Per the Contagion spell:
The subject contracts one of the following diseases: blinding sickness, bubonic plague, cackle fever, filth fever, leprosy, mindfire, red ache, shakes, or slimy doom. The disease is contracted immediately (the onset period does not apply). Use the disease's listed frequency and save DC to determine further effects. For more information see Diseases.
It seems to me that, because the spell is notably lacking verbiage like "choose", the disease is not necessarily chosen (see Bestow Curse for an example of such verbiage).
Do we have any other evidence as to how this should be ruled?
On one hand, I agree with that as a ruling, but on another, it's clear that some of these diseases are straight up better than others.
On one hand, I agree with that as a ruling, but on another, it's clear that some of these diseases are straight up better than others.
I feel they are pretty on par with each other. But also this spell isn’t exactly meant for combat. It can be used for that sure, but it’s more of an RP spell. It’s for giving an NPC an illness and letting them infect their community.
And to that particular end, it still has several diseases that are still way more valuable than others, as beyond the initial infected from the casting of the spell, you not only use the normal save DC, but some simply have better infection vectors (contact or inhaled vs injury or ingestion). Also, an area effect, instantaneous disease effect is still super useful in combat. It can weaken casters with the right mental ability damage, it can weaken martials with the right physical damagers, and one I believe even causes fatigue.
You’re making the false assumption that the user would always want to use the most dangerous option. You may want to make a town suffer without wiping it out.
Maybe, but it's a really weird learning curve both in character and out of character to know which of the listed diseases will do that in either case.
The blurb on the short spell intro, "Contagion{Y}: Infects subject with chosen disease." which clearly implies the caster chooses.
If you're referring to the text from the PFSRD where it has the spell listed in a table, that is not official rules text, just what the guy who runs the site decided to say about the spell so people would have at least a vague understanding of what they do. It should at all be looked at as a rules source for how the spell actually works.
The blurb on the short spell intro, "Contagion{Y}: Infects subject with chosen disease." which clearly implies the caster chooses.If you're referring to the text from the PFSRD where it has the spell listed in a table, that is not official rules text, just what the guy who runs the site decided to say about the spell so people would have at least a vague understanding of what they do. It should at all be looked at as a rules source for how the spell actually works.
The short description with the word "chosen" can be found in the CRB and on Archives of Nethys, so it is official.
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The short description with the word "chosen" can be found in the CRB and on Archives of Nethys, so it is official.The blurb on the short spell intro, "Contagion{Y}: Infects subject with chosen disease." which clearly implies the caster chooses.If you're referring to the text from the PFSRD where it has the spell listed in a table, that is not official rules text, just what the guy who runs the site decided to say about the spell so people would have at least a vague understanding of what they do. It should at all be looked at as a rules source for how the spell actually works.
Correct: It is found on p227 of the CRB.
Also included in the Legacy SRD Spell Lists.
It's not exactly conclusive, but it's the only guidance we seem to have on this particular item...