Liquid Pain from Book of Vile Darkness

Iron_Chef · May 17, 2003

BoVD lists liquid pain as worth 200gp per dose, or adding +2 caster level to a single spell where it is applied as a power component, or that outsiders love it and it makes a useful bargaining chip in negotiating with them. It's a 4th level spell.

Shouldn't liquid pain extracted from extremely pure (good) or evil people, or from experienced/powerful individuals be worth more, taste better and produce more powerful effects?

Say you capture and torture an 8th level paladin and 5th level cleric of Tyr (LG), and extract a dose of liquid pain from each of them. Wouldn't these types of liquid pain be more valuable and more efficacious than that extracted from a 1st level, neutral commoner?

It seems like it's not very profitable to create this drug to sell at 200gp per dose, since you are using an entire day to cast/extract a single dose. A spellcaster would make more money selling scrolls of 4th level spells. That's why I'm thinking that there should be different grades of the drug that are more lucrative.

Iron_Chef · May 17, 2003

LoneWolf23 · May 17, 2003

Iron_Chef said:
It seems like it's not very profitable to create this drug to sell at 200gp per dose, since you are using an entire day to cast/extract a single dose. A spellcaster would make more money selling scrolls of 4th level spells. That's why I'm thinking that there should be different grades of the drug that are more lucrative.

Sounds like a good idea. I could definetly see Fiends commenting on the "vintage" of Liquid Pain or even Souls in such a matter...

Olive · May 18, 2003

scrolls cost XP, can only be used by wizards, bards and sorcorers and aren't addictive...

liquid pain doesn't cost XP to cast, and produces agony, which can be used by anyone and is extremely addictive.

Gizzard · May 18, 2003

It seems like it's not very profitable to create this drug to sell at 200gp per dose...

I thought this table in the BoVD was irreemably messed-up. It lists a Chromatic Dragon Heart as being 6GP and a Yugoloth Brain as 5GP. How does a business make money harvesting Yugoloth Brains and selling them for 5GP? ;-)

Basically, on a scale where a Chromatic Dragon Heart is 6GP, then I can see Liquid Agony being worth 200GP. But I'd never DM a game with the values on that table. Maybe multiplied by 10, maybe multiplied by 100. Would the game become unbalanced if you could "part out" monsters? I can't imagine any high-level party lugging a big, goopy Dragon heart back to town for a mere 600GP. "I'm going to carry the pearl. You carry the heart, OK?"

Iron_Chef · May 19, 2003

The GP value is all messed up on that table. These things almost all are worth substantially more because of the incredible, outrageous difficulty in procuring them. They should all be worth 10-100 times as much as listed, at least.

Getting a 7th level or higher wizard or priest to spend 24 hours casting/torturing/extracting a single dose of liquid pain from some poor schmuck for a lousy 200gp is insulting at worst and highly unlikely at best. No matter how much they might enjoy the idea, they could spend their time much more profitably engaged in other, far more lucrative (or diabolical) pursuits.

Avarice · May 20, 2003

Gizzard said:
I thought this table in the BoVD was irreemably messed-up. It lists a Chromatic Dragon Heart as being 6GP and a Yugoloth Brain as 5GP. How does a business make money harvesting Yugoloth Brains and selling them for 5GP? ;-)

Uh... volume?

Getting a 7th level or higher wizard or priest to spend 24 hours casting/torturing/extracting a single dose of liquid pain from some poor schmuck for a lousy 200gp is insulting at worst and highly unlikely at best. No matter how much they might enjoy the idea, they could spend their time much more profitably engaged in other, far more lucrative (or diabolical) pursuits.

You could always rule that higher level victims provide additional doses. Maybe as much as 1 dose per level/HD. That could certainly make it profitable, given an ample supply of the proper subjects.

Iron_Chef · May 20, 2003

Avarice said:
You could always rule that higher level victims provide additional doses. Maybe as much as 1 dose per level/HD. That could certainly make it profitable, given an ample supply of the proper subjects.

Excellent idea!!! So my 8th level paladin prisoner yields 8 doses of Liquid Pain per casting (1 per HD)?

I think a paladin or cleric of a good deity should increase the market price by 100gp/HD per dose, though. Maybe someone who enjoyed the torture inflicted on them, such as a cleric of Loviatar, or a dastardly villain filled with vengeful rage would increase the gp value of the "vintage" (dose) as well, maybe by 50gp/HD.

Maybe they should increase duration of the drug's effect, as well?

Henry · May 20, 2003

You also forget the other VERY useful effect of both souls and liquid pain: They can be used as sources of XP in crafting magic items, making their worth difficult to determine.

Also, my interpretation of liquid pain is that the pain of innocent commoners would be worth more than the pain of heroes, because heroes are - well - heroic and stuff. The pain of a hero to a fiend would be like Diet Coke to a Pepsi lover.

I just had a nasty thought about the Forgotten Realms - the Book of Vile Darkness makes you wonder WHERE the Thayans are getting the XP for those magic items they are selling across Faerun...

Iron_Chef · May 20, 2003

I forgot about about that, but one dose = 3 "dark craft" XP. Not a huge deal. With my new version, I'm only going to allow a subject to contain a number of doses equal to their CON, with each dose causing 1 point of temp CON damage to the subject... Once depleted, the subject is incapable of providing further doses forever, regardless of rest.

I'm not changing the +2 caster level if used as a spell component.