Contagion Without Slimy Doom—Balanced?

[Fable Wright]

By RAW (ignoring the Sage nerf) In the un-errata'd PHB, the spell Contagion instantly afflicts the target with a disease, which can be a range of potent status effects ranging from blindness to the infamous slimy doom, and takes at least three rounds to shake off the condition.

With the inclusion of Slimy Doom, the spell is unquestionably overpowered. No save, instant-stuns on hit for the three rounds until you die? Instantly kills monsters through Legendary Resistance.

But what about the other modes? If we Gentleman's Agreement to strike through the text of Slimy Doom and leave only five modes...

...You can inflict Blindness, a second level spell, for a guaranteed three rounds, for a slot three levels higher.
...You can inflict Disadvantage on Strength Attack Rolls, while Ray of Enfeeblement halves damage entirely at a 2nd level spell.
...You can cause single-target Confusion, when Confusion is usually an AoE effect.
...You can impose Vulnerability to all damage, which fits in an interesting niche. There's no other spell equivalent to it, and it's powerful, but it's weaker than straight blasting spells in that it can't put an opponent down on its own. [EDIT: It is comparable to the auto-crit of Hold Person/Monster, but loses out on the other benefits, such as automatically denying actions and dropping fliers for melee.]
...You can impose Disadvantage on Dexterity attack rolls, which is less impressive than either Blindness or Ray of Enfeeblement.

Granted, having all of these with no saving throw is absurdly strong... but this is a fifth level slot. It's a peer of Wall of Force, which also provides no saving throw, doesn't require an attack roll unlike Contagion, and allows the entire party to essentially get ten full minutes of Time Stop of healing and preparing with no save allowed. Heck, you can Wall of Force a Fiend or Mummy Lord in place and then have a party member stick him in an inverted Magic Circle while you wait for the spell to expire. Let your friends take a Catnap for a full short rest.

Digression aside, is Contagion as RAW without Slimy Doom a powerful but balanced spell, or still over the top?

[Ganymede]

By RAW, Contagion only inflicts a disease after three failed saving throws. The wording was updated and clarified in the most recent PHB Errata.

[New] Contagion (p. 227).
The last sentence of the first paragraph now reads, “On a hit, the target is poisoned.” The second paragraph now reads, “At the end of each of the poisoned target’s turns, the target must make a Constitution saving throw. If the target succeeds on three of these saves, it is no longer poisoned, and the spell ends. If the target fails three of these saves, the target is no longer poisoned, but choose one of the diseases below. The target is subjected to the chosen disease for the spell’s duration.”

http://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/PH-Errata.pdf

[Potato_Priest]

By RAW, Contagion only inflicts a disease after three failed saving throws. The wording was updated and clarified in the most recent PHB Errata.

[New] Contagion (p. 227).
The last sentence of the first paragraph now reads, “On a hit, the target is poisoned.” The second paragraph now reads, “At the end of each of the poisoned target’s turns, the target must make a Constitution saving throw. If the target succeeds on three of these saves, it is no longer poisoned, and the spell ends. If the target fails three of these saves, the target is no longer poisoned, but choose one of the diseases below. The target is subjected to the chosen disease for the spell’s duration.”

http://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/PH-Errata.pdf

This is correct, but the OP wishes to ignore this errata and follow the original RAW.


By RAW (ignoring the Sage nerf)

It seems to me that contagion by Raw (ignoring the errata) without slimy doom is still extremely powerful, especially the damage vulnerability option, since with a fighter in the party that means an insane amount of single target dpr. Comparing a spell to wall of force to see if it is overpowered is kind of like comparing a magic item to the bag of devouring to see if it is overpowered, since as you said wall of force is kind of ridiculous.

[Ganymede]

This is correct, but the OP wishes to ignore this errata and follow the original RAW.

He's talking about Jeremy Crawford's tweet on the subject.

https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/604503254190297088

[Fable Wright]

By RAW, Contagion only inflicts a disease after three failed saving throws. The wording was updated and clarified in the most recent PHB Errata.

I was unaware of the errata; thank you for this.


It seems to me that contagion by Raw (ignoring the errata) without slimy doom is still extremely powerful, especially the damage vulnerability option, since with a fighter in the party that means an insane amount of single target dpr. Comparing a spell to wall of force to see if it is overpowered is kind of like comparing a magic item to the bag of devouring to see if it is overpowered, since as you said wall of force is kind of ridiculous.

I was looking for comparisons to other single-target lockdown spells in the fifth level slot, of which only Wall of Force came to mind. The damage vulnerability option, in hindsight, is rather comparable to the automatic crit effect of Hold Person or Hold Monster, which have been online since level 2 spells... but with the caveat that those spells also completely remove the target's actions, and cause the target to drop if it's flying. Flesh Rot is less than half as powerful as an equivalent spell at the level, at the benefit of guaranteed sticking it.

[Malifice]

Heck, you can Wall of Force a Fiend or Lich in place and then have a party member stick him in an inverted Magic Circle while you wait for the spell to expire. Let your friends take a Catnap for a full short rest.

Have you ever fought a Lich or Fiend using Wall of Force?

Most of those guys can teleport, misty step, dimension door, fly or plane shift around it (or disentegrate the WoF in the Lichs case, presuming they didnt counterspell it to begin with).

Your average Lich can do all of the above.

As to your OP, its a non concentration spell that forces multiple saves against a very nasty status effect, that lasts for 7 days.

It has its uses. Blowing a non-disease immune critters Legendary saves is one good use of the spell.

[Fable Wright]

Have you ever fought a Lich or Fiend using Wall of Force?

Most of those guys can teleport, misty step, dimension door, fly or plane shift around it (or disentegrate the WoF in the Lichs case, presuming they didnt counterspell it to begin with).

Most fiends do not have teleport. Nalfeshnee, Marilith, and Balor can teleport. No Devils, to my knowledge, have built-in teleport or Disintegrate, though you are correct that lich was a poor example.


As to your OP, its a non concentration spell that forces multiple saves against a very nasty status effect, that lasts for 7 days.

It has its uses. Blowing a non-disease immune critters Legendary saves is one good use of the spell.

Setting aside that this is not the question I asked: Does it really, though? Aboleth, Gynosphinx, Beholder, Death Tyrant, Vampire, Demilich. Those are the six creatures out of 35 legendary creatures that might ever need to burn Legendary Resistance against Contagion. The only ones with below a +9-+10 Con save with possible Magic Resistance. And even then, the creature only needs to burn one legendary resistance to shake it off.

Does this really have a niche, except against DMs that automatically burn LRs against any random failed saving throw?

That's not the question at hand, though. It might have a niche now, and definitely gets stronger without the errata. But without the errata, and without Slimy Doom, is it still balanced on an L5 slot? If the answer is no, that's fine. I'm just looking or people's opinions.

[Malifice]

Most fiends do not have teleport. Nalfeshnee, Marilith, and Balor can teleport. No Devils, to my knowledge, have built-in teleport or Disintegrate, though you are correct that lich was a poor example.

GOg-tandard many cant, but if your DM is throwing Demons and Devils at you without tacking on some legendary actions or tweaking stats, mixing up spell like abilities and so forth, then you have bigger problems.

And even then, many of them can fly.

For every time WoF is a great option, there are times when it isnt.


Setting aside that this is not the question I asked: Does it really, though? Aboleth, Gynosphinx, Beholder, Death Tyrant, Vampire, Demilich. Those are the six creatures out of 35 legendary creatures that might ever need to burn Legendary Resistance against Contagion. The only ones with below a +9-+10 Con save with possible Magic Resistance. And even then, the creature only needs to burn one legendary resistance to shake it off.


No creature is immune to Disease in 5E. Not even undead anymore.

No, it needs to burn a legendary resistance each time it fails (or it accrues 1 failure). Three fails and the disease takes effect. Three saves and it doesnt.

Slapping it on the critter early gives it something to think about.

It's hard to make it stick, but when it does stick it's a devastating status effect.

[Dimers]

Opinion? No, it's fine, for four reasons:

You have to be next to the target to use it.
You have to hit.
Many creatures are immune to poison and/or disease.
It takes a minimum of 3 rounds to ramp up to anything beyond the 'poisoned' condition -- that's, like, forever in combat time.

Not likely to be useful in a life-or-death situation. And its out-of-combat uses are rather limited even if you're evil.


No creature is immune to Disease in 5E. Not even undead anymore.

Paladins and monks ... ?

[Fable Wright]

No, it needs to burn a legendary resistance each time it fails (or it accrues 1 failure). Three fails and the disease takes effect. Three saves and it doesnt.

Except it doesn't have to. See also:


Legendary Resistance (3/Day): If the dragon fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

It chooses when it burns a save, and there's simply zero reason for it to burn a Resistance until it already has two failed saves.

The listed creatures are the only ones likely to fail two saves before succeeding on three.


Opinion? No, it's fine, for four reasons:

You have to be next to the target to use it.
You have to hit.
Many creatures are immune to poison and/or disease.
It takes a minimum of 3 rounds to ramp up to anything beyond the 'poisoned' condition -- that's, like, forever in combat time.


In the OP, I was trying to ask about the unerrata'd version, where it does not bother with poison, making bullets 3 and 4 irrelevant.