der_kluge
Adventurer
Well, you could just easily require Greater Restoration instead. That might at least make it more difficult.
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D&D General The thread where I review a ton of Ravenloft modules
- Thread starter der_kluge
- Start date
You could - I dunno…that’s one of those things that I hate changing because 1) players expect spells to work and 2) it’s just one of a bunch of spells that change in Ravenloft then.
The issue with magic to remove conditions is that it's really the only method the game gives you to actually do it. Sure, you could shove that stuff to higher level, but D&D is a strange beast where you can already run into things at low levels that require higher level magic to undo. A CR 1/2 Cockatrice can petrify you, and that needs a Greater Restoration, which isn't available until level 9.
This pushes the problem onto the DM to fix, either by having a 9th level NPC caster laying around (which can sometimes lead to narrative plot holes, like "say, if this guy can cast 5th level spells, why is [insert problem PC's are dealing with] an issue again?"*) or having to insert a magic item or workaround like a magic herb which can de-petrify someone.
So because you need a way to deal with curses and diseases and petrification and what have you, you can't remove the magic needed to undo them easily, but that means if the party has access to the right magic, then these things stop being major threats. It's a paradox, and it actually undermines something a lot of people say is a foundational aspect of the current iteration of D&D- that you shouldn't need someone to play a specific character class to successfully play the game.
But the game gets a lot harder if you don't have access to the Cleric spell list- while other classes can have a few spells to deal with problems, the Cleric pretty much gets all of them.
Being a healer is a lot more important than being able to cure hit point damage- I had to educate some of my friends in this when we played Pathfinder 1e. They would say "Oh man, the Life Oracle is way cooler than the Cleric, we'll just play one of those and not have a Cleric!".
Then a few sessions down the road, the inability to just pray for a spell like remove paralysis as needed really hit home (the Oracle could learn it, but it eats up one of their precious "spells known".
I've played with DM's who want to make ongoing conditions matter more, and think to ban or adjust spells that remove them, only to find out to their horror how bad such conditions really are, and then have to deal with how that impacted their games. There's a fine line between "suffering from and debilitating penalty" and "now you're dead".
*I call this The Elminster Problem. The DM decides to have an archmage NPC in an area, then presents the party with a problem that the archmage could deal with without batting an eye. Sure, maybe the archmage is lazy, too busy, has other concerns, wants too much money, what have you, but their existence still has an impact- it's hard to build tension that a town is about to be overrun by a tribe of goblins that the PC's have to struggle with, when there's an obvious solution right there.
Ed Greenwood presented the reason this doesn't happen as the consequence of a "magical cold war", where all the major spellcasters maintain an uneasy peace due to the threat of mutually ensured destruction- though it could have been solved by not having so many high level NPC's running around.
For example, getting back to the point of this thread, the main reason Ravenloft Domains are the way they are is that high level NPC's who aren't Darklords are pretty rare. Barovia doesn't have a 20th level Paladin holding Strahd at bay, and even if it did, they'd either die trying to kill Strahd or succeed...only for the Dark Powers to revive him once said Paladin is no longer around to be a problem (such as what happens when Jander Sunstar defeats Strahd).
This pushes the problem onto the DM to fix, either by having a 9th level NPC caster laying around (which can sometimes lead to narrative plot holes, like "say, if this guy can cast 5th level spells, why is [insert problem PC's are dealing with] an issue again?"*) or having to insert a magic item or workaround like a magic herb which can de-petrify someone.
So because you need a way to deal with curses and diseases and petrification and what have you, you can't remove the magic needed to undo them easily, but that means if the party has access to the right magic, then these things stop being major threats. It's a paradox, and it actually undermines something a lot of people say is a foundational aspect of the current iteration of D&D- that you shouldn't need someone to play a specific character class to successfully play the game.
But the game gets a lot harder if you don't have access to the Cleric spell list- while other classes can have a few spells to deal with problems, the Cleric pretty much gets all of them.
Being a healer is a lot more important than being able to cure hit point damage- I had to educate some of my friends in this when we played Pathfinder 1e. They would say "Oh man, the Life Oracle is way cooler than the Cleric, we'll just play one of those and not have a Cleric!".
Then a few sessions down the road, the inability to just pray for a spell like remove paralysis as needed really hit home (the Oracle could learn it, but it eats up one of their precious "spells known".
I've played with DM's who want to make ongoing conditions matter more, and think to ban or adjust spells that remove them, only to find out to their horror how bad such conditions really are, and then have to deal with how that impacted their games. There's a fine line between "suffering from and debilitating penalty" and "now you're dead".
*I call this The Elminster Problem. The DM decides to have an archmage NPC in an area, then presents the party with a problem that the archmage could deal with without batting an eye. Sure, maybe the archmage is lazy, too busy, has other concerns, wants too much money, what have you, but their existence still has an impact- it's hard to build tension that a town is about to be overrun by a tribe of goblins that the PC's have to struggle with, when there's an obvious solution right there.
Ed Greenwood presented the reason this doesn't happen as the consequence of a "magical cold war", where all the major spellcasters maintain an uneasy peace due to the threat of mutually ensured destruction- though it could have been solved by not having so many high level NPC's running around.
For example, getting back to the point of this thread, the main reason Ravenloft Domains are the way they are is that high level NPC's who aren't Darklords are pretty rare. Barovia doesn't have a 20th level Paladin holding Strahd at bay, and even if it did, they'd either die trying to kill Strahd or succeed...only for the Dark Powers to revive him once said Paladin is no longer around to be a problem (such as what happens when Jander Sunstar defeats Strahd).
So couple of thoughts on this:
1) Cockatrice petrification only lasts for a day and then the PC is fine.
2) Curses and lycanthropy in particular doesn’t take the player out of the game the way petrification does. In fact, it can be a fun aspect to roleplay.
If you have a day to wait, of course. But ok, how about the Basilisk at CR 3? Or the Medusa at CR 6, both of which can be encountered before you have access to greater restoration?
As for curses, that depends. It can be fun to roleplay, and it can turn my character into an NPC under the DM's control that does horrible things, or be a cursed berserking sword that turns the party barbarian on their fellow PC's which could result in the deaths of several characters (had this happen in Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan).
It comes down to what kind of game does WotC (or us) want D&D to be. I think these are reasons why more sacred cows need killing because by and large the game has shifted from a dungeon crawling game where PC death is possible if players aren’t especially careful to a heroic game where overall story matters and while death is possible, it should still be satisfying and never arbitrary.
The answer is probably a mix: There’s no condition put upon by monsters of a certain CR that isn’t curable by spells of a certain level and this is a case where it’s just too broad. The designers should consider that just because Greater Restoration has always been a particular level shouldn’t matter going forward. But I also think this cuts both ways - Zone of Truth is a 2nd level spell that virtually eliminates all manner of interesting stories. It too can be beaten but it puts the onus for that on the DM when the problem is the damn spell is too powerful for its level.
Bedrockgames
Legend
In the old Ravenloft materials Remove Curse was one of the spells subject to change in the Demi-plane. It only temporarily removed the curse. :
Those sections went on for-EV-er too. There were so many changes that any time anyone cast a spell, you’d be looking up the effects and usually the player didn’t know in advance because that was supposed to be part of the horror - finding out your spell was twisted or ineffective in some way!
Doesn't Zone of Truth allow for a saving throw at least? Plus, this line of text makes it difficult to employ (at least that's been my experience):
An affected creature is aware of the spell and can thus avoid answering questions to which it would normally respond with a lie. Such a creature can be evasive in its answers as long as it remains within the boundaries of the truth.
der_kluge
Adventurer
Dark of the Moon 
This adventure is set in Vorostokov, yet another domain the 5e VRGtR seems to have forgotten about. It’s got a Russian feel to it, and at 300 miles across, mostly arctic-like conditions, and a grand total population of, like, 1,000 people not a terribly interesting place. The adventure, for PCs of 5-8th level, starts with sucking the PCs, who are presumably minding their own business, with a blast of arctic air, a dead hunter, and an attack by a mist wolf which apparently shunts each PC into the domain one at a time with its misty bite. I don’t know what happens if the wolf misses, or the party kills it, however. I guess the GM is free to keeping adding wolves until that happens…
What follows is 3-4 pages of DM torture porn, where the PCs must survive the arctic cold. Eventually, the group is set upon by a werewolf and 10 wolves. In what is described as a near-TPK of a fight, and the GM is encouraged to kill characters “if the dice and the player tactics dictate that result.” The goal here is to try and inflict lycanthropy upon at least one PC, and if a PC or two dies in the process, I guess that’s OK, too. Regardless of how this turns out, we fast-forward to the night, where the PCs meet Mikhail, some hunter from the local village who has a campsite out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a list of questions you can give to Mikhail, including his answers; unfortunately, one of the questions isn’t “How in the hell are you still alive in this frigid land of ravenous wolves?”
In chapter 2, the PCs leave this village and are meant to head to the village of Kirinova. They can do this if they wish to take down the villain, Gregor, or to just try and find a way out of this accursed land. Any other options meet with failure. “Give them a fair shot to do whatever they are trying, and when it fails, resume the adventure…” Choo-choo, baby! On the way to Kirinova, more DM torture porn – and more heavy-handed combat. Once in Kironova, they find all the people dead, and Gregor is there once again with his men, and another fight ensues in what the module describes as “an extremely difficult battle for the PCs”. There are 45 total bodies in the village. At this rate, the entire domain will be dead in, like, two months.
If the PCs lose the fight, there is a good chance they get captured, and are forced into lycanthropy by Gregor, who then controls them. He then releases them into the wilds so he can hunt them. PCs who fail to come up with a good plan on how to avoid this plan, are probably just killed. If they manage to get to the village, they’ll meet two witches, Natalya and Elena, who are Gregor’s sisters. They try and enlist the party’s help to kill Gregor.
In chapter 3… you know what, I’m tapping out. There are so many problems with this module, I can find no hope of redemption here. The entire thing is just a heavy-handed DM torture porn device and plot railroad. The PCs aren’t going to care about any of this. They’re only going to be interested in leaving this Russia-like domain and will only go along with the story at this point if it actually means finishing it. Honestly, the best outcome here is for the party to just TPK in the first ridiculously hard fight. At least then they’ll get to make new characters and start a new campaign.
This adventure is set in Vorostokov, yet another domain the 5e VRGtR seems to have forgotten about. It’s got a Russian feel to it, and at 300 miles across, mostly arctic-like conditions, and a grand total population of, like, 1,000 people not a terribly interesting place. The adventure, for PCs of 5-8th level, starts with sucking the PCs, who are presumably minding their own business, with a blast of arctic air, a dead hunter, and an attack by a mist wolf which apparently shunts each PC into the domain one at a time with its misty bite. I don’t know what happens if the wolf misses, or the party kills it, however. I guess the GM is free to keeping adding wolves until that happens…
What follows is 3-4 pages of DM torture porn, where the PCs must survive the arctic cold. Eventually, the group is set upon by a werewolf and 10 wolves. In what is described as a near-TPK of a fight, and the GM is encouraged to kill characters “if the dice and the player tactics dictate that result.” The goal here is to try and inflict lycanthropy upon at least one PC, and if a PC or two dies in the process, I guess that’s OK, too. Regardless of how this turns out, we fast-forward to the night, where the PCs meet Mikhail, some hunter from the local village who has a campsite out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a list of questions you can give to Mikhail, including his answers; unfortunately, one of the questions isn’t “How in the hell are you still alive in this frigid land of ravenous wolves?”
In chapter 2, the PCs leave this village and are meant to head to the village of Kirinova. They can do this if they wish to take down the villain, Gregor, or to just try and find a way out of this accursed land. Any other options meet with failure. “Give them a fair shot to do whatever they are trying, and when it fails, resume the adventure…” Choo-choo, baby! On the way to Kirinova, more DM torture porn – and more heavy-handed combat. Once in Kironova, they find all the people dead, and Gregor is there once again with his men, and another fight ensues in what the module describes as “an extremely difficult battle for the PCs”. There are 45 total bodies in the village. At this rate, the entire domain will be dead in, like, two months.
If the PCs lose the fight, there is a good chance they get captured, and are forced into lycanthropy by Gregor, who then controls them. He then releases them into the wilds so he can hunt them. PCs who fail to come up with a good plan on how to avoid this plan, are probably just killed. If they manage to get to the village, they’ll meet two witches, Natalya and Elena, who are Gregor’s sisters. They try and enlist the party’s help to kill Gregor.
In chapter 3… you know what, I’m tapping out. There are so many problems with this module, I can find no hope of redemption here. The entire thing is just a heavy-handed DM torture porn device and plot railroad. The PCs aren’t going to care about any of this. They’re only going to be interested in leaving this Russia-like domain and will only go along with the story at this point if it actually means finishing it. Honestly, the best outcome here is for the party to just TPK in the first ridiculously hard fight. At least then they’ll get to make new characters and start a new campaign.
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