Death Knell question.

[Benben]

Somewhere near the border of house rules.

It would be very dangerous to allow this spell to stack and general bonus and spell construction in 3E would lean towards overlapping the bonuses.

However, as a flavour consideration I am very tempted to allow the bonuses to stack. This spell is working with the energies, of life, souls and sacrifice. All of which are evocative story elements that beg to be used by the DM.

It could be abused by allowing evil PCs but that's only a problem if the DM allows evil PCs.

Neutral PCs who abuse this should have their alignment slip towards evil with the associated rammifications for the campaign.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Re: Somewhere near the border of house rules.

Neutral PCs who abuse this should have their alignment slip towards evil with the associated rammifications for the campaign.

Well, I originally brought up the question because I play such a neutral cleric, and I don't want to be abusing something. The PC is the neutral cleric of an evil death god, and uses this spell regularly. If allowing it to stack is abusive, then I won't ask the DM at all. I'm not interested in breaking the game.

But, as someone else in our game pointed out, the opportunties to use Death Knell, (having a live but dying opponent,) are scarce. And since my PC isn't the type to carry around a sack of kittens, it's unlikely he'd get the chance to use the spell more than a couple times anyway, if that.

But the idea of being able to use it more often, if the opportunity did present itself, appealed to me. So I asked about it here.

Common interpretation is that, by the rules, they shouldn't stack. Now I want to know if, as you seemed to indicate, stacking them would be abusive.

 

[Benben]

Re: Re: Somewhere near the border of house rules.

Common interpretation is that, by the rules, they shouldn't stack. Now I want to know if, as you seemed to indicate, stacking them would be abusive.

It's only abusive if you approach the spell from the "sack of kittens" (BTW great phrase.)

Otherwise since the conditions of the spell are hard to meet, I can't see it getting abusive.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I agree. Even unlimited stacking of the duration isn't unbalancing, as the bonuses from the spell are minimal (a bull's strength is certainly more effective for STR bonuses), but unless there's a really good reason, I prefer to stick with consistency - which means no stacking. And no kittens!