So for this homebrewed campaign I was making, I wanted one factor of the story to be this new disease that comes up now and then in the area. It's not epidemic levels of seriousness, but is noticeable enough that it isn't ignored.
Basically, I was thinking it goes through three stages over a period of time, which would be the effects of other diseases in steadily increasing Fortitude Saves. Making the save or having Remove Disease gets rid of the actual Ability Score Damage, but the disease itself persists and by the third stage, one casting of the spell/making the save only mitigates the damage and requires another after a few days. And even then, the disease will cause instant death after a certain amount of time from initial contact, regardless of how "ok" the person seems.
Does this sound like this could work? I simply wanted to create a sickness that seemingly starts harmless but slowly gets worse and worse until it gets deadly serious. The idea that having a good Fortitude or having Remove Disease cast on them is only a "Band-Aid" solution as it were and that the sickness doesn't seem of this world at all.. Does this idea seem workable, or does it sound way too difficult for the players to handle? Are their any suggestions on how I could make this idea more effective?
It's workable in theory, but if you have a disease that's inevitably lethal... well, what stops it from eventually killing everyone? Is it just not very contagious?
Doug M.
That's part of what makes the disease not usual. It's like it's more of a biological weapon being used in precise places to do specific damage. But there's no evidence of how it's being controlled, or even for what reason.
The basic idea in the grand scheme is that it's actually meant to be a Leveling measure. Help keep the population in a constant state of unease at best and paranoia at worst. Especially when richer nobles can have the disease for years and live ok compared to the poor who get it tend to die at around precise time after contact.
This sounds pretty atypical of disease outbreaks. Most don't have people just wandering around as normal then dropping dead suddenly. It might be difficult to evoke the atmosphere you're after using this as originally described. Having some noticable but not gameplay affecting symptom - like a rash, cough, bloodshot eyes etc - could help to show that there are many people infected, and as a reminder to infected players.
Having the disease "cause instant death after a certain amount of time" is also pretty harsh. No-save, no avoidance deaths are the ones that players tend to resent. If you're set on having a fixed time to death you'd better signpost or railroad them toward the cure with frequent reminders that they're running out of time.
Corvino wrote: This sounds pretty atypical of disease outbreaks. Most don't have people just wandering around as normal then dropping dead suddenly. It might be difficult to evoke the atmosphere you're after using this as originally described. Having some noticable but not gameplay affecting symptom - like a rash, cough, bloodshot eyes etc - could help to show that there are many people infected, and as a reminder to infected players.
Having the disease "cause instant death after a certain amount of time" is also pretty harsh. No-save, no avoidance deaths are the ones that players tend to resent. If you're set on having a fixed time to death you'd better signpost or railroad them toward the cure with frequent reminders that they're running out of time.
Well I was actually rethinking that last part not long after I made the initial post. Instead I was thinking of relegating it to rolling damage every so often. For players who contract it, this wouldn't be a big deal as they'd have plenty of spells and potions to counteract this (Plus at this stage of the disease, they'd be much higher in level). But to the average person who doesn't have regular access to such need, it's more obvious they'd die from it.
First off--maybe this better be posted under Suggestions/Houserules/Homebrew.
What you can do is allow said disease to have a few special properties:
1. No on the instant death. That is detrimental to your cause. It is a creeping horror, not a you lose button.
2. Instead of being based off segments of time, allow the disease to become stronger in response to specific conditions, such as coming across the disease again (being touched by an infected creature, wounded by it, etc.) to increase the 'level' of the disease.
3. The DC of the disease increases every time the creature is infected again. It starts at 8, and increasing by +2 per time infected. When cured, coming across the infected again means another infection with a higher DC.
If the creature comes in contact with another infected creature, the level increases by 1 (cannot increase more than 1 level in any given 8 hours). The DC does not increase, however.
4. Remove disease/restoration do remove the attribute damage, but they require a caster level check against the DC of the disease (see below for DC of disease). On a success, the disease is totally removed, but if infected again, the DC increases by 2 points.
5. Instead of whatever effect you have in mind (Con damage, etc.), consider the disease to be an immune-system-targeting disease. For every stage, the diseased creature takes a penalty to their maximum hit points and to all saving throws.
Quote: Creeping Rakes:
DC 8, contact/inhaled plague.
Effect: Level 1 infection.
Trigger: Contact with the plague, strenuous activity.
This plague debilitates a creature's immune system and its mental resistances. When coming in contact with a vector of this plague, the creature is infected (or if already infected, increases their infection level by one, maximum 1 per 8 hours of exposure).
Level 1: -1 to max hit points per hit dice; -2 to all saving throws
Level 2: -2 to max hit points per hit dice; -2 to saving throws, and sickened condition (stacks for -4 to saving throws, -2 to checks and attack rolls)
Level 3: -3 to max hit points per hit dice; above penalty, and nausea for 1d6 rounds every hour when undergoing strenuous activity (such as combat, spell-casting, etc.)
Special: Whenever this disease is cured, and the target is infected again, the DC increases by 2 points.
This way, you have a long-term debilitate disease that seems like an annoyance first, but has serious potential for becoming a superbug with a serious debuff at its final stage.
If you want a disease that occurs throughout the population but is relatively easy for the PCs to avoid during their short-term exposure, consider making it blood-borne, vertically transmitted (from mother to child) or sexually transmitted. But this is also a lot more likely to be controversial. As long as the PCs avoid sleeping around, injecting drugs or making blood-mingling oaths they *should* be safe.
In terms of nobles using a disease to control lower social classes, this scenario would also work. It would limit spread from the poor to aristocrats, unlike other methods of disease transmission. There's also something deeply unsettling about the idea of an intimately-spread infection being deliberately started - just look at the government AIDS conspiracy theories from the 80s and 90s.
While that does the job a LOT better then what I had in mind, am I reading that write up wrong cause it seems like they could reach level 3 within a single day (8 hours x 3) and that seems way too fast.
Blue Tempest wrote: While that does the job a LOT better then what I had in mind, am I reading that write up wrong cause it seems like they could reach level 3 within a single day (8 hours x 3) and that seems way too fast. That is true, assuming that it spreads that fast within the populace that a creature is constantly exposed for 24 hours (sleeping, eating, and working with infected objects/people). A creature that is constantly exposed to the disease will rack up the penalty.
Of course, you may alter it to increase one level per three days, or even per week. However, that will not change the rate of infection in populated cities.
In a model of 1:2 (one person infects two others) would follow that a plagued city as large as Absalom (303,000 population), would take some time to spread.
Day 1: Person 1 enters, comes in contact with two others. You have three infected people in the first 8 hours. Each of the three infect two others (+6), and day 1 ends with 9 people infected.
Day 2: 27 on morning of second day. 81 by noon. They go to sleep.
Day 3: 243 by morning of third day, 729 by noon. Word begins to spread of a disease. It begins to spread outwards by traders once it reaches the 1000 mark.
First infected populace might still be at level 1 of the disease (there isn't a high enough chance to come in contact with another active host), or might have succeeded on their saves.
Day 4: 2,187 on morning of fourth day, people are getting worried, and the DC for several people increased to 12-14, and many are on the second stage. 6,561 by noon, and panic arises.
Day 5: Nearly 20,000 people infected by morning, and government begins to act. This brings the possibility of infecting others from 1:2 to 1:0.5. It might shut down city sectors, begin burning regions, and imposes quarantine on pain of death.
The infection does not cease, increasing to 30,000 people by noon of day 5, despite the crackdown. That is about 10% of the people of the city, a terrifying number by modern epidemic standards.
Day 6: 45k infected at morning, 67k by noon.
Exodus, the populace decreases by around 5-10% (about say 15-45k) people leave, most drowning at sea in escape from the city), leaving the sick, the angry, the determined (and heroes) and the stupid.
This gets the attention and patronage of the goddess of disease and plagues, and they grant their blessing, and cultists begin emerging. The infection rate is up to 1:1.
Day 7: 134k people are infected by morning. More exodus. The plague begins spreading regionally (and then globally).
Over the next few weeks, this plague (with some individuals) will reach a DC of possibly 18 or 22, gives huge penalties to hit points, -4 to all saving throws, -2 to all skill checks and attack rolls, and bouts of vomit and sickness.
Yeah see, that is way too fast and too many people infected in a short amount of time for my uses.
I suppose instead of contact/inhaled, I could make it more harder to catch like Corvino stated and make it a blood-borne disease and most people having a relatively good idea that's what's spreading it. People are instructed basically never to touch blood of infected and there's plague doctors all over the place to better deal with them(The guys with the fully body black leather suits with the bird masks)
Does that sound like that would keep in more under control?
It would keep things under control and put a better spin on it.
It can also turn out to be a nasty surprise if particularly cunning enemies begin deploying water balloons or squirt-guns that spray contaminated blood. Blood-borne diseases are also usually injury, so put that in mind: people will begin cleaning their tools with specific formulas.
As-is, the game rarely features instances of blood transfusions (which somehow lessens the possibility for that to occur), but you can easily come up with mechanics for it: maybe it can accelerate natural healing, or be the only way you recover from Constitution damage that doesn't take weeks to heal.
Hope these ideas helped.
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