These rules and hints are for AD&D 2nd Edition (Revised). Hopefully, I can actually start doing these on a regular basis since I play a lot of games. Anyways, to the reason I am writing this.
The first hint is for DM's running giant rats and DISEASE in General. If a giant rat bites, it has a 5% chance of inflicting a debilitating disease for each wound inflicted. Meaning, for every time a character is bit by a giant rat start accumulating this 5% chance. For example, say you have a fighter and a thief, the fighter is bit once during the entire encounter, but the thief sustains three bites during the entire encounter. This means at the end of the fight the thief has a 15% chance of acquiring a debilitating disease while the fighter only has a 5% chance. This is only one interpretation and frankly, the nicer one. However, another way of reading this "wound" can be interpretted as one wound equals one hit point or hp. For example, say the fighter above took 4 hp worth of damage while the thief only took three hp worth of damage overall (one hp worth of damage from each bite). Now this means the fighter has a 20% chance of catching the disease while the thief has the same 15% chance. This is just an example. Now where to find this debilitating disease, well I looked in the Monstrous Manual (Revised), the Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) and the Player's Handbook (PHB). Couldn't find it anywhere under disease. Then I looked one last time in the index and the effects of debilitating disease are actually under the Priest spell for Cure Disease when it's reversed into Cause Disease. Cause Disease and cause debilitating and fatal diseases. A third way to look at this would be to use the worse or best of the two ways or a combination of the two.
Next, some conflicting news on scrolls and spells. Given the books I have, and I haven't skimmed them looking in evey nook and cranny for the answer, but I have looked some and I didn't see anyplace that said a wizard has to be of such a level in order to use a scroll, but he has to be of a certain level in order to memorize a spell. The chapter on magic in the DMG page 61 has some rules on transcribing spells and learning spells. There are some other useful rules on page 119 of the DMG which cover creation. The most useful information on scrolls is on page 196 of the DMG.
The first hint is for DM's running giant rats and DISEASE in General. If a giant rat bites, it has a 5% chance of inflicting a debilitating disease for each wound inflicted. Meaning, for every time a character is bit by a giant rat start accumulating this 5% chance. For example, say you have a fighter and a thief, the fighter is bit once during the entire encounter, but the thief sustains three bites during the entire encounter. This means at the end of the fight the thief has a 15% chance of acquiring a debilitating disease while the fighter only has a 5% chance. This is only one interpretation and frankly, the nicer one. However, another way of reading this "wound" can be interpretted as one wound equals one hit point or hp. For example, say the fighter above took 4 hp worth of damage while the thief only took three hp worth of damage overall (one hp worth of damage from each bite). Now this means the fighter has a 20% chance of catching the disease while the thief has the same 15% chance. This is just an example. Now where to find this debilitating disease, well I looked in the Monstrous Manual (Revised), the Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) and the Player's Handbook (PHB). Couldn't find it anywhere under disease. Then I looked one last time in the index and the effects of debilitating disease are actually under the Priest spell for Cure Disease when it's reversed into Cause Disease. Cause Disease and cause debilitating and fatal diseases. A third way to look at this would be to use the worse or best of the two ways or a combination of the two.
Next, some conflicting news on scrolls and spells. Given the books I have, and I haven't skimmed them looking in evey nook and cranny for the answer, but I have looked some and I didn't see anyplace that said a wizard has to be of such a level in order to use a scroll, but he has to be of a certain level in order to memorize a spell. The chapter on magic in the DMG page 61 has some rules on transcribing spells and learning spells. There are some other useful rules on page 119 of the DMG which cover creation. The most useful information on scrolls is on page 196 of the DMG.
