Poison and disease made lethal?

[Elandris Kajar]

I find it ridiculous that no poisons and diseases are lethal, short of maybe death blade and black lotus. This is so unrealistic it makes me want to scream. Also, there are no hallucinogens and very few inflict status conditions. Any fixes out there that are really good?

[gorfnab]

I find it ridiculous that no poisons and diseases are lethal, short of maybe death blade and black lotus. This is so unrealistic it makes me want to scream. Also, there are no hallucinogens and very few inflict status conditions. Any fixes out there that are really good?
You could try some of the multitude of tricks and whatnot mentioned in the Poison Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2714)
Disease can become very lethal if you combine Festering Anger, Vile Rigidity, and Cancer Mage. No handbook available but here is a thread with some interesting Cancer Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?148584-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-III/page4) builds (builds start at Heliomance's fourth post).

[Keltest]

I am fairly certain that you die if your con score is reduced to 0, and various other stats at 0 can render you catatonic. I am not confident about whether or not poison/disease can reduce you that far.

[IZ42]

In Pathfinder unchained, they released a new disease/poison track, which you can see HERE (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/afflictions)

[ZamielVanWeber]

I was like "dieases are lethal what chu talkin' about" then I remembered: diseases are not 3.0 psionics combat.

They aren't lethal because a disease is debilitating enough without being lethal and most real life dieases aren't lethal except in the immune compromised.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

My group has house ruled poisons to deal secondary damage every ten rounds until two consecutive saves are made. If a character is poisoned multiple times by the same poison, only the first will deal secondary damage, but each additional time it's inflicted increases the secondary damage DC by two.

[Jack_Simth]

I find it ridiculous that no poisons and diseases are lethal, short of maybe death blade and black lotus. This is so unrealistic it makes me want to scream. Also, there are no hallucinogens and very few inflict status conditions. Any fixes out there that are really good?

The lethality thing is easy with a simple house-rule: Any ability damage from the disease or poison that is in excess of what causes the targeted ability score to hit 0 applies to Constitution, rather than whatever is listed.

Example:
So suppose you have a Wizard-4, Strength 6, Dex 14, Con 16, fort save +5 thanks to a Cloak of Resistance+1. He's really unlucky today.

He gets stung by a Giant Wasp (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/giantWasp.htm), and fails his save. He takes 1d6 dex damage. He's really unlucky today, so his Dex is now 8.
Sadly, the next round, the bug is still kicking around, and brings a friend. Mr. Wizard gets stung twice, and fails both saves (he is REALLY unlucky today). He takes 2d6 dex damage, and both roll max. He only has 8 dex left, so 4 points of that come off of his Con score as he is rendered helpless. He's at 6/0/12 Str/Dex/Con.

If he was low on HP, the Con damage may have already killed him. But suppose his False Life spell from a wand he looted is holding him out, and at this point the rest of the party takes care of the two wasps.

Sadly, the Cleric doesn't have Neutralize Poison prepared... but does have Lesser Restoration, which he uses. Only copy, though.
The Cleric applies that to the Wizard's Dex score to get him back up on his feet immediately. The Cleric is lucky, and rolls a 4. Now he's back up at 6/4/12 Str/Dex/Con. The Cleric also takes the time to use that Wand of Cure Light to mend his wounds.

Our poor Wizard, however, still has all three doses of venom in his system! The follow up poison hits! Again, the Wizard fails all three saves, and again, all three do max damage (the dice are out to kill him, you see). So the first one does 6 Dex damage... and he doesn't have much dex, so he's helpless again, and 2 points go to Con. This leaves him helpless at 6/0/10. For the second, he doesn't have any Dex left, so t all comes off of Con. This leaves him helpless at 6/0/4. The third one finds he doesn't have any dex, and hits his Con score. It's also a six, so that puts him dead and helpless at 6/0/-2.


If you want status conditions, you're going to need to invent new poisons. Or, you know, use the potion rules for hostile spells, and slip them in people's drinks.

[Zaq]

Here's (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?337614-Poison-D-amp-D-3-5-Skill-Second-draft) my homebrew attempt at making poison more accessible. It also makes poisons primarily do HP damage, rather than stat damage, so it's a lot more likely that poison could actually kill you (but a lot less likely that poison will permanently/semi-permanently incapacitate you if it doesn't actually kill you).

I've never had a chance to playtest it in an actual game, so take that for what it's worth. Use it, modify it, or adapt it as you see fit.

[Milo v3]

I second the Unchained poison and disease rules.

[Ettina]

Just use the ones that hit Con. Not all poisons and diseases have to be potentially fatal. (There are real-life substances that impair a person's physical or mental abilities which can't kill even with an overdose, such as benzodiazepines.)

[Elandris Kajar]

Yeah, but there are so few of those.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Yeah, but there are so few of those.

No, there are a lot of them. Lethal ones are rarer; we just care about them more because they are potentially lethal.