Remove Curse Counteract Check Optimizing

[HeshKadesh]

Hi guys, hope you can help. Finished a session this evening, where we've been hit by some bad news regarding a friend of the party and quest-giver; an Adult Cloud Dragon aided us about 6 in-game months ago in a battle against a Cairn Linnorm.

He dealt the final blow, and became subject to its Death Curse; as well being Enfeebled 2, it ages supernaturally fast, aging a year for every day that passes. It has been a great source of joy to us and he that this has resulted in him gaining immense power as he is now considered Ancient, although a weakened one, due to the nature of the curse and how quickly it has occured rather than naturally.

We sought out stories on how to reverse the Death Curse of Linnorm's and found ourselves investigating a Dragon Boneyard; where we learned that Dragons are not immortal dying only to battle or illness, that they can die to Old Age; with either Dracolichdom or Ascendancy being the two options if unable to Cure.

Ascendancy is a bit of a non-starter the horde is too small and to the time it would take to get there is too time intensive. Dracolichdom is a no go; this leaves us Remove Curse.

We've worked out that we have to hit +34 on the counteract for Remove Curse to Crit Succeed with an 8th level spell.

I get 8ths next level, but am struggling with the bonus. As a master caster with 20 Wis, I'm at +26.

1. Does Aid work with counteract if I have another Master Caster for +3?
2. Are you aware of any +2 or +3 bonuses for untyped, item or status for Counteract I can make use of?

This can get me to +34, and then as long as I have enough supplies take some weeks out to cure him.

Thanks

[Eoran]

If your game is using the standard stat block for a Cairn Linnorm, then the counteract level of the curse would be 9.

So with an 8th level spell, it would have a counteract level of 8 and would counteract the curse with a regular success on the check.

You wouldn't need a critical success unless you were using a spell of level 6 or 7. And you would be unable to counteract a counteract level 9 effect using a counteract level 5 effect even with a critical success.

At level 15, a +26 bonus is probably as good as you can get for a spell attack bonus. But counteract modifiers may possibly be adjusted separately. Unfortunately, I am not aware of anything that adds bonuses to counteract check modifiers. But that doesn't mean that such abilities or items do not exist.

A +26 bonus against a DC 44 - you would need to roll an 18 in order to succeed. Which would take many attempts in order to accomplish. But if you have the time, you should be able to eventually succeed.

[HeshKadesh]

Thank you, I've passed this to the DM as it seems a little uncharacteristic he gave use a challenge that we could simply take downtime and spam Remove Curse on.

Out of personal interest though now, what options are there for booting the Counteract modifier, and is it a skill check that Aid can assist with?

[HumbleGamer]

HeshKadesh wrote:

Thank you, I've passed this to the DM as it seems a little uncharacteristic he gave use a challenge that we could simply take downtime and spam Remove Curse on.

That's 2e ( it is meant to work exactly that way ).

The uncharacteristic part is that if you want to deal with affliction you have to waste a high level spell, because lower ones would end up doing nothing because of their counteract level.

[Eoran]

HeshKadesh wrote:

Thank you, I've passed this to the DM as it seems a little uncharacteristic he gave use a challenge that we could simply take downtime and spam Remove Curse on.

That may be something that you want to discuss with your GM outside of the game. It is possible that the GM has a plot design in mind for how your characters should handle this in a more reliable way than simply spending several days preparing and casting Remove Curse until you are finally successful.