Curses

[monkeywithstick]

I've thought about this a few times in the past based on other sandbox environs and I really feel there is a degree of cross-application,

A series of curses, either spells cast, items usable, or curse using magistrate NPCs accesible to a settlement, that have lasting largely RP based effects.

Such could be used as a conflict driver and an additional optional escalation step for conflict or punishment by a settlement before the current mechanical options of a beatdown or murder.

My current thought is that a curse could be recovered from gradually (ie a save on every rest or similar) with remove curse and equivalents providing a hefty bonus to the next recovery roll. How quickly such can be recovered from can be varied by the team to taste (using either DCs or how many succesful saves are needed).
At present curse vs remove curse is a pure binary that to be honest makes curses (and nightmare) a shortlived and largely meaningless debuff because it is so easily removed.

Split into low/mid/high power here are some suggestions.

Fort
Low - Unsightly rash (appears in character description unless covered)
Mid - Hunger pangs (food ticks go faster)
High - Parched (water ticks go faster)

Will
Low - Distraction (appears in character description that character keeps looking past you)
Mid - Occasional Sfx/VfX displaying on the player (maybe Ioun stones, maybe spell noises)
Mid - Language muddling (Chance to kick in letter replacement as per low language skill)
High - Maddening Messages (Occasional ball of light messengers akin to the skull pillar on baator, maybe talking about people in the character's party, could perhaps track server logs for "real events" like X killed Y and intersperse them with randomly generated lies)

Reflex
Low - Clumsy (appears in description, character keeps seeming slightly offbalance)
Mid - Bad luck(Outside of combat, movement has a small chance to trigger the character tripping over something and falling flat on their face - as with drunk)
High - Careless (increased equipment wear)

[The GrumpyCat]

The team recons this could be done, in one manner or another. And I really like the idea. Approved.