The Petty One's page

I appreciate all the feedback on this, and after hearing it all, I think an Artifact like that counters cheat death would be too potent an Artifact for the context of this campaign, though it is definitely a thought for a different campaign.
As an alternative how about an Artifact, hear me out, an Artifact that delays the amount of time for self resurrection? Say you use it on a Lich, so instead of them revving in 1d10 days, it instead happens in 1d10x2 days, or 2d10 days, would that work you think? I am just spit balling.

It all depends on how you implement it. Being an Artifact there should be some plot highly focussed around it and it should play a visible role in the campaign.

If it's just a plot device to explain your assasin, that would be somewhat lame. If it gets a bigger role, that would be interesting/QUOTE]

Actually, if this item were to be made and introduced in the game, the assassin using it would probably be one of the bigger threats to the players. If they go the most expected route (and it is possible they will not) then they would end up working with the people the assassin is currently targeting. It would be played as the biggest mystery of the assassin. "How did (he/she) kill NPC 1 without first doing x. How do we keep the others alive when we do not know what measures to take?" At least that is the general idea. I am still not sure if I will go through with this or not.

The context of this question comes from a homebrew campaign me and a friend are working on. One of the npcs in particular is an assassin who successfully killed several characters with a cheat death ability and I had thought maybe the reason for the assassins success was an artifact that could counter their ability to come back. There is some other minor details that tie into this, but that is the main thing.

That said if you do decide to go ahead with this idea you need to consider if its "negate cheat death" or if its "negate return to life" as the difference is important. To give an example of the issues. . . .

1) Mythic being if killed auto-ressurects unless variable circumstances based on rank. They do die its just they have a revolving door policy with pharasma allowing them to come back 24 hours later.

2) Outsider unless I'm miseremembering they no longer have the sent to their home plane for a hundred years rule they're just dead now. However for these purposes we'll assume they still go home.

3) Raise dead brings back anyone killed and higher level variants even do outsiders.

So we have 3 different sets of rules already how would your artifact work with them. Does it prevent someone being ressurected by "normal" magic, does it prevent outsiders being sent to their home plane? For mythic beings Baba Yaga doesn't just have the usual 24 hours ressurect...

I was unaware the Mythic characters got the ability to return from death. You bring up goods points, and I have been wondering on those questions myself. I was not thinking this would prevent the ability for magic to return them (raise dead, reincarnation etc.), but as for the rest I have no idea. I knew from the start this would be one of those ones that has a lot of technicalities involved, and am at a loss for how to go about any of it.

Well, Achaekek has the title, duty, and role of god-killer... so your artifact propbably should stop short of doing what Achaekek does.

Is not Achaekek a full on deity? I do not think anything on that scale is even plausible.

That being said, how should I set the limits on this? Something like this should have some fairly iron clade rules right?

Outsiders are already bound to their home plane. Summoned creatures make the best sphere of annihilation detectors. As effective xerox copies, resummoned creatures will have no memory of past summonings.

Good to know.

It doesn't necessarily require an artifact. Instead you could create a powerful Staff of Soul Bind, with a black soul gem at the top, that consumes several charges to absorb a soul. The value of the soul gem would determine which creatures' souls can be absorbed: 1000gp per max HD.

The problem with that is if the captured soul escapes then what ever rejuvenation/resurrection trick they have might kick in and they live again. Also messing with souls has a chance of angering Pharasma.

So an artifact that counters an individual's ability to self resurrect/rejuvenat (Rasputin, vampires, outsiders as examples). Would that be ok to stat up and place in a game, and if so, what should be the limits of what it can permanently kill?