New Spell: Kill Hedrack

[twjensen]

The spoilers that aren't here yet.

At some point, someone might post a specific strategy for defeating hedrack. That would be a spoiler.

Researching spells should be expensive and time consuming. Maybe there are lots of "slay specific person" spells, but most wizards don't learn them because the people named are already dead.

SR should always apply. Saves should always apply for spells that auto-hit. But the save DC can be modified and the SR tweaked in exchange for having the spell be of limited practical use. I'd say a "slay hedrack" spell would give a +5 to the save DC vs. hedrack and a +5 to the SR check to get through his SR. The spell would auto-fail against anyone not answering to the name of hedrack.

 

[LostSoul]

I don't know why they'd want to open that can of worms...

Sooner or later somebody would use the same kind of spell on them.

 

[bloodymage]

"Let them eat cake!"

I really, really like ruleslawyer's response. Make it a ritual spell. It would probably be impossible for your party to pull off. It would take something like 3 casters 24 hours to cast! I think any specific death magic should require a ritual. As someone else pointed out, if it were easy (and 5,000gp and 5 weeks is easy) rulers would be offed all the time. Give it an outrageous monetary cost, near impossible material components, an incredible amount of research time and require an intricate and demanding ritual and all those rulers (and your villain) should be safe for some time to come.

 

[Numion]

In my RttToEE Hedrack was a pain in the ass too. He killed so many PCs that I considered starting to count exp for him

I wouldn't let them design such a spell easily, though. It's a bit too much of short-circuiting the problem they can't deal with on their own. Remember that Hedrack isn't a man of few means himself. He could find out about the research for such a spell with his Communion spells or somesuch...

Spoilers.. um I mean even more spoilers
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So, Hedrack killed around 5-6 PCs in my campaign during four different fights. The players mistake was the sanme every time. They let Hedrack prepare. (He was warned through the amulets or something else) Once they had the wits to surprise him with Etherealness, it was easy as a pie. Orc and pie easy, I mean. Killed in one round. It's all in the tactics, not researching insta-kill spells!