WEAPONIZED BLOOD VEIL; contact or injury; save Fortitude DC 16; frequency 1/round; effect 1d3 Constitution damage and 1d3 Charisma damage; cure 2 consecutive saves.
I am afraid this is too powerful, and if I have to ask then it may be a bad idea; however, it does seem that Rolth weaponized "the viral root of Blood Veil" for Jolistina's assault on the Carowyn manor. On page 34 of Seven Days to the Grave the text indicates that he gave her, "several smoke bombs tainted with Vorel's Phage," and on page 38 Ausio Carowyn relates that, after being shot by Jolistina, his guests, "sickened and collapsed with shocking rapidity--whatever venom she coated those bolts with can only be blood veil!"
In my opinion, this is a great plot device; it is characteristic of Rolth and adds a level of urgency at that point in the scenario. I think my players will certainly pick up on the implied weaponization regardless, yet it is a shame this fast-acting form of the disease is absent from the scenario (probably another indication that it is too powerful).
I weaponized Blood Veil above simply by removing the onset time and increasing the frequency to rounds rather than days. This makes the disease act more like a poison, but it still has the persistence of a disease because it has no cap on the number rounds wherein it is active. To reduce the power, I could adjust the frequency to minutes, or reduce the Constitution damage to 1, or even fiddle with the Save DC.
What do you think?
I love the idea, but maybe not in book 2.
If Rolth escapes, I think having him come back later with this (maybe even a more powerful version) would be awesome. Especially since the party will think the plague is completely behind them and won't see it coming.
It might be cool to hit the Player Characters with this in Crown of Fangs.
If you don't mind killing a PC with disease, *AND* if the PCs have Cure Disease lying around, then this seems like a lot of fun.
Jolistina has a wand of Cure Disease, but she's a slippery little minx; ask yourself, "What happens if she gets away and they don't get the wand?"
At the start of this book, I let my PCs get one level "too high" just so the paladin had the Cure Disease mercy, and even then it took all of his Lay on Hands, every single day, just to keep the party and their allies on their feet. With Cure Disease and a paladin, this is a nice resource-waster. With Cure Disease and a cleric, the cleric plays a life-or-death game of, "Do I prepare any other spells of that level?"
Without anyone with Cure Disease, you risk killing a PC every time you use this weapon.
So, depending on how your players feel about PC deaths, and whether your party has Cure Disease lying around, it runs from Great Idea (use up all the Cure Diseases every day, terrify the party, but never actually kill anyone) to Terrible Idea (no one has Cure Disease, everyone fails their saves, and you get a TPK with no monster). Sounds like fun!
Well I don't necessarily want to kill them, but I do want to come close. The PCs can also spend Harrow Points for Fortitude save re-rolls.
Maybe I should adjust the parameters of the weaponized disease. Perhaps I should play it safe and cap the frequency at 4 or 6 rounds. I'm thinking 6 rounds, that would inflict maybe 10 points of Constitution damage, but could still potentially result in 18 points, which is certainly enough to kill.
Wouldn't it be cool to describe the rapid development of the PCs symptoms as he frantically fights to survive. First the rash spreads across his face, then turns to blisters and grape-sized pox as the PC hacks and coughs up blood.
Ah...it's music to my ears.
Yes; giving it a duration would make it purrrrfect...
Yeah, definitely having Rolth put this in his bag of tricks for his re-appearance. I'm turning him into a recurring long-term enemy so the party will keep bumping into him, and each time he'll have a nastier toy to play with. This will be among them.