Secret of the Cursed Flame (3.5e Feat)
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Secret of the Cursed Flame [General]
With a sudden shift in the dark-robed figure's hand movements, the flames in its palms shift from a vibrant, flickering orange to a sickly, whirling green, the simple sensation of scalding heat replaced by a sense of oppressive wrongness.Prerequisites: Spell Focus (evocation), must be able to cast 3rd level fire spells.Benefit: Tapping into a deep well of frightful arcane energies, you imbue your flames with a complex combination of quasi-elemental natures. You are capable of wielding cursed flames. Upon unleashing these cursed flames, all fire you generate becomes a bilious green and gains special properties.
- Cursed flames do less damage, but they linger indefinitely and impede healing. The damage dice of your fire spells goes down by one step (d6 to d4, d8 to d6, etcetera), but any creature that takes at least 1 point of cursed fire damage will indefinitely continue to take 1 point of damage at the start of each subsequent turn. While a creature is under the lingering effects of cursed fire, it doesn't benefit from any natural form of healing, including fast healing and rapid healing, and any magical sources of healing only restore one third the number of hit points.
- A creature suffering from the lingering effects of cursed fire becomes sickened from the pain for as long as the fire burns, and any action requiring intensive focus (such as casting spells, manifesting powers, initiating maneuvers, etc.) will fail unless the user makes a successful concentration check against the DC of the spell that caused the lingering effects.
- While the damage from a cursed fire spell is subject to resistance and immunity to fire as normal, the lingering damage is not. Any creature that has taken at least 1 point of damage from the initial spell will suffer the 1 point of lingering damage every round no matter their resistance, even if immunity to fire is obtained later. Lingering damage from multiple cursed fire spells do not stack; the lingering damage is always 1 point per turn.
- Cursed flames count as a curse and cannot be put out by natural and most magical means. Cursed flames burn just as well regardless of the circumstance. Even fully submerging the flames in water or going into a vacuum does not stop the cursed flames from burning. Spells like quench do not put out cursed flames, but remove curse and break enchantment do. Only greater restoration or stronger healing spells can also put out the flames. Cursed flames can be dispelled, but at a +4 bonus to the dispel DC.
- You may put out your own cursed flames as a free action, or those of other spellcasters by expending a fire spell of similar level.
Cursed flame spells require highly practiced somatic movements to perform and can therefore never benefit from the Still Spell metamagic, but they are always heightened by 1 level. As such, a cursed fire spell takes up a spell slot 1 level higher than the normal spell, with all the benefits it provides.
Special: Prepared spellcasters such as wizards must prepare fire spells as cursed in order to benefit from cursed flames, but spontaneous spellcasters like sorcerers can switch between regular and cursed flames at will.
Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Character Options → Feats
| Article Balance | High + |
| Author | Sulacu + |
| Identifier | 3.5e Feat + |
| Prerequisite | Spell Focus (evocation) + and must be able to cast 3rd level fire spells. + |
| Rating | Undiscussed + |
| Summary | Allows the caster to wield flames that keep burning and cause nasty status effects. + |
| Title | Secret of the Cursed Flame + |
| Type | General + |
