Help with drug/addiction rules in BoVD

[MerakSpielman]

I just want to make sure I understand these rules.

If somebody ingests Baccaran, they immediately suffer the Initial and Secondary effects, correct? I.e., they immedietly take 1d4 points of str damage and immediately gain 1d4+1 wisdom for the specified duration. These effects allow saving throws, but only if the drug is not being taken deliberately.

Then, I roll to see if they get addicted. The Fort DC for a Low-addiction drug is 6. So they make a Fort save DC 6, failure indicates addiction. Success means nothing detrimental happens beyond the actual effects of the drug.

Assume failure.

The character is now addicted, and will take 1d3 dex damage every single day if they do not succeed at a fort save, DC 6. Since they just took the drug, they are satiated and won't crave it for another 10 days.

After the 10 days, if the character has not thrown off the addiction, the DC to avoid ability damage increases by +5, to 11 in this case, making it harder to throw off the addiction and easier to take the ability damage. Taking more baccaran reduces the DC back down to 6 for the next 10 days.

If, at any point during addiction, whatever the DC, the character succeeds at two successive Fort saves, he throws off the addiction.

For every 2 months the character is addicted, the Addiction Rating for that drug is increased by one level, indicating higher fort saves, more ability damage from failing them, and a shorter satiation period.

question: am I correct in my interpretation that you suffer all the damage listed in the column? So an "Extreme" drug has a fort DC of 25, and if you fail you take 1d6 dex, 1d6 wis, AND 1d6 con, every day? With a satiation period of just 1 day, so you have to take more or the DC goes up to 30? It seems that, unless your fort save is pretty high, you'll die very quickly from this drug. Even RL drugs can take years to kill! This drug doesn't even give enough time to ruin your life before, in a few mere days, you're dead. And that's not even the highest addiction rating! Or am I mis-understanding the rules?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Well, you heal 1 point of ability damage a day, so even if you fail half of the saves, it should still take a few weeks. Yes, it's pretty harsh.

 

[Chroma]

If somebody ingests Baccaran, they immediately suffer the Initial and Secondary effects, correct? I.e., they immedietly take 1d4 points of str damage and immediately gain 1d4+1 wisdom for the specified duration. These effects allow saving throws, but only if the drug is not being taken deliberately.

Actually, drugs are just like poison: the secondary effect doesn't kick in until a minute (10 rounds) later.

question: am I correct in my interpretation that you suffer all the damage listed in the column? So an "Extreme" drug has a fort DC of 25, and if you fail you take 1d6 dex, 1d6 wis, AND 1d6 con, every day? With a satiation period of just 1 day, so you have to take more or the DC goes up to 30? It seems that, unless your fort save is pretty high, you'll die very quickly from this drug. Even RL drugs can take years to kill! This drug doesn't even give enough time to ruin your life before, in a few mere days, you're dead. And that's not even the highest addiction rating! Or am I mis-understanding the rules?

I think you've got the rules right, just realize that the two drugs listened for "Extreme" and "Vicious" are, essentially magical/extraplanar smack, so they *should* be dangerous... *laugh* Moradyn Vapour is "only" high addiction and that seems to be the fantasy equivilent of heroin. As well, if someone's under complete bed rest (or laying around on the couch) they heal two points of ability damage a day; so, they'll feel like crap (Dex and Wis damage approximating "the shakes), but are unlikely to die.

If they're in *really* bad shape, get thee to a cleric, you vapourhead! *laugh*

 

[MerakSpielman]

What's the Fort save of your average commoner/expert/aristocrat? I'm gussing only the nobilty could afford such "good" drugs, but even a 7th level aristocrat only has a Fort save of +2, assuming average stats. And if he only has average stats... he'll make it maybe four days before running out of Con... There seems to be no RL equivelent to a drug of this power. All drugs are poison, but this one seems more useful as an actual assassin-wielded poison than it is as a drug.

I might be thinking of this too much in the context of my campaign, where demon-cultists are trying to addict populations so they can exercise control. The average person getting addicted IMC is Joe Commoner. I guess enough low-addictivity drugs will eventually cause wide-spread addiction as unlucky individuals roll poorly for 2 straight months and end up at a higher addiction rating. Flood the cities with Baccaran and Devilweed... Something's gotta give eventually, even if it's just the economy.
edit: Just read Chroma's post. You have a point there. Demons and Devils will probably only try to hook high-level adventurers on that stuff.

 

[MerakSpielman]

The rules on addiction are really only coming up because a character IMC actually took some. They ran across a drug lab in an isolated cavern and raided it, killing the dealers and taking the drugs. Ok, fine. I mis-read when I told them about Baccaran, which is what they found, and told them it gave strength points and did wisdom damage. Well, I said it, now I'm stuck with it. Our kobold fighter-type thought this might be interesting, and took ALL FOUR DOSES they had found. She's only 2nd level, but still managed to survive the OD damage x3. I'm feeling that I should increase the DC for addiction based on the sheer quantity she consumed, perhaps by +2 per extra dose, or even increasing the addiction rating by one category...