Removal of ongoing negative effects and curses

[Outl]

The Negative Effects section of the Guide to Organized Play talks about what happens if a character ends an adventure with a permanent condition, or a non-permanent condition, or a curse. But it talks about them as if these are three separate things. If a condition is in multiple categories, which method should be used? It further says that PCs can use their spells to clear conditions, but doesn't say whether those PCs should be allowed to rest a night (at the end of the adventure) to prepare those spells.

Also it's possible for a character to be unaware they have an ongoing curse (or disease) until after the adventure is over. For instance, a character hit by an Animate Dream or an Augnagar will know that they are fatigued or drained, but might assume those conditions will wear off after a night's rest, not knowing they're cursed.

What to do in that case? Is the character to be marked dead? Or given a chance to buy a casting of Remove Curse or Pathfinder Condition Removal boon before being marked dead? Or allowed to roll the saving throws for each stage? Or (if non-deadly) assume they will eventually make their saving throws, so they're just fine? Should the character be allowed to cast Remove Curse on themselves the next day, after noticing that a night's sleep didn't work? Or even ask one of the other party members to cast it on them, post-adventure?

BTW, this topic is complicated by there being different types of afflictions -- they're not all the same. Differing opinions and table variation are to be expected. We could leave it at that, but it seems to me that any issue which may-or-may-not result in character death (or related expenses) without warning is worth a little clarification.

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addendum:

Even if you restrict yourself to curses with long durations there are different types. I'd consider five categories, but each type can be either a disease or a curse or both so multiply the categories by 3. The first type is the most simple and obvious, but ongoing saving throws (or stages) have more moving parts so they lead to more 'what if?' questions and odd scenarios.

1) Permanant conditions with no daily saving throws 2) Potentially deadly conditions with daily saving throws 3) Potentially deadly conditions with daily saving throws that cannot go away on their own even if you make the saves 4) Non-deadly conditions with daily saving throws 5) Non-deadly conditions with daily saving throws that cannot go away on their own even if you make the saves

Example of type 1: Mariner's Curse spell or Blindness or Curse of the Werecreature

Example of type 2: Goblin Pox spell or Graveknight's Curse

Example of type 3: Bog Rot from a Bog Mummy

Example of type 4: Rotting Curse from Augnagar

Example of type 5: Expeditious Evolution from Aukashungi Swarm

[Outl]

Well, I thought it was an interesting topic. Perhaps I'm the only one. Plus, the questions that come up are specifically due to the Society rules; they wouldn't be significant in a regular home campaign.

1) Does a type 4 curse even count as a permanent condition? Or a type 2 for that matter.

2) If it does, should the player be informed their character has a curse before the end of the session, so they can do something about it?

3) If the curse is noticed, are they allowed to make the expected saving throws for each stage, on subsequent days?

4) If the curse is noticed, are they allowed to rest a night and prepare Remove Curse to cast on themselves?

5) If they are allowed to rest an extra night at the end of the adventure, is that exploitable somehow? I dunno how... maybe taking extra time to learn a spell or replace a dead familiar or craft some arrows... or maybe go back to look for more treasure they missed earlier?

[GM Tomppa]

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It further says that PCs can use their spells to clear conditions, but doesn't say whether those PCs should be allowed to rest a night (at the end of the adventure) to prepare those spells.

It seems to be generally accepted that the PCs can take the time required to rest and cast the spells, etc.

Guide says:

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The following conditions are not automatically removed and must be cleared from the character before the end of the adventure or the character ceases to be available for Organized Play:

- Death
- Permanent negative effects, including polymorph or petrification
- Curses

Non-permanent effects are automatically removed. My understanding is that when you're looking at an effect, don't concentrate on what the written duration of the effect is - concentrate on what the end result is. For example, poison isn't permanent, and it isn't death or a curse, but if the last combat ends while a PC is poisoned with a poison that can result in their death (or something like permanent blindness), you shouldn't just handwave it - you should resolve it to the end - because the end result is potentially permanent.

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Also it's possible for a character to be unaware they have an ongoing curse (or disease) until after the adventure is over. For instance, a character hit by an Animate Dream or an Augnagar will know that they are fatigued or drained, but might assume those conditions will wear off after a night's rest, not knowing they're cursed.

What to do in that case? Is the character to be marked dead? Or given a chance to buy a casting of Remove Curse or Pathfinder Condition Removal boon before being marked dead?

The GM should let the player know that they have a permanent negative effect that needs to be resolved, at the end of the scenario. This isn't a game of "GOTCHA!" - you can't just wait until the player is about to get up from the table to announce that actually their character contracted a curse and are now permanently dead since it wasn't dealt with.

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Or allowed to roll the saving throws for each stage? Or (if non-deadly) assume they will eventually make their saving throws, so they're just fine?

So - I'm not sure if there's an official clarification anywhere, but as far as I know and as far as I've seen other GMs and VOs discuss this, it seems that the common method of resolving these issues is:

You have a condition. Is it permanent OR does it have a chance to permanently affect (such as, kill) your character? No? Then no need to worry, society takes care of it, or it goes away on it's own.
Is it permanent OR does it have a chance to permanently affect you (such as kill)? Seems it's common that GMs let you roll your saves until you either die/reach a point where the effect is permanent/saves no longer help or you decide to pay up for the removal.

So, from your examples:
1. Permanent effects, need to be removed through boon/spellcasting
2. You'll eventually succeed at the save, no need to worry about it FOR GOBLIN POX, but for graveknight's curse, you need to either save against it until it's gone, or get help in removing it, or you'll die to it. Since a crit failure may immediately result in death, spellcasting services (or spells from other PCs) is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED. I have no idea how you consider Goblin Pox to be potentially deadly - it can not ever kill you - or why it's compared to graveknight's curse.
3. This WILL kill you without spellcasting: It is literally incureable without intervention, the damage can not be healed. You need boon and/or spellcasting to get rid of the curse.
4. This doesn't permanently affect you, and will go away on it's own, eventually.
5. This is exactly like Bog Rot. It is permanent without intervention. Must receive boon or spellcasting or the character is unplayable because of a permanent negative condition.

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1) Does a type 4 curse even count as a permanent condition? Or a type 2 for that matter.

Unclear. It is a curse, so according to the guide, it needs to be cleared from the character... But you can just clear it by waiting a few days and rolling a few saves, so it should be fine?

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2) If it does, should the player be informed their character has a curse before the end of the session, so they can do something about it?

Yes, you can't just stealth-kill their character without giving them a chance to resolve the issue.

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3) If the curse is noticed, are they allowed to make the expected saving throws for each stage, on subsequent days?

Very likely yes. If the rest of the party is allowed to use their spells or class abilities to help them, then they are probably allowed to rest in order to use those abilities, so your character is also probably allowed to rest, and if you do, you'll need to roll for a new save.

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4) If the curse is noticed, are they allowed to rest a night and prepare Remove Curse to cast on themselves?

Same as above. If you can remove the condition yourself, you should obviously be able to remvoe it from yourself.

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5) If they are allowed to rest an extra night at the end of the adventure, is that exploitable somehow? I dunno how... maybe taking extra time to learn a spell or replace a dead familiar or craft some arrows... or maybe go back to look for more treasure they missed earlier?

Not really, no. If you think you found an exploit, you didn't.

There is an indefinitive amount of time between adventures, so you can already learn as many spells as you want, subject to the restriction that if you fail, you can't try again until you've gained a level. If you have magical shorthand, you can just try again until you succeed. Nothing is stopping you from doing that, regardless of this issue. Your dead familiar gets replaced anyway, similarly, the extra days spent recovering don't affect that.
Going back to look for more treasure is a bit more complex. Say you turned left on the last fork of the dungeon and faced the big bad boss and beat them and scenario is ending? You should be allowed to go "hey, let's check the other path too." before ending the scenario. However, if you genuinely missed something in the scenario (everybody failed that perception check to notice that treasure in the forest), your group doesn't really have a reason to go back and comb the forest again. It's gone. You had a chance to find it, you blew it, you don't get another chance to find it.

[Outl]

I like your answers and they all seem sensible. But...

Not long ago I was in a session where half the group got

cursed:

Endless Nightmare from Animate Dreams

in the final battle. We found out when we received our chronicles with gold deducted. During the game we only knew that we had the Fatigued condition after being touched.

Discussing it afterword, the opposite conclusion was reached on every point: We wouldn't realize it was a curse at the time, and wouldn't notice at the end of the session either. The curse continues past the the end of the adventure, so that's as good as permanent. But it wouldn't have mattered even if we did know. Extra days cannot be allowed after the adventure specifically because extra time is exploitable. And therefore, there is no chance to prepare Remove Curse and no opportunity for saving throws at each stage.

This was not a bad ruling, nor a careless decision. This was an experienced and capable GM who considered our arguments, checked rules on Nethys and the Guide, consulted both Reddit and Paizo boards, and checked with other venture officers as well. That's about as thorough as a body can be; there's no wrongdoing to complain about.

My point, if I have one at all, is to say this: When a rule plays out in completely opposite ways at different tables, with nontrivial consequences, maybe the rule should be written more clearly.

This particular rule is a Society rule, not a Paizo rule, so that's why I came here to say it.

[NielsenE]

To me that does sound like a completely bogus and careless ruling. Despite the chain of best-effort evidence you say the GM did, I have to think some details were left out along the way. There should be no gotchas, no "oops you had a permanent condition you didn't know about, sorry your character is dead".

Something doesn't add up.

[Cordell Kintner]

Please note that the guide was updated a couple months ago (Specifically, Feb 28th) to say "permanent curses" aren't removed. This was probably because the Animate Dream's curse was causing too many players to have to pay for curse removal, even thought it would eventually end on its own.

A permanent curse or effect is typically not something that has stages. If there are stages and nothing explicitly says it's permanent, it can go away on its own; it would be something that doesn't have a duration, or explicitly says is permanent. For example, a Curse of Nightmares is a permanent curse.

Here's the curses you mentioned in your original post:

Mariner's Curse spell - Permanent if you Fail or Crit Fail
Curse of the Werecreature - Permanent
Graveknight's Curse - Not permanent
Mummy/Bog Rot - Curse is Permanent, disease isn't
Rotting Curse - Not permanent
Expeditious Evolution - Curse is Permanent, disease isn't

Mummy Rot counts as a permanent curse, as the stage portion of the ability is actually the disease. You would only need curse removal however, as diseases are automatically removed for free, since no disease I know of is permanent without a Curse rider.

[Tomppa]

Outl wrote:

Not long ago I was in a session where half the group got ** spoiler omitted ** in the final battle. We found out when we received our chronicles with gold deducted. During the game we only knew that we had the Fatigued condition after being touched.

Discussing it afterword, the opposite conclusion was reached on every point: We wouldn't realize it was a curse at the time, and wouldn't notice at the end of the session either. The curse continues past the the end of the adventure, so that's as good as permanent. But it wouldn't have mattered even if we did know.

This is really unfortunate, because it's not a good call on the GM's part, and contradicts the guide on several parts: (These are in additon to Cordell's point about the curse actually not being permanent)

Firstly,

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Other PCs can use their spells, feats or class abilities to assist characters in recovering from negative effects.

This explicitly gives other characters the right to help you recover. To use those abilities: On the very least, they must be aware of the effects to help remove them, but typically the consensus is that they can rest in order to prepare those spells.

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They can also contribute consumables or even some of their gold, but they are not required to.

Your GM can't just deduct spellcasting service costs from the characters by default - some of the characters might have wanted to spend their gold on behalf the other characters. Some characters might have had a discount from a boon. Some players/characters might have preferred to use the AcP boon for condition removal instead of gold. The GM can't just make those choices on your behalf and just default to removing the gold:

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Characters can always use gold earned during the adventure to clear conditions and those costs must be deducted on the scenario Chronicle by the GM.

The above part gives you the option to use gold, but doesn't force you to.

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Extra days cannot be allowed after the adventure specifically because extra time is exploitable. And therefore, there is no chance to prepare Remove Curse and no opportunity for saving throws at each stage.

There's no clear rule about the extra days, but I have to point out that they aren't exploitable. They aren't downtime days, and there's already an indefinite amount of time between the scenarios. I would love to hear the examples for argument "you can't remove conditions by resting for a day and prepping the spell because it could be exploited".

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This was not a bad ruling, nor a careless decision. This was an experienced and capable GM who considered our arguments, checked rules on Nethys and the Guide, consulted both Reddit and Paizo boards, and checked with other venture officers as well. That's about as thorough as a body can be; there's no wrongdoing to complain about.

It's a ruling that (sounds like it) was made on the spot, based on the guidance you and the GM could found at the time. There's some supporting words in the material for the way he handled the situation (Old wording addressed all curses as permanents, the sentence I quoted above says the GM MUST deduct the gold, etc), but the way he did is definitely not the intended one and is missing the context. It's not my intention to blame the GM for any wrong doing, or say that the ruling was bad or careless - I can very much see how he'd arrive to the conclusion at the moment, and I can see how the conclusion makes sense. I also know that not all venture officers always agree on every point of nuance in the rules. It is my strong opinion, based on the arguments and evidence, that the GM reached the wrong conclusion, but it is difficult to prove it "beyond any doubt".