5 Mistakes to Avoid with Disease in D&D | New Disease System for 5e
5 Mistakes to Avoid with Disease in D&D | New Disease System for 5e
Avoid these five mistakes with disease in D&D. BECOME A PATRON – Get Lair Magazine, our new Disease System, play D&D with me, and other perks ▶▶ https://www.patreon.com/thedmlair
Yes, I’ll slap my D&D players with some disease, sickness, and infirmity, and see what they do! Thus saith many a dungeon master in Dungeons & Dragons. And then the DM goes on to discover that D&D characters can quite easily deal with disease and sickness in the game. Lessor restoration is practically a cure-all. So how then can a game master use disease, sickness, and illness in their roleplaying game and actually have it be meaningful? In this video, we discuss how dungeon masters can better implement sickness and disease in their D&D games, along with five mistakes to avoid.
LAIRS & LEGENDS KICKSTARTER preorders ▶▶ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thedmlair/lairs-and-legends?ref=59pir1
LAIR CON 2022 October 7, 8, and 9 in Pensacola, Florida ▶▶ https://www.thedmlair.com/lair-con/
DISCORD – Join a fast-growing community of helpful and welcoming game masters ▶▶ https://discord.gg/thedmlair
DMLAIR.COM – Get free D&D 5e adventures and DM resources ▶▶ https://www.thedmlair.com/
NEWSLETTER – Get free D&D resources and special offers in your email ▶▶ https://thedmlair.getresponsepages.com/
STORE – Get back issues of Lair Magazine, my 5e module Into the Fey, map packs, 5e adventures, and other DM resources ▶▶ https://the-dm-lair.myshopify.com/
——————————OTHER LINKS——————————
Watch my D&D games here ▶▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedmlairstreams
Get DM Lair shirts, hoodies, and other merch ▶▶ https://teespring.com/stores/the-dm-lair
D&D products I use and recommend ▶▶ https://www.amazon.com/shop/thedmlair
Video gear I use ▶▶ https://www.amazon.com/shop/thedmlair?listId=3NVQUXTD25PD1
——————————CREDITS/DISCLAIMERS———————————————-
Editing ▶▶ Zack Newman
Art ▶▶ Adobe Stock & Wizards of the Coast
Music and Sound Effects ▶▶ Epidemic Sound
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Some videos on this channel are unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
#dnd #dnd5e #dungeonsanddragons #dungeonmaster #gamemaster
I have a few diseases in my campaign however this one is my favorite.
Black Hand: A fungal infection that attacks the hands and turns it into a micro biome for bacteria and overtime paralyzes and eats away at your hand(s) flesh. It is physical contact and airborne with spores. It lives in unsanitary dungeons and moist caves.
Stage 1. Contact, and increased dark pigmentation in your hand. No set backs just the beginning symptoms
Stage 2. Fungi and lichen grow on your hands. Disadvantage on sleight of hand and thieve’s tools checks
Stage 3. As your body fights off the disease it cannot fully heal other injuries. The number of hit dice you roll when regaining hit points is halved.
Stage 4. Cannot wield martial weapons as your hands decay and has a -1d6 penalty to sleight if hand checks.
Stage 5. Cannot pick up or wield weapons and heavy objects and cannot cast spells with somatic components . Hit point maximum is reduced by 1d6.
Stage 6. Final stage, your hands LITERALLY FALL OFF. So hopefully there is a scroll of regeneration, can cast mage hand, or are high enough level to cast regeneration.
No disease has ever shut down the world.
Now, there were a lot of concerted political efforts to shut it down with a pretense of stopping the literally most dangerous disease in all history… with paper masks… Yeah. lol.
Hard to make this time period believable to my kids.
Is there a way to buy these rules as a stand alone?
As always your game is your game, however I worked at a funeral home for awhile and I learned Most (but not all) diseases viruses etc die with you. But I also don’t make ressurection easy peasy so I allow it to work this way
I’m sold! This specific video and system are why I am now a patron
Was running the Curse of Crimson Throne campaign for my group using D&D 5e. There is a whole section of the campaign that is all about dealing with a rampant disease wreaking the town. My players loved that section. Disease can be a very interesting story point or even a major plot point. Most definitely will use diseases more in my games.
Wonderful video.
I ran a plagued realm adventure for a campaign centered around planes traveling. The party accidentally brought a minor disease (think common cold) to a plane where the virus was exceptionally contagious and deadly to the residents.
B A C O N !
I love this channel, and the Barbarian!
This is great! My party is currently lvl8, and the monk is a follower of the Silver Flame (in Eberron). I’m going to introduce a life threatening plague when they’re lvl 9. Perhaps the monk contracts it, and at their darkest moment the monk levels up to level 10 and gets the purity of body feature – flavored as the light of the Silver Flame suffusing his body granting him immunity to the plague. I wonder how he’ll play this to the commoners around him hehe
One more common mistake to add: making most diseases magically get through disease immunity. The ability loses it’s meaning that way
Muito bom!
I love that after Luke shouted bacon, I got a BK ad for the Bacon Whopper!
This is an airborne disease
Incubation period until you finish your next long rest
Level 1 disadvantage on ability checks(coughing)
Level 2 speed halved(coughing up blood) -1 on con saves
Level 3 disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws(boils)
Level 4 hit point maximum halved(skin lesions) now -2 on con saves
Level 5 speed reduced to 0(all blood coming out of you is now black)[If you have a positive Con modifier the number is halved, round down, in relation to hit points and Con saves] reduce your Max hit points by 10%(round down) of your current maximum hit points per hour. ( reducing your maximum further)
"A minor disease for a PC could be something dire for a commoner."
Commoners don’t have anywhere near the health pool of adventures. An adventurer could survive but a town might get wiped out.
This reminds me of a story I heard once about World of Warcraft where players would go into a dungeon, their pets would get a terrible debuff and eventually (inadvertantly) spread it while in town. Virologists rose a brow because it was similar to real life spread.
Realistic diseases are a game-killer since coping with most real-life diseases generally involves some variation on "stay in bed and eat little and often while sleeping a lot." If you think about it, you quickly realise that this is even more boring in a game than it is in real life, and even in real life it’s either horrible or boring or horribly boring.
So I guess the basics of your advice is, "disease" in D&D needs to NOT be something which will incapacitate the PCs.
How do I reword being a DM in my resume?
I had this cool three stage system called blood rot, or something like that. I think I got my dad and brothers character to like stage two
I’m actually running a game centered around the party having contracted a modified strain of lycanthropy. They haven’t infected anyone (yet), but they killed quite a lot of people during their first transformation. One of them is also trying to use the infection’s strength to their advantage and has had to be restrained by the party once already.
I also have always made curing disease a DC to be overcome with CON (to resist) or a caster’s spellcasting ability (to cure). Even paladins and monks just get to add their ‘casting’ modifier to their resist.
How about using the affliction caused by the Lone Star tick. It’s after affect leaves the victim allergic to most land-based meat, including BACON 🥓 (😱🙀)!!!!!
This is actually a real thing. Horrifying!
I’m working on a kind of demon lord thing that takes the form of a Raven, who’s wings spread devastating sickness(it’s supposed to be pestilence of the four horseman). Trying to work out how to make it threatening, and how to make its fight basically a giant “please just kill the birb before we all waste away”.
Bring back age tracking and effects 😀
I’ve always wanted getting bit by a spider or something like that on a random encounter table and a character having a chance to catch a disease from it.
This also brings another way to make use out of the nearly useless medicine skill.
Me and my party are all medical doctors so in every campaign there’s at least one (often more) epidemics.
One tip i feel to give is that, while inventing plagues is nice, nature is a lot better than us.
Serching for real life infectious disease: from great Classic like the bubonic plague to some very orrific ones like hemorrahic virus, tubercolosis and parassitic infestations (some of the best thing because, being the agent macroscopic is easier to justify the PC discovering it) nature is an endless well of ispiration to copy or get inspired by
I had a question regarding the join monthly subscription. Is there an email for questions? Or should I ask on here? Thanks!
My players are ’bout to be "Down with the Sickness"
Know why paladins get immunity to disease… They have "Olay on hands"
I’m actually heavily considering a plague to my steampunk-inspired game. I think it would add a nice touch of dread and a sense of danger to the adventure. I don’t think I want it to be the main thing, but I would definitely like them to consider it when they travel.
Didn’t world of warcraft effectively run the first large scale disease simulation? Could probably draw some mathematical models from that if you want something relatively simple.
Dnd players will homebrew for hours just to come up with pathfinder 2e subsystems . 😂
Pathfinder
I still use restoration spells on my table, BUT i ad a priced component which the spell consums AND the component depence on the severity of the disease .
So, some need only some mushroms from the nearby forest and could easy purchased, others requiere a extremly rare flower from the tip of a mounten.
So simple and in the hand of DM.
So dumb question, but wouldn’t this system kinda depend on how magical cures actually do their work. In many cases of illness (especially viral infections), the symptoms are the result of the body’s innate immune system fighting and buying time for the adaptive immune system to create antibodies against the disease-causing agent. Other times, the disease is caused by toxins released by bacteria or microscopic parasites. If a spell like lesser restoration is used on a viral infection, does it work by simply removing the symptoms and the disease-causing agent, or is it also giving an instant shortcut to antibody production? In the first scenario, reinfection is almost a certainty, while the second means they’ll likely be immune to the disease (Not always, of course; viral infections run the gamut in terms of reinfectivity and there’s also variance between each person to consider). Also what about primitive vaccines? Smallpox was defeated by inoculating people with cowpox, a related but much more mild virus and is where the name "vaccine" comes from.
Seriously though… Zombies aren’t dangerous because they can kill you. They spread disease. For a later Lair volume consider having an undead lair action for villages and towns under the effect of an undead infection.
Literally PERFECT timing for this video! This week I’m going to start DMing a campaign set in the world of Avatar, and the central conflict is going to be a plague that is spreading throughout the four nations during their medieval ages.
Disease is not a threat to a Party once they hit 5th level.. especially if they have a Cleric that can just cure Disease with the wave of a hand..
Not to mention Paladins just straight become immune to it and they can just buy a cure by the local priests.. there are too many ways to cure it, its waay too easy to cure Disease in 5e there is no point in using it..
like, at that point you just have a pandemic on your hand that the party cares naught about.
In my world, if a curse is created by a coven of hags, you have to fulfill the agreement Or kill ALL of the hags involved in creating the curse to end it. With that in mind, a town, Two Rivers, suffered from the Bleeding Eyes Plague as a result of a curse due to unmet contract with the Hag. It was in quarantine for about a month.
Heroes learned through a journal they found in the home of the person that made the deal with the hag that it was due to a curse. They decided to go deal with the hags and stop the curse. They told a few town leaders who ended up dying from the plague while the heroes were seeking out the hags. After arriving at the Lair, only 2 of the 3 hags were there. They killed the 2 but in talking with the hags initially, they learned the 3rd left for Grymstone to collect on a contract there.
Longer story short, that hag escaped their attempt to kill her. They decide to focus on something else instead of tracking her down and killing her. Two Rivers was burned to ground to stop the plague from spreading and those within killed since the King didn’t know it was due to a curse. Unknowingly, it had spread to some Goblins and Orcs the heroes wiped out, except for a few elderly and child orcs that escape. Goblins and Orcs contracted the plague by eating some of the infected prisoners from Two Rivers they had captured.
Now, the heroes left Grymstone and the 3rd Hag will appear to the Warlock in a dream to let him know the curse has been place upon them for killing her sisters and trying to kill her. So, wherever they go now, including the current town, Crossroads, they are in, will suffer from the plague. Hopefully, this will refocus their efforts on the Hag. If they continue toward the capital, Svradion, then the disease will spread there.
That is what I am doing for now regarding the plague, though it is due to a curse.
I am so planning on having one of my players go through an incredibly painful and traumatic infection (that progresses over a week in game) with lycanthropy that they must seek treatment or a cure for or become a werewolf. They also will be able to choose to simply embrace the disease and the advantages and disadvantages that come with it.
In my world, if a curse is created by a coven of hags, you have to fulfill the agreement Or kill ALL of the hags involved in creating the curse to end it. With that in mind, a town, Two Rivers, suffered from the Bleeding Eyes Plague as a result of a curse due to unmet contract with the Hag. It was in quarantine for about a month.
Heroes learned through a journal they found in the home of the person that made the deal with the hag that it was due to a curse. They decided to go deal with the hags and stop the curse. They told a few town leaders who ended up dying from the plague while the heroes were seeking out the hags. After arriving at the Lair, only 2 of the 3 hags were there. They killed the 2 but in talking with the hags initially, they learned the 3rd left for Grymstone to collect on a contract there.
Longer story short, that hag escaped their attempt to kill her. They decide to focus on something else instead of tracking her down and killing her. Two Rivers was burned to ground to stop the plague from spreading and those within killed since the King didn’t know it was due to a curse. Unknowingly, it had spread to some Goblins and Orcs the heroes wiped out, except for a few elderly and child orcs that escape. Goblins and Orcs contracted the plague by eating some of the infected prisoners from Two Rivers they had captured.
Now, the heroes left Grymstone and the 3rd Hag will appear to the Warlock in a dream to let him know the curse has been place upon them for killing her sisters and trying to kill her. So, wherever they go now, including the current town, Crossroads, they are in, will suffer from the plague. Hopefully, this will refocus their efforts on the Hag. If they continue toward the capital, Svradion, then the disease will spread there.
That is what I am doing for now regarding the plague, though it is due to a curse.
It seems strange that a character immune to disease could be a carrier. To be a carrier you get infected, just generally asymptomatic.
Hey Luke, I am playing a Rogue assassin atm, and I want him to center a bit around poison. Looking into the poison rules, I’ve noticed that it is much more trouble than it’s worth to buy/get poison. I was wondering if you would do a vid about your opinions on poison in D&D, and what you would change?
My Favorite is when PC’s plunge into the sewers, knee deep in filth, to check for wear rats, and they are shocked you need them to roll con saves for there time spent there. Open wounds in the sewers fighting rats? I mean come on man!
𝗕𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗔 𝗗𝗠 𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗥 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗡- Get Lair Magazine, our new disease system, play D&D with me, and other perks ▶▶ https://www.patreon.com/thedmlair
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗠 𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗥 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗘 – Get Into the Fey, back issues of Lair Magazine, map packs, 5e adventures, and other DM resources ▶▶ https://the-dm-lair.myshopify.com/
𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗥 𝗖𝗢𝗡 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮 October 7, 8, and 9 in Pensacola, Florida ▶▶ https://www.thedmlair.com/lair-con/
Does becoming a Patreon get access to prior magazine issues or just future?
I find myself world building lately and magic is dangerous to cast…I now have some ideas on diseases and treatments.
the first edition dmg has a whole table on disease (and parasitic infections…don’t forget those!) (severity, penalties, etc) I lost the first 12 or so (i lost count) characters to that disease table )back when cure disease was a 3rd level spell) as no one in the party could cure it and the npc clerics would charge 5k gold + to cast the spell. yep -survived the first adventure, died 1-2 weeks later died from disease….got to learn a bunch of new words, like small pox, polio, leprosy etc …oddly, I miss the extra risk (not all diseases were simply fatal, some imposed major ability score reductions that made your character nearly unplayable. there is a lot to play with here
Conceptually and narratively, disease and sickness sound great. However, it feels really, really bad if a character gets infected by chance, as even in the real world taking precautions is no guarantee of safety, and become a dead man walking because you don’t have special immunity and you failed a Fort save or two. Having a character die because of something comparatively mundane or even out of your control entirely kinda sucks. Disease is probably the hallmark of mechanics that sound really threatening in a vacuum, but are actually mechanically trivial when the mechanics are taken as a whole. Poison feels similar to me in a number of systems I’ve read; it’s either so expensive per dose as to be impractical to use (and almost as impractical to craft), or the means of defense against it, like saves, are so statically low that it’s a coin flip that may not even be in your favor if it works. Sometimes it’s both. It’s one of those "oooh, this sounds super scary and menacing, but we’re going to give you so many things to counter or blunt it that it’s not actually that scary" things. I’ve wanted to make underhanded characters who make use of poisons to make them deadlier or at least more dangerous, but it feels like I’d have to spend 3/4 of my levels worth of loot to get enough doses for a single fight that, if I’m doing it at range, has a chance to be wasted on a miss and even on a hit might only have a 50/50 chance of doing anything.
However, you make good points here on how they an be managed more effectively, like effectively asymptomatic, or how a fairly minor infection for a PC could be a lethal pathogen to others (I mean, just look at the history of colonialization). Honestly, having PCs get fevers and colds for fairly mild penalties and such could even liven up the roleplay of a session, make it feel more real in a sense. Anything severe enough to threaten to kill or otherwise take a PC out of commission should be a major plot event, but more minor things that are simply a temporary inconvenience can potentially liven things up.
I once ran a disease based game, made all the characters roll a constitution check every morning in game time (making just one roll for downtimes) to see if they’d picked up a disease that existed in the area at the time. A fail resulted in me rolling on a table to see if they caught a disease and if so, which one – and that told me what the symptoms were. Once infected, their con check determined whether their immune system was succeeding in fighting it off. I never told them why they were making con checks. I also never told them they had a disease, I merely told them that they started suffering the first symptom to show up when it finally did. If they failed their con check again the next day, they’d get the next symptom as well. If they passed, they’d not suffer the next symptom on the list and instead just keep suffering the first one until they passed again the next day then that symptom would subside as well. Depending on the disease, some would take a few fails over a period of days for symptoms to show, and for some the first symptom was becoming contagious but not having anything else to show for it. It took them a long time to figure out what the con checks were for, meanwhile they had spread diseases around to each other and npcs they encountered, blamed bad food on some symptoms, and didn’t figure it out until one of the characters got seriously ill. I’ve also done a similar thing with poisons and envenomations, but with con checks happening a lot more often depending on the toxin (per round for some, per hour for others), with the symptoms being based on the type of toxin, which was most commonly a real life one. Getting bitten by a completely natural 1-2hp venomous snake in that game was potentially more deadly than fighting an army of bugbears.
Do you need a map and terrain to play your own d&d game
Yo. Commenting for bacon… not the algorithm. Priorities.
Looks like a good system for the game, though I think I will stick to stealing Pathfinder 2e’s disease system in my games. I like how you can bounce between the stages of the disease, which feels very real.