Curse detection

[Spellsprite]

I've got a cursed player character in my game and I need some help. I'm having a very busy RL week and have a few days to come up with some stuff on my own so I'm reaching out.

Her character looted a scroll, opened it without doing any checks (totally failed her save), read it, and the scroll crumbled to dust immediately. None of her companions saw her do this so they've been clueless till it started impacting them. Much to the annoyance of her traveling companions she closes every door (and door like things) in her visual proximity even if her companions haven't entered the room. It's only day 2 (~18 hours into the curse) and it's already getting worse! She recently went into a rage over getting a door shut with a companion wanting to hold it open to talk to someone on the other side. Needless to say her companions have gone from thinking she was just being "haha very funny" quirky or thinking she was just having a prissy attitude over the way she was treated during an argument that took place just before she found the scroll to FINALLY believing that something is wrong with her.

The group is in a large populated town and they are in a well stocked apothecary/magical items shop. I'm going to allow the clerks of the shop to do diagnostics on the cursed player for some major coinage. A couple companions have gotten lucky and are flush with cash so that's not an issue if they really want to help her. I've alluded that the diagnostics may be simple or it might get invasive.

What I'm asking from you all reading this and willing to answer: What questions should the shopkeepers be asking? What spells should they cast to determine what the problem is? What items are out there that could be used to poke and prod the character? Magical / non magical?

They group is only 4th level. They are a group of: cleric, rogue, sorcerer, rogue/sorcerer, and paladin(is the one cursed).

Her group has already tried a couple spells: Detect Poison & Detect Magic (which lit her up like an xmas tree because she's got magical scars from living in a time portal/spell scar area). Her group discounted the Detect Magic as being nothing important and didn't peruse it any further. They might get a better idea if they'd ask the right questions to the cursed character. They're not using their heads and are just asking reactionary BS like "What is your problem?"

So what can the collective brain her come up with for me?
Any questions?

Much thanks if you've read this are and are totally going "oh hell no, not going there". LMAO

 

[iserith]

This seems like it could be tedious, so I'd just have the NPC say he or she has heard tell of this affliction before and, after being paid his or her fee, mention that it's cured with a remove curse or greater restoration spell. The cleric in the group could cast remove curse next level if they are willing to put up with it a bit longer or perhaps they could agree to undertake a quest for the local temple to receive the cure now.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

If the curse is magical, IDENTIFY will tell the caster what magical enchantments are on the person.

Look at the last paragraph of the spell.

If the curse is an ‘instantaneous’ effect that has changed her, it won’t work but if it’s an on-going magical effect or compulsion, it will inform the caster.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Double post: if the party knows the character well enough to realize she is not acting normally, they might get a greater restoration just for good measure. Like getting antibiotics ‘just in case’ which many doctors used to do.

 

[77IM]

If they know she's cursed, they could try to find an NPC to cast remove curse on her and see if that just works. An NPC who doesn't have that spell might be able to use augery to predict its outcome, identify to diagnose the patient, or even just make a sufficiently high Intelligence (Arcana) check.

As an aside, I find the game works better when you give the players as much information as possible. One of my worst habits as a DM is that I love secrets and mysteries, so I tend to withhold information. Usually that backfires. I find that a good middle-ground is to have lots of secrets, but make them super easy to discover if the PCs put in even a modicum of effort. So my main piece of advice is to have an NPC drop full details of the curse right in the PCs' laps. Put the ball in their court and let them figure out how to deal with it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I include stuff like this in Medicine checks, just like I include magical locks and trap elements in use of Thieve's Tools. It's a world full of magic.

I'd also allow the use of Religion as a sort of "Arcana for the divine and profane".

Obviously Arcana could work.

I'd not wait for the players to say, "hey cn I check her out for magical badness?", and instead just tell the player with the highest passive score in one of those that it occurs to them that something is off here more than simple behavior, and ask for a check.

As for the apothecary, I'd have them act like it's obvious that the character is cursed, and just sort of drop it incidentally, making checks to determine what sort of curse it is, and whether or not they can make a potion or tincture that will treat it, rather than a roll to find out that it's a curse. "Ok, I'm going to need a hair and a vial of blood from the cursed, as well as some holy water, a living and unharmed bee, a drop of mercury, and 2 grams of pepper, unbroken. Enough blood for three of these containers (tiny test tubes, character spends 1 HD providing the blood). First, she'll have to imbibe this tincture, and we'll draw the blood 1 hour afterward. The combination of elements when I mix her blood and a strand of hair with each of the components in these three combinations will tell us what manner of curse or enscorcellment your friend is under, and how powerful it is."

"Oh, you...wait seriously, you didn't realize she was cursed? I see..."

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I include stuff like this in Medicine checks, just like I include magical locks and trap elements in use of Thieve's Tools. It's a world full of magic.

I'd also allow the use of Religion as a sort of "Arcana for the divine and profane".

Obviously Arcana could work.

I'd not wait for the players to say, "hey can I check her out for magical badness?", and instead just tell the player with the highest passive score in one of those that it occurs to them that something is off here more than simple behavior, and ask for a check.

I'd use insight to notice that she's acting weird. I was going to say that up-thread but I assumed the party already realized she was acting out of the ordinary.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'd use insight to notice that she's acting weird. I was going to say that up-thread but I assumed the party already realized she was acting out of the ordinary.

I'd allow that, too, but I'd prefer a knowledge check or a deduction based on observations (investigation). I'm pretty loose with what skills can be applied to a roll, though .

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I'd allow that, too, but I'd prefer a knowledge check or a deduction based on observations (investigation). I'm pretty loose with what skills can be applied to a roll, though .

Fair enough. I like to reserve observing people's personalities and quirks and behaviors to Insight.

Actually deducing what the curse might be could be an Arcana (lists of magical curses), History (the Great Door Closing Catastrophe of '28), Religion(Tymorra often likes playing tricks on people who curse their luck!). Figuring out the exact pattern of the curse might be Investigation. (noticing she closes doors but cares nothing for windows).

I'm not disagreeing with you, obviously. Just explaining how I might do it.

 

[Spellsprite]

Thank you all for your input! I had time today that was unexpectedly freed and used it to review spells. I already knew that it would take a Remove Curse and/or a Greater Restoration. What I was tripping over were things that the shopkeepers could DO to the character for a type of diagnostic process.

Common... nobody came up with a "Silvered Anal Prob of Identify" *tisk tisk* Folks where is your sense of evil DM humor?

So I'm thinking of things like:
Hold Person - after all they don't know how the character will react to being magically looked over
Hypnotic Pattern - have her go back into her memory to find out what she did
Identify - tells exactly what the problem is and what it needs to be fixed
Legend Lore - After Identify look into the specific item and see how long it's been a problem
Magic Circle - a "meh" idea that after being held, maybe cast this to keep any other influences out of the diagnostic process
Minor Illusion - Would work with the Hypnotic Pattern to visually show everyone what happened
Modify Memory - If Hypnotic Pattern isn't exactly what I'm after then perhaps this will be.

And after some thought I'm considering putting some of the diagnostic spells into a pair of glasses to keep it short and simple for the shopkeeper that does the work (totally thinking of the Benjamin Franklin glasses from National Treasure 2).