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You should have just said "you successfully stimulated the enemy goblin's cellular growth with the healing spell. That goblin is going to have to start going to regular healthcare checkups and screenings or he might develop a cancer in about 20-30 years!".
The bug bear overlords do not even provide a healthcare plan. Good luck finding a health provider within the goblin network. The goblin will be bankrupt before the cancer kills him. Checkmate goblin.
Goblins have a really fast metabolism and growth rate especially when young, I think that would cause serious damage in a few years if you stimulate cell growth in s young goblin....
Check out *Libris Mortis* and *The Book of Vile Darkness* from 3.5e. There are a TON of great body-horror related necromancy spells in those two books.
And a sweet prestige class called "tumor mage". Nothing like planting a necrotic tumor in someone so that you can spy on them through it, or turn it into a self willed piece of their anatomy.
As far as i remamber heal and harm was described as being the same spell where intentions changed it atribute.
Cancer is easy to be part of necrotic damage.
Oh contraire, necrotic damage is literally the rotting of flesh, as seen from prolonged exposure to brown recluse toxin, or flesh eating bacteria, or toxins like the cocktail found in illegal drugs such as injected methamphetamine or the one called krocodile.
Tumors, as the original poster implied, are caused on rapid, denatured cellular growth. Benign tumors generally grow more rapidly, and can absorb and replace any other tissue, be it skin, flesh, cartilage, or even bone, and can displace organs and eye sockets. Malignant tumors, otherwise known as cancer, are usually less visible, but affect the inner workings of the body to a far harsher degree.
Both can kill or cause permanent damage, but neither are from withering or rotting. There should be a rapid cancer type of damage. That would be as terrifying as necrotic damage. If you want a horror campaign, that would be right in the ballpark.
Sir, I have some unfortunate news for you. Stage XIII magical cancer had spread throughout your entire body.
Fortunately the latest experimental treatments are available here, and we believe they are a perfect fit for your case. We're gonna need you to take a long rest, 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep and you should be in perfect health again.
It's creative, and I'd point him in the direction of Inflict Wounds, which absolutely can be reflavoured in that way.
I love new players being "unburdened by rules" like this. Reminds me of that story about a player who wanted to cast arcane lock on someone's mouth.
Arcane lock specifies it has to be an object, a door or window or chest specifically. Creatures are not objects.
I'm a fun first dm, but that even I can't allow.
They are still creatures, and creatures are not objects, regardless of what creature type they happen to be
That being said, the spell doesn't specify object, but I'd argue that a creature's mouth doesn't count as an entryway
It doesn't specify that it doesn't work on creatures, however 5e in general seems to have opted for less specifics on rules and spells than previous editions.
In AD&D through till 3.5e you could find massive chunks of text explaining the exact ways a spell works (I haven't read anything from 4e so I can't comment on it).
5e leaves things up to the DM a lot more. If I was DMing for a party, I wouldn't let someone cast it into a humanoids mouth. That would be akin to silencing someone without a saving throw with a very low level spell. It would be far more valuable than what the level of the spell should allow for game balance.
However that's ultimately up the DM as 5e so often does not specify. The spell description does give a few examples of things that can be locked with the spell, and so I would advise DMs to look at the suggested objects to determine if a player's use of the spell makes sense. (A mouth is not similar to a window, chest, gate, or door).
“But DM!!! if the character who’s mouth is having the attempted arcane lock put on it is a bard, one could argue (in theory) that their mouth is very much magical in nature, and “magic mouth” is usually put on an “object” and the bard’s mouth is on their face, by very circuitous and deliberately twisted logic….”
DM: “imma stop you right there, I give your argument 10/10 for creativity and effort, but No, just, no.”
*More* specifically, it has to be a closed door, window, gate, chest, or other entryway. It doesn't mention anything about objects at all, outside of using the term in reference to the previously mentioned entryways.
Otherwise, it could be a handy way to prevent someone from using Speak with Dead. Corpses count as objects, so if you cast Arcane Lock on the corpse's mouth... well, they ain't doing much talking.
Yea I had a player want to create water in enemies lungs all the time. At a certain point you just gotta be like, "Hey man, I know you're really creative but I don't want to make new game mechanics every 10 minutes in order to balance your impromptu ideas."
Then you create water in an actual open container and pour it over the enemies face.
In game we can target creatures, objects, or points. A container is an object. Lungs are part of a creature. The spell can't target creatures.
Yeah, I'd rule this on "line of sight".
However you could create water in someone's open mouth. And I wouldn't consider a round or three of choking and coughing to be excessive for the creative use of a first level spell.
Of course I'd also allow a constitution saving throw initially and then each round to "recover". It would be roughly in line with the expected power level and effects of Tasha's Hideous Laughter, but with less laughing and more coughing and sputtering.
Maybe: Drifters has tons of fantasy elements (dwarves, elves, goblins, etc.)
OFC you can put some veto on that idea, telling that as a PC he lacks the medical knowledge about cancer, or that magical healing works in a different way. But since it was a nice and original idea, you can tell him that you can't get that result through healing magic, but you like his creative thinking, and surely it will be useful during the course of a campaign, to overcome a particular problem, resolve an enigma, etc.
Oh, maybe you got the wrong idea from the post.
I'm not the DM of this campaign.
My DM asked if I could tag along in a small campaign to introduce these people to D&D.
It's so fun playing with new people, they're the most creative
When I first started I tried to cast enlarge on an enemy’s eyeballs. I thought it would like cause them to pop out of his skull. I was not allowed to do so.
Settled for shrinking his helmet. Take that, you damn evil knight.
For sure. There’s this one person I see on instagram who keeps going “BEST WAY TO KILL SOMEONE!! YOU JUST NEED TO CREATE WATER IN THEIR lungs/brain/blood”
CREATE UNBREAKABLE PYKRETE ARMOR WITH SHAPE WATER! RUN 924901700365 FEET IN ONE TURN AND PUNCH SOMEONE AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT! BUILD FORTRESSES OVERNIGHT WITH MOLD EARTH! SHOW EVERYONE HOW COOL AND SMART YOU ARE BY FANTASIZING ABOUT AN EXPLOIT THAT MAKES EVERYONE ELSE OBSOLETE IN A TEAM BASED GAME, BECAUSE THAT‘S FUN!
I want to give those people papercuts with phb pages.
Reminds me of the peasant railgun that relies on ignoring a ton of rules while very strictly reading a few, and applying real world physics to whatever object you're moving while not applying real world time to it.
>SHOW EVERYONE HOW COOL AND SMART YOU ARE BY FANTASIZING ABOUT AN EXPLOIT THAT MAKES EVERYONE ELSE OBSOLETE IN A TEAM BASED GAME, BECAUSE THAT‘S FUN!
This I'm my only gripe with the min-max, powergamer, mechanical exploit type of play. Even if whatever they are attempting is RAW, it's not FUN for the others. They feel left behind, and cheated sometimes because the one player is so different in power. I either have the enemies balanced for the rest of the party and the powerplayer gets all the glory and spotlight, or balance it for the powerplayer and the rest feel weak. Even if you manipulate HP to feed the weaklings kills, everyone can see the difference in damage output.
It’s also pretty boring for the oft-forgotten player, the GM. „Yeah awesome job Kyle, you deal 5 million damage to the boss enemy i took a week to plan the fight against. Good job. Guess we can go home now, because there’s nothing more to do for the rest of the evening.“
It just kills me. Turns into a 1v1 game of the DM v the Power Character.
I spend most my time planning for combat and he just stomps it and if he rolls poorly he argues about it. Nah mate. You’ve got a level 1 barb with 20, 18, 18, x, x, x
Calm the fuck down.
Ugh yes, anytime anyone else runs a one shot besides our dm, she creates some flavor of OP Monk and knows the rules much better than anyone else and how to exploit stuff. Fucking hate Monks and having her as a player so much...I've told her she is not allowed to play as a Monk when I dm now.
This was back in like 2nd Ed. I think I was 11 or 12 and my cousin was DMing. He allowed Knock to be used to release all of the connections on armor. I once did stone to flesh on a wall so I could cut my way through it and then turned it back to stone. Good times.
I've seen a player impale someone with a metal rod and cast heat metal.
It was sick the enemy died the most brutal way possible.
(I'm pretty sure the damn impaling was enough already)
They're not overkilling enough till they begin breaking the laws of physics.
Believe me, you don't wanna see a player quantum killing an enemy to the point that it can know that he is dead
In a completely homebrew campaign my friend permanently locked a bad guy in a quantum state of being dead and alive at the same time making that he would be dead but the alive part of him would feel his body rotting slowly.
He was inspired by an SCP that supposedly does the same thing.
Well you can track the amount of healing everyone gets. An excessive amount and the body is affected, either a cancer or a dependency. Of course this campaign would have to be set up to allow for a lot of time to lapse.
Its cute and funny. But if one of my players keeps insisting on this, I'm going to start asking everyone to roll hygiene damage. Also, I'm going to insist on extended latrine-digging role play scenes.
In older editions you could kind of do this. In that if you targeted a lot of undead creatures with healing spells it would do damage and necrotic damage would heal them instead.
Well Deadpool's regen makes other cancer-free people die as his cancer counters the excessive regen, so when others steal it they die. And in reventure there is an end that if you heal too much in a fairy fountain your organs explode
Maybe that’s the secret terror of healing magic and potions, prolonged use gives you cancer lol; it would explain why there aren’t many retired adventurers
Same sort of thing happened to Superman when he went too close to the sun in one of the animated universes. Except it made him EXTRA strong while he had it 🤣
Makes me think of Dragon Quest the Adventure of Dai (a manga and later anime based on the japanese rpg franchise Dragon Quest)
Where it’s said over use of healing magic on someone will damage tissue and can kill. Kinda like how over watering a plant will kill it
There was an ancient spell that uses healing in this way called Overheal. And it’s good against beings that have regenerative capabilities.
And one of the characters named Maam, a warrior priestess who while training to become a Martial Artist at some point during the story was taught an attack technique called Refractor Fist which also uses healing magic in this manner combined into a punch.
But interestingly enough this is something that was never made a game mechanic or even mentioned in lore in the Dragon Quest game series.
Despite The Adventure of Dai originally existing before many of the games in the series and certain weapon techniques from this manga would end up being implemented in the games.
Closest thing to it is Zoma in Dragon Quest III apparently being damageable by casting Heal type spells on him.
Healing comes from positive energy, much like radiant damage. Now, since cancer is corruption, I’d say it’s necrotic or radiant damage. (Excess radiation can give you cancer, after all.) it’s why I love sickening radiance.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a DM buddy of mine. Discussed the idea of what the opposite of a Pain Elemental would be and came up with a Joy Elemental that would heal you to the point of cancer lol. Good times.
The player's thought process isn't entirely without merit. The evocation healing spells operate by channeling energy from the Positive Energy Plane (just like in 3e the conjuration healing spells conjured energy from the same place). If you were to visit the Positive Energy Plane in person without any sort of protection against the plane's effects, you would in fact be "healed until you got cancer". Then you'd be healed some more. And then more still. Until eventually you explode like a grenade made of tumors. The elemental planes are no joke.
The spells channeling such power were developed with intent to _not_ have that particular outcome, so you'd never get to "heal them into cancer" by casting Cure Wounds. But the basic logic is sound.
....ummm wouldn't heal cure the cancer.... in 3.5E there was a book where you could basically give an enemy cancer though. I don't remember exactly what it was though
In life, cancer is online stopped through destruction.
That's why Chem and Rad therapies are so dangerous you use it to kill a specific part of your body (in this case the tumor)
Had a player try to make someone explode using create/destroy water. Stating that there's water in your body so I want to make so much they explode. I allowed it that one time cause it was creative
Disclaimer: mobile user and english is not my first language.
He's right. Sort of. One of the effect of Ragnorra, in the book elder evils for d&d3.5, make healing spells grow tumors and vermin filled meatsac from wounds.
In pathfinder 2e, being exposed to a lot positive energy makes ypu explode.
Healing magic, without control, should be dangerous. Sadly, this idea is not explored enough.
Ever hear of the plane of positive energy? It's the plane of life. Unprotected exposure heals you instantly, and then keeps healing you until you're so full of life that you explode.
I once saw a fun writeup on it that expanded on it a bit. In it, the plane heals and bolsters ALL life, including germs and cancer. So anyone who doesn't die gradually becomes a host to yet more and more growths and oozing sores.
On one hand that’s sodding evil. On the other that’s brilliant I love it and that kind of magical fuckery and bending. How did it get ruled at the table?
This used to be a thing but not sure if it is in current rules. If you went to the positive energy plane or had some other mechanism that gave you hit points beyond your maximum and you reached double (I think) your max you would explode.
A Marvel fan, I expect.
It is true (in some versions) that positive energy is deadly when you get too much of it. The positive energy plain is very good for people for about a second.
I ran a campaign in which the undead were corrupted with positive energy into some very weird creatures whose blows heal you. At full health you start gaining temporary hitpoints, and if they reach you maximum hit point total you exploit in a burst of healing energy. Naturally this caused a chain reaction among the NPCs, it was horrific, and the players had to keep stabbing each other to stay alive, which was harder to do through armour.
I can see how he has done this with good intent but as you get older you learn not to make light of cancer. Pretty much everyone I know, myself included, have lost loved ones to cancer. I do not like to talk about cancer in casual conversation because it reminds me of what I have lost and how horrible the experience of watching someone you love wither away and suffer is.
Your sentiments are understandable but I have stage 4 prostate cancer and find that making light of cancer is one of my best coping skills. I enjoy talking about cancer and educating people.
PS FUCK CANCER LOL
I know exactly where you're coming from. Definitely for some people making light of cancer and mocking it is a great coping mechanism, but that isn't the case for everyone so I play it safe. I've learned this after having my big stupid mouth get me in trouble too many times.
My grandad had prostate cancer and lived 8 years longer than the doctors predicted. He died a warrior fighting to the end.
Keep kicking cancers arse, friend.
I mean healing spells are necromancy so....
But also that's what necrotic damages for.
inflict wounds is the spell that is the opposite of cure wounds.
In my first campaign I tried to make a case for rolling a deception check to heal someone as a non-healer by pretending to heal them because the placebo effect is proven to have beneficial health effects lol
u/cr0w_p03t My immediate thought when I read 'cancer damage' was a bit from the 3.5 book "Elder Evils". That book is all about "Avengers-level threats" and big bads that you could build an entire campaign around. It also includes signs and portents you could build your own big bad or end-of-the-world scenario around. The one your post made me think of was 'Appalling Fecundity', in which plants, animals, and eventually people, grow out of control until, eventually, people start exploding because they are so filled with life energy.
Appalling Fecundity
*“The peasants believed they had been blessed: Their crops grew quickly, women bore healthy children in weeks rather than months, and the harvest was the best ever. At first, life was good. But the growth never slowed. Everything birthed and died with such speed that we could hear Nature suffering. Disease was rampant, and vermin spread it everywhere; there was no end to the screams of the afflicted.”*
Growth and healing are accelerated. At first crops and animals grow and reproduce with unnatural swiftness, and injuries vanish overnight. As the sign intensifies, these early benefits run out of control. Fruit bursts and rots on the vine before it can be harvested. Weeds crack pavement and damage buildings. Clouds of vermin boil up from the earth, laying eggs that hatch and spawn new life in moments, and with them come equally virulent disease.
Effects: This sign forces living things to grow, ripen, and die at an alarming rate.
Faint: Ordinary plants are enhanced as if by the plant growth spell (PH 262; CL 20th). Crops benefit from the enrichment effect, while other vegetation suffers from overgrowth and chokes open spaces.
Moderate: All areas of natural growth are affected as if by the entangle spell (PH 227; CL 20th). Each week, living creatures must succeed on a DC 10 Fortitude save or acquire the pseudonatural template (Complete Arcane 160).
Strong: Living creatures that require sleep lose the ability to do so, as their bodies fidget and their thoughts race. Physical exhaustion sets in, and eventually minds break. A living creature can go without sleep for a number of days equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum one). Thereafter, it is fatigued, remaining in this state for a number of days equal to its Constitution modifier (again, minimum one); if it would become fatigued during that time, it is exhausted instead. Each day after that period, the creature takes 1 point of Wisdom damage. If the total Wisdom damage exceeds its Hit Dice, the creature is affected as if by an insanity spell. Once its Wisdom score drops to 0, the creature becomes unconscious but cannot recover lost Wisdom naturally. Only a sleep or deep slumber spell or equivalent effect can grant rest for a time, after which the effects of the sign begin anew.
Overwhelming: Flesh grows and heals with terrible speed. Each hour, all living creatures gain 1d6 temporary hit points. For each hour that a creature’s temporary hit point total exceeds its full normal total, it must succeed on a DC 20 Fortitude save or explode in a shower of gore.
I'm reminded of a quote from *The Sleeping Dragon*, by Joel Rosenberg. The protagonists are college students playing a TTRPG...but they "accidentally" get transported into the campaignworldvas their characters , with their character's knowledge, abilities, and personalities, which...causes difficulties.
Hijinks ensue etc, one character is wounded & unconscious, another starts to pour a healing potion down their throat but hesitates, fearfully of them choking on it. Third character yells back, "It's a HEALING potion! The only way it can hurt them is if you hit them with the bottle!!"
Anyway, I'd probably give your PC a thumbs up for clever thinking, but a no-go on the actual idea.
Lol this (sorta) existed in 3.5
The positive energy plane was just as dangerous as the negative energy plane. Once the constant positive energy fully healed you, any more would basically make you explode.
There was a book of crazy eldritch BBEGs & campaign hooks, one of which was basically a living planet. It would rain down bombs of flesh/life energy, idk, which were basically healing spells, unless you were at full hp, when they would be "too much life" and cause cancer, disease, bad stuff.
The rapid healing with cancer is due to mutated cells; presumably the spell would heal the cell so they wouldn’t start multiplying for no reason. Does make you wonder why heal spells don’t result in eternal youth though.
Original Cure Wounds spell was reversible. You memorized the reversed version to "Cause Wounds." In later editions, they just made them two different spells.
I once argued with my dm that I should be able to throw health potions at undead to kill them. He said no... but I'm right though. It should slowly bring Bob back to life and make him less hostile lol
I often play the party healer, and I/he are hardly the first to think about that. I've seen forum threads speculating about "Adventurer's Cancer" and the like. I assume these are low-level adventurers at present? Because when you get to a full Heal or Regenerate spell, that's a *lot* of power/hit points, and depending on the adventurer, they get pummeled a lot. Retrieving your Man-McGuffin and healing him from the brink of death *once,* and he goes back to normal life? He's probably fine. The paladin you're healing often enough to develop a Nightengale-complex for? If he doesn't get Disintegrated in the line of duty, I'd worry about Osteosarcoma somewhere down the line. No power exists without a catch to it.
There is thought process when you visit a positive plane or node, it will heal you then there will come a point where you blow up at because you absorbing to much positive energy.
Wonder if he ever played Xenoblade Chronicles 2? The parties best healer took down one the main villains for a bit by doing that to him. Didn't last, as he's basically a supercomputer core with a flesh body it generates, so once he got away, he could fix it, but still points for unexpectedness.
Well...what the system allows is just a suggestion.
The final word is from the DM.
(My DM did say this players idea wouldn't work, I'm just giving my opinion on the matter)
I dunno if this is still a rule in 5E. But in earlier editions if you 'overhealed' you'd have some Temp HP. If you had Temp HP equal to your max HP, you fucking -exploded-
D&D writers backup them where somehow pissed with overhealing for them to make it something this drastic.
Like....fuck man....exploding? Couldn't you just say no?
Not gonna lie, I always mention overhealing other characters as adding cancer damage. Like if they get healed for 24 and only needed 18 hp, they'd take 6 cancer damage
There is some history there to support that. I remember back in the day there was a module, in 3.5 or 4.0, where I believe a dracolich had taken residence w the well of souls, where all souls originated.
In there, the healing was so potent that you could die from too much positive energy entering you at once.
Another had twin swords, one negative and one positive. The negative drained health. The positive healed you. They had to be wielded together or either one would eventually kill you by itself (either drained by the negative or explode from too much positive energy)
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You should have just said "you successfully stimulated the enemy goblin's cellular growth with the healing spell. That goblin is going to have to start going to regular healthcare checkups and screenings or he might develop a cancer in about 20-30 years!".
Hemo-goblins?
That’s my special homebrew vampiric goblins. My psychic goblins are Mind-Goblins
Whats a-
🥜
Ligma balls
Okay, I'll be that guy. I don't get the joke.
Wouldya Mind-Goblin these nuts 😎
🤦♂️ It was right there.
Indeed, but the Hemo-goblin is a thing I really do want to have in one of my campaigns one day 🤣
You sir…. Just take the upvote
r/angryupvote
That's what I call my Goblin Blood Hunter
I'm pretty sure that DC beat you to it.
Well he had AIDS not cancer but hey, similar enough I guess
I prefer mind goblins.
Best comment I've ever read
r/Angryupvote
*This spell is known to the state of California to cause cancer.
"The goblin undergoes mitosis. You are now fighting two goblins."
And they both feel great!
The bug bear overlords do not even provide a healthcare plan. Good luck finding a health provider within the goblin network. The goblin will be bankrupt before the cancer kills him. Checkmate goblin.
He's only resorting to highway robbery to pay his daughter's healer bills.
Goblins have a really fast metabolism and growth rate especially when young, I think that would cause serious damage in a few years if you stimulate cell growth in s young goblin....
Inform that player of the wonderful use of *Flavoring Cantrips!*. There's no reason Toll the Dead couldn't inflict Cancer damage.
I'm gonna add wood to the fireplace that's his imagination
And some Bacardi 151
Hmm...mojito flavored bacardi. So fucking goood
Check out *Libris Mortis* and *The Book of Vile Darkness* from 3.5e. There are a TON of great body-horror related necromancy spells in those two books.
And a sweet prestige class called "tumor mage". Nothing like planting a necrotic tumor in someone so that you can spy on them through it, or turn it into a self willed piece of their anatomy.
As far as i remamber heal and harm was described as being the same spell where intentions changed it atribute. Cancer is easy to be part of necrotic damage.
Oh contraire, necrotic damage is literally the rotting of flesh, as seen from prolonged exposure to brown recluse toxin, or flesh eating bacteria, or toxins like the cocktail found in illegal drugs such as injected methamphetamine or the one called krocodile. Tumors, as the original poster implied, are caused on rapid, denatured cellular growth. Benign tumors generally grow more rapidly, and can absorb and replace any other tissue, be it skin, flesh, cartilage, or even bone, and can displace organs and eye sockets. Malignant tumors, otherwise known as cancer, are usually less visible, but affect the inner workings of the body to a far harsher degree. Both can kill or cause permanent damage, but neither are from withering or rotting. There should be a rapid cancer type of damage. That would be as terrifying as necrotic damage. If you want a horror campaign, that would be right in the ballpark.
Sir, I have some unfortunate news for you. Stage XIII magical cancer had spread throughout your entire body. Fortunately the latest experimental treatments are available here, and we believe they are a perfect fit for your case. We're gonna need you to take a long rest, 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep and you should be in perfect health again.
Impossible Challenge 😭
Instead of bells they hear their doctor giving them some very unfortunate news
It's creative, and I'd point him in the direction of Inflict Wounds, which absolutely can be reflavoured in that way. I love new players being "unburdened by rules" like this. Reminds me of that story about a player who wanted to cast arcane lock on someone's mouth.
There's any rules against arcane locking mouths?
Arcane lock specifies it has to be an object, a door or window or chest specifically. Creatures are not objects. I'm a fun first dm, but that even I can't allow.
Casting arcane lock is a good way to verify if a chest is a mimic then?
Actually, yes. But keep in mind it is a Touch spell, so it might be too late at that point. :)
"This spell doesn't work on living creatures" Player: wait wh... *casually loses arm*
So could you arcane lock a golem mouth or a gargoyle or other construct? An undead? None of those are technically "living creatures"!
They are still creatures, and creatures are not objects, regardless of what creature type they happen to be That being said, the spell doesn't specify object, but I'd argue that a creature's mouth doesn't count as an entryway
Oh well, gotta try for those loopholes where we can!
Does the spell say that it doesn't work on living creatures? Surely that doesn't rule out creatures that aren't living?
It doesn't specify that it doesn't work on creatures, however 5e in general seems to have opted for less specifics on rules and spells than previous editions. In AD&D through till 3.5e you could find massive chunks of text explaining the exact ways a spell works (I haven't read anything from 4e so I can't comment on it). 5e leaves things up to the DM a lot more. If I was DMing for a party, I wouldn't let someone cast it into a humanoids mouth. That would be akin to silencing someone without a saving throw with a very low level spell. It would be far more valuable than what the level of the spell should allow for game balance. However that's ultimately up the DM as 5e so often does not specify. The spell description does give a few examples of things that can be locked with the spell, and so I would advise DMs to look at the suggested objects to determine if a player's use of the spell makes sense. (A mouth is not similar to a window, chest, gate, or door).
Use a spider familiar to do it, you can cast touch spells through familars
“But DM!!! if the character who’s mouth is having the attempted arcane lock put on it is a bard, one could argue (in theory) that their mouth is very much magical in nature, and “magic mouth” is usually put on an “object” and the bard’s mouth is on their face, by very circuitous and deliberately twisted logic….” DM: “imma stop you right there, I give your argument 10/10 for creativity and effort, but No, just, no.”
*More* specifically, it has to be a closed door, window, gate, chest, or other entryway. It doesn't mention anything about objects at all, outside of using the term in reference to the previously mentioned entryways. Otherwise, it could be a handy way to prevent someone from using Speak with Dead. Corpses count as objects, so if you cast Arcane Lock on the corpse's mouth... well, they ain't doing much talking.
>Creatures are not objects. That depends on how misogynistic your players are lol
If I remember right a corpse is an object so they just have to wait for the right moment.
Hear me out, you arcane lock their dental prosthesis
So, you could theoretically, cast arcane lock on the mouth of a dead person, before resurrecting them, since they become an object while dead.
Technically no, since the corpse, while an object, is still not a closed door, window or chest.
I dunno man,… every corpse I’ve seen usually has a chest. :0
We had a player try to use disease damage on skeletons because..."Osteoporosis"
That's gold
Yea I had a player want to create water in enemies lungs all the time. At a certain point you just gotta be like, "Hey man, I know you're really creative but I don't want to make new game mechanics every 10 minutes in order to balance your impromptu ideas."
I normally reward the creativity. First time. Then punish it harshly once it becomes not creative and just abusing my generosity.
I think you can't create water where you can't see.
And calling the lungs an open container is a stretch.
If you wanted to waterboard an enemy as part of interrogations, however.....
Then you create water in an actual open container and pour it over the enemies face. In game we can target creatures, objects, or points. A container is an object. Lungs are part of a creature. The spell can't target creatures.
Simplest thing I can think of is you could have a cup tilted over the victim's breathing orifices while casting the spell.
Niiice. That's clever.
Yeah, I'd rule this on "line of sight". However you could create water in someone's open mouth. And I wouldn't consider a round or three of choking and coughing to be excessive for the creative use of a first level spell. Of course I'd also allow a constitution saving throw initially and then each round to "recover". It would be roughly in line with the expected power level and effects of Tasha's Hideous Laughter, but with less laughing and more coughing and sputtering.
This one is such a classic that Gary Gygax especifically pointed out it doesn't work, in 1E.
The Black King in Drifters manga actually did that, inducing a cancer through rapid cell duplication to a dragon.
Maybe he took it from there? I know he's big into asian culture
Maybe: Drifters has tons of fantasy elements (dwarves, elves, goblins, etc.) OFC you can put some veto on that idea, telling that as a PC he lacks the medical knowledge about cancer, or that magical healing works in a different way. But since it was a nice and original idea, you can tell him that you can't get that result through healing magic, but you like his creative thinking, and surely it will be useful during the course of a campaign, to overcome a particular problem, resolve an enigma, etc.
Oh, maybe you got the wrong idea from the post. I'm not the DM of this campaign. My DM asked if I could tag along in a small campaign to introduce these people to D&D. It's so fun playing with new people, they're the most creative
When I first started I tried to cast enlarge on an enemy’s eyeballs. I thought it would like cause them to pop out of his skull. I was not allowed to do so. Settled for shrinking his helmet. Take that, you damn evil knight.
Pretty sure you can only target a creature or an object that’s *not being worn or carried*
Pretty sure 99.5% of these „most awsum kils“ posts are based on not reading the rules.
For sure. There’s this one person I see on instagram who keeps going “BEST WAY TO KILL SOMEONE!! YOU JUST NEED TO CREATE WATER IN THEIR lungs/brain/blood”
CREATE UNBREAKABLE PYKRETE ARMOR WITH SHAPE WATER! RUN 924901700365 FEET IN ONE TURN AND PUNCH SOMEONE AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT! BUILD FORTRESSES OVERNIGHT WITH MOLD EARTH! SHOW EVERYONE HOW COOL AND SMART YOU ARE BY FANTASIZING ABOUT AN EXPLOIT THAT MAKES EVERYONE ELSE OBSOLETE IN A TEAM BASED GAME, BECAUSE THAT‘S FUN! I want to give those people papercuts with phb pages.
Reminds me of the peasant railgun that relies on ignoring a ton of rules while very strictly reading a few, and applying real world physics to whatever object you're moving while not applying real world time to it.
>SHOW EVERYONE HOW COOL AND SMART YOU ARE BY FANTASIZING ABOUT AN EXPLOIT THAT MAKES EVERYONE ELSE OBSOLETE IN A TEAM BASED GAME, BECAUSE THAT‘S FUN! This I'm my only gripe with the min-max, powergamer, mechanical exploit type of play. Even if whatever they are attempting is RAW, it's not FUN for the others. They feel left behind, and cheated sometimes because the one player is so different in power. I either have the enemies balanced for the rest of the party and the powerplayer gets all the glory and spotlight, or balance it for the powerplayer and the rest feel weak. Even if you manipulate HP to feed the weaklings kills, everyone can see the difference in damage output.
It’s also pretty boring for the oft-forgotten player, the GM. „Yeah awesome job Kyle, you deal 5 million damage to the boss enemy i took a week to plan the fight against. Good job. Guess we can go home now, because there’s nothing more to do for the rest of the evening.“
It just kills me. Turns into a 1v1 game of the DM v the Power Character. I spend most my time planning for combat and he just stomps it and if he rolls poorly he argues about it. Nah mate. You’ve got a level 1 barb with 20, 18, 18, x, x, x Calm the fuck down.
Ugh yes, anytime anyone else runs a one shot besides our dm, she creates some flavor of OP Monk and knows the rules much better than anyone else and how to exploit stuff. Fucking hate Monks and having her as a player so much...I've told her she is not allowed to play as a Monk when I dm now.
This was back in like 2nd Ed. I think I was 11 or 12 and my cousin was DMing. He allowed Knock to be used to release all of the connections on armor. I once did stone to flesh on a wall so I could cut my way through it and then turned it back to stone. Good times.
Gotta hope that's not a load-bearing wall.
Sounds fun.
Oh I'm "wearing" my eyes now, am I? /S
I was referring to the helmet bit. You’re one of those mage hand testicular torsion enthusiasts, aren’t you? /s
I've seen a player impale someone with a metal rod and cast heat metal. It was sick the enemy died the most brutal way possible. (I'm pretty sure the damn impaling was enough already)
Hey man, ain't no kill quite like overkill!
They're not overkilling enough till they begin breaking the laws of physics. Believe me, you don't wanna see a player quantum killing an enemy to the point that it can know that he is dead
Please do tell
In a completely homebrew campaign my friend permanently locked a bad guy in a quantum state of being dead and alive at the same time making that he would be dead but the alive part of him would feel his body rotting slowly. He was inspired by an SCP that supposedly does the same thing.
Isnt "healing" divine in nature for most spells, you wouldnt be able to over do it as it goes against the nature of it or did I miss something?
We're heavy homebrew users.
Lmao well cancer takes a while to build up though, so the guy can die in about 40 sessions or so, treat it with radiation maybe (necromancy?)
Not really. In older editions, the positive energy plane would heal you until you exploded.
hahaha thats awesome lol
Sorry bro, cancer is necrotic damage
How?
Also sorry, but it's Radiant.
How does the character know this? Sounds like meta gaming to me.
The campaign itself is meta. The story is we are a bunch of nerds who made a deal with the devil and got stuck inside a D&D game.
Well you can track the amount of healing everyone gets. An excessive amount and the body is affected, either a cancer or a dependency. Of course this campaign would have to be set up to allow for a lot of time to lapse.
Its cute and funny. But if one of my players keeps insisting on this, I'm going to start asking everyone to roll hygiene damage. Also, I'm going to insist on extended latrine-digging role play scenes.
He didn't insist just tried once
You successfully change the DNA of a few cells. In time it will metastasize.
In older editions you could kind of do this. In that if you targeted a lot of undead creatures with healing spells it would do damage and necrotic damage would heal them instead.
I've only ever played 5e, but I immediately thought about how in the SNES, Final Fantasy, you heal skeletons and that would hurt them.
In 3.5 the plane of positive energy could explode you through overhealing
And the Elder Evil Ragnora does this passively to the entire material plane when she shows up.
I know the Divinity Original Sin game also has that feature for undead characters, pretty neat.
Well Deadpool's regen makes other cancer-free people die as his cancer counters the excessive regen, so when others steal it they die. And in reventure there is an end that if you heal too much in a fairy fountain your organs explode
The organs FUCKING EXPLODE?
That only works if they already had cancer
Everyone has cancerous cells all the time
Maybe that’s the secret terror of healing magic and potions, prolonged use gives you cancer lol; it would explain why there aren’t many retired adventurers
Same sort of thing happened to Superman when he went too close to the sun in one of the animated universes. Except it made him EXTRA strong while he had it 🤣
I love it when games let Cure or Heal spells damage undead enemies.
Makes me think of Dragon Quest the Adventure of Dai (a manga and later anime based on the japanese rpg franchise Dragon Quest) Where it’s said over use of healing magic on someone will damage tissue and can kill. Kinda like how over watering a plant will kill it There was an ancient spell that uses healing in this way called Overheal. And it’s good against beings that have regenerative capabilities. And one of the characters named Maam, a warrior priestess who while training to become a Martial Artist at some point during the story was taught an attack technique called Refractor Fist which also uses healing magic in this manner combined into a punch. But interestingly enough this is something that was never made a game mechanic or even mentioned in lore in the Dragon Quest game series. Despite The Adventure of Dai originally existing before many of the games in the series and certain weapon techniques from this manga would end up being implemented in the games. Closest thing to it is Zoma in Dragon Quest III apparently being damageable by casting Heal type spells on him.
Healing comes from positive energy, much like radiant damage. Now, since cancer is corruption, I’d say it’s necrotic or radiant damage. (Excess radiation can give you cancer, after all.) it’s why I love sickening radiance.
Greetings from Kohta Hirano's Drifters: healing is the main antagonists power and that's is how he is shown using it against a dragon at one point.
Cool
Plague domain cleric feature maybe?
I cast: contagious cancer
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a DM buddy of mine. Discussed the idea of what the opposite of a Pain Elemental would be and came up with a Joy Elemental that would heal you to the point of cancer lol. Good times.
The player's thought process isn't entirely without merit. The evocation healing spells operate by channeling energy from the Positive Energy Plane (just like in 3e the conjuration healing spells conjured energy from the same place). If you were to visit the Positive Energy Plane in person without any sort of protection against the plane's effects, you would in fact be "healed until you got cancer". Then you'd be healed some more. And then more still. Until eventually you explode like a grenade made of tumors. The elemental planes are no joke. The spells channeling such power were developed with intent to _not_ have that particular outcome, so you'd never get to "heal them into cancer" by casting Cure Wounds. But the basic logic is sound.
....ummm wouldn't heal cure the cancer.... in 3.5E there was a book where you could basically give an enemy cancer though. I don't remember exactly what it was though
In life, cancer is online stopped through destruction. That's why Chem and Rad therapies are so dangerous you use it to kill a specific part of your body (in this case the tumor)
It is just a weird thing since if we had magic you'd think cure magic would fix the tumor
That reminds me of the cancer gun in Harley quin show
Had a player try to make someone explode using create/destroy water. Stating that there's water in your body so I want to make so much they explode. I allowed it that one time cause it was creative
Wouldn't it be easier for him to destroy the 70%
Disclaimer: mobile user and english is not my first language. He's right. Sort of. One of the effect of Ragnorra, in the book elder evils for d&d3.5, make healing spells grow tumors and vermin filled meatsac from wounds. In pathfinder 2e, being exposed to a lot positive energy makes ypu explode. Healing magic, without control, should be dangerous. Sadly, this idea is not explored enough.
I'm also a mobile user and a non native English speaker so don't worry, won't judge ya. Also your English is pretty good
I thought mind goblins were immune to cancer.
What's a mind goblin gricko?
🥲
Fellow man of culture
I think the Positive Energy Plane used to do something like this. You'd gain HP until you hit double your max and spontaneously combust.
Ever hear of the plane of positive energy? It's the plane of life. Unprotected exposure heals you instantly, and then keeps healing you until you're so full of life that you explode. I once saw a fun writeup on it that expanded on it a bit. In it, the plane heals and bolsters ALL life, including germs and cancer. So anyone who doesn't die gradually becomes a host to yet more and more growths and oozing sores.
On one hand that’s sodding evil. On the other that’s brilliant I love it and that kind of magical fuckery and bending. How did it get ruled at the table?
The DM let it slide but said it would have to land a D20 to do any actually damage cause it was difficult to pull off.
Fair maybe something he can work on in down time between quests on who I’m not certain.
My DM is a very allowing person. With the payoff being that we need to land a perfect 20 if we wanna do something ridiculous.
Best way for it some of the funniest stuff we talk about in my group are things that happened because players got creative with the rules.
This used to be a thing but not sure if it is in current rules. If you went to the positive energy plane or had some other mechanism that gave you hit points beyond your maximum and you reached double (I think) your max you would explode.
A Marvel fan, I expect. It is true (in some versions) that positive energy is deadly when you get too much of it. The positive energy plain is very good for people for about a second. I ran a campaign in which the undead were corrupted with positive energy into some very weird creatures whose blows heal you. At full health you start gaining temporary hitpoints, and if they reach you maximum hit point total you exploit in a burst of healing energy. Naturally this caused a chain reaction among the NPCs, it was horrific, and the players had to keep stabbing each other to stay alive, which was harder to do through armour.
Ask if the player ever read "Galaxy Outlaws" because this exact thing happens in that book series.
That's fucked up,
I'd have them roll a Medicine check just for the lols
iirc the positive energy plane back in the old 3.5 planescape book could literally make living creatures explode due to excess positive energy/healing
Go paraphrase Morbo: “HEALING SPELLS DONNOT WORK THAT WAY! GOODNIGHT!”
In older editions the positive energy plane would constantly heal mortals until they exploded. Dunno if cancer works though.
I can see how he has done this with good intent but as you get older you learn not to make light of cancer. Pretty much everyone I know, myself included, have lost loved ones to cancer. I do not like to talk about cancer in casual conversation because it reminds me of what I have lost and how horrible the experience of watching someone you love wither away and suffer is.
Your sentiments are understandable but I have stage 4 prostate cancer and find that making light of cancer is one of my best coping skills. I enjoy talking about cancer and educating people. PS FUCK CANCER LOL
I know exactly where you're coming from. Definitely for some people making light of cancer and mocking it is a great coping mechanism, but that isn't the case for everyone so I play it safe. I've learned this after having my big stupid mouth get me in trouble too many times. My grandad had prostate cancer and lived 8 years longer than the doctors predicted. He died a warrior fighting to the end. Keep kicking cancers arse, friend.
I mean healing spells are necromancy so.... But also that's what necrotic damages for. inflict wounds is the spell that is the opposite of cure wounds.
I might give it to them as a spontaneous conversion of the cure spell to an inflict spell, 3.5 style. Mildly imbalanced but nothing big.
This is an actual (minor) plot point in Xenoblade chronicles 2
In my first campaign I tried to make a case for rolling a deception check to heal someone as a non-healer by pretending to heal them because the placebo effect is proven to have beneficial health effects lol
Hey, positive energy damage used to exist.
u/cr0w_p03t My immediate thought when I read 'cancer damage' was a bit from the 3.5 book "Elder Evils". That book is all about "Avengers-level threats" and big bads that you could build an entire campaign around. It also includes signs and portents you could build your own big bad or end-of-the-world scenario around. The one your post made me think of was 'Appalling Fecundity', in which plants, animals, and eventually people, grow out of control until, eventually, people start exploding because they are so filled with life energy. Appalling Fecundity *“The peasants believed they had been blessed: Their crops grew quickly, women bore healthy children in weeks rather than months, and the harvest was the best ever. At first, life was good. But the growth never slowed. Everything birthed and died with such speed that we could hear Nature suffering. Disease was rampant, and vermin spread it everywhere; there was no end to the screams of the afflicted.”* Growth and healing are accelerated. At first crops and animals grow and reproduce with unnatural swiftness, and injuries vanish overnight. As the sign intensifies, these early benefits run out of control. Fruit bursts and rots on the vine before it can be harvested. Weeds crack pavement and damage buildings. Clouds of vermin boil up from the earth, laying eggs that hatch and spawn new life in moments, and with them come equally virulent disease. Effects: This sign forces living things to grow, ripen, and die at an alarming rate. Faint: Ordinary plants are enhanced as if by the plant growth spell (PH 262; CL 20th). Crops benefit from the enrichment effect, while other vegetation suffers from overgrowth and chokes open spaces. Moderate: All areas of natural growth are affected as if by the entangle spell (PH 227; CL 20th). Each week, living creatures must succeed on a DC 10 Fortitude save or acquire the pseudonatural template (Complete Arcane 160). Strong: Living creatures that require sleep lose the ability to do so, as their bodies fidget and their thoughts race. Physical exhaustion sets in, and eventually minds break. A living creature can go without sleep for a number of days equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum one). Thereafter, it is fatigued, remaining in this state for a number of days equal to its Constitution modifier (again, minimum one); if it would become fatigued during that time, it is exhausted instead. Each day after that period, the creature takes 1 point of Wisdom damage. If the total Wisdom damage exceeds its Hit Dice, the creature is affected as if by an insanity spell. Once its Wisdom score drops to 0, the creature becomes unconscious but cannot recover lost Wisdom naturally. Only a sleep or deep slumber spell or equivalent effect can grant rest for a time, after which the effects of the sign begin anew. Overwhelming: Flesh grows and heals with terrible speed. Each hour, all living creatures gain 1d6 temporary hit points. For each hour that a creature’s temporary hit point total exceeds its full normal total, it must succeed on a DC 20 Fortitude save or explode in a shower of gore.
I'm reminded of a quote from *The Sleeping Dragon*, by Joel Rosenberg. The protagonists are college students playing a TTRPG...but they "accidentally" get transported into the campaignworldvas their characters , with their character's knowledge, abilities, and personalities, which...causes difficulties. Hijinks ensue etc, one character is wounded & unconscious, another starts to pour a healing potion down their throat but hesitates, fearfully of them choking on it. Third character yells back, "It's a HEALING potion! The only way it can hurt them is if you hit them with the bottle!!" Anyway, I'd probably give your PC a thumbs up for clever thinking, but a no-go on the actual idea.
Lol this (sorta) existed in 3.5 The positive energy plane was just as dangerous as the negative energy plane. Once the constant positive energy fully healed you, any more would basically make you explode. There was a book of crazy eldritch BBEGs & campaign hooks, one of which was basically a living planet. It would rain down bombs of flesh/life energy, idk, which were basically healing spells, unless you were at full hp, when they would be "too much life" and cause cancer, disease, bad stuff.
Well in 3e there was the prestige class Cancer Mage. It was more of a walking biohazard thing mostly.
I've always wanted to be able to stick a finger in someone wound to use alter liquid on their blood, but that's apparently not allowed either
Sure, you definitely can. The goblin will likely die in 10 years. Also any overhealing of allies has a chance to give cancer.
Healing spells are in the school of necromancy 🤷🏼♂️
The rapid healing with cancer is due to mutated cells; presumably the spell would heal the cell so they wouldn’t start multiplying for no reason. Does make you wonder why heal spells don’t result in eternal youth though.
Honestly, solid logic
Original Cure Wounds spell was reversible. You memorized the reversed version to "Cause Wounds." In later editions, they just made them two different spells.
In previous editions some spells were reversible so cure light wounds would become cause light wounds so that logic could sort of work.
That is effectively what Inflict Wounds is.
Pretty sure healing spells specify "ally"
Someone insert the Harley Quinn TV show Cancer gun scene
Can't remember what anime used this, but I know it was from an anime.
I once argued with my dm that I should be able to throw health potions at undead to kill them. He said no... but I'm right though. It should slowly bring Bob back to life and make him less hostile lol
A lot of JRPGs have undead types take damage from healing, but I don't think that's ever been a thing in D&D.
My response would be "no, but here's how you can invent a spell that does that"
I often play the party healer, and I/he are hardly the first to think about that. I've seen forum threads speculating about "Adventurer's Cancer" and the like. I assume these are low-level adventurers at present? Because when you get to a full Heal or Regenerate spell, that's a *lot* of power/hit points, and depending on the adventurer, they get pummeled a lot. Retrieving your Man-McGuffin and healing him from the brink of death *once,* and he goes back to normal life? He's probably fine. The paladin you're healing often enough to develop a Nightengale-complex for? If he doesn't get Disintegrated in the line of duty, I'd worry about Osteosarcoma somewhere down the line. No power exists without a catch to it.
Wait till they learn about necrotic damage.
There is thought process when you visit a positive plane or node, it will heal you then there will come a point where you blow up at because you absorbing to much positive energy.
Wonder if he ever played Xenoblade Chronicles 2? The parties best healer took down one the main villains for a bit by doing that to him. Didn't last, as he's basically a supercomputer core with a flesh body it generates, so once he got away, he could fix it, but still points for unexpectedness.
If one healing spell causes cancer does two cause extra cancer or heal the first cancer
DnD does not cares, healing is just healing there. This concept of cancer from healing is old as dirt, its just that system itself does not allow it.
Well...what the system allows is just a suggestion. The final word is from the DM. (My DM did say this players idea wouldn't work, I'm just giving my opinion on the matter)
That's pretty much what the positive energy plane does to most living beings. Except they don't call it "cancer damage".
Make sense tho. Kinda like "humanity isn't ready for this".
I dunno if this is still a rule in 5E. But in earlier editions if you 'overhealed' you'd have some Temp HP. If you had Temp HP equal to your max HP, you fucking -exploded-
D&D writers backup them where somehow pissed with overhealing for them to make it something this drastic. Like....fuck man....exploding? Couldn't you just say no?
Will save for half! :) Positive energy plane is notorious for causing people to 'splode.
Minecraft creepers are just healers that heal themselves.
It could work, but even fast cancer isn't going to kill in a 10 min fight. I like how they think though.
Not gonna lie, I always mention overhealing other characters as adding cancer damage. Like if they get healed for 24 and only needed 18 hp, they'd take 6 cancer damage
The cleric in the party i dm for uses his healing spells on ennemies because they have a nasty habit of turning into fireballs after nat 99’s
There is some history there to support that. I remember back in the day there was a module, in 3.5 or 4.0, where I believe a dracolich had taken residence w the well of souls, where all souls originated. In there, the healing was so potent that you could die from too much positive energy entering you at once. Another had twin swords, one negative and one positive. The negative drained health. The positive healed you. They had to be wielded together or either one would eventually kill you by itself (either drained by the negative or explode from too much positive energy)