"straight" rolls in D&D

CapnZapp said:

My question again: do you recall any "class-neutral" rule or scenario from previous decades of D&D where a similar character-dooming decision is made?

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Several editions of Star Wars RPGs feature the idea of "Dark Side Points." Doing evil things or drawing on the power of the Dark Side gets you points, and when you have enough points, you become an NPC. Other games have similar features (e.g. Fading Suns' urge and hubris ratings).

So if you really want to implement this forced-alignment-conversion thing, I would do something similar, and track points. When the character has enough points, they turn into an NPC. The closest analog in 5E that I can think of is the Loyalty system in the DMG. The progressive madness rules in Out of the Abyss may also be worth looking at.

77IM said:

I treat alignment as purely descriptive, not prescriptive: your alignment is based on your actions, it doesn't determine your actions. You can write whatever you want on your character sheet, but if you do a lot of lawful evil things, at some point the cosmos is going to treat you as Lawful Evil. In this approach, you also can't become Lawful Evil unless you do a lot of lawful evil things.

So at my table, the item wouldn't make a character Lawful Evil, it would force the character to commit specific lawful evil acts. If they keep it, and keep doing lawful evil things, they'll eventually turn Lawful Evil. Just like any other character would, whether they are cursed by an item or not.

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That is certainly one way of running it.

Obviously this can't come as a surprise to the players.

Out of curiosity: could you give an example from practical play when you have forced a player of yours to take or not take a particular action? Or does this apply only to Evil? (Which is obviously fine. It would mean you share some of my disposition though)

Two things about wish to keep in mind if you go with a flat percentage:
1. The players know the percentage in wish and the consequences are well understood too.
2. Failing is bad but doesn't retire your character.

Would your players activate an item that had a 15% chance of killing their character permanently? Mine would only do that in like the last encounter of the campaign, and only if it made a huge difference.

CapnZapp said:

Out of curiosity: could you give an example from practical play when you have forced a player of yours to take or not take a particular action?

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Only under magical compulsion.

Usually when my PCs turn evil it is entirely voluntary. ;}

77IM said:

Several editions of Star Wars RPGs feature the idea of "Dark Side Points." Doing evil things or drawing on the power of the Dark Side gets you points, and when you have enough points, you become an NPC. Other games have similar features (e.g. Fading Suns' urge and hubris ratings).

So if you really want to implement this forced-alignment-conversion thing, I would do something similar, and track points. When the character has enough points, they turn into an NPC. The closest analog in 5E that I can think of is the Loyalty system in the DMG. The progressive madness rules in Out of the Abyss may also be worth looking at.

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The good suggestions keep rolling in. *thumbs up*

As I have hinted above, however, in this particular case I'm looking for something with an immediate on-off effect. Not because other options are bad, but because players might bet on the fact the campaign ends before they have to pay any real price.

But this is a good thread for future reference.

CapnZapp said:

Pretty phat lewt wouldn't you agree...

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It is quite impressive. I am not sure I would introduce that level of power to one PC and not have it carry some major long-term detriment, rather than a one-time risk. But that's me.

When I read the first line aloud to the players, it was the first time I read it myself as well.

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And I think that's where your real problem is. The players now know that's the text.

For real effect, this should have been positioned like the "Head of Vecna": to use this item, someone has to shove a sword through your fraggin' heart!!!1!! They should not have been sure this wasn't a hoax, or that they'd survive the attempt, or exactly what the powers gained should be. And it probably should have been described as a dusty, flaky, shriveled old heart-raisin that's been steeped in a slightly sticky resin. The point should have been that only a crazy and power-mad character should have been willing to try it at all - the alignment change is then kind of superfluous.

Oh, wait. Here we go. That is the text.... but it is metaphorical! It is referring to a person who has had their true love reject them, or taken from them, so that they are in desperation and despair, a broken person with nobody and nothing to lose, and the alignment change is then merely a last step of their descent to villain-hood.

Then, all the people who are merely power-mad stab themselves in the heart, but since they are the sorts incapable of feeling true love, they just bleed and die, as their hearts cannot be broken.

Thinking it was a bit strange and unpractical (isn't a dragon heart larger than the entire torso?)

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Or... play it that way. The PC now has this giant semi-undead heart permanently sticking out of their chest cavity that can never really close again. Good luck finding a romantic partner that isn't crazier than you are....

77IM said:

Two things about wish to keep in mind if you go with a flat percentage:
1. The players know the percentage in wish and the consequences are well understood too.
2. Failing is bad but doesn't retire your character.

Would your players activate an item that had a 15% chance of killing their character permanently? Mine would only do that in like the last encounter of the campaign, and only if it made a huge difference.

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Noted.

The idea isn't for the character to be killed though. To have a 15% "you must retire and replace your character" consequence is mainly meant to cut directly to the point, since most crunch penalties will eventually mean that anyway. Call it cynical and I call it expedient


But I'll bite - okay so what could be an interesting consequence of failing? What would correspond to never being able to cast Wish again?

You can never take flight? Vulnerability to <s>poison</s>necrotic? It is hard to find a consequence that does not meaningfully gimp the character in regular play, yet means definite pain that cannot be trivialized.

Getting your traits/bonds/etc replaced with entries from some lawful evil dragony table (if one exists) would be kind of cool. Maybe I need to check up on the various DnD indexes there is...

CapnZapp said:

But I'll bite - okay so what could be an interesting consequence of failing? What would correspond to never being able to cast Wish again?

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Being considered undead and draconic with respect to powers, abilities, and spells? Dragon-slaying swords hurt you more, and you can be turned by a cleric, are only healed by "cause wounds" spells, and such?

Having every dracolich on planet now want to eat you, because this will bring them back to their full physical glory, without all that tedious mucking about with being actually living?

In Adventure in Middle-Earth some items from the hoard of evil creatures have a set chance on being tainted(1 in 6 for less creatures, up to 3 in 6 for the hoard of dragons or Nazguls). Upon gaining the item, you gain a set number shadow points nd some more shadow points if the character fails a flat DC 15 roll. If your number of shadow points is higher than your Wis score, you become Miserable (dis. on all attack and social checks). The first time you fail a check while Miserable, you suffer a bout of madness, more or less the effect of Confusion (see Boromir at then end of Fellowship). Once you suffered X bout of madness you become an NPC (4 in AiME, but you could decide on another number, or just skip the bout of madness and say the character goes evil after the shadow point score goes higher than the PC's Wis score.

Hope this may help with your search

Another idea for a staged roll-out is that each time they use the item there is a chance that they "move one step closer to Lawful Evil." This would mean that Chaotic Good characters can hold out the longest, first becoming NG, then N, then LN, then LE. A character who's already LN should probably not be handling this magic item. This does make some characters more resistant to the item, but it's not based on class or ability score or save modifer; it's based purely on alignment, which kinda makes sense to me in this context.

I'm pretty sure I've seen the language "move one step closer to <alignment>" used for various magical effects (like items and planar properties) over the years but an example doesn't come to mind. But I don't think I'm making it up (I don't think I could make it up).