"Corruption" Avoidance

[Dante Leos]

So I stated this earlier in a thread, but I believe it needs its own topic to be discussed in. In a campaign I am currently in, our dm has the majority of our enemies using "corruption" against us, and it is kicking the crap out of us. The reasons why are that at the low level we are now, the saves are hard to make, and when you are hit by it you shift to chaotic evil, and if you fail a few will saves afterward the shift is permanent. Directly because of this one of our party members is now permanently evil as we have no idea how to reverse it, and is locked in a cell and completely useless. So the question I am getting to here is how can we avoid corruption, and cure it? Getting corrupted is far too easy in this campaign, as if you do too much damage to an enemy they explode when they die and they spread corruption around, and just by hitting you successfully they can corrupt you. As such I am duped on how we can survive many more battles, because just by getting hit once and failing a fort save and a few will saves, we basically become useless.

Any suggestions?

[Alex12]

Do you know what books the DM is getting these corruption rules from? Because the only instance of a corruption mechanic I know of is in Heroes of Horror, and doesn't work like that.
Possibly he's using the stuff from Oriental Adventures, though the "exploding with corruption" is a new and annoying twist.
So what you do is, during chargen, grab the Pure Soul feat from Heroes of Horror, page 124. As long as you're non-evil, you don't gain taint. Since corruption is a form of taint per HoH, you're immune to it.

Alternately, jade can protect from taint exposure. Try that.

[Dante Leos]

I guess I should specify, the corruption is actually home brewed, and I think it is based off of Darksiders, and the corruption is actually a type of fungus from what we can see, so its mechanically kind of like poison.

[Alex12]

I guess I should specify, the corruption is actually home brewed, and I think it is based off of Darksiders, and the corruption is actually a type of fungus from what we can see, so its mechanically kind of like poison.

Ah, okay.
If it's a fungus, that would probably be mechanically most like a disease, so Remove Disease might work.
If it's an inhaled fungus, then a filter mask from Sandstorm might help too, with a +2 bonus to saves against gas effects (and if you've got access to that book, there's very little reason for any character who breathes air to ever not be wearing one, since they cost 1 gp.)
If you can keep the corrupted creatures at range, they couldn't hit you and you wouldn't risk the explosions.
Fungus-type stuff typically doesn't like fire.

[Coidzor]

I guess I should specify, the corruption is actually home brewed, and I think it is based off of Darksiders, and the corruption is actually a type of fungus from what we can see, so its mechanically kind of like poison.

Oh, well, in that case, you need to get the group together and remind the DM that this just isn't working for you all.

Bad homebrew happens, what defines us is how we move forward after we realize this.

[Dante Leos]

Trying to not go into a rant here. But how do I make the DM agree with me? He generally designs the game around my apparent "breaking" of the game, even though I only optimize. This is party mine own fault, but the problem stems from understanding of balanced combat.

[Alex12]

Trying to not go into a rant here. But how do I make the DM agree with me? He generally designs the game around my apparent "breaking" of the game, even though I only optimize. This is party mine own fault, but the problem stems from understanding of balanced combat.

Herein lies part of the problem, I think. You need to sit down with your DM and figure out what that boundary is between optimizing and breaking the game. Different people have that line at different points. Remember, the goal is to have fun, not to get into an arms race with the DM.
One thing I do is run my basic character concept, as well as any possible sticking points, past the DM before I play the character.
That way, he'll have an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, and won't significantly over- or underestimate your abilities. Now, this may mean you have to tweak or de-optimize a character. That's fine. Remember, it's a multiplayer game, and the DM wants to have fun too.

[Urpriest]

Your DM is probably going to give you a cure for this stuff once you progress far enough in the quest, because that's the only reason to introduce it.

Luckily, the penalties aren't much of a problem. Being CE doesn't change your goals, just your opinions about how to best achieve them. If your partymembers turn CE they will still want to stick with the party and pursue the same goals, and since you're low level they won't go around doing random crimes either.

[Dante Leos]

Valid points, but no the DM isn't making a person just CE, but also murderous fiends who will kill basically anything to spread the plague, so zombies basically. And he likely is not going to give us a cure, as it is the entire focus of the campaign. As such I am still open to suggestions to find ways to cure it and prevent it.

[Telok]

Valid points, but no the DM isn't making a person just CE, but also murderous fiends who will kill basically anything to spread the plague, so zombies basically. And he likely is not going to give us a cure, as it is the entire focus of the campaign. As such I am still open to suggestions to find ways to cure it and prevent it.
You are in a survival horror game. There are different expectations in this style of game than there are in regular D&D games.

Focus on isolating yourselves fron the zombie infection vector. This may involve a sharp change in tactics. Normal games accept having your melee people act independently and just smash with swords and axes. In a survival game you want to work as a team, supporting and covering each other. Hitting the zombies before they get to you and covering each other with reach weapons and area denial while making fighting withdrawls to defensive positions is the order of the day.

[Larkas]

Frankly, without knowing the mechanics of the disease, it's kind of hard to give you more concrete advice. Theoretically, I'd go ranged, and try to keep away from the vectors just to be safe. I'd play it smart. But seeing as you've already changed alignment, I'm drawing a blank.

[Dante Leos]

So much clarifying, I need to get better at this, the people in the campaign that are affected become zombielike in that they want to kill everything, but besides that they are normal humans and can still think well and can plan, in fact a governor we just killed was corrupted, and we suspect he was planning to corrupt more people. Also lets just assume that the corruption is a REALLY deadly disease for the fact of preventing and curing it, as that is basically what it is mechanically. Also it is not survival horror, just normal fantasy with this twist.

Edit: Disease, not poison

[Alex12]

You've got a few options here.

1) the group sits down with the DM and says "hey, this is a little too dangerous/lethal and not really fun. How can we tweak this campaign to make it more enjoyable?" Maybe introduce a spell that, if cast quickly enough after infection, gives bonuses to the saves, or tweaking the infection mechanics so it's not quite so easy to get affected by it. If you do this, though, communication is key. You can't just be all give and no take.

2) trust the DM and hope he's got something planned that'll reverse all this. Follow the rails as best you can, and make the best of it that you can.

3) Show him the meaning of break the setting. Work out the implications of what's going on, and how the current setup doesn't work with what's happening. Why isn't everyone already corrupted, that sort of thing.

4) "Okay, now we're all evil murderers. Awesome, I always wanted to play an evil campaign! You go find the orphanage, I'll be loading up on scrolls of Maximized Fireball!

5) "Okay, now we're all Undead/Paladins/otherwise immune to poison and disease. Rock on!"

6) Vote with your feet and leave the game.

[Grollub]

sounds like the GM has read a comic called Crossed.

[slaydemons]

Well I am not sure how well it would work but paladins should be able to clean up here if they don't get hit. they get remove disease 1 a week and they get the smite evil, making them corruptions worst nightmare. but I don't know how viable it is as you said he is making this corruption thing everywhere. another thing you can do is go with it and stop fighting against the disease and start spreading it, this might throw him off a bit discuss this tactic with your other players and have a fun little evil campaign.

[NichG]

Basically what I can recommend here is that you should approach the game you're playing as if it was something other than D&D, and adjust your tactics to match. A mechanic like this makes getting into combat in the first place a big mistake, so avoid fights as much as possible, even to the extent of refusing missions that (as you've determined OOC) are basically suicide missions until a safer way to deal with the threat can be developed or designed.

Start looking into ways to focus entirely on ranged combat, use nuke-it-from-orbit style tactics to deal with corrupted locales (don't go into the building where these things can detonate and corrupt you, burn the building down from a distance). You've got a situation where there's a virulent disease (basically) that spreads by contact, so your priorities should be 'avoid contact' first, and 'deal with the situation' second.

[Thanatosia]

Also it is not survival horror, just normal fantasy with this twist.
"Dawn of the Dead" isn't a zombie flick, it's just 'mallrats' with a little undead twist! You're describing a survival horror campaign, regardless of rather you chose to apply that label to it or not - refusing to call it a duck doesn't make it less of a duck. A normal fantasy campaign supports bold heroic action, this campaign is gonna corrupt you all if you try that approach. The only practical alternative to playing it out as survival horror is the embrace corruption/play evil route, or convincing the DM OOC to scale back on the corruption mechanics to something less overwhelming.

[Yawgmoth]

I'm just gonna post so the OP reads my sig and hopefully he internalizes it.

[Dante Leos]

Well good points here, I am a cavalier so I can use a lance to keep distance with lunge, but at the moment I cannot think of the feats needed to hold enemies in place with Attacks of opportunity. And even with that my party will still be susceptible to the explosion, a method I would think of is somehow controlling the damage I do to not cause too much damage on a hit, but I have no idea how to go about that either.

[Augmental]

Well good points here, I am a cavalier so I can use a lance to keep distance with lunge, but at the moment I cannot think of the feats needed to hold enemies in place with Attacks of opportunity. And even with that my party will still be susceptible to the explosion, a method I would think of is somehow controlling the damage I do to not cause too much damage on a hit, but I have no idea how to go about that either.

How large is the corrupting explosion?

[Dante Leos]

10 feet maybe 15.

[Larkas]

And even with that my party will still be susceptible to the explosion, a method I would think of is somehow controlling the damage I do to not cause too much damage on a hit, but I have no idea how to go about that either.

You can do non-lethal damage with lethal weaponry by taking a -4 to hit.

[NichG]

You could give everyone bows, wands of Scorching Ray and Magic Missile, etc, and not close within 200 or 300ft. Yes, this completely loses any particular advantages of your individual builds, but it also actually solves the problem of the explosions or keeping the party clear if no one gets close in the first place.

[Arbane]

You could give everyone bows, wands of Scorching Ray and Magic Missile, etc, and not close within 200 or 300ft. Yes, this completely loses any particular advantages of your individual builds, but it also actually solves the problem of the explosions or keeping the party clear if no one gets close in the first place.

Crossbows are probably cheaper. But the point stands: KEEP YOUR DISTANCE. Also remember spells like Web, Entangle, and similar.

I wonder if the GM is a fan of the MMO The Secret World? If the infected start sprouting tentacles from their heads, you'll know what he's cribbing from. (Not that it'll help you much - the threat there is a disease that infects universe.)

Ask the GM if the Corruption affects animals. (If so, start learning how to Plane Shift, because that world is SCREWED. Imagine if your stereotypical Zombie Virus could be spread by mosquito-bites...)

[Dante Leos]

Don't say stuff like that, (with my luck the GM will start taking from Resident evil too.) But ya, one of my original ideas is wishing the corruption away, but another MASSIVE problem our group has is that we have no spellcasters, as no one thought it would be a good idea to tell eachother until AFTER the session started what class they were (I was late that day.) We have so far a Cavalier, a Barbarian, a Ranger, a Fighter, and a fixed Adventure Dragon. As such I am really glaring at that leadership feat right about now, so that could be another fix, optimizing the hack outta the cohort to make him able to fix the corruption and prevent it, but I need help in that regard.

[Augmental]

Don't say stuff like that, (with my luck the GM will start taking from Resident evil too.) But ya, one of my original ideas is wishing the corruption away, but another MASSIVE problem our group has is that we have no spellcasters, as no one thought it would be a good idea to tell eachother until AFTER the session started what class they were (I was late that day.) We have so far a Cavalier, a Barbarian, a Ranger, a Fighter, and a fixed Adventure Dragon. As such I am really glaring at that leadership feat right about now, so that could be another fix, optimizing the hack outta the cohort to make him able to fix the corruption and prevent it, but I need help in that regard.

If the DM designed the game around your optimization level, piling on more optimization (especially something as powerful as Leadership) is probably just going to start an arms race.

[slaydemons]

Is this a pathfinder game? cause then there are guns and just playing a Zombie survival game.

[Dante Leos]

I actually don't optimize that much, its gotten worse lately, because the GM quite frankly seems to just do this crap in order to cover the fact that he has no friken idea what hes doing half the time. Once he tried to make us do a will save for poison, for poison. And trys to hide it behind my, "Optimization" since I know rulings for pathfinder, compared to everyone else who stumble around without reading any sourcebooks.

And as such I need to bring up my optimization more constantly, as I have no idea what the dm is gonna throw at me 99% of the time.

[slaydemons]

I actually don't optimize that much, its gotten worse lately, because the GM quite frankly seems to just do this crap in order to cover the fact that he has no friken idea what hes doing half the time. Once he tried to make us do a will save for poison, for poison. And trys to hide it behind my, "Optimization" since I know rulings for pathfinder, compared to everyone else who stumble around without reading any sourcebooks.

And as such I need to bring up my optimization more constantly, as I have no idea what the dm is gonna throw at me 99% of the time.

That will poison isn't something so bad, I would bring it up if it was more hallucinogenic in nature rather then simply over coming it, but the picking on any player is the sign of a person who might be a bit angry or he is trying to find excuse, both mean you need to talk to your dm and ask him why he hates your "optimization." and what he thinks is "optimization." or "breaking the game"

[Dante Leos]

Well that was my rant, but for the most part I do not mind the way the dm runs the game, some of it is in a form of challenging me I guess, as I always end up being the party leader anyways. I mostly fear for the other players that already have little in the way of skill, and just end up in the crossfire. Mostly I just want to find a way to help them out, as the closer to CE you already are, the faster you turn, as such I am LG and its really hard for me, but the majority of them are TN or CN and are really close anyways. Leadership in this case might not break the game too bad, as all I want the cohort to do is hinder and cure the corruption, might not even have him help in combat at all. So any suggestions in this regard?

[NichG]

The thing is, you can't reliably leverage mechanics against something homebrew. There's no way for us to suggest particular spells/feats/etc that would cure the corruption your DM is using, because that corruption uses the DM's own internal mechanics and isn't really part of the game system. So if, e.g., you used a Remove Disease, there's no reason why the DM can't say 'no, its corruption, not a disease, so it doesn't work' or 'okay, make a DC 56 caster level check as per removing supernatural diseases' or whatever. Thats why I'm focusing on the things that have actually been established in the game - namely that it spreads by attacks and explosions on death.

So to put it another way, you need to experiment in controlled conditions and report back/take action based on the results of your experiments. Capture someone corrupted, take them to the local priest, and get him to try the whole gamut of curative magics and see what works and what doesn't - but also be prepared for nothing working. What can work in a meta-game sort of way is if you take actions that suggest to the DM that you're embarking on a quest to find a MacGuffin-cure, which a reasonable DM will snap up as a way to avoid having to strongly motivate you guys for a few games, so you might be able to do that. If you want to try that technique, I'd suggest going and trying to find NPC alchemists and herbalists and doctors and have them give detailed analyses of the stuff - RP-based and descriptive, rather than just 'can you cure this' (as opposed to just having spellcasters hit it with curative magics, which wouldn't create a 'quest' since spell slots are more all or nothing). The fact that you're forcing the DM to have his NPCs actually tell you details of what their investigations uncover will create the 'idea' in his head for how it might be cured.

[Dante Leos]

That was stupendously helpful, thanks a ton. I might actually bring around our currently corrupted pc and just find anything that works. I might confront the dm if he is being too unreasonable though.

[Vizzerdrix]

If an in game cure isn't forth coming any time soon, I vote you go silly with it. Everyone becomes ghosts! Or better yet Fiends of Possession.

Or get polymorphed into chickens!

[Larkas]

Hmmm... Maybe talk to one of your fellow players, preferably one that looks up to you, and have him take Lesdership instead?

[ace rooster]

Don't say stuff like that, (with my luck the GM will start taking from Resident evil too.) But ya, one of my original ideas is wishing the corruption away, but another MASSIVE problem our group has is that we have no spellcasters, as no one thought it would be a good idea to tell eachother until AFTER the session started what class they were (I was late that day.) We have so far a Cavalier, a Barbarian, a Ranger, a Fighter, and a fixed Adventure Dragon. As such I am really glaring at that leadership feat right about now, so that could be another fix, optimizing the hack outta the cohort to make him able to fix the corruption and prevent it, but I need help in that regard.

I don't think you can regard a DM adjudicated feat as a "fix" to a DM plot hook, or that you should even be trying to "fix" a plot hook. It would have been nice of the DM to mention what style of game you were in, but too late now. On the bright side each PC seems as badly suited to the campaign as each other (depending on combat styles), so balance between players should not be too much of an issue. You will have to get used to playing your charcter very differently from how you designed it, but so will everyone.

That actually sounds like it is a decent start to a survival horror game. Even the lowliest enemy is scary dangerous, and the afterlife revolving door problem has been avoided. Your skills as a player will be tested, in making the most of your resources which are not built for this sort of situation. Your improvisation skills will be key. It is a build optimiser's nightmare, which makes me happy, and I expect was the intention.

Maybe the DM doesn't know the system as well as you, which will make it hard for him to spot the weaknesses in your character, or use the weakness he does see to attack you within the rules. His only other option available is to 'cheat' a bit (if the DM can 'cheat'). If you are trying to play the rules against the DM this can be upsetting, but if the rules are regarded as the framework around which the game is built, and that you are playing the game; then some flex in the rules is clumbsy DMing rather than cheating.

Of coarse, there is always the possibility that the DM just wants you to die a horrible horrible death. Best of luck either way.


To the person that suggested the wand of scorching ray as a ranged combat option I would point out it has a range of 30ft. Magic missile is a bit better at 110ft, but melf's acid arrow is the one you want.

[Urpriest]

That actually sounds like it is a decent start to a survival horror game. Even the lowliest enemy is scary dangerous, and the afterlife revolving door problem has been avoided.

Has it?

This gives me an idea: if you kill the infected and bring them back, they should be clear of corruption. A bit of an expensive solution, though.

Really, your DM either is planning for you guys to seek out some sort of immunity-granting or resistance-granting McGuffin, or is running a survival-horror game. Ask which, and play accordingly.

[GolemsVoice]

Get two scythes and a giant hammer. Be Death.

[ace rooster]

Has it?

This gives me an idea: if you kill the infected and bring them back, they should be clear of corruption. A bit of an expensive solution, though.

Really, your DM either is planning for you guys to seek out some sort of immunity-granting or resistance-granting McGuffin, or is running a survival-horror game. Ask which, and play accordingly.

That might work, time to try ...Science!. Experimenting on the tainted, what could possibly go wrong...

Progressively stranger experiments...

Cue that moment where the DM realises that the most horrific thing in his survival horror scenario is the PCs. :smalltongue:

[Alex12]

That might work, time to try ...Science!. Experimenting on the tainted, what could possibly go wrong...

Progressively stranger experiments...

Cue that moment where the DM realises that the most horrific thing in his survival horror scenario is the PCs. :smalltongue:

That's the best kind.

For one idea for an experiment, see what happens if you put a helm of opposite alignment on the corrupted PC. Best case scenario is that it mutates the corruption into something that corrupts you to be a LG paragon of justice and mercy. That would be hilarious.

[Dante Leos]

I'm so gonna do that now.
Blacksmith: Whatta ya need?
Me: Can you fail at making a hat of disguise?
Blacksmith: I guess?
Me: Cool, here's the money.
Then go up to the pc and put the helm on him again and again till he fails.

We will fight pandemic with pandemic.