Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 281 - Soft Debilitating Conditions

Episode Date: August 9, 2026

Following up on Episode 280, this time we’re going to talk about soft debuffs - slow burn threats like poisons, diseases, curses, and lycanthropy.  Tune in for my tips on how to handle these longer-term afflictions.   #rpg #ttrpg #dnd #pathfinder #gmtips #playertips #debuffs #criticalfail Resources: Archives of Nethys:  https://archivesofnethys.com/  Buy Me a Coffee! - ko-fi.com/taking20podcast www.taking20podcast.com  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/taking20podcast  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/taking20podcast 

This week on the Taking 20 podcast. So when there are progressive effects, yes, give the players the information they need to make the game rule decisions to save their characters, but describe the stages, establish the time frame for more bad things to happen. This turns on a ticking clock in the players' minds as they realize they need to do something right now or dent throw is just going to get worse. Thank you for listening to The Taking 20 podcast, episode 281, talking to DM, about how to handle debilitating conditions on PCs. I want to thank this week's sponsor, Stairs. I never trust Stairs because they're always up to something, or they'll always let you down.

You know, insert your preferred pun here. If you enjoy the podcast, please mention it to your other gaming friends or share the episodes on social media. I've said it before, but I don't have any advertising budget because I actually lose money on the podcast. I mostly do this because I love internet. interacting with listeners like you.

Speaking of which, feel free to send me a message on my social media, my coffee, k-o-fi.com slash taking20 podcast, or leave a comment. Also, social media links are in the description, or feel free to email me, feedback at at taking20 podcast.com. Also, if you like the podcast, please like it or subscribe to it, and thank you in advance. Some quick bits of news this week before I get started. First and foremost, I apologize for the unexpected break between the last episode and this one. Long-time listeners know that I also teach college classes in addition to my regular cybersecurity job.

The fall semester starts soon, and one of the things I always try to do is meet the students where they are. My traditional course is moving to an online one, and there was some course redesign work that needed to be done. I mean, I had to break up lectures from long 45-minute marathons to like a little 10-minute burst. coming up with ways to engage with the students online, that type of thing. And on top of that, my regular job ate up 60 to 70 hours of my work week for about two or three weeks straight. So I was getting way behind in my college course, and so I needed to dedicate some time to getting that done before the semester started.

So please accept my sincerest apologies for the unanticipated break. Also, about like three episodes ago, in one of my intros, I may have a little bit of my intros, I may a joke about Anthony Taylor being a bad Premier League referee. I've just intended it to be just a little fun at his expense. Well, he's announced his retirement. Well, first of off, I wish him well and whatever he does next. Secondly, I kind of feel bad about cracking that joke now. But, no, don't get me wrong.

By no means do I think he's retiring because I criticized him. Wait, do I have the power to speak things into existence and they just happen? Do I wield the power of a deity just with my voice? Probably not, but just in case. This week, I would like Kate Beckinsale to come by my house wearing the outfit from the movie Van Helsing and give me $10 million cash legally free and clear. That would make my week, honestly.

And now we wait. Thirdly, regarding the Archives of Nethys Paiso issue, the good news is that they've released a joint statement stating that, among other things, archives of Nethys will remain the official rules archive for Pathfinder and Starfinder. Any art that's not part of the community use policy license will be removed from the site, probably by now. Nethys will continue to receive PDF versions of rules in advance. Very few changes will need to be made for the content on Nethis going forward,

so please feel free to continue using that as a wonderful resource for Pathfinder and Starfinder. So see, all's well that ends well, some poet once said, and I'm glad they got it worked out between them. Oh gosh, GenCon happened before this episode. I do not have time to talk about all the RPG news that came out of GenCon this year. Dude, good God. I mean, it's always a feast, but this year it was nuts in the best way. Darrington Press, for example, they announced Daggerheart releases through like 2030,

and they're making a Foundry VTT integration. Colbold Press release their first ever Dagger Heart product. There's going to be a dungeon crawler Carl RPG. Paiso is releasing 13 omens. I mean, brilliant designer, Jason Bowman. I cannot wait to get my hands on that.

And I am shamelessly lobbying everybody I know at Paiso. Let me play in advance for the formal release. We'll see. From what little I've seen of it, by the way, it looks like a really fun one-shot system. But also, new version of Vampire to Masqueray is coming out.

Chaosium released a new product called Ensmouth about the classic town and the call of Cthulhu setting. Not to mention Wizards of the Coast announcing their roadmap into 2027, including Dark Sun campaign, Greyhawk Campaign, and collaborations with a whole bunch of other properties like Star Wars and World of Warcraft. Paiso announced a bunch of books. Plus, Paiso is releasing a merged advanced. Venture Path, combining Pathfinder and Starfinder 2E rule sets.

The rules, by the way, have always been compatible, at least since 2E for both games, and I'm excited to kind of see what they do combining them into one big adventure. Shadow Run 6th edition, Hong Kong rule book, and I have barely scratched the surface. Go check out the announcements this year to read more. The short answer is, those of us that are RPG fans, we are eating good right now. One of these years, I'm going to get it to Ken Jen Con. It's on my bucket list, and I've been to quite a few cons, but I've never been there. That being said, I'm not a huge fan of gigantic crowds like that, but still, one of these years,

I'm going to bite the bullet, and I'm just going to go. Okay, enough blathering. On with the episode. This is the delayed second episode in a two-part series about debuffs. The first episode was about hard debuffs, which have immediate and strong. effects on a character, like being stunned or paralyzed or fleeing, those are effects with hard edges that potentially create panic on the battlefield. Go give that episode a listen if you haven't heard it already. In this episode, though, I want to talk about the other kinds of debuffs, what I'm calling soft debuffs. And I fully realize that I may be the only person on the

planet that sorts debuffs this way, but, you know, my podcast. I'm going to give you my thoughts, whether they're brilliant or just completely inane, I'll let you be the judge. When I say soft debuffs, don't think for a minute I'm thinking character debuffs are easier or less impactful than hard debuffs. But these take effect over longer periods of time, have longer-term effects that may even evolve and change over time. The immediate effects may be smaller even, maybe than hard debuffs, but there are long-term effects that dramatically affect the character, possibly even the entire game itself. Heck, I didn't say it in so many words, but one of my recommendations for the last episode was

to turn instant hard debuffs into debuffs over time, which would soften them to use my own vernacular. What are examples of soft debuffs? I want to talk about four in particular. Poisons, diseases, curses, and lycanthropy. Let's talk about poisons. D&D poisons are mostly just damage over time or a hard deems. one of the two. In contrast, in Pathfinder, poisons are a soft debuff because their effects

take place over time and many of their negative effects increase or stack the worse the poison gets. In D&D, there's a crawler mucus, for example, that would be a great name for a band. If you're poisoned by it, you make a DC-13 constitution saving throw or you're paralyzed for one minute. You get another save at the end of each turn to end the effect. That is a hard debuff. In contrast, in Pathfinder 2E, poisons are an affliction. You attempt a saving throw, and if you fail, the poison has this onset time, which is basically how long they take to take any effect on you. Some poisons are instant, purple worm venom, for example, but some, like Dragonbile have a one-minute onset time.

Obviously not useful in combat, but great if you want to poison someone you know you're going to fight shortly. During that one-minute onset time, the character is technically poisoned but has no negative effects happen. But once that onset time passes, that's when bad shit starts.

The effects of stage one happen, so your character has been poisoned by Dragonbile, you failed the initial saving throw, one minute ago, which means you're now at stage one, which in this case is 6D6 poison damage. So between 6 and 36 points of poison damage. And oh, by the way, the character's sickened too. Ugh, ouch. Each poison also has an interval defined, which shows you how often you have to make another saving throw.

For Dragonbile, it's one round interval. So one round later, you make another saving throw. If you critically succeed, poison stage goes down. by two, which means you are cured and done. At stage one, a regular success would drop the stage by one and you'd also be cured. However, if you roll that saving throw on stage one and fail it, you go to stage two, which causes an immediate additional 76 points of damage, so 7 to 42 points of damage. You're now also sickened three.

If you critically fail, save the save at stage one, you jump up two levels. and go from stage one to stage three, which is 96 points of poison damage, and you're sickened four. The good news for the character is that all poisons have a maximum duration that they can affect you, and for Dragonbile, it's six rounds. But still, if you do the math, that could be a lot of damage to your character. But Jeremy, that sounds punishing. Yeah, it's a level 15 poison. At this point, your character would probably have between 200,000.

250 hit points depending on their class and constitution, you'll be okay. The sick end would absolutely suck, though, because that eats up your actions in combat trying to get rid of it and it imposes penalties on attacks and damage, skill checks, spell DCs, saving throws, and so forth. So the more sickened you are, the harder it is to recover from the poison. So that is a very strong poison with a quick transition between stages. Arsenic and Pathfinder 2E by contrast is a DC-18 fortitude save with a 10-minute onset time, and it takes a full minute between saving throws.

In Pathfinder, that's a very slow poison that does damage and imposes conditions over a very long period of time. So poisons can be soft debuffs, and that leads to my first tip for running these types of soft debuffs. establish a clock and telegraph when the stages start to step up or step down. Don't just say, oh, but Dentho the Bard has stage one of Dragon Ball poison. Instead, tell Denthar's player that his right hand where he picked up his drinking mug has this strange yellow stain on it and his insides feel like they're kind of on fire. He has this uncomfortable urge to want to to vomit. He gets up from the banquet table and staggers to the door trying not to make a scene in front of the king.

You know your group and what their lines and veils are, so if graphic depictions of bodily functions are beyond the pale, then don't go into graphic details. Speaking of pale, Dent, though, fails the saving throw and has progressed to sage too. He begins to sweat and shake, skin losing much of his color, and a stomach starts to feel like it's trying to get everything out of him right now, some of his organs. One round and another failed save later, he's at stage three, and there's blood coming out of his mouth, and all he can do is dry heat. Be creative, by the way, base it on the types of effects the poison has. The party looks up as dintra just convulses, and the king watches this happen with a slight smile in his face. Maybe, just maybe, Dentho shouldn't have tried to seduce the queen last night. So when there's

are progressive effects, yes, give the players the information they need to make the game rule decisions to save their characters, but describe the stages, establish the time frame for more bad things to happen. This turns on a ticking clock in the players' minds as they realize they need to do something right now or dint thro is just going to get worse. Similarly, there are diseases. Diseases are soft debuff conditions that have the capability to grind your character down over time. At first, they may not be that bad. Let's take D&D's sewer plague, for example.

At first exposure, your character tries a DC-11 constitution save. Most diseases have a fairly lengthy onset time. Like sewer plague, you won't even show any symptoms for one to four days. At that point, you have a level of exhaustion and only recover half normal hit points by spending the hit dice and you recover none for a long rest. Ouch, that stinks. The really bad part, though, is after each long rest, you have to make another saving throw. And if you fail, you get a level of exhaustion.

In the 2004 edition of the rules, each level of exhaustion is a minus two to your role to recover. So it just gets worse and worse, harder and harder to make that save without magic or some sort of palliative care. That being said, the 2024 edition of D&D kind of lumped diseases in with poisons in a lot of ways, in that if you get a disease, you have the poisoned condition, or possibly a magical contagion, or maybe a curse. More on curses in a minute. Pathfinder 2E remastered diseases grind your character down.

They work much like poisons in that there are stages, onset times, and durations between the save. Let's take tetanus, for example. Not in the real world, by the way. Don't get tetanus in the real world. I bet that's very uncomfortable. But let's talk about it in Pathfinder 2E. If you're exposed, you attempt a DC-14 fortitude save,

and if you fail, you don't show any symptoms for 10 days. 10 days! I know entire adventure paths that take less in-game time than 10 days. After that, though, you become clumsy one. Basically, minus one to anything dexterity-based. and no saving throw again for another week. So you're stuck at stage one for one week at a minimum. If you fail at the end of that week, you go to stage two.

Now you're clumsy two and can't speak. Oh, your spellcaster's about to have a bad, bad week. Pathfinder 2E's disease is, if left untreated and unchecked, very often result in the death of your character. That's a stark contrast for D&D 2004, where death from disease is possible, but much more rare. With diseases, run them like poisons in that you should telegraph the stages. Give the players both the in-game and metagame knowledge to figure out how to cure this nasty condition

and give the characters a chance to survive. And I didn't say it under poisons, but I think that's the key here, giving the character a chance to survive. The PCs are supposed to be big damn heroes, right? and big damn heroes probably should have a chance to do big damn things, like save the big damn fighter from the big damn mummy rot. Why did I say big damn so much in that paragraph? I have no big damn idea.

Anyway, give PCs hints that they may be diseased as stage one happens or even approaches. As someone whose immune system has had these shit kicked out of it by various cancer treatments, I can tell you that when I get sick, I start feeling it a little off even before the fever or sore thorn. throat or nausea or chills or spontaneous decapitation kicks in as the disease hits hard. Spontaneous decapitation, you say? Yep, hard to recover from that. Be glad you have an immune system. Moving on to curses and starting with Pathfinder 2E this time, just to change it up, curses are described as manifestations of potent ill will. I love that description, by the way. They typically have an effect, most of the time a single effect that happens when failing the saving throw

and it lasts for a certain amount of time. Jeremy, that sounds like a poison or disease. What makes curses different? I'm glad you asked, voice in my head. Curses aren't as easy to shake. You can't just cast sound body and voila, la, the curse goes away. No, ma'am, nope. Curses come from high-level spellcasters,

liches, hell, sometimes even the gods themselves. For example, there's a curse called the curse of nightmares. It's a very simple curse, by the way, that means your rest, long rest in D&D parlance, must be 12 hours instead of 8. And while you can make your daily preparations, you can't gain any benefits from resting, like natural healing or recovering the drained or doomed conditions. The curse may not kill you, but it opens the door for something else that might. Or in D&D-2004 edition, curses are long-term afflictions with different types of curses,

item narratives, that type of thing. If a character gets cursed, there should be no surprise that they are cursed. Why they're cursed. How to end the curse? Curses, besides those caused by the bestow curse spell, are usually caused by some action the PC took or didn't take. They disturbed the tombs of the Holy Dead, or they left the village to burn and did nothing to save anyone. Should a PC get a curse, have a way to get that curse lifted.

hopefully more interesting than casting a removed curse spell or something like that. Make it a narrative, an adventure, or quest. Well, Bob just had to stick his hand in the skull of the high priest of the Malbulgia and make it talk like a puppet. Now he's cursed to sing, it's a small world after all, over and over and over again every minute he's awake. We've got to figure out a curing where I am going to pay the gold for a permanent silent spell on him. I swear to the gods.

sure you could just have them travel to the nearest big town cast remove curse and bobs your now your more silent uncle but wouldn't it be more interesting if the players had to i don't know speak to a priest of malbolia retrieve specific magical reagents or complete one or more quests for the temple to get the curse removed i've always loved using the mechanic like that for very powerful curses the spell removed curse may suppress the curse effects for a time, maybe a day, a week, whatever, but inevitably the curse returns until the PCs do something very specific. Or maybe there's this curse eater relic they have to retrieve and if they can find the magical locked iron lined box and sing the curse into it, the curse disappears. Or they have to travel to Malbulge's most sacred place and truly do something that PCs are very, very, very reticent to do, say they are truly sorry, coming face to face with the demon god himself who lifts the curse or, more likely, lifts the curse for a price. Come up with a way to lift the curse, whether it's making the removed curse spell available

somewhere or a more adventurery way to get the curse lifted. The last soft debuff I have time for would be lycanthropy, for those who do don't play RPGs, first off, why the hell not? Find a group, dive in. If you explain to the DM you're new, many of us would eagerly, I mean, froth at the mouth to teach you the game and make another one of us. One of us, one of us. Now the old version of D&D, God, that sounds weird to say that about 5E,

but yeah, okay, it's the old version now. in the 2014 version of 5E, D&D, Lichanthropy was tied to phases of the moon, and you had to make saving throws as the moon phase got closer to full, and it was just this big old complicated mess. But I do love, love what 2024 version of Lichanthropy did. They did away with the phases of the moon garbage, and they just tied it to a trigger of zero hit points. In other words, when your character drops to zero hit points,

They instantly transform into a DM-controlled character with full hit points that turns on the party. Remember, one of the mechanics of D&D is that characters can drop to zero hit points a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. I've run a few short adventures and one-shots where the front-line fighters are popping up and down like one of those kids' punching bag toys. Zero hit points, healed back up, hit again, down to zero hit points, healed, get back up again. So the infection may manifest quite literally second. after they're infected. But, think about this.

The PCs are fighting a werewolf who damages and inflicts one of the PCs with lichanthropy, but everyone survives the fight. The infected character never drops to zero hit points. At that point, the PC is effectively a time bomb. The next time that character

would drop to zero hit points, whether it's an hour later, a day later, a month later, or even years later, they will rise up as a werewolf and attack the party. Narratively, that is good eaten. I love it. Now, that being said, any effect that could take the character away from the player

is very problematic and should be handled with care. Normal day, normal day, normal day, tough fight against the boss. Oh, you have zero hit points? Congratulations. Barry's now a werewolf. Give me that character sheet. Having that happened to a character with zero hints to the player that it's a possibility can really cause some hurt feelings around the table. Now, that scene problem could happen in Pathfinder 2E, and that game system like Anthropy has two possible tracks it can take.

First, the curse. The character gains no benefits, and when the full moon shines, they lose control of their character that night. It's similar to what I said earlier. It can cause some heart feelings around, at least in the case of Pathfinder 2E, the loss of control is temporary,

and the PC may have another month or so to try to find the cure. More on that in a minute. But the second track is by far the more interesting one. Instead of Pathfinder 2E, lychanthropy being a lose control of your character kind of curse, the player can embrace it, lean into it. Take what's called the wear creature dedication, allowing them to shift forms, use powerful attacks. It turns the curse into an interesting and viable character choice.

What do they lose? Well, okay, now they take more damage from silver weapons. Maybe a noble with silver dagger becomes a very serious threat for this one year. character. So the reason I saved lycanthropy for last is because it's extremely problematic if handled wrong. For that reason, my tip for lycanthropy, similar to poisons and diseases, give the player some hints that something is wrong with their lycanthropy infected character. Start simple. Maybe the character was bitten by a werewolf but never dropped to zero hit points and they're the typhoid Mary of lycanthropy right now. Editor Jeremy here, my very intelligent

wife who's listening pointed out that typhoid Mary showed no symptoms while infecting everyone else around her. I guess technically true. And lycanthropy isn't exactly an airborne illness. Thank the gods. So to appease her, let me correct my previous statement. They never dropped to zero hit points. They're infected with lycanthropy, but it hasn't yet manifested into, you know, big wolf-like humanoid who wants to eat everyone around them. Start dropping subtle hints that's something a little something is wrong. Food tastes differently. Those rations they've been eaten that were a mix of dried fruits and nuts and meats,

the infected character thinks the dried berries taste off, wrong, sour, disgusting, and only eats the meat from their ration. If the party kills a rabbit to eat for dinner, the cooked venison smells awful, but the pelt with fresh blood on it and a little bit of meat smells divine. Maybe their perception checks start returning more smells than sights. They don't see anything out of the ordinary, but they smell a strong scent of copper from the blood splatter in the corner.

They're getting headaches. They feel the urge to go out at night. Animals around them start getting spooked by their presence, like the horse won't let the infected character rioted anymore. If considerable time goes, maybe they notice more facial hair, or their hair grows thicker, coarser, as it gets serious, maybe they start displaying animalistic traits. The point being, if you're going to infect one of your characters with lycanthropy,

give hints that they're infected. And like diseases, maybe come up with a narrative or adventure way to get rid of it instead of just a third level or remove curse spell and done. Maybe you have to kill the creature that infected you, or if they're dead, kill the creature that infected it. Of course, if you want to follow that logic to its conclusion, by the way, that means that somewhere there's the original werewolf who affected everyone

by the law of transitive infections. Kill them, it removes all lycanthropy. It's the old single point of failure narrative trope that annoys the shit out of me. Like the Chittarian Avengers or for this old people, the alien mothership on Independence Day. Blah, okay, kind of dumb. Maybe don't do that.

It's an advanced alien race that somehow has one thing that if you take it out, it kills all of them. That's just lazy ass writing. In contrast with hard debuts, which have immediate debilitating effects on a character, many soft debuffs will start off minor or maybe even with no negative effects at all, but they ramp up over time. Soft debuffs add tension and depth to a campaign. They're usually not save or die effects, but they have negative effects that manifest over time.

These effects offer rich, narrative, and role play opportunities. Don't treat them as simple static penalties. give hints to their existence, telegraph when the stages increase, and give the players a sense of a ticking clock for the character that has the debuff. Allow a simple spell to recover if you'd like, but you can also turn the cure into an adventure all its own. If you do that, I'd be willing to bet that you and your players would have fun doing it. Thank you so much for listening.

I thrive on feedback. Please leave a comment. Please email me, feedback at taking20podcast.com. or find me on social media. Links are in the description. Tune in next episode where I'm finally going to fill a requested topic from Grumpy Geek on coffee

who donated to the podcast. Thank you so much for doing so. It's time to have an episode about running cults. But before I go, I again want to thank our sponsor, Stairs. I told my wife a joke about Stairs and I think it's taken our relationship to a new level. This has been episode 281,

all about debilitating conditions that are soft debuffs. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 podcast is Copyright 2026 by Jeremy Shelley. The opinions or views expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the host. References to game system content are copyright their respective publishers.