Cure Disease will KILL YOU TO DEATH!

[hong]

But from the common villager with a sick child's point of view, her choices are either (a) let her sick child die from the illness, (b) pay the village healer to kill her child before the illness can, or (c) do absolutely nothing and hope a hero walks into town.

Hello. Stop being ridiculous. ThaADVANCEnks.

 

[divinenathanica]

I saw the move Pathfinder yesterday, and it gave me a good way of thinking about this cure disease ritual - and healing rituals in general.

Viking-born, native raised protagonist gets an arrow to his back while fleeing from the viking 'dragonmen' (another thing I found interesting, and made me think about running a 'human' only campaign, but keeping the races more as races instead of species), and eventually he is discovered by a medicine man. There is plenty rubbing of the mystic salve (tm), some chanting, a girl playing a tambourine like drum.

Then the medicine man blows some smoke into the face of the young viking-born.

After the ceremony, the medicine man says that the ritual was taxing, or that he had to rest.

I think rituals might seem better if they worked like that, than if we shift our doctor paradigm to fantasy past.

 

[Stormtalon]

"I might kill whoever you wanted me to miracle."

Princess Bride quotes make every thread better!

I'll even add to it:

"The chocolate coating makes it go down easier."

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But from the common villager with a sick child's point of view, her choices are either (a) let her sick child die from the illness, (b) pay the village healer to kill her child before the illness can, or (c) do absolutely nothing and hope a hero walks into town.

There is nothing wrong with "c" of course, except that it puts my story on rails.

(b) will only be true for sufficient high levels of disease and sufficiently bad healers. Most of the time, they'll just injure the kid so it needs a day of bed rest.

The question is, what kind of story do you want to tell?
- The story where no one can heal the poor child? Then pick a high level disease not even the heroes (at their current level) can hope to heal.
- The story where the village healer heals the child? (But maybe needs assistance from the Heroes to get the supplies for the ritual). Pick a low level disease (or provide a high level healer)
- The story where only the PCs can heal the story. Then use a disease around the level or lower then the PCs.

 

[Keenath]

Just draw a star and activate your Healing Touch.

 

[Bagpuss]

What did cure disease ever do, to deserve such a beating from the nerf stick?

Completely remove having disease as a plot element in an adventure?

 

[Ashardalon]

ThaADVANCEnks.

Advance in thanks? Is that some kind of military bluff?

Anyway, it more or less takes a bumbling fool of a healer to outright kill the patient. I suppose it might be a problem if you use minions and/or "monsters die at 0 hp" outside of combat. I don't think you're supposed to do that, though.

 

[ExploderWizard]

For crying out loud, go read the preview again. The only way to die from Cure Disease is if you're already bloodied and the cleric rolls seriously, seriously bad. The danger of character death is instantly averted if you heal the patient's hit points before you go for the disease.

Or just have the patient take a 6 hour nap before applying the cure and its all good.

 

[med stud]

But from the common villager with a sick child's point of view, her choices are either (a) let her sick child die from the illness, (b) pay the village healer to kill her child before the illness can, or (c) do absolutely nothing and hope a hero walks into town.

There is nothing wrong with "c" of course, except that it puts my story on rails.

IF the village healer is amazingly incompetent. Those are the odds for many treatments used in modern medical care; surgery is associated with small risks in all cases and some kinds of surgery is risky. Medical treatments are generally less dramatic but they also carry risks. Despite that, people tend to go the doctor when they are ill

 

[CleverNickName]

Hello. Stop being ridiculous. ThaADVANCEnks.

Will do...sorry if I made a nuisance of myself.

Enjoy your game.