I absolutely love the new disease rules, and they're crying out for homebrew, magical diseases. So I've statted up some new diseases. I have no idea about where to set the level or Maintain/Improve DCs for these, so help out if you can.
Tinderskin: Your skin cracks and flakes, catching fire with the slightest spark.
• Cured
• Initial Effect: Gain Vulnerability to Fire 5
• You and all adjacent creatures gain Vulnerability to Fire 5
• Final Stage: Fire Vulnerability 5, Upon taking fire damage, you gain Fire Aura 1 (save ends): Fire Aura: 5 fire damage to all creatures who begin their turn in the aura.
Bloodfrost: Your body slowly turns to ice, starting with your fingertips.
• Cured
• Initial Effect: -2 penalty to attack/defense
• Slowed, -2 penalty to attack/defense
• Final Stage: Slowed, -2 penalty to attack/defense, can’t heal cold damage
Lodeswarm: Thousands of tiny metal mites burrow into your skin, turning your body to lodestone from the inside out.
• Cured
• Initial Effect: Slowed, can’t be pushed/pulled/slid
• Slowed, can’t be pushed/pulled/slid, Upon taking Lightning damage, you are Stunned (save ends)
• Final Stage: Petrified
Terrorsleep: Horrific images flash in your mind whenever you close your eyes.
• Cured
• Initial Effect: Gain Vulnerability to Psychic 5, lose 1 healing surge
• Vulnerability to Psychic 5, do not regenerate healing surges after an extended rest
• Final Stage: Waking nightmares – the infected cowers and lashes out at anyone that approaches
Wasting Rot: You don’t even know you’ve been infected until the plague has spread.
• Cured
• Carrier: You show no symptoms from lower tiers. The disease makes one attack against an adjacent target per day, +8 vs Fort, target is infected. This attack happens once every day while the target is infected.
• Initial Effect: Incubation. After an extended rest, the target loses 2 Healing Surges. This effect happens after every extended rest while infected.
• Weakened.
• Unconscious.
• Final State: The target dies.
This one's an attempt to insert serious injury into 4e. I'm not sure how often it'll come up in play as written, though it probably makes character death nonexistant - just take a Grievous Wound when you'd take your third 'death counter'.
Grievous Wound*
• Cured
• Initial Effect: Take a -2 penalty to attacks and defenses
• Speed reduced by 2
• Maximum Healing Surges reduced by 2
• You regain only 1 Healing surge per extended rest
• Final State: Your Maximum Hit Points is set at your Bloodied value; you are always considered Bloodied.
*Special: When you are below 0 hit points and fail a death saving throw, you can choose instead to suffer the initial effects of this ‘disease’ rather than gaining a ‘death counter’. On subsequent failures, you can choose to move down on the condition track instead of gaining a ‘death counter’. The effects of each tier are cumulative. Once you've reached the Final State, you can no longer trade in 'death counters' for disease effects.
Tinderskin: Your skin cracks and flakes, catching fire with the slightest spark.
• Cured
• Initial Effect: Gain Vulnerability to Fire 5
• You and all adjacent creatures gain Vulnerability to Fire 5
• Final Stage: Fire Vulnerability 5, Upon taking fire damage, you gain Fire Aura 1 (save ends): Fire Aura: 5 fire damage to all creatures who begin their turn in the aura.
Bloodfrost: Your body slowly turns to ice, starting with your fingertips.
• Cured
• Initial Effect: -2 penalty to attack/defense
• Slowed, -2 penalty to attack/defense
• Final Stage: Slowed, -2 penalty to attack/defense, can’t heal cold damage
Lodeswarm: Thousands of tiny metal mites burrow into your skin, turning your body to lodestone from the inside out.
• Cured
• Initial Effect: Slowed, can’t be pushed/pulled/slid
• Slowed, can’t be pushed/pulled/slid, Upon taking Lightning damage, you are Stunned (save ends)
• Final Stage: Petrified
Terrorsleep: Horrific images flash in your mind whenever you close your eyes.
• Cured
• Initial Effect: Gain Vulnerability to Psychic 5, lose 1 healing surge
• Vulnerability to Psychic 5, do not regenerate healing surges after an extended rest
• Final Stage: Waking nightmares – the infected cowers and lashes out at anyone that approaches
Wasting Rot: You don’t even know you’ve been infected until the plague has spread.
• Cured
• Carrier: You show no symptoms from lower tiers. The disease makes one attack against an adjacent target per day, +8 vs Fort, target is infected. This attack happens once every day while the target is infected.
• Initial Effect: Incubation. After an extended rest, the target loses 2 Healing Surges. This effect happens after every extended rest while infected.
• Weakened.
• Unconscious.
• Final State: The target dies.
This one's an attempt to insert serious injury into 4e. I'm not sure how often it'll come up in play as written, though it probably makes character death nonexistant - just take a Grievous Wound when you'd take your third 'death counter'.
Grievous Wound*
• Cured
• Initial Effect: Take a -2 penalty to attacks and defenses
• Speed reduced by 2
• Maximum Healing Surges reduced by 2
• You regain only 1 Healing surge per extended rest
• Final State: Your Maximum Hit Points is set at your Bloodied value; you are always considered Bloodied.
*Special: When you are below 0 hit points and fail a death saving throw, you can choose instead to suffer the initial effects of this ‘disease’ rather than gaining a ‘death counter’. On subsequent failures, you can choose to move down on the condition track instead of gaining a ‘death counter’. The effects of each tier are cumulative. Once you've reached the Final State, you can no longer trade in 'death counters' for disease effects.
