Mystical Blight (3.5e Maneuver)

''Enjoy your magic while you can, boy! You won't have it - or your life - much longer!''

As a standard action, you charge your blade with necromantic energy, after which you make a single melee attack. If your attack hits, your target must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC = 18 + your Int modifier (if initiating this maneuver as an Occult Sovereignty maneuver) or your Con modifier (if initiating this maneuver as an Organic Repast maneuver)) or contract one of the following diseases (your choice): caster decay, caster's headache, corpseblood mold, wild plague, or soul burn. A disease inflicted through this maneuver is treated for all intents and purposes like a blight, meaning that it is extremely deadly and difficult to cure. (Soul burn is already a blight, and is not altered by being inflicted by this maneuver.) The Fortitude save DC of this maneuver is used as the DC of the initial save against the blight, and if the opponent fails, the blight's Stage 1 effects (including the first round of damage) begin immediately with no incubation period. If the opponent succeeds on the Fortitude save against this maneuver by 10 or more, it is not infected at all. Subsequent saves are made at the normal intervals, against the disease's normal DC plus 6 or the save DC of this maneuver, whichever is higher. However, due to this maneuver inflicting a blight, once infection has taken hold and reached Stage 1, it cannot be removed without the assistance of extremely powerful healing magic.

If you attempt to use this maneuver again to infect the same creature with the same blight, or you use it to attempt to infect a creature with a blight that it already has (including the disease variant from mystical plague or any other source), and the target fails its save, you cause a reduced instantaneous effect, depending on the blight:
 * Caster Decay: Your target loses 5 spell slot(s) of the highest level(s) he or she can cast as if he or she had cast those spells. If the target prepares spells and has multiple spell slots of those levels, he or she chooses which spells are lost. Unlike spell slots lost through the blight, these spell slots are not "drained" - they are simply lost, and can be refreshed the next day (or by any means capable of refreshing expended spell slots). However, if you deprive your target of his or her last spell slot in this way, your target immediately starts to generate an antimagic field and begins hungering for magic, as the penultimate stage of the blight, until he or she is able to somehow regain a usable spell slot. If your target was already out of usable spell slots when you used this maneuver, nothing happens.
 * Caster's Headache: Your target gains 5 spellstrained levels. Unlike spellstrained levels caused through the blight, these spellstrained levels are not permanent and can be cured through normal means, including rest. However, if the target's total spellstrained levels equal or exceed its caster level + 1, it immediately disintegrates into virulent green mist. (This mist will not harm you if you are not a spellcaster yourself. If you are... way to go, genius, you just potentially signed your own death sentence.)
 * Corpseblood Mold: Your target takes 1d4+2 points of Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma damage. (Unlike subsequent saves against corpseblood mold itself, Fortitude saves against infection through this maneuver while already sick do benefit from the victim's increased Constitution. A successful redundant corpseblood mold infection does not increase the victim's Constitution.) If any of the target's mental ability scores are reduced to 0, it becomes a corpseblood gel.
 * Wild Plague: Your target rolls five times on the wild surge table when he casts his next spell, and all five wild surge results take effect.
 * Soul Burn: Your target immediately takes 6d6 vile fire damage (in addition to damage from the attack itself; half or all of this vile fire damage is promptly doubled due to soul burn's effects) and 2d4&minus;1 points of Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma damage (half or all of which is promptly converted to ability burn by soul burn's effects). If any of the target's mental ability scores are reduced to 0 as a consequence of this damage/burn, or its hit points are reduced to &minus;10 (or whatever its death threshold happens to be), it immediately erupts into unquenchable flames that completely consume the target (but nothing else) by the end of your action, burning both its body and soul so thoroughly that resurrection methods requiring remains will not work, and resurrection methods that do not require remains have only a 50% chance to work; if such a method fails, the victim cannot be brought back to life by mortal magic. (Note that as a genuine blight, soul burn itself does not inflict ability damage, but instead imposes ability penalties. This is why a redundant soul burn infection can cause more ability damage than a redundant corpseblood mold infection.)

You can use this maneuver multiple times to infect a target with multiple blights. If you do, all of the blights operate simultaneously, and each blight has its full effect. (Be warned that corpseblood mold may make other blights easier to resist!)

If your attack misses or your target succeeds on its Fortitude save by 10 or more, the necromantic energy dissipates harmlessly, and no blight is transmitted. If your target made the save, your attack is resolved as normal.

This maneuver is a supernatural ability. If you use it to inflict soul burn, it gains the [ Descriptor::Fire ] descriptor.