A new disease, or why my PCs should keep me away from Lovecraft at all costs [PEACH]

[Fortuna]

The Colour's Disease
Fort save DC 10+special

Infection: Living in an area under the influence of the Colour Out of Space
Incubation: 1 week
Save:
Infection: DC 10 Fortitude, +1 for each prior save, +5 if ate food from infected are, +5 if drunk water from infected area.
1st Stage: Save DC from infection, +1 for each failed save, failure by 10 advances to next stage.
2nd Stage: Save DC from 1st Stage, +1 for each failed save, failure by 20 advances to third stage.
3rd Stage: Save DC from 2nd Stage, +1 for each failed save, failure by 30 advances to fourth stage.
4th Stage: No Save.

Effects:

1st stage: 1 damage to Wisdom and maximum hit points to a minimum of one.
2nd Stage: 1d4 damage to Wisdom to a minimum of one, lose 1/10 of maximum hit points, sickly grey colouration giving -2 to Diplomacy and Disguise checks.
3rd Stage: 1d4 Widom and Constitution damage to a minimum of one, begins turning to powder causing additional -2 to Diplomacy, Disguise and Concentration checks and Fortitude saves.
4th Stage: 1d4 damage to all ability scores (all except Constitution have minimum 1) each day.

If a character is removed from the affected area before the onset of the second stage, then a week of bedrest will cure them unless they reenter an affected area, in which case the DC resets to ten but any failure restores the DC to its previous position. A creature killed by the Colour's Disease collapses into dust, and requires a miracle spell to restore them. If remove curse is cast in the first stage, the disease is halted for one day/caster level. If greater remove curse is cast in the first stage the disease is cured, in the second stage the DC is reduced by caster level, and in the third the disease is only halted for one day/caster level. If the disease is halted, then treat the disease as being in the first stage. A miracle will cure the disease at any stage.

This is yet another attempt to expand my repertoire of 3.5 things that I can homebrew. Is it any good? Am I missing a vital statistic?

[Fortuna]

Am I just bad at homebrewing, or was this thread unlucky?

[Chrono22]

Looks like a neat idea. But if you want to make it endearing to the PCs, you need to make it more than just an impediment.
Perhaps replace the ability damage with recurrent wisdom damage, with the infected becoming insane (as the spell) when his wisdom score reaches zero.

This way, you can add drama into the game in the form of a PC becoming a potential threat to the rest of the party. Or, better yet, a single PC being the only one among his party who is not infected... or is he? There's a fine line between believing you're sane, and being insane.

[Fortuna]

This is actually based on a specific story, in which a farmer and his family (not to mention every living thing in a few miles) go insane AND turn slowly into dust. The bits left to your imagination say to me that they are actually still alive as they begin falling apart. With that in mind, perhaps wisdom damage and minor (invisible) constitution damage? Would it be too hard to keep ability damage secret from the players?

[Latronis]

depends how much you keep track off and how much they keep track off.

Something like that could be brutal if your Players are unaware of Hitpoints for example.

And how many rolls you keep secret.

It becomes fairly obvious something is up when you recall your fort save being much higher....

[Fako]

It's not bad, it's just... clunky, if that makes any sense. Typical DnD diseases are simple, they list a Fort Save, damage on a failed save, incubation time, and method of infection. For magical diseases, such as mummy rot, they also include the method of healing in a paragraph after all other effects are covered.

Yours, on the other hand, can be a bit difficult to follow. This is what I think are the basics:

Infection: Living in area under influence of Color Out of Space
Incubation: 1 week
Save:
Infection: DC 10 Fortitude, +1 for each prior save, +5 if ate food from infected area, +5 if drunk water from infected area
1st stage: Save DC from Infection, +1 for each failed save, failure by 10 advances to second stage
2nd Stage: Save DC from 1st Stage, +1 for each failed save, failure by 20 advances to third stage
3rd Stage: No Save

Ability Damage:
1st stage: 1 damage to all ability scores
2nd Stage: 1d4 damage to all ability scores
3rd Stage: 1d4 damage to all ability scores


As you can see, this is a bit complex, and that's before adding in the other symptoms, methods of treatment, etc. Not to say that it's bad; it's actually a cool idea for a disease in my opinion. It's just a bit... daunting to implement, if that makes any sense.

Also, it would help to know what "Color Out of Space" does...

And hiding ability damage from the players is a bookkeeping nightmare, as it'd be upon you to rapidly fill in the penalties to their rolls (which would all be different, depending on damage taken), and you'd have to explain to them why they suddenly fall down dead when they think they still have HP left... most people know when they're sick, they can feel it draining them, so there's no reason (other than outside influence) for them to not know about the damage... ~ Ninja'd

As I said before, it's a good idea.

[Fortuna]

Hmmmm. Hit points would definitely be a problem, since I have my players keep track of those. What if I have it start with maximum hit point damage (damage that is deducted from maximum hit points as well as current) and kind of sneakily moved on to Con damage? I will fiddle with the OP to see what I can do.

EDIT: How is it now?

[Fako]

It looks a lot easier to hide from the players now, especially considering that you heal 1 point of ability damage per day naturally, so they're only down 1 wisdom until the disease turns nasty...

[Fortuna]

OK, now that the mechanics are semi-sorted out, how Lovecraftian does it feel? Is this just another disease, or does it give the feel of killing you slowly and almost maliciously?

[DracoDei]

I like novel mechanics, and this has them. I wouldn't go using it casually, since it is a bit hard to cure and a bit complex, but it is very good.

[Fortuna]

Thanks! Out of interest, is the Wisdom loss enough to represent slowly losing your entire sense of self-preservation and willpower (not to mention just your sense of self), or should I add other stuff?

[Fortuna]

I have simplified the OP to get rid of the wall of text. I have also made the crumbling to dust have mechanical effects other than making death more permanent.

[Acanous]

Looks pretty good. Toss the "Insanity" when Wis hits 0. I mean, you might fail the save enough by stage 2 that you're already insane, without failing by enough to hit stage 3

[Fortuna]

What do you mean? Where does it say insanity? That was a suggestion, and I didn't think I had included it.

[Fako]

What do you mean? Where does it say insanity? That was a suggestion, and I didn't think I had included it.

It's not in the original post, so I think he was going off of the suggestions. It looks really good now, but I'd suggest including the "(to a minimum of 1)" clause to all stages of the infection, instead of just in stage 4. Otherwise, the character will fall into a comatose slumber as soon as their Wisdom reaches 0 in the 2nd or 3rd stage...

Comatose reference found here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#abilityScoreLoss).

[Fortuna]

Done. You are right, it makes no sense to be immune to the coma only in the last stage of the disease. I still want to know if this gives an appropriately Lovecraftian feel.

[DracoDei]

Thanks! Out of interest, is the Wisdom loss enough to represent slowly losing your entire sense of self-preservation and willpower (not to mention just your sense of self), or should I add other stuff?

"sense of self" actually falls under Charisma. "Self-preservation"... well depending on what you mean you could put in some rules for recklessness in combat (perhaps as simple as a penalty to AC), or something about having to be reminded(or in later stages even forced) to eat, drink, and sleep.

[Friend Computer]

Very nice, and yes, I think it resembles the Colour a lot. In fact, that's my favourite Lovecraft story. ^_^

One question: This seems obvious to everyone else, so you'll have to forgive my idiocy, but how long does it take to move from one level to the next, or how do you determine that the character gets worse? ^^;;

[Fortuna]

When you fail a save by a certain number (10 for the second stage, 20 for the third stage, 30 for the last stage).

EDIT: A thought just occurred to me. What kind of mechanic should I use for the colour itself? It isn't a monster, but it is (IMHO) deserving of more than just the disease.

[Fako]

What about statting it's avatar as an Elder Evil? The disease could be the omen associated with it...

[Fortuna]

What is an Elder Evil?

[Fako]

It's a classification from a 3.5 book of the same name. There's a review of it here (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13761.phtml).

Basically, an Elder Evil is an epic or near-epic entity. They are completely immune to divine magic, and their mere presence causes changes to the world in the form of "signs". Some examples include random weather, self-reanimating corpses, and horrific diseases in infected areas. Excerpts from the book are here (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ex/20071203a).

They're designed to have a campaign centered around them. The sad thing about the book is it doesn't give you any good methods to make your own...

[Fortuna]

That link won't let me look at stats for the evils themselves.

[Temotei]

You could always...buy...the book. :smallwink:

[Fortuna]

Never! Actually spend money on a hobby that I devote a significant portion of my waking hours to? Never I say!

[Temotei]

By "buy," I mean "pirate." "Buy." :smallamused: