Is Contagion Contagious?


Rules Questions


When spells give a targeted creature a disease, is that disease then able to be transmitted to others via the normal system of epidemiology? While many of them say "injury", several are "contact" or "ingested" (in which case I am thinking of contaminated water supplies.)

Basically, can a nefarious spell caster start a plague with a few castings in the right places?

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That's up to the GM, honestly.

In my game, though, it wouldn't be contagious. They're magically created diseases that immediately affect you, after all; they're already not working like normal diseases.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

It is in every way a true disease except for what the spell changes. I think that if it weren't contagious, the spell's rules would have said as much. It even refers to to diseases for all the disease rules that aren't specifically altered by the spell. That to me encourages the idea that it is as contagious as its normal counterpart.

Its ability to infect others is the reason it has the evil descriptor, I believe.


Ravingdork wrote:

It is in every way a true disease except for what the spell changes. I think that if it weren't contagious, the spell's rules would have said as much. It even refers to to diseases for all the disease rules that aren't specifically altered by the spell. That to me encourages the idea that it is as contagious as its normal counterpart.

Its ability to infect others is the reason it has the evil descriptor, I believe.

I was thinking much the same thing. I am picturing a creepy but seemingly harmless man wandering around Absalom with what appears to be a piece of trash, but is actually a wand of Contagion. Spreading disease and weakening the city as a prelude to grander predations.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Until someone with spellcraft sees and hears him utter the command word. A spell cast from a wand or scroll can be identified just as a spell cast without one can.

The wand itself could easily appear to be an animal bone, though.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
SlimGauge wrote:

Until someone with spellcraft sees and hears him utter the command word. A spell cast from a wand or scroll can be identified just as a spell cast without one can.

The wand itself could easily appear to be an animal bone, though.

I'm not refuting that a wand being use could be identified, but I don't think hearing the command word would be enough (seeing as the command word could literally be anything).

I could have a wand of charm person for example, in which the command word was "smelly fish." You aren't going to know I charmed somebody just because I said "smelly fish."

However, if I touched somebody with a bone, and their flesh suddenly broke out to to pussy sores, then I can understand someone realizing there is magic involved (and maybe identifying the effects of the spell if not as the spell was "cast").


SlimGauge wrote:

Until someone with spellcraft sees and hears him utter the command word. A spell cast from a wand or scroll can be identified just as a spell cast without one can.

The wand itself could easily appear to be an animal bone, though.

"Until" - How many people in the poor quarters have spellcraft? How many people could you get to before you actually ran across someone who in a crowd both noticed what you were doing and observed you long enough to make that check, and succeeded on it?


Scott Carter wrote:

When spells give a targeted creature a disease, is that disease then able to be transmitted to others via the normal system of epidemiology? While many of them say "injury", several are "contact" or "ingested" (in which case I am thinking of contaminated water supplies.)

Basically, can a nefarious spell caster start a plague with a few castings in the right places?

I would say by strict reading of the rules yes, but you might want to consider what exactly that means. As a plot device it works but remember the PCs could possibly use the spell in a similar manner. Think enemy keep as a major plot encounter, out of the box party thinks "infect party wiz/sorc/other teleporting character who runs around infecting people and then bailing when found." Now instead of the keep being a challenge the party sits back and waits for the disease to do it's thing. What was supposed to be a adventure in itself was pretty much barely a challenge. Also diseases would be much more dangerous. Contagion gets cast in a fight?? Every one participating would be at risk (yeah sure the fighter was the one up close and personal BUT your characters don't spend time together after a fight dispersing treasure, sitting around talking about what happened that day/etc?). For your typical party not so much an issue (party tends to have higher stats/saves and the cleric in the group can probably deal with whatever the party needs), but once you decide to make them (magically induced diseases) that virulent your "typical" town/village/city won't be able to keep up with the disease.

If you're the one DMing, it might be easier to say special item/plot device allows the BBEG to do what he needed to do in order to get the ball rolling and it has run out of time/been used up. DM's ARE allowed to do that ;-) And it has no longer lasting effects on the game. I know players in our group would take advantage of a ruling like this, I just want to make sure it is something you'd possibly run into if you decide to rule that way.


** Casts Raise Thread **

I've been pondering this very point. After reviewing the descriptions for some spells that have been added since this thread came out, I think that Contagion, by itself, can't create a magical Typhoid Mary for you.

Here's Contagion:

Quote:
The subject contracts one of the following diseases: blinding sickness, bubonic plague, cackle fever, filth fever, leprosy, mindfire, red ache, shakes, or slimy doom. The disease is contracted immediately (the onset period does not apply). Use the disease's listed frequency and save DC to determine further effects. For more information see Diseases.

Off of that, here's Mythic Contagion:

Quote:

The affected target is highly contagious. Any creature it touches or that touches it with natural weapons or unarmed strikes must save or contract the disease. The save DC for these targets is equal to the spell's DC – 4. The target can't spread this disease to you.

Augmented (7th): If you expend five uses of mythic power, the spell targets every living creature within a 1-mile radius. You can select one creature per caster level within your line of sight; these creatures are unaffected by the spell.

Greater Contagion:

Quote:

This spell functions as contagion, except the victim cannot overcome the disease without magic—making the required number of saves does not cure it.

The DC to remove the disease with magic is equal to the save DC + 5.

And here's Epidemic:

Quote:
The target contracts one of the following diseases: blinding sickness, bubonic plague, cackle fever, filth fever, leprosy, mindfire, red ache, shakes, or slimy doom, as the spell contagion. However, the disease is highly contagious, and any creature that touches the infected target, is touched by the target, or spends more than an hour in a confined space with the target must make a save against the disease's normal DC (not the spell DC) or contract the disease. If the initial target overcomes the disease by making the required number of saving throws, it remains a carrier of the disease for a length of time equal to the disease's frequency, and can continue to infect others during this time.

All of this suggests to me that if you want to do magical biological warfare, you'll need Mythic Contagion or Epidemic, not just Contagion.

Sovereign Court

Are there any rules for non-Contagion diseases actually spreading? There's quite a few monsters carrying diseases, but do the diseases actually spread by themselves as well?


It definitely spreads. Mythic Contagion makes it transmittable by skin to skin contact, which is crazy. Look at Blinding Sickness, a Contagion (that is, a transmittable disease) that you can inflict with the spell...

Contagion wrote:


Type disease, ingested; Save Fortitude DC 16

Onset 1d3 days; Frequency 1/day

Effect 1d4 Str damage, if more than 2 Str damage, target must make an additional Fort save or be permanently blinded; Cure 2 consecutive saves

Blinding Sickness normally requires that you ingest some sort of tainted material (thus Type: Disease, ingested). Mythic Contagion would effectively change it's type to Distease, Contact (making it significantly more dangerous as a biological weapon). Epidemic could make Blinding Sickness have Type: Disease, Contact, Ingested or Inhaled (Bubonic Plague is already Injury or Inhaled, meaning that you need to either exchange bodily fluids or spend time (presumably about an hour?) very close to a victim). Nothing about these other spells implies that Contagion isn't contagious by the normal means.

The spell is instantaneous, so there is no lingering magical effect afterward. It inflicts the target with the disease as though they caught it (sans incubation time). The diseases in question are contagious, and the victim now has the disease in question. Contagion is Contagious. It's called Contagion, for crying out loud!

Sure, you could use Contagion to speed up a siege. In reality, plague-ridden corpses were flung by catapult into fortified areas to do exactly this. Why shouldn't a fourth (sometimes third) level spell be able to infect a fort with a disease when something like Filth Fever is probably easy enough to obtain and just fling in there? You could already just use Fly and pour tainted chunks of flesh all over the place. If your PC's want to use an Evil spell to covertly infect their enemies with a slow, painful death, I say let them. The sort of fame that this kind of victory would earn them might be of dubious value...

Edit: Yes, Ascalaphus, there are rules for catching diseases (though they are a little vague in places). You can find them here . Note how under Onset it says that "Creatures that come in contact with an affliction with an onset time must make a saving throw immediately..."

Sovereign Court

Cyrus Lanthier wrote:
Edit: Yes, Ascalaphus, there are rules for catching diseases (though they are a little vague in places). You can find them here . Note how under Onset it says that "Creatures that come in contact with an affliction with an onset time must make a saving throw immediately..."

I don't think that means what you think it does. That piece of text is very geared to understanding afflictions found in the statblocks of monsters. If a ghoul claws at you, you come into contact with Ghoul Fever.

I don't think that piece of text also means "and if you touch the ghoul with an unarmed strike, you also have to save against Ghoul Fever" - compare ghouls to festrogs for example.

So I think Pathfinder diseases don't have any given rules for spreading them through the population "the normal way".


Ascalaphus, you're now arguing that diseases aren't generally contagious at all in PF, it would seem - is that correct? Because a lot of flavor-text stuff seems to imply (at least to me) that contagious diseases are a thing on Golarion.

Ghoul Fever's type is Injury, so you wouldn't normally get infected by punching them. Similarly, you wouldn't get poisoned sundering a poisoned weapon with your fists (unless it was contact poison, I guess). I assume since the disease is specially linked to the Bite attack, that it's about exchange of bodily fluids (saliva), which seems perfectly reasonable given how diseases work in the real world.

But wait, let's break this into two smaller questions, which might make things easier...

1) Is there any reason to assume that a disease caused by Contagion is any less contagious than one caused in any other way?

and

2) Is the victim of a disease (such as, say, Cackle Fever, which is Disease, Inhaled) normally contagious in Pathfinder?

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