So I came up with a new oracle curse for an NPC I'm developing for my homebrew and I wanted some feedback; here it is:
Exposed: You were exposed to harsh conditions when gaining your powers and your appearance badly suffered for it. You take a –4 penalty on Charisma-based skill checks, except for Intimidate. You gain a +4 competence bonus on saves made against cold dangers and heat dangers due to the environment. At 5th level, you gain fire resistance 5 and cold resistance 5. At 10th level, you gain immunity to cold dangers and heat dangers due to environment. At 15th level, you gain fire resistance 10 and cold resistance 10.
Questions:
1) Is it clear what everything does? Any vagueness?
2) The penalty is a copy of the wasting curse; should I change this?
3) Are the benefits appropriate for the level you get them?
4) Is it interesting?
1. Yes.
2. I'd say so, if only to make it stand out more. Plus oracles are charisma-based, so the penalty does hurt quite a bit, since they're likely to want to focus on Charisma skills, especially since UMD is Cha-based.
3. No. Energy resistance 10 isn't much at level 15, even if you get two of them, and immunity to environmental hazards is, frankly, worthless. Endure Elements is a 1st-level oracle spell that duplicates the 10th-level benefit, outstrips the beginning benefit, and lasts 24 hours.
4. Not really, no, mostly because it's weak.
1. Ha! Yes to the clearness or yes to the vagueness? :) Sorry, I should have kept it limited to one question per line. I'm fairly sure you meant it was clear though.
2. Good point. I'll revise it. The curse should hurt at least somewhat though.
3. Very good points. I'll revise it.
4. Thank you for the feedback!
New version:
Exposed: You were exposed to harsh conditions when gaining your powers and your body never fully recovered. You automatically fail any saving throw against fatigue or exhaustion effects; no magic item, feat, or any other quality or effect can circumvent this. You gain immunity to cold dangers and heat dangers due to environment. At 5th level, you gain fire resistance 10 and cold resistance 10. At 10th level, you can cast protection from energy as a spell-like ability three times a day. At 15th level, you gain immunity to fire and cold damage.
Questions:
1) Is it clear what everything does? Any vagueness?
2) Is the penalty too harsh or weak?
3) Are the benefits appropriate for the level you get them?
4) Is it interesting?
Automatically failing a check is a little too harsh imo. Maybe give them a small penalty, but just outright failing is painful. Curses can be both a benefit and a pain. Since its an NPC you can think more about what you want out of the NPC than what is harsh or weak though, they tend to be slightly more disposable. Think about maybe adding to the spell list at a certain level instead of protection from energy.
Better, but automatically failing is indeed too harsh. A -4 penalty to those saves would be appropriate. Immunity to one type of damage is generally a 20th-level ability, so the 15th-level ability is a bit much. Perhaps a constant fire shield effect that requires an action to switch between elements? Remove the damage on hit and keep only the half damage from X if you dislike that part.
Thanks a bunch for your help guys!
Ok, so here's the re-revised version:
Exposed: You were exposed to harsh conditions when gaining your powers and your body never fully recovered. You suffer a -6 penalty to any saving throw against fatigue or exhaustion effects and cannot gain immunity to these effects. You gain immunity to cold dangers and heat dangers due to environment. At 5th level, you add protection from energy to your list of spells known. At 10th level, you gain fire resistance 10 and cold resistance 10. At 15th level, you gain a constant fire shield (no damage) effect that takes a move action to switch between.
1) I changed it to adding protection from energy to the spell list at 5th and fire and cold resistance at 10. Good?
2) Then I took your suggestion for the fire shield (with no damage, that seems a little intense); does a move action seem good for switching between?