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View Full Version : Sacrifices for powerful spells to replace material components?



JennTora
2013-10-24, 11:47 PM
I had this idea just now and I'm... kinda sleepy so it may be stupid, but I don't think it is. I do, however, tend to think material components and xp costs are stupid as well as boring. The idea would be if you want to cast something like wish or true res, or miracle, you have to permanently give up something and it can't be returned without divine intervention. There would of course be corresponding stat penalties. I prefer this because it seems far more flavorful than "zap goes bigass diamond, now you is alive."
Examples might include:

Permanent loss of a body part: hand, eye, ear, etc.

The capacity to feel a particular emotion (would have to assign penalties to each emotion, will work this out later, but most likely would burn charisma and certain appropriate skills. Sacrificing bravery would mean automatically failing saving throws against fear effects. Sacrificing fear is harder to quantify...)

A loved one (again, with some kind of penalty attached. Your alignment would certainly change to evil as well if it wasn't already.)

I think some wishes will be worth losing an eye to some wizards. You'd still probably have to pay gated outsiders and such the normal way, though a demon might rather take your hand than a bunch of gold. What do demons and devils do with gold anyway?


I know it's really unlikely that I'm the first to think of this, but I've not seen it on here. If it is can someone link it?