Can you have multiple stacks of the same disease?

[SangoProduction]

Say, someone's using the Talontar Blightlord's Blight Touch, and has their Blightspawned Animal Companion (or commanded Blightspawn) attack the target. If the target fails both saves, do they effectively have 2 instances of the disease, taking double damage?

(Now, Blightspawned's disease is unnamed, but it's fairly obvious RAI that they are the same.)

What if someone was hit twice by Blight Touch, or 2 different Blightspawned creatures? Why?

[legomaster00156]

In PF rules, I believe that multiple instances of the same disease increase the save DC by +2 for each successive instance.

[prototype00]

Hmm, are there any rulings, AFB, on multiple doses of poison in 3.5 and PF?

[flappeercraft]

Hmm, are there any rulings, AFB, on multiple doses of poison in 3.5 and PF?

Not any that I can remember for poison, none that I can remember for diseases either though.

[PacMan2247]

I'm not aware of any official ruling on this, but if verisimilitude is any guide, then no: if you already have leprosy, there's no additional risk to you (from that disease, anyway) from living in a leper colony.

[prototype00]

I would assume however that drinking two doses of Iocane powder would be worse for you than one?

[PacMan2247]

I would assume however that drinking two doses of Iocane powder would be worse for you than one?

Not if you've spent the last few years building an immunity to iocane.

More seriously, poisons in D&D don't function the same way as diseases: they have their effect, and then they're done. Some poisons are fatal, some cause ability damage or drain, and some are merely inconvenient.

Let's take a common poison: alcohol. For the sake of argument, we'll assume a healthy person, with a body filtering out the toxic effect of a single drink per hour. Speed up the intake, and the body doesn't have time to recover from previous drinks. Higher brain functions fail first, followed by gross motor control, and eventually you have vomiting as the body attempts to reject the toxins that are coming too fast to process. Unconsciousness follows, though vomiting will continue as the body is still trying to avoid further exposure to the toxin. In this case, a single dose is below the threshold for even having an effect, but for a non-fatal poison to kill someone, it requires continuing to expose the character to the poison before they've recovered from the effects of prior exposures, and doing it until the person is dead.

So, I'd say that yes, you can be subjected to multiple instances of a single poison, but once it stops being introduced to your system, you recover at the rate determined by the level of care you receive.

[Necroticplague]

I don't see anything that implies having one poison or disease in your system in any way alters your ability to be effected by further exposure. Because it doesn't specifically say that having a disease makes you immune to getting it again, I'd treat all poisons and diseases as independent of each other. That otyugh and and that dire rat both give filth fever, but they're different infections that you roll against (and take damage from) separately.

[prototype00]

My low level psionic minor creation Greensickness specialist is relieved.

[SangoProduction]

I don't see anything that implies having one poison or disease in your system in any way alters your ability to be effected by further exposure. Because it doesn't specifically say that having a disease makes you immune to getting it again, I'd treat all poisons and diseases as independent of each other. That otyugh and and that dire rat both give filth fever, but they're different infections that you roll against (and take damage from) separately.

That was what I was thinking as well, personally. I just didn't know of any such rulings, and wanted to make sure.

[Quertus]

In PF rules, I believe that multiple instances of the same disease increase the save DC by +2 for each successive instance.

Oh, ****. I've got the common cold at +5000 DC. I'm never getting rid of that.

Cities are a death trap!

[Psyren]

Hmm, are there any rulings, AFB, on multiple doses of poison in 3.5 and PF?

He just told you the PF one:


In PF rules, I believe that multiple instances of the same disease increase the save DC by +2 for each successive instance.


Oh, ****. I've got the common cold at +5000 DC. I'm never getting rid of that.

Cities are a death trap!

Luckily for you, the common cold is not a RAW disease so you'll have to houserule something.

[prototype00]

He just told you the PF.

Didn't think diseases and poisons got ruled together? They are different conditions after all.

[Calthropstu]

Yes, in pf for both poison and disease regardless of success or failure rapid succession of poison application continuously increases the dc by 2 for each application.

3.5 does not. Once you have a disease, you have the disease. Once you are poisoned, you have the poison. Getting poisoned again merely resets the duration.


Didn't think diseases and poisons got ruled together? They are different conditions after all.

They are not together, they just have that 1 rule in common.

[ksbsnowowl]

3.5 does not. Once you have a disease, you have the disease. Once you are poisoned, you have the poison. Getting poisoned again merely resets the duration.


This is not correct.



When a character takes damage from an attack with a poisoned weapon, touches an item smeared with contact poison, consumes poisoned food or drink, or is otherwise poisoned, he must make a Fortitude saving throw. If he fails, he takes the poison’s initial damage (usually ability damage).If you get attacked by 4 assassins, and each assassin has Black Lotus Extract on his dagger, you make a save versus the poison's initial damage each time you are first struck by a different assassin's dagger.

Picking up right where we left off...

Even if he succeeds, he typically faces more damage 1 minute later, which he can also avoid with a successful Fortitude saving throw.Even if you succeed on the first Fort save, you make another 1 minute later. Not one minute after the last time you were poisoned; one minute after that poison's dosing.

Each poisoning forces its own two* saves, and you can be poisoned more than once, even with the same poison.

*There are of course the five poisons listed in the DMG that have only one instance of an effect. Technically you still make the other save too, but the effects of failing that save are "0."

I do agree with you on diseases, however.

[Calthropstu]

This is not correct.

If you get attacked by 4 assassins, and each assassin has Black Lotus Extract on his dagger, you make a save versus the poison's initial damage each time you are first struck by a different assassin's dagger.

Picking up right where we left off...
Even if you succeed on the first Fort save, you make another 1 minute later. Not one minute after the last time you were poisoned; one minute after that poison's dosing.

Each poisoning forces its own two* saves, and you can be poisoned more than once, even with the same poison.

*There are of course the five poisons listed in the DMG that have only one instance of an effect. Technically you still make the other save too, but the effects of failing that save are "0."

I do agree with you on diseases, however.
Huh. That's a bit ridiculous.

[Psyren]

Didn't think diseases and poisons got ruled together? They are different conditions after all.

Actually, I looked it up, and it is just poisons that have that concentration rule. Mea culpa.


MULTIPLE DOSES OF POISON

Unlike other afflictions, multiple doses of the same poison "stack," meaning that successive doses combine to increase the poison's DC and duration.

Making your initial saving throw against a poison means stacking does not occur—the poison did not affect you and any later doses are treated independently. Likewise, if a poison has been cured or run its course (by you either making the saves or outlasting the poison's duration), stacking does not occur. However, if there is still poison active in you when you are attacked with that type of poison again, and you fail your initial save against the new dose, the doses stack. This has two effects, which last until the poisons run their course.

[ksbsnowowl]

Huh. That's a bit ridiculous.

Why is it ridiculous? If you overdose on Tylenol, you have a chance of damaging your liver beyond its ability to repair itself (in game terms, it requires a fortitude save), but if you take double the lethal dose of Tylenol, it's REALLY hard to survive. In game terms, that added difficulty is represented by a second series of saving throws for the second lethal dosage.

When it comes to toxins in the real world, more exposure is generally worse than less. That "worse" is represented in the game by an additional series of saves for each additional dose.

It makes complete sense.

[Crake]

Huh. That's a bit ridiculous.

Is it really though? People are always touting how underpowered poisons are, and I assume they've been running them correctly. Plenty of things are immune to poisons, and often the save DC is quite weak.

I actually found in pathfinder though that poisons were much better to use. Not only do you have the master alchemist feat, which actually makes crafting poisons on something like an alchemist viable. For example, at level 7 with signature skill, master alchemist, and swift alchemy, and like 18 int, with a +5 item and a masterwork alchemy kit will have +28 to craft alchemy, can take 10 for 38, vs DC26+10 dragon bile, signature skill doubling the check result, master alchemist making the check equal to gp rather than sp (as well as giving you a number of doses equal to your int modifier, so x4 in the case of 18 int, note this doesn't increase the crafting cost either), and swift alchemy halfing the time it takes to craft, effectively doubling your output in 1 week. All that added together means that you can craft about 14.6 doses of a 1500gp poison in one week (or about 2 doses per day), at a cost of only 125gp each.

And then pathfinder also made the poisons themselves better to use. Higher DCs for the good poisons, damage each round, so it's more effective, since often things die quickly, somtimes before a minute is even over. There's also the sand pipe, which you can use to turn 3 doses of contact/inhaled poison into a 15ft cone, making those typically unused poisons again a viable tactic. Arguably, stacking poisons in pathfinder is also better, because it raises the DC, though I can see circumstances where you may want to stack damage rather than DC, like you do in 3.5

[Necroticplague]

Is it really though? People are always touting how underpowered poisons are, and I assume they've been running them correctly. Plenty of things are immune to poisons, and often the save DC is quite weak.

I think he meant from a versimiltude perspective, in that, under these rules, ]more poison doesn't do more damage (at least, in the short run. Long-run, stacking poison increases damage by increasing how long they'll be poisoned, but that's not relevant when you want something dead ASAP).

[Psyren]

I think he meant from a versimiltude perspective, in that, under these rules, ]more poison doesn't do more damage (at least, in the short run. Long-run, stacking poison increases damage by increasing how long they'll be poisoned, but that's not relevant when you want something dead ASAP).

It does more damage on average because they'll fail more saving throws I'd say.

[Telonius]

FWIW, the Drugs section in Book of Vile Darkness has Overdose rules. (Drugs are treated like poisons when administered to an unwilling recipient). Regular non-drug poisons don't have an overdose rule in the book.