Death Curse: Waiting it Out

MerricB · Nov 22, 2017

Just checking my interpretation of the rules...

* A DDAL character who plays any Season 7 or CCC adventure becomes affected by the Death Curse.
* Once the T3 adventures get released (January 2018), that character can no longer play Season 7 Tier 1 or 2 adventures or Tomb of Annihilation.
* This leads to the situation that a character who plays a T1 Season 7 adventure in February 2018 can't play another Season 7 T1 adventure.

Or is the intention that only characters who *die* during Season 7 or *have died* before are affected by the Curse?

From the Primer: "As such, it is applied to any D&D Adventurers League character playing a Tier 1 or 2 Season 7 adventure after August 15th, 2017, and Tier 1 or 2 CCC adventures after August 24th, 2017."

Cheers!

kalani · Nov 22, 2017

Not entirely true.

Once the character plays a t3 adventure (either the ones released in Jan, or any existing T3 adventure) they recover from the curse, and are locked out of S7 T1 & T2 adventures (inc. ToA).

You are automatically affected by the curse if any of the following are true this season:

1) You play ToA
2) You play any T1 or T2 DDAL7-X adventures.
3) You play any S7 special adventure (such as the Dnd Open, sorry not sure what the code for these are).
4) You play any CCC adventure this season.

The curse makes it impossible for you to be raised, resurrected, reincarnated, etc. Upon death, your soul becomes trapped in the Soulmonger and risks being devoured (this trumps any other effect such as characters whose soul would otherwise be captured by demons, the soul-absorbing effect of some magic items, etc).

Immediately upon gaining the death curse, choose whether you will play on meatgrinder or not. This choice is made / character (not /player).

If you have never died before, that is the entirety of the curse. If you have previously died, you also suffer an automatic -20 to your maximum HP. This penalty increases by -1 for each in-game day that passes, for every DT you spend, and at the end of every DDAL or CCC adventure you play.

briggart · Nov 22, 2017

MerricB said:
* This leads to the situation that a character who plays a T1 Season 7 adventure in February 2018 can't play another Season 7 T1 adventure.

I thought that once the S7 T3 content is released, characters "can choose" to be freed from the curse by waiting it out, but they are not required to do so. If the characters are ok with keeping the curse, they can continue adventuring in ToA and S7 T1 and T2 modules as normal.

rczarnec · Nov 22, 2017

Waiting It Out. Alternatively, characters can wait until others have done their dirty work by retiring from adventuring until the release of Season 7’s Tier 3 adventures (January 2018), or by starting any Tier 3 or 4 non-hardcover (non-DDHC) adventure, and resuming adventuring following Acererak’s defeat. A character choosing this option can’t play Tomb of Annihilation, or any Season 7 Tier 1 or 2 adventures—with or without a surrogate; these doors to adventure are forever closed to them.

It looks like waiting it out is optional, so a player could continue with a character (or surrogate) even after the release of tier 3 content. Side note: the Primer states January for the release of tier 3 and the chance to side step the curse, but the release schedule itself shows nothing being released in January and the tier 3 releases starting in February.
http://dndadventurersleague.org/sto...annihilation/tomb-of-annihilation-adventures/

eryndel · Nov 23, 2017

kalani said:
Not entirely true.

Once the character plays a t3 adventure (either the ones released in Jan, or any existing T3 adventure) they recover from the curse, and are locked out of S7 T1 & T2 adventures (inc. ToA).

You are automatically affected by the curse if any of the following are true this season:

1) You play ToA
2) You play any T1 or T2 DDAL7-X adventures.
3) You play any S7 special adventure (such as the Dnd Open, sorry not sure what the code for these are).
4) You play any CCC adventure this season.

The curse makes it impossible for you to be raised, resurrected, reincarnated, etc. Upon death, your soul becomes trapped in the Soulmonger and risks being devoured (this trumps any other effect such as characters whose soul would otherwise be captured by demons, the soul-absorbing effect of some magic items, etc).

Immediately upon gaining the death curse, choose whether you will play on meatgrinder or not. This choice is made / character (not /player).

If you have never died before, that is the entirety of the curse. If you have previously died, you also suffer an automatic -20 to your maximum HP. This penalty increases by -1 for each in-game day that passes, for every DT you spend, and at the end of every DDAL or CCC adventure you play.

There's a slight nuance there (in the bold part). Although the details of the Death Curse aren't provided in it's entirety in the Season 7 Primer, they point to all the effects of the curse given in the Tomb of Annihilation Hardcover. One aspect of the curse that I think is missed a lot is:

A humanoid whose hit point maximum is reduced can't increase or restore it. This is true whether the creature's hit point maximum is reduced by the Soulmonger or by some other life-draining effect, such as the touch of a wight, wraith, or similar creature.

Considering the undead in the jungle, along with a couple of potential hags that might be met along the way, the maximum hit point reduction from these attacks I think provide a very frightening threat to even characters that haven't yet died under the Death Curse.

Pauper · Nov 27, 2017

MerricB said:
Just checking my interpretation of the rules...

* A DDAL character who plays any Season 7 or CCC adventure becomes affected by the Death Curse.

Agreed.

* Once the T3 adventures get released (January 2018), that character can no longer play Season 7 Tier 1 or 2 adventures or Tomb of Annihilation.

If the character chooses to be free of the Death Curse at that time, then yes.

I see nothing in the Death Curse primer to suggest that characters are *required* to undo the Death Curse on the release of T3 adventures, simply that it's allowed. (A character who doesn't undo the Death Curse is basically still adventuring during the time the Curse is active, thus prior to Acererak's defeat.) Such a character could either play ToA themself and end the Death Curse by defeating Acererak, or simply end the curse by effectively stating that Acererak has been defeated by others, ending ToA and the T1 and T2 Season 7 adventure line for that character.

* This leads to the situation that a character who plays a T1 Season 7 adventure in February 2018 can't play another Season 7 T1 adventure.

If the character immediately ends the Death Curse after playing that first T1 adventure, yes. If the character continues to suffer from the Death Curse, then the character can continue playing until Acererak is defeated, by that character's party or some other party (the latter of which I'm assuming is the thing the Waiting It Out rule is trying to simulate).

--
Pauper