Violetta the Enchantress's page

I wanted to start a thread discussing some creative applications of Bestow Curse and Major Curse.

There are the conventional debuffing uses: -6 to an ability score, -4 to pretty much any d20 roll, and 50% chance of not acting; it's the fourth, open-ended use which is of interest. Of course, one can be awfully silly and try to break the spell, but these are 4th and 6th level spells, respectively, so effects should be commensurate with those levels.

Here are two (similarly-themed) I've used:

- Bestow: "May your eyes never again behold what which is beautiful." - effect is that cursed victim cannot see beings with greater than 16 charisma, rendering them effectively greater invisible to the victim. This mimics a 4th level spell (greater invisibility, for a restricted group (-), but the effect is permanent (+), which seems to balance out for a 4th level spell.

- Major: "All the world will be blue in your eyes." - effect is that the victim sees everything as the same shade of blue, making it very hard, for example, to resolve different items in the background; it also renders the victim unable to read, since both the page and the lettering are the ame shade of blue... this is quite crippling for prepared casters, who can no longer read their spellbooks, use scrolls, and so on. This mimics a very particular sort of "feeblemind" (a 5th level spell) with other optical debuffing effects (+), so it seems reasonable for a 6th level spell.

I'd love to see more ideas! I think a format like above is nice - the type of curse spell, the nature of the curse, and it's mechanical effect (if any).

I'm putting together a spreadsheet of outsiders to use with the Planar Binding spells (organizable according to various elements like "will save", "SLAs", "skills", and so on), and I'm noticing that none have disable device as a skill; even the "roguish" outsiders have generous helpings of stealth, perception, and so on, but no capacity to disable devices.

As this would be a nice skill to access via PB, am I overlooking something? Is there even ONE outsider with disable device?

So, the party is attacked by some manner of touch-attacking incorporeal undead which does ability drain or damage or some other negative-energy type damage (like a ghost's corrupting touch), and the monk, dragon disciple, or druid moves in to attack unarmed/with natural attacks: if they connect, should they take damage as though touched by the creature?

(For example, a ghost's corrupting touch is described as occurring when the ghost "passes through" a victim - should mere contact cause the effect?)

Thoughts?

The scarlet and blue ioun stone confers a +2 enhancement bonus to Intelligence, and grants one skill (per a headband of vast intelligence +2).

Obviously, if wearing multiple scarlet and blue ioun stones, the intelligence bonus will not stack (being like bonuses), but could one access multiple skills this way? That is, if I wear a S&B ioun stone with Knowledge: Planes and a S&B ioun stone with Handle Animal, am I granted two skills?

One sees the potential for having a constellation of scarlet & blue ioun stones, and all skills.

Or would the associated skills be considered "bonuses", and hence not stack in some fashion (note, though, that the word "bonus" is not used in the item, nor is the associated skill "typed" in some manner). Looking for a RAW interpretation here.

Thoughts?

Not something I've seen come up yet...

How should Tomes, Manuals, etc. which confer an inherent ability bonus be handled?

Should one treat it as an item "slotted" in some sense (like a belt, etc) so that it's "trackable", OR simply note the inherent bonus under "conditions gained" on a chronicle?

The latter seems most reasonable (to me)...

There seems to be a presumption among players that these stack.

They *shouldn't* (both are feat bonuses), but when I research this topic in archives I see the casual "oh, yeah, they stack" so often, that I wonder if it's been FAQ'd or errated somewhere?

(I ask because I'm mulling over a purchase of an alertness-granting ioun stone for my ranger who *has* skill focus (perception)!)