Plague Doctor

Plague Doctor: Prime Wis


Cleric 2, Thief 2,

900 EXP Level 2

This is my mechanical atempt at the mythical Plague Doctor. I'll have more fluff up later when I've slept.
 

Weapons:   Dagger, Bola, Darts, and God’s Weapons

Proff List:  Apostasy, Battle Magic, Beast Friendship, Black Lore of Zahar, Combat Trickery (sunder), Command, Contemplation, Diplomacy, Divine Blessing, Fighting Style, Healing, Knowledge (history), Laying on Hands, Leadership, Loremastery, Magical Engineering, Martial Training, Prestidigitation, Profession (Mortician), Prophecy, Quiet Magic, Righteous Turning, Sensing Evil, Sensing Power, Theology, Unflappable Casting,


 

Carrier: A Plague Doctor can cure but not remove disease, poisons, and curses from himself entirely. He in becomes a carrier and minorly suffers from them. A Plague Doctor gains a +2  to his save on any disease, poisons, or curse he might have. A Plague Doctor is assumed to start with 1 disease, poisons, or curse per wisdom bonus he has.

 

A Plague Doctor is assumed to have a breathing apparatus, along with specialty gloves and cloths, as to not spread whatever he might carry. Without such things even short term interaction is dangerous.

 

 

Disease

Poison

Curse

1 Turn

Stench

Allergy

Unlucky

1 Day

Exhausted

Sickened

Haunted

1 Week

Contracted

Paralyzed Limb

Minor Curse

 

A day without interaction with the Carrier removes the effect, or a cure disease/poison/curse spell will also remove the effect.

 

Stench: As Troglodytes

Exhausted: Can not force march, needs and extra 2 hours for restful sleep

Contracted: Save versus random Disease the Carrier has

 

Allergy: Save versus poison or -1 to saves for a week

Sickened: Save versus poison failure means can not do anything but move ½ speed

Paralyzed Limb: Save versus poison failure means 1 random limb because Paralyzed

 

Unlucky: Character suffers -1 to saves

Haunted: Character has nightmarish dreams, can not restful sleep

Minor Curse: As Curse with numerical numbers halved or something small like hair loss, squeaky voice, dog attractions, ect...

 

For Every Month exposed to an unprotected Plague Doctor a character must make a save versus death or die from a random illness.

 

If Eaten, by monsters or cannibals, the monster, or humanoid, must make a save versus one of the Plague Doctor’s illnesses randomly with a -2 per additional illness of that category.

 

Example: A Purple Worm eats Sam. Sam has Mummy Rot, Fetid Gas, Lycanthropy,

Black Widow Poison, and Rat Disease. The DM rolls randomly and gets Fetid Gas at a -4 and the Worm fails its save. Days later the party finds Sam’s killer rotted to the core.  

 

Sick Eater: A Plague Doctor is able to ‘eat’ a sickness from his patient removing the sickness, disease, or poison and taking the effect himself. He must make the same save his patient made and in case of the cause being magical he must not be five levels lower than the caster of the magic. He can only perform this once a day per patient and no more than once an hour. This takes 1 round to attempt and can be interrupted

 

Example: Killian pricks his hands on a poison trap failing his save. Sam tries to eat it to add to his collection. He makes his save and Killian recovers. Magnar later grabs a cursed sword that lowers his intelligence. Sam tries to eat the curse but it is too potent.

 

Poison Making: At the 3rd level the Plague Doctor has learned the art of poison making/extraction. He knows and can recognise poisonous plants and animals with a check of 7+. Plant toxins can be extracted on a 11+ for fresh plants and a 14+ for dried ones at a rate of 1 dose per week. Animals need to not have been dead more than a week and are extracted on a 9+ at a rate of 1 dose per day.

 

A Plague Doctor need a poison lab to make poisons. A natural roll of 1, 2, or 3 means the Plague doctor has accidentally poisoned himself and must make a save versus the poison or toxin he is attempting to make. A full list of poisons and toxins are on page 249-250 in ACK’s Core book.


 

Man with the Power:  a Plague Doctor can harness his inner working to bring harmful curses down on his enemies. Once per day, the Plague Doctor may hex a target creature he can see within 30'. If the target fails a saving throw versus Spells, it immediately suffers the Plague Doctor’s choice of one of the following four hexes:

 

» -4 decrease to an ability score (minimum 1)

» -4 penalty on attack throws and saves

» Prime requisite halved (minimum 1)

» Each round of combat, the target has a 50% chance to act normally; otherwise, it takes no action

 

The Plague Doctor can come up with a custom Hex at DM’s discretion

 

A hex cannot be dispelled, but it can be removed with a remove curse spell

 

Stoogies Syndrome: At the 7th level the imbalance of the Plague Doctor’s body has caused a surprising effect. The character becomes ageless and enjoys a lifespan three times longer than normal. He also becomes immune to ghoul paralysis.

 

5 skill points: 2 at start trade 2 for 3/5/7 and last point into level 3 for poison cost 2.

Carrier: 1 point

Sick Eater: 1 point

Poison Making: 2 points

Hex : 1 point

Longevity: 1 point

 

I tried to mash up the poison rules into one thing instead of three proficiencies and added a bit of boost to it. I did raise the failure chance to compensate I think. Poison use is 2 points here I think because while it is the use of three different proficiencies it’s not the proficiencies themselves. You can’t find out stuff about nature that isn’t poison nor find the plants to make them, you can’t heal animals, and you can’t do alchemy.

 

This is really fascinating. I have to admit I was unfamiliar with the Plague Doctor myth (other than the notorious art work) so I had to look it up to fully appreciate what you've crafted.