The Dread Necromancer ability, pg 86 of Heroes of Horror. The relevant text of the ability is:
Scabrous Touch (Su): Starting at 6th level, once per day a dread necromancer can use her charnel touch to inflict disease on a creature she touches. This ability works like the contagion spell (see
page 213 of the Player’s Handbook), inflicting the disease of her choice immediately, with no incubation period, unless the target makes a successful Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 her class level + her Cha modifier). The DC for subsequent saving throws to resist the effects of the disease depends on the disease inflicted...
This seems to imply that the saving throw for the ability only determines whether or not there's an incubation period for the disease, and the target is infected regardless of whether he saves or not. Is this correct?
Second, does this ability limit you to the diseases from the
Contagion list? It works
like the contagion spell, inflicting the disease
of her choice, so there's some ambiguity there.
It occurs to me that if they wanted Scabrous Touch to simply cast
Contagion, they would have just granted
Contagion as a Spell-Like Ability and mentioned that she can use Charnel Touch at the same time.
