Help with Saves for Conditions or Ailments

[noblejohn]

My party is adventuring in a cold weather environment. There is something that they can get called Bonechill if they take lethal damage. They can also get frostbite and hypothermia.

THe problem is, to get rid of these ailments, all the PCs have to do is make a couple of saves and it is gone. It almost makes the condition irrelevant.

How can I make these ailments more challenging? Should I only allow a save once per day?

Thanks

[Zhayne]

I wouldn't recommend it.

Dying of hypothermia, etc. is a colossally lame way to die for a protagonist.

[noblejohn]

Zhayne wrote:

I wouldn't recommend it.

Dying of hypothermia, etc. is a colossally lame way to die for a protagonist.

I wouldn't let them die from it. Just have some penalties due to the condition.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Is no one in the party capable of Endure Elements? They didn't buy any Cold Weather Gear? Anyone with native Cold Resistance? There's lots of things in Pathfinder to make cold weather not a problem, if you actually want to hit them with an effect you need to target them. Monsters, traps, hazards, haunts, whatever. An avalanche of hyperfrost or something.

Also, don't most of the weather related conditions have a clause that you can heal the condition by healing the damage it caused? If so, Cure Light Wounds ruins most of these as well.

Yep, "A character who takes any nonlethal damage from cold or exposure is beset by frostbite or hypothermia (treat her as fatigued). These penalties end when the character recovers the nonlethal damage she took from the cold and exposure."

[Castarr4]

Bob3, you forgot to read the whole section.

Cold Weather wrote:

A character cannot recover from the damage dealt by a cold environment until she gets out of the cold and warms up again.

I'm fairly sure that means that you can't recover from the damage by any means. Including natural healing, fast healing, and magical healing.

To answer the original question: The game isn't about battling hypothermia. It's something that might possibly happen, but if the PCs have taken precautions then the game pretty much reverts back to "killing monsters and taking their stuff... while wearing a snow hat."

Pathfinder is not a nitty-gritty system for the most part. Most environmental ailments are temporary and simply add to the mood, rather than being large threats by themselves.

That said... I don't see anything about saves making hypothermia go away.

>Character is in a cold environment
>Character has to make Fort saves every once in a while (hour, ten minutes, or minute depending on temperature).
>Once Character fails one of these saves, they take non-lethal damage and are fatigued from frostbite/hypothermia.
>Character has to continue making Fort saves to avoid additional damage. Making a save just avoids additional damage and does not heal previous damage.
>This damage (and fatigue) can't be recovered from until they warm up somewhere (a half hour by a campfire would probably do the trick, depending on the temperature). Once warm, cure spells work normally.

I don't know about your bonechill thing.