as a spell-like ability. Removing this requires a Wish/Miracle, now unavailable at all in the campaign since they borked the retirement age. #3 - Lose one hand. You are now known as "Stumpy" to all your friends. The hand becomes a shriveled "Hand of the Glory" item. In order to get your hand back, you first have to destroy the Hand of Glory, then you have to have a Miracle or Wish cast, and even the regrown hand will have a tattoo of Vecna on it. Whoops. Forgot. Nevermind getting your hand back now, everyone retires before Wish/Miracle can be cast. In order to successfully finish the module, someone HAS to get #1 and #2, and someone else (or the same person) HAS to get #3. No way around it, at least one PC walks away from this module completely screwed, or everyone walks the mod and they get something around 1/2 gold and 1/4 XP and no Access. I'd say that is pretty bad. Ah yes, I remember that well. Our character that lost the hand managed to get a wish to remove the curse/regrow the hand in an interactive later. I did hear of one character that lost the hand in this adventure, managed to pay to remove the curse/regrow the hand, then in the very next adventure they played, lost the hand again! By the way, #2 only applies if the cleric is the character that gets #1.
Arvagor 01-09-06, 05:39 PM	Removing this requires a Wish/Miracle, now unavailable at all in the campaign since they borked the retirement age. ... Whoops. Forgot. Nevermind getting your hand back now, everyone retires before Wish/Miracle can be cast. Maybe I completely misunderstand how NPC spellcasting works, but if you have sufficient influence/favors within your region, why could you not have an NPC of sufficient level cast the necessary spells?
Simpi 01-10-06, 02:49 AM	Maybe I completely misunderstand how NPC spellcasting works, but if you have sufficient influence/favors within your region, why could you not have an NPC of sufficient level cast the necessary spells? Probably, if the region has high enough spellcasters. For example, getting two above spells in our region is not possible. S.H, the guy from Naerie
Moryath 01-10-06, 11:35 AM	Ah yes, I remember that well. Our character that lost the hand managed to get a wish to remove the curse/regrow the hand in an interactive later. I did hear of one character that lost the hand in this adventure, managed to pay to remove the curse/regrow the hand, then in the very next adventure they played, lost the hand again! By the way, #2 only applies if the cleric is the character that gets #1. Not true. By getting #2, you automatically get #1. It's just that everyone else has a standing chance (either be standing in the right place or make a saving throw) not to get #1 at all. The character that gets #2 also gets #1, regardless, and are denied even a saving throw. Cleric? You're screwed until you get an Atonement, and every game after, 5% or better chance you're stunned for the entirety of one combat. Fighter? Okay, no Atonement needed unless you were a Templar/Paladin/Holy Liberator/etc, but with YOUR will saves, we're talking a 25%+ chance that you're stunned for one of the combats. It's crazy.
Moryath 01-10-06, 11:44 AM	Maybe I completely misunderstand how NPC spellcasting works, but if you have sufficient influence/favors within your region, why could you not have an NPC of sufficient level cast the necessary spells? I have NEVER seen a module with access to a caster of high enough level to give you a Wish or Miracle, or a meta-org. Plus, the meta-org rules have recently been reworked to remove just about all access from them, because "Meta-Orgs Are For Roleplaying Purposes Only."
Arvagor 01-10-06, 12:15 PM	I didn't necessarily mean an NPC in module or meta-org, but those could do. Perhaps my region is different -- in our meta-org document, there is a section in the back for NPC spellcasting costs; atonement, greater restoration, mass heal, miracle, true resurrection, and wish ar all listed as "Triad only", but that doesn't necessarily mean that you could not petition to have them cast...
Drezden 01-10-06, 12:24 PM	The region that this curse appears in has a ton of favors for Wishs, etc. from high level casters. I think I have at least 5 such favors. The real problem becomes the cost - the cost for a wish spell is 25,000 gp. One of my friends got this curse and then saved the money for the Wish and now is character is totally behind the GP/power curve. Daren
redgamer 01-10-06, 01:52 PM	Is the Sheldomar Valley mod retired because I've played *alot* in the Sheldomar Valley in the last 2 years and never met anyone who had these curses.
Drezden 01-10-06, 03:24 PM	The mod is not retired yet. Daren
Moryath 01-10-06, 04:01 PM	The region that this curse appears in has a ton of favors for Wishs, etc. from high level casters. I think I have at least 5 such favors. The real problem becomes the cost - the cost for a wish spell is 25,000 gp. One of my friends got this curse and then saved the money for the Wish and now is character is totally behind the GP/power curve. Daren Which is no help at ALL if you're visiting from, say, the IUZ Border States... I consider this particular module broken beyond belief. Permanent maiming of one character, or everyone goes home and loses their access? Someone takes a nasty curse, or everyone walks, no saving throw or anything? Sorry, but that's broken. If retirement level were still 17th, because you could (possibly) go to an interactive and get another PC to cast Wish for you. There were a number around who were happy to do so. Now, though, they're just not available. Heck, it can be hard enough to find a cleric of your own deity to cast Atonement sometimes. Either you're lucky enough to live in/on the border of the tricked-out region that's handing out favors and access so fast in the modules that you need a magnifying glass to read the text, or else you're living in a more normal region where your triad pays attention to reasonable access and you're just screwed.
ShinAkuma2 01-11-06, 12:43 AM	1) Elurophobia - You get an irrational fear of all cats. 2) Drider-Lich's Curse - penalties to saves vs spider poisons, and Freedom of movement won't get you out of a Web or similar thing. 3) Rhyming Curse - afflicted is forced to speak in rhyming couplets. My friend's dwarven fighter, Thok, has the last one. Though he could have gotten rid of it a long time ago, he chooses to keep it as a fun role-playing hook.