Rolling Fort saves in combat vs diseased creatures

[LucyG92]

In combat with, say, a dire rat, where their bite attack can inflict disease - must the Fortitude save be made every single time, or just once?

I've always assumed it was every time, but having a player roll a fortitude save over and over again actually seems quite annoying.

[dharkus]

only until they fail, then they have the disease - diseases don't stack with themselves - poisons however they do as the DC and duration can increase from multiple doses

[LucyG92]

Right, so that's as I thought. :/

Thinking of houseruling something like one save at the end of combat (if they're alive, anyway...), with some kind of modifier based on how many times they were hit, to save constantly rolling for characters with good fortitude saves.

[Lady-J]

dont know about pathfinder but i know some other games that if you get a disease even if you fail and contract it on some diseases you can contract it multiple times in which case it mutates and gets worse

as for the houserule it would significantly hinder the pcs i would gladly take like 10 dc 10 fort saves over one dc 25 fort save

[Kileanna]

LucyG92 wrote:

Right, so that's as I thought. :/

Thinking of houseruling something like one save at the end of combat (if they're alive, anyway...), with some kind of modifier based on how many times they were hit, to save constantly rolling for characters with good fortitude saves.

Even if it seems a pain in the ass rolling each time you are hit I recommend it, as a natural one is still a failed save, so the more rolls they make the highest chance they have to contract a disease. Also, increasing the DCs depending on the times they were hit can seriously increase the chance of PCs with low Fort saves to contract the disease.

If you're accounting the times PCs get hit you could make all the rolls together at the end of the combat, specially if the disease has an onset time.

If you want to increase the chance of PCs contracting a disease you could houserule that they work as a poison: further charges of the same disease increase gradually the DC.

[LucyG92]

I'm not trying to make it significantly more likely they will get a disease, just remove the inconvenience of rolling saves constantly - but at the same time I don't want to reduce the chances. Rolling all the saves at the end of combat might be a good idea, then.

[Lady-J]

LucyG92 wrote:

I'm not trying to make it significantly more likely they will get a disease, just remove the inconvenience of rolling saves constantly - but at the same time I don't want to reduce the chances. Rolling all the saves at the end of combat might be a good idea, then.

if you do only do that for diseases that have no immediate effects as some start instantly and bring penalties that can effect the combat