Your touch inflicts a magical contagion. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 11d8 Necrotic damage and have the Poisoned condition. Also, choose one ability when you cast the spell. While Poisoned, the target has Disadvantage on saving throws made with the chosen ability.
The target must repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns until it gets three successes or failures. If the target succeeds on three of these saves, the spell ends on the target. If the target fails three of the saves, the spell lasts for 7 days on it.
Whenever the Poisoned target receives an effect that would end the Poisoned condition, the target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw, or the Poisoned condition doesn’t end on it.
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Posted Jan 13, 2026Then... what happens for the specified 7 days on Save, Fail, Fail, Fail?
The target repeats, as in does the same thing again, the saving throw. Which saving throw? The only one mentioned up to that point. What happens if you fail the saving throw? You take 11d8 damage and are poisoned.
What happens on Save, Fail, Fail, Fail. You take 33d8 damage and remain poisoned for 7 days.
I look at it this way. The damage isn't even all that much. Insect Plague, a spell at the same 5th level, does 4d10 to multiple targets in a 20ft radius sphere for up to 10 minutes. That's 8d10 with 2 targets, 12d10 with just three targets. It could end up doing Contagion's maximum 264 in 2 rounds pretty easily when cast on a decent sized group.
Yes, the spell is badly written, but I don't like the interpretation that can make an enemy or player make 5 saves (Save, Save, Fail, Fail, Fail) but have the result be nothing happens... for a specified 7 days.
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Posted Jan 13, 2026When you cast the spell, target makes a CON save.
If the target succeeds, no damage or condition, next turn.
If they fail, they take the damage once and proceed with the saving throws at the end of their turn.
The poisoned condition and the saving throw disadvantage last until they make 3 successes, or 7 days if they don't.
Side note: if you name CON as the ability when you cast the spell, they'll have disadvantage on the CON saving throws at the end of their turn if they fail the initial save.
Despite being a save or suck spell, 11d8 damage and the potential of a week of shit concentration saves, still seems powerful to me :D
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Posted Jan 17, 2026why is the not on the warlock spell list...
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Posted Feb 9, 2026Realistically I would never not pick Constitution for the Disadvantage, not least because that makes this spell itself easier to land - but Concentration saving throws would be affected too.