Violet Fungi Poison Damage

brunswick · Mar 26, 2012

Hi there,

I'm pretty new to the Pathfinder rules so this might be a very simple question. Apologies, if so.

My character was struck by the poisoned tendril of a Violet Fungus in our game last Friday, and I failed my Fortitude save. The GM said that I then took 1d4 CON and 1d4 STR damage.

The way the description of this attack is written in the Bestiary (e.g. the reference to it being a "poison" attack and also the reference to it being an "affliction") would lead me to believe that it's handled as the general afflictions rule (i.e. initial save to see if I contract the affliction and then a save at a set frequency with the possibility of being cured with a future save). However, I dont see any reference to "frequency" or "cure" in the attack (only for poison made from the tendrils, if gathered).

My question is (a) Does the attack merely involve 1 saving throw (end of story) and the poison must be neutralised with magic or (b) Is it treated using the affliction rules and, if so, where do I find info re frequency of saves etc.,

Thanks in advance,

Bruns.

SteelDraco · Mar 26, 2012

brunswick said:
My question is (a) Does the attack merely involve 1 saving throw (end of story) and the poison must be neutralised with magic or (b) Is it treated using the affliction rules and, if so, where do I find info re frequency of saves etc.,

From the way it's written, it doesn't use the normal affliction/poison rules - it's just one-time damage. Here's the relevant text from the PRD.

PRD said:
Rot (Ex)
A creature struck by a violet fungus's tentacle must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or the flesh around the point of contact swiftly begins to rot away, exposing raw bone with shocking swiftness. This hideous affliction causes 1d4 points of Strength damage and 1d4 points of Constitution damage. This is a poison effect. The save DC is Constitution-based.

As you noted, this doesn't have the frequency or number of saves required of an affliction effect. Afflictions get a very standardized write-up, and this doesn't have that at all. "Affliction" here was not used in the rules sense, I believe, but in the normal word use of "something really bad happening to you". The line "This is a poison effect" means that should your character be immune or resistant to poison, that applies to this effect, even if it doesn't use the normal poison mechanics. So dwarves get a +2 bonus against it, and high-level monks and druids may be immune if they have that class feature.

It is strange that Paizo would say it was a poison and then not use the poison mechanics they wrote, but that's how I read it.

brunswick · Mar 26, 2012

Thanks. I was leaning a little to that line of thought as well, just hoping (for my character's sake) that the other interpretation might be correct. Cheers.

BobROE · Mar 26, 2012

brunswick said:
Thanks. I was leaning a little to that line of thought as well, just hoping (for my character's sake) that the other interpretation might be correct. Cheers.

How would having it be an actual poison have helped your character?

frankthedm · Mar 26, 2012

brunswick said:
My question is (a) Does the attack merely involve 1 saving throw (end of story)

You fail the save, your ability scores get whacked for the listed damage and then they will heal normally. You don't wither and die at the rate 1d4 CON and 1d4 STR damage each round until dead from a SINGLE failed save.

You won't need or even be able to use Neutralize Poison to undo the damage. Restoration type spells will be handy in healing the Ability score damage.

brunswick · Mar 27, 2012

Thanks for that. Frankthedm.

James Jacobs · Mar 27, 2012

Correct; violet fungus rot is called out as being a poison effect mostly just so things that are immune to poison know that they can wallow in the stuff all day long without rotting.

The effect itself is a one-time-only effect per hit—if it acted as normal poison and did damage over multiple rounds, the entry for it's Rot attack would look more like the poison entries (for an example, see the wasp's entry on the facing page of the Bestiary).

But yeah... a monster that does poison that does 1d4 Str and Con per round would be really unfair and mean at a mere CR 3. As it stands... the fact that the fungus has 4 attacks per round with this rot is bad enough!