Insidious Betrayal

[dangerous jack]

An idea I have for a witch that the PCs will be facing. Rather than dominate the character and make the character betray the party, I want the player to be the one to willingly betray the party.

Insidious Betrayal
Over and over, the voices tell you to kill. And you know they'll stop once you listen to them.
Psionic, Charm * Range 10
Target: 1 enemy
Attack: Wis + 3 vs. Will
Hit: The target is dazed (save ends). Until the target has saved, they may make a basic attack against an ally as a free action. Each turn, if the target attacks an ally, then they receive a +3 bonus to the save. If the target does not attack an ally, then they take a -3 penalty to the save. If the target drops an ally to 0hp, then they automatically make the save.


Feedback? Ways to tighten up the language? Is it sufficiently evil or does it take it too easy on my players (i.e. should I remove the free action basic attack). And most importantly, is it fun?

 

[shamsael]

An idea I have for a witch that the PCs will be facing. Rather than dominate the character and make the character betray the party, I want the player to be the one to willingly betray the party.

Insidious Betrayal
Over and over, the voices tell you to kill. And you know they'll stop once you listen to them.
Psionic, Charm * Range 10
Target: 1 enemy
Attack: Wis + 3 vs. Will
Hit: The target is dazed (save ends). Until the target has saved, they may make a basic attack against an ally as a free action. Each turn, if the target attacks an ally, then they receive a +3 bonus to the save. If the target does not attack an ally, then they take a -3 penalty to the save. If the target drops an ally to 0hp, then they automatically make the save.


Feedback? Ways to tighten up the language? Is it sufficiently evil or does it take it too easy on my players (i.e. should I remove the free action basic attack). And most importantly, is it fun?

Doesn't this need to be a Dominate effect?

Edit:
Oooooh, I see what you did there.
You should specify that the free basic attack is once per round, only on their turn.
Also, I would change the save adjustment to either +2/-2 or +5/-5 to be more consistent with other adjustments.

 

[dangerous jack]

You should specify that the free basic attack is once per round, only on their turn.

Yes, good point. Don't want some evil player repeatedly stabbing an ally until he's dead.

Also, I would change the save adjustment to either +2/-2 or +5/-5 to be more consistent with other adjustments.

The +2/-2 shifts would be too little for my tastes, since they'd only really matter 1 out of 5 times. But +5/-5 really means that it will affect your chance of making or missing the save 50% of the time. I think I'm still comfortable with that. It does make it even more evil though.

My thoughts on dominate: I spent an entire night (-1 round) of D&D encounters dominated, and while it was funny at first, it eventually got really annoying (I rolled a 1, 4, and 5 for saves). So by making the power this way rather than using dominate, it's my hope that at least the player has a decision or two to make each round.

 

[dangerous jack]

The way that I see this playing out is:
Round 1: "ok, I'm dazed. no big deal.", fails the check
Round 2: "I'll probably make the save this time", fails the check
Round 3: "I'm sick of being dazed. Anyone willing to be attacked?", possible free action attack vs defender, might make the check
Round 4: after allies move away, "I'm going to charge the wizard and follow-up with a free attack if I miss the charge"

I think I should change the rule from "if the target attacks an ally, then they receive a bonus" to "if the target hits an ally and causes damage, then they receive a bonus".


Insidious Betrayal
Over and over, the voices tell you to kill. And you know they'll stop once you listen to them.
Psionic, Charm * Ranged 10
Target: 1 enemy
Attack: Wis + 3 vs. Will
Hit: The target is dazed (save ends). Until the target has saved, once per round as a free action on their turn, they may make a basic attack against an ally. Each turn, if the target hits and does damage to an ally, then they receive a +5 bonus to the save. If the target does not attack an ally, then they take a -5 penalty to the save. If the target drops an ally to 0hp, then they automatically make the save.