Curses in D&D suck UNLESS you do this

Why curses in D&D suck and how to fix them.

#dungeonsanddragons #dungeonmaster #gamemaster

[rhodrym]

Identify does not reveal that an item is cursed... "Most methods of identifying items, including the identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse, although lore might hint at it. A curse should be a surprise to the item’s user when the curse’s effects are revealed." (DMG 138-139)

[abyssalreclass]

The upside/downside curses remind me of the curse from the first pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Upsides
- You cannot die

Downsides
- You still have desires to eat/drink/etc, but you are unable to satisfy them
- You take the form of a skeleton in moonlight
- You cannot die

[darttgaming]

I have a player who was playing an elven samurai. He asked for a cool katana. I decided to run with it. I created a sword called "The Red Tutor". This katana could not be identified while it was sitting in its sheath, and would only allow a character to wield it if it agreed to its terms. It was sentient and had a personality and communicated via telepathy. It demanded a blood tithe. If the sword wasn't blooded, it would animate and cut its wielder prior to being sheathed. In return, it would mentor the character, granting a free feat after 5 levels worth of continuous use.

[tsukihime]

A curse I used that my players liked was for a homebrew item, the wand of rats. Once you get the wand, you get a rat familiar. However it’s a hungry rat and if you forget to feed it, the rat will eat holes into your things instead.

[Karma]

I'm a relatively new DM who's not afraid to .. flex my powers of creation.. to the benefit and detriment of my first real victi... erm, I mean player group. For our first campaign I had them create characters that were going to a continent none of them had been to before, for their own various reasons. Pretty much everyone arrives on this new continent in the same northeastern port city, because of the geographical layout of the world, and of course my players' characters were no exception. As they wandered around town, it became a very obvious choice to go to the wizard's guild to look for work (since they weren't interested in the mining jobs that were otherwise very readily available due to a local policy on a "worker exchange program"). Little did my players know that the proper head of the wizard's guild was replaced by an incredibly powerful overload of the abyssal planes who happened to borrow a pretty good looking half-human's body to affect the material realm. So they arrive to sign up for new work, and lo and behold are required to sign a contract with a pen that uses their own blood for ink. Thankfully the characters were rather rash, and managed to tease the one person who insisted on trying to read the encyclopedia-sized contract into feeling embarrassed about their mistrust, so they all ended up signing it. The head wizard even gave them all a large coin-like token to keep with them to show they were on an important task from this head wizard. Little did they know that they were signing an agreement to become the cursed servants of this overlord. They had unwittingly agreed to do his bidding, accepting whatever conditions he set forth, and releasing the overlord from any obligation to remunerate the characters in any way. So this overlord sends the players off to do whatever dirty work he needs done, that at first mostly involved getting rid of goblins and orcs that were trying to take up residence in some nearby caves, that just so happened to be the place this overlord was attempting to establish his stronghold. The players were pretty much clueless that anything was amiss until they ran into a band of goblins, on their 3rd such job. Coincidentally the troop of goblins had a shaman who recognized the players from a vision he had experienced during the very same vision quest that sent him to loot the cave system they were all currently in. This shaman managed to convince the party to stop fighting long enough to hear him out (even though the players killed a couple goblins and an orc that had put down their weapons while the shaman tried to convince the players he had an important message). He told the players that his vision involved two celestial temples, each containing an artifact that was really a two-part artifact, and was the only way to end the darkness of "the greatest evil" that was currently sweeping the land in darkness that wasn't quite obvious to regular eyes. The party then finished the job they were on for the head of the wizards guild while suspicions built up. It wasn't until the head wizard summoned the party back to the starting town against their desires and essentially dressed them down like dogs for being out of contact for so long (almost 5 days) and basically forced them into another job that they knew for sure who they had to face. Little did they know the tokens they received allowed the overlord to listen to their conversations, track their locations and to speak at them at all times. They just knew they were getting good work, and they only had to pay a 20% commission to the overlord for all the loot they got on any particular job - a "finder's fee" type arrangement. Now they know they're working for something worse than the devil, and after a few visions, some deep digging, and a bit of side-questing have learned of a mostly-mortal being powerful enough to overcome the effect the tokens have, as a representation of the contract they signed magically in their own blood, of their own free will. Little did they know, that very free will they used was more and more at peril, the longer they were bound by the contract for an extended period of time, and their own souls were in terrible danger once they had lost their free will. They also didn't know that the mostly-mortal being, an enchantress, would be a terrible french clichee (although we're still calling it "very ancient elvish", not french), who "only" requires the soul of a basically newborn infant to help them out. Thankfully, and unbeknownst to the party, not too far away, a baby destined for great evil had recently been born and left with a single-father who always wanted a child... but the choice was up to the party.

It will turn out that the abyssal overlord was so powerful in the abyssal planes that he couldn't escape the abyssal plane without using a kind of inanimate vessel to hold his essence in the material plane long enough to establish a base in the material plane that would be strong enough to keep his presence on the material plane and thus, prevent his unwilling return to the abyssal plane and enabling him to rule over the material plane, remaking it in his terrifying and horrific image. And thinking himself clever, and having a rather large essence, he thought of splitting it into two (thus the two-part artifact) pieces giving him two places to store the force that kept him a threat, rather than just one. It will also turn out that he's entirely too powerful for the players to fight, in the traditional sense, so they're in the process of discovering that destroying these two artifact pieces near enough the overlord will cause a kind of backlash effect that will return him, rather painfully, to the abyssal planes and most likely debilitate him for millenia.

We're still in the process of seeing how things turn out, but I'd like to imagine that the players are having a rather unique experience with the first curse I .. 'shared'.. with them. At least, they turn up every week excited to hear the recap of the previous week and to find out what the heck is going to happen next! All because I felt empowered to be creative and to try to come up with something that maybe wasn't in every book every written about fantasy conflicts and the heroes that solved them. I hope you all are inspired to find your own crazy twists in the worlds you've created, or play in, and that they keep you on your toes the entire time! Best of games to you!

[baobhan]

10 Curses i have used as a DM in my Games:

-Curse of Sunlight Sensitivity (self explanatory, see drow)
-Curse of madness: Roll on the temp madness table, thats what you get
-Curse of Feeble-mindedness: Each day roll 1d8 and reduce int score by the result
-Curse of Bloodlust: Missed attack rolls deal X damage to YOU (the type of the weapon, might be 5 slashing damage on a 1d10 sword)
-Curse of Lethality: You are INCAPABLE of attacking nonlethaly. (this one was actually REALLY fun)
-Curse of Modest Pick a skill, whenever they would make a check with that skill, they automatically roll a 5.
-Curse of the Zealous Monk: The player cannot remove exhaustion with rest, and rest does not relieve exhaustion. (Con saves every night or gain exhaustion till death)
-Curse of Hideous Form: The character automatically fails all persuasion or deception checks, but has advantage on all intimidation checks
-Curse of Mercy: The character must undertake all actions non-lethally or receive psychic damage as per the Geas spell.
-Curse of Misfortune: You treat all Natural 20s as if they were natural 1s.

[BeastmasterRanger]

Something I made for one of my players for our game. Their character took a curse at the beginning of the game and has gotten worse over the course of the game.

Crowned Skull
Magic item (Cursed)
This crown of black stygian iron is emblazoned with bone in the shape of skulls on each of its nine spikes. You know this bone to belong to dead kins men. The sensation of brutal violence lingers on the edge of your mind reminding you that you were the lone survivor of a horrible ritual. You know that with your actions of violence you brought the ritual to completion. You wear this crown as a remembrance to your fallen kin. You are unable to discard this crown as it always appears back on your head and causes you a sensation of a painful loss. The skulls now shift a twist changing from miniature feline skulls to miniature teifling skulls. Whispers come from the crown and always seem to be in the back of your mind.
Curse: All creature within 30ft of you (yourself included) have disadvantage on fear checks. If a creature is immune to fear they instead have advantage on a fear checks and can be effected by fear while within 30ft of you.
Curse: Creatures you try talking to can see the demonic aspects of your nature. This can cause disadvantage on social checks on certain creatures. It can also cause intimidation checks to have advantage.
Demonic Boon: As an action you can cast the fear spell as a cleric spell using your save DC without expending a spell slot. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
Demonic Boon: Obsidian Jaw- you teeth have gained an obsidian aspect. You now have a melee bite attack. This uses strength. You inflict 1d6 piercing damage and d12 necrotic damage. This crits on a 19 or a 20.

[katieschmid]

I'm a big fan of the upside/downside curses. Say the player identifies the magic Shield they found, and discover that it's a +2 Shield of Arrow Attraction, and that if they cast Remove Curse on it, it becomes a +1 Shield.

[captaindesperado]

One of my players (a somewhat naive paladin) got a sentient Berserker Axe inhabited by a devil that would try to influence his actions. The weapon would evolve (more damage and adding additional HP to the paladin) while also making exiting the berserk stage more difficult and lead to him nearly killing a few of the other players. The characters didn't know it was due to the axe, removed the curse and fought the devil, but he kept using the axe so it came back and continued growing stronger. It's been one of the most fun elements of the past year or so in my campaign, balancing out the danger of the berserk paladin while also having to acknowledge how much more efficient he is while holding the weapon as well as the fear of fighting the stronger version of the devil.

[aaroncruze]

My brother once gave us an earing that a goblin shaman had. It was able to translate any spoken language into goblin, and thus be a universal translator for the shaman. As for the rest of our party, none of us could speak goblin so the earing causes all language to sound like gobbledygook. This double edged sword type of curse are what I find to be the best.

[IIIGioGioStarIII]

At my table, Remove Curse functions a little differently. For small things like personality changes (quirks like "I want this thing forever" and "I'm always greedy") Remove Curse functions as normal. But things like lycanthrope, alignment changes, disfigurement, and things that can kill the player or harm them (like lowering their stats), Remove Curse is a bandaid. It suppresses the curse but does not remove it. If they want to remove the curse, they need to find someone who knows how to do some kind of ritual/spell to remove said curse. And often times, it requires more adventuring in order for them to cleanse said item.

[cainen]

Just made a cused item, the ethereal locket. When activated the user is shifted into a spectral form and cannot interact with the physical realm. The curse is every time you use it your body become a little more faded. Every teir of spectral fade gives debuffs to constitution and strength until finally you become a full ghost and are presumed dead

[wyliecapp]

I've used curses several times either for consequences of characters not being cautious or as part of a plot. I also don't let Remove Curse spell just end the curse. The first casting gives you directions on how to remove the curse, the 2nd casting with the conditions met remove it.
I'm a huge fan of the curse gradually gaining power if it's ignored, and I very rarely tell players it happened directly, but rather let the curses evolution show it. I also use Cataclysm rolls to determine the steps, so it would typically start as a d20 roll each day until a natural 20 is rolled, then the next step starts and the die size is reduced, in this case to a d12.

Example, Cursed Shield of Senses. This shield looks exactly like a Sentinel Shield and grants the same benefits until the curse progresses. As long as the shield is in the possession of the player or within 100ft (even through a portable hole or bag of holding) the effects progress. If the cursed object is further than 100ft, the curse doesn't progress, but also does not subside. To remove the curse, the Shield must be willingly taken by another creature unknowing of the curse (this makes it morally grey even to get rid of) and then a Remove Curse spell can be preformed. Each day while in the person's possession roll a Cataclysm Die, the curse progresses on the maximum roll of that die. Each effect stacks.
D20. Advantage on Perception checks.
D12. -5 to Perception rolls.
D10. Passive Perception reduced by 10
D8. Additional -5 to Perception checks.
D6. Additional -5 to passive Perception.
D4. Character is entirely blind and deaf.
Final. Even removing the curse fails to reverse the effects. Only a diety or powerful extraplanar creature (typically CR 20 or higher) can remove the blindness and deafness. The curse must be removed before they can remove the effects.

In this case I just kept quiet about the penalties until the player realized even with a good roll, they didn't see as well as their allies did. When they looked into it, that's when they noticed the curse.
Before people get upset that I cursed my player, they were literally in a city run by cultists and very evil creatures, and bought the item without ever thinking it was suspicious that the vendor eagerly sold it at a massive discount. I gave the player like 5 clues that it was probably a bad idea to use it. He didn't care cause his character would have easily been fooled.

[Opherrons]

i made a crown of deception.
it has 7 points one for each copy of the curse.
when identified it was known it would give the wearer +7 to deception (one for each copy).
once attuned it was revealed it give a -2 to persuasion for each copy making it -14.
once remove curse was cast on it it would remove one of the points on the crown and remove the remove curse spell from the players prepared spell list making them have to spend a long rest to prevent spam curse removals.
it was cursed by an ancient hag, so yeah..

[adamalton]

Reminds me of the Bonesaw Vorpal blade Seth Skorkowski did a video on. The blade was amazing but it was sentient, a weirdo, and didn’t shut up.

[genostellar]

I like coming up with different names for different levels of things. When you gave Hexes as the lowest level of curse, I was hoping there would be a new name for each level, but that didn't happen. Might I suggest the lowest level be called a Jinx? Then have Hex be higher up, then maybe Blighted? Maybe the highest level is Damned? Naming things tend to give those things more relevance and impact, I feel.

[NumbSkull]

I really enjoy Ghostfire Gaming's take on curses in the Grim Hollow Campaign Guide; it does a lot of the things you've said here, but also includes a progression system where the curse gets worse whenever specific triggers occur. They act similar to Spellcasting (with some extra steps), and technically count as levelled spells in and of themselves, with certain curses being accessible to particular classes' spell lists

[brilliantcut]

Shield of Missile Attraction. It's cursed. It makes ranged attacks target the bearer instead of their allies within 10feet. It also gives resistance to those attacks.
I haven't met a tank yet who doesn't think that's a desirable effect. I gave a party the option between the Shield of Missile Attraction and the Shield of Arrow Catching, and they went with Missile Attraction.

[kwagmeijer]

a caveat to "curses having an upside" I like the idea of getting an upside for removing the curse. for example, my players get cursed to only be able to speak and understand sylvan, but when they break the curse (through a quest) they still retain their ability to speak and understand sylvan, they just get all of their original languages back too.

[darcyw]

You are the best Luke! I love that you aren't doin the sleazy "here's how you do things better... just buy my product". You offer the solution and then offer the hard copy. Your homebrew ideas are awesome. You and your team are knocking it out of the park. I love curses and these ideas will be very helpful. Many thanks! Also, one thing would be great. Chapterizing the video would make it easier to go back and rewatch certain sections.