Talk:Dangerous Allergy (3.5e Flaw)

Hard to quantify

Peanuts or garlic are fairly easy to avoid, and allergy to it shouldn't come up at all in combat unless the guy allergic to garlic is stupid enough to dress up as a vampire and goad villagers into feeding it to him. It shouldn't even come up in roleplay heavy games focused on intrigue as long as the character is careful about what they eat or unless the DM decides to abuse the allergy by having the character 'poisoned' with nuts.

Pollen or spores, on the other hand, are pretty much anywhere, prompting you to pretty much save vs poison whenever you're traversing a grassy plain or a damp forest. There's even a fair few monsters that actively spread it. This internal bias kind of makes the flaw hard to recommend. --Sulacu (talk) 02:29, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

The nature of it does lend itself strongly to DM intervention, something I knew was the case. Yet it seemed odd that there was no peanut allergy flaw. You are correct: it is up to the DM to approve of a substance common enough to matter but uncommon enough not to be fatal at all times. For the case of something like food, nuts it the usual example since apparently everything and its mother has been touched by nuts at some point. Garlic is mentioned mostly because vampire themes, but spices in general are probably a good idea: they're added to food all the time. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 05:07, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I think you could reduce the DM intervention by making it an unknown allergen and set it to only take effect when you eat or drink something you didn't prepare yourself. Something like a 20% chance per meal for it to be triggered maybe. So like other flaws you can avoid its effects in large part by playing around them. Taking it means you mostly give up carousing and might be rude at formal dinners, but also that you're not going to find garlic peanut tipped arrows shot at you after a foe researches your weaknesses (or other forms of dickery). - Tarkisflux ^Talk 06:36, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

The DM intervention bit isn't the problem, really. That's partly what flaws are for, especially in roleplay heavy games. The problem is that things like pollen are in a completely different class that is much harder to avoid. No player would pick pollen allergy if they could get the same bonus feat if they're just allergic to peanuts.

EDIT: Excuse, didn't read the second part of your reply correctly, please disregard the above. --Sulacu (talk) 06:59, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

The percent chance idea is a good idea, I made it 15% though. While you can avoid it by specifying you won't always have the options (buying random potions for example).

Yeah pollen is probably too much, though I'd probably limited to places where it's there in bulk. Like forests, and not so much 40 miles away just because their downwind. Maybe not the best of examples, but it was common. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 08:05, 29 July 2014 (UTC)