How would the PC's know to cast Remove Disease?

[Kejhix]

Hello!

I'm new to these forums, but not to the game--just becoming reacquainted after a long break. Playing 3.5, since that was current when I played last.

I have a situation coming up where my 6th level players are going to encounter an aboleth's "project image." One of the abilities they will come up against is "slime," which gives them 1d4 + 1 minutes to cast "remove disease" before the affliction becomes permanent and requires a "heal" spell to remove.

My question is this: how do they know to cast "remove disease" before the affliction sets in? Without metagaming, they won't know if this is a poison, disease, etc, and time is precious. Is this a heal check to see if someone knows what's happening, and if so, what is the DC?

Ultimately, what I'm looking for is a place in the books to reference how to handle situations like this (it's already come up in the past with a poison--I just called for a heal check with a DC 15 to know it was a poison--but I don't want to "house rule" it if there's something already in place), or if this is just a "house rule" situation. Since we're all relearning the game, it's possible there is a rule for this and I just haven't been able to find it, so that's why I wanted to check in here.

Thanks in advance for any help you guys can give me. :)

Kaci

[ryu]

Relevant knowledge skill on the monster to know what it does, heal check to recognize what needs to be done, basic divination spell to see what needs to be done, common sense to know that anything lasting you get from slime of any sort is most likely poison or a disease. There's other simple ways of doing this, but do you really need more.

[ComaVision]

The easy answer is that a sufficient Knowledge (Dungeoneering) should give you the information on the Aboleth, possibly identifying the mucus and the danger it poses before any of the group has had contact with it.

As a houserule thing, I'd probably allow a diagnosis from a Heal check with a DC equal to the saving throw.

[Diarmuid]

A Knowledge check could help them identify the creature and perhaps some of its abilities, including how to remove the affliction. Alternatively, perhaps a Heal check could help them identify the problem (though not a documented, RAW use of the skill, certainly seems reasonable).

At the very least, they would know that they have been made to save against something but not always knowing the correct way to deal with it is one of those things that comes along with playing D&D. Heck, they're going to have to make multiple saves with the first being a will save against the projected image. Dont forget that the Aboleth must maintain LoE to the PI at all times.


The DM could try and give hints about this via locals who may have dealt with this kind of danger before or heard rumors about people who were afflicted.

[Nettlekid]

The most cut-and-dry answer is that the PCs can make a Knowledge check to identify an Aboleth and learn about its abilities. An Aboleth is an Aberration with 8 HD, so it's a DC 18 Knowledge: Dungeoneering check to recall "a useful bit of information" about it, and for every +5 to the DC they recall more and more useful bits. That their slime turns people into horrible jelly-skinned things is probably a piece of information that stands out, so 18 is probably all they need. If they hit that 18, you should be fine to say "You recognize this creature as an Aboleth. Although it looks like a primordial fish, it's shockingly intelligent. It can overwhelm your mind, and its slime causes a fast acting disease which turns skin to membrane and must be treated within minutes of exposure."

Now, a DC 18 Knowledge: Dungeoneering check is a little bit of a tall order, as that's not a frequently maxed skill. I highly suggest that even if they don't make the check and don't know what it is, if they're hit by the slime you can say conspicuously "your skin is reacting to the slime as though infected. You start to feel horribly sick as the effect spreads through you," and contextually that can justify them casting Remove Disease. If you want, another character could make a Heal check to get the same information by seeing that it's infecting the PC, and use of words like infect or sick should be enough. I do assume the party has Remove Disease available? It's not the kind of spell you prepare every day. I might recommend a short combat the day before the Aboleth encounter with a bunch of giant rats spreading Filth Fever or encountering something that gives them The Shakes to expose them to disease early and give them a reason to prepare a few Remove Disease spells in case they get re-infected. Or even have a villager in the last town they visit mention how rat bites spread something fierce, and he's offering to sell potions of Remove Disease if they want some insurance. Basically the ol' bait-and-switch, make them think they'll need protection from disease against one threat, and it turns out it's protection against a much bigger threat.

Although one thing in your post that I want to ask about: You say they'll be fighting the Aboleth's projected image, right? A Project Image spell creates an intangible illusion from which the creature can see and cast spells, but it wouldn't be able to wade into melee and attack. If it's only a projected image, the Aboleth shouldn't be able to reach out with a tentacle to inflict the Slime transformation at all. Did I misunderstand the context of the battle?

[sleepyphoenixx]

I think CAdv and HoB have additional rules for the heal skill, but i'm AFB so i can't check.


The most cut-and-dry answer is that the PCs can make a Knowledge check to identify an Aboleth and learn about its abilities. An Aboleth is an Aberration with 8 HD, so it's a DC 18 Knowledge: Dungeoneering check to recall "a useful bit of information" about it, and for every +5 to the DC they recall more and more useful bits. That their slime turns people into horrible jelly-skinned things is probably a piece of information that stands out, so 18 is probably all they need. If they hit that 18, you should be fine to say "You recognize this creature as an Aboleth. Although it looks like a primordial fish, it's shockingly intelligent. It can overwhelm your mind, and its slime causes a fast acting disease which turns skin to membrane and must be treated within minutes of exposure."
Aside from a Knowledge:dungeoneering check (the Collector of Stories skill trick is useful for that) there's also the Status spell. It tells your cleric if someone is diseased, among other things.


Now, a DC 18 Knowledge: Dungeoneering check is a little bit of a tall order, as that's not a frequently maxed skill.
Wizard with 18 Int + Collector of Stories + 1 skill rank = 55% chance to make the roll (after the fight they could just take 10).
Personally i think that's easy enough, you don't want to make those skills obsolete after all.

They could also use Gather Information in town. Perhaps someone has seen the remains of an aboleth victim, or even had one make it back into town before dying.

Basically i'd try to make those non-combat skills matter. I don't like giving my players the impression that "if we don't take a necessary skill the DM will give us what we need anyway, so they're useless".
YMMV.

I do assume the party has Remove Disease available? It's not the kind of spell you prepare every day.
Not prepare, but around level 5 they should at least be carrying around a few potions/scrolls/other consumables of it.
Aboleths are hardly the only thing at that level with a disease that can kill you before your cleric has time to pray for new spells. Mummies do it too, and Vargouille have been doing it for a few levels.

If they're not carrying any now might be a good time to teach them why they should, as long as it doesn't cause a TPK.


Although one thing in your post that I want to ask about: You say they'll be fighting the Aboleth's projected image, right? A Project Image spell creates an intangible illusion from which the creature can see and cast spells, but it wouldn't be able to wade into melee and attack. If it's only a projected image, the Aboleth shouldn't be able to reach out with a tentacle to inflict the Slime transformation at all. Did I misunderstand the context of the battle?
I noticed that too, but since the Aboleth has to be close-by to maintain LoE i just assumed it's in case of the party finding and engaging it.

[Deeds]

You could throw out a new custom lvl 0 spell called "Detect Disease." Clerics and druids rejoice?

[Stealth Marmot]

Heal check. As the symptoms manifest, the DC of the check lowers.

[Geddy2112]

A disease has symptoms, some of which are incredibly obvious. Most of the time, an obviously diseased creature will present at least some symptoms that could be identified with a knowledge or heal check, or be so glaringly obvious they are just common knowledge.

In the case of aboleth slime, the creature's skin gradually becomes "a clear, slimy membrane" in the course of 2-5 minutes. This is very fast acting and it would be obvious to anyone who can see the creature that its skin is changing. Knowing that it is a disease might not be obvious, but it would be clear something is wrong and any reasonably competent person(or a skill check) would assume disease/poison/curse or something along those lines. Even if they did not know what is causing it, such a transformation is painfully obvious.

[icefractal]

Knowing that it's a disease is almost misleading in this case. Almost all diseases apply effects on a daily basis, so there's no need to hurry - as long as you cast it before going to sleep you're fine, and in most cases a single day's worth of the effect won't be so bad, so you can wait until tomorrow to prepare it.

With Aboleth slime though, doing that will leave you with a nasty and hard to remove condition. Knowledge (dungeoneering) would tell them the info, but I would also make it clear, even without that, that a change is occurring and it isn't a good one. Mention several times during the transformation period that they can feel their skin changing more and more, so they realize this is an ongoing thing that's getting worse.

[Kejhix]

TL;DR

This is encounter G6 in The Sinister Spire module. I misunderstood how projected image worked, so it's unlikely my players will be affected by this disease after all (thank you to those who pointed it out!), but if they do--or if other situations with diseases/poisons/curses come up--I'll know better how to handle things. Thank you, everyone! :D

~~~


Relevant knowledge skill on the monster to know what it does, heal check to recognize what needs to be done, basic divination spell to see what needs to be done, common sense to know that anything lasting you get from slime of any sort is most likely poison or a disease. There's other simple ways of doing this, but do you really need more.

I didn't think about the knowledge skill check on the monster revealing the exact nature of the attack (disease, in this case.) And divination, thank you. The party's cleric has never used it (had just turned level 7, but died, so lost a level), and since I'm still familiarizing myself with the rules overall, I haven't relearned all of the spells, yet, so I'd forgotten about this one. Thanks for the suggestions. :)




The easy answer is that a sufficient Knowledge (Dungeoneering) should give you the information on the Aboleth, possibly identifying the mucus and the danger it poses before any of the group has had contact with it.

As a houserule thing, I'd probably allow a diagnosis from a Heal check with a DC equal to the saving throw.

That's probably one of my underlying "crap, I'm still relearning the rules" issues I'm having ... knowing what DC to apply to knowledge checks, and how much to reveal based on how much they beat the DC by. And thank you for the "DC equal to the saving throw" idea. I figured the Heal skill could be used in this way, but couldn't figure out how to come up with a DC. Thanks! :D




A Knowledge check could help them identify the creature and perhaps some of its abilities, including how to remove the affliction. Alternatively, perhaps a Heal check could help them identify the problem (though not a documented, RAW use of the skill, certainly seems reasonable).

At the very least, they would know that they have been made to save against something but not always knowing the correct way to deal with it is one of those things that comes along with playing D&D. Heck, they're going to have to make multiple saves with the first being a will save against the projected image. Dont forget that the Aboleth must maintain LoE to the PI at all times.


The DM could try and give hints about this via locals who may have dealt with this kind of danger before or heard rumors about people who were afflicted.

After reading your reply (and others below), I have realized my mistake. The PCs will be unlikely to encounter the aboleth's physical body this go-round. This encounter is from The Sinister Spire module, and for some reason, my mind did not make the connection while reading about the encounter itself or the project image spell description that the aboleth would not likely attack them with it's tentacles directly.




The most cut-and-dry answer is that the PCs can make a Knowledge check to identify an Aboleth and learn about its abilities. An Aboleth is an Aberration with 8 HD, so it's a DC 18 Knowledge: Dungeoneering check to recall "a useful bit of information" about it, and for every +5 to the DC they recall more and more useful bits. That their slime turns people into horrible jelly-skinned things is probably a piece of information that stands out, so 18 is probably all they need. If they hit that 18, you should be fine to say "You recognize this creature as an Aboleth. Although it looks like a primordial fish, it's shockingly intelligent. It can overwhelm your mind, and its slime causes a fast acting disease which turns skin to membrane and must be treated within minutes of exposure."

Now, a DC 18 Knowledge: Dungeoneering check is a little bit of a tall order, as that's not a frequently maxed skill. I highly suggest that even if they don't make the check and don't know what it is, if they're hit by the slime you can say conspicuously "your skin is reacting to the slime as though infected. You start to feel horribly sick as the effect spreads through you," and contextually that can justify them casting Remove Disease. If you want, another character could make a Heal check to get the same information by seeing that it's infecting the PC, and use of words like infect or sick should be enough. I do assume the party has Remove Disease available? It's not the kind of spell you prepare every day. I might recommend a short combat the day before the Aboleth encounter with a bunch of giant rats spreading Filth Fever or encountering something that gives them The Shakes to expose them to disease early and give them a reason to prepare a few Remove Disease spells in case they get re-infected. Or even have a villager in the last town they visit mention how rat bites spread something fierce, and he's offering to sell potions of Remove Disease if they want some insurance. Basically the ol' bait-and-switch, make them think they'll need protection from disease against one threat, and it turns out it's protection against a much bigger threat.

Although one thing in your post that I want to ask about: You say they'll be fighting the Aboleth's projected image, right? A Project Image spell creates an intangible illusion from which the creature can see and cast spells, but it wouldn't be able to wade into melee and attack. If it's only a projected image, the Aboleth shouldn't be able to reach out with a tentacle to inflict the Slime transformation at all. Did I misunderstand the context of the battle?

THANK YOU for the bit of information you provided about the 8 HD = 18 DC. As I mentioned, I'm still in the early stages of relearning the rules (I miss when I used to be able to recall exact pages for most rules in the DMG & PHB lol), and I have been winging DCs since we started this campaign. I'm assuming it's base DC 10 + the HD of the creature? Ahhh, again, thank you thank you!

Thankfully, my players have learned (via me doing my best to REALLY use the hell out of various knowledge skills, both in and out of combat) to put points into "useless" skills, so I know of at least one who has maxed his Knowledge: Dungeoneering skill. As far as having remove disease available, I'm not sure. I seriously need to pin my players down on the spells they prepare each day so I know what they've got, but the player who is running the cleric is pretty insightful (he's the only one who has really played before, and since the person who was playing the cleric previously had to stop playing, he took over her character and is now running his rogue in addition to the cleric), so it wouldn't take a lot to clue him in. I love the idea about the small encounter before running into the aboleth. Trying to actually incorporate it may be difficult, since there's not a lot of "room" before they get to the aboleth encounter. However, they are going to talk to a wandering merchant just beforehand, so that is the perfect place to incorporate your other idea, about the potions.

As mentioned in one of my other replies above, you bring up an excellent point about the projected image--this whole post may be a moot point, since I had it in my head that the image could attack with tentacles, as well. After you (and others) pointed out that it can only cast spells, they will almost certainly not get hit by a tentacle at all. However, the players have been known to get ballsy in the past (as demonstrated by the fact that 3 of them have died/lost levels thus far), so it could possibly happen. The encounter (In The Sinister Spire) says that the aboleth will retreat if attacked directly, though, so unlikely. I've toyed with potentially bringing him back later.




Aside from a Knowledge:dungeoneering check (the Collector of Stories skill trick is useful for that) there's also the Status spell. It tells your cleric if someone is diseased, among other things.


They could also use Gather Information in town. Perhaps someone has seen the remains of an aboleth victim, or even had one make it back into town before dying.

Basically i'd try to make those non-combat skills matter. I don't like giving my players the impression that "if we don't take a necessary skill the DM will give us what we need anyway, so they're useless".
YMMV.

Not prepare, but around level 5 they should at least be carrying around a few potions/scrolls/other consumables of it.
Aboleths are hardly the only thing at that level with a disease that can kill you before your cleric has time to pray for new spells. Mummies do it too, and Vargouille have been doing it for a few levels.

If they're not carrying any now might be a good time to teach them why they should, as long as it doesn't cause a TPK.


I noticed that too, but since the Aboleth has to be close-by to maintain LoE i just assumed it's in case of the party finding and engaging it.

Hrm, what is the Collector of Stories skill trick? I'll have to Google that and see what it is. This campaign is sticking with the core books just so we can learn the basics before the next more colorful campaign, so if it's in a supplemental book, I won't worry about it for now. And thanks so much for the info on the status spell! :D

This encounter is just before they get to town, but they will encounter a merchant, so I could work that in. And I absolutely agree about making non-combat skills essential. I've been working very hard on that, and the players have responded well by plugging lots of points into those sorts of things. Also part of the reason I was looking to see if this was a potential place to use a Heal check.

Someone above mentioned remove disease potions, so I could give some to the merchant they talk to before the encounter. If they don't buy them ... their loss. There have been 3 deaths in the party thus far (first time for me as a DM to lose more than one character, and especially at such a low level), so they should be a bit more cautious these days. Those lost levels hurt.

And you are spot on about "just in case the party finds/engages the aboleth." I didn't think about it ahead of time with the projected image, but all this info is great for if/when they encounter the aboleth's physical body.




You could throw out a new custom lvl 0 spell called "Detect Disease." Clerics and druids rejoice?

This is a great thought for my next campaign, thank you. :) This campaign, we're sticking to core rules since, of the six of us, only two have played before, and it was a LONG time ago, so we're relearning.




Heal check. As the symptoms manifest, the DC of the check lowers.

Oooo, excellent idea to drop the DC as the symptoms become more pronounced. :)




A disease has symptoms, some of which are incredibly obvious. Most of the time, an obviously diseased creature will present at least some symptoms that could be identified with a knowledge or heal check, or be so glaringly obvious they are just common knowledge.

In the case of aboleth slime, the creature's skin gradually becomes "a clear, slimy membrane" in the course of 2-5 minutes. This is very fast acting and it would be obvious to anyone who can see the creature that its skin is changing. Knowing that it is a disease might not be obvious, but it would be clear something is wrong and any reasonably competent person(or a skill check) would assume disease/poison/curse or something along those lines. Even if they did not know what is causing it, such a transformation is painfully obvious.

I do agree that the symptoms would become very obvious. I was just trying to figure out a way for them to figure out which spells to cast to fix it before it required a heal or mass heal spell to cure. They'll definitely know something's wrong, but I needed the mechanics for them to actually figure it out so they could stop it before it became too serious. :D




Knowing that it's a disease is almost misleading in this case. Almost all diseases apply effects on a daily basis, so there's no need to hurry - as long as you cast it before going to sleep you're fine, and in most cases a single day's worth of the effect won't be so bad, so you can wait until tomorrow to prepare it.

With Aboleth slime though, doing that will leave you with a nasty and hard to remove condition. Knowledge (dungeoneering) would tell them the info, but I would also make it clear, even without that, that a change is occurring and it isn't a good one. Mention several times during the transformation period that they can feel their skin changing more and more, so they realize this is an ongoing thing that's getting worse.

Agreed. This disease is bad news in a hurry. I've been good about being descriptive when they've been afflicted with things in the past, but this will be the first time such dire consequences will result in a matter of minutes, rather than days, so I didn't quite know how to handle letting them know without metagaming. :)

Kaci

[sleepyphoenixx]

Knowing that it's a disease is almost misleading in this case. Almost all diseases apply effects on a daily basis, so there's no need to hurry - as long as you cast it before going to sleep you're fine, and in most cases a single day's worth of the effect won't be so bad, so you can wait until tomorrow to prepare it.
That only really applies to mundane and core diseases. The supernatural ones can be pretty deadly or at least have effects that will be lots of trouble to deal with/cure even if you survive.

Mummy Rot does 1d6 Con + 1d6 Cha damage after 1 minute and every 24 hours after that. Not so bad?
You also need to cast a Remove Curse and succeed at a DC 20 CL check before curing it. Mummies are CR 5 so that can be a bit of a problem for most parties seeing how you have a 1/4 chance to succeed per Remove Curse you cast - a level 5 cleric doesn't even have 4 3rd level slots unless you count the domain slot - and then you still need to Remove Disease, which is also a 3rd level spell.
You better have stocked up on scrolls/potions of both spells. And hope that you don't have more than one character infected.

A Vargouille's Kiss can kill you in 4 hours if you roll badly.

There's a lot more creatures that can inflict diseases where "it's fine, there's no need to hurry" will probably kill you (or worse).
BoVD, Libris Mortis, Stormwrack, Sandstorm and Frostburn also have a bunch of supernatural diseases, some of which are pretty nasty.

So yeah, if i'm playing i generally try to carry at least one Remove Disease Scroll by level 5, earlier if possible. It's not that expensive, but it can really save your bacon.
But i'm the kind of guy who stocks up on all kinds of "just in case" things. I'm kind of a packrat that way. It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you after all.:smalltongue:

[Doctor Awkward]

Hello!

I'm new to these forums, but not to the game--just becoming reacquainted after a long break. Playing 3.5, since that was current when I played last.

I have a situation coming up where my 6th level players are going to encounter an aboleth's "project image." One of the abilities they will come up against is "slime," which gives them 1d4 + 1 minutes to cast "remove disease" before the affliction becomes permanent and requires a "heal" spell to remove.

My question is this: how do they know to cast "remove disease" before the affliction sets in? Without metagaming, they won't know if this is a poison, disease, etc, and time is precious. Is this a heal check to see if someone knows what's happening, and if so, what is the DC?

Ultimately, what I'm looking for is a place in the books to reference how to handle situations like this (it's already come up in the past with a poison--I just called for a heal check with a DC 15 to know it was a poison--but I don't want to "house rule" it if there's something already in place), or if this is just a "house rule" situation. Since we're all relearning the game, it's possible there is a rule for this and I just haven't been able to find it, so that's why I wanted to check in here.

Thanks in advance for any help you guys can give me. :)

Kaci


General rules considerations:
1. Characters are aware of when they have to roll a saving throw.
There are various fluff descriptions of how to handle this (a tingle of magical energy or a strange encroaching voice in their minds, a narrow dodge of a flight of arrows, a peculiar numbness from a knife wound). At their discretion, the DM can make the roll roll for the player to keep his knowledge of success or failure a secret. But that should always be followed by some description that allows the player to know that their character was subject to a roll at all.

2. It's not hard to notice when someone isn't feeling well.
Becoming aware of someone else's simple fatigue or overtired-ness will likely call for a Spot check, as would becoming aware that someone is incubating a disease, but the large majority of the diseases described in the DMG are terrifying illnesses with exotic symptoms that would be devastating to a normal person, and therefore moderately to severely inconvenient to typical adventurers, who are comparable to superheroes in more ways than one.

For this specific situation, knowing whether or not a particular monster carries a disease or is poisonous is most easily handled by a Knowledge check on the monster in question. Adventuring is dangerous, and knowing what it is you are likely to face is important.

If the party failed in this regard as adventurers and you do not want to punish them too severely for it. Another option is to plainly make them aware that a party member was subject to a debilitating effect. This should prompt the party spellcaster to cast detect poison (which every core spellcaster gets). If it comes up yes, Neutralize Poison, or drink an antitoxin. If it comes up no, Remove Disease.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Hrm, what is the Collector of Stories skill trick? I'll have to Google that and see what it is.
Skill tricks are from Complete Scoundrel.


General rules considerations:
1. Characters are aware of when they have to roll a saving throw.
There are various fluff descriptions of how to handle this (a tingle of magical energy or a strange encroaching voice in their minds, a narrow dodge of a flight of arrows, a peculiar numbness from a knife wound). At their discretion, the DM can make the roll roll for the player to keep his knowledge of success or failure a secret. But that should always be followed by some description that allows the player to know that their character was subject to a roll at all.
This is not quite true. That rule is specific to magic, not in general. Characters are also only aware if they succeed on a saving throw against a subtle effect, not if they fail.
They also don't know against what they saved, just that they shrugged off some kind of hostile effect.

Succeeding on a Saving Throw

A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack. Likewise, if a creature’s saving throw succeeds against a targeted spell you sense that the spell has failed. You do not sense when creatures succeed on saves against effect and area spells.

The rules for diseases actually suggest rolling the fort saves against disease in secret.


When a character is injured by a contaminated attack, touches an item smeared with diseased matter, or consumes disease-tainted food or drink, he must make an immediate Fortitude saving throw. If he succeeds, the disease has no effect—his immune system fought off the infection. If he fails, he takes damage after an incubation period. Once per day afterward, he must make a successful Fortitude saving throw to avoid repeated damage. Two successful saving throws in a row indicate that he has fought off the disease and recovers, taking no more damage.

These Fortitude saving throws can be rolled secretly so that the player doesn’t know whether the disease has taken hold.


2. It's not hard to notice when someone isn't feeling well.
Becoming aware of someone else's simple fatigue or overtired-ness will likely call for a Spot check, as would becoming aware that someone is incubating a disease, but the large majority of the diseases described in the DMG are terrifying illnesses with exotic symptoms that would be devastating to a normal person, and therefore moderately to severely inconvenient to typical adventurers, who are comparable to superheroes in more ways than one.
Symptoms of a disease typically only manifest after the incubation period - when you start taking damage.

The Aboleth's Slime ability is an exception to the rule - or, more specifically, it isn't actually a disease, it's just cured with Remove Disease. It has no incubation period and the gradual transformation is also not typical of diseases.

For most of them you'll only notice you're infected after the incubation period, when you first take damage, unless your group uses magic like Status to detect it before that.
Even if you do play with the rule that you can detect it before that with mundane means i'd suggest the heal skill instead. Just because you can spot someone looking tired doesn't mean you can correctly identify a disease as the cause unless you know something about medicine.

[Crake]

SThis is not quite true. That rule is specific to magic, not in general. Characters are also only aware if they succeed on a saving throw against a subtle effect, not if they fail.
They also don't know against what they saved, just that they shrugged off some kind of hostile effect.

It's actually even worse than that. It's specific to spells, not magic. Now, generally that includes SLAs, since they follow the same rules as spells with specific exceptions, but supernatural abilities are not subject to that rule, which is how creatures like doppelgangers (who have supernatural detect thoughts rather than Sp) can get away with spamming detect thoughts until the target fails the save, meaning the longer he spends around someone, the more likely he is to eventually get in their heads (gonna roll a natural 1 someday).

[Doctor Awkward]

This is not quite true. That rule is specific to magic, not in general. Characters are also only aware if they succeed on a saving throw against a subtle effect, not if they fail.
They also don't know against what they saved, just that they shrugged off some kind of hostile effect.

That might have been the case in the past, but per the Rules Compendium (pg. 112), any "unusual or magical attack" can call for a saving throw, and "A creature that successfully saves against an effect that has no obvious physical repercussions feels a hostile force or a tingle, but can’t deduce the exact nature of the attack."

That sentence is not there to tell you that you are only aware of an effect if you succeed on your save. It's to tell you that a creature is always aware that they had to make a save at all. If it is a player, then whether or not that save succeeded may be kept a secret at the DM's discretion.

Though I suppose I should have given up hope a long time ago that folks would eventually stop questioning my ability for rules pedantry.

[sleepyphoenixx]

That sentence is not there to tell you that you are only aware of an effect if you succeed on your save.
I'm curious how you arrive at that conclusion, because i don't really get how you can read "successfully saves" and arrive at "any save at all".

If they meant "any save" i doubt they would have added "successfully" as a qualifier.
Because "when you successfully save then x" pretty clearly means "if you fail to save then x does not happen". Or at least it does to me.

[Doctor Awkward]

I'm curious how you arrive at that conclusion, because i don't really get how you can read "successfully saves" and arrive at "any save at all".

If they meant "any save" i doubt they would have added "successfully" as a qualifier.
Because "when you successfully save then x" pretty clearly means "if you fail to save then x does not happen". Or at least it does to me.

Various context clues. Such as those provided by the Spellcraft skill (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/spellcraft.htm):
"After rolling a saving throw against a spell targeted on you, determine what that spell was. No action required. No retry."

How do you know when you are allowed your Spellcraft check if you are not aware of when you are asked to roll a save?

Creatures are always aware of when they make a saving throw. It's only the result that is (optionally) a secret.

[AnachroNinja]

I'm curious how you arrive at that conclusion, because i don't really get how you can read "successfully saves" and arrive at "any save at all".

If they meant "any save" i doubt they would have added "successfully" as a qualifier.
Because "when you successfully save then x" pretty clearly means "if you fail to save then x does not happen". Or at least it does to me.

Well there is a valid interpretation there. You can read it as "on successful saves, wherein nothing actually occurs for you to judge by, you still feel a vague hostile energy" or the like. Kind of: well if you fail your safe against dominate, your character knows by default because he's now dominated. It assumes there is a practical and noticeable effect from any spell effect that you failed the save against, whereas if you succeed, the effect doesn't occur at all, but you still get a hint of it.

Am I making sense? I can't tell

[sleepyphoenixx]

Various context clues. Such as those provided by the Spellcraft skill (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/spellcraft.htm):
"After rolling a saving throw against a spell targeted on you, determine what that spell was. No action required. No retry."

How do you know when you are allowed your Spellcraft check if you are not aware of when you are asked to roll a save?

Creatures are always aware of when they make a saving throw. It's only the result that is (optionally) a secret.

I'd think that "if you don't know you've rolled a saving throw (because you failed) you can't use spellcraft to determine what that spell was." would be the more reasonable conclusion.
Because it seems quite logical to me that you can't use spellcraft to determine what spell it was if you're not aware you've been hit with a spell in the first place.

Similar to how you can use spellcraft to identify a spell as it's being cast, but that doesn't grant you automatic awareness of spells being cast in your vicinity.


Well there is a valid interpretation there. You can read it as "on successful saves, wherein nothing actually occurs for you to judge by, you still feel a vague hostile energy" or the like. Kind of: well if you fail your safe against dominate, your character knows by default because he's now dominated. It assumes there is a practical and noticeable effect from any spell effect that you failed the save against, whereas if you succeed, the effect doesn't occur at all, but you still get a hint of it.

Am I making sense? I can't tell
Except the rule is about subtle spells. Spells where you don't notice anything if you fail the save, like Detect Thoughts or Scrying.
Or Charm Person, which would be quite useless if your target immediately knew you'd just cast a non-harmless spell at him, breaking the charm.
Or most illusions. It would make them pretty much useless if even a failed save immediately told everyone in-character that there's something suspicious there.

[AnachroNinja]

Except the rule is about subtle spells. Spells where you don't notice anything if you fail the save, like Detect Thoughts or Scrying.
Or Charm Person, which would be quite useless if your target immediately knew you'd just cast a non-harmless spell at him, breaking the charm.
Or most illusions. It would make them pretty much useless if even a failed save immediately told everyone in-character that there's something suspicious there.

Well I'm going by the quote that was posted above and it simply specifies spells without a physical effect, which isn't necessarily the same thing. And honestly, by and large that whole section is phrased towards how things work for you, the player character. If you fail a save against as charm, you generally have to know about it.

I agree that people automatically knowing thru failed a save introduces a whole host of issues in the game world. That's one of the reasons why later editions clearly specified how that stuff worked I believe. I think it only really functions at all if you interpret a lot of that stuff loosely, I'm just saying I think there is a valid interpretation there that you always know when you fail a save.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Well I'm going by the quote that was posted above and it simply specifies spells without a physical effect, which isn't necessarily the same thing. And honestly, by and large that whole section is phrased towards how things work for you, the player character. If you fail a save against as charm, you generally have to know about it.

There's a difference between player knowledge and in-character knowledge.
A charmed player needs to know he's charmed, but a charmed character just interprets everything the caster says in the best light possible. He doesn't know he's charmed, he just knows that the caster is a great guy he can trust.

Even if you don't seperate player and character knowledge, if your campaign includes illusions the players will quickly get suspicious if you have them constantly rolling will saves, even if they fail to spot the illusion. Making the whole thing pointless because failing a save against an illusion should mean you have no clue that anything is wrong.
So that can't be how it's supposed to be played, or there wouldn't be illusion spells.

You kinda have to think about how a rules interpretation affects the game.
If everyone knows something is going on even on a failed save a whole lot of spells suddenly become useless or near useless, so that's probably not the interpretation you should use. Especially if there's one that works a lot better.

[Mordaedil]

I would like to point out that it's specifically Remove Disease that functions in this case, because the description text for Remove Disease states it instantly slays slimes.

Finally a good use for that paladin weekly ability.