Litany of Curses - FYI

[Sojourner]

Special abilities
Source: Chris Avellone, lead designer of Torment

S.1. LITANY OF CURSES (MORTE)

Type: Special Ability
Name: Litany of Curses
Description: Morte can draw upon his repertoire of insults to taunt an opponent into lowering his guard and attacking. The target suffers penalties to hit and damage when enraged.
Not usable by: Anyone except Morte.
Minimum Caster Lvl: N/A
Ability: Instant
Range: The effect can target any single living target on screen. I do not know what this range translates into.
Speed Factor: 1
Effect: When Morte’s special ability is selected, the targeting cursor appears and the player may click on one living opponent on screen. This spell cannot target undead creatures. Magic resistance does not affect this spell. The target does get a saving throw vs. Spells to resist the effect, however.

When a target is selected, a brief insult from Morte plays (taken randomly from a list of voice files). If the Litany of Curses is unsuccessful, then nothing happens. If it is successful, the target freezes for two seconds, turns a pulsing red (pulsing like a heartbeat, the effect similar to the Strength spell) and then moves to attack Morte as quickly as possible. The number of taunts that Morte has accumulated will penalize this saving throw.

While the target is taunted, the following effects occur:

1. The target suffers a -2 to hit and a -2 to AC and a -2 to damage as long as the Litany of Curses is in effect.

2. The target’s AI is overridden so the target will always attack Morte with a physical hand to hand attack, no matter what. This lasts only for the duration of the taunt effect.

This special ability can only be used by Morte.

[fable]

One oddity of the Litany of Curses is how weak, verbally speaking (not magically), the curses are. I know the developers engaged a comic to do the voice of Morte, and presumably he had some input for the lines; but there are very few curses we hear, and for the most part they're really dull. Nor do the curses improve when Morte supposedly learns new ones.

[Sojourner]

They probably had to keep it relatively clean to avoid problems with the censors.

[Kayless]

Originally posted by fable:
<STRONG>I know the developers engaged a comic to do the voice of Morte, and presumably he had some input for the lines.</STRONG>

Rob Pulsen (who provides Morte’s voice) isn’t a comic, he’s a professional voice actor. He’s been in thousands of cartoons, from Animanics (he does Yakko, among others) to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (anyone else remember them? ) I too wish the curses would have been a bit stronger, or at least more creative. But this isn’t Fallout or Leisure Suit Larry, so they can’t have Morte screaming "Yo b!tch! Get your economy-sized ass over here before I tell Razel one of her warts has sprouted legs and ran off!" Or something to that effect.

[fable]

Yeah--I don't equate "clean" with "weak." Some of the most scathing insult comics (like Don Rickles, in his prime) managed to peel paint off walls with their insults, and never used certain formerly forbidden words.

[RPGeek]

What *IS* strange is why it works on unintelligent targets, and why the victims get a THAC0 and damage PENALTY. They should have a bonus, actually.

If you ask me.

I'm against new curses. You can't compare
"****er" with "Mongrel's fart".