Poison and disease effects

[Gwydion]

Is it possible for the effects of poison and disease to hold off a bit, so that a tonic or antitoxin can be administered by a healer before it kicks in?

I can't tell you how many times I've seen that someone is poisoned or diseased on the status bar, and I refrain from healing them until they RP it in some way.  But usually when someone starts to RP it - we hear the "kersplash" sound indicating that it's already too late.  

Also, people seem to metagame the process because they are going to need a restoration anyway.  Might it be possible for the poison or disease to kick in slower, but perhaps increase the number of times they have to roll a save and administer damage several times if it isn't treated?  

There should be some incentive to get that deadly poison treated, other than putting up with the -1 to STR that the buffed character doesn't really notice anyway.  

I think this would be better for RP purposes, other than the *coughs a bit*, or "Boy I feel weak" after quest completion being the first indication that a character hasn't been treated.

[ScottyB]

Disease takes one game hour to incubate, which is at least 17 minutes (maybe more). I'm not sure how much slower we want to make that, and it can only be increased in intervals of game hours.

There are deadly poisons, and there are weak poisons. Obviously, a poison that only does 1 STR damage is weak. A poison that causes death on failure is pretty deadly (and exists). Unfortunately, all poisons are hardcoded to do their secondary damage one minute after being poisoned; many poisons have initial ability damage applied from the moment of poisoning. This can't be changed.