I get where you’re coming from, spoony. but I feel like if my party is actively paying attention to this shit too much it can really reaaaaally slow down the actual game. Sometimes, you just want the gang to go and hand the quest in as opposed to wasting ten minutes of having their characters pretending to take a bath.

I can’t help but feel this is just a trolling aspect of DnD. Nobody likes being poisoned or diseased in video games–it’s only a nuisance, and if the answer is roleplaying taking a bath, then why do it at all? It makes the players just hate the DM because in the middle of a fight they suddenly realize they’re taking damage or their ATK or AC rating suffers, and all this could be avoided if the DM didn’t railroad them into going into sewers in the first place. They lose their armor, money, and time this way, and it feels like artificial difficulty or hardship for PCs to overcome. Let’s face it. Nobody in their right mind willingly goes into sewers UNLESS the plot demands it, in which case I don’t feel it’s right to force players to be infected and/or lose their armor.

Anyone else feel this way?

I can not tell you how often I’ve crawled after a sewer and thought to myself, gee, I’m probably infested with every disease known to man an stink like a death died, I should go see the king. Nowhere there was an option to take a bath first.
Video games need to take this into account more.

I just started playing a few months back. The DM has been a bit lenient since we’re doing this more for fun, but I remember recently he’s started bringing in things as they stand .Zombies with like, zombie virus were especially fun. Also status-effecting things like Ray of Exhaustion and slime stuff. Just recently there were these extraplanar demons that melted our rogue’s armor off, which was interesting.

Unfortunately though. .. well, for me anyway .. we have a Paladin, and this paladin can use his Lay On Hands to cure a ton of things.

I say unfortunately because I chose a Druid as my character, the whole reason being that we didn’t really have healers or magic users and Druids have good buff and cure magic. Except now we have Paladins and everyone totes around healing potions even though I built her largely around being a healer. So when she was approaching level 10 and her memory was restored (she had amnesia at the time, long story) he let me rebuild her skill ranks from the ground up so I just yanked them out of Heal. It kind of sucked.

On the bright side though, since I knew healing was swiftly becoming useless, I got to instead build her around the religious aspect of her character, story being that her family bloodline connects to the God of Chaos (her father was the previous equivalent of the pope), so as a reward for her extreme devotion to his ideals (even holding religious services out of the back of her wagon) her powers are slowly growing (via the Prestige class) and there’s plans for her to Ascend into Divine Rank 0 at the 20th level and become a High Proselytizer at 21 (if I can get her Charisma that high. Fingers crossed!)

Another story from my DnD vault, same DM though this adventure took place some time prior to my last post, with different characters.

Our group was hunting down a recently resurrected Lich named Bazuul the bloodlord. As we enter into his crypt we are assaulted by the stench of death. My character at the time was a Barbarian by the name of Damu Ramu (The great Damu Ramu as he was known), showed no fear in the face of filth or disease. In this Krypt we found piles of dead bodies, and waded through ankle high pools of blood. As well as these horrible monsters that would give you a disease called skin rot. This disease gives you a -2 to attack rolls initially, however second stage of the disease gives you a -4 to attack rolls while bloodied, and you cannot spend healing surges. For those who do not know 4th edition you require healing surges for almost all forms of healing, and being bloodied usually means your half down on life.

After fighting our way through the monsters and several characters getting this disease we decide to try and sleep it off. prior to doing that however My character and our ranger, decide to go searching the piles of bodies to see if we can find anything of use for defeating this Lich. Well as one would expect when rummaging through dead bodies, we contracted an additional disease by the name of Cemetery rot. This disease has the initial effect of being unable to regain hit points from any powers with the healing keyword. So basically any healing powers. However you could still short or extended rest to, spend surges. Thus regaining hit points.

You may now begin to see the problem we were facing. While bloodied we couldn’t spend any surges, meaning that we couldn’t heal hit points. And further more we couldn’t be healed by magic to regain hit points. Effectively disabling our ability to heal.

Well The Great Damu Ramu had an endurance score of, 15 or so. As such he managed to fight off all the diseases. The Ranger on the other hand was not so lucky. She was left with both, and the Lich was about to fully regain its powers, meaning we didn’t have the time to wait another night to heal up.

——————

Another quick story I feel I should tell, does not involve diseases, but it does involve something you can do to your players that is like a disease, but potentially far more sinister.

I had a group of very good characters, mostly lawful good, adventuring through my world. On their second adventure they were on their way to investigate some ruins in a swamp. In hopes of finding a new home for a Kobald tribe. While there they discovered cultists trying to resurrect a long dormant Lich. Well to make a long adventure short, They managed to get inside the inner sanctum of these ruins and find the Lichs tomb. A battle ensues as they make their way to the top of a small Ziggurat inside a massive cave.

The groups cleric was a battle cleric, wielding a massive two handed great sword. He also had a power that often changed the course of their epic battles in their favor, called Moment of glory. Again for those unfamiliar with 4th edition, Moment of glory is a power that can be used once per day, and it allows the characters effected by it to reduce all damage by 5 points (often negating almost all damage at low levels). However it takes a minor action each round to sustain this power. The cleric had cast it upon the party at the start of the encounter.

So as the group nears the top of the Ziggurat, the Lich begins to awaken. Set near his tomb is a massive Two handed sword. The same type which the cleric uses. Now at this point the cleric had double moved to reach the top of the stairs. When he reached the top he was gripped by a sudden desire to pick up the beautifully crafted two handed sword. Well the player immediately sensed some sort of trap. However he couldn’t tell what it was. So I put on my DM face as he tried to figure out the scenario. There wasn’t any sort of obvious trap, it wasn’t resting on any pressure plates (in fact it was resting next to the Lich’s throne). After a few moments the whole table was pondering why he would feel a compulsion to grasp a sword. They all figured it was a sentient sword, that had chosen him as its new master (which of course was the case). So I started to give him a little encouragement.

“It’s only a minor action to pick up the sword” I said rather nonchalantly.

Well this led to a lot of encouragement by the rest of the table. They figured a magic sword would be a great help to killing a Lich. After about a minute of consideration my player looked at me. and said “you know what I’m going to do? Sustain minor!”

At this point I broke into a smile, my plan having been seen through. The entire table began to laugh and cheer as they realized what I had almost done. It was a good thing he remembered to do that to, because with out his daily ability they would have all died in that cave.

Additionally that sword, which he eventually got, was a fun weapon. It could change into any weapon that you wanted as an encounter power. However if you didn’t change it back by the end of the encounter it would stay that weapon. Additionally the weapon desired to drink blood. And it made the wielder incredibly thirsty if it didn’t get to consume the blood (really it drank life force THROUGH the blood). There is a lot more about that weapon I could go into. But I think this has gotten long enough.

Noted, if the party doesn’t wear waders into the sewer they carry a permanent stink in the gear.

We can handle the lice. One guy is an alchemist and can probably create anti-lice shampoo(or napalm, both work), another can set himself on fire and heal from it(we know OP, but he rolled it)

We handle the sewer water by walking on the conveniently placed walkways within the sewer. though, my character, Sora, ended up swimming in chimera piss without knowing it. This was discovered upon further examination by another player. It was enchanted. XD

This isn’t to say that our GM hasn’t tried numerous times to buttfuck us. Example; Insect god, undead dragon, an entire army, Sora, demons, a ghost ship, Steve the Large, a squid hydra, Sora, dark elves, sleeper agents, Sora, random portals, the Leviathan, undead ogre, and demi gods.

This reminds me of the Persona series well at least Persona 3 FES where if you don’t take care of yourself you will get sick which will hinder combat capabilities and the only way to take care of this is to sleep a lot or deal with it and have terrible combat stats

And suddenly, players all over the world got a bit sicker…
Love these series Spoony, could you do one where you talk about how to handle player types?
most notably the annoying ones?
I have one player that is a good player, but every damned time he rolls a character, It doesn’t matter what he plays, he is always going to play him the same way, a guy that joins some army or battle group, he will want to buy a fort, and he will never be impulsive at all, if there is a big fight coming up, he will bring as many people as he possibly can, or he won’t do the quest. He just won’t do anything unless he knows he will win it, and does this in character, so it IS very well played, but he ALWAYS does this! ALWAYS! and he ALWAYS dictate and take over the story, there were even this one time where we had a very simple quest, we wanted to do something classic, save a princess from an evil blackguard who were going to sacrifice her.
He played a priest, and what he ended up doing is making the game about his character setting up a church.
We barely rescued her on the day of her sacrifice, and that’s true, the DM had a Death-clock going on how many days we wasted. After X amount of time, and she would be dead.
He always makes the game go either completely different way, or he doesn’t want to do things instantly, there have been so many games where we have sat around and discussed for HOURS on what we should do, just because he doesn’t think its smart to do things quickly, and yes, it isn’t smart to just jump on to things, but this is DnD, not a debate program!
Sorry for going of on a tangent, but he can be a real stick in the mud so to speak. which is too bad, he is a good player, he just doesn’t respect us others when it come to what we want to do. its either his way or the highway…
So, Spoony, could you please talk about how to handle player types? You don’t even have to address my problem directly, because this is a problem that affect us all as players and DM’s, it would be nice with some general tips on the subject.
Thanks man if you do!

MOAR COUNTER MONKEY

Don’t leave me Spoony. Don’t ever leave me. :(

uh, leather was traditionally cured and finished with predominantly fecal matter. a little shit on your leather armor is no big deal, just wipe that right off.

This made my night <3 Thank god Spoony is back <3

Also don’t eat pizzas you find on the john

I can’t help reading this title in the voice of Mr. Mackey from South Park.
“Swimming in diarrhea is bad, mkaaay?”

I’d really like to know Spoony’s opinion when it comes the most important thing with it comes to Pen and Paper RPG’s…..THE DICE! Like what he thinks of “High Precision” Dice, ones made out of unusual material (Like Bone, Ebony, Brushed Steel), the rarely seen types (D3, D7, D30, D100) or about the use of Dice rolling programs in the Modern D&D.

Dude, being a Russian Star Wars fan, I fucking LOVE shitty Russian Star Wars poster behind you. Brings me joy every time.
Also, keep those D&D advices coming, it’s very intresting.

You have just given the DM the tools to turn every player into Shelden Cooper XD.
“I need specifics, who blew their nose and when?!”

Ahahaha, I did this when my players fought zombies in a sewer. One of the players had this electrical blast power (superhero campaign) and I ruled that throwing lightning bolts at zombies would make them explode if you did more damage than they had HP. He came out covered in piss and sh** soaked zombie guts. He cought a bunch of nasty diseases and had to be hospitalised.

This stuff is part of the reason my wizard character in high school made it a priority to get whatever spell or magic item was needed to have a portable demiplanar mansion.

‘Cause to hell with powergaming – if I had that kind of godly power, the least I can do for myself is make sure I have a comfy bed and warm bath wherever I go.

I wonder if there’s a DM out there who made a campaign subplot about some strange epidemic sweeping the land, only for the players to realize they’re the ones who carried it out of some horrid rotting tomb to begin with.

Poo gas, doodoo water, doodoo water and rats…HUGBEES!

Someone took what you are talking about to heart (dragons flying around and using their fire/frost breath) and made a mod for skyrim that does just that. It also de-level’s them, so you can run into any dragon of varying level, meaning you could be level two and run into an elder dragon. It was one of the most intense battles I’ve ever had. It took me by surprise in the middle of the woods at night and I couldn’t see where the damn thing was, the only time it was visible was when it used its fire. I high tailed it out of there, but the bastard followed me, until I reached a town. In skyrim, even the guards can take the dragon out if you let them, but with this mod, the town lost its entire retinue of guards and then it came after me again. I finally managed to lead it to a huge forsworn camp and let them have at it. After thirty minutes they managed to bring it down (as in it lost enough health for it to be too weak to fly and crash landed) and I moved in, and I barely took it out, since it beat the shit out of me with its wings and tail, point blank fire breath and biting. I managed to kill it after depleting my entire stock of potions. It was bitter sweet though, the forsworn were coming and they would have killed me if I had stayed. Came back the next day and the skeleton was gone. Got the EXP and Dragon Soul, so it wasn’t a total lost… Good battle though

Hehe, Oreo got herself into a much better position in the chair.

Oh god, I can’t help but laugh at the idea of a party of adventurers showing up at Lord Byron’s doorstep all covered in shit like “Whassup?”