Diseases, Diseases, Diseases.

[Salbazier]

Perhaps because my first DnD game that last for a while (even if only for an encounter or two) is about disease and my also due to my fondness for medical drama, I have a sweet spot for diseases.

It's a particular grief to me that disease in DnD can be solved by a single spell. Oh sure containing plague is not that easy, but still. There are wealth of stories out there where disease and quest for cure is the driving point. That a single spell cure all disease, while not hamper the use of disease, simplify much of the complexity (and therefore story) that can be milked from it.

I do have to admit though, that it in turn force mind to get creative with disease.

Do you use diseases in your game? If yes, how and to what extent? What kind of disease? How did you treat Remove disease and the like? What kind of spin you implements to make diseases remain/more interesting? What do you think can be done to keep diseasea as a challenge for high level characters?

[dsmiles]

Certain diseases, such as Mummy Rot, Lycanthropy, and a couple from the BoVD (IIRC) can't be cured by Cure Disease. In 3.x, they're called "magical afflictions," but the premise is the same.

I don't, personally, use diseases all that much. Occasionally, a dire rat will give somebody filth fever, but their save would really have to suck for that.

[Dr Bwaa]

This thread had some fun starting points for disease-based campaigns. May be good inspiration, if nothing else.

[DabblerWizard]

In my last campaign, a short story arc concerned curing an aristocrat of a disease no clerics in the city could identify.

We were playing d&d 4e, and I took a literal stance on a piece of text that suggested knowing the name of the disease was crucial to curing it.

So the players went on a quest to find people who might have more knowledge about what caused the disease, and such. They were further inspired to find a cure when they realized the disease was being spread intentionally by such and such evil folks.

Eventually they found the cure and saved the day.

[Mordokai]

Heroes of Horror has some pointers for you.

You could always make Remove Disease hard to obtain. Removing it from a spell list and putting it in a form of item for players to find, with an appropriately hard quest.

[rayne_dragon]

Disease can be pretty cool, although it can also be rather irritating as a player. Sometimes you don't want your hero to suck because they have the sniffles. This is probably why there is a single cure-all spell in D&D. If you want things to be more realistic, then you either need to change the spell, use diseases that can't be affected by it (no reason a disease can't become magic-resistant just like they become drug resistant), or just be so prevailant that the cleric can't get enough castings of it off to be effective (think widespread plague). Just thinking about it has me want to use diseases more, although I like to make them avoidable by sensible characters. As in if you go walking through that mud that the local goblins are using as a latrine... be prepared to make one of more saves vs. disease. At the same time, you can make disease an important plot point without directly infecting the characters by having a whole town or kingdom, that the players feel the need to protect, be suffering from a massive outbreak and having them need to find a non-magical cure (or to eliminate its magical source) for it just because it's too widespread for cure disease fix everybody.

[Archwizard]

I killed a player with Mummy Rot. Twice. He later got Lycanthropy. Overall, it really wasn't his campaign (he got offed by a Bodak's gaze as well).

I intend to use disease a fair bit in 4E as I get ready to run a couple campaigns, because I actually really like the 4E mechanic for it.

[Funkyodor]

I ran a couple of PC's through a sewer adventure filled with rats, snakes, and oozes. All so they could sneak into a morturary and retrieve a cadaver before the city priest could speak with dead to it in the morning. After all was said and done, the nausea from crawling through a river of filth, and the derisive sneers from their bosses other NPC's (the PC's reeked to high heavens!), I had them roll saves vs. filth fever without telling them what they were really rolling for. They were convinced it was treasure or some such. Next adventure I described their symptoms and they had to hunt down their best chances to get it cured. I like 4th edition D&D's take on it. If the caster rolls low to cure the disease it can knock off alot of HP or possibly kill the recipient, incentive to find the best ritual caster even if it costs more. Maybe if they changed the 3.0/3.5 remove disease to be similar to a dispel check with a modifier based on Heal skill.

[LibraryOgre]

Solve it with evolution.

In some populations (of disease bacteria) there are those that had previously infected drow or other magic-resistant creatures. Since many bacteria pick up DNA from hosts, you might have a small portion of diseases that are magic-resistant. Since many people rely on magical treatment for disease, they are ravaged by disease that does not respond to magical treatment.

[Mastikator]

An airborne rapidly spreading disease with very long incubation time would hide under the radar.

A thing to keep in mind is that there is only so much remove disease per day to go around, certainly not everyone every day.

Something like the Ebola virus, it spreads to fast it's ridiculous, but make it have a long incubation time, and also spread via water and food and many other animals can be carriers. It would infect a lot of people, who then in turn infect more, but by the time symptoms start to crop up (and you can start to act) there's hundreds of thousands of infected people and you have nowhere NEAR that kind of magical firepower to cure.

Then there's magical afflictions, maybe something that can only be cured with a tear of a unicorn under the light of a fullmoon. Or something extremely specific like that.

[Odin the Ignoble]

I'd just run with the evolution idea. If there care antibiotic resistant bacteria in our world, there's no reason why certain contagions might not eventually gain a resistance to magical cures in a DnD setting.

[Arbane]

Disease can be pretty cool, although it can also be rather irritating as a player.

What are you talking about? NOTHING says "Epic Heroic Fantasy" like dying of dysentery!

:-P

[LibraryOgre]

What are you talking about? NOTHING says "Epic Heroic Fantasy" like dying of dysentery!

:-P

Even after 20+ years, the vast majority of my characters have died of dysentery.

[Archwizard]

Even after 20+ years, the vast majority of my characters have died of dysentery.

**** happens?

[LibraryOgre]

**** happens?

Life is tough on the 'trail. I lost a lot of good friends to dysentery, Indian attacks, and river crossings.

[RndmNumGen]

Life is tough on the 'trail. I lost a lot of good friends to dysentery, Indian attacks, and river crossings.

What about snakebites?

[ideasmith]

Nothing in the rules says that diseases can't have Spell Resistance.

[dsmiles]

**** happens?

With dysentery, quite literally.

[Yanagi]

Supplement germ theory with the old-school miasma theory of disease.

In a magic world you've got barely-detectable energies and emanations as part of the environment...just omnipresent...as well as purposeful creation of magic items, area blasted by magic warfare, et cetera. You could think of miasmas as a microscopic variant of the Eberron Living Spell...technically an organism, but without any of the material components. Either way magical disease might not fit within the healer's understanding of infection or epidemiology, and thus doesn't respond to the classic Remove Disease/Restoration chain of spells.

The tangential bonus is an excuse to dress like this
.

[Salbazier]

Should have responded earlier.

There was some nice suggestion there (and I don't know that magic resistant disease, aside from lycanthrophy which I don't consider as disease, is already exixt a rule, thanks). Yes, magic-resistant disease and patient outnumbering available spell slots is the most natural way to make diseases more relevant. I guess I was wondering if there was alternative to this idea, though evolution is nice way to explain the resistance.

I like the sentient disease in the linked thread (haven't read it tho). Totally makes sense if a disease have sentience (and sapience) it will try to avoid remove disease somehow.

Miasma theory... that's new. But it got me thinking, In DnD world what is causing the disease (germ or what?)

4e does seem to have more interesting mechanism for disease. I wonder if its good idea to port it to 3.5/PF. Starting from heal check becoming part of remove disease (and thus makes Heal also more relevant).

Another idea I just got: in of FR novels, there is this part where the king of Cormyr almost died because of a poison that mixed with some dead-magic-zone-inducing-material. Stealing this idea, germs with mini-AMF as SLA!

[Choco]

Nothing in the rules says that diseases can't have Spell Resistance.

I was just about to say that myself.

I am running a game now where disease is a big focus, for now at least. It is basically the cliche undead plague like in Warcraft 3, where it kills the host and shortly after death animates them as undead. This plague is also not curable by any means (that the PC's are aware of) short of divine intervention. So far they know it is being intentionally spread, and they also know that it is incomplete and so far does not have the ability to spread on its own. Whoever is spreading it needs to specifically create special carriers that can infect anyone that gets within a certain distance.

The problem for the PC's is that they don't know what these carriers look like, what they are disguised as, how to deal with them if encountered, etc. For all they know the zombie they are fighting now might be a carrier, or the refugee that is escaping the plague could be one too for that matter. This lack of knowledge, combined with them knowing there is no cure, has them in the perfect mindset: They are actually CAREFUL in how they proceed, cause they are paranoid about being infected themselves. They also know I don't shy away from killing PC's or outright TPK's

[Salbazier]

I was just about to say that myself.

I am running a game now where disease is a big focus, for now at least. It is basically the cliche undead plague like in Warcraft 3, where it kills the host and shortly after death animates them as undead. This plague is also not curable by any means (that the PC's are aware of) short of divine intervention. So far they know it is being intentionally spread, and they also know that it is incomplete and so far does not have the ability to spread on its own. Whoever is spreading it needs to specifically create special carriers that can infect anyone that gets within a certain distance.

The problem for the PC's is that they don't know what these carriers look like, what they are disguised as, how to deal with them if encountered, etc. For all they know the zombie they are fighting now might be a carrier, or the refugee that is escaping the plague could be one too for that matter. This lack of knowledge, combined with them knowing there is no cure, has them in the perfect mindset: They are actually CAREFUL in how they proceed, cause they are paranoid about being infected themselves. They also know I don't shy away from killing PC's or outright TPK's

Sounds like an interesting game.

[Ashram]

2nd level paladin was here. U mad, DM?

In seriousness, you should check out Spellblights, more or less diseases created by magic, in Pathfinder's Ultimate Magic book. Some of them are pretty cool and the major ones are really hard to get rid of.

[Salbazier]

2nd level paladin was here. U mad, DM?

Thousand of people dead already by the plague. Hundreds still was dying in agony. Each day their number increases by dozens. The morgues and the hospitals was overflowed. The sick and living both filled the streets. Meanwhile The Paladin, champion of Good and protector of the innocent alone was immune. He is still healthy and vigorous as normal, laboring each hour to help. Yet his labour are nothing but wasted. There were more sick than even a Chosen has power to cure. Even those that he can heal, they soon succumb again to sickness the very next day, so virulent was the disease. The Mighty Knight of the Divine had been reduced to powerlessness. No matter how he much he tried, nothing meaningful come from his effort. In the end, all he can do was watching as people suffer endlessly before they die horrendously, while he alone remained unharmed. Even the people do not have strength nor care to curse at this unfairness, so consumed by pain and despair they were.

In short, immunity to disease doesn't mean I can't torture him.

Haven't check Spellblight nor much of Ultimate magic yet, Since I'm all about pathfinder this days, I'll do so eventually.

[ericgrau]

At levels 4 and below they really, really suck. Digging up money for a remove disease becomes a challenge in itself. Mass plagues likewise are a threat at any level. At higher levels try magical diseases that are oddly enough just strong enough to pose a threat to the party while still being solvable. Feel free to invent them with cures of your own desire too. Just keep in mind the +2/-2 rule of thumb from the DMG: in awkward circumstances, just stick a +2 or -2 on die rolls or DCs. Or -4/+4ish to ability scores, which has the same effect on the modifier. More (+4/-4 perhaps) means you want to debilitate the PC more seriously, to the point where he has trouble contributing; i.e., use with caution or supply a backup character until he gets better.

Lyncanthropy is an example of an interesting affliction with highly specific methods of curing it once it's discovered. And it has explicit rules for handling the gimpness so that you know when it's time or not time to roll a new character. Or skill checks to keep it under control, etc.

[randomhero00]

I *hate* diseases. Real life and game. But I could see a disease plot. So long as it doesn't annoy the players too much.

[LibraryOgre]

Nothing in the rules says that diseases can't have Spell Resistance.

Yes, but the same can be argued about a dog and basketball.

Seriously, though, I recall one game where a plague was part of it. First thing the bad guys did was assassinate all the priests capable of casting Cure Disease.

[Captain Six]

Parasites can also work similar to diseases and are much harder to get rid of, no spell I know targets them.

It hasn't had a chance to come up in my game yet but the PCs have heard that if they go into the Marrowood(a forest made of bone) they should avoid having open wounds at all costs, the termites have adapted to the trees and learned to eat marrow. Especially dangerous as bonemites love to lay eggs in the bones of living creatures so their young will be carried to new territories. It's basically a death sentence unless you amputate.

A lot of the setting's nastier outsiders, such as demons, reproduce using soul-eating larva. They grant the mortal host tremendous power for a period but them slowly shuck out and replace the soul.

[The Glyphstone]

Life is tough on the 'trail. I lost a lot of good friends to dysentery, Indian attacks, and river crossings.

Clearly, you did not hunt enough buffalo.

[randomhero00]

Parasites can also work similar to diseases and are much harder to get rid of, no spell I know targets them.

It hasn't had a chance to come up in my game yet but the PCs have heard that if they go into the Marrowood(a forest made of bone) they should avoid having open wounds at all costs, the termites have adapted to the trees and learned to eat marrow. Especially dangerous as bonemites love to lay eggs in the bones of living creatures so their young will be carried to new territories. It's basically a death sentence unless you amputate.

A lot of the setting's nastier outsiders, such as demons, reproduce using soul-eating larva. They grant the mortal host tremendous power for a period but them slowly shuck out and replace the soul.

Oh man, the only thing I hate more than disease, and that gives me the hebejeebies is parasites. MAY THEY ALL DIE OFF IN A VERY PAINFUL MANNER! hehe