Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Paradisio 11-10-05, 01:39 AM	How evil would you say coup de graceing someone who is in hostile territory and is wounded while they are unconscious, but aren't one of the race that is usually in the area? IE I believe there is reasonable doubt that he is a hostile creature and they kill him in his sleep. How far would you stretch "Immune to ALL diseases?" Would that include parasites and infections (especially ones of magical nature)? Anyways, there is a "disease" in my campaign that is actually a parasite (if youve played the resident evil games, think of it like the parasite from the recent game mixed with the T-Virus and ebola.) Basically parasitic larva are transmitted via blood/saliva and when they reach adulthood, burrow into the opponents brain and eat the frontal lobe and lay eggs (asexual reproduction) in the bloodstream. Eventually when the parasite is about to die (it has a relatively short life span) the person vomits up blood (like ebola) to infect others. It's pretty graphic, I know, but I'm trying to get a horror theme. Long story short, its basically a modified mind flayer tadpole, but the person never turns into a mind flayer. Anyone have any suggestion on a race for barbarians aside from gnolls, half giants and the regular PHB races? What impact would having no planes have on magic? What schools/spells just wouldn't work? I know this is kind of a big one, but would all conjuraction magic fail? I was thinking about having no planes because of what happened when the last campaign ended (and this is basically a continuation.) Basically all the planes merged into one.
Gedrin 11-10-05, 02:18 AM	How evil would you say coup de graceing someone who is in hostile territory and is wounded while they are unconscious, but aren't one of the race that is usually in the area? IE I believe there is reasonable doubt that he is a hostile creature and they kill him in his sleep. If you don't think the person is a threat to your life or the lives of innocents, you shouldn't kill them. How far would you stretch "Immune to ALL diseases?" Would that include parasites and infections (especially ones of magical nature)? I'd take it at its word. Immune to all diseases. No malaria. No infected wounds. Magic diseases probably count too. Many diseasess are invasions by some form of parasite, usually viri or bacteria, anyway. Either way, if a werewolf can use a paladin as a chew toy for a week, and the paladin not get infected, I think that's pretty broad. The Divine Health ability may be Ex, but it specifically grants immunity to supernatural and magical diseases. Anyways, there is a "disease" in my campaign that is actually a parasite It sounds like you've just got a different type of disease here. Microscopic larve (small enough to be in blood unseen) swim around in a person until they kill the host. Much like many other natural diseases. I don't really even see why this would be a magical disease. Tiny bugs kill as they reproduce. Transmits through blood. Symptoms are anemia, blood tainted cough, headaches, and dementia, followed by convulsive death. It's a good disease, and I may use it, but there's nothing that says it would bypass normal resistance to such things. What impact would having no planes have on magic? Any you want. If you're going to rearange the standard cosmology to that point, pretty much up to you what happens. In the case of an apocalyptic event such as that, the old spells that dealt with the planes, like oh...teleport, all conjurations, rope trick...they wouldn't work any more. Bags of holding would likely have emptied randomly into the world, as well as whatever other violent results would have occured at their portal openings. New versions would be needed, and magic would likely be crippled by and large (see the Dragonlance setting). Wizards, Sorcerers and Bards are likely SOL as everyone's caster level becomes 1. Clerics on the other hand, likely are fine, maybe even better than ever, providing the gods are around...on the mortal/only plane... Are you sure you want Heironeous and Hextor on the same world with Corellon and Grummsh?
TheChilliGod 11-10-05, 02:33 AM	How evil would you say coup de graceing someone who is in hostile territory and is wounded while they are unconscious, but aren't one of the race that is usually in the area? IE I believe there is reasonable doubt that he is a hostile creature and they kill him in his sleep.I'd say that mercy is always a factor among good, (at least when faced with helpless opponents) and coup-de-gracing in this case would be considered an evil act, something that would shake (but not break) a paladin's code. But it's nothing warranting an alignment change or anything. How far would you stretch "Immune to ALL diseases?" Would that include parasites and infections (especially ones of magical nature)? Anyways, there is a "disease" in my campaign that is actually a parasite (if youve played the resident evil games, think of it like the parasite from the recent game mixed with the T-Virus and ebola.) Basically parasitic larva are transmitted via blood/saliva and when they reach adulthood, burrow into the opponents brain and eat the frontal lobe and lay eggs (asexual reproduction) in the bloodstream. Eventually when the parasite is about to die (it has a relatively short life span) the person vomits up blood (like ebola) to infect others. It's pretty graphic, I know, but I'm trying to get a horror theme. Long story short, its basically a modified mind flayer tadpole, but the person never turns into a mind flayer. So, the only thing resulting is a wee blood-vomiting? I suppose that laying 'eggs' in the brain would do damage, though... I'd say technically, that the parasite counts as a creature instead of a disease, so would not be affected by a disease-immune person. My reasoning is that I have yet to see an official disease that is parasite-related. However, I can see your players (especially any paladin-players one might have) arguing that this thing is, indeed, a disease, since it's doing nasty things and such. You just gotta point out that it is, indeed, a creature. Anyone have any suggestion on a race for barbarians aside from gnolls, half giants and the regular PHB races? Hm, an Orc? Hobgoblin? Grimlock? Desmondu? (MMII) Warforged? Shifter? Goliath? (Races of Stone) What impact would having no planes have on magic? What schools/spells just wouldn't work? I know this is kind of a big one, but would all conjuraction magic fail? I was thinking about having no planes because of what happened when the last campaign ended (and this is basically a continuation.) Basically all the planes merged into one.Well, there are certainly spells that just wouldn't make sense working with the absence of the plane they're associated with, and the Manual of the Planes has a list of all spells that rely on the planes. I recall about 40 spells that will be affected. Hope I helped.
DnDFreak101 11-10-05, 02:36 AM	How evil would you say coup de graceing someone who is in hostile territory and is wounded while they are unconscious, but aren't one of the race that is usually in the area? IE I believe there is reasonable doubt that he is a hostile creature and they kill him in his sleep. I would say, that's kindof a mercy killing, but, if they were close to getting help or something, then i think that would be evil.
Gedrin 11-10-05, 02:40 AM	You just gotta point out that it is, indeed, a creature. Yes...it's a microscopic creature. A creature not visible to the naked eye. A creature so small that a new size category will need to be invented for it. There's no reason to call what is essentially a glorified hookworm a creature, other than to bypass someone's disease resistance. It looks like a parasitic infection. It has symptoms like a parasitic infection. It's caused by an infectious parasite. BUT! It's a creature. Yeh...I'd be mad.
kajinoryu 11-10-05, 02:45 AM	I think a coup de grace to an enemy who is found in hostile territory isn't really an evil act. More like a neutral one, it really depends on the enemy as to whether or not an 'alive or dead' tag is warranted. Spells wouldn't necessarily have to change alot if all the planes imploded on the material plane. Any plane-shift type of spell wouldn't work anymore. Incorporeal (and ethereal) creatures would lose thier untouchability by mundane weaponry. Outsiders are now treated as natives, which changes other spells like Dimensional Anchor and Banishment. Summon spells can just summon a creature from another part of the world, and at your decision, might be permanently summoned, although not under control of the caster after the spells duration.
Paradisio 11-10-05, 02:47 AM	Well I am going under the Lords of madness description for the mind flayer tadpole (which it is basically is but on a smaller scale.) When it reaches adulthood, you can actually see it if you cut open the persons head. Baiscally only "heal" removes it. Anyways, this is just a hypothetical, I really don't imagine the PCs getting it, and if they do it is probably going to be the fighters.
Gedrin 11-10-05, 02:49 AM	Baiscally only "heal" removes it. Then it must be a disease of some sort. Heal will not deal damage to kill a normal creature. If I were you, I'd go about it this way. Infection: Can be prevented by disease immunity. Incubation:Cure Disease works. Early Onset: Cure disease removes Late Onset: Cure disease removes, but doesn't fix damage. Heal needed to fix damage. Reproduction: Cure disease kills eggs. Heal needed to remove or fix damage. Terminal: Heal needed to remove or fix damage.
Paradisio 11-10-05, 02:53 AM	But it specifically says remove disease/curse don't effect it and it is a creature ;/
Gedrin 11-10-05, 02:56 AM	Then they're making the rules up as they go along, or they've carved out a special nitche just for this thing. Come to think of it, aren't mind flayer larve visible from the begining? Tadpoles are clearly visible. Presuming Mind Flayer larva scale as frogs to men...they'd a couple of inches long. That would be a creature. Honestly, you could justify the visible form of this being a creature with stats and HP's and such. However, I dobut you're going to have microbes making attack rolls vs. the PC's. Treating it like a disease before it matures is only sensable, and there are lots of examples IRL for this sort of thing. Treating the mature form as a creature, also sensable. I wouldn't want to try and tell a bunch of players that they've become infected with microbes that look, act, and transmit like a disease, but they really aren't. It really looks like trying to do an end run around a character's class features.
Paradisio 11-10-05, 03:05 AM	How about a balance? Remove disease kills the eggs in the bloodstream and stops the person from being infectious. This cures a someone who doesn't have a hatched parasite in their body (IE the recently infected.) But once the creature migrates to the brain and begins feasting, only killing it (which is difficult) or casting heal (to crush the creature.) Remove disease still stops them from being infectious and bleeding out (IE the creature might die of natural causes after it finishes its lifecycle). Problem being, if the person outlasts it, they might as well be dead as the creature has eaten half their brain.
Gedrin 11-10-05, 03:12 AM	Yeh...that makes good sense. It's a disease until it actuall qualifies as a Fine creature. Some symptoms would likely develop in this time, giving a chance at stopping an infection. Anemia and headaches would seem apropriate. It's probably agressive, but still a pretty complex creature (on the parasite scale). Transmition: Inhaled/Injury DC: 16 Incubation: D4 days Damge: Primary Damage: -2 Con (anemia and headaches), Secondary and Later Damage: -2 Int, -2 Wis, and there's a worm in the head. Before the secondary damage sets in, Cure Disease works, as does natural resistance. After any secondary damage has occured, only Heal will cure the disease.
MarkB 11-10-05, 05:08 AM	Just as a note in favour of the "treat it as a normal disease" argument, the description of the Remove Disease spell specifically says that it removes parasites. If you want it to be non-curable by Remove Disease, then rather than playing with the definitions, the best method would be to make it a special magical curse in the form of a disease that resists magical removal, much like Mummy Rot (http://d20srd.org/srd/monsters/mummy.htm).
Paradisio 11-10-05, 04:17 PM	Well how about you have to remove disease and remove curse to get rid of it? Or should it just be one or the other, because right now its a little of both. I still find it humorous how many times grimlock has been suggested for the barbarian race.
Chobemaster 11-10-05, 04:51 PM	CDG isn't any more or less evil than killing the guy while he's awake. It's not as honorable, perhaps, and might create issues from a Code of Conduct/Bushido standpoint, but it's no more or less good/evil.
Paradisio 11-10-05, 04:58 PM	How is that not murder? I can go to the hospital and kill people that are wounded and thats not illegal/wrong?
revnk 11-10-05, 05:56 PM	Well I am going under the Lords of madness description for the mind flayer tadpole (which it is basically is but on a smaller scale.) When it reaches adulthood, you can actually see it if you cut open the persons head. Baiscally only "heal" removes it. Anyways, this is just a hypothetical, I really don't imagine the PCs getting it, and if they do it is probably going to be the fighters. What I took from Lords Of Madness is that an illithid "tadpole" at an implantable age is quite visible and quite the size of a normal tadpole. There's even an illustration of a mind-flayer approaching a doomed victim with a tadpole held in a pair of tongs (assuming the illustration is accurate). Yes, you can make a magical disease. If germ theory applies in your campaign (illness is caused by microscopic entities), there's no reason magical viruses might evolve just as magical horses or magical lizards have evolved. And you could rule that illness works some other way: diseases are caused by "vapors" or unbalanced humours or blocked chi or something entirely novel. But doing that simply to try to nerf paladins or monks is probably a bad idea. I don't see any special reason this particular illness has to be magical. If it were spread by spellcasting, say? That would justify making it magical. Then again, there's not necessarily a reason for it not to be magical, either (see the previous paragraph). Keep in mind if you're using the real world for models of infection that fast diseases are (ironically) not necessarily the most dangerous: an ebola outbreak can be self-contained by the fact that the virus kills its current habitat faster than it can colonize new victims, while a slow-moving virus like HIV can run rampant because carriers live long enough to potentially infect hundreds of people. What may keep your PCs from being infected, in other words, is that they keep stumbling upon decimated villages where there are few or no survivors, merely hundreds of dead, bloody corpses without any marks. The D&D rules are too coarse to distinguish between parasites, bacteria and viruses. In fact, they're too coarse to distinguish between parasites and malnutrition (see the Stormwrack rules where scurvy--they call it something else, but it's obviously scurvy--is treated with the same rules as any other disease). Using the same rules for parasites is fine. What else? Let's see.... Any race capable of leveling up in a class and posessing a nonlawful alignment can be a barbarian. You can have barbarian vampires. Barbarian white dragons. Barbarian elves. Barbarian flumphs (okay, maybe not). You're only bound by your imagination and a modicum of common sense (or an ability to rationalize an otherwise ludicrous mix). Pick almost anything. As for the effect of removing planes? You don't need them, as long as you can answer for yourself where divine and arcane magics (if they exist) come from. You can have just three planes (Heaven, Hell and Earth), one plane (magic comes from, I don't know, midichlorians, maybe), infinite planes (magic comes from channeling energy from the spaces between dimensions), ad infinitum. You just need to decide how it works. You'll also need to decide if there are extraplanar creatures--honestly, though, you can basically throw out the sections on devils, devas, etc. with zero effect on the game, if you want. Just try to keep it consistent. The coup de grace you described in the top post sounds like cold-blooded murder. Hope that helps. Good luck.
Paradisio 11-10-05, 06:18 PM	Its not an attempt to nerf anyone, if I wanted to do that I would just tell him not to play to play the class. Basically it is a disease caused by a curse that is a creature, Its a pretty major plot element, and if it is just healed by one spell then It pretty much ruins the whole idea and the sense of urgency I am trying to put in the campaign. Anyways, the disease doesn't actually kill the person for about a year, but they are still contagious during that time. Here is the stages of the virus: Egg is implanted via bite/open wound/placed directily in the person -> Egg hatches and travels to the brain where it eats the frontal lobes (causing a lot of problems) and begins the reproduce -> creature reaches adulthood where it continues to reproduce and survives off what little food it has left -> Creature dies and causes the subject to bleed out in a last effort to spread the virus -> Person revives as undead (what undead depends on what point during the disease it died at)
revnk 11-10-05, 07:33 PM	Here is the stages of the virus: Egg is implanted via bite/open wound/placed directily in the person -> Egg hatches and travels to the brain where it eats the frontal lobes (causing a lot of problems) and begins the reproduce -> creature reaches adulthood where it continues to reproduce and survives off what little food it has left -> Creature dies and causes the subject to bleed out in a last effort to spread the virus -> Person revives as undead (what undead depends on what point during the disease it died at) Using the word "virus" may just be confusing. Viruses are basically bits of packaged genetic material that hijack cells within a body in order to manufacture new viruses. (In a sense, saying that a virus "reproduces," although common, is misleading: as I understand it, the virus doesn't so much copy itself as it inserts genetic material into a cell so that the cell prints copies.) So you have a creature. The creature can be killed the way other creatures can be killed (damage to the creature's hit points). Given the invasive nature of the creature, you might want to give players a chance to one-shot it with heal or another spell--there's precedence for that. Doing so may not be "realistic," but it gives an unfortunate PC a way out that doesn't involve someone hacking his head open and trying to poke a fine or diminutive creature with a dagger. The creature might have magic resistance. The "what little food it has left" bit might be clarified. You're talking about a creature's brain, after all. What an illithid does is actually replace the brain--you could (in a kind of crude sense) think of an "illithid" as a tentacled creature riding on top of someone else's body (except that the illithid has replaced the body's original materials with its own). Unless your critter is doing something about autonomic bodily functions, the body is going to be dead or immobile before the critter reaches adulthood. Keep in mind that if your world follows real biological laws, a species that destroys its own habitat is driving itself towards extinction or evolution into something less destructive (possibly both, in a manner of speaking). The bleeding out would presumably be an effort to spread cysts, spores, or eggs. Again, applying evolutionary processes, this is not necessarily a good way to guarantee another generation of brain-eating spawn finds a habitat and breeds: this may be something to tweak. You mention that the victim is contagious earlier: perhaps spores are airborne? Being a big fan of undead, I'd suggest that the victims-become-undead might need some more thought. Why undead, other than the fact that undead are cool? You might consider the undead being part of the host-spreading process: rather than spread through a bleed-out, the creature spreads eggs by taking over the host's corpse and using the host to attack other victims. (A magical parasite could presumably do that.) One point to come back to: I'm not a biologist, just a science fanboy, but many authors I've read writing about ebola seem to suggest that the most horrifying effects of the disease are also the most counterproductive from the virus' evolutionary perspective. As the virus hijacks cellular machinery, it causes tissue breakdown, which leads to organ failure, which leads to one cause of death from the virus: the notorious bleed out. The problem with this from ebola's perspective is that while the remnants are very "hot" (chock full of ebola virus), that doesn't help the virus spread unless someone (or thing) comes around and messes with the remains--otherwise the body decomposes and the pools of virus basically die. If every possible host dies before the virus population can find a new habitat (i.e. person or animal), the virus runs a real risk of wiping itself out. Ebola is dangerous to people, mind you, because air travel has essentially made almost the whole human race into one big, non-isolated population of animals--the natural firebreaks we had when oceans and mountains kept us apart are effectively gone. But thus far ebola has been so effective at killing people that outbreaks have been largely confined to villages and towns--ebola's reproductive strategy is pretty lousy from an evolutionary point of view. Now influenza, on the other hand, has a talent for keeping its host alive long enough to breathe influenza viruses onto another host. It keeps victims alive just long enough to guarantee the security of future generations of influenza. And HIV is just king: someone infected with HIV might live for decades. Now, why the lecture? Because if you're looking for a rationale for your creature, aside from its gorpy grotesque goodness, you should be thinking about why it causes these effects and what it means for future generations of critters. If you want to draw the line at "it's cool coz it's gross," that's fine. I'm with you, disbelief is hereby suspended. But, from the sound of your posts, you want this creature to have some believability, some raison'd'etre. So the bleed-out is good from a drama standpoint, but (ironically enough!) it undercuts the creature's very lethality and fearsomeness from that rational P.O.V. Finally, let me point you to some other scientific nastiness. Go to google or wikipedia or encarta (or the library) and do some research on sheep liver flukes. The nutshell version is this (and I'm not making this up): the fluke spends a lot of time living in a sheep's liver. Not good for the sheep, but nothing scary, here. But when the fluke is ready to breed, it starts getting a little nasty. See, flukes would really rather live in an ant. So fluke cysts get evacuated from the sheep in the sheep's fecal matter. This, long story short, leads to the flukes living in the ant's digestive tract. But it's a sheep liver fluke, not an ant liver fluke. So what's a fluke to do about that? When it comes time for the fluke to move on up to the lower sheep side (sorry!), a fluke migrates to the ant's brain. The fluke then hijacks the ant's brain and changes its behavior. The ant gets an irresistable urge to climb up to the top of a blade of grass, grab hold with its pincers, and then it just sits there. And waits. The damn fluke makes the ant wait there until a sheep eats the blade of grass, along with the ant. But wait, it's slightly worse than that: what if the ant doesn't get eaten? Being on top of a blade of grass all through the day is a great way for an ectotherm (a creature that doesn't regulate its own heat the way a mammal does) to get cooked. So, the ant only stays on its blade of grass for a few hours in the morning or evening: the rest of the day, the fluke lets the ant go. The ant gets to run around, doing ant things, until the hour comes when its time to climb up and wait for a passing sheep. This system has worked well for liver flukes for quite a while now. And it sounds like the kind of thing you may be working towards with your creature's life-cycle. Suppose it doesn't cause a bleed out--suppose instead it alters its hosts behavior for a few hours, until it gets to its new host (killing the old host)? This might not involve hitting the new host with spores or eggs: the liver fluke lays eggs in the sheep, but it only alters the behavior of the host it uses for part of its growth cycle. Anyway, food for thought. Hope it was helpful, or at least informative. Good luck.
Juzzman 11-10-05, 08:14 PM	Hi there, here's my 2c worth How evil would you say coup de graceing someone who is in hostile territory and is wounded while they are unconscious, but aren't one of the race that is usually in the area? IE I believe there is reasonable doubt that he is a hostile creature and they kill him in his sleep. Unless there are any unmentioned racial or social biases, Killing a helpless wounded stranger of whom you know nothing would normally be an evil act. If the person doing the coup de grace is say in the military and under orders to kill any stranger on site no questions ever you MIGHT stretch it to neutral (i wouldnt) What impact would having no planes have on magic? As mentioned, this is up to you. You could go in depth and make widespread changes, or stick to the basics and just disalow spells that specifically use other planes (plane travel, ethralness) At the end of the day, we are talking magic, so a bag of holding can still exits, it just does it via 'magic' instead of a more detailed description about extradimensional spaces. Elementals don't have to come from the elemental planes, they can just be the physical embodiment of that element. You are the dm, so the world works how you want. Just be aware of the work involved in doing it, and make sure your playesr understand too :-) Strontium
witchhunter99 11-10-05, 08:38 PM	Anyone have any suggestion on a race for barbarians aside from gnolls, half giants and the regular PHB races? One of the best characters i ever had was a Minotaur (BEEFY!!!!) Barbarian, its interesting, good option for role players, and it can still WHOOP MAJOR ASS!
Gedrin 11-10-05, 09:23 PM	Its not an attempt to nerf anyone, if I wanted to do that I would just tell him not to play to play the class. Basically it is a disease caused by a curse that is a creature, Its a pretty major plot element, and if it is just healed by one spell then It pretty much ruins the whole idea and the sense of urgency I am trying to put in the campaign. While making it a "curse disease" will prevent normal curatives from working, it won't trump Divine Health. Mummy Rot, which is specifically a curse type disease, is also something that the Divine Health class ability gives explicit immunity to. Lycanthropy is another curse disease that Paladins aren't bothered with. So basically, Divine Health gives immunity to infectious diseases covered by the Remove Disease spell, and to various disease like curses. I have trouble seeing it as anything other than a cheap trick to have this work on characters with the Divine Health ability. While a monk might still be vulnerable to a curse type disease...a monk of 5th level or higher would certainly be aware that something was really wrong with their body du to having total controll of the immune system. If a 7th level monk could use his a combination of his total body awareness, complete control over his immune system, and abiltiy to self heal to internally crush the creature...that's a judgement call. Further, Perfect Self might not prevent infection, but it would seem to prevent an infection as described making any progress, as the monk would instantly regenerate any damaged parts. Though if you're a 20th level monk...you're not failing the initial save anyway.
Paradisio 11-10-05, 09:59 PM	Using the word "virus" may just be confusing. Viruses are basically bits of packaged genetic material that hijack cells within a body in order to manufacture new viruses. (In a sense, saying that a virus "reproduces," although common, is misleading: as I understand it, the virus doesn't so much copy itself as it inserts genetic material into a cell so that the cell prints copies.) So you have a creature. The creature can be killed the way other creatures can be killed (damage to the creature's hit points). Given the invasive nature of the creature, you might want to give players a chance to one-shot it with heal or another spell--there's precedence for that. Doing so may not be "realistic," but it gives an unfortunate PC a way out that doesn't involve someone hacking his head open and trying to poke a fine or diminutive creature with a dagger. The creature might have magic resistance. The "what little food it has left" bit might be clarified. You're talking about a creature's brain, after all. What an illithid does is actually replace the brain--you could (in a kind of crude sense) think of an "illithid" as a tentacled creature riding on top of someone else's body (except that the illithid has replaced the body's original materials with its own). Unless your critter is doing something about autonomic bodily functions, the body is going to be dead or immobile before the critter reaches adulthood. Keep in mind that if your world follows real biological laws, a species that destroys its own habitat is driving itself towards extinction or evolution into something less destructive (possibly both, in a manner of speaking). The bleeding out would presumably be an effort to spread cysts, spores, or eggs. Again, applying evolutionary processes, this is not necessarily a good way to guarantee another generation of brain-eating spawn finds a habitat and breeds: this may be something to tweak. You mention that the victim is contagious earlier: perhaps spores are airborne? Being a big fan of undead, I'd suggest that the victims-become-undead might need some more thought. Why undead, other than the fact that undead are cool? You might consider the undead being part of the host-spreading process: rather than spread through a bleed-out, the creature spreads eggs by taking over the host's corpse and using the host to attack other victims. (A magical parasite could presumably do that.) One point to come back to: I'm not a biologist, just a science fanboy, but many authors I've read writing about ebola seem to suggest that the most horrifying effects of the disease are also the most counterproductive from the virus' evolutionary perspective. As the virus hijacks cellular machinery, it causes tissue breakdown, which leads to organ failure, which leads to one cause of death from the virus: the notorious bleed out. The problem with this from ebola's perspective is that while the remnants are very "hot" (chock full of ebola virus), that doesn't help the virus spread unless someone (or thing) comes around and messes with the remains--otherwise the body decomposes and the pools of virus basically die. If every possible host dies before the virus population can find a new habitat (i.e. person or animal), the virus runs a real risk of wiping itself out. Ebola is dangerous to people, mind you, because air travel has essentially made almost the whole human race into one big, non-isolated population of animals--the natural firebreaks we had when oceans and mountains kept us apart are effectively gone. But thus far ebola has been so effective at killing people that outbreaks have been largely confined to villages and towns--ebola's reproductive strategy is pretty lousy from an evolutionary point of view. Now influenza, on the other hand, has a talent for keeping its host alive long enough to breathe influenza viruses onto another host. It keeps victims alive just long enough to guarantee the security of future generations of influenza. And HIV is just king: someone infected with HIV might live for decades. Now, why the lecture? Because if you're looking for a rationale for your creature, aside from its gorpy grotesque goodness, you should be thinking about why it causes these effects and what it means for future generations of critters. If you want to draw the line at "it's cool coz it's gross," that's fine. I'm with you, disbelief is hereby suspended. But, from the sound of your posts, you want this creature to have some believability, some raison'd'etre. So the bleed-out is good from a drama standpoint, but (ironically enough!) it undercuts the creature's very lethality and fearsomeness from that rational P.O.V. Finally, let me point you to some other scientific nastiness. Go to google or wikipedia or encarta (or the library) and do some research on sheep liver flukes. The nutshell version is this (and I'm not making this up): the fluke spends a lot of time living in a sheep's liver. Not good for the sheep, but nothing scary, here. But when the fluke is ready to breed, it starts getting a little nasty. See, flukes would really rather live in an ant. So fluke cysts get evacuated from the sheep in the sheep's fecal matter. This, long story short, leads to the flukes living in the ant's digestive tract. But it's a sheep liver fluke, not an ant liver fluke. So what's a fluke to do about that? When it comes time for the fluke to move on up to the lower sheep side (sorry!), a fluke migrates to the ant's brain. The fluke then hijacks the ant's brain and changes its behavior. The ant gets an irresistable urge to climb up to the top of a blade of grass, grab hold with its pincers, and then it just sits there. And waits. The damn fluke makes the ant wait there until a sheep eats the blade of grass, along with the ant. But wait, it's slightly worse than that: what if the ant doesn't get eaten? Being on top of a blade of grass all through the day is a great way for an ectotherm (a creature that doesn't regulate its own heat the way a mammal does) to get cooked. So, the ant only stays on its blade of grass for a few hours in the morning or evening: the rest of the day, the fluke lets the ant go. The ant gets to run around, doing ant things, until the hour comes when its time to climb up and wait for a passing sheep. This system has worked well for liver flukes for quite a while now. And it sounds like the kind of thing you may be working towards with your creature's life-cycle. Suppose it doesn't cause a bleed out--suppose instead it alters its hosts behavior for a few hours, until it gets to its new host (killing the old host)? This might not involve hitting the new host with spores or eggs: the liver fluke lays eggs in the sheep, but it only alters the behavior of the host it uses for part of its growth cycle. Anyway, food for thought. Hope it was helpful, or at least informative. Good luck. Actually, I based the virus off the T-Virus (aka resident evil) +Los Plagas (from the new resident evil game) +ebola. And the game actually references the parasite you are talking about being similar to Los Plagas for altering personality. Which is something I wanted to put in. So lets refine it one more time. 1. First the target is infected through various methods (even airborne at time) 2. The eggs travel through the opponents bloodstream, while still an egg it begins to hamper the persons immune system by ingesting cells, and the person is prone to sickness. It stays in this stage for about a month. Person may experience rigor mortis in some areas of the body as the eggs absorb cells, especially in feet and hands. 3. One egg hatches and devours the rest of the eggs in the bloodstream and migrates to the brain. The person isn't contagious in this stage and recovers a little. This lasts about a week. 4. The small creature burrows into the brain and begins to eat from the inside out, laying eggs as it goes. During this stage, the person may experience homocidal episodes. 5. By this point higher brain functions have been destroyed and the sections of the brain controlling lower brain functions have been replaced by clusters of eggs that control the person. Eggs are now present in all bodily fluids as well. The person is a shell of what they used to be, and is completely controlled. The creature only wishes to spread the disease by any means necessary. The creature is extremely contagious, even being breathed on could cause infection. 6. After about a month, the eggs in the brain hatch and migrate to different sections of the body and begin eating. At this point the person is dead for all intensive purposes. After about a week the creatures have basically carved the person empty and die of malnurishment. The creature in the brain travels down and eats the carcasses of the others and triples its size and begins to show sentience and magial abilities. If examined at this point, looks like a large bulbous spider and is actually capable of leaving the body. It is very fragile though. 7. The creature latches onto the spinal column and reanimates the body under its control. At this point, the creature can barely move and isn't contagious. The creature will attempt to devour as much as possible to reinforce the body. The creature will break down eaten materials and absorb them into itself and the body. 8. Once the creature has absorbed enough usable material it will hide somewhere dark and damp and undergo a metamorphisis. It grows to a substantial size and fills in all the innards of the creature. It prefers to keep the exterior of the person for inflitration. The person (or creature at this point) has now reached full maturity and can manufacture eggs easily. If it desires to leave, it basically looks like a grey humanoid with a large maw full of fangs and 3 sets of arms that end in spikes. The creature has fully awakened and has its own intelligence and knows what the previous creature knew. 9. The creature leaves the body if it hasn't yet and goes on one last run before it dies of natural causes. An undead creature of quite some power remains if the body is still intact at this point. What caused this to begin with? At the end of the last campaign the BBEG was felled after he killed the PCs (long story, and they shouldn't have died but they split up and got killed) but they destroyed his artifact that gave him most of his power, and unfortunately what he did couldn't be undone. And all the planes basically collided/merged into one, and in his last breath he absorbed a lot of evil from the planes. Now there is one plane, and he is basically infused into it, and he is still trying to destroy the life on the planet from beyond the grave using a virus to turn the populus into undead (he was a very powerful necromancer.) But as mankind grew they became immune, along with most creatures, so instead of a virus he manipulated it into a creature that would basically do the same thing.
Paradisio 11-10-05, 10:12 PM	While making it a "curse disease" will prevent normal curatives from working, it won't trump Divine Health. Mummy Rot, which is specifically a curse type disease, is also something that the Divine Health class ability gives explicit immunity to. Lycanthropy is another curse disease that Paladins aren't bothered with. So basically, Divine Health gives immunity to infectious diseases covered by the Remove Disease spell, and to various disease like curses. I have trouble seeing it as anything other than a cheap trick to have this work on characters with the Divine Health ability. While a monk might still be vulnerable to a curse type disease...a monk of 5th level or higher would certainly be aware that something was really wrong with their body du to having total controll of the immune system. If a 7th level monk could use his a combination of his total body awareness, complete control over his immune system, and abiltiy to self heal to internally crush the creature...that's a judgement call. Further, Perfect Self might not prevent infection, but it would seem to prevent an infection as described making any progress, as the monk would instantly regenerate any damaged parts. Though if you're a 20th level monk...you're not failing the initial save anyway. The creature/disease/parasite/virus isn't even in the campaign yet and no one in the party has been exposed, so I don't see how this is an attempt to nerf my players, I'm just trying to get input. You have to give my playing group consideration, if I let them have one thing not in the books, they will run a mile with it. Example: I let the players control summons for simplicity and they abused it, like having a greenbound creature cast defensively, sorry I don't see an intelligent 1 creature casting a spell defensively, let alone casting a spell on command at all. Saying they couldn't do that resulted in whining for half an hour until I gave in. Letting players have extra stuff ruined game balance and destroyed my last campaign, and I want to take everything into consideration. Fine, if remove disease gets rid of it, whats the point? There are plenty of clerics in the world (god all they did was whine last campaign about not being able to find a bunch of clerics/wizards in every town to get magic items), and the party has a cleric and the disease takes a long time to work. And on a related note: Is this item ok? Ring of enlarge person, stanard action to activate. 1805 gold . Lasts one minute
Paradisio 11-11-05, 12:08 AM	As far as more clarification on the barbarians I am looking for: Humanoid or something with a humanoid torso (AKA centaur), so no dragon tribes ;p Not a regular player race Can survive in an aboveground cold environment
Gedrin 11-11-05, 03:46 AM	The creature/disease/parasite/virus isn't even in the campaign yet and no one in the party has been exposed, so I don't see how this is an attempt to nerf my players, I'm not saying you're trying to nerf your players. I am saying that it looks like you're trying to find a way around Divine Health working. If you were to invent a new disease for your campaign that specifically is not effected by divine health...you'd be pretty much making up something new to get around aclass feature. I'm just trying to get input. You have to give my playing group consideration, if I let them have one thing not in the books, they will run a mile with it. At this point, you're inventing something not in the books, so there's no possible way they could it written down that they're immune to Paradisio's Brain Parasite Creation. Certain characters are immune to all diseases, including parasitic infections. Some rare characters are immune to disease like curses, like mummy rot and lycanthropy. See, if it's a disease, no big. They're immune. What's the problem? If it's a disease like curse, only those with Divine Health would be immune. Again, what's the problem? If you've created some disease that's not in the book, of course they're not going to have specifically stated immunity to it. Heck, paladins have no specifically stated immunity to Filth Fever, and it's common. Seriously, if you've got enough clerics running around that no one ever dies of disease, there are likely other ballance issues you need to wory about more than a passive, defensive, self only, ability that the PC's have no control over.
Paradisio 11-11-05, 02:00 PM	Fine, divine health makes him immune to it, I give up. I told him he was immune to correct what I said earlier to him. The first thing he said he was going to do was get bitten and become a carrier, now the radiant servant is going to go around biting people and eventaully turning them into undead... As if I didn't have enough alignment issues to deal with.
Gedrin 11-11-05, 02:08 PM	I don't know what a radiant servant is, but it sure sounds like the kind of thing that would loose its abilities if it ran around making zombies. Again, if this kind of behavior from someone called a "radiant servant" is common in your game, there are other things to worry about than Divine Health actually giving immunity to diseases. Wait...Radiant Servant of the Silver Flame? The exorcist thing? Uh...yeh...if you're a divinely empowered exorcits, you loose all of your powers for purposefully inflicting a parasite on someone.
Chobemaster 11-11-05, 02:11 PM	How is that not murder? I can go to the hospital and kill people that are wounded and thats not illegal/wrong? How is it less murder if they're awake? Even if your PC's cruise around the dungeon w/ their weapons sheathed and always wait for monsters to attack first, armed men barging into their homes puts them reasonable fear of harm...it's THEY who are acting in self-defense.
Paradisio 11-11-05, 02:15 PM	It's only common in the PCs. If your going to attack me for every post I make, please don't. I DM for a bunch of whiney teenagers, I tried making a low magic world, they won't have it. I started them off in a small town and all they did last session was complain they couldn't get a bunch of magical equipment.
Gedrin 11-11-05, 03:07 PM	I'm not trying to attack you. I'm trying to stick up for the idea that immunity to disease and disease like curses means immunity to diseases and disease like curses. There's nothing wrong with letting people have their class abilities. You tried a lower magic world, but changed it so the PC's could get more powers. You run a multiverse wide cataclysm as part of your game, but are concerned by PC power gaming. You tried a small town, but changed it so the PC's could get more items. You let players play holy exorcists, when you're expect they're gonna use those holy powers to make parasitic zombies. I can't help any of that. I'd recomend learning to love the "no".
Paradisio 11-12-05, 12:30 AM	Why does this happen? Some posters say to do what my players want, but you say I should say no.
Gedrin 11-12-05, 03:28 AM	Why does this happen? Some posters say to do what my players want, but you say I should say no. Because people have different ideas about the way a game should run. It's up to you to dicide which way you want to go. Since in the past giving your players everything hasn't worked out all that well, maybe another course might work out better.
revnk 11-14-05, 12:38 PM	I think the parasite works better than the virus idea, and think the final refinement nails the creature concept you're looking for, Paradisio. The fact that the thing is an artificial creation also nails it, in that it can defy logic to some extent (i.e., like the RE t-virus, you have something manufactured, not natural). I will agree with Gedrin that "no" is one of the most powerful words in a DMs vocabulary. I know a lot of posters on these boards say that a DM should do what the players want, talk to the players about the type of campaign they run, get written approval before adding a new master villain to the game, make major artifacts available from vending machines, etc. Personally, I don't understand it. If players don't like my game, they can vote with their feet or have some kind of weird gaming group coup where I get sent into exile with a suitcase full of shoes or something. As Gedrin added, it is up to you and there are different approaches. There's nothing wrong with players and DM sitting down and agreeing what kind of game will be run if that works. But honestly, most of the complaints I read about players complaining that their DM won't let them do this or that seem to boil down into bullies throwing tantrums about playing with a referee who has a backbone--none of which is to criticize you, Paradisio. But--and this is just my own opinion--the key to challenging players in an RPG was summed up by the Rolling Stones many years ago: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need." Maybe I'm just old school that way, or maybe I'm just wrong, but that's my approach. And I'd say that's especially the case if you're looking at a horror game. Also, it's hard to see how deliberately infecting people with an active parasite isn't an evil act. I don't know this class you guys are talking about, but it sounds to me like this player wants his character to be stripped of his alignment, his class, and probably to invoke some kind of wrath from on high. Gedrin: I don't have any books at the office, so maybe this is a dumb question, but does the fact that we're now talking (I think) about a small parasite change the disease-immunity analysis any? On the one hand, it seems like a paladin ought to be immune to a parasitic amoeba (such as the one that causes malaria), but that seems to fall apart if we talk about a hazard like leeches (a macroscopic parasite). What we may have is less like a "disease" and more like being attacked by a very, very, very small animal. Does that make a difference? Should it? Are paladins immune to fleas and ticks? Is there a size threshold? I hope none of these questions are sounding smart, because they're really nothing I've given enough thought to. Some of my thought on this is informed by thinking of the old 1E throat leeches, which I never used because they seemed just too sadistic against players: I don't remember paladins or monks having any sort of immunity to them, though.