Being a better Medic?

[Delta_tea]

I'm currently running a level 6 Cleric. One of my buddies got bit by a werewolf during a fight. Immediately after the fight I did a Heal skill check and rolled 30+ something. DM says my character doesn't see anything wrong. Then 24 hours later my buddy starts "feeling bad" and takes stat damage. Recalling the fight from yesterday and knowing that werewolves have a disease, I cast Remove Disease on him. DM, "what's your caster level 6?" "Yes." "Nothing happens"... So now I'm really confused...

Per SRD:


Treat Disease
To treat a disease means to tend a single diseased character. Every time he or she makes a saving throw against disease effects, you make a Heal check. The diseased character uses your check result or his or her saving throw, whichever is higher.
Treat Disease: DC = Disease's save DC


Ok so a few questions:
1) Did I do my initial Heal check wrong? Per the description it sounds like I could make the DC save for him.

2) Detecting nothing wrong with a high Heal check has me really confused. Is there something else I should be doing to "detect" if something is wrong before things get bad? I would image being able to see puncture wounds and knowing the signs of an infection. But apparently that didn't happen. Clerics in 3.5 don't seem to have access to actual spells for this sort of thing:

Detect Disease (OA) - doesn't seem to exist for Clerics, Shaman 0 spell
Diagnose Disease - PF material

3) My DM said Disease is magic in nature so Heal Skill won't having effect on it. Ok, so this must be a case of specific over broad, because Treat Disease above doesn't distinguish between magic and nature disease. DM also mentioned that Heal skill doesn't work on any magical diseases. Which again conflicts what the broad description above. Is there something somewhere that says in general Heal doesn't work on magic diseases? If so, its use as a skill gets even worse than it already is.

4) I guess the Disease DC is caster level dependent since Remove Disease didn't take care of it. Any other suggestions on how to help purge it?


Thanks!

[mattie_p]

Stat damage implies that something complicated might be going on. But the entry on curing Lycanthropy reads as follows.

"
A remove disease or heal spell cast by a cleric of 12th level or higher also cures the affliction, provided the character receives the spell within three days of the lycanthrope’s attack."

[Maat Mons]

The entry for curing lycanthropy seems to suggest that belladonna is needed for a Heal check to be helpful. Personally, I think your character should have been given some sort of skill check to determine if he was aware of this.

In any case, if it's been more than three days, all you can do now is hit him with Remove Curse. You'll have to wait for a full moon, and it might take more than one casting.

[Delta_tea]

Stat damage implies that something complicated might be going on. But the entry on curing Lycanthropy reads as follows.

"
A remove disease or heal spell cast by a cleric of 12th level or higher also cures the affliction, provided the character receives the spell within three days of the lycanthrope’s attack."

Oh, that explains why Remove Disease didn't do anything. After reading the Lycanthropy entry in the SRD, it sounds like I need to just spam Remove Curse until my buddy gets the DC 20 Will save. It's the first night of the full moon. So I have 2 more days to get this off of him by the sounds of it.

Buffs to help with the wisdom saving throw:

Guidance 0, lasts for 1 attempt, +1 competence bonus on single saving throw
Resistance 0, lasts 1 minute, +1 resistance bonus on saves
Twilight Luck 1, lasts 6 minutes, +1 luck bonus to all saving throws He already has Prayer (luck bonus) for +1 on all saves
Conviction 1, lasts 6 minutes, +3 morale bonus to all saving throws
Owl's Wisdom 2, lasts 6 hours, adds 1d4+1 wisdom, enhancement bonus



So that should net him at least a +7 on his wisdom saving throw.

I'm still confused on how I'm supposed to know what this disease is if Heal check doesn't help me identify it...

[mattie_p]

Yeah, unfortunately the heal skill as written doesn't do diagnosis. What the DM could have done, and maybe they would still allow you, is to roll a knowledge check against the creatures type. Assuming it's a humanoid werewolf it would be Know:Local. That might give your character insight into the nature of the disease (or really curse).

Lycanthropy doesn't come with stat damage though, so as I said there might be something else going on in addition to the Lycanthropy.

It could also be a storyline event with a plot driven remedy.

[Delta_tea]

Yeah, unfortunately the heal skill as written doesn't do diagnosis. What the DM could have done, and maybe they would still allow you, is to roll a knowledge check against the creatures type. Assuming it's a humanoid werewolf it would be Know:Local. That might give your character insight into the nature of the disease (or really curse).

Lycanthropy doesn't come with stat damage though, so as I said there might be something else going on in addition to the Lycanthropy.

It could also be a storyline event with a plot driven remedy.

That's very possible. Just hard to be a swiss army knife when I don't know what I'm dealing with. Guess I'll just have to wait until next session to see where this goes.

[SangoProduction]

I say, "ask the DM if your character would know (at least the concept) of lycanthropy as common knowledge)."

And then when you do that, ask if you can make other checks to have heard of rememdies, or related stories.

Know(local) for local folklore, and know(religion) for related mythology based around lycanthropy
know(nature) because I think it's the associated knowledge, Oh, and it handles herbalism
heal for rumors you heard about hypothetical cures to supernatural illnesses in your line of work
craft(alchemy) for knowing of the chemical properties of many plants, including potentially belladona
Gather Information / Diplomacy for trying to specifically hunt for rumors from the populace that will assist you, or to attempt to pull your connections to connections to connections to someone who met someone who may have seen someone who cured a lycanthrope with root beer.


And so on and so forth. Just come up with a good justification for your desired check, and I would allow you to attempt it.

[Fizban]

I'm currently running a level 6 Cleric. One of my buddies got bit by a werewolf during a fight. Immediately after the fight I did a Heal skill check and rolled 30+ something. DM says my character doesn't see anything wrong.
As has been noted, the Heal skill does not do diagnoses. Unless you've got a splat that says it does. It comes up frequently in 3rd party books and in individual adventures, but I don't think there's a general WotC splatbook that specifically adds diagnostic ability to the Heal skil. . .

Aha! Defenders of the Faith actually does specify "forensics" as an option, determining cause of death (no listed DCs) . But yeah, I can't think of any official disease diagnoses. You generally learn you're sick when the DM tells you you're sick and have taken ability damage.

Then 24 hours later my buddy starts "feeling bad" and takes stat damage. Recalling the fight from yesterday and knowing that werewolves have a disease, I cast Remove Disease on him. DM, "what's your caster level 6?" "Yes." "Nothing happens"... So now I'm really confused...
Lycanthropy doesn't act like a curse or disease even if those spells are involved in removing it- it's just got its own rules.


Ok so a few questions:
1) [B]Did I do my initial Heal check wrong? Per the description it sounds like I could make the DC save for him.
"Treating a disease or tending a creature wounded by a spike growth or spike stones spell takes 10 minutes of work." If you said you were treating for disease, then you would get to substitute the heal check, but otherwise you don't. It sounds like you did the classic "roll and ask the DM what happens," which relies on the DM then checking the skill and interpreting your desire and running it as the appropriate action. Which for some DMs will mean that you're not actually doing anything since you didn't specifically call an allowed action.


2) Detecting nothing wrong with a high Heal check has me really confused. Is there something else I should be doing to "detect" if something is wrong before things get bad? I would image being able to see puncture wounds and knowing the signs of an infection. But apparently that didn't happen. Clerics in 3.5 don't seem to have access to actual spells for this sort of thing:

Detect Disease (OA) - doesn't seem to exist for Clerics, Shaman 0 spell
Diagnose Disease - PF material
I'd virtually guarantee the SpC team would have added it to the Cleric list (and tried to reduce the level below 0th or something), but OA is not on the book's list of sources.


3) My DM said Disease is magic in nature so Heal Skill won't having effect on it. Ok, so this must be a case of specific over broad, because Treat Disease above doesn't distinguish between magic and nature disease. DM also mentioned that Heal skill doesn't work on any magical diseases. Which again conflicts what the broad description above. Is there something somewhere that says in general Heal doesn't work on magic diseases? If so, its use as a skill gets even worse than it already is.
Your DM is incorrect: the Heal skill works on any disease, even if it's magical, unless the disease itself specifically says that the Heal skill doesn't work for some reason. If the disease can only be removed magically (no number of saves/heal checks allows a character to recover), then the Heal skill is unable to "remove" it, but can still halts its effects indefinitely with sufficient skill (as can a 1st level spell from BoVD).

Lycanthropy however, is not actually a disease. Your DM is correct that the Heal skill does nothing for it.


4) I guess the Disease DC is caster level dependent since Remove Disease didn't take care of it. Any other suggestions on how to help purge it?

As noted, the rules for Lycanthropy do call for Remove Disease at a particular caster level. In addition, several supernatural diseases or disease-like effects such as Mummy Rot will require you to roll a caster level check when applying the appropriate spell, and curses often require a certain minimum caster level in order to remove them.

All of that said: Lycanthropy doesn't cause ability damage, so you've got two completely separate things going on. Wererats usually cause Filth Fever, but either the DM added a disease to these werewolves, or the presumed disease may be completely unrelated. You cast Remove Disease and they checked your caster level since it did regard lycanthropy, but you may have also wiped out a normal disease that caused the stat damage.


I say, "ask the DM if your character would know (at least the concept) of lycanthropy as common knowledge)."
Looking at the three options in detail, the results are rather interesting:

Eating belladona immediately is the sort of thing you have to know to be prepared for and is something anyone can do-it's something the characters should know beforehand, or should probably be available as part of the major basics of lycanthropy if you know what one is since its one of the things people would most care to know.
Having a 12th level caster on hand within 3 days happens only if the party is sufficiently high level, making it so that past a certain point lycanthropy is no significant danger, or if the party is already right on top of a sufficiently large city. This allows the DM to potentially use lycanthropes risk-free at the right location, but is still very limiting.
But then the last one takes most of that danger away: if lycanthropy is known as a "curse," it's one of the most obvious things to try, remove the curse. With a 3rd level spell in reach of all but the smallest towns. And it can be repeated an unlimited number of times, and allows any available saving throw powers. The only real threats are potentially being unable to contain the transformed creature, and that extra little clause that says you have to make progressively higher saves to avoid taking the designated alignment*.


So the scariest thing about lycanthropy has nothing to do with removing it, it's that it has a forced alignment change (which implies loss of character control).

*Though an alignment change doesn't actually mean the person would want to remain a lycanthrope- the most effective way to embrace your new evil would be to help yourself get cured (rather than choose to fail the save, which you can do to make it impossible to cure you), and then go about your business.

Except being evil doesn't actually mean randomly slaughtering or deciding you don't love your loved ones anymore- that's entirely on the tiny stunted mention of "feels an overwhelming rage building up," and the existing tropes. And said "overwhelming rage" is explicitly called out as what triggers the Control Shape check, but nothing else.

So really, you could run the werewolf rules as written and all that happens is now the character is significantly less scrupulous about the well-being of others and has hard to control shapeshifting powers. "Dave used to be all sunshine but he got a lot meaner after we fought those wolves in the forest, must have scared him something fierce. Still no one else I'd rather have at my back though, he's my best mate and tough as nails."

[ShurikVch]

There (http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/cov/vehlarr_05.htm) we can see the Detect Lycanthrope and Protection from Lycanthropy spells
(It's not a homebrew - it's quote from 2E source)