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I think you understand it correctly curses are harder to remove,
often they add some way to remove them, but it could be further ahead in the adventure path, or they assume the party get to high enuf level to be able to pick it up themself(even then they usualy have options like a scroll or staff that can be found as such).
Corrupting Spite while not harmless and cant kill you itself. so i dont see the big issue. at maximum you get drained 4 (and they get a new save each round, to become better or worse)
sooner of later you will find someone that can remove it (in a large city for example) or level up to pick a remove curse option yourself,
Probably it's just a failure of the game designers of this AP. It's not so rare to happen once that the lore writer of an AP is not always the same that choose the monsters and not the same who draw maps and so on. So eventually we find some inconsistencies like this with a monster having an unpredictable ability that doesn't make too much sense with the AP lore.
I suggest you to create a small side quest to remove the curse allowing the players to find a way to remove the curse. I know that this may be some extra work specially if you are an inexperienced GM. But probably it's the easier way to deal with it.
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Stages
Source Player Core pg. 430 2.0
An affliction typically has multiple stages, each of which lists an effect followed by an interval in parentheses. When you reach a given stage of an affliction, you are subjected to the effects listed for that stage.At the end of a stage's listed interval, you must attempt a new saving throw. On a success, you reduce the stage by 1; on a critical success, you reduce the stage by 2. You are then subjected to the effects of the new stage. If the affliction's stage is ever reduced below stage 1, the affliction ends and you don't need to attempt further saves unless you're exposed to the affliction again.
On a failure, the stage increases by 1; on a critical failure, the stage increases by 2. You are then subjected to the effects listed for the new stage. If a failure or critical failure would increase the stage beyond the highest listed stage, the affliction instead repeats the effects of the highest stage.
I think the thing you're missing is the affliction stage rules. Even with a terrible save modifier, any PC will eventually burn through the very short interval affliction of Corrupting Spite. Even if they need two natural twenties in a row, that would still be under an hour. All that's left is removing the drained condition, which happens (painfully slowly) with rest, or because the curse is gone, can be done with lower level spells.
So, this isn't actually a case where the designers forgot something. It's just that the "wait it out" part of removing afflictions covers both "eventually making enough consecutive successful saves" and "waiting out a listed duration".
Yep, the secret here as others are mentioning is that with this curse, since it has stages and the stages are every round, you get to roll every round to decrease the stage.
You could simply say "Hey, Steve (player character) has this nasty condition. We're going to set up camp and let him rest overnight here." And in the morning, the character has managed a string of saves that would reduce the condition to 0. Is that realistic? Maybe. If the character were at stage 4, they may need up to 5 nat 20s to succeed, which is incredibly unlikely, but since your making a roll every 6 seconds, or 10 rolls a minute. Over an 8 hour time period, a character would make 4,800 rolls (8 hours * 60 minutes/hr * 60 second per minute / 6 seconds per round).
Honestly I forget how to do the probability calculation for such a scenario. Maybe mathmuse will see this thread and answer.
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No level 3 PC needs a natural 20 to overcome this curse. Even if they get to Drained 4, the worst case scenario is Con -1, Trained in Fort, Drained 4, for a net +0 against DC 17.
It's more common for PCs to just make the save. Last time I ran a wight,I didn't think anybody got cursed.
Probably it's just a failure of the game designers of this AP. It's not so rare to happen once that the lore writer of an AP is not always the same that choose the monsters and not the same who draw maps and so on. So eventually we find some inconsistencies like this with a monster having an unpredictable ability that doesn't make too much sense with the AP lore.
I suggest you to create a small side quest to remove the curse allowing the players to find a way to remove the curse. I know that this may be some extra work specially if you are an inexperienced GM. But probably it's the easier way to deal with it.
An above-average amount of something showing up isn't a failure. What's the contradiction even supposed to be here?
The OP did not mention any lore, or even specify which adventure party they're playing.
Needing to clear four stages takes, at worst, two nat 20s in a row. At one roll per round, the expected length of time is 400 rounds, or 40 minutes.
Needing to clear four stages takes, at worst, two nat 20s in a row. At one roll per round, the expected length of time is 400 rounds, or 40 minutes.
How do you suppose it only takes 2 nat 20s at worst?
I suppose the "bounded accuracy" of the system is the answer. You shouldn't end up with a situation where the difference between the players fort save and the DC is 20.
To an above poster's point (and I didn't verify before writing this):
Trained equal 2 + level proficiency - The characters are level 3 so +5.
Drained 4 with a -1 con would be a -4 penalty applied to the roll with a -1 con modifier (net -5) for a total net of 0.
Meaning a roll of 17 or better is what is required as a worst case. And if you have a better con (and as drained condition reduces) your odds increase.
Again I don't have the right knowledge of probability and statistics to do the math, but it does seem more reasonable with that to just say after a night of rest the curse is gone.
As annoying as it can be, to not have a way to directly remove, as a staged affliction you just need to go to stage 0.
Since you roll every round, so every 6 seconds, even if you need 2 nat20s in a row to clear it, statistically it would be less than a couple of hours of resting.
So do your party the favour of sparring the actual rolls and rule that with a couple of hours of rest you manage to overcome the curse.
In fact, I didn't notice that Corrupting Spite doesn't have any high duration in none of the stages, so the characters simply will keep rolling round by round until get it fully removed.
The OP did not mention any lore, or even specify which adventure party they're playing.
I know I'm just answered, considering that the OP read this AP that he/she/it is talking about and doesn't found a way to remove the condition until get access to heightened Cleanse Affliction spell.
Needing to clear four stages takes, at worst, two nat 20s in a row. At one roll per round, the expected length of time is 400 rounds, or 40 minutes.How do you suppose it only takes 2 nat 20s at worst?
I suppose the "bounded accuracy" of the system is the answer. You shouldn't end up with a situation where the difference between the players fort save and the DC is 20.
To an above poster's point (and I didn't verify before writing this):
Trained equal 2 + level proficiency - The characters are level 3 so +5.Drained 4 with a -1 con would be a -4 penalty applied to the roll with a -1 con modifier (net -5) for a total net of 0.
Meaning a roll of 17 or better is what is required as a worst case. And if you have a better con (and as drained condition reduces) your odds increase.
Again I don't have the right knowledge of probability and statistics to do the math, but it does seem more reasonable with that to just say after a night of rest the curse is gone.
Exactly. Even at level 1 with a Con penalty and the full drained 4, a nat 20 will still crit-succeed against against DC 17, and that's the worst-case scenario. Tracking moving up and down the track is a pain for the statistics, so I just took the simplified worst case and figured that out. That worst-case scenario is about 40 minutes to clear, and pretty much any PC is going to have better odds than that, so even overnight rest is being a little harsh.
Well Mathmuse helped me out with a scenario prompt of needing 5 nat 20s in a row and the odds that it happens like 4800 rolls (8 hours), and the odds were actually still really bad.
Decreasing the need from a nat 20 to a 17 though should increase the probability.
Edit: I also just realized I was mistakenly thinking it was 5 rolls when it is actually only 4.
Also, as far as I understand, curses with stages can be cured by just succeeding enough saves to get a stage to 0: I haven't found anything contrary, it was probably written they work as all afflictions with stages (or was nothing written on staged curses specifically at all, only poisons and diseases?).
That is what I am reading as well.
The Curse trait says that you can't remove a curse using effects that don't specifically target Curses. But that doesn't override the standard way of removing Afflictions by making enough successful saves to reduce the Affliction stage to 0.
Against Corrupting Spite:
Sound Body would not work because it does not target Curses.
Remove Affliction would work because it does target Curses.
Sanguine Mutagen would help because it would increase your Fortitude Save bonus and make it more likely that you would succeed at the saves you normally get against the Affliction.
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Edit: I also just realized I was mistakenly thinking it was 5 rolls when it is actually only 4.
Corrupting Spite is at worst 2 consecutive crit-success saves.
It only has 4 stages, so at worst you are at stage 4. The Affliction is not virulent, so a crit-success will reduce the stage by 2.
I think we are looking at a binomial probability problem in order to find out how likely it is to get 2 consecutive nat-20s within a certain amount of time. Which is something I don't feel like looking up right now. But instinctively I think it is closer to the 0.05 * 0.05 = 0.0025 which is 1 in 400 attempts. Probably noticeably less than that since that would be independent rolls (roll 2 d20s and they have to both come up 20) rather than any two consecutive 20s in the entire stream of rolls.
Ah, yes, I forgot about crits reducing stages by 2 instead of 1. I was purely thinking of it as needing a crit to succeed at all.
Also initially I was a just think there were 5 position (stage 0 through stage 5) that you had to get through, which is true, but it's only 4 "intervals" so I was creating an off by 1 error, lol.
2 crit successes is incredibly likely to happen with enough time. That is a 1 in 400 chance. So after 400 rolls your chance to have it happen is very close to 100%. And 400 rolls is only 40 minutes.
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Ah, yes, I forgot about crits reducing stages by 2 instead of 1. I was purely thinking of it as needing a crit to succeed at all.
Also initially I was a just think there were 5 position (stage 0 through stage 5) that you had to get through, which is true, but it's only 4 "intervals" so I was creating an off by 1 error, lol.
2 crit successes is incredibly likely to happen with enough time. That is a 1 in 400 chance. So after 400 rolls your chance to have it happen is very close to 100%. And 400 rolls is only 40 minutes.
Wellll... I definitely cut some corners incorrectly before, and I do want to take the time to figure out the correct answer. Probability gets messy, and it's good to refresh myself on it occasionally.
If you expect an event to happen 1 in 400 times, you expect it to take 400 tries, but the probability that it happens in 400 tries is actually about 64%. The expected value isn't where you get nearly a 100% of something having happened- it's just the likeliest number of tries something will take.
The probability of rolling two d20s and getting two 20s is 1 in 400, but that requires rolling two dice, not one. However, we aren't rolling two dice 400 times independently, we're rolling over and over until two sequential rolls both give us 20.
Doing a bit of math that I had to look up, it looks like you actually expect it to take 420 rolls to get two consecutive twenties. So, 42 minutes in-game.
Fortunately, just treating it as rolling two dice until a pair of twenties gives a result pretty similar to rolling one die sequentially until two twenties were rolled in sequence.