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If you're one of my players, do not read any further.
Alright, so last session one of my players agreed to take part in a dark ritual in return for getting a +1 weapon for free. Here's some background information
These servants have a tiny portion of the entity's power. Through studying and speaking with the servant the Witch can slowly gain access to more and more spells. The witch can also cast arcane rituals that allows her to teach the servant spells from a scroll or a wizard's spellbook.
These servants aren't loyal to the witch, but are instead agents of the entity. If the witch were to stray too far from her master's goals, the servant would report back to it's master who would send other agents to punish the witch.
All of the Witch's hexes come from the entity. As they serve and please their master, it grants them more and more powers.
These supernatural entities are poorly understood by all mortals. All that is known is that some are benign, while others are malignant
I said bugger that and took it out of the game. There is no way my superstitious, backwater town is going to have a magic shop!
In it's place I put into town a Ranger hermit who if befriended can create magic items. I also created a crazy old witch who lives nearby and creates any magic items the PCs might need (that she meets the pre-reqs for).
The PCs scared off the hermit, but made friendly contact with the Witch. She had already given them a 10% reduction in return for investigating the current crimes underway in Ravengro for any evidence that Elkarid could be involved (the Elkarid family were responsible for her getting thrown out of town and driven off into the wilderness).
Despite this, they went to the Witch once more and asked for a free +1 weapon. She said she would, if they gave her Elkarid's head. They did a group huddle and briefly discussed the idea before saying no. She thought about it, and said fine. If one of them would partake in a ritual in the next full moon she would give enchant one of their weapons. One of the PCs put up his hand said yes he would partake in this ritual.
The ritual will involve having the PC make an arcane bond with the Witch's Patron. Unfortunately for the PC, this Patron is a malignant one. On the other hand, the PC will now be eligible to take levels in Witch if he so chooses.
Normally undergoing this ritual would cause the player to gain a level of Witch and a familiar. Now I don't want to force the PC to take a level of Witch, so I'm looking for a smaller boon to give them in return for swearing to serve this entity.
I was thinking of giving them a supernatural ability that is based on a hex. The player is not an optimised character and the player normally makes highly optimal characters. So I want to give reward him by giving him an ability that will be useful throughout the entire game. But I don't want to give him an ability that can be abused.
He's an int-based human cross-blooded sorcerer that has an animal companion and that's about it so far.
The boon I was thinking of giving him was "Misfortune (Su): Once a day you cause a creature within 30 feet to suffer grave misfortune for 1 round. Anytime that creature makes an ability check, attack roll, saving throw or skill check, it must roll twice and take the worse roll. A will save negates this ability, with the DC based on 10 + 1/2 character level + Int mod."
Does anyone see anything absolutely overpowering of this ability? The DC scales, so it's actually useful for this character despite having no levels in witch. However unlike the normal hex, he can only do it once a day and there is still a will save involved.
I would be interested in hearing people's thoughts.
Probably should put this in the carrion crown thread section
Another option to consider is running this like the Succubus 'Profane Gift' ability, an in rules example of a way to bargain with a demon for concrete benefits at the expense of compromising your characters free will.
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I wouldn't give them a hex power or anything like that. Their reward is a +1 weapon.
Instead, they should receive a penalty of some sort. Binding their soul to an evil patron won't have any effect if they don't rp it as such. Unless you include a mechanical aspect.
You might consider having the character detect as evil, or some other drawback that will pop up occasionally. Perhaps the magical weapon only works against good creatures or for evil characters, or using it gives the character a penalty to something.
Granting characters 'extra' abilities can easily get out of hand.
Nice of you all (save Krispy) to entirely ignore the question OP asked in favor of spouting your campaign philosophies. I'm sure hearing your answers to questions he didn't ask is what he was out to do today.
@OP.
I like the idea of giving him some kind of boon. What about giving his animal companion familiar intelligence? It gives the entity the ability to look on on him and guide him, without directly influencing his power.
My thought is that your current boon probably won't scale as well as you think, since it requires an action and the benefit is not terribly meaningful at higher levels. I'd be more inclined to, as Krispy says, grant something similar to the profane gift (probably not to his primary casting score, maybe charisma or wisdom).
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Nice of you all (save Krispy) to entirely ignore the question OP asked in favor of spouting your campaign philosophies. I'm sure hearing your answers to questions he didn't ask is what he was out to do today.
Dude, whatever's tearing you up today, I hope it gets better. Wow.
I'd be more inclined to, as Krispy says, grant something similar to the profane gift (probably not to his primary casting score, maybe charisma or wisdom).
I was going to concur with this as well.
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Nice of you all (save Krispy) to entirely ignore the question OP asked in favor of spouting your campaign philosophies. I'm sure hearing your answers to questions he didn't ask is what he was out to do today.Dude, whatever's tearing you up today, I hope it gets better. Wow.
What's tearing me up is that I see this kind of nonsense everyday here. People ask simple direct opinions "what do you think about this ability" and they get answers that in no way respond to the question.
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Give him the familiar and one cantrip. Have the familiar imply that it knows information that is useful to the game. When the ask for the information the familiar refuses to share unless the player bonds himself more completely (i.e. take a witch level). In this fashion he gets the benefits of a familiar and a low level spell.
I agree that Misfortune might be too powerful as a hex. You could just give him limited uses, say 10. When he gets close to running out the patron or familiar could try to get him to take a witch level so he can get unlimited uses or pick a new hex.
]I hear what everyone's saying. Selling your soul should have negative consequences.
I fear that detecting as evil simply isn't going to pop up and will become an excuse for the character to just act like a jerk.
I was thinking perhaps remove the +4 he receives to handle animal checks for his animal companion as it senses there isn't something quite right with him? It will hurt at low levels but he'll eventually be able to overcome it. What do people think?
Selling your soul should get you more than a +1 sword. If I am selling my soul it better be worth it if my soul might actually be claimed in the game. Now if the soul selling is just fluff, but I am really expected to serve an entity then I would talk with the player instead of just assigning him something.
From what I understand the player is not using the witch class. What class is he using?
I figured I had missed something :).
Well most smart sorcerers don't enter melee so the sword should be a no.
The hex seems cool, but I would have it intelligence based since the sorcerer took the bloodline that lets him use intelligence. This also depends on how serious(how much it will be enforced) that "soul selling" thing was though.
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What's tearing me up is that I see this kind of nonsense everyday here. People ask simple direct opinions "what do you think about this ability" and they get answers that in no way respond to the question.Nice of you all (save Krispy) to entirely ignore the question OP asked in favor of spouting your campaign philosophies. I'm sure hearing your answers to questions he didn't ask is what he was out to do today.Dude, whatever's tearing you up today, I hope it gets better. Wow.
Without regard to what else you're seeing every day, I fail to see the disconnect between the question and the responses. Selling one's soul is often depicted as a fairly big deal and could well have campaign consequences. I see nothing out of line with commenting on that - and certainly nothing deserving venom of any kind.
Peter if you don't see the relevance we can break it down for you.