Alternate Curses

[Jeph]

cuuuurses.......ooooh, my faaaaavorite.......

Curse of ADD: Every turn, subject has a 10% chance to start staring intently at a spider web, stone, or little rusty spot on his armor. He continues doing so for 1d6 rounds.

Curse of the Feather: Character now weighs less than air, though retains their former strength score. They accelerate 5' upward every two turns (encounters in open fields just got much more interesting....)

Curse of the Stone: All items the character wields seem to be five times as heavy. This could slow them due to heavy loads, and may cause weapons to be held in more hands or dropped.

Curse of Displacement: The character sees everything about half a foot to one side. 10% chance to miss any attack, and -2 to AC. A balance check may be required in some circumstances

Curse of Extreem Momentum: Every time the character moves, they continue half again that distance before their next action. Characters may only decelerate 10 feet per round, and they may only make one 45° turn for every 10 feet travveled.

Curse of Delayed Synaptic Reflexes: All the characters actions are resoved 6 points of initiative order after the character's turn, although the character must still declare what they are doing on their initiative order. This can result in attacking empty spaces, bullrushing a rude bit of air, orrunning through a door that has just been slammed shut.

Curse of Malevolency: weverything the character sees has a 10% chance to be labeled threatening in the character's mind. The character will do all in their power to get rid of such "threatening" items, from brushing away the cobwebs to setting the mayor's house on fire.

Curse of Ye Olde Smartasse: The character can't help being dreadfully sarcastic. this results in a -6 penalty on all charisma checks to influence NPCs and Diplomacy checks.

Curse of the Merchant: The character can not help selling everything they own (allbeit for a hefty price--they won't settle for anything less than the full market value!). The character attempts to sell off all their items, starting with the most expensive, to the nearest creature (sentient or not). this does not stop him from noticing if the creature is unintersted, rather, they notic it right away and move on to a more likely customer. The character gains a +6 bonus to Diplomacy checks when attempting to sell items. the character will not stop unless his life is in imediate danger or there is no one to sell items to. Even if his life is in danger, instead of fighting, he will leave the dangerous area ASAP to find some good, high-paying buyers.

So, how ya like these bad apples?

-Jeph

 

[Zirnike]

Fatigue: Every round they attack, they get an additional +1 to hit. When they finally hit, they're stunned for that many minutes.

Curse of the Invisible Helper: Character gains 10 gold per hour. See pickpocket (skill 0) to determine who catches him with their gold, and when.

Hair Growth: All hair must be trimmed back every 15 minutes. Stress makes it worse. After 4 rounds of fighting, character is effectivly blind until he takes a standard action to cut back his bangs. In 10 rounds, he loses an effective point of dex bonus until he removes his armor and trims back the hair interfearing with the joints.

Hell, we keep talking humanoids.

Of the Dog: Target has a 20% chance per round of becoming facinated with his tail, chasing it. The next round, he is stunned for 1 round due to dizzyness.

Of the Cat: Choose a plant within 20 feet (can be carried if you want to be mean). Said plant now acts like catnip to the effected creature.

of Cleanlyness: Whenever creature hits with max damage on one die (i.e. rolls an 8 in 2d8) must spend one full round cleaning the blood spots off (with their tounge, if non-humanoid)

of Oddness: Creature behaves unexpectedly. Example: Dire bear stands upright and discussed diplomacy in an English accent. 50% chance per round of this happening (just like the 50% confusion, but somewhat cooler, IMNSHO) (mind you, I take Weirdness Magnet in GURPS)

of Theme Music: Instrumental background acompanyment. Great for rogues, tends to clash with whatever the Bard's singing style is.

of Open Spaces: Gain severe clostrophobia. Alternate: agoraphobia, perfect for rangers

of Puzzled Summoning: All creatures summoned by the target arrive and stare at the caster with that expression dogs get when they're not really sure what's going on. (ok, that's really silly. Unless you know a conjurer... picture a hydra doing that...)

of Movie Physics: (needs a more appropriate name) You cannot kill any opponent, no matter how hard. Your opponents never seem to run out of ammo while they're attacking you. If opponents are chasing you, and you have special abilities to help you escape, they gain them temporarly. 'Luckaly', you can never be killed, merely be captured, although once they figure this out, you're in really bad shape...

of Bad Breath: Whenever target uses a breath weapon, they choke on it, instead, inflicting 1/4 damage on themself. (more for use on enemies, but useful for high level pyrokineticists, etc.)

of Absent Mindedness: Target is oblivious. All creatures encountered are affected as if they had invisibility only for the target (i.e. he won't see anyone 'till they attack him)

 

[trix]

Re: Re: Deathbane Curse

Eh.... I don't know about this one. Especially considering the situations in which Bestow Curse is going to be inflicted, it's much worse than the normal -6 to a single stat. Much worse.

(Imagines. . . Some poor sod that just killed someone in the street... thinking... "Damn that curse... sure is a bit unbalanced for Bestow Curse. I think i need god to change the rules of the universe to disallow the curse").


Okay, so maybe it aint a low level Bestow Curse, maybe, a bestow curse cast by a dying wizard/cleric is enough of a binding spell component to allow the spell to be cast ?

Are their rules for creating artifacts? No. Are their rules for major curses? No.

===

Personally I think the simple curses like -6 to stat X, -10% to this, -5 to a save, are a bit simple if they dont force the player to re-evaluate their frame of reference, or their context in which they place their character, hence the effective combat trigger.

A simple -X to an attr can be taken in stride and the whole roleplaying aspect ignored.

Someone inflicted by a Deathbane curse is going to re-evaluate what they do. If a party member were cursed, the player / and party will hopefully reevaluate what they're going to doing.

===

Some curses are too intricate. In real life it might look funny, but making a check every minute to brush ones teeth or to ensure that the player doesnt catch alight at a fire, well... silly curse.

(But i'm not saying that those curses shouldnt exist. Just, that its difficult to bring the curse to relivance within the roleplaying framework.

It might be easy to bring a curse into a technical crunchy framework (you loose -6 DEX), but without that trigger and dire effect, that crunchy mechanic will never reach the roleplaying frame of thought.
)

-Tim

 

[Corlon Lemur God]

soo many curses

Curse of Agression: The character must stop whatever he is doing, drop any weapons or items, and pummel the closest living thing (not including immoble plants) with his fists until it is rendered unconcious. If the character is attacked by someone else, he may switch to that person, but still must pummel them with his fists.

(and yes I do realize this could be not really bad if not usefull to a monk)

Curse of the monkey: The character affected must go to the closest fairly tall object and try to climb it. If the surface or object is unclimbable (such as a flat cliff covered in grease), then the character squats down with his hands on his head (like a monkey) and does nothing unless his life is in danger.

Curse of the Jeff (i cannot think of anything else right now, just an "I'm smarter than you type person"): The character must try his best to prove that he is smarter than something close (normaly other creatures, but if nothing else is avaliable, the character may use a rock or other unintelligent object)

Curse of arousal: The character must go to the first biological (or close to) match to become emotionally attached to. The attachment can be taken to any level that the DM so chooses. The character will only stop if himself or the thing he is attached to is in danger. If nothing is avaliable... well, you get it.

Curse of Belief: The character must believe anything anyone (or anything tells him), the character has to do commands to the best of his ability, but only does the most recent (as you can see, with two conflicting sides, this can get quite confusing.)

Curse of Hiding: The character tries to hide but (even if they are normaly good at hiding) do something extremely stupid, such as lying flat against a wall, or holding a leaf infront of his face and thinking that he is camoflauged. This gives a -12 penalty to the hide check, and the character will not stop hiding unless attack, and then only to defend himself.

Curse of the Beaver: the character must try to cut down the nearest tree by any means possible (axe, sword, teeth, etc.). The character will not stop unless the tree is chopped, down, or he is attacked.

Curse of the... okay, these are getting kind of redundant to me, I'll think of some later.

Did these sound spur of the moment to you?





Because they were!!

 

[Xarlen]

Curse of the Baby. All hair falls from the character's body.

Phobia. The caster chooses an item; that character is thereby terrified of that thing. The recipient is Shaken if in it's presence, and if it gets within 5' feet of him, he is Paniced.

Tabboo. The recipient of this curse vomits forth white maggots, or some other nasty thing (losing a standard action), whenever he speaks of a tabboo subject chosen by the caster (If the person is self-centered, whenever they speak of themselves... there you go).

Gender-Reversal. The recipient slowly begins shifting their gender.

Race. The recipient's physical apperance slowly becomes that of another race, but they still have the qualities of their own.

Questions and Rhymes. The recipient continues to speak in rhyme, or questions (Suggested that spellcasting actually be said; could be very amusing if cast on a Gnome).

Midus's Bane. Everything the person touches turns into a material selected by the caster. When Remove Curse is cast, it turns back to normal (This will keep characters from gaining insta-gold by touching stuff for an hour).

Accountant's Touch. Whenever presented with an untied knot, several small items, etc, the character must stop everything and spend as many rounds as it takes untieing said knot, or counting all of said items. She will stop only to defend herself, and looses count when this happens.

 

[Jeph]

Curse of the Monster: The character thinks that they are an immensely powerful beast, running around in circles waving their arms and yelling "Roar!" for 1d4 rounds at the sight of an opponent. They then begin to act normally until the next encounter.

Curse of flight: The GM rolls a d%, then tells the player that the curse has backfired, and that they have been given an innate fly ability. DO NOT DISSILUSION THE CHARACTER!!! This could be pretty nasty.....

Curse of the Fish: The character may now only breathe water, being able to survive off of air for 10 minutes per point of their Con score before beginning to drown.

Oh, and Corlon, you might as well say it's Curse of the Jeph, we both know it's true. God idea, though

-Jeph

 

[Corlon]

curse of the scribe: The character must take notes of all observations on anything at hand (paper, rocks, skin). He only stops to defend himself and then records the encounter afterwards.

Curse of Clumsyness: The character trips and falls at almost all possible times. This is up to the GM when to make the character trip, or the GM can do DEX checks, however they want.

 

[Jeph]

Curse of Disbelief: The character automatically thinks that everything he hears is a lie.

Skywalker's Death Vandetta: Character automatically thinks that all climactic villians killed their father, and has a 20% chance to think that other villians killed a random relative. Everyone else he meets personally (not just passes on the street) has a 10% chance of being seen as a relative-killer.

Curse of Illusioned Death: Everyone sees a bolt of light smash into affected character. Tell the character to make a save (doesn't matter which type). Tell them, "oh, I'm sorry...." Roll some dice behind the screen. "ouch! I didn't expect that much damage. Wow. that was --insert character's current HP +10 to 15 here-- damage!" In the game-reality, nothing happened except an illusion. Character gets a will save each round to notice that he's not dead. If sucsessful, tell the character what really happened.

Curse of Double Vision: Character sees two of everything. He gets a Spot check (DC 20) to determine each one, if he fails, he'll just have to guess.

Oh, an Peter, which one IS it? Corlon or Corlon Lemur God?

-Jeph

 

[Corlon]

both, just to confuse you, MUAHAHAHAHAH.
just kidding. i dunno, one's on one email and sometimes i mess up.

 

[Zirnike]

I think most of these would work with the 3rd level curse spell... Just make it so that only certain level casters can give certain curses.