Disease Mechanics

[tarkin96]

Hello. I am in Kenabres' streets in the section where you meet Nenio, and returning to Defender's Heart to get some rest and some scrolls for removing conditions. I have characters with diseases, blindness, ability score damage, etc. and I have used all my lesser restorations and healing magic. None of these effects seem to be going away after a normal rest. It all seems manageable until I get back to Defender's Heart.

However, on Camellia, I have 2 diseases, demon plague and filth fever. Both say they have a frequency of 1/day, with 1d6 wis, 1d3 con, fatigue, 1d3 dex, and 1d3 con as possible effects. Her attributes (after taking damage from the first onset) are 11, 19, 14, 10, 15, 13. The map screen claims returning to DH takes 1 hour, so the effects can only happen once. However, upon getting back, Camellia has a 1 in con, dex, and wisdom and has negative HP. How does this happen? Am I misunderstanding how diseases proc? It's creating a lot of trouble, because I can't use any new scrolls I buy from DH or healing abilities on her.

I tried modifying the difficulty to remove effects on rest, but she still gets 1s at the start of the rest. Are diseases critting on their ability damage somehow? I'm just lost in how it works.

[Aurumworks]

Use treat affliction from your action menu. You should have a first aid kit in your inventory for that. It requires lore religion for success, so pick an appropriate character to do the treatment.

[Invisible]

There are potions, scrolls, staffs and spells with the name "remove disease".

[tarkin96]

Yes. I know there are items and spells to remove disease. However, I do not have access to them. The weapons merchant in DH does not have them, the potion seller does not have them, and the scroll seller had 4 remove disease scrolls, 2 of which I bought before heading to market square and used on Camellia. However, both failed against the diseases' DCs (12 and 18) earlier so I need to go back to DH anyway if I want more. None of the characters I have come across have access to remove disease spells. All have level 1 spells max, or they have level 2 spells (camellia and nenio) without remove disease being in their spellbook. I have lesser restoration, but that only got rid of some of the ability score damage. Edit: Also tried treat affliction and it removed 1 disease, but Camellia still has the other and she still gets the grayed out picture when I get to DH.

The main problem causing my confusion is Camellia is at 1s in multiple stats upon returning to DH, despite the 1d6s and 1d3s not being mathematically able to reduce her stats to 1 in a single hour, based on my assumption of how the disease mechanics work. So, am I misunderstanding the disease mechanics? How do they work?

[bijsmaak]

As said, first aid and treat affliction is the most straightforward way. There will be more options later on e.g. Seelah with Mercy - Cure Disease.

But the best way, especially in the first act, to prevent diseases is not to get hit, by killing them first. Sometimes it is worth a reload for that instead curing diseases or negative levels etc.

[Stoatmeal]

Since you're still really early in the game I suggest that you just load an earlier save.

Otherwise I suggest staying away from Shadows and such; there is really no means to counteract ability damage and negative levels early on without waiting like two weeks, which is very ill-advised.

Worst case scenario you can just restart and get to that point quickly anyways.

[forkofspite]

Since others are just providing responses for how to deal with it or avoid the situation in the first place ...

This is the first time I've heard of anything like that - certainly seems like a bug. The saves should only occur once per day, and the ability damage should only occur on failed saves (so, at most, once per day).

[tarkin96]

Originally posted by forkofspite:

This is the first time I've heard of anything like that - certainly seems like a bug. The saves should only occur once per day, and the ability damage should only occur on failed saves (so, at most, once per day).

This was the type of answer I was looking for. Thanks! I'll report the bug, I guess.

As for the other answers, I at least learned some ways to prevent this from happening and that it was actually better for me to just avoid the combats that caused my situation anyway. Especially the shadows. They made me just think I had poorly-built characters. Apparently, I'm supposed to go to the next area after making the bridge, rather than try to clear it out.

I have ended up lowering the difficulty and just avoiding areas with many undead/demons or humanoids with 6+ hit die. Now I've just completed the Defender's Heart battle and learned the hard way that the AI will attempt to finish off downed party members. Game's a lot less stressful now. Thanks again for the answers!

[mbradtke]

maybe a bit offtopic but did anyone notice that the lv1 divine spell "remove sickness" doesnt help against nausea caused by spider and rat swarms? you can remove the condition but u dont get +4 on the saving throw