The Black Plague (And other diseases) design help

[PersonMan]

I've decided to run a campaign in which disease will play a major role. One of the main enemies will be the incarnation of disease, and about halfway through the campaign, the Black Plague will be released upon the world. I don't have any experience with diseases, and I'm not sure how to make the Plague strong enough to make the PCs be afraid of it, but be able to survive it with a bit of luck.

I'd also like it if someone could point me to a place where the stats for various diseases are, if such a place exists.

Thanks in advance.

[Temotei]

Here are some. I personally like the ones from the books that aren't in the SRD. I'm sure I can name the diseases, but I'm not sure I can name the stats of the diseases without breaking the rules. Right now, though, I'm feeling lazy, so I'm just going to say visit that site, and look over the rules for them. Compare the bubonic plague to those, and make it.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Hmmm...

First off, eliminate Remove Disease and disease immunity class features, and don't allow Restoration effects to restore ability damage from disease (or don't allow magic to mitigate the disease's effects at all). That immediately ups the ante: PCs now much search out cures, make saves, or suffer...no magical assistance. Maybe handwave the reason as something like this: the disease is so potent that even traditional magical methods yield no result.

Then, up the save DCs to scale with level. You'll find your PCs beginning to really fear exposure to diseases and similar.

Alternatively, scale the DCs and add a rare (and limited) material component to Remove Disease and any spells that would help them fight off the disease.

[DracoDei]

The Elemental Plane of Flesh by Zeta Kai has rules for turning diseases into Oozes (much like the Living Spell template, except for diseases instead of spells). The template is called "Infectoplasm" I believe.

[Letums Gate]

Based off of the wikipedia's discripton of the black death I would go with some thing similar to this.

Black Death (Bubonic Plague)
Infection DC: 20
Infection type: Contact
Incubation: 1d3 days
Damage: 1d6 Con
Description: Symptoms includ high fever, headaches, painful aching joints, nausea and vomiting, and a general feeling of malaise.

However there is another more deadly version of the black death and that would be this.

Black Death (Pneumonic Plague)
Infection DC: 20
Infection type: Inhaled/Contact (Bloody Victim)
Incubation: 1d6+1 days
Damage: 3d4 Con/1d6 Str
Description: Symptoms includ fever, cough, and blood-tinged spit. As the disease progress, spit became free flowing and bright red.

I hope this helps in your game and good luck with your avatar of Pestilence.

Thank you for your criticism and I have changed things so they are a bit more balanced and easyer to use.

[Ponce]

Didn't it involve large boils cropping up on the body?

[Latronis]

I woulda just combined Devil Chills and Mummy Rot together. And renamed it :P

[The Tygre]

Kobold Quarterly #8 talks about mass plagues, especially the Black Death, in a fantasy setting. It goes on to talk about how it spreads, why the nobles ignore it until it's in their section of the city, what the economy and society does, and why clerics just can't make it all go away.

[Corporate M]

Sounds awesome dude. That D&D wiki has alot of useful tips on homebrew diseases.

If you play on the net or have YIM, I'd love to be some cultist or any warlock type disease spreader npc. If you ask me, there ain't enough posions/diseases in D&D!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tious_diseases

Real diseases could give you some ideas based on their effects.

I think if I ever get into a game irl I'll try and work on invocations for a warlock like lesser inflict disease/poison, greater, etc. And use a feat to add them to my invocation blast. But I'm glad to see someone else appreciating bio-hazards.

[DracoDei]

Are you sure about those short incubation times and the high CON damage on the second version?

I would think that a longish period of contagiousness before symptoms appear would be necessary for a disease to become a plague. Also, 3d4 will kill the average NPC on the second failed save on average. Was it really THAT fast of a progression of the disease?

[Fako]

Are you sure about those short incubation times and the high CON damage on the second version?

I would think that a longish period of contagiousness before symptoms appear would be necessary for a disease to become a plague. Also, 3d4 will kill the average NPC on the second failed save on average. Was it really THAT fast of a progression of the disease?

The pneumonic plague is known for being incredibly fast and lethal. From the Center for Disease Control's website on the disease, found here:

With pneumonic plague, the first signs of illness are fever, headache, weakness, and rapidly developing pneumonia with shortness of breath, chest pain, cough, and sometimes bloody or watery sputum. The pneumonia progresses for 2 to 4 days and may cause respiratory failure and shock. Without early treatment, patients may die.

From wikipedia's article, found here:

It could kill 90%–100% of a population if the victims coughed and passed on the bacteria.
-snip-
Without treatment, the mortality rate from pneumonic plague approaches 100%.

However, from what I can tell, it could take up to a week before symptoms began to show, so the incubation period should probably be 1d6 days...

As for how to make the players afraid of disease, I'd recommend introducing magically enhanced strains that progress more rapidly than the normal versions, requiring a save once every hour, minute, or even round, depending on your preferred flavor. Few things are scarier (disease-wise) than watching a commoner try to help someone, only to die of the disease in under a minute...

[Caldarin]

Yeah, incubation period needs to be boosted a whole ton, otherwise the disease 'burns' itself out quickly.
It'd be really interesting if the players all picked it up, knew they had it, and were just waiting for it to start killing them

[Letums Gate]

Yeah, incubation period needs to be boosted a whole ton, otherwise the disease 'burns' itself out quickly.
It'd be really interesting if the players all picked it up, knew they had it, and were just waiting for it to start killing them

All right I have made the changes dose that look more blaneced to you?