Can you have more than one disease at the same time? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Can you have more than one disease at the same time? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
masterofmayhem
06-18-05, 11:00 PM Simple question, I hope. Can a character have the same disease more than once? For example, a party is attacked by dire rats, and a character is bitten and diseased more than once. Can that character get filth fever twice?

Quick feedback would be appreciated . . . We are currently dealing with a rat problem right now . . .

Thanks in advance. :)
Darkness is good
06-18-05, 11:14 PM yes you can, as you can be hit with a same poison twice, diseses stack also.
masterofmayhem
06-19-05, 12:14 AM Ah, that's what I thought. Most unfortunate for the ranger, though . . .

Do you think you could provide page numbers/quotes, though? The rest of my group wants proof . . .

Thanks again! :D
Jaid
06-19-05, 12:19 AM that makes no sense whatsoever. how can you have the same disease twice? two different diseases, yes, but the same one twice, i would say no. you either have it, or you don't.

however, as a house rule, i would suggest making the DC higher for each time they get hit with it. maybe +1 or something.
Loren Pechtel
06-19-05, 12:27 AM Actually it's possible to have the "same" disease twice because many diseases are really multiples. That's why we don't have vaccines against some of the common ones like the cold--it's really a couple of hundered different diseases.

However, you certainly can't catch any disease twice from the same source.

Personally I would rule it that you can't have it more than once, it's just +2 to the DC to avoid it (not for the secondary damage, though) for every additional time you are exposed.
StevenO
06-19-05, 12:40 AM I shouldn't be possible to have the same disease more than once although contacting it from multiple sources most like affect the likelyhood that you will be fully affected by it. As stated previously feel free to increase the save DC to contract the disease when it comes from multiple sources. You should assume a rat pack carries the same disease but diseases with different names would definitely stack. That is why modern medicine tries to keep sick people from catching anything new as each illness makes all of them harder to fight.
Vahenir
06-19-05, 12:52 AM In your game: Is Filth Fever a bacteria-strand disease, or a more open-ended virus like the common cold?

If it's the latter, then yes - a character could theoretically suffer from it multiple times at once.

If it's the former, then no. The disease is already in their system, further exposure to the same disease would have absolutely no effect.

Historical example: Black Plague. You got sick and died of it. Laying naked on top of someone else that had Black Plague wouldn't make you.. more plagued.
masterofmayhem
06-19-05, 01:11 AM Thanks for the timely replies, everyone. My DM has decided to go with the increased DC thing.

Thanks again! :D
tarkin
06-19-05, 03:12 PM Disease is Disease You are either infected with or not.

It is silly to apply the penalties twice.

If I wanted to go for more realism, I might require them to make the DC's to heal multiple times if the person had been exposed multiple times.

But only if they had been infected by a different source.

I.E. A single rat swarm should be ifnected with the same Filth Fever, but if you fight one swarm, then the next day fight another and both times infect you, then I might rule that it is two differen diseases and you need to heal twice, but the penalty for being infected twice overlaps, it does not stack.
Kursk
06-19-05, 04:14 PM No. Just as you can't have 2 cases of chickenpox at the same time.
Loren Pechtel
06-20-05, 12:26 AM No. Just as you can't have 2 cases of chickenpox at the same time.

But you can have two colds at once. You can even have 100 colds at once.

And two people with HIV still need to take precautions to keep from infecting each other.
Enterik
07-07-05, 03:07 PM that makes no sense whatsoever. how can you have the same disease twice? two different diseases, yes, but the same one twice, i would say no. you either have it, or you don't.

Do you want gangrene on one leg or two (as might occur from two wounds)? Do you want a Salmonella infection below the LD50(lethal dose required to kill 50% of those infected) or above (as might occur through serial innoculations? Diseases are usually not simple two-state propositions.

however, as a house rule, i would suggest making the DC higher for each time they get hit with it. maybe +1 or something.

So if the Ceril the foolish gets bit by an Otyugh and rolls a 13 on his save versus filth fever, would he automatically resist the next bite then fail to resist the infection upon the third bite? If so, this seems to be a fairly smooth way to deal with infective dose during the establishment of infection, but doesn't address increasing damage that could also reasonably result.
RavenDrake
07-08-05, 02:35 AM Damn... you guys play mean...

Standing rule of the house is "You can only have one disease of the same "Strain"(ie Name) at a time, but you can have multiple different diseases".

If you wanted to make multiple "diseases" stack and overlap, Here's what I'd do:

Each time you face infection, roll your save. If you fail once, then you're "Infected". Each successive failure(at the same DC) results in a more potent infection, raising the DC to shrug off negative effects by 1. You can have the "same" disease(ie a disease with the same name) multiple times. While you must save against each, damage of the same disease does not stack. You can also have more than one disease. Damage from two different named diseases stacks. Also, because of strain, any character suffereing from more than two diseases(whether that's two diseases of the same name or different named diseases) suffers a cumulative -1 penalty to all fortitude saves for each disease beyond two.

We'll illustrate this with a story:

Thus, if Spanky the Expendable, Minor Cohort, was bitten five time by an otyugh, he'd have to make 5 saves. He fails three saves. The first save (at DC 12, Filth Fever) begins the infection. The other two failed saves increase the infection ammount, upping it's strength and making it harder to resist. Thus, after it's incubation period(1d3 days), he must begin making saves. Those saves will be at 14(12 base, +2 for each successive failed save) to resist the damage.

Then, after this infection sets in, he's attacked by a Dire Rat and contracts Filth Fever again, but at it's normal rate of infection (Save DC 12). Now, each day, he must make a save at DC 14 and one at DC 12. If he fails even one save, he takes damage as normal. HOWEVER! he does not take damage twice from it(the damage is the same no matter how many concurent infections a character has). Each disease is tracked seperately, thus he must save twice in a row against each infection to shake the diseases. If he gets rid of one, he must still fight the other successfully.

Assume, now, that he, while still suffering from the above, drinks the barbarian's laundry water and gets Blinding Sickness. He must make three saves each day, one at 14 for the enhanced Filth Fever, one at 12 for the normal Filth Fever, and one at 16 for Blinding Sickness. If he fails the save against one strain of Filth Fever AND the Blinding Sickness, he takes damage from both, as damage from two different diseases stack as normal. And all at -1 to all Fortitude saves because he has more than two diseases in him.

The party later slaughtered Spanky the Expendable in his sleep to put him out of his misery, burned his corpse, and Disintegrated the ashes in case his bad luck was contagious. Then all the players got bookbags and sticks and beat the crap out of the DM for making them do all this extra book-keeping.
Ranix
07-08-05, 02:40 AM If you don't get diseased in the first place it's really a null issue.

Fortitude, people, fortitude! What are you catching diseases for anyway? That's not a very good way to live a long time at all.
NeueRegel
07-08-05, 11:35 AM My two sense: (worth even less than two cents):

C'mon peeps, it's a game, keep it simple. Did your alchemists invent electron microscopes while I was asleep last night?

Who's to say that "bacteria" and "viruses" are even existant? Diseases might be borne by little magical drops of quasit-ichor, for all we know.

Keep it simple; look at it like poison, be it insinuative or air-borne; roll a save, each time, and go on about your day!

NeueRegel

(And I'm usually the one getting biatched at for trying to introduce too much realism into a fantasy game! Sheesh.)

Oh, and, I forgot the original question. Same disease twice from one source? Even one "type" of source (ie. two different rat-packs). The disease DC factor has already been applied for each bite's check, by the game designers, for simplicity. No need for all these multiple penalties and such.
Colmarr
07-11-05, 03:01 AM My 2c.

The answer to this question depends on how you classify diseases in your game.

Diseases as Conditions

If you classify them as conditions (like Fatigue), then they don't stack. You are either diseased or your not. Either you have Filth Fever or you don't. You might have Filth Fever and Devil Chills (two different conditions), but you can't get Filth Fever twice.

You can have differing strengths of the same condition, such as Filth Fever (DC12) and Filth Fever (DC15). If you have the former and get infected by an Improved Otyugh, the Filth Fever (DC15) replaces the less virulent strain.

Disease as ability-damage effect

If you treat Disease as an ability-damage effect (which in many ways it is), then diseases will stack with themselves. They effectively act like a slow-acting Acid Arrow that does ability damage every day instead of hp damage every round.

Under this approach, a PC can contract 5 doses of the same disease, and has to make saves for each every day.

Personally, I treat diseases as conditions, but that's up to each individual DM.
Gilean
07-11-05, 04:09 AM I suggest increasing the amount of successful saves needed to get rid of the disease, and make remove disease and such only reduce the amount back to normal.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
masterofmayhem 06-18-05, 11:00 PM	Simple question, I hope. Can a character have the same disease more than once? For example, a party is attacked by dire rats, and a character is bitten and diseased more than once. Can that character get filth fever twice? Quick feedback would be appreciated . . . We are currently dealing with a rat problem right now . . . Thanks in advance. :)
Darkness is good 06-18-05, 11:14 PM	yes you can, as you can be hit with a same poison twice, diseses stack also.
masterofmayhem 06-19-05, 12:14 AM	Ah, that's what I thought. Most unfortunate for the ranger, though . . . Do you think you could provide page numbers/quotes, though? The rest of my group wants proof . . . Thanks again! :D
Jaid 06-19-05, 12:19 AM	that makes no sense whatsoever. how can you have the same disease twice? two different diseases, yes, but the same one twice, i would say no. you either have it, or you don't. however, as a house rule, i would suggest making the DC higher for each time they get hit with it. maybe +1 or something.
Loren Pechtel 06-19-05, 12:27 AM	Actually it's possible to have the "same" disease twice because many diseases are really multiples. That's why we don't have vaccines against some of the common ones like the cold--it's really a couple of hundered different diseases. However, you certainly can't catch any disease twice from the same source. Personally I would rule it that you can't have it more than once, it's just +2 to the DC to avoid it (not for the secondary damage, though) for every additional time you are exposed.
StevenO 06-19-05, 12:40 AM	I shouldn't be possible to have the same disease more than once although contacting it from multiple sources most like affect the likelyhood that you will be fully affected by it. As stated previously feel free to increase the save DC to contract the disease when it comes from multiple sources. You should assume a rat pack carries the same disease but diseases with different names would definitely stack. That is why modern medicine tries to keep sick people from catching anything new as each illness makes all of them harder to fight.
Vahenir 06-19-05, 12:52 AM	In your game: Is Filth Fever a bacteria-strand disease, or a more open-ended virus like the common cold? If it's the latter, then yes - a character could theoretically suffer from it multiple times at once. If it's the former, then no. The disease is already in their system, further exposure to the same disease would have absolutely no effect. Historical example: Black Plague. You got sick and died of it. Laying naked on top of someone else that had Black Plague wouldn't make you.. more plagued.
masterofmayhem 06-19-05, 01:11 AM	Thanks for the timely replies, everyone. My DM has decided to go with the increased DC thing. Thanks again! :D
tarkin 06-19-05, 03:12 PM	Disease is Disease You are either infected with or not. It is silly to apply the penalties twice. If I wanted to go for more realism, I might require them to make the DC's to heal multiple times if the person had been exposed multiple times. But only if they had been infected by a different source. I.E. A single rat swarm should be ifnected with the same Filth Fever, but if you fight one swarm, then the next day fight another and both times infect you, then I might rule that it is two differen diseases and you need to heal twice, but the penalty for being infected twice overlaps, it does not stack.
Kursk 06-19-05, 04:14 PM	No. Just as you can't have 2 cases of chickenpox at the same time.
Loren Pechtel 06-20-05, 12:26 AM	No. Just as you can't have 2 cases of chickenpox at the same time. But you can have two colds at once. You can even have 100 colds at once. And two people with HIV still need to take precautions to keep from infecting each other.
Enterik 07-07-05, 03:07 PM	that makes no sense whatsoever. how can you have the same disease twice? two different diseases, yes, but the same one twice, i would say no. you either have it, or you don't. Do you want gangrene on one leg or two (as might occur from two wounds)? Do you want a Salmonella infection below the LD50(lethal dose required to kill 50% of those infected) or above (as might occur through serial innoculations? Diseases are usually not simple two-state propositions. however, as a house rule, i would suggest making the DC higher for each time they get hit with it. maybe +1 or something. So if the Ceril the foolish gets bit by an Otyugh and rolls a 13 on his save versus filth fever, would he automatically resist the next bite then fail to resist the infection upon the third bite? If so, this seems to be a fairly smooth way to deal with infective dose during the establishment of infection, but doesn't address increasing damage that could also reasonably result.
RavenDrake 07-08-05, 02:35 AM	Damn... you guys play mean... Standing rule of the house is "You can only have one disease of the same "Strain"(ie Name) at a time, but you can have multiple different diseases". If you wanted to make multiple "diseases" stack and overlap, Here's what I'd do: Each time you face infection, roll your save. If you fail once, then you're "Infected". Each successive failure(at the same DC) results in a more potent infection, raising the DC to shrug off negative effects by 1. You can have the "same" disease(ie a disease with the same name) multiple times. While you must save against each, damage of the same disease does not stack. You can also have more than one disease. Damage from two different named diseases stacks. Also, because of strain, any character suffereing from more than two diseases(whether that's two diseases of the same name or different named diseases) suffers a cumulative -1 penalty to all fortitude saves for each disease beyond two. We'll illustrate this with a story: Thus, if Spanky the Expendable, Minor Cohort, was bitten five time by an otyugh, he'd have to make 5 saves. He fails three saves. The first save (at DC 12, Filth Fever) begins the infection. The other two failed saves increase the infection ammount, upping it's strength and making it harder to resist. Thus, after it's incubation period(1d3 days), he must begin making saves. Those saves will be at 14(12 base, +2 for each successive failed save) to resist the damage. Then, after this infection sets in, he's attacked by a Dire Rat and contracts Filth Fever again, but at it's normal rate of infection (Save DC 12). Now, each day, he must make a save at DC 14 and one at DC 12. If he fails even one save, he takes damage as normal. HOWEVER! he does not take damage twice from it(the damage is the same no matter how many concurent infections a character has). Each disease is tracked seperately, thus he must save twice in a row against each infection to shake the diseases. If he gets rid of one, he must still fight the other successfully. Assume, now, that he, while still suffering from the above, drinks the barbarian's laundry water and gets Blinding Sickness. He must make three saves each day, one at 14 for the enhanced Filth Fever, one at 12 for the normal Filth Fever, and one at 16 for Blinding Sickness. If he fails the save against one strain of Filth Fever AND the Blinding Sickness, he takes damage from both, as damage from two different diseases stack as normal. And all at -1 to all Fortitude saves because he has more than two diseases in him. The party later slaughtered Spanky the Expendable in his sleep to put him out of his misery, burned his corpse, and Disintegrated the ashes in case his bad luck was contagious. Then all the players got bookbags and sticks and beat the crap out of the DM for making them do all this extra book-keeping.
Ranix 07-08-05, 02:40 AM	If you don't get diseased in the first place it's really a null issue. Fortitude, people, fortitude! What are you catching diseases for anyway? That's not a very good way to live a long time at all.
NeueRegel 07-08-05, 11:35 AM	My two sense: (worth even less than two cents): C'mon peeps, it's a game, keep it simple. Did your alchemists invent electron microscopes while I was asleep last night? Who's to say that "bacteria" and "viruses" are even existant? Diseases might be borne by little magical drops of quasit-ichor, for all we know. Keep it simple; look at it like poison, be it insinuative or air-borne; roll a save, each time, and go on about your day! NeueRegel (And I'm usually the one getting biatched at for trying to introduce too much realism into a fantasy game! Sheesh.) Oh, and, I forgot the original question. Same disease twice from one source? Even one "type" of source (ie. two different rat-packs). The disease DC factor has already been applied for each bite's check, by the game designers, for simplicity. No need for all these multiple penalties and such.
Colmarr 07-11-05, 03:01 AM	My 2c. The answer to this question depends on how you classify diseases in your game. Diseases as Conditions If you classify them as conditions (like Fatigue), then they don't stack. You are either diseased or your not. Either you have Filth Fever or you don't. You might have Filth Fever and Devil Chills (two different conditions), but you can't get Filth Fever twice. You can have differing strengths of the same condition, such as Filth Fever (DC12) and Filth Fever (DC15). If you have the former and get infected by an Improved Otyugh, the Filth Fever (DC15) replaces the less virulent strain. Disease as ability-damage effect If you treat Disease as an ability-damage effect (which in many ways it is), then diseases will stack with themselves. They effectively act like a slow-acting Acid Arrow that does ability damage every day instead of hp damage every round. Under this approach, a PC can contract 5 doses of the same disease, and has to make saves for each every day. Personally, I treat diseases as conditions, but that's up to each individual DM.
Gilean 07-11-05, 04:09 AM	I suggest increasing the amount of successful saves needed to get rid of the disease, and make remove disease and such only reduce the amount back to normal.