Accursed Arcanum: A Practical Guide to Hexes and Curses the-dm-lair.myshopify.com/products/accursed-arcanum-a-practical-guide-to-hexes-and-curses Big Ruleset Bundle the-dm-lair.myshopify.com/products/the-big-ruleset-bundle
I personally make my players make an ability check when they cast Dispel Magic or Remove Curse on someone; additionally, curses have a minimum duration which refreshes when an attempt to break it fails. I *also* make it VERY clear when something is cursed or risks inflicting one, though they don't get to know what the curse is until it is inflicted. Examples being tombs that radiate negative energy or powerful magic auras on objects, be it chaotic or otherwise. If you're doing this, you're committing to your decision, atleast for a while.
Don't forget how Curses & magic items worked way back in AD&D where you got a magic item but only a little was ever revealed about it! Keep it a secret for longer is best!
Working on putting a curse on the weapon Ruin's Wake (from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount) and came up with this: Eye of the Ruiner Intermediate curse of the body, weapon requiring attunement After finishing a long rest while attuned to this weapon, a single bloodshot eye opens in the center of your forehead. You gain darkvision out to 60 ft if you didn't have it before, and gain advantage on all Perception checks that rely on sight. In combat, whenever you are struck by a creature's attack or spell, you must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, you must attack the creature that damaged you until you drop to 0 hit points or it does, or until you can't reach the creature to make a melee or ranged attack against it. In addition, all people of elven origin appear as shifty or dishonest to the cursed creature, and they will not willingly accept aid from someone of that origin. New Flaw. My hatred for my enemies is blind and unreasoning. They will never receive mercy so long as I stand. Removal of the Curse. When a creature cursed in this way is subject to the Remove Curse spell, they immediately fly into a berserk state, attacking the nearest creature until that creature, or the cursed creature themselves, drops to 0 hit points. This curse can only be removed by reenacting the loss of the Ruiner's own eye; a high-ranking elven (or half-elven) cleric of Corellon, the Arch-Heart, must shoot through the eye (AC 20) using an enchanted longbow within 1 minute of the cursed creature being affected by the Remove Curse spell.
Identify does not reveal that an item is cursed... "Most methods of identifying items, including the identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse, although lore might hint at it. A curse should be a surprise to the item’s user when the curse’s effects are revealed." (DMG 138-139)
That makes the Identify spell pretty much worthless. A much better way to go about it would be if the item had passive resistance to the casters Spell Save DC. But this surprise approach to curses is frankly pretty cheap, and I'm surprised the book supports it.
@@twilightvulpine Not really. It makes the Identify spell do what it's supposed to do. If you want them to learn about the curse, let Identify tell them what the item is called and let them do research in game to learn.
The upside/downside curses remind me of the curse from the first pirates of the Caribbean movie. Upsides - You cannot die Downsides - You still have desires to eat/drink/etc, but you are unable to satisfy them - You take the form of a skeleton in moonlight - You cannot die
I'm a relatively new DM who's not afraid to .. flex my powers of creation.. to the benefit and detriment of my first real victi... erm, I mean player group. For our first campaign I had them create characters that were going to a continent none of them had been to before, for their own various reasons. Pretty much everyone arrives on this new continent in the same northeastern port city, because of the geographical layout of the world, and of course my players' characters were no exception. As they wandered around town, it became a very obvious choice to go to the wizard's guild to look for work (since they weren't interested in the mining jobs that were otherwise very readily available due to a local policy on a "worker exchange program"). Little did my players know that the proper head of the wizard's guild was replaced by an incredibly powerful overload of the abyssal planes who happened to borrow a pretty good looking half-human's body to affect the material realm. So they arrive to sign up for new work, and lo and behold are required to sign a contract with a pen that uses their own blood for ink. Thankfully the characters were rather rash, and managed to tease the one person who insisted on trying to read the encyclopedia-sized contract into feeling embarrassed about their mistrust, so they all ended up signing it. The head wizard even gave them all a large coin-like token to keep with them to show they were on an important task from this head wizard. Little did they know that they were signing an agreement to become the cursed servants of this overlord. They had unwittingly agreed to do his bidding, accepting whatever conditions he set forth, and releasing the overlord from any obligation to remunerate the characters in any way. So this overlord sends the players off to do whatever dirty work he needs done, that at first mostly involved getting rid of goblins and orcs that were trying to take up residence in some nearby caves, that just so happened to be the place this overlord was attempting to establish his stronghold. The players were pretty much clueless that anything was amiss until they ran into a band of goblins, on their 3rd such job. Coincidentally the troop of goblins had a shaman who recognized the players from a vision he had experienced during the very same vision quest that sent him to loot the cave system they were all currently in. This shaman managed to convince the party to stop fighting long enough to hear him out (even though the players killed a couple goblins and an orc that had put down their weapons while the shaman tried to convince the players he had an important message). He told the players that his vision involved two celestial temples, each containing an artifact that was really a two-part artifact, and was the only way to end the darkness of "the greatest evil" that was currently sweeping the land in darkness that wasn't quite obvious to regular eyes. The party then finished the job they were on for the head of the wizards guild while suspicions built up. It wasn't until the head wizard summoned the party back to the starting town against their desires and essentially dressed them down like dogs for being out of contact for so long (almost 5 days) and basically forced them into another job that they knew for sure who they had to face. Little did they know the tokens they received allowed the overlord to listen to their conversations, track their locations and to speak at them at all times. They just knew they were getting good work, and they only had to pay a 20% commission to the overlord for all the loot they got on any particular job - a "finder's fee" type arrangement. Now they know they're working for something worse than the devil, and after a few visions, some deep digging, and a bit of side-questing have learned of a mostly-mortal being powerful enough to overcome the effect the tokens have, as a representation of the contract they signed magically in their own blood, of their own free will. Little did they know, that very free will they used was more and more at peril, the longer they were bound by the contract for an extended period of time, and their own souls were in terrible danger once they had lost their free will. They also didn't know that the mostly-mortal being, an enchantress, would be a terrible french clichee (although we're still calling it "very ancient elvish", not french), who "only" requires the soul of a basically newborn infant to help them out. Thankfully, and unbeknownst to the party, not too far away, a baby destined for great evil had recently been born and left with a single-father who always wanted a child... but the choice was up to the party. It will turn out that the abyssal overlord was so powerful in the abyssal planes that he couldn't escape the abyssal plane without using a kind of inanimate vessel to hold his essence in the material plane long enough to establish a base in the material plane that would be strong enough to keep his presence on the material plane and thus, prevent his unwilling return to the abyssal plane and enabling him to rule over the material plane, remaking it in his terrifying and horrific image. And thinking himself clever, and having a rather large essence, he thought of splitting it into two (thus the two-part artifact) pieces giving him two places to store the force that kept him a threat, rather than just one. It will also turn out that he's entirely too powerful for the players to fight, in the traditional sense, so they're in the process of discovering that destroying these two artifact pieces near enough the overlord will cause a kind of backlash effect that will return him, rather painfully, to the abyssal planes and most likely debilitate him for millenia. We're still in the process of seeing how things turn out, but I'd like to imagine that the players are having a rather unique experience with the first curse I .. 'shared'.. with them. At least, they turn up every week excited to hear the recap of the previous week and to find out what the heck is going to happen next! All because I felt empowered to be creative and to try to come up with something that maybe wasn't in every book every written about fantasy conflicts and the heroes that solved them. I hope you all are inspired to find your own crazy twists in the worlds you've created, or play in, and that they keep you on your toes the entire time! Best of games to you!
A curse I used that my players liked was for a homebrew item, the wand of rats. Once you get the wand, you get a rat familiar. However it’s a hungry rat and if you forget to feed it, the rat will eat holes into your things instead.
I have a player who was playing an elven samurai. He asked for a cool katana. I decided to run with it. I created a sword called "The Red Tutor". This katana could not be identified while it was sitting in its sheath, and would only allow a character to wield it if it agreed to its terms. It was sentient and had a personality and communicated via telepathy. It demanded a blood tithe. If the sword wasn't blooded, it would animate and cut its wielder prior to being sheathed. In return, it would mentor the character, granting a free feat after 5 levels worth of continuous use.
10 Curses i have used as a DM in my Games: -Curse of Sunlight Sensitivity (self explanatory, see drow) -Curse of madness: Roll on the temp madness table, thats what you get -Curse of Feeble-mindedness: Each day roll 1d8 and reduce int score by the result -Curse of Bloodlust: Missed attack rolls deal X _____ damage to YOU (the type of the weapon, might be 5 slashing damage on a 1d10 sword) -Curse of Lethality: You are INCAPABLE of attacking nonlethaly. (this one was actually REALLY fun) -Curse of Modest _____: Pick a skill, whenever they would make a check with that skill, they automatically roll a 5. -Curse of the Zealous Monk: The player cannot remove exhaustion with rest, and rest does not relieve exhaustion. (Con saves every night or gain exhaustion till death) -Curse of Hideous Form: The character automatically fails all persuasion or deception checks, but has advantage on all intimidation checks -Curse of Mercy: The character must undertake all actions non-lethally or receive psychic damage as per the Geas spell. -Curse of Misfortune: You treat all Natural 20s as if they were natural 1s.
I'm a big fan of the upside/downside curses. Say the player identifies the magic Shield they found, and discover that it's a +2 Shield of Arrow Attraction, and that if they cast Remove Curse on it, it becomes a +1 Shield.
Technically speaking, that may not even be a curse for some players. The tanky paladin who already has a high AC can use that to keep squishier back line characters safe from ranged attacks without being in their line of sight or fire.
@That Crazy Guy Everyone Likes yes. I play a tank type build in most of the campaign's I play. I have went out of my way to track down equipment with "curses" like missile attraction. Every attack I eat is one less that's doing damage somewhere else.
Another similar idea: Cursed ring of Warding Bond (unlimited range). +1 to AC and saves, resistance to all damage, but you can't remove the effect without casting Remove Curse, and you have no idea who has its twin.
@Greymane_Gaming in my current campaign (Candlekeep Mysteries) I'm playing a Glory Paladin 6 / Eloquence Bard 6. Extremely "look at me, look over here, fite me irl" sort of build, and one of the more fun and tanky characters I've ever played.
@Katie Schmid yeah... the "focus on me protection/defense fighter archetypes" are a blast... especially since I have done Rattan fighting for 20-plus years in the society for Creative anachronism ad a front-and-center shield and sword fighter on the Frontline. Most of my job is to defend against incoming shots to protect our spear and polearm fighters because they do the bulk of the damage... Most of the time it is not really fun work. Not really bad either but needs to be done. It's gotten to the point where people recognize me on the front lines though and I've had entire units backpedal and brace a little bit when I start forward. There's no feeling quite like that feeling as you realize you are living the "bad ass warrior" dream. And it's even better when you get the charge command and get to slam into them with everything you've got. My fighting group likes us to be versatile and proficient in the three main fighting forms because it helps us fight against them better when we are fighting them. Spear is fun but you need to be very maneuverable with it. At 75 inches tall and around 275 pounds, that is not me. Polearm is a bit of an in-between where you can use your size and power to advantage or your speed and Agility. It's fun but still not really my style. Sword and shield is where I fit in the best and I have earned my name amongst the fighting groups. Although in reality I'm so very low on the chain. I really can't imagine myself in any fight without a sword and shield honestly.
Something I made for one of my players for our game. Their character took a curse at the beginning of the game and has gotten worse over the course of the game. Crowned Skull Magic item (Cursed) This crown of black stygian iron is emblazoned with bone in the shape of skulls on each of its nine spikes. You know this bone to belong to dead kins men. The sensation of brutal violence lingers on the edge of your mind reminding you that you were the lone survivor of a horrible ritual. You know that with your actions of violence you brought the ritual to completion. You wear this crown as a remembrance to your fallen kin. You are unable to discard this crown as it always appears back on your head and causes you a sensation of a painful loss. The skulls now shift a twist changing from miniature feline skulls to miniature teifling skulls. Whispers come from the crown and always seem to be in the back of your mind. Curse: All creature within 30ft of you (yourself included) have disadvantage on fear checks. If a creature is immune to fear they instead have advantage on a fear checks and can be effected by fear while within 30ft of you. Curse: Creatures you try talking to can see the demonic aspects of your nature. This can cause disadvantage on social checks on certain creatures. It can also cause intimidation checks to have advantage. Demonic Boon: As an action you can cast the fear spell as a cleric spell using your save DC without expending a spell slot. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest. Demonic Boon: Obsidian Jaw- you teeth have gained an obsidian aspect. You now have a melee bite attack. This uses strength. You inflict 1d6 piercing damage and d12 necrotic damage. This crits on a 19 or a 20.
One of my players (a somewhat naive paladin) got a sentient Berserker Axe inhabited by a devil that would try to influence his actions. The weapon would evolve (more damage and adding additional HP to the paladin) while also making exiting the berserk stage more difficult and lead to him nearly killing a few of the other players. The characters didn't know it was due to the axe, removed the curse and fought the devil, but he kept using the axe so it came back and continued growing stronger. It's been one of the most fun elements of the past year or so in my campaign, balancing out the danger of the berserk paladin while also having to acknowledge how much more efficient he is while holding the weapon as well as the fear of fighting the stronger version of the devil.
i made a crown of deception. it has 7 points one for each copy of the curse. when identified it was known it would give the wearer +7 to deception (one for each copy). once attuned it was revealed it give a -2 to persuasion for each copy making it -14. once remove curse was cast on it it would remove one of the points on the crown and remove the remove curse spell from the players prepared spell list making them have to spend a long rest to prevent spam curse removals. it was cursed by an ancient hag, so yeah..
I've used curses several times either for consequences of characters not being cautious or as part of a plot. I also don't let Remove Curse spell just end the curse. The first casting gives you directions on how to remove the curse, the 2nd casting with the conditions met remove it. I'm a huge fan of the curse gradually gaining power if it's ignored, and I very rarely tell players it happened directly, but rather let the curses evolution show it. I also use Cataclysm rolls to determine the steps, so it would typically start as a d20 roll each day until a natural 20 is rolled, then the next step starts and the die size is reduced, in this case to a d12. Example, Cursed Shield of Senses. This shield looks exactly like a Sentinel Shield and grants the same benefits until the curse progresses. As long as the shield is in the possession of the player or within 100ft (even through a portable hole or bag of holding) the effects progress. If the cursed object is further than 100ft, the curse doesn't progress, but also does not subside. To remove the curse, the Shield must be willingly taken by another creature unknowing of the curse (this makes it morally grey even to get rid of) and then a Remove Curse spell can be preformed. Each day while in the person's possession roll a Cataclysm Die, the curse progresses on the maximum roll of that die. Each effect stacks. D20. Advantage on Perception checks. D12. -5 to Perception rolls. D10. Passive Perception reduced by 10 D8. Additional -5 to Perception checks. D6. Additional -5 to passive Perception. D4. Character is entirely blind and deaf. Final. Even removing the curse fails to reverse the effects. Only a diety or powerful extraplanar creature (typically CR 20 or higher) can remove the blindness and deafness. The curse must be removed before they can remove the effects. In this case I just kept quiet about the penalties until the player realized even with a good roll, they didn't see as well as their allies did. When they looked into it, that's when they noticed the curse. Before people get upset that I cursed my player, they were literally in a city run by cultists and very evil creatures, and bought the item without ever thinking it was suspicious that the vendor eagerly sold it at a massive discount. I gave the player like 5 clues that it was probably a bad idea to use it. He didn't care cause his character would have easily been fooled.
I like coming up with different names for different levels of things. When you gave Hexes as the lowest level of curse, I was hoping there would be a new name for each level, but that didn't happen. Might I suggest the lowest level be called a Jinx? Then have Hex be higher up, then maybe Blighted? Maybe the highest level is Damned? Naming things tend to give those things more relevance and impact, I feel.
At my table, Remove Curse functions a little differently. For small things like personality changes (quirks like "I want this thing forever" and "I'm always greedy") Remove Curse functions as normal. But things like lycanthrope, alignment changes, disfigurement, and things that can kill the player or harm them (like lowering their stats), Remove Curse is a bandaid. It suppresses the curse but does not remove it. If they want to remove the curse, they need to find someone who knows how to do some kind of ritual/spell to remove said curse. And often times, it requires more adventuring in order for them to cleanse said item.
Just made a cused item, the ethereal locket. When activated the user is shifted into a spectral form and cannot interact with the physical realm. The curse is every time you use it your body become a little more faded. Every teir of spectral fade gives debuffs to constitution and strength until finally you become a full ghost and are presumed dead
Shield of Missile Attraction. It's cursed. It makes ranged attacks target the bearer instead of their allies within 10feet. It also gives resistance to those attacks. I haven't met a tank yet who doesn't think that's a desirable effect. I gave a party the option between the Shield of Missile Attraction and the Shield of Arrow Catching, and they went with Missile Attraction.
That's what my Life Cleric picked up when our GM let us choose a magic item. The best kind of magic items are the ones where it being seen as cursed or not is a matter of your temperament.
My brother once gave us an earing that a goblin shaman had. It was able to translate any spoken language into goblin, and thus be a universal translator for the shaman. As for the rest of our party, none of us could speak goblin so the earing causes all language to sound like gobbledygook. This double edged sword type of curse are what I find to be the best.
Unless there's an effect preventing the bearer from willingly removing them, sounds like a magic item doing what it was purposed to do, how specific that purpose may be... Though it may be a way to motivate the players to engage in off-time activities in order to learn goblin language.
I really enjoy Ghostfire Gaming's take on curses in the Grim Hollow Campaign Guide; it does a lot of the things you've said here, but also includes a progression system where the curse gets worse whenever specific triggers occur. They act similar to Spellcasting (with some extra steps), and technically count as levelled spells in and of themselves, with certain curses being accessible to particular classes' spell lists
Great video! Whole heartedly agree but there is another way to do curses too that has worked in my games. As far as 'cursed' magic items in my campaign are not unusable or used as a gotcha. They are extremely powerful but require either some kind of sacrifice to utilize or to get the most out of it they need to play a dangerous balancing act. For example, a fiend warlock player of mine defeated his old master who taught him how to make deals with devils without being screwed over. Now he has 'Zattimas' Staff of Fiendish Might'. A magic staff being powered by a trapped pitfiend inside of it. The pitfiend once an hour can attempt a savingthrow to escape with an increased DC for every magic charge it has starting with a DC of 30 with all its charges. When you cast spells from it, you expend charges, and the charges come back slowly each day. So if the player isnt careful to keep the DC out of the pitfiends grasp its safe to use. Meanwhile the pitfiend is encouraging him to use the might of the staff. So not cursed per se, but very dangerous. He didnt know about the saving throw to spell charges at first but was able to figure it out cause the demon would get more excited/desperate the more charges he used. He isnt ever gonna part with that staff cause he loves it and wont let anyone else have it for fear of setting the devil free. Not because the text says he has to, but because its genuine.
I'm planning a cursed item for a dragon blood sorcerer. It's an orb that possesses the soul of a dragon (the sorcerer's patron, actually) and gives the sorcerer incremental power as they level up. It starts as an arcane focus, then grants abilities like dragon's breath, becoming +1, etc. After leveling with it and discovering that the orb gets stronger as well, I introduce the voice of the dragon within tempting the player with more power and giving into greed. When using abilities enhanced by the orb, there is a small chance the orb dominates them for a short time. Each time they are dominated, the orb grows stronger and the abilities it grants are better, but successive chances of domination are greater. Eventually, the dragon will take over the host permanently and be reborn. A couple of catches. Identify requires a spellcasting ability roll and on a high DC reveals the nature of the curse. Remove Curse is sufficient to stop domination until the dragon begins to change the host's form (as in polymorph into dragon forms). Remove curse does not stop the dragon from influencing the player, and if they get rid of it, the orb will dominate anyone it can to return it to the sorcerer. A powerful ritual to enter the orb and defeat the dragon is required to end the curse and grants the sorcerer the ancient dragon's breath weapon while attuned.
The best curse I've personally encountered was a shield that when you were attacked, the shield would use YOU as a shield, turning you into the attack :D
Had a belt that gave my ADnD (2nd ed) character an 18 Con and an 18 Charisma. Wizard refused to cast remove curse because he hated my character. Why would it be needed? It also changed the character to a woman that was extremely attractive and would be hit on constantly. Liked the hilarity, kept it on even after I could have paid to remove it. Met the Prince of a kingdom, fell in love. Saved the kingdom, got engaged. At the wedding, “does anyone have any reason why this man and woman should not be wed?” “I cast remove curse.” The campaign ended with my character riding a wagon away as the guards were firing arrows at him and he yelled out to the Prince “I always loved you!” Curses are great.
You are the best Luke! I love that you aren't doin the sleazy "here's how you do things better... just buy my product". You offer the solution and then offer the hard copy. Your homebrew ideas are awesome. You and your team are knocking it out of the park. I love curses and these ideas will be very helpful. Many thanks! Also, one thing would be great. Chapterizing the video would make it easier to go back and rewatch certain sections.
@@michaelconnor1542 What I was saying is some creators dangle the answer in front of you and never come out and tell you what it is. They simply say, "buy the product to find out". Essentially turning the video into an infomercial. Luke doesn't do this. He puts it all on the table.
Agreed! Remove Curse in my games will only remove the most basic of curses. For anything more powerful, it won't remove the curse. However, it WILL tell the caster and the cursed creature how to remove it, typically a ritual that requires an adventure to obtain the components for. Here's my favorite cursed item I've used so far: Identified as Ring of Protection +5 (meant to be a clue since, in 5e, bonuses only go to +3) that requires attunement. What it actually does while cursed: Upon attunement: Ring of Protection +0. Wearer has disadvantage on Luck saves and Luck checks (homebrew stat but you can easily replace with an existing stat). When a creature (friend or foe) within 30' of the wearer makes a critical hit, the wearer must make a Luck save DC 13. On a success, nothing happens. On a failure, the wearer teleports into the attack's path and becomes the target of that attack. How to remove the curse: Perform an hour-long ritual (can be done during a short rest) that requires the following components: Glacial ice blessed by a long-dead god and 300 gold worth of diamonds. Immediately after the ritual is completed, the wearer has the option to remove the item (the item will remain cursed) or to reattune to it. If they reattune to it, they will benefit from the actual item (below) BUT, if they ever unattune, it will revert to its cursed state and the ritual would need to be performed again. What the uncursed version of the item does: Ring of Protection +3. Luck +2. When the wearer is subjected to a critical hit, they may attempt a Luck save DC 13. On a failure, nothing happens. On a success, they may teleport to any space they can see within 30'. If they are now out of range or otherwise no longer an eligible target of the attack, the attack misses.
I never did anything with it, but I always thought it would be cool to make a trojan curse. When a detect curse is successfully done, they detect the trojan curse that is actually masking and containing the real curse. Once the remove curse is done, it releases the real curse. Then, of course, my brain says "hey, have that curse be one that immediately turns players' items into cursed items, so now they have to get those curses removed.
a caveat to "curses having an upside" I like the idea of getting an upside for removing the curse. for example, my players get cursed to only be able to speak and understand sylvan, but when they break the curse (through a quest) they still retain their ability to speak and understand sylvan, they just get all of their original languages back too.
My DM in my first 5e campaign did something similar to this. We TPKed at level 2 due to a trap and a VERY bad decision on our rogue's behalf, followed by some very bad dice rolls 😅 our druid proceeded to roll 3 failed death saves in a row after the trap went off, with our rogue being captured and our two fighters (one of which being me) both unconscious but stable. DM had a private conversation with the druid and he was reincarnated into a fey tiger, as he has a tiger shaped wildfire spirit. As a result, he couldn't speak common anymore 😂 while he still understood everything we said, his inability to communicate meant our next session was spent doing a HILARIOUS game of charades between us two fighters (with a total wisdom modifier of -3) and him to try and figure out where the druid is and why there is an orange and white tiger that glows in the dark where the druids body was 🤣
Only issue with this is that non of the rules interact with remove curse. Basically this eliminates the spell from the game and (I’m guessing) nerfs part of the effect of greater restoration. In addition how wish would effect something like a “true curse” is not spelled out. Would have been nice to see interactions spelled out. For example: a tier 1 curse can be removed via remove curse/GR/or via x A tier 2 curse can be paused for 1 d4 days by remove curse, cured by gr, or via x A tier 3 curse is immune to remove curse, paused for 1d4 days by gr, or cured by x A tier 4 curse is immune to remove curse and gr, and a wish spell will only give details of how to remove it. There’s no need to effectively remove spells as options.
I created a very harmless, but hilarious curse where the player had to knock any doors they approach, and the only way to break the curse was to ring the doorbell of a particular storm giant.
Correct me if I'm wrong but... DMG Pg 139 Cursed Items: Most methods of identifying items, including the identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse, although lore might hint at it. A curse should be a surprise to the item's user when the curse' effects are revealed.
My current campaign escalated from "Wolfs killed our cattle" to "Lets cure this poor fella from his curse" to "One of the PCs was bitten by a werewolf in a bottched attempt to cure him and now needs a cure himself". Since it's stupid to remove an ancient curse via a third level spell, in this campaign it just surpresses it for some time. The only way to get rid of it is a potion which recipe was lost to time or a wish spell - and so the adventure began to venture into the desert to find one of three fabled rings that are said to grant wishes. So, without knowing it, I implemented your first three advices: 1. The curse is the whole plot device to get the adventure started 2. Remove curse does not cut it, but there are recipes for potions that can supress the curse for one month (even though the character might evolve an immunity for that medicine as the curse goes on) - you need a wish to permanently cure it 3. The player became a werewolf, now thats an upside!
I am a huge fan of curses that a) come with an upside and b) can only be removed by some objective. You already explained the upside, and used the objectives in your examples, but curses that a player has to actively seek out the solution for are so much more fun. Something like "kill an enemy while flanked twice" or "expose a lie with monetary implications" are super interesting for a curse, but the curse also has to have an upside so the player doesn't feel like they're screwed by the downsides. When they accomplish the objective, they might even keep the upsides!
I once got a wand of fire ball but for every use it turns a random amount of gold coins into potatoes and it couldn't be uses if you had no gold coins.
I made 3 cursed items for a Halloween event and they were actually pretty good for the level. It was all trick or treat related as it was a +2 sword that gave fear if you were hit, plate that made you immune to fear but made your ac go down by -2 and a shield that regen every round for +1 hp but made it so you were selfish and would not go out of your way to save others. When worn together the fear is canceled out and the plate becomes normal 18 ac. This was for a lv5 party and I thought hey, this is great and they just sat on it....
I use a d12 "fate die" in my game. Each player rolls it when narratively appropriate, not less than once per day, not more than once per round. On a 12, something good for the character happens. On a 1, something bad happens. This effect happens regardless of other die rolls and outcomes. Curses increase the chance of misfortune, blessings enhance fortune. It's possible to have misfortune up to 1-4 and fortune 9-12. Cursed and lucky items can be very minor - lucky pennies exist, lucky shirts remain so until washed. Hedge witches and village priests are powerful and feared/respected.
I have a few curses deployed in my ongoing stream campaign. One player was once incapacitated by the world’s manifestation of the hexblade (long story…), and because of that the player suffers a constant death save fail until they decide to fix it. Another one of my players is a sorceress who’s backstory involves the demise of her father due to lack of control over her powers so whenever she expends all her sorcery points or uses a specific class feature that staves off her own death the people around her must save against her magic or fall victim to a perpetual effect of the contagion spell.
"Who uses tridents??" My current character, Trudy Lukenglas, was generated mostly randomly and was given the Paladin Oath of the Open Seas. Soooo I flavoured her as a trident user 😅 she also has a sickle because....uhhh, that I don't know.
I played a cursed elven monk in a Pathfinder first edition game whose curse led her to the service of a goddess. The goddess granted her metal tipped wings with vorpal on critical rolls. Easily the most epic character I’ve ever played despite the challenges.
Love the curse ideas shared here, A+. A couple nit picks, though: RAW, a curse isn't revealed until a PC attunes to an item. Additionally, Remove Curse ends the cursed condition on a creature and breaks their attunement to a cursed item but the item will remain cursed unless its description specifies otherwise.
I gave my paladin players a haunted berserker battle axe early on in our campaign. I think he was just barely level 3. It caused some problems and the evil spirit in the battle axe was a warlord. It was always trying to get him to break his oath, and I described the berserker state as him being possessed by the warlord. The player expressed wanting to break the curse to me out of game. So I told him he could use remove curse and it would be just a +1 battle axe, or he could do this ritual and kill the spirit and the curse would be broken, and it could keep the other positive effect. So he did that last time we played. I had him fight a slightly modified reskinned avatar of death, and when it was over the axe became a holy avenger battle axe. That gave the HP boost of the berserker axe, but a +3 per level instead of the old +1. I didn't tell him it would be an upgrade. I think it worked out well.
Best curse I borrowed was from the 90s movie Warlock. Hag steals an item from a PC and curses them to age 20 years each day. Puts a ticking clock on the players to defeat the hag/break the curse (getting the item back) and utilizes an oft forgotten demographic of a character, their age and their race’s lifespan. And since lower level resurrection spells won’t bring back those who died of old age it has a real threat.
My setting is built around a True Curse, one that stripped all the gods of their divine power and prevents those that seek apotheosis from achieving it. At the mortal level, anyone who comes within about 50' of the item (a wand that was originally a toy), is cursed so that whatever it is they most desire they are denied. I can provide examples, as many NPCs in my world have been cursed thusly. One of them, a witch who can see into the future, knows the secret to destroying the wand and ending the curse for everyone. However, her greatest desire is to tell this to people. She is cursed so that everything she says is riddle and hyperbole. So, when asked, she will simply say, "A paradox of desire." Many believed they knew what this riddle meant and tried to use this knowledge to destroy the wand. To date, all who tried have failed.
I had a 2'4" Forest Gnome "spellcasting bandit"(custom class from the DMG) that used a 6' Trident that allowed him to breathe underwater in an AD&D campaign! Palladium Fantasy has Rune Weapons(unique powerful weapons that 99% have a curse on it) that have been traded for a kingdom!
I think a good way around it is to offer some sort of good stat or ability and when using the ability or something to do with the stat like a saving throw then you could go into a saving throw to determine if the curse effects you or not.
alignment is a great mechanic, its really sad ... the only people that I've ever seen have an issue with it were generally murder hobos and power gamers
Great inspiration. I'm thinking that in my game, "Remove Curse" may do the removal for very low level curses, but the typical result will be insight into/awareness of a quest required to remove the curse (such as various "Removal of the Curse" examples given).
I used a single cursed item in my campaign, and the player affected by it seemed to have a good time. The bard picked up what happened to be a sword of vengeance in an ancient vault. Rather than having the curse inflicted upon attunement, I reasoned that since it's otherwise indistinguishable from a +1 sword, the curse would latch on upon direct contact. The bard gained a flaw that made him more aggressive and unwilling to do anything that would cause him to part with the sword, and over time the curse took a deeper and deeper hold on him, beginning to affect his body. The party thought he was suffering the effects of the demiplane of dread they found themselves stuck in, and tried using lesser restoration, which succeeded in lowering the effects of the curse by 1 level per use, but he failed nearly every saving throw to resist its progression, so would end up back where he was the day before by the time he woke up. The party finally realized it was something worse when he struck down a disarmed Arrigal, and attempted to do the same when the party's fighter tried to restrain him. The cleric ran up to him, taking a gamble by casting remove curse, the fighter disarmed him, and then the cleric smashed the sword, breaking it open, and releasing the spirit of vengeance inside, which she immediately managed to destroy with Turn Undead. All in all, this little b-plot lasted about 10 sessions, and led to some fun decisions before the party's characters figured out what was going on.
In the FairyTail Anime/Manga, The Nine Demon Gates of Tartaros use interesting curses, Bloodman too... except they put the curses on themselves deliberately so that they get a set of custom superpowers... for Tempester, he just says a sound effect like "whoosh" & then a tornado spawns in front of him sucking & blowing away buildings as intended, or saying "Kapow" to call down a bolt of lightning to cause huge destruction.
Love curses!! Always let my players know when cursed whats the upside/downside of it is after it activates. My favorite was a sword that's weight increases the stronger the person wielding it is. So at 8 str was a great sword but 1d6. But at 20 str it weighed 6×more and had more d6s. The negative was you couldn't add your positive str modifier to hit. But with 7d6 the player didn't care lol
The warlock player I'm DMing for wanted to make a sword of wounding his pact weapon. I added a curse that each day he doesn't harvest a humanoid's soul with the sword, he takes one point of psychic damage the next morning. This accumulates until he does harvest a soul, giving him a grace period of one day, then starts the count over again. And of course he can't willingly unattune from the sword.
One of the ways we deal with curses in our game is that remove curse with remove the spell bestow curse. If there is an item with a curse on it, then the spell generally won't work, neither will dispel magic. These need to be a quest to remove the cursed item. We also use the rule that a curse on the item is designed to make the person believe the item is something else, or at least the curse doesn't exist. I already use many of the tiers of curses described, sort of. We make it so that a curse is not something you just wave away. But cursed items are like legendary items in our games. Very very rare. So they are used as a story telling tool. A cursed item is a way to provide a quest, to initiate a story, something like that. I give out cursed items judiciously.
Years ago, back in 3.0 days, my sorcerer found some magic leather armor thatvworked with his spellcasting. Since his AC was abysmal, he took it without much thought. Turns out it was a Trojan Horse curse, slowly making his mind susceptible to the influence of a Slaad the party previously tangled with. By the time it was discovered, it was too late and the curse was irreverible - at least by Remove Curse means. My sorcerer was given a torc of mind shielding, to fortify his mind, but it was still possible for the Slaad's influence to overcome its protections. This whole cured subplot gave my naturally happy-go-lucky character a twinge of sadness, and I really loved the RP opportunity afforded by the constant worry my character gained that he might one day snap and attack his friends.
Curse idea for a necklace I once had A little skull of wolf, made out of silver and is known to come from a god of the hunt If you attune you get advantage on attacks if you hit the same enemy twice and your attacks hit harder but you need to continue the hunt If you fail the save, you dream of the hunts a shadowy version of yourself will do If you resist the urge to often, you become the prey and get hunted yourself It's not quite perfect I know, but I hope I can get any experienced thoughts on that vauge idea
In my games remove curse has been removed as a spell. Remove Curse is now a Feat, it requires a DC Check to pass. DC 20 +. I have also done this with Counterspell. Making it a feat instead of a spell.
Curses are not pointless, especially when it influences roleplaying. They just need to be temporary and not overly debilitating so they don't get old fast. Which is why I really like temporary insanities. People that want to do away with alignment are lazy and don't want to learn the difference between the alignments. Alignments simply need to be used as a roleplaying guideline, not a restriction on how you must act. They do not need to be removed.
1) The people who are most vocal about removing alignment seem to be those who want to deny the existence of good and evil because they find they are uncomfortable with their choices and where they, personally, fall on that scale. 2) The difference between demons and devils doesn't make sense without alignment. Remember, alignment has to do with factions. Sort of like grand guilds.
@@themcchuck8400 judging person's character based on what game mechanics they like lol. Hate to break it to you but D&D originally didn't even have Good and Evil, just Lawful and Chaotic.
I know this is strange to say but anything that makes my character more interesting or gives me opportunity to roleplay and sink my teeth into this world or character, I take it even if it's a curse. Eventually to get rid of the curse, we can do a quest somewhere to remove it but in the meantime I get to soak in that drama. Think as if you are a professional wrestler and the creative writers in the back have something really dramatic and cool for you even though it makes your character have a downside for a little bit. The audience will respond to this which gives you more camera time until this angle is over. Curses are a plot hook and I bite plot hooks they keep your character near the spotlight if they aren't in the spotlight.
I plan for my group to run through a maze of the big bad that will turn out to be a sealed treasure room that the bad guy tried to hide before he got sealed away, and then released by the party. In the center, there are a number of chests with mosaics above them. Each chest has their own cursed item in them, and the mosaics show a story about each item that used to belong to minions of the big bad, but the mosaics also show what happens when people besides the minions use them. I plan to give them the feel that even before they look at the items in the chests, they will have a bad feel about them. And I don't allow identify to find curses. Because yeah, that's pointless. They need to either pick up extremely obvious context clues, or try and figure out if they can circumvent the curses. I also took a couple items that are usually normal items in game, such as ring of Regen, bracers of defense, and luck stone, and turned them into cursed items and am giving the cursed stone of good luck instead, but these ones can get the curses removed over time.
I've been running my first campaign a couple years and I've only used a cursed item once but I ran Remove Curse like the rule for Counterspell, and I do Dispel Magic the same way
Regarding the issues you have with curses: 1) players usually won't know if something is cursed raw 2) i don't recommend you just tell the player all at once what happens. let them know what happens over time. 3) don't necessarily let the players know what is causing the curse. let them have to try and figure out if its a curse or something else. When my players do something which I deem worthy of a curse, like an alignment change because of sufficient deals with dark powers, I don't have it happen all at once. It happens over time and after a sufficient number of interactions.
The bard with the hips in one of my games chose to seduce a sea hag instead of fight her. He was cursed with a revenant at level 4. It was the std curse from the movie "it follows" and would appear randomly wherever he went as it was constantly following him and I was rolling behind screen for progress
Ran a curse a while ago. An angry hag cursed some players, she ambushed the players and when they lost, she tasked them to get rid of an opposing coven. To make sure the party came through with the deal, she cursed them. They would lose 10% of their HP every midnight until the task was done, if they'd die while cursed their soul would belong to the hags. Casting remove curse would speed the process. When they visited an archdruid, they also learned the players could also get rid of the coven that cast the curse (but the players were afraid of them at that point), they could also look for Baba Yaga and beg for her to lift the curse. the warlocks patron whispered him that he would lift the curse if they'd fetch an item for him... so suddenly the curse became a quest with a hard deadline ;-)
The mechanics of curses can be made much more interesting, but a bit hard for DM. In our campaign, we use curses with different effects that can affect the characters' attitudes towards you or the morale of your character. This is very interesting, and in order not to make them so easy to remove, we use an expensive material component for this spell. In addition, curses are summed up, and this makes the battle even with a few not very strong opponents much more intense
My favorite cursed item was from a 3.5 campaign and was called Mr. Bear Upsides: -- Bag of holding style storage -- Unlimited space -- Expandable opening -- Looks like a cute teddy bear backpack Downsides: -- Mr. Bear doesn't like giving up his treasure. If you want to retrieve something you have to describe it to Mr. Bear and then roll percentile to see if you get what you want. The more specific the description, the harder the challenge. -- Mr. Bear's ultimate goal is to "eat" his owner
The best use of Mr. Bear from the game. We were fighting a hoarde of zombies that kept coming out of a wide hole in the street. The rogue (Mr. Bear's owner) reached into his mouth and asked for "something explosive." Player rolls triple-ought. Rogue pulls out something massive and without hesitation throws it into the hole. DM describes a massive tombstone flying through the air, and the characters reading the words inscribed on it. "My last spell was explosive runes." Zombies dead, street destroyed. Temple collapsing. NPC cleric almost dead. Party cleric tries to help, accidentally kills NPC cleric, loses a level until she atones.
So this might be a bit oldschool but Lycanthropy is a form of curse, depending on the setting/story. D&D absolutely falls short of delivering this from the Horror stories that they originate from. It is far too easy to overcome the game given defenses and is often an out right downgrade with how the stats are replaced instead of amplified. not only that, the fact the player has any form of a save against the onset of the curse is in bad taste and a missed opportunity. We can do better. Dont give them a Con save, Give them an Optional quest. First, Getting mauled by a 'rabid' wolf on a routine adventure to keep the farmer's sheep safe. Simple enough setup, could happen to anyone. Players think nothing of it. Insert DM magic and however you want to hint that they didnt infact get bit by 'just a wolf' and suddenly You are now on the clock with an unfortunately too short amount of time to find the solution for the afflicted player, and the handful of village folk who were also savaged, hence the need for adventures. Of course there isnt a 'magical' healer in town and even if there was or is, the ingredients are those really rare flowers, probly somewhere in the forest that may or may not have the werewolf in anyway. Boom, low levels adventures are sorted right here Oh by the way, This is happening while "Lord Death of Murder Mountain" is over there doing whatever he wants because the PC's are occupied And that is just the classical story. You can take it a step further and throw in some witchcraft. See, werewolves had to start from somewhere, The first werewolf was probly just a dude that some hags/witches cast some very unpleasent magic upon and set him loose. With D&D showing several different lycanthrope animals, this means the hags/witches have done it multiple times. Maybe the players Ransack the Witch hut, accidently leave something behind that the witch can use. Curses the hello kitty out of them. Fun times. Also a great STICK to use for murder hobos, even if they instead burned down the hut, because now they earned a very spiteful stalker who will look for ANY opportunity to collect what they need from the party to make Voodoo dolls or enough hair or whathave you to make their lives miserable. There are too many possibilities
I've cursed two of my players, but only one has figured it out so far. One picked up a very obviously cursed gem in the god of greed's temple and as such, has been stealing constantly. I've been adding things to her D&DBeyond character sheet without the player noticing. They finally had to deal with the curse when a ghost showed up accusing them of grave robbing and stealing her signet ring. The second player called a fortune teller a quack, so she cursed him. Disadvantage on all checks to avoid the cold. He treated her coldly, she decided to show him what it felt like. This player doesn't realize his character is cursed and they will likely figure it out next session when they head to Neverwinter.
Playing Princes of the Apocalypse I hit similar problems. My solution was like yours - adding some cheddar with unlocking bonus abilities akin to attuning that came with side-effects. I was fortunate enough that the PCs played into those character traits. I later found Concordance rules from 4th Ed that nicely captured much of what I was working towards, rewarding certain behaviors. Total agreement that an artifact like Drown being 'fixed' with a Remove Curse was boring and sad.
Curses are the whole plot point of Lord of the Rings. Bilbo knows the item is cursed, but someone has to take it to Mordor, so he chooses to wear it. The others then sign up to protect him along the way. The ring has powerful magical properties to use with caution, and its an evil creature magnet. Curse as the necessary key to unlock X makes it meaningful.
How I handle curses. Step one, curses cannot be identified. Step two, curses can be removed only via a ritual using proper ingredients which will usually send the party on a quest to find the items(almost always a quest that is parallels to the main story). Step three, curse is tied to story and has some level in intrigue to it to make the players want to discover how, why or what. Step Four, curse is specific in its effect, no more "you are greedy" as most players I have experienced playing with do not know how to properly play these effects and hate being told how they must play their character. Instead the curse is X happens when Y triggers it "you are under the frightened condition(X) when you see a halfling(y), this effect lasts until you can no longer see a halfling and the halfling is your source of fear".
There's a very simple fix to this problem, which I've just come up with; Curses, and the magic items they inhabit, are mutually exclusive. No matter if the item is sold, lost, thrown away, or stolen, the curse itself remains "attuned" to the character. The only way for a curse to be removed is with full disclosure- someone who buys, or freely accepts, the cursed item must be fully aware of said curse, and willfully accept it. Notice, "steals" wasn't on the list, here- the curse remains attuned to the original character. Bonus Tip: don't tell your players about this little tidbit, and watch them scramble to get the item back- "Sorry, I've sold/fenced/lost it!"
Interesting: some questions: On the snake curse: maybe make the person be more charismatic to snakes or beings with snakelike appearance (Yuan-Ti) on repetition, could you put yourself in danger? I mean, it's physically possible to walk off the edge of a cliff.
I'm running a game right now. D&D 3.5 and the next big bad will have a cursed ring. It's a ring of blink, but each time it's used the player must make a fort save DC 14 or take a point of temp constitution dmg as the ring bites into the finger and poisons the player. If 3 such fails happen in a single day then 1 point becomes permanent and the player must make a will save DC 14 or drop 1 slot in Alignment as the curse and poison are CE. To be removed it must be blessed by a cleric of 8th lvl or higher.
My method with cursed items, is make them suck at first, but have a method to break the curse, which has to be done via a quest or ritual, not just remove curse. Remove curse, removes the curse and all the magic. Breaking the curse unlocks its magic, and makes the item much better once it's broken. An example is the "Wraith's Shadow" a jet black set of chainmail armor. At first, it doesn't seem too exciting, gives the player advantage on stealth checks. Then it decreases communication checks, and gives a level of fatigue per day whilst the player becomes more and more incorporeal and ghostlike. The fatigue will inevitably be fatal if the curse isn't broken in time, upon which the player becomes a wraith. Once the curse is broken, the armor gives 5ft of corporeal movement, which allows walking through some walls and obstacles. Additionally, the stealth advantage continues, and you even get advantage on death saving throws (One free reroll)
I cursed my brother's Monk. He got Prestidigitation (a dark warty hand), and Hex. Essentially free magic initiate. The curse is he has to make a charisma save when he reduces someone to 0HP or kill them outright (he likes prize fighting and taking prisoners). The save DC increases with hi proficiency bonus, so the longer he keeps the power the greater the bloodlust. It was totally avoidable. He made s deal with a hag and then went on a whole story arc to fill his end of the bargain, and murdered his enemy in her name. No way will just Remove Curse work on that. What level would you say that is?
My players were *given* free magical armor by a blacksmith looking to spread his brand. The real reason was because there was a very specific command word that would cause the armor to fall off them immediately. The idea was a group of bandits later on working with the blacksmith would use said command word to get the upperhand on the players. Of course, the players all threw away the free +1 armor without thinking outside the box. The Command Word was Wah Wah Pedle. Outside of talking about Electric Guitars, when would someone accidently say Wah Wah Pedle. The players still had free +1 Armor, and they could easily doff their armor with a command word. I gave it to the players as a Gatcha, but also had the idea to allow my players to keep them.
I like having store keeps who have easily removed curses on items in their shop that are removed when the item is sold and really only functions to get the thief caught.
I have an idea for a scenario Cursed weapon that is meant to kill xyz person. It gains a +5 bonus to all attack and damage rolls made against its target only. And the sword cannot be removed from the users hand until target is dead. And then the next session that person shows up. And the player who’s been cursed begins hearing whispers… that get louder and louder whenever it’s target is in the room. After a few minutes of talking to the target the cursed person takes 5 psychic damage every subsequent minute. And the cursed person knows (no rolls required) that the damage will go away if they kill this person. AND then the sword will become a +3 weapon that works on all targets.
My favorite magic item was a cursed +3 Berserker Longsword. It was wielded by my Mage/Thief. When the sword came out the party would back off. Used it to down an Uber Hulk, good times.
I placed what is essentially a curse onto one of my players that forces them to assist in the summoning of anything whether good or bad this was a pact with a demon to allow the party to escape the never ending hallway whilst beeing stalked by a very slow, incincible knight who fashioned weapons out of corpses which was what the walls were made out of the positive of the curse was that no one died
Cursed items. According to about the 1975 Era edition rules, said curse activates when item is used...no knowledge re its a cursed item is given out to any player. Then the rules west changed and now it is 50 years later...
I have a player who plays as a Dahmpir take a big bite out of a pit fiend before the party dispatched him. Drinking of his blood, she now hears his voice in her head taunting her but also advising her. He knows she won't embrace his essence willingly so he just bides his time till she needs desperate help to merge with her permanently. She really isn't seeking help for this as the overall quest takes precedence. Her character seeks power first so in a way he is going to let her do the work for him. I didn't plan the curse, but the voice just felt right. I mean drinking of the blood of a powerful pit fiend, what did you expect? To be honest I have no idea where this will go. Ideas?
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I personally make my players make an ability check when they cast Dispel Magic or Remove Curse on someone; additionally, curses have a minimum duration which refreshes when an attempt to break it fails. I *also* make it VERY clear when something is cursed or risks inflicting one, though they don't get to know what the curse is until it is inflicted. Examples being tombs that radiate negative energy or powerful magic auras on objects, be it chaotic or otherwise.
If you're doing this, you're committing to your decision, atleast for a while.
Don't forget how Curses & magic items worked way back in AD&D where you got a magic item but only a little was ever revealed about it! Keep it a secret for longer is best!
Working on putting a curse on the weapon Ruin's Wake (from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount) and came up with this:
Eye of the Ruiner
Intermediate curse of the body, weapon requiring attunement
After finishing a long rest while attuned to this weapon, a single bloodshot eye opens in the center of your forehead. You gain darkvision out to 60 ft if you didn't have it before, and gain advantage on all Perception checks that rely on sight. In combat, whenever you are struck by a creature's attack or spell, you must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, you must attack the creature that damaged you until you drop to 0 hit points or it does, or until you can't reach the creature to make a melee or ranged attack against it.
In addition, all people of elven origin appear as shifty or dishonest to the cursed creature, and they will not willingly accept aid from someone of that origin.
New Flaw. My hatred for my enemies is blind and unreasoning. They will never receive mercy so long as I stand.
Removal of the Curse. When a creature cursed in this way is subject to the Remove Curse spell, they immediately fly into a berserk state, attacking the nearest creature until that creature, or the cursed creature themselves, drops to 0 hit points.
This curse can only be removed by reenacting the loss of the Ruiner's own eye; a high-ranking elven (or half-elven) cleric of Corellon, the Arch-Heart, must shoot through the eye (AC 20) using an enchanted longbow within 1 minute of the cursed creature being affected by the Remove Curse spell.
Identify does not reveal that an item is cursed... "Most methods of identifying items, including the identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse, although lore might hint at it. A curse should be a surprise to the item’s user when the curse’s effects are revealed." (DMG 138-139)
That makes the Identify spell pretty much worthless. A much better way to go about it would be if the item had passive resistance to the casters Spell Save DC.
But this surprise approach to curses is frankly pretty cheap, and I'm surprised the book supports it.
@@twilightvulpine That's the entire point of a curse.
@Twilight Vulpine I'll let players identify a curse on an item. If that's what they're looking for.
@@twilightvulpine Not really. It makes the Identify spell do what it's supposed to do. If you want them to learn about the curse, let Identify tell them what the item is called and let them do research in game to learn.
@Rhodry M thanks for the reverence page I've been looking for this a couldn't find it!
The upside/downside curses remind me of the curse from the first pirates of the Caribbean movie.
Upsides
- You cannot die
Downsides
- You still have desires to eat/drink/etc, but you are unable to satisfy them
- You take the form of a skeleton in moonlight
- You cannot die
I'm a relatively new DM who's not afraid to .. flex my powers of creation.. to the benefit and detriment of my first real victi... erm, I mean player group. For our first campaign I had them create characters that were going to a continent none of them had been to before, for their own various reasons. Pretty much everyone arrives on this new continent in the same northeastern port city, because of the geographical layout of the world, and of course my players' characters were no exception. As they wandered around town, it became a very obvious choice to go to the wizard's guild to look for work (since they weren't interested in the mining jobs that were otherwise very readily available due to a local policy on a "worker exchange program"). Little did my players know that the proper head of the wizard's guild was replaced by an incredibly powerful overload of the abyssal planes who happened to borrow a pretty good looking half-human's body to affect the material realm. So they arrive to sign up for new work, and lo and behold are required to sign a contract with a pen that uses their own blood for ink. Thankfully the characters were rather rash, and managed to tease the one person who insisted on trying to read the encyclopedia-sized contract into feeling embarrassed about their mistrust, so they all ended up signing it. The head wizard even gave them all a large coin-like token to keep with them to show they were on an important task from this head wizard. Little did they know that they were signing an agreement to become the cursed servants of this overlord. They had unwittingly agreed to do his bidding, accepting whatever conditions he set forth, and releasing the overlord from any obligation to remunerate the characters in any way. So this overlord sends the players off to do whatever dirty work he needs done, that at first mostly involved getting rid of goblins and orcs that were trying to take up residence in some nearby caves, that just so happened to be the place this overlord was attempting to establish his stronghold. The players were pretty much clueless that anything was amiss until they ran into a band of goblins, on their 3rd such job. Coincidentally the troop of goblins had a shaman who recognized the players from a vision he had experienced during the very same vision quest that sent him to loot the cave system they were all currently in. This shaman managed to convince the party to stop fighting long enough to hear him out (even though the players killed a couple goblins and an orc that had put down their weapons while the shaman tried to convince the players he had an important message). He told the players that his vision involved two celestial temples, each containing an artifact that was really a two-part artifact, and was the only way to end the darkness of "the greatest evil" that was currently sweeping the land in darkness that wasn't quite obvious to regular eyes. The party then finished the job they were on for the head of the wizards guild while suspicions built up. It wasn't until the head wizard summoned the party back to the starting town against their desires and essentially dressed them down like dogs for being out of contact for so long (almost 5 days) and basically forced them into another job that they knew for sure who they had to face. Little did they know the tokens they received allowed the overlord to listen to their conversations, track their locations and to speak at them at all times. They just knew they were getting good work, and they only had to pay a 20% commission to the overlord for all the loot they got on any particular job - a "finder's fee" type arrangement. Now they know they're working for something worse than the devil, and after a few visions, some deep digging, and a bit of side-questing have learned of a mostly-mortal being powerful enough to overcome the effect the tokens have, as a representation of the contract they signed magically in their own blood, of their own free will. Little did they know, that very free will they used was more and more at peril, the longer they were bound by the contract for an extended period of time, and their own souls were in terrible danger once they had lost their free will. They also didn't know that the mostly-mortal being, an enchantress, would be a terrible french clichee (although we're still calling it "very ancient elvish", not french), who "only" requires the soul of a basically newborn infant to help them out. Thankfully, and unbeknownst to the party, not too far away, a baby destined for great evil had recently been born and left with a single-father who always wanted a child... but the choice was up to the party.
It will turn out that the abyssal overlord was so powerful in the abyssal planes that he couldn't escape the abyssal plane without using a kind of inanimate vessel to hold his essence in the material plane long enough to establish a base in the material plane that would be strong enough to keep his presence on the material plane and thus, prevent his unwilling return to the abyssal plane and enabling him to rule over the material plane, remaking it in his terrifying and horrific image. And thinking himself clever, and having a rather large essence, he thought of splitting it into two (thus the two-part artifact) pieces giving him two places to store the force that kept him a threat, rather than just one. It will also turn out that he's entirely too powerful for the players to fight, in the traditional sense, so they're in the process of discovering that destroying these two artifact pieces near enough the overlord will cause a kind of backlash effect that will return him, rather painfully, to the abyssal planes and most likely debilitate him for millenia.
We're still in the process of seeing how things turn out, but I'd like to imagine that the players are having a rather unique experience with the first curse I .. 'shared'.. with them. At least, they turn up every week excited to hear the recap of the previous week and to find out what the heck is going to happen next! All because I felt empowered to be creative and to try to come up with something that maybe wasn't in every book every written about fantasy conflicts and the heroes that solved them. I hope you all are inspired to find your own crazy twists in the worlds you've created, or play in, and that they keep you on your toes the entire time! Best of games to you!
A curse I used that my players liked was for a homebrew item, the wand of rats. Once you get the wand, you get a rat familiar. However it’s a hungry rat and if you forget to feed it, the rat will eat holes into your things instead.
I have a bag of holding that’s actually a bag of endless rags.
Hahahaha Love it!
I have a player who was playing an elven samurai. He asked for a cool katana. I decided to run with it. I created a sword called "The Red Tutor". This katana could not be identified while it was sitting in its sheath, and would only allow a character to wield it if it agreed to its terms. It was sentient and had a personality and communicated via telepathy. It demanded a blood tithe. If the sword wasn't blooded, it would animate and cut its wielder prior to being sheathed. In return, it would mentor the character, granting a free feat after 5 levels worth of continuous use.
10 Curses i have used as a DM in my Games:
-Curse of Sunlight Sensitivity (self explanatory, see drow)
-Curse of madness: Roll on the temp madness table, thats what you get
-Curse of Feeble-mindedness: Each day roll 1d8 and reduce int score by the result
-Curse of Bloodlust: Missed attack rolls deal X _____ damage to YOU (the type of the weapon, might be 5 slashing damage on a 1d10 sword)
-Curse of Lethality: You are INCAPABLE of attacking nonlethaly. (this one was actually REALLY fun)
-Curse of Modest _____: Pick a skill, whenever they would make a check with that skill, they automatically roll a 5.
-Curse of the Zealous Monk: The player cannot remove exhaustion with rest, and rest does not relieve exhaustion. (Con saves every night or gain exhaustion till death)
-Curse of Hideous Form: The character automatically fails all persuasion or deception checks, but has advantage on all intimidation checks
-Curse of Mercy: The character must undertake all actions non-lethally or receive psychic damage as per the Geas spell.
-Curse of Misfortune: You treat all Natural 20s as if they were natural 1s.
I'm a big fan of the upside/downside curses. Say the player identifies the magic Shield they found, and discover that it's a +2 Shield of Arrow Attraction, and that if they cast Remove Curse on it, it becomes a +1 Shield.
Technically speaking, that may not even be a curse for some players. The tanky paladin who already has a high AC can use that to keep squishier back line characters safe from ranged attacks without being in their line of sight or fire.
@That Crazy Guy Everyone Likes yes. I play a tank type build in most of the campaign's I play. I have went out of my way to track down equipment with "curses" like missile attraction. Every attack I eat is one less that's doing damage somewhere else.
Another similar idea: Cursed ring of Warding Bond (unlimited range). +1 to AC and saves, resistance to all damage, but you can't remove the effect without casting Remove Curse, and you have no idea who has its twin.
@Greymane_Gaming in my current campaign (Candlekeep Mysteries) I'm playing a Glory Paladin 6 / Eloquence Bard 6. Extremely "look at me, look over here, fite me irl" sort of build, and one of the more fun and tanky characters I've ever played.
@Katie Schmid yeah... the "focus on me protection/defense fighter archetypes" are a blast... especially since I have done Rattan fighting for 20-plus years in the society for Creative anachronism ad a front-and-center shield and sword fighter on the Frontline. Most of my job is to defend against incoming shots to protect our spear and polearm fighters because they do the bulk of the damage...
Most of the time it is not really fun work. Not really bad either but needs to be done. It's gotten to the point where people recognize me on the front lines though and I've had entire units backpedal and brace a little bit when I start forward. There's no feeling quite like that feeling as you realize you are living the "bad ass warrior" dream. And it's even better when you get the charge command and get to slam into them with everything you've got.
My fighting group likes us to be versatile and proficient in the three main fighting forms because it helps us fight against them better when we are fighting them.
Spear is fun but you need to be very maneuverable with it. At 75 inches tall and around 275 pounds, that is not me.
Polearm is a bit of an in-between where you can use your size and power to advantage or your speed and Agility. It's fun but still not really my style.
Sword and shield is where I fit in the best and I have earned my name amongst the fighting groups. Although in reality I'm so very low on the chain. I really can't imagine myself in any fight without a sword and shield honestly.
Something I made for one of my players for our game. Their character took a curse at the beginning of the game and has gotten worse over the course of the game.
Crowned Skull
Magic item (Cursed)
This crown of black stygian iron is emblazoned with bone in the shape of skulls on each of its nine spikes. You know this bone to belong to dead kins men. The sensation of brutal violence lingers on the edge of your mind reminding you that you were the lone survivor of a horrible ritual. You know that with your actions of violence you brought the ritual to completion. You wear this crown as a remembrance to your fallen kin. You are unable to discard this crown as it always appears back on your head and causes you a sensation of a painful loss. The skulls now shift a twist changing from miniature feline skulls to miniature teifling skulls. Whispers come from the crown and always seem to be in the back of your mind.
Curse: All creature within 30ft of you (yourself included) have disadvantage on fear checks. If a creature is immune to fear they instead have advantage on a fear checks and can be effected by fear while within 30ft of you.
Curse: Creatures you try talking to can see the demonic aspects of your nature. This can cause disadvantage on social checks on certain creatures. It can also cause intimidation checks to have advantage.
Demonic Boon: As an action you can cast the fear spell as a cleric spell using your save DC without expending a spell slot. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Demonic Boon: Obsidian Jaw- you teeth have gained an obsidian aspect. You now have a melee bite attack. This uses strength. You inflict 1d6 piercing damage and d12 necrotic damage. This crits on a 19 or a 20.
One of my players (a somewhat naive paladin) got a sentient Berserker Axe inhabited by a devil that would try to influence his actions. The weapon would evolve (more damage and adding additional HP to the paladin) while also making exiting the berserk stage more difficult and lead to him nearly killing a few of the other players. The characters didn't know it was due to the axe, removed the curse and fought the devil, but he kept using the axe so it came back and continued growing stronger. It's been one of the most fun elements of the past year or so in my campaign, balancing out the danger of the berserk paladin while also having to acknowledge how much more efficient he is while holding the weapon as well as the fear of fighting the stronger version of the devil.
i made a crown of deception.
it has 7 points one for each copy of the curse.
when identified it was known it would give the wearer +7 to deception (one for each copy).
once attuned it was revealed it give a -2 to persuasion for each copy making it -14.
once remove curse was cast on it it would remove one of the points on the crown and remove the remove curse spell from the players prepared spell list making them have to spend a long rest to prevent spam curse removals.
it was cursed by an ancient hag, so yeah..
Reminds me of the Bonesaw Vorpal blade Seth Skorkowski did a video on. The blade was amazing but it was sentient, a weirdo, and didn’t shut up.
Sounds like Soul Eater's interpretation of Excalibur XD
@@iselreads2908 🎶Excalibur, Excalibur, Excalibuuuur🎶
I've used curses several times either for consequences of characters not being cautious or as part of a plot. I also don't let Remove Curse spell just end the curse. The first casting gives you directions on how to remove the curse, the 2nd casting with the conditions met remove it.
I'm a huge fan of the curse gradually gaining power if it's ignored, and I very rarely tell players it happened directly, but rather let the curses evolution show it. I also use Cataclysm rolls to determine the steps, so it would typically start as a d20 roll each day until a natural 20 is rolled, then the next step starts and the die size is reduced, in this case to a d12.
Example, Cursed Shield of Senses. This shield looks exactly like a Sentinel Shield and grants the same benefits until the curse progresses. As long as the shield is in the possession of the player or within 100ft (even through a portable hole or bag of holding) the effects progress. If the cursed object is further than 100ft, the curse doesn't progress, but also does not subside. To remove the curse, the Shield must be willingly taken by another creature unknowing of the curse (this makes it morally grey even to get rid of) and then a Remove Curse spell can be preformed. Each day while in the person's possession roll a Cataclysm Die, the curse progresses on the maximum roll of that die. Each effect stacks.
D20. Advantage on Perception checks.
D12. -5 to Perception rolls.
D10. Passive Perception reduced by 10
D8. Additional -5 to Perception checks.
D6. Additional -5 to passive Perception.
D4. Character is entirely blind and deaf.
Final. Even removing the curse fails to reverse the effects. Only a diety or powerful extraplanar creature (typically CR 20 or higher) can remove the blindness and deafness. The curse must be removed before they can remove the effects.
In this case I just kept quiet about the penalties until the player realized even with a good roll, they didn't see as well as their allies did. When they looked into it, that's when they noticed the curse.
Before people get upset that I cursed my player, they were literally in a city run by cultists and very evil creatures, and bought the item without ever thinking it was suspicious that the vendor eagerly sold it at a massive discount. I gave the player like 5 clues that it was probably a bad idea to use it. He didn't care cause his character would have easily been fooled.
I like coming up with different names for different levels of things. When you gave Hexes as the lowest level of curse, I was hoping there would be a new name for each level, but that didn't happen. Might I suggest the lowest level be called a Jinx? Then have Hex be higher up, then maybe Blighted? Maybe the highest level is Damned? Naming things tend to give those things more relevance and impact, I feel.
At my table, Remove Curse functions a little differently. For small things like personality changes (quirks like "I want this thing forever" and "I'm always greedy") Remove Curse functions as normal. But things like lycanthrope, alignment changes, disfigurement, and things that can kill the player or harm them (like lowering their stats), Remove Curse is a bandaid. It suppresses the curse but does not remove it. If they want to remove the curse, they need to find someone who knows how to do some kind of ritual/spell to remove said curse. And often times, it requires more adventuring in order for them to cleanse said item.
Just made a cused item, the ethereal locket. When activated the user is shifted into a spectral form and cannot interact with the physical realm. The curse is every time you use it your body become a little more faded. Every teir of spectral fade gives debuffs to constitution and strength until finally you become a full ghost and are presumed dead
Shield of Missile Attraction. It's cursed. It makes ranged attacks target the bearer instead of their allies within 10feet. It also gives resistance to those attacks.
I haven't met a tank yet who doesn't think that's a desirable effect. I gave a party the option between the Shield of Missile Attraction and the Shield of Arrow Catching, and they went with Missile Attraction.
That's what my Life Cleric picked up when our GM let us choose a magic item. The best kind of magic items are the ones where it being seen as cursed or not is a matter of your temperament.
My brother once gave us an earing that a goblin shaman had. It was able to translate any spoken language into goblin, and thus be a universal translator for the shaman. As for the rest of our party, none of us could speak goblin so the earing causes all language to sound like gobbledygook. This double edged sword type of curse are what I find to be the best.
Unless there's an effect preventing the bearer from willingly removing them, sounds like a magic item doing what it was purposed to do, how specific that purpose may be... Though it may be a way to motivate the players to engage in off-time activities in order to learn goblin language.
I really enjoy Ghostfire Gaming's take on curses in the Grim Hollow Campaign Guide; it does a lot of the things you've said here, but also includes a progression system where the curse gets worse whenever specific triggers occur. They act similar to Spellcasting (with some extra steps), and technically count as levelled spells in and of themselves, with certain curses being accessible to particular classes' spell lists
This is one of my favorite videos of yours. Super, super insightful and useful. I will be picking up Accursed Arcanum. Thanks Luke 🙏🏻
Great video! Whole heartedly agree but there is another way to do curses too that has worked in my games.
As far as 'cursed' magic items in my campaign are not unusable or used as a gotcha. They are extremely powerful but require either some kind of sacrifice to utilize or to get the most out of it they need to play a dangerous balancing act.
For example, a fiend warlock player of mine defeated his old master who taught him how to make deals with devils without being screwed over. Now he has 'Zattimas' Staff of Fiendish Might'. A magic staff being powered by a trapped pitfiend inside of it. The pitfiend once an hour can attempt a savingthrow to escape with an increased DC for every magic charge it has starting with a DC of 30 with all its charges. When you cast spells from it, you expend charges, and the charges come back slowly each day.
So if the player isnt careful to keep the DC out of the pitfiends grasp its safe to use. Meanwhile the pitfiend is encouraging him to use the might of the staff.
So not cursed per se, but very dangerous.
He didnt know about the saving throw to spell charges at first but was able to figure it out cause the demon would get more excited/desperate the more charges he used. He isnt ever gonna part with that staff cause he loves it and wont let anyone else have it for fear of setting the devil free. Not because the text says he has to, but because its genuine.
I'm planning a cursed item for a dragon blood sorcerer. It's an orb that possesses the soul of a dragon (the sorcerer's patron, actually) and gives the sorcerer incremental power as they level up.
It starts as an arcane focus, then grants abilities like dragon's breath, becoming +1, etc. After leveling with it and discovering that the orb gets stronger as well, I introduce the voice of the dragon within tempting the player with more power and giving into greed. When using abilities enhanced by the orb, there is a small chance the orb dominates them for a short time. Each time they are dominated, the orb grows stronger and the abilities it grants are better, but successive chances of domination are greater. Eventually, the dragon will take over the host permanently and be reborn.
A couple of catches. Identify requires a spellcasting ability roll and on a high DC reveals the nature of the curse. Remove Curse is sufficient to stop domination until the dragon begins to change the host's form (as in polymorph into dragon forms). Remove curse does not stop the dragon from influencing the player, and if they get rid of it, the orb will dominate anyone it can to return it to the sorcerer. A powerful ritual to enter the orb and defeat the dragon is required to end the curse and grants the sorcerer the ancient dragon's breath weapon while attuned.
The best curse I've personally encountered was a shield that when you were attacked, the shield would use YOU as a shield, turning you into the attack :D
This is HILARIOUS, but I can see it getting very old very quickly during the course of an actual campaign 😅
@@Kirk9019 Well obviously they didn't end up keeping the shield lol
Had a belt that gave my ADnD (2nd ed) character an 18 Con and an 18 Charisma. Wizard refused to cast remove curse because he hated my character. Why would it be needed?
It also changed the character to a woman that was extremely attractive and would be hit on constantly.
Liked the hilarity, kept it on even after I could have paid to remove it. Met the Prince of a kingdom, fell in love. Saved the kingdom, got engaged.
At the wedding, “does anyone have any reason why this man and woman should not be wed?” “I cast remove curse.”
The campaign ended with my character riding a wagon away as the guards were firing arrows at him and he yelled out to the Prince “I always loved you!”
Curses are great.
You are the best Luke! I love that you aren't doin the sleazy "here's how you do things better... just buy my product". You offer the solution and then offer the hard copy. Your homebrew ideas are awesome. You and your team are knocking it out of the park. I love curses and these ideas will be very helpful. Many thanks! Also, one thing would be great. Chapterizing the video would make it easier to go back and rewatch certain sections.
What is wrong with selling a better product? How is that sleazy?
@@michaelconnor1542 What I was saying is some creators dangle the answer in front of you and never come out and tell you what it is. They simply say, "buy the product to find out". Essentially turning the video into an infomercial. Luke doesn't do this. He puts it all on the table.
@@darcyw156 I don't know who you watch, but I haven't encountered that with gaming creators/commentators.
Thank you!!! :D
Agreed! Remove Curse in my games will only remove the most basic of curses. For anything more powerful, it won't remove the curse. However, it WILL tell the caster and the cursed creature how to remove it, typically a ritual that requires an adventure to obtain the components for. Here's my favorite cursed item I've used so far:
Identified as Ring of Protection +5 (meant to be a clue since, in 5e, bonuses only go to +3) that requires attunement.
What it actually does while cursed: Upon attunement: Ring of Protection +0. Wearer has disadvantage on Luck saves and Luck checks (homebrew stat but you can easily replace with an existing stat). When a creature (friend or foe) within 30' of the wearer makes a critical hit, the wearer must make a Luck save DC 13. On a success, nothing happens. On a failure, the wearer teleports into the attack's path and becomes the target of that attack.
How to remove the curse: Perform an hour-long ritual (can be done during a short rest) that requires the following components: Glacial ice blessed by a long-dead god and 300 gold worth of diamonds. Immediately after the ritual is completed, the wearer has the option to remove the item (the item will remain cursed) or to reattune to it. If they reattune to it, they will benefit from the actual item (below) BUT, if they ever unattune, it will revert to its cursed state and the ritual would need to be performed again.
What the uncursed version of the item does: Ring of Protection +3. Luck +2. When the wearer is subjected to a critical hit, they may attempt a Luck save DC 13. On a failure, nothing happens. On a success, they may teleport to any space they can see within 30'. If they are now out of range or otherwise no longer an eligible target of the attack, the attack misses.
Finally! I was waiting for you guys to cover this
I never did anything with it, but I always thought it would be cool to make a trojan curse. When a detect curse is successfully done, they detect the trojan curse that is actually masking and containing the real curse. Once the remove curse is done, it releases the real curse. Then, of course, my brain says "hey, have that curse be one that immediately turns players' items into cursed items, so now they have to get those curses removed.
a caveat to "curses having an upside" I like the idea of getting an upside for removing the curse. for example, my players get cursed to only be able to speak and understand sylvan, but when they break the curse (through a quest) they still retain their ability to speak and understand sylvan, they just get all of their original languages back too.
My DM in my first 5e campaign did something similar to this. We TPKed at level 2 due to a trap and a VERY bad decision on our rogue's behalf, followed by some very bad dice rolls 😅 our druid proceeded to roll 3 failed death saves in a row after the trap went off, with our rogue being captured and our two fighters (one of which being me) both unconscious but stable. DM had a private conversation with the druid and he was reincarnated into a fey tiger, as he has a tiger shaped wildfire spirit.
As a result, he couldn't speak common anymore 😂 while he still understood everything we said, his inability to communicate meant our next session was spent doing a HILARIOUS game of charades between us two fighters (with a total wisdom modifier of -3) and him to try and figure out where the druid is and why there is an orange and white tiger that glows in the dark where the druids body was 🤣
Cravenedge from Critical Toll is a good example of this. Minor curse but lots of benefits at first, then it eats your soul if you let it max out.
Only issue with this is that non of the rules interact with remove curse. Basically this eliminates the spell from the game and (I’m guessing) nerfs part of the effect of greater restoration. In addition how wish would effect something like a “true curse” is not spelled out.
Would have been nice to see interactions spelled out. For example: a tier 1 curse can be removed via remove curse/GR/or via x
A tier 2 curse can be paused for 1 d4 days by remove curse, cured by gr, or via x
A tier 3 curse is immune to remove curse, paused for 1d4 days by gr, or cured by x
A tier 4 curse is immune to remove curse and gr, and a wish spell will only give details of how to remove it.
There’s no need to effectively remove spells as options.
I created a very harmless, but hilarious curse where the player had to knock any doors they approach, and the only way to break the curse was to ring the doorbell of a particular storm giant.
Correct me if I'm wrong but... DMG Pg 139 Cursed Items: Most methods of identifying items, including the identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse, although lore might hint at it. A curse should be a surprise to the item's user when the curse' effects are revealed.
Yeah that was something that had me confused too
stick them on a maguffinor a key item to the story, kinda railroady but it works.
My current campaign escalated from "Wolfs killed our cattle" to "Lets cure this poor fella from his curse" to "One of the PCs was bitten by a werewolf in a bottched attempt to cure him and now needs a cure himself". Since it's stupid to remove an ancient curse via a third level spell, in this campaign it just surpresses it for some time. The only way to get rid of it is a potion which recipe was lost to time or a wish spell - and so the adventure began to venture into the desert to find one of three fabled rings that are said to grant wishes.
So, without knowing it, I implemented your first three advices:
1. The curse is the whole plot device to get the adventure started
2. Remove curse does not cut it, but there are recipes for potions that can supress the curse for one month (even though the character might evolve an immunity for that medicine as the curse goes on) - you need a wish to permanently cure it
3. The player became a werewolf, now thats an upside!
I am a huge fan of curses that a) come with an upside and b) can only be removed by some objective. You already explained the upside, and used the objectives in your examples, but curses that a player has to actively seek out the solution for are so much more fun. Something like "kill an enemy while flanked twice" or "expose a lie with monetary implications" are super interesting for a curse, but the curse also has to have an upside so the player doesn't feel like they're screwed by the downsides. When they accomplish the objective, they might even keep the upsides!
I once got a wand of fire ball but for every use it turns a random amount of gold coins into potatoes and it couldn't be uses if you had no gold coins.
Sounds fun! Could you eat the potatoes?
I made 3 cursed items for a Halloween event and they were actually pretty good for the level. It was all trick or treat related as it was a +2 sword that gave fear if you were hit, plate that made you immune to fear but made your ac go down by -2 and a shield that regen every round for +1 hp but made it so you were selfish and would not go out of your way to save others. When worn together the fear is canceled out and the plate becomes normal 18 ac. This was for a lv5 party and I thought hey, this is great and they just sat on it....
You DM games with Curses written down and tell your PCs
I DM games with Curses that develop overtime through RP
We are not the same
I use a d12 "fate die" in my game. Each player rolls it when narratively appropriate, not less than once per day, not more than once per round. On a 12, something good for the character happens. On a 1, something bad happens. This effect happens regardless of other die rolls and outcomes. Curses increase the chance of misfortune, blessings enhance fortune. It's possible to have misfortune up to 1-4 and fortune 9-12. Cursed and lucky items can be very minor - lucky pennies exist, lucky shirts remain so until washed. Hedge witches and village priests are powerful and feared/respected.
I have a few curses deployed in my ongoing stream campaign. One player was once incapacitated by the world’s manifestation of the hexblade (long story…), and because of that the player suffers a constant death save fail until they decide to fix it.
Another one of my players is a sorceress who’s backstory involves the demise of her father due to lack of control over her powers so whenever she expends all her sorcery points or uses a specific class feature that staves off her own death the people around her must save against her magic or fall victim to a perpetual effect of the contagion spell.
"Who uses tridents??"
My current character, Trudy Lukenglas, was generated mostly randomly and was given the Paladin Oath of the Open Seas. Soooo I flavoured her as a trident user 😅 she also has a sickle because....uhhh, that I don't know.
I played a cursed elven monk in a Pathfinder first edition game whose curse led her to the service of a goddess. The goddess granted her metal tipped wings with vorpal on critical rolls. Easily the most epic character I’ve ever played despite the challenges.
Love the curse ideas shared here, A+. A couple nit picks, though: RAW, a curse isn't revealed until a PC attunes to an item. Additionally, Remove Curse ends the cursed condition on a creature and breaks their attunement to a cursed item but the item will remain cursed unless its description specifies otherwise.
I gave my paladin players a haunted berserker battle axe early on in our campaign. I think he was just barely level 3. It caused some problems and the evil spirit in the battle axe was a warlord. It was always trying to get him to break his oath, and I described the berserker state as him being possessed by the warlord. The player expressed wanting to break the curse to me out of game. So I told him he could use remove curse and it would be just a +1 battle axe, or he could do this ritual and kill the spirit and the curse would be broken, and it could keep the other positive effect. So he did that last time we played. I had him fight a slightly modified reskinned avatar of death, and when it was over the axe became a holy avenger battle axe. That gave the HP boost of the berserker axe, but a +3 per level instead of the old +1. I didn't tell him it would be an upgrade. I think it worked out well.
Best curse I borrowed was from the 90s movie Warlock. Hag steals an item from a PC and curses them to age 20 years each day. Puts a ticking clock on the players to defeat the hag/break the curse (getting the item back) and utilizes an oft forgotten demographic of a character, their age and their race’s lifespan. And since lower level resurrection spells won’t bring back those who died of old age it has a real threat.
My setting is built around a True Curse, one that stripped all the gods of their divine power and prevents those that seek apotheosis from achieving it. At the mortal level, anyone who comes within about 50' of the item (a wand that was originally a toy), is cursed so that whatever it is they most desire they are denied. I can provide examples, as many NPCs in my world have been cursed thusly. One of them, a witch who can see into the future, knows the secret to destroying the wand and ending the curse for everyone. However, her greatest desire is to tell this to people. She is cursed so that everything she says is riddle and hyperbole. So, when asked, she will simply say, "A paradox of desire." Many believed they knew what this riddle meant and tried to use this knowledge to destroy the wand. To date, all who tried have failed.
I had a 2'4" Forest Gnome "spellcasting bandit"(custom class from the DMG) that used a 6' Trident that allowed him to breathe underwater in an AD&D campaign!
Palladium Fantasy has Rune Weapons(unique powerful weapons that 99% have a curse on it) that have been traded for a kingdom!
I think a good way around it is to offer some sort of good stat or ability and when using the ability or something to do with the stat like a saving throw then you could go into a saving throw to determine if the curse effects you or not.
alignment is a great mechanic, its really sad ... the only people that I've ever seen have an issue with it were generally murder hobos and power gamers
Great inspiration. I'm thinking that in my game, "Remove Curse" may do the removal for very low level curses, but the typical result will be insight into/awareness of a quest required to remove the curse (such as various "Removal of the Curse" examples given).
I used a single cursed item in my campaign, and the player affected by it seemed to have a good time. The bard picked up what happened to be a sword of vengeance in an ancient vault. Rather than having the curse inflicted upon attunement, I reasoned that since it's otherwise indistinguishable from a +1 sword, the curse would latch on upon direct contact. The bard gained a flaw that made him more aggressive and unwilling to do anything that would cause him to part with the sword, and over time the curse took a deeper and deeper hold on him, beginning to affect his body. The party thought he was suffering the effects of the demiplane of dread they found themselves stuck in, and tried using lesser restoration, which succeeded in lowering the effects of the curse by 1 level per use, but he failed nearly every saving throw to resist its progression, so would end up back where he was the day before by the time he woke up.
The party finally realized it was something worse when he struck down a disarmed Arrigal, and attempted to do the same when the party's fighter tried to restrain him. The cleric ran up to him, taking a gamble by casting remove curse, the fighter disarmed him, and then the cleric smashed the sword, breaking it open, and releasing the spirit of vengeance inside, which she immediately managed to destroy with Turn Undead.
All in all, this little b-plot lasted about 10 sessions, and led to some fun decisions before the party's characters figured out what was going on.
Really liked your thoughts & ideas in this video. Will definitely check out Accursed Arcanum.
In the FairyTail Anime/Manga, The Nine Demon Gates of Tartaros use interesting curses, Bloodman too... except they put the curses on themselves deliberately so that they get a set of custom superpowers... for Tempester, he just says a sound effect like "whoosh" & then a tornado spawns in front of him sucking & blowing away buildings as intended, or saying "Kapow" to call down a bolt of lightning to cause huge destruction.
youve inspired my campaign so much thank you ! question, are flintlock pistols in D&D?
Love curses!! Always let my players know when cursed whats the upside/downside of it is after it activates. My favorite was a sword that's weight increases the stronger the person wielding it is. So at 8 str was a great sword but 1d6. But at 20 str it weighed 6×more and had more d6s. The negative was you couldn't add your positive str modifier to hit. But with 7d6 the player didn't care lol
Also the curse was when attuned you always felt the weight of the sword. Even if you put it down you felt like a ghost was sitting on your shoulders.
According to the rules.
Identify does not identify that a item has a curse.
The warlock player I'm DMing for wanted to make a sword of wounding his pact weapon. I added a curse that each day he doesn't harvest a humanoid's soul with the sword, he takes one point of psychic damage the next morning. This accumulates until he does harvest a soul, giving him a grace period of one day, then starts the count over again. And of course he can't willingly unattune from the sword.
One of the ways we deal with curses in our game is that remove curse with remove the spell bestow curse. If there is an item with a curse on it, then the spell generally won't work, neither will dispel magic. These need to be a quest to remove the cursed item. We also use the rule that a curse on the item is designed to make the person believe the item is something else, or at least the curse doesn't exist. I already use many of the tiers of curses described, sort of. We make it so that a curse is not something you just wave away. But cursed items are like legendary items in our games. Very very rare. So they are used as a story telling tool. A cursed item is a way to provide a quest, to initiate a story, something like that. I give out cursed items judiciously.
That was super interesting. Will watch this one again. Great job Luke!
And I did.
Years ago, back in 3.0 days, my sorcerer found some magic leather armor thatvworked with his spellcasting. Since his AC was abysmal, he took it without much thought. Turns out it was a Trojan Horse curse, slowly making his mind susceptible to the influence of a Slaad the party previously tangled with. By the time it was discovered, it was too late and the curse was irreverible - at least by Remove Curse means. My sorcerer was given a torc of mind shielding, to fortify his mind, but it was still possible for the Slaad's influence to overcome its protections. This whole cured subplot gave my naturally happy-go-lucky character a twinge of sadness, and I really loved the RP opportunity afforded by the constant worry my character gained that he might one day snap and attack his friends.
Curse idea for a necklace I once had
A little skull of wolf, made out of silver and is known to come from a god of the hunt
If you attune you get advantage on attacks if you hit the same enemy twice and your attacks hit harder but you need to continue the hunt
If you fail the save, you dream of the hunts a shadowy version of yourself will do
If you resist the urge to often, you become the prey and get hunted yourself
It's not quite perfect I know, but I hope I can get any experienced thoughts on that vauge idea
In my games remove curse has been removed as a spell. Remove Curse is now a Feat, it requires a DC Check to pass. DC 20 +. I have also done this with Counterspell. Making it a feat instead of a spell.
Curses are not pointless, especially when it influences roleplaying. They just need to be temporary and not overly debilitating so they don't get old fast. Which is why I really like temporary insanities. People that want to do away with alignment are lazy and don't want to learn the difference between the alignments. Alignments simply need to be used as a roleplaying guideline, not a restriction on how you must act. They do not need to be removed.
1) The people who are most vocal about removing alignment seem to be those who want to deny the existence of good and evil because they find they are uncomfortable with their choices and where they, personally, fall on that scale.
2) The difference between demons and devils doesn't make sense without alignment. Remember, alignment has to do with factions. Sort of like grand guilds.
Agreed. Curses are FUN - people who dont mess with them are missing out
@@themcchuck8400 judging person's character based on what game mechanics they like lol. Hate to break it to you but D&D originally didn't even have Good and Evil, just Lawful and Chaotic.
I know this is strange to say but anything that makes my character more interesting or gives me opportunity to roleplay and sink my teeth into this world or character, I take it even if it's a curse. Eventually to get rid of the curse, we can do a quest somewhere to remove it but in the meantime I get to soak in that drama. Think as if you are a professional wrestler and the creative writers in the back have something really dramatic and cool for you even though it makes your character have a downside for a little bit. The audience will respond to this which gives you more camera time until this angle is over. Curses are a plot hook and I bite plot hooks they keep your character near the spotlight if they aren't in the spotlight.
@@themcchuck8400 - I absolutely agree on both points, and I like the D&D lore and don't want to see it whitewashed into oblivion.
I plan for my group to run through a maze of the big bad that will turn out to be a sealed treasure room that the bad guy tried to hide before he got sealed away, and then released by the party. In the center, there are a number of chests with mosaics above them. Each chest has their own cursed item in them, and the mosaics show a story about each item that used to belong to minions of the big bad, but the mosaics also show what happens when people besides the minions use them. I plan to give them the feel that even before they look at the items in the chests, they will have a bad feel about them. And I don't allow identify to find curses. Because yeah, that's pointless. They need to either pick up extremely obvious context clues, or try and figure out if they can circumvent the curses. I also took a couple items that are usually normal items in game, such as ring of Regen, bracers of defense, and luck stone, and turned them into cursed items and am giving the cursed stone of good luck instead, but these ones can get the curses removed over time.
I've thought about implementing a curse that requires some rolls be made with a d20 weighted to 1, and other rolls with a d20 weighted to 20.
I wonder if Luke will take a cursed item that gives him decent buffs and an everlasting, unceasing taste of bacon.
bacon is not a curse though... :D
I've been running my first campaign a couple years and I've only used a cursed item once but I ran Remove Curse like the rule for Counterspell, and I do Dispel Magic the same way
Regarding the issues you have with curses:
1) players usually won't know if something is cursed raw
2) i don't recommend you just tell the player all at once what happens. let them know what happens over time.
3) don't necessarily let the players know what is causing the curse. let them have to try and figure out if its a curse or something else.
When my players do something which I deem worthy of a curse, like an alignment change because of sufficient deals with dark powers, I don't have it happen all at once. It happens over time and after a sufficient number of interactions.
great input. I'm going to use the snake on my players in the session next week. Thanks for the ideas and how to use.
The bard with the hips in one of my games chose to seduce a sea hag instead of fight her. He was cursed with a revenant at level 4. It was the std curse from the movie "it follows" and would appear randomly wherever he went as it was constantly following him and I was rolling behind screen for progress
Ran a curse a while ago. An angry hag cursed some players, she ambushed the players and when they lost, she tasked them to get rid of an opposing coven. To make sure the party came through with the deal, she cursed them. They would lose 10% of their HP every midnight until the task was done, if they'd die while cursed their soul would belong to the hags. Casting remove curse would speed the process. When they visited an archdruid, they also learned the players could also get rid of the coven that cast the curse (but the players were afraid of them at that point), they could also look for Baba Yaga and beg for her to lift the curse. the warlocks patron whispered him that he would lift the curse if they'd fetch an item for him... so suddenly the curse became a quest with a hard deadline ;-)
The mechanics of curses can be made much more interesting, but a bit hard for DM. In our campaign, we use curses with different effects that can affect the characters' attitudes towards you or the morale of your character. This is very interesting, and in order not to make them so easy to remove, we use an expensive material component for this spell. In addition, curses are summed up, and this makes the battle even with a few not very strong opponents much more intense
My favorite cursed item was from a 3.5 campaign and was called Mr. Bear
Upsides:
-- Bag of holding style storage
-- Unlimited space
-- Expandable opening
-- Looks like a cute teddy bear backpack
Downsides:
-- Mr. Bear doesn't like giving up his treasure. If you want to retrieve something you have to describe it to Mr. Bear and then roll percentile to see if you get what you want. The more specific the description, the harder the challenge.
-- Mr. Bear's ultimate goal is to "eat" his owner
The best use of Mr. Bear from the game. We were fighting a hoarde of zombies that kept coming out of a wide hole in the street. The rogue (Mr. Bear's owner) reached into his mouth and asked for "something explosive." Player rolls triple-ought. Rogue pulls out something massive and without hesitation throws it into the hole. DM describes a massive tombstone flying through the air, and the characters reading the words inscribed on it. "My last spell was explosive runes." Zombies dead, street destroyed. Temple collapsing. NPC cleric almost dead. Party cleric tries to help, accidentally kills NPC cleric, loses a level until she atones.
nice ideas cant w8 to implement those ! GJ Luke
So this might be a bit oldschool but Lycanthropy is a form of curse, depending on the setting/story. D&D absolutely falls short of delivering this from the Horror stories that they originate from. It is far too easy to overcome the game given defenses and is often an out right downgrade with how the stats are replaced instead of amplified. not only that, the fact the player has any form of a save against the onset of the curse is in bad taste and a missed opportunity. We can do better. Dont give them a Con save, Give them an Optional quest.
First, Getting mauled by a 'rabid' wolf on a routine adventure to keep the farmer's sheep safe. Simple enough setup, could happen to anyone. Players think nothing of it. Insert DM magic and however you want to hint that they didnt infact get bit by 'just a wolf' and suddenly You are now on the clock with an unfortunately too short amount of time to find the solution for the afflicted player, and the handful of village folk who were also savaged, hence the need for adventures. Of course there isnt a 'magical' healer in town and even if there was or is, the ingredients are those really rare flowers, probly somewhere in the forest that may or may not have the werewolf in anyway. Boom, low levels adventures are sorted right here
Oh by the way, This is happening while "Lord Death of Murder Mountain" is over there doing whatever he wants because the PC's are occupied
And that is just the classical story. You can take it a step further and throw in some witchcraft. See, werewolves had to start from somewhere, The first werewolf was probly just a dude that some hags/witches cast some very unpleasent magic upon and set him loose. With D&D showing several different lycanthrope animals, this means the hags/witches have done it multiple times. Maybe the players Ransack the Witch hut, accidently leave something behind that the witch can use. Curses the hello kitty out of them. Fun times. Also a great STICK to use for murder hobos, even if they instead burned down the hut, because now they earned a very spiteful stalker who will look for ANY opportunity to collect what they need from the party to make Voodoo dolls or enough hair or whathave you to make their lives miserable. There are too many possibilities
I've cursed two of my players, but only one has figured it out so far. One picked up a very obviously cursed gem in the god of greed's temple and as such, has been stealing constantly. I've been adding things to her D&DBeyond character sheet without the player noticing. They finally had to deal with the curse when a ghost showed up accusing them of grave robbing and stealing her signet ring.
The second player called a fortune teller a quack, so she cursed him. Disadvantage on all checks to avoid the cold. He treated her coldly, she decided to show him what it felt like. This player doesn't realize his character is cursed and they will likely figure it out next session when they head to Neverwinter.
Playing Princes of the Apocalypse I hit similar problems. My solution was like yours - adding some cheddar with unlocking bonus abilities akin to attuning that came with side-effects. I was fortunate enough that the PCs played into those character traits. I later found Concordance rules from 4th Ed that nicely captured much of what I was working towards, rewarding certain behaviors.
Total agreement that an artifact like Drown being 'fixed' with a Remove Curse was boring and sad.
Where would I find Hellfire rules for 5e? Is this just fire that can't be resisted with the same 1d8 damage?
Curses are the whole plot point of Lord of the Rings. Bilbo knows the item is cursed, but someone has to take it to Mordor, so he chooses to wear it. The others then sign up to protect him along the way. The ring has powerful magical properties to use with caution, and its an evil creature magnet. Curse as the necessary key to unlock X makes it meaningful.
.... Don't you mean Frodo..?
Awesome advice!
Super great insight here...thanks
R A Salvatore's Cleric Quintet series is a great example of a True Curse. The Chaos Curse would be a great campaign.
How I handle curses. Step one, curses cannot be identified. Step two, curses can be removed only via a ritual using proper ingredients which will usually send the party on a quest to find the items(almost always a quest that is parallels to the main story). Step three, curse is tied to story and has some level in intrigue to it to make the players want to discover how, why or what. Step Four, curse is specific in its effect, no more "you are greedy" as most players I have experienced playing with do not know how to properly play these effects and hate being told how they must play their character. Instead the curse is X happens when Y triggers it "you are under the frightened condition(X) when you see a halfling(y), this effect lasts until you can no longer see a halfling and the halfling is your source of fear".
On the fun point, I gave someone a berserker axe, but only texted the mechanics to him. It’s made some interesting moments so far
Worst curse ever: Sword of No Bacon and it had a +3 against house cats.
There are some things too evil.
There's a very simple fix to this problem, which I've just come up with;
Curses, and the magic items they inhabit, are mutually exclusive.
No matter if the item is sold, lost, thrown away, or stolen, the curse itself remains "attuned" to the character.
The only way for a curse to be removed is with full disclosure- someone who buys, or freely accepts, the cursed item must be fully aware of said curse, and willfully accept it. Notice, "steals" wasn't on the list, here- the curse remains attuned to the original character.
Bonus Tip: don't tell your players about this little tidbit, and watch them scramble to get the item back- "Sorry, I've sold/fenced/lost it!"
Interesting:
some questions:
On the snake curse: maybe make the person be more charismatic to snakes or beings with snakelike appearance (Yuan-Ti)
on repetition, could you put yourself in danger? I mean, it's physically possible to walk off the edge of a cliff.
I'm running a game right now. D&D 3.5 and the next big bad will have a cursed ring. It's a ring of blink, but each time it's used the player must make a fort save DC 14 or take a point of temp constitution dmg as the ring bites into the finger and poisons the player. If 3 such fails happen in a single day then 1 point becomes permanent and the player must make a will save DC 14 or drop 1 slot in Alignment as the curse and poison are CE. To be removed it must be blessed by a cleric of 8th lvl or higher.
My method with cursed items, is make them suck at first, but have a method to break the curse, which has to be done via a quest or ritual, not just remove curse. Remove curse, removes the curse and all the magic. Breaking the curse unlocks its magic, and makes the item much better once it's broken.
An example is the "Wraith's Shadow" a jet black set of chainmail armor. At first, it doesn't seem too exciting, gives the player advantage on stealth checks. Then it decreases communication checks, and gives a level of fatigue per day whilst the player becomes more and more incorporeal and ghostlike. The fatigue will inevitably be fatal if the curse isn't broken in time, upon which the player becomes a wraith. Once the curse is broken, the armor gives 5ft of corporeal movement, which allows walking through some walls and obstacles. Additionally, the stealth advantage continues, and you even get advantage on death saving throws (One free reroll)
I cursed my brother's Monk. He got Prestidigitation (a dark warty hand), and Hex. Essentially free magic initiate. The curse is he has to make a charisma save when he reduces someone to 0HP or kill them outright (he likes prize fighting and taking prisoners). The save DC increases with hi proficiency bonus, so the longer he keeps the power the greater the bloodlust.
It was totally avoidable. He made s deal with a hag and then went on a whole story arc to fill his end of the bargain, and murdered his enemy in her name.
No way will just Remove Curse work on that.
What level would you say that is?
My players were *given* free magical armor by a blacksmith looking to spread his brand. The real reason was because there was a very specific command word that would cause the armor to fall off them immediately. The idea was a group of bandits later on working with the blacksmith would use said command word to get the upperhand on the players.
Of course, the players all threw away the free +1 armor without thinking outside the box. The Command Word was Wah Wah Pedle.
Outside of talking about Electric Guitars, when would someone accidently say Wah Wah Pedle. The players still had free +1 Armor, and they could easily doff their armor with a command word.
I gave it to the players as a Gatcha, but also had the idea to allow my players to keep them.
I like having store keeps who have easily removed curses on items in their shop that are removed when the item is sold and really only functions to get the thief caught.
number 3 is my favorite, 1-2 downsides and 1 upside so its a balance between good and bad
I have an idea for a scenario
Cursed weapon that is meant to kill xyz person. It gains a +5 bonus to all attack and damage rolls made against its target only. And the sword cannot be removed from the users hand until target is dead.
And then the next session that person shows up. And the player who’s been cursed begins hearing whispers… that get louder and louder whenever it’s target is in the room. After a few minutes of talking to the target the cursed person takes 5 psychic damage every subsequent minute. And the cursed person knows (no rolls required) that the damage will go away if they kill this person.
AND then the sword will become a +3 weapon that works on all targets.
My favorite magic item was a cursed +3 Berserker Longsword. It was wielded by my Mage/Thief. When the sword came out the party would back off. Used it to down an Uber Hulk, good times.
I placed what is essentially a curse onto one of my players that forces them to assist in the summoning of anything whether good or bad
this was a pact with a demon to allow the party to escape the never ending hallway whilst beeing stalked by a very slow, incincible knight who fashioned weapons out of corpses which was what the walls were made out of
the positive of the curse was that no one died
Cursed items. According to about the 1975 Era edition rules, said curse activates when item is used...no knowledge re its a cursed item is given out to any player. Then the rules west changed and now it is 50 years later...
Nice update on 1e curses. A quick and dirty way is Remove curse must be casted by higher level caster.
5:50 I actually didn't expact a plug there although I should know better.
I have a player who plays as a Dahmpir take a big bite out of a pit fiend before the party dispatched him. Drinking of his blood, she now hears his voice in her head taunting her but also advising her. He knows she won't embrace his essence willingly so he just bides his time till she needs desperate help to merge with her permanently. She really isn't seeking help for this as the overall quest takes precedence. Her character seeks power first so in a way he is going to let her do the work for him.
I didn't plan the curse, but the voice just felt right. I mean drinking of the blood of a powerful pit fiend, what did you expect? To be honest I have no idea where this will go. Ideas?