D&D 5E The Contagion Spell

[CapnZapp]

After reading up on a few Contagion discussions, I think I'm ready to offer the following suggestion to my player.

This suggestion is meant to retain the spell as a viable spell choice for a competetive druid character. Just demoting the spell to plot and story usages is not what I'm interested in, which also means the Sage Advice suggestion.

In other words, I am going to ask my player "will you still pick Contagion even with these changes?"

If the answer is "thanks but no thanks" then I will use the Sage Advice solution, since that effectively erases the spell from the palette of potential player picks.

In other words, there's no need to homebrew the spell unless the player still uses it!

With that in mind, I have identified the "touch attack" and how this bypasses Legendary Resistance as the main culprit.

Range: Touch
Your touch inflicts disease. Undead and constructs are immune to this spell. The target gets a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failure, you afflict the creature with a magical disease of your choosing from the list described below. The effect of the disease occurs immediately. The disease is magical and cannot be cured by mundane medicine. If magic is used to cure the disease, and a spell slot of lower level than you used to cast this spell was used, the healer needs to make a spellcasting check against your spell save DC. Failure means the magic was ineffective in curing the disease.

At the end of each of the victim's turns, the target makes a Constitution saving throw. Success means the disease is shaken off (cured). When and if the target fails three saves, no more saves are granted - the disease lasts for the full duration of the spell, and furthermore the target becomes contagious: each hour or part thereof spent in close proximity with the target means a creature is afflicted as if you cast this spell on it.​

As you can see, most changes are "aesthetic" in that they matter mostly to plot and story. The undead immunity, the actual contagiousness, etc..

The important combat-related change is that the attack roll is replaced with a saving throw. The range remains "touch".

If my player decides against actively using the spell, I'm going to drop the homebrew, and simply go with the spell as written, using the Sage Advice interpretation (since the spell will likely never again come up in actual play).

So it's only if the player accepts the change from attack roll to Con save the "aestetic" changes matter.

 

[Motorskills]

Interesting. May I presume you believe the randomness is enough to balance the spell?

The question, then, becomes: are the "weaker" diseases weak enough to balance the "stronger" ones? While not so weak as to be useless?

Perhaps I should have written "interim fix". The spell is currently unclear and woefully internally unbalanced as it stands.


I like the idea of a little randomness, used sparingly. It works pretty well for the Confusion spell.

I don't think any of the weaker diseases are outright useless, but I will accept that they could be disappointing in a particular skirmish, but Confusion can have the same issue..

 

[Mistwell]

They can "clarify" all they want, but until they issue errata, the English language means what it means. This really isn't even that open to interpretation. If that is what they meant, they should have written it that way or issued errata.

I disagree. It's open to interpretation. Here is the text in question:

"Your touch inflicts disease. Make a melee spell Attack against a creature within your reach. On a hit, you afflict the creature with a disease of your choice from any of the ones described below.

At the end of each of the target's turns, it must make a Constitution saving throw. After failing three of these saving throws, the disease's effects last for the Duration, and the creature stops making these saves. After succeeding on three of these saving throws, the creature recovers from the disease, and the spell ends."

One rational interpretation is that the disease's effects only begin after failing three saving throws. You have the disease on a hit, but you don't have the diseases effects until after you fail three saving throws.

You can certainly emphasize other aspects of this text to arrive at a different interpretation, but that doesn't do much to support your claim it's not open to interpretation. It is.

 

[Gadget]

[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION], you're interpretation fails to take into account the definition of the word "afflict" and the word "recover". Your bold emphasis is merely a clause that defines the duration of the effects, not when they begin.

 

[Mistwell]

[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION], you're interpretation fails to take into account the definition of the word "afflict" and the word "recover".

Neither are in the PHB glossary and are therefore guided by the context of the spell description itself.

I can be "afflicted" with having been "exposed" to a disease, while still not knowing if my immune system can recover from the disease so well that I don't ever notice the symptoms (effects). My immune system has been "troubled" by the disease (afflicted) but it may trouble the disease back (recover from it without me feeling the effects). I believe that is one fair interpretation of the word "afflicted" and "recover" and given the context of this spell description followed by the clarification words provided in Sage Advice, it's the right one for my table.

Bottom line, IT IS OPEN TO INTERPRETATION. That was my point. You can disagree with my interpretation, but I am disputing that there is only one possible interpretation.

Your bold emphasis is merely a clause that defines the duration of the effects, not when they begin.

I disagree. We have different interpretations of how that portion reads. Both are reasonable ways to read it. It's not that I don't understand how you're reading it, it's that I still read it differently than you do despite fully understanding how you are reading it and why you read it that way.

Pretty much the only time people get my hackles up is when they say the way they see the world is the only conceivable rational way to see the world, despite many others seeing the world differently. Admitting things are open to multiple rational interpretations is not an admission your view is wrong. It's not mutually exclusive that you view it like X and I view it like Y and given the complexities of the English language both can be fair and rational interpretations.

 

[jaelis]

Wikipedia says
"an infection that is asymptomatic during its incubation period, but expected to produce symptoms later, is usually considered a disease."

 

[Mistwell]

Wikipedia says
"an infection that is asymptomatic during its incubation period, but expected to produce symptoms later, is usually considered a disease."

The dictionary just says affliction is troubling.

I am troubled by being exposed to a disease. My immune system has to deal with it.

However, the EFFECTS of the disease, IE the bothersome symptoms of it, may or may not manifest in any particular individual despite the affliction of exposure. My immune system may be able to recover from the affliction of the exposure without the symptoms ever fully manifesting (effects). In fact, this happens pretty often. I can be exposed to a cold virus, and the person next to me can also be exposed, and my immune system fights it off so well I never notice any symptoms but the person next to me fails to fight it off early and does notice symptoms. We were both afflicted with the exposure, but only one of us fought the exposure to the virus off so early that noticeable symptoms never manifested from it.

That's how I read this spell's description. It uses three saving throws to determine whether or not you can fight the exposure to the disease (recover) off before the symptoms (effects) manifest.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I'm not sure where the ambiguity is. D&D's Sage Advice "is a monthly column that gives official clarifications of D&D rules." An official clarification has been given that Contagion is supposed to kick in effects after 3 failed saves, despite how it ended up in print.

History of Contagion & Errata

In June 2016, D&D puts out an official rules clarification:

Question: Do contagion effects kick in immediately, or do they kick in when the target fails the three saving throws?

Answer: The effects of the contagion spell's disease are meant to activate after three failed saving throws.

In 2014, Mike Mearls through Sage Advice says he'd interpret the spell to incubate a disease after 3 failed saves.

In 2015, added to that same thread, Jeremy Crawford admits the design intent was for the disease to kick in after 3 failed saves. He says this slipped through the final print because play testers were playing the spell as intended, so it didn't make the list of changes.

In 4th edition, Contagion was used to slowly spread disease to the masses (10 min cast time, 5 minute proximity to spread disease to others).

In 3rd edition, Contagion incubated you with a disease upon a Hit and Failed Save. All diseases then had a minimum 1 day period before another save would come into play, including Slimy Doom.

In 2nd edition, Contagion immediately inflicted a debilitating disease that reduced Str, Con, Cha, and attack rolls until the disease was cured by magic or weeks of rest. If not cured, the DM could make it worse.

It's an official rules clarification that is in line with prior editions of the spell, which has always been intended to inflict the target with a slow-acting effect and not turn a mid-level spell into something ridiculous. If you don't believe this spell is useful to you anymore in combat, then pick something else.

 

[jaelis]

I'm not sure where the ambiguity is. D&D's Sage Advice "is a monthly column that gives official clarifications of D&D rules." An official clarification has been given that Contagion is supposed to kick in effects after 3 failed saves, despite how it ended up in print.

Gadget thinks Sage Advice is wrong, and that they need to provide errata if that is how they want it to work. He is of course entitled to his opinion.

 

[CapnZapp]

The important thing is that neither of the two main interpretations give players a useful spell they want to use, yet not so good as to be an instant win button.

When we finally managed to stop debating the Ivory tower academics I thought maybe we could move on towards discussing how to best fix the spell.