Torturing a PC and leaving a lasting effect (my players stay out)

[Rashak Mani]

Hhhmm... most physical effects of torturing can be magically taken away or neglected by the player. (Wildshape back and forth restores original form without scars ?) Though I liked the brand on the forehead idea !

I say the torture should be more mental than anything else. Possibly magical and symbolic torture marks on his chest that are constantly painful... not much... just enough to disrupt concentration (-3 to concentration). Or even better a permanent -1 Will Save penalty. Basically part of his willpower has been affected by the traumatizing torture. Especially in the hand of a "fellow" nature lover. (Dark Druids like nature I suppose).

Give him 3 nasty scars on his chest too...

 

[Wippit Guud]

DM perogative... can you force a template on him?

Make him a symbiate, graft a wolverine to him... then he becomes gelatinous... then he becomes corrupt...

But then, I'm an evil DM

 

[Arravis]

I'd go to athas.org and take a look at some of the more... interesting creatures there.
Ear Seeker would be an excelleng choice for the task .

 

[Calico_Jack73]

DM perogative... can you force a template on him?

Make him a symbiate, graft a wolverine to him... then he becomes gelatinous... then he becomes corrupt...

But then, I'm an evil DM

Have the evil druid inject him with werewolf saliva every night until the next full moon (just to make sure that the disease took effect). The evil druid could then cut the good druid loose in the middle of a small village that the good druid is familiar with just before the full moon rises. In addition to the slow degeneration to Chaotic Evil the good druid will see the results of his handiwork when he returns to the town and finds children partially eaten and townsfolk he knew and loved killed at his own hands.

MUA-HA-HA-HA!!!!

 

[Endur]

For permanent stuff, you could make it curable by heal, regenerate, or limited wish/wish. A penalty they'll remember for a while, but it will eventually be healable when the characters are higher level or when a high level friend helps them.

I'm not a big fan of leaving permanent disadvantages/marks on PC's. Either because I'm a softy, or beacuse I hate it when it happens to my PC's.

 

[Rel]

I'm not sure if you're looking for a purely mechanical idea or something more roleplaying/psychological oriented. What I'd probably do is this:

Have the "Dark Druid" first cast the various Regenerate X Wounds (from Masters of the Wild). Then summon all sorts of natural creatures via Summon Nature's Ally or Summon Swarm and that sort of thing. These creatures would be instructed to do various nasty things like chew out the Druid's eyes or eat his entrails and so forth. This damage would heal as fast as it was inflicted of course.

Once the Druid is free again, how could he ever take a new Animal Companion or Summon Nature's Ally for these same types of creatures without thinking of what they did to him? I suspect that he'd either be VERY reluctant to summon them ("What if they turned on me?!") or else he'd happily send them to their deaths against his foes.

I've got really good players (including one who plays a Druid) and I think they'd portray the impact of such an experience pretty well.

 

[StalkingBlue]

What I'd probably do first in a situation like this is talk to the druid's player.

Any mechanic disadvantage will likely dampen the player's enjoyment in playing the character - unless there's hope on the horizon for the effect to be lifted in mid-term once the group gains acess to more powerful / rarer magic than they currently do.

The success of any RP disadvantage depends heavily on what the player likes/dislikes doing. You might give them a great opportunity for character development or you might completely screw up their character for them, and there's no way of knowing which until you inflict it - or talk to the player about it to see what their stance is.

 

[Black_Swan]

This might be fun...

1.) The evil druid doesn't touch him...instead he sets up two pools of water next to his victim..

In one pool the PC can see his friends as they attempt to rescue him.

In another pool the evil druid is seen in the Druids grove...(If he needs to torture the Druid for location before hand then so be it.)

Everytime the Pc's friends rest or kill one of the evil Druids henchman the Evil Druid destroy's part of his grove. All the while the Druids henchman tell the Pc's how the PC Druid has already switched sides. That he doesn't want to be rescued.

You should run this with the guy in one room and the other players in another.

So you get the suspense of the characters trying to reach the Druid without knowing that he's watching. Anything they say can be heard by him...
While the evil Druid is methodically destroying this guys grove. All the while the evil Druid is trying to convert him...

2) Hell if you want you could have the druid sitting with two children and their mother. People he's captured for this little experiment.

The druid makes the PC a deal...if he organizes the defense against his PC's friends and successfully keeps them from reaching the chamber then the PC can choose which of the three dies...

If he refuses then the Druid will kill one of the children in front of the mother...Evil Druids choice.

If he instead swears to apprentice himself to the druid for a period of a year and follow all of his instruction submitting himself to some sort of geas or compulsion that will force him to do so, then he'll let the entire family go.

If he accepts the Evil Druid and the Newly converted Pc wait until the PC's arrive and you can keep the captured PC in the game by discussing his new philosophy and how he should keep it their secret, while the other PC's fight to fiond their friend.

Eventually the evil druid leaves and now you've got either a converted or sincerely pissed of player who has witnesses to how he cause the death of a child or in the case of choice #1 the Druid should be pretty upset over the other PC's rescue attempt.

 

[Tuzenbach]

This happened to one of my players back in '94 when we were still using the 1E rules. It so happened that a certain Drow Fighter/Magic-User (who was chaotic evil, so he didn't seem to mind) was afflicted with a horrible curse! You see, he touched an idol that had a sign saying "Do not touch!" clearly hanging from it. Reverse psychology will get them every time! Ha!

Anyway, when ever the character would touch living plants, two things would happen:

1. The plants would slowly whither and die.

2. The character's strength would temporarily leave him and he'd become nauseous for a little while (I don't know the stats for this, sorry).

AFAIK, the curse was pretty much irreversible unless removed from a VERY HIGH level cleric. And actually, being evil, the character saw it as more of a "secret weapon" than anything else.

What eventually ended up happening was the character had to wear gloves while in heavily forested areas and have his other body parts well protected lest an "accident" transpire. He only used his power in times of emergencies.

At first, though, I didn't realize that killing living plants on contact could be advantageous for an evil character. When the guy went around defoliating large amounts of jungle, I knew there was a problem. "All of a sudden, you feel weak.....VERY VERY WEAK!" LoL

Anyway, the PSYCHOLOGICAL effect of a Druid not being able to touch his beloved plants without killing them might be just what you're looking for.

 

[Kesh]

I'll echo the sentiment earlier: talk with the druid's player. Find out what he/she would like to role-play, and then figure out how it would work. If they simply balk at Rping the trauma, then drop it.