| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Long story short, my personally crafted world is more or less destroyed and a few hundred years later my PCs start anew.
Due to some interesting events, half of the tiny amount of the world's occupants that remain are mindless or intelligent undead.
Does anyone know of some interesting homebrew or maybe even a by-the-books way of making an almighty disease that affects most creatures, including undead? I saw that under the disease templates the "Magic-Resistant" template made it to where the disease affected that had immunity to disease, as long as they had constitution scores, which obviously undead don't have.
Any ideas on something i'm missing or on something that I can make?
Ideally i'd like the disease I make to be pretty nasty to start out but get even worse in time. Preferably powerfully arcane/divine in nature.
There is no disease in Pathfinder RAW that affects undead. Undead are... explicitly immune to everything that requires a fort save, and I don't know of any disease that forces a will save.
Buuuuuuut as DM you're able to give the final say on what does and doesn't. I personally love the thought of a disease that, while potent to living creatures, would wreak ungodly havoc on undead that literally lack immune systems. Kind of like a fungus growing in them that they are biologically incapable of stopping.
There is no disease in Pathfinder RAW that affects undead. Undead are... explicitly immune to everything that requires a fort save, and I don't know of any disease that forces a will save.
Buuuuuuut as DM you're able to give the final say on what does and doesn't. I personally love the thought of a disease that, while potent to living creatures, would wreak ungodly havoc on undead that literally lack immune systems. Kind of like a fungus growing in them that they are biologically incapable of stopping.
Some sort of disease that messes with Charisma would affect both undead and non-undead alike, though it would eventually destroy undead and just put living creatures into comas. Any idea on something that could do that besides just relabeling something?
Not if the save is still inherently based on Fort (mechanically). I mean a literal fungus growing inside of them. It would essentially be feeding off of the muscle system of the undead (str damage); BUT the divine aspect would be it forces the undead to use it's Con mod to the fort save, which is effectively 0.
I feel like a flesh eating disease would be pretty rough. I see no reason why it couldn't eat dead flesh too.
I feel like a flesh eating disease would be pretty rough. I see no reason why it couldn't eat dead flesh too.
Wouldn't that just turn all zombies in to skeletons?
I feel like a flesh eating disease would be pretty rough. I see no reason why it couldn't eat dead flesh too.
Sounds kinda OP to me
I don't think it would turn them into skeletons. Skeletons and zombies are explicitly raised differently (especially if we're talking about ghouls, which are the "zombies" from most pop culture references, like Dawn of the Dead).
I've made more than a few necromancers in the past, and the defining difference to me between skeletons and zombies is that you get "fast zombies" or "bloody skeletons". The undead's charisma only prevents natural decaying from continuing, which is how you have centuries old skeletons NOT crumbling when looked at too hard.
EDIT: And flesh eating diseases are usually pretty OP irl too XD
I don't think it would turn them into skeletons. Skeletons and zombies are explicitly raised differently (especially if we're talking about ghouls, which are the "zombies" from most pop culture references, like Dawn of the Dead).
I've made more than a few necromancers in the past, and the defining difference to me between skeletons and zombies is that you get "fast zombies" or "bloody skeletons". The undead's charisma only prevents natural decaying from continuing, which is how you have centuries old skeletons NOT crumbling when looked at too hard.
EDIT: And flesh eating diseases are usually pretty OP irl too XD
Oh, whoops. The "that seems OP" comment was meant for you
If you are the GM you can simply create a disease that affects undead. If you are looking for a explanation as to why it does there could be several reasons.
One thing I had been working on for a campaign I was running was a fungus that infects undead. It is a creation of Xhamen-Dor to control all undead in the world. Basically any undead exposed to the fungus has to make a saving throw every day or fall under the control of Xhamen-Dor. The only thing that removes the fungus is positive energy which will damage the undead as well. This is still in the conceptual phase and I have not worked out all the details.
A deity who is against undead may have created a undead specific disease to counter the threat. It would obviously be something magical and could be based on positive energy.
Like Mysterious Stranger said, as a GM, you have the power of plot on your side. Don't do it too much or your players will start to cry foul, but if it makes for a cool plot hook, you can go for it. The rules are just a framework to hang your story on. If the rules don't work in your favour, you're allowed to change them. Just don't change them too much or your player don't know what to expect anymore.
Or flavour it as a very aggressive disease. Mere contact will afflict you, without even a save. Flesh-eating bacteria maybe aren't the best example, but things that literally spread by touch just need a new surface to cling to. Things like the flu need to fight through your immune system, but if there's a fungus that literally grows on everything it touches, you just need to touch it for its spores to carry over to you. On zombies it just rots away the flesh or whatever, but on living things it could do anything you want.
If you want something divine in nature, you could say the gods are involved. They don't have to listen to the laws of magic, they simply overwrite them. Urgathoa (or your homebrew version of a goddess of disease) put a curse on some zombies and now they carry a disease around. Problem solved. This dodges the fact that undead are immune to disease, because a deity willed it, and immediately makes it understandable to your players why undead are affected by it.
Like Mysterious Stranger said, as a GM, you have the power of plot on your side. Don't do it too much or your players will start to cry foul, but if it makes for a cool plot hook, you can go for it. The rules are just a framework to hang your story on. If the rules don't work in your favour, you're allowed to change them. Just don't change them too much or your player don't know what to expect anymore.
Or flavour it as a very aggressive disease. Mere contact will afflict you, without even a save. Flesh-eating bacteria maybe aren't the best example, but things that literally spread by touch just need a new surface to cling to. Things like the flu need to fight through your immune system, but if there's a fungus that literally grows on everything it touches, you just need to touch it for its spores to carry over to you. On zombies it just rots away the flesh or whatever, but on living things it could do anything you want.
If you want something divine in nature, you could say the gods are involved. They don't have to listen to the laws of magic, they simply overwrite them. Urgathoa (or your homebrew version of a goddess of disease) put a curse on some zombies and now they carry a disease around. Problem solved. This dodges the fact that undead are immune to disease, because a deity willed it, and immediately makes it understandable to your players why undead are affected by it.
I like the idea of a fungi based affliction. I can't really have it be a canon deity that created the disease for many reasons, especially from Urgathoa who's dead in my universe at this point. I could introduce it with from a distance with a new deity, but doing things in compliance with how the world has been developing so far is kinda annoying
'Sup?
(Alluria Publishing Represent!)
The vivification virus bypasses a corporeal undead’s normal immunity to disease. In addition, this disease has no effect whatsoever on the living. This disease only affects corporeal undead. All obitu carry this disease, and some even manage to master control over it through certain feats. Undead who are not Medium-sized humanoids that die from this disease, do not rise as obitu. Vestiges related to the type of undead, as well as any damage to the skeleton itself, disappear by the time the obitu reaches basic sentience (at about 6 months old). This disease cannot be cured by magical means.
Now, obviously that does nothing for your "living" problem, buuu~uuut...
Plague Born feat and (if you treat it like a disease) Fractal Etch means that you have a new breed of creature that is menace to both dead and living. Bonus: the nature of Obitu means that they'd be immune to the literal reading of what fractal etch does anyway (i.e. they don't have to worry about "folds" in their brains as part of their memory function - they have brains, but their memory recorder is clearly different from normal, as they also have a full respiratory and digestive system all held inside the skull). You could also (or alterantively) afflict them with thought crawlers, but there's less "they'd probably be naturally immune" in that instance. Either way, you could make the infestation even worse, or the vivication virus cursed to generate a madness effect as well, if you like.
Hope that helps!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As it exists, there is no 1st-party diseases that affects undead. However...
If you feel fine homebrewing, you could make a magic-sapping disease that targets Will saves and reduces CHA.
If you are alright houseruling, you could rule that undead are subject to decomposition, and need Fort saves for that.
If you like logical consequences, you could have disease evolve a way around Fort saves.
If you want a more mystical feel, you could make a magical viral sort of curse.
If you want more zombies, you could have a super-disease that targets zombies (turns zombies into golems, demons, better zombies, living people, or whatever).
If you consider life to be an STD, you could have Elven Paladins.
Interesting bunch of stuff here, thanks for the input
Any idea on how to balance non-con disease damage properly?| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What if your plague can also affect objects, like any object that has been alive, like wood, furs, ivory, etc. causing those items to rot and decay. A fungic infestation or a parasite could do the job. By the rules undead are affected by things that affect objects so it would make sense. And that doesn't avoid that your disease is able to affect the living either.
I also like the ideas about making it deal CHA damage, but I don't know if it would be compatible with what I've just said. It should do something else aside from CHA damage. Like dealing damage representing rotting (which maybe living creatures could heal without a lot of effort but not undead) and making victims disfigured (cha damage) because of the decay. Something maybe like lepra but making it from a fungic source.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Cordyceps
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Cordyceps
It worked for The Last of Us xD
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rather than a disease, make it a curse that works like a disease in how it spreads. Something that potent should probably be magical in nature.
You could also make it some parasite that takes over a hosts body, undead or not, or just simply eats away at whatever animating 'stuff' keeps living and undead creatures alive. I like Darigaaz's suggestion of cordyceps as well.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Nanobots...
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Fungus seems the most thematically fitting.
Also keep in mind that undead are immune to dex and str damage, not just con, so you need to add a line for the disease bypassing this immunity as well. ;)
Undead aren't immune to curses, though.
Whether it's a fungus, parasite, bacteria, or simply a magical curse, any interference with negative energy could be a pretext for charisma damage. A nasty strain could potentially impede negative energy effects (that would normally heal the undead) and possibly the natural daily healing (for intelligent undead).
Anything that only withers the flesh should make skeletons, but if it attacks the bones as well then it's destruction. ;)
I could imagine a calcifying organism, too, that gradually drains the undead of str/dex until it is turned into a statue.
Perhaps a more complex disease that isn't "all bad", like an etherealing fungus that gradually makes the undead host incorporeal... for a while, until it sporulates and kicks it onto the ethereal plane.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A disease that creates incorporeal undead? No, please!!! *shudders*
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A disease that creates incorporeal undead? No, please!!! *shudders*
Hehehe.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rats. Corporeal Undead are food that can't feel you gnawing on them. Rats will even eat the bones. Lots of critters are good at getting to the marrow of relatively fresh bones.
Old D&D had Rot Grubs being the bane of Liches everywhere.