D&D 5E Curse effects and Remove Curse

[jaelis]

You are creating the item, you get to decide how its effects can be reversed. Make that as easy or hard as you want.

 

[CapnZapp]

You are creating the item, you get to decide how its effects can be reversed. Make that as easy or hard as you want.

Yes, but I can still ask for precedents, especially ones created by the WotC rules team [emoji4]

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[DEFCON 1]

I do not remember having read or seen anything from the D&D rules about the concerns you posted about, Capn. Which leads me to believe the intention behind the rules were meant to be straightforward-- if you have the right class that can counter some game effect, then you do. So a class that can cast Remove Curse can remove all curses, a class with Lesser Restoration can remove blindness, deafness, paralyzation and poison, a paladin can remove diseases or cure poisons etc., all of them at relatively low-level.

My guess is that they wanted these things to be speed-bumps rather than killer effects in the typical default game, in an effort to combat the Save-Or-Die types of issues that the previous games put forth. That way individual DMs could then make things harder for players if they so chose, by limiting or removing these spells and features or making more powerful effects immune to these lower level spells and effects.

Just like in the case of encounter building, WotC erred on the side of less deadly so that completely new players could learn how these effects and fights affected their game without it resulting in slaughters left and right... and then could choose to make things harder as they went along if they felt they and their groups could handle it. Rather than the opposite of throwing every player-- new and experienced-- into the raging inferno of death and destruction and let them sink or swim because that's how the game traditionally played.

Whether that was the right or wrong approach is the siren's call of many ENWorld poster.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Am I missing something or are there several effects in the game that are trivial to remove once the party spellcaster is off the lowest levels?

Maybe you're missing more things that casters trivialize, like rest opportunities...
... oh, no, you caught that, as well.

What stops the adventurers from simply casting Remove Curse (or a similar spell; Protection from Good and Evil, Dispel Magic, Greater Restoration perhaps) to reset the adventurer's alignment each time it shifts,

You. You rule that, once a character knows how the dagger works, the alignment shift is voluntary, and can't be removed so easily.

I'm wondering about what the RAW and RAI is here.

This is 5e: "and you be the DM, 'do what thou wilt' shall be the whole of the RAW.'

RAW is "use these rules as a starting point to make the game your own."

RAI is "we know we suck, stop your whining and fix it youselves."

Is the design intent of the rules really to make curses trivially lifted?

Among the design intents is making magic 'really magical' (trivializing any challenge, if you have the right spell prepped, feels magical to D&Ders).

Is there any precedent for ruling something like "sure, you can temporarily lift the alignment change, but if you keep using the dagger, you aren't really fighting the change in personality".

Yes: "OK, fine, I'll run this time." When the players signed up to play in your campaign, they implicitly agreed to that (and every other ruling you make until they run screaming into the night).

 

[CapnZapp]

Among the design intents is making magic really magical (trivializing any challenge if you have the right spell prepped, feels magical to D&Ders).

No that's backwards. There's nothing as unmagical and nonwondrous as something cool and atmospheric taken out immediately automatically and trivially by a player character.

This thread presupposes that curses are actually to be respected and feared. To me, *that* is magical in every sense of the word.

(Minus points too for trying to drag in unrelated discussions, Tony.)

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[cmad1977]

Unless alignment shifts have a real consequence in your world you might want to change the curse.
AFAIK there are no RAW consequences to changing alignments.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Gadget]

I think you have the right of it in your second post: After the PC/Party becomes aware of the 'curse' and how it works, all the Remove Curse spell does is allow the afflicted PC to get rid of the item, thereby eliminating the cause of the curse and allowing the PC to heal or recover. Perhaps the effects take a while to fade, or you need a lesser restoration as well (is there an Atonement spell in 5e?). Keeping the item nullifies this healing period and thus does not do the PC any good.

I mean, you don't get to cast the One Ring into Mt Doom and keep it to become invisible whenever you want. Seems to me there is a similar saying that people bandy about Or you could have Remove Curse summon a feral, deranged creature that bites the PC's hand/wrist (too bad the item is not a ring!), grabs the dagger, then immediately tumbles into a fiery fissure that opens up while screaming 'Precioussssssss!'

 

[WarpedAcorn]

Just because you use the word 'curse' doesn't mean remove curse works on it. Remove curse works on the things that say remove curse gets rid of this curse. You can easily decide that this item, since it requires voluntary action, doesn't respond to a remove curse to revert the alignment change. So long as the players CAN find a way to correct things, and you don't overuse the 'but this curse isn't removed by remove curse' it should be fine.

And, in this specific case, the alignment change should be lasting and not temporary, and the solution to prevent continued alignment changes should be to stop using the dagger, and the solution to correcting the alignment change should be whatever method is used in your game to atone.

I don't feel 5th Edition makes this distinction, but there is a difference between a curse and a CURSE. Remove Curse does trivialize a lot of these situations, but as a DM I reserve the right for a Plot Curse to be just too powerful for a 2nd level spell to remove. Its like comparing a lit torch to an entire burning forest. Both are just fires, but one is WAY more serious than the other. Legit Plot Curses shouldn't be something that are even solvable by the Players, and it so only by some insanely difficult means.

I like the way 2 pieces of media handled Curses. The first is the TV Show Supernatural where the boys scoffed at even the thought of removing the curse, saying something along the lines of, "You don't solve a curse, you get out of its way". I also like the video game Until Dawn where the entire premise is not to solve or beat the curse, because its literally impossible.

Similarly, if you want the dagger to be cursed then let it be CURSED. Although, the way you describe it the dagger almost seems sentient. It sounds like the dagger is whispering dark suggestions into the wielders ear each time they use the dagger, slowing turning the player into someone else...maybe the creator of the weapon or the original soul trapped in the weapon.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No that's backwards. There's nothing as unmagical and nonwondrous as something cool and atmospheric taken out immediately automatically and trivially by a player character.

I don't disagree, but a lot of folks seemed to over the years...

But, as far as RAW goes, you're creating an item, it's RAW is what you W it to be.

 

[CapnZapp]

I feel like I'm repeating myself, but all of this doesn't change that I want to know how this conundrum has been handled - officially - in the past.

Thx

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app