[4e] Dangers of the rainforest

[Nihb]

I'm planning a new campain in a couple of weeks/months, and decided to try something new. We'll be using D&D 4th, I decided to use a whole island, twice or thrice as large as Cuba, with a few towns, a dense rainforest, with all the dangers we could expect.

So far, I've some ideas for "traps", encounters and difficult terrain, but I'm having a bit of troubles with diseases, either from viruses, fungus or parasites. I'll say it: I'm not too familiar with the diseases that could be contracted in such a harsh environment, and it's going to be our first 4e campain. So, if you have some ideas, even if you don't have stats for them, even a disease or bug's name would help.

Also, if you know any kind of treatment, or precautions for those diseases, those would also be pretty useful. I know Remove Disease is somewhat cheap, but if I want them to live until they can learn the ritual, they'll need some other ways to not die. I'm planning on giving them a guide who will teach them about the dangers of the tropics.

I'm particularly interested in dangers like Malaria (whatever I do, it's either too deadly or too easy to cure), Yellow Fever, those flies that put their eggs under your skin (how would that work?), the fish with spikes that likes warm places (you know the one), contaminated water and food, plants that burn the skin, etc.

Every suggestion will help me, so don't be shy. This thread is more about concepts, but if it belongs to the Homebrew forum, let it be moved.

Malaria - Level 9 disease

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Malaria, level 9 Disease
Malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal disease. It is caught by being bitten by an infected mosquito that is carrying the malaria parasites in its saliva.
Vector : Mosquitoes; Attack +12 vs Fortitude
Endurance improve DC 26, maintain DC 22, worsen DC 21 or lower
Step 0: The target is cured
Step 1(Init): The target loses one healing surge that it cannot regain until cured.
Step 2: The target suffers periods of sickness including fever, chills, sweating, vomiting and diarrhoea every 36 to 42 hours. Pain in joints causes the target to lose 1 square of speed. When bloodied, the target also becomes Weakened (save ends)
Step 3: The target loses two healing surges and is Weakened. It also takes a -2 penalty to Fortitude.

Yellow Fever - Level 5 Disease

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Yellow Fever is usually a mild disease, but is deadly in rare cases, and causes jaundice and bleedings.
Vector: Mosquitoes; Attack +7 vs Fortitude
Endurance improve DC 18, maintain DC 15, worsen DC 14 or lower
Step 0: Target is cured and immuned to Yellow Fever
Step 1: A small fever. The target needs an additional 2 hours to gain the benefits of an extended rest.
Step 2: Adbominal pain, jaundice and bleedings. When bloodied, the target takes an additional 5 points of damage.
Step 3: The target is immobilized and weakened. The target can't eat (black vomit) and will die of hunger if its condition doesn't improve.

Edit : It's a start. I'll be adding new diseases as they come in. If some of the DCs, level, effects are off, either in D&D terms or in real-life effects, please tell me.

[mobdrazhar]

I'm AFB right now so when I get home I'll check up some of the diseases when I get home. But I know that it usually requires Endurance checks to see if you get better or worse from diseases.

[tcrudisi]

The cheap and easy way is to take existing diseases and rename/refluff them, but use the same progression and DC's.

This makes it incredibly easy as all you have to do is a bit of research in how the diseases work and change a little bit of text.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm particularly interested in dangers like Malaria (whatever I do, it's either too deadly or too easy to cure), Yellow Fever, those flies that put their eggs under your skin (how would that work?), the fish with spikes that likes warm places (you know the one), contaminated water and food, plants that burn the skin, etc.

Usually diseases work like this,

Tse Tse fly
Step 0: cured.
Step 1: your speed is reduced by one.
Step 2: you take a -1 penalty to all attack rolls.
Step 3: you are paralyzed.

When infected, start at stage one. At regular intervals, make an endurance check: on a 10 or less, increase the disease by one step, and on a 15+, reduce it by one step. A succesful heal check also reduces it by one step.

[hamishspence]

Maybe you could compile all the stuff for this into an unofficial new environment book- called Treescape.

And those who use it, could nickname it "It's Green Outside"

[Angelmaker]

Usually I stay away from using long lasting stuff like diseases... If you think about it, the idea behind it is flawed.

No adventuering party in their right mind would consider going on with a diseased member, since it usually has combat implications which lower the partys chance of survival. This means, they need to expend resources on cure disease/affliction/whatever, thus putting them below Wealth by level which you need to reimburse them for.

This is a PITA - you need to track IF they are below WBL, and if they are because of YOU then YOU need to give them their money back for stuff you wanted them to hurt with... this somehow goes for all the ritual costs, which is pretty annyoing overall.

And since almost everything can be cured with two short rests ( 10 minutes ritual ), why even care about the bookkeeping. I usually scratch all the disease abilities from the monsters and use a little additional poison/acid/disease damage as an instant. It just isn´t worth it.

[Holocron Coder]

Usually I stay away from using long lasting stuff like diseases... If you think about it, the idea behind it is flawed.

No adventuering party in their right mind would consider going on with a diseased member, since it usually has combat implications which lower the partys chance of survival. This means, they need to expend resources on cure disease/affliction/whatever, thus putting them below Wealth by level which you need to reimburse them for.

This is a PITA - you need to track IF they are below WBL, and if they are because of YOU then YOU need to give them their money back for stuff you wanted them to hurt with... this somehow goes for all the ritual costs, which is pretty annyoing overall.

And since almost everything can be cured with two short rests ( 10 minutes ritual ), why even care about the bookkeeping. I usually scratch all the disease abilities from the monsters and use a little additional poison/acid/disease damage as an instant. It just isn´t worth it.

So, when the PCs chug a potion because they suffer in combat, I have to reimburse them for the price of the potion?

[kjones]

Usually I stay away from using long lasting stuff like diseases... If you think about it, the idea behind it is flawed.

No adventuering party in their right mind would consider going on with a diseased member, since it usually has combat implications which lower the partys chance of survival. This means, they need to expend resources on cure disease/affliction/whatever, thus putting them below Wealth by level which you need to reimburse them for.

This is a PITA - you need to track IF they are below WBL, and if they are because of YOU then YOU need to give them their money back for stuff you wanted them to hurt with... this somehow goes for all the ritual costs, which is pretty annyoing overall.

And since almost everything can be cured with two short rests ( 10 minutes ritual ), why even care about the bookkeeping. I usually scratch all the disease abilities from the monsters and use a little additional poison/acid/disease damage as an instant. It just isn´t worth it.

This is everything that is wrong with 4th edition.

[Psyx]

This is everything that is wrong with 4th edition.

No: There was no mention of difficulty scaling with level or grid-maps in the post...

[Nihb]

My players know very well that I'm the kind of DM that gives little monetary rewards, but tend to give more practical items, such as, say, some vaccine that would boost their endurance vs a certain disease, some kind of chicken soup laced with alchemical aspirin, rope that won't rot in the forest and the like.

Loot is not a problem, here. What I'm looking for is ideas for the dangers, namely diseases and parasites.

We were talking about malaria. From what I've read, it has a longer incubation time than, say, a cold flu. In 3.5, that was right in the rules for diseases, but in the 4th, they replaced the set Fortitude with an attack roll. Then, you get sick, right now. Mechanics are here to help, and can be changed. We should be able to find some way to make it less obvious. Malaria is also a very cyclical disease : every 36 to 42 hours, you'll have terrible fever, feel cold and shiver, sweat a lot, lose a lot of water through vomiting and, err, diarrhea. Then, you get better, until it all comes back to haunt you.

I would imagine the DC to remain stable would be "high-heroic", to cure would be "mid-paragon" and the worsen would be anything below. As for game effects, all the above, plus you lose 1 square at the first step, become slow as it worsen, and you would become cathatonic at the last step.

Maybe you could compile all the stuff for this into an unofficial new environment book- called Treescape.

And those who use it, could nickname it "It's Green Outside"

When enough ideas are pushed and work well, I'll have to store them in some way. I guess I could post the result on the Homebrew section. You know, giving back to the community