Hi all.
Can I just ask if I am about to play something right or wrong at our next session?
One of the adventurers, Alven, managed to get bitten by a giant rat.
He failed his saving throw so went into stage 1. He rolled a 1 on a d4 so he was in stage one for one hour. He then managed to get bitten again but I believe that getting bitten again and failing a saving throw against disease does not advance you another stage like poison does.
At the end of the hour he rolled another saving throw and failed that. So he has now moved into stage 2 and he is sickened 1 for one day. From what I can tell from the description he cannot 'retch' to clear himself of the sickened condition as the description states that the 'sickened and unconscious conditions can't end or be reduced until the disease is cured.' So he now suffers a status penalty of 1 to all checks and DCs. So for his next check he will have a minus 1 to his DC roll.
Not only that but as he cannot ingest anything while sickened and he has a zero constitution bonus he gets a period equal to his constitution bonus plus 1 where he is ok without food and water. So I'm gonna say that his plus 1 is the day in which he went into stage 2. So I'm possibly going to say that if he fails his save yet again for stage 3 he starts to take the damage for starvation and thirst. These seem rather harsh, he takes 1d4 damage per hour that can't be healed due to lack of water and takes 1 point of damage per day due to lack of food.
I must say that the 1d4 per hour seems rather harsh, shouldn't that be 1d4 per day too? Otherwise that's 48 hp average of damage per day that can't be cured. Yikes!
Not only that but according to the rules he will then become fatigued which means he takes a further -1 penalty to AC and saving throws.
It's mounting up against him!
Also one or two other quick questions, stage 3 states that he becomes sickened 1 and slowed 1. Does the sickened condition stack so he becomes sickened 2?
Stage 4 is unconscious so I assume he loses the sickened condition and can be force fed healing potions etc?
Alopogies for the ramble but it does seem awfully complex for a simple disease!