Which 3.x spells can cure or "fix" (etc.) these conditions? Aside from Miracle/Wish

[Jon_Dahl]

Heart attack (will lead to death in a few minutes).
Cerebral infarction (fatal or nonfatal, but the timeframe is very limited in any case).
Down syndrome.
Cerebral palsy.
Depression.
Particularly dangerous breech birth.

For storytelling purposes, I will have an ancient dwarven cleric have a cerebral infarction and receive an important prophecy from his god at the same time. The PC clerics, levels 11 and 9, will rush to the scene first. I don't know which spells they will have selected, but I have to be ready to answer yes/no/maybe to plethora of "Will X work?" questions and, more importantly, know what will work and how. Most likely they will no applicable spells selected.

It would be great if you could add more conditions/diseases to this thread, we could go over them here.

[Gandariel]

My view: any heal spell should stop a heart attack.

I mean, when a monster hits you with his bite for 20+ damage he probably hit some internal organs, and heal spells do just fine at repairing those.
So, without steppibg too much into real life, i say stopping a heart attack is arguably simpler, and should be doable with even cure minor wounds.

As far as genetic diseases... Cure disease? Maybe you can say specific things have extra requirements (such as material components).

Otherwise, Regeneration should definitely be more than enough.

[Jon_Dahl]

So, without steppibg too much into real life, i say stopping a heart attack is arguably simpler, and should be doable with even cure minor wounds.
.

Wow, didn't see that one coming! Thank you, Gandariel, this thread got a great start.

[Fizban]

Heal, Limited Wish or Heart's Ease (BoED), Heal, Limited Wish or Heart's Ease, and probably Heal. Dunno what does the killing in a bad breech birth, but unless you've literally lost an organ Heal will pretty much cover everything and the only need to use Limited Wish or Heart's Ease is if you deem mental effects not specifically listed under Heal as requiring specialized spells.

[Sun Elemental]

Heart attack (will lead to death in a few minutes).

What Gandariel said.



Cerebral infarction (fatal or nonfatal, but the timeframe is very limited in any case).

Assuming brains are as delicate as hearts, same as heart attack.



Down syndrome.

Ohhh boy, this could be very politically incorrect. Assuming there is no morality regarding this, then anything that cures insanity would work. In 3.5 you'd need Greater Resto, Heal, or a Miracle/Wish.
I'm not saying people with Downs are insane.
I'm saying, powerful magic that can heal a dramatic mental illness like 'insanity' should be able to reverse the collective symptoms of a developmental disorder like Downs.



Cerebral palsy.

In 20s of googling, this appears to be a brain-based condition. So, same as Downs or Insanity.



Depression.

Kinda dark. Same as above.



Particularly dangerous breech birth.

For the mother, even easier than a heart attack. For the baby... make sure you can reach it with a finger for touch-based healing magic, because it could be suffocating.

Alternatively, make curative spells require an additional Heal, Spellcraft, caster level or Knowledge roll if it's an abstract or delicate, uh, operation. Like, open wounds are easier than curing something that's internal. (So crack open that skull to make removing insanity easier!)
Or mental conditions that are genetic are harder than ones coming from life, like PTSD.

But don't do this without warning your players. It's a jerk move to change rules mid-campaign.

I'm not even gonna talk about how the 'Insanity' condition is very unscientific. It's basically an extremely exaggerated psychotic break that triggers someone's fight/flight/cower responses. Maybe, I'm not an expert.



It would be great if you could add more conditions/diseases to this thread, we could go over them here.

OK, I'll be that guy that talks about using Cure Disease on AIDS.
Going RAW, it auto-succeeds in 3.5. In Pathfinder, you need to beat a CL check vs Disease save. The toughest Disease in the Core Handbook is Demon Fever at Fortitude 18, which should be beatable by anyone in time, considering AIDS takes years to kill. Unless you make AIDS something like Fortitude 30.
I hear Pathfinder recently put out their equivalent of Heroes of Horror, which has templates to put onto diseases themselves. Interesting if it's the focus of a campaign.

[Fizban]

For the mother, even easier than a heart attack. For the baby... make sure you can reach it with a finger for touch-based healing magic, because it could be suffocating.
Nothing stops suffocation/drowning except air (or a dedicated spell that makes you not need to breathe). Though depending on interpretation air might not stop that either, or you might need a cure after dropping to -1 even if you get air.

As for diseases, there are plenty of diseases in dnd that aren't curable without magic sufficiently advanced technology. They're incurable in real life because our magic isn't good enough yet.

[Zombimode]

In general, my approach would be to think about how to model the effects of the condition in D&D terms. If you have that, many questions regarding how to cure it will probably answer themselves.



Heart attack (will lead to death in a few minutes).

I have no idea how to model the effects of Heart Attacks in D&D, much less the cure.

Drowing sets your HP to zero, which means it can be cured by anything that restores HP. I would probaly handle heart attacks similar.


Cerebral infarction (fatal or nonfatal, but the timeframe is very limited in any case).

Maybe the same as heart attacks plus ability damage to mental abilities?


Down syndrome.

Messy. I usually assume that illnesses (mental or physical) simply do not work as they do in RealLife. Which is a reasonable assumption seeing that many other things work also differently.
Thus I usually tend to ignore "modern" mental illnesses and disorders and use archaic mental illnesses instead. Like "Insanity" or "Hysteria". If and how those can be cured depends on the instance in question.


Cerebral palsy.

I have no idea what this is. But I feel it falls in a similar category as Down syndrome.


Depression.

Would treat clinical depression as "Insanity".


Particularly dangerous breech birth.

Dunno, isn't that just HP damage?

[Beheld]

There is a spell called "HeartFreeze" that basically ices your heart and kills you in a couple round, it describes healing it like this:

"A character attempting to save the victim of a heartfreeze spell must use a healing spell or effect on the victim as well as succeed on a DC 26 caster level check, otherwise the victim will succumb to the heartfreeze and die."

I could see something like that, a caster level check (of much lower DC) on your healing spell to cure a natural heart attack.

[flappeercraft]

Heart attack (will lead to death in a few minutes).
Cerebral infarction (fatal or nonfatal, but the timeframe is very limited in any case).
Down syndrome.
Cerebral palsy.
Depression.
Particularly dangerous breech birth.

For storytelling purposes, I will have an ancient dwarven cleric have a cerebral infarction and receive an important prophecy from his god at the same time. The PC clerics, levels 11 and 9, will rush to the scene first. I don't know which spells they will have selected, but I have to be ready to answer yes/no/maybe to plethora of "Will X work?" questions and, more importantly, know what will work and how. Most likely they will no applicable spells selected.

It would be great if you could add more conditions/diseases to this thread, we could go over them here.

I would rule that Cerebral Infraction and Cerebral Palsy could be healed by Regenerate and Cerebral infraction any cure spell and heal also. Deppression probably something like Calm emotions could work as an anti deppresant and Down syndrome by Heal and Greater Rest and similar effects taht remove most conditions.

[ExLibrisMortis]

None of these are game-defined conditions, so it's hard to tell you which spells solves what. Heart attacks, Down syndrome, etcetera - they are all fluff/IC, and they can be mapped to various conditions (e.g. heart attack makes you staggered) or flaws/templates (homebrew Down syndrome template). The question then becomes: what mapping are you using?

Especially when it comes to matters like Down syndrome, you're looking at template-altering wish or miracle. For things that cause game-defined conditions, panacea or heal will be sufficient.