Any Warcraft players out there? I request your assistance.

[MintyThe1st]

I want to put the Fel in my setting as a disease, anyone who contracts is gaining a short term boost, but killing it's host in the long term.

The BBEG in my setting is a Cancer Mage, i want to "Gift" my players with this, and see what they do with it.

i would perferably like to avoid it being similar to Festering Anger and Vile Rigidity, as those two are far too easily abused.

[Rerednaw]

I want to put the Fel in my setting as a disease, anyone who contracts is gaining a short term boost, but killing it's host in the long term.

The BBEG in my setting is a Cancer Mage, i want to "Gift" my players with this, and see what they do with it.

i would perferably like to avoid it being similar to Festering Anger and Vile Rigidity, as those two are far too easily abused.

Book of Vile Darkness is a good resource mayhap?

[MintyThe1st]

I know how to design a disease, BoVD and the Fiendish Codex 1&2 are kinda my D&D Bibles.

i just don't play warcraft myself, so have no idea what the Fel actually does.

[ComaVision]

i just don't play warcraft myself, so have no idea what the Fel actually does.

There are several wikis. (http://wow.gamepedia.com/Fel)

[Wyrmclan]

I am a long time WoW player, and I towards the end on my career I remember the Fel like a source of uncontrolled power radiated from demonic magics.
This may not be cannon, but in a Warlords of Draenor zone, there was an area with rivers of green slime. Wading through the slime would give you a stacking fel debuff that would increase your character's size marginally and make them stronger. The challenge was that after enough contact with the energy 10 stacks I think) the character would explode in fel fire (green fire) and die.
I think the flavor of the DnD curse/disease ability would be in providing multiple sources of Fel energy for the players to encounter, until they are overwhelmed.

[Rainshine]

I would actually lean more on the section about drugs from BoVD. Offhand, I'd say a bonus to Str (as seen in the corruption of the orcs by feeding them demon blood), a bonus to Con maybe (ibid), and a bonus to caster level (Over and over it is used to supercharge or provide a power source for magics). Rather than a fort save like the drugs have though, I'd make it a Will save. Either some sort of stacking count where they keep wanting another 'hit', if they don't get it they not only lose the bonuses, but take equivalent penalties for a time (same or double the duration of their last hit?); but, like drugs, they keep needing more and more, until they overdose (OD doesn't necessarily kill them, they instead become NPCs given over to the Fel completely). This would allow the players to technically go clean if they could make the will save, so they needn't be totally doomed. Alternatively, just make it a long-term disease where they slowly become prone to more fits of giving over to the Fel.

There is a writeup on fel addiction and such in the RPG setting book too, I'm pretty sure, it's buried in my place somewhere if you want me to dig for it.

In current WoW, at least two classes (warlocks and demon hunters) directly touch the fel, and the orcs are still infected with it as well, so it's not directly a death sentence. Easier to model with the first one, I think.
Sample:
You can take between 1-6 'hits'. 7 is an OD, and you go completely dark. For X 'hit's in the past week, you get +X STR, +X CON, and +X CL on arcane spells. Take a -X penalty on save against spells from demons/fel sources. At the end of the week, you have to make a DC 20 (25?) Will save, +2 * X. If you fail the save, you immediately seek out more fel, and take X+1 'hits'. If you pass, you don't have to... but you can. -X STR, -X CON if you go a week without taking as much Fel as last time.

[Silva Stormrage]

One thing to note, Fel magic in warcraft is not necessarily stronger than regular magic. What it is is a LOT easier to use.

You might want to give it some kind of XP increase sort of mechanic but every level they increase it gives them a stacking debuff of sorts. That might screw with the pacing of the campaign though so up to you on that.

[Crake]

Do you require my assistance? *queue archmage antonidas music*

[MintyThe1st]

So, here's my prototype, i'd rather keep it as a disease because of the Cancer Mage's ability to take control of anyone infected with their Viral Ally, this is something that will come up, and seems fairly Fel-like to me.

The Fel

DC15 Will Disease, contact

Cannot be naturaly cured.

Each time you fail a Will save, you gain 1 fell stack, you can have a maximum of 5 plus your con mod stacks, if you would gain another stack when you have maximum, you die.


Non-casters gain +x Str and -X Int and Wis.

Casters can apply 1 metamagic effect to a spell once per day, but take a -4 penalty to their casting stat for 1 hour.

once per day, Orc casters can kill a dying Humanoid with a touch effect, this restores one of their spell slots.