Yeah, they're both very bland.
For remove curse, there's an easy bandaid fix: Remove curse must be upcast to remove stronger effects. Sure, you can break the ring of power's hold over the knight, if you cast remove curse at 9th level. Otherwise, you have to follow the plot.
The plot route should be like all cursed items have a custom way of removing them. The sword of betrayal can be removed if you return it to the original owner's crypt. The stones of drowning can be broken if you bury them in the desert under a new moon. The ring of power can be destroyed if you throw it into the volcano where it was forged.
For counterspell, well... Make it an extended check with some options on each exchange. You both declare in secret if you're putting more spell slots or hp into the check, or folding. If you fold, the other person gets their way, but any extra resources they committed are wasted. If neither folds, you roll with bonuses based on what resources you put in. More spell slots or HP or hit dice give you some sort of bonus.
Probably get rid of
counterspellas a spell on its own and just make this a thing you can do. Give wizards some more tactical depth. If you use the same spell you get a bonus to countering. If it's the same school, bonus.Like all of D&D 5e, there's so much you could do that the game just doesn't.
Remove curse must be upcast to remove stronger effects.
It would've been fine if it worked that way, but RAW it just ends the curse, no added effects from upcasting.
Like all of D&D 5e, there's so much you could do that the game just doesn't.
“Like all of D&D, you gotta fix it yourself”; essentially, yeah. He system is rigid so even small flaws must be fixed, tries to stay compatible with older editions so much of the system doesn't make sense to new players, and feels like it wasade hastily to me with its typos and mistakes.
/rantAs written in the spell description of dispel magic, a 3rd level dispel magic also can dispel a 9th level spell with only a check, that didn't stop them from writing some things that explicitly stated that dispel only works for that effect if cast at 9th level.
I've never seen it on a magic item so far, though I've often seen items or monster effects describe it can't be dispelled with anything short of Wish, maybe that's the one?
I am so done with D&D discussions. It's a 10 year old system at this point and the new version won't be meaningfully different. Heck, a lot of it's systems are actually as old as it and it fucking shows.
Play different games. There is an almost unlimited number of them out there. If you stop talking about D&D, if you stop giving it this singular attention, you will feel better and,who know,s the authors of D&D might be forced to actually make something good, as opposed to focus testing subclasses like pasta sauce flavors.
Well, jeez. Didn't mean to spark something. Just for the record - I also dislike D&D. Currently trying to move away from it with a Fallout campaign I got going.
Counterpoint: The overwhelming majority of curses are either crippling or a complete nonissue. Something like mummy rot will quickly kill a character, and curses that impose penalties on stats or rolls either affect something they use, making the character almost useless, or doesn't, so doesn't matter. If you don't want the party remove cursing a specific curse, just make it more powerful than them.
Counterspelling is bad for a similar reason curses are bad, not remove curse - the overwhelming majority of counterspelling mechanics make it either too easy to too hard. Too hard and it's just not worth trying, and too easy makes combat a matter of who has more casters.What exactly does this mean? If you're ignoring remove curse it's because being able to remove a curse with just a spell is boring - the point of a curse in fiction is to be a challenge to remove.
I'm baffled by both the fighting in these comments and the overall vehemence. If you want to put a cool cursed item in your game, just drop it when the players are still too low level to have remove curse...or make it subtle enough that they don't initially realize it's cursed.
EDIT: NVM I just realized you're all trying to ape the critical roll thing and didn't plan for getting player buy-in or homebrew
If you want to put a cool cursed item in your game, just drop it when the players are still too low level to have remove curse…or make it subtle enough that they don’t initially realize it’s cursed.
Or make the item powerful enough that the players are tempted to use it anyway.
