Spell Suggestion: Consecrate

[Hypatia]

Consecrate
Evocation [Good]
Level:
Clr 2
Components:
V, S, M, DF
Casting Time:
1 standard action
Range:
Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Area:
20-ft.-radius emanation
Duration:
2 hours/level
Saving Throw:
None
Spell Resistance:
No
This spell blesses an area with positive energy. Each Charisma check made to turn undead within this area gains a +3 sacred bonus. Every undead creature entering a consecrated area suffers minor disruption, giving it a -1 penalty on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saves. Undead cannot be created within or summoned into a consecrated area.
If the consecrated area contains an altar, shrine, or other permanent fixture dedicated to your deity, pantheon, or aligned higher power, the modifiers given above are doubled (+6 sacred bonus on turning checks, -2 penalties for undead in the area). You cannot consecrate an area with a similar fixture of a deity other than your own patron.
If the area does contain an altar, shrine, or other permanent fixture of a deity, pantheon, or higher power other than your patron, the consecrate spell instead curses the area, cutting off its connection with the associated deity or power. This secondary function, if used, does not also grant the bonuses and penalties relating to undead, as given above.

*****

My thought is that this could also be used to reduce the risk of raise dead turning your buddy into a zombie. I spent about 20k in diamonds last night in an event because of failed raises.

[Kinga]

It's not a bad idea, but I think it's something that would work better as a DM overseen ritual than a player-casted spell.

[Arawn]

This is a very niche spell that involves aspects that can't be reproduced in the Aurora Engine, so it's very unlikely we'll be able to implement it.

[Leezil]

I'm a fan of Sacred Purification feat as an RP tool for this sort of thing, and indeed feats in general for more ritualistic abilities. Sacred Purification "creates a pulse of positive energy" which I think is suitable for consecration RP.

However, I think the flavor of consecrating a particular *area* is especially neat! Perhaps something could be done using Glyph of Warding as a template, but only applying to undead?

Side note: I played on a server once where "Ritual Magic" was a feat one could take which expressed practice with relevant rituals, and that was a ton of fun to RP it out. It also had a very unique mechanic where the more people using it on a target, the more effects it would have. So, theoretically, one person with Ritual Magic was borderline useless mechanically but a whole coven of people with it could perform a ritual together to take down a fiend!

[Hypatia]

There were several NWN2 servers that had this spell. It could be their engine did it while this one can't, but I'll bet the script is on the vault for NWN2 if any devs are curious to see if its possible.

[zDark Shadowz]

Its a different cat here.

Maybe the spell would need to create an invisible object with a unique tag where you cast it, and the turn undead script to have a check to see if nearest object with that tag is valid & within a certain distance, denying undead summon spells within its radius.

Adding in the undead check though, a heartbeat script on the invisible object to see if a creature is too close is bad, heartbeat scripts just keep firing away until the offending object is gone. Hm. Maybe the two above arent good ways to go about it.

It'd be good if a circular or multisided polygon could be drawn around the cast area with the OnEnter OnExit scripts required that will trigger the functions you require, with alternate effects if idol deity waypoints were nearby (and maybe even dropped holy items) but, thats not a set of functions i'm personally aware of is doable..
 Though I guess trap triggers get drawn somehow and its not too much different..?

I think the logic is there to make it doable for that third option without trashing server resources but its not something I'd want to write. If you can work it out and put it into an importable .erf for testing Hypatia or someone else you could submit it to a dev for testing.

But I suspect its a collection of edited scripts and maybe a custom trigger blueprint rather than a simple one spell cast given the different factors required. Then idol waypoints would need to be added to every area that had one worthy enough to be considered dor the spell.

And its not something I've ever tried to do in toolset so if anyone says thats not doable or feasible either I'm not going to argue the point.

[Arawn]

None of those things would be the issue here—the issue is recognizing altars or other cult sites, especially to homebrew gods, and preventing that from being exploitable.

[Leezil]

Maybe that part of the idea could be scrapped?

[Iridni Ren]

It's not a bad idea, but I think it's something that would work better as a DM overseen ritual than a player-casted spell.

Yar. From the spell description:

Material Component

A vial of holy water and 25 gp worth (5 pounds) of silver dust, all of which must be sprinkled around the area.

[Arawn]

It's not a bad idea, but I think it's something that would work better as a DM overseen ritual than a player-casted spell.

Yar. From the spell description:

Material Component

A vial of holy water and 25 gp worth (5 pounds) of silver dust, all of which must be sprinkled around the area.

If we had it at all, whether applied by DM or player, it would need to be mechanically enforced.

[SardineTheAncestor]

Keeping to the area denial theme of this spell, maybe it could just automatically try to turn any undead in the area once per round.

I think it should also just be a feat that uses the same check as Warding Gesture, perhaps requiring it, since without all of the turning feats, this would be useless, and a small fraction of Clerics take those feats as they don't mesh well with the server environment; healing & direct offensive/defensive bonuses are always more attractive than making your party chase undead around dungeons you are already able to overpower easily.

Maybe if there were more slow-moving zombies at high level, turning would be invested in more often. But most people are happy with fighting enemies that just stay put and die, and in my experience it frustrates people more than entertains them. When Shannon was still a new character and had the wrong domains for her god (Healing/Repose) people would complain about having to chase them down, sometimes even in OOC chat, despite some of the undead dying on the spot while others fled. Realising my support character was unhelpful to play with was one of the reasons I ended up getting a remake even after correcting her domains.

So while protecting oneself from undead by fearing them looks like a great tactical option, this isn't PnP, so you don't get XP for routing undead, only defeating them, and people are in dungeons for XP. In a DM event, or facing off against A/MPCs, Warding Gesture (and this hypothetical area denial version of it) is probably going to be more useful.

Area denial is different because it could be useful in niche situations, or to turn around bad fights. Maybe if the consecrated area healed people, harmed undead, etc. based on Charisma bonus, or granted people extra damage (AOE Divine Might), you'd be looking at something people would actively want to take.

The actual area denial spell is called Aura versus Alignment. It's only available to high level Clerics, but it's one of the only non-MAD deterrents a Cleric has. A feat which mimics even some of its effects (saves, AC, reflect damage, spell resistance) for a brief time but is anchored to a specific area could end up being a popular alternative/supplement to the direct turning feats.