Note that the enemy has to be hit by your attack and subsequently fail three Constitution saving throws before the disease has any effect. It can be difficult to parse but that is definitely the intention. Slimy Doom is essentially an auto-lose if it sticks, though.
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.
Caster A makes a melee spell attack against Target B. If successful the target is afflicted with the disease.
At the end of each of Target B's turns Target B makes a Con Save.
After 3 successful saves Target B recovers from the disease.
After 3 failed saves Target B is afflicted with the disease for the next 7 days.
As for the wording of "you afflict the creature", think of this as an incubation period if you're wondering why they aren't effected by it.
I believe that if you hit with the initial attack roll, they have the disease. The saving throws are the enemy's chance to fight off the disease before it sticks for a week.
I believe that if you hit with the initial attack roll, they have the disease. The saving throws are the enemy's chance to fight off the disease before it sticks for a week.
I have thought that on hit, the character has been exposed to the disease and the three savings throws are the body trying to fight it off. If they fail, the the character becomes infected.
Contagion is THE debuff spell that eventually will either hit your legendary badguy or fizzle spectacularily as the bad guy dies before the spell even matters. The point of the spell is to have a spell on the bad guy that your GM either absolutely will blow legendary resistance on. Your GM either hopes his badguy will make the save before it is relevant or he'll keep a legendary resistance save just in case he rolls badly all 3 times.
Though I firmly believe the reason contagion exists in its current form is so you can argue with your gm about crafting contagious disease potions using this spell as a basis and then feed it to your bad guys in various ways. As a trickery cleric I once poisoned a band of orcs with filth fever, and as a GM I once had an anti-paladin/death knight who traveled the realm poison the well water in the city the PC's were in with mind-fire.
My War Cleric is almost at 5th level spells so had been reading up and noticed how strong a spell contagion can be, especially 'slimy doom'.
Anyone had real play use of this spell and is it as good as it sounds?
Note that the enemy has to be hit by your attack and subsequently fail three Constitution saving throws before the disease has any effect. It can be difficult to parse but that is definitely the intention. Slimy Doom is essentially an auto-lose if it sticks, though.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
ratwhowouldbeking is correct.
The wording on it is terrible. Contagion
See the Sage Advice: https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/06/13/contagion-effects/
Caster A makes a melee spell attack against Target B. If successful the target is afflicted with the disease.
At the end of each of Target B's turns Target B makes a Con Save.
After 3 successful saves Target B recovers from the disease.
After 3 failed saves Target B is afflicted with the disease for the next 7 days.
As for the wording of "you afflict the creature", think of this as an incubation period if you're wondering why they aren't effected by it.
Yeah the wording is horrible.
Its this part that makes it confusing:
On a hit, you afflict the creature with a disease of your choice from any of the ones described below.
Because on a hit, the creature has the disease, job done.
If it doesn't have any effect then how would the creature know it has been diseased to cure it or fight it?
I have been poked in the face, nothing happened, that's strange. ah well, carry on with my day lol
I believe that if you hit with the initial attack roll, they have the disease. The saving throws are the enemy's chance to fight off the disease before it sticks for a week.
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D&D Beyond FoundersThe spell is widely recognised as being poorly worded though!
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I have thought that on hit, the character has been exposed to the disease and the three savings throws are the body trying to fight it off. If they fail, the the character becomes infected.
Well, that makes the spell not very good. Blowing a fifth level slot, and it does nothing until they fail three saving throws? Ouch.
Not all spells are meant to be straightforwardly used in the middle of combat.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
I would agree with you RatKing, if Contagion made the host infectious.
If the disease could keep spreading naturally then it would have some interesting out of combat choices behind it.
Contagion is THE debuff spell that eventually will either hit your legendary badguy or fizzle spectacularily as the bad guy dies before the spell even matters. The point of the spell is to have a spell on the bad guy that your GM either absolutely will blow legendary resistance on. Your GM either hopes his badguy will make the save before it is relevant or he'll keep a legendary resistance save just in case he rolls badly all 3 times.
Though I firmly believe the reason contagion exists in its current form is so you can argue with your gm about crafting contagious disease potions using this spell as a basis and then feed it to your bad guys in various ways. As a trickery cleric I once poisoned a band of orcs with filth fever, and as a GM I once had an anti-paladin/death knight who traveled the realm poison the well water in the city the PC's were in with mind-fire.
I find the idea of Contagion being, well, not contagious to be rather amusing. Why call a spell something that its not meant to be exactly that?