Fri, 01/06/2017 - 20:08
#1
Rakshasa
In Monsters & Treasure, it says that "If a rakshasa is struck with an attack by a crossbow bolt that has been blessed by a good cleric, the rakshasa is slain instantly." What exactly does that mean in game terms? What spell blesses a weapon? What level cleric would have to do it?
There are a couple ways this has been interpreted in terms of D&D. The first is that a simple Bless spell from any cleric upon the bolt is all that is required. The other route was annointing the bolt with holy water while casting a bless spell and/or carving holy symbols on the bolt.
The Rak would get a save vs death in some groups or none in others.
In either case it boils down to a rules call on the CK's part. Just be consistent once you decide. :) Hope that helps.
That could even be a plot hook. They find out that they need a weapon blessed by a powerful cleric, and they have to find this cleric. Alternatively, they need to find a powerful relic that was blessed by and used years ago by a famous cleric to destroy an an ancient Rakshasha. It would probably make it more interesting and lend more excitement and intrigue to the game.
I see a couple of issues with this. First of all, Bless affects dice rolls for "the caster's allies", not inanimate objects (interestingly, Bless in D&D 2e specifically mentions this case, although 1e and 3e don't). But more importantly, rakshasa are very powerful monsters. To my mind, it just doesn't make sense for a first-level cleric to be able to turn Joe Sixpack Adventurer's crossbow into a rakshasa killer. I think I'd go with something like what arcanechimera ia suggesting: a custom spell (maybe Consecrate Weapon) that must be cast by a cleric whose level is at least the number of hit dice of the rakshasa (or higher, since the characters themselves would need to be of a fairly high level just to go up against them). Of course, our noble adventurers may not know the exact level of the cleric they have traveled so far to visit, or for that matter, the hit dice of the rakshasa...
If looking at it that way and memory serves correctly, Enchant Weapon was a 5th level spell and then use Bless as part fo that enchantment process to create the blessed bolt. Something along those lines?
The crux of the problem is no one should know what it takes to kill this nasty cat.. that should be a secret info... so along that front, said rumor that something like that works should be rumor, ledgend, and totally up the CK to force party to research what might do it... I can see the party going armed with a dozen cross bow bolts made of holly, blessed, magic, etc. Only to have the nasty cat laugh at their attempts and admit the easy kill myths are his doing to have dinner show up at his door!
Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. (rofl)
Okay. After thinking through on this and taking into account the previous comments, this is the house rule I am adopting for my game regarding blessed weapons. Posting it here for anyone that may find it useful either as is or a basis for how they may want to deal with it in their own game. :) It is not intended to be a declaration of "this is how it must be" for everyone.
BLESSED WEAPONS
Blessed weapons are required to be master work weapons and enchanted per the rules for creation of magical weapons. The Bless ability is a result of the enchantment, being tempered in holy water, and having a Hallow spell followed by a Bless spell cast upon the item.
A weapon, such as a crossbow bolt, that has a Bless spell cast upon it and has been dipped in holy water will do +2 damage to undead, infernals, or other creatures affected by blessed weapons such as the rakshasa, however it lacks the power to kill them instantly (as may be noted in flavor text) since they are not a true blessed weapon which is created as described above.