Does Affliction with Immunity (Disease) cure disease?

[GodBeastX]

Considering diseases have a design behind them it's not as simple as yes or no.

For example, if the disease is spread through blood contact and someone is covered in infected blood with immunity active, the disease is present on their person, it just can't affect that individual.

As soon as immunity wore off, they would be infected.

That being said, I would say that damage from a disease is done. Like if vampirism is spread by disease, and you get immunity to vampirism placed on you, I doubt it stops you from being a vampire. However, it might. Look at Blade movie where vampires could be "Cured."

Though they might revert soon after. I think the "Power Modifier" would take that into account?

Or if a disease causes heart failure. Making yourself immune to the disease effects and rolls would not undo the heart failure that came from it.

That being said, this is HIGHLY Rule 0.

[Anthony]

Immunity will cause you to succeed at all rolls to resist the disease, which for typical disease rules will mean you'll recover given time.

[weby]

Originally Posted by CeeDub

No penalties on the IQ for wounds, brutal penalties for disease. I know that GURPS abilities are not priced for utility, but it seems a little unbalanced to me.

In practice it tends to be the opposite at least in campaigns were I have been involved in.

Note that a common cold is listed at +1, that would make most normal diseases be fairly close to 0 and you generally only want to use such once/target or maximally once/day if they get it again so there is no cumulative penalty normally, thus you get the normal +1 to -3 or so

But healing wounds can easily happen way more than once/day in a typical adventuring scenario and thus the penalties get really high, I have seen many cases of trying it at -9/-12 and few of -15...

[PK]

Originally Posted by CeeDub

Assuming the build is correct, this would, on a successful Will roll, bestow immunity to disease upon the target for a number of minutes equal to the margin of success.

The question is, does the disease return when that time has expired (i.e. the disease is only "paused") or does the target stay cured until he catches the disease again (or another one)?

This came up when writing GURPS Psionic Powers (Disease Shield, p. 48) and is thus answered there. If the disease is resistible and the protection lasts for at least one of the diseases cycles, it's treated as an automatically successful HT roll to throw off the disease. Otherwise, it's merely suppressed for the duration.

[Kromm]

If a player came to me with this, I'd probably rule as follows: "The pathogen is gone, ending future fatigue, injury, and symptoms, but there would be no effect on existing fatigue, injury, and symptoms."

To me, Immunity to Disease for a living organism suggests an immune system capable of stopping pathogens cold. If someone suddenly gained that amazing capability, I'd be fine with letting it work in minutes. Unrealistic? Being totally immune isn't realistic, so we have no idea how such an immune system would work. A weird ability that makes somebody totally immune is if anything less realistic, and might well be explained as "summoning a perfect immune response at the site of each and every hostile microbe in their body."

Is this better than Healing (Disease Only, -40%) [18]? Sort of. Healing has the scary IQ penalties and FP costs . . . but it also cures the disease in full. You end up symptom-free and healthy, because Healing regenerates the body. Affliction 1 (HT; Advantage, Immunity to Disease, +100%) [20] costs only a bit more and evades the huge penalties and costs, but I wouldn't let it do anything about symptoms – the sick person would still be sick, just not diseased. You'd still need something like Healing (Cure Affliction, +60%) [48] or Healing (Affliction Only, -40%) [18] to clean up after it.

If that seems too generous, I'd suggest simply tacking on Cosmic, Lingering special effect, +100% – or even Extended Duration, Permanent, +150%, and declaring the "reasonable set of conditions that will dispel the effect" to be the end of the disease (which happens directly). That would add 10-15 points to the Affliction cost, which I think is more than enough for game balance.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Bruno

My first question to a player coming up with this build, is why aren't they using Healing instead? Since it actually does the job, and all, unambiguously, in one swell foop.
If they need a ranged cure disease, you can make it Ranged (with the so-named enhancement).

People hate Healing...so very very much.

[CeeDub]

Originally Posted by Kromm

If a player came to me with this, I'd probably rule as follows: "The pathogen is gone, ending future fatigue, injury, and symptoms, but there would be no effect on existing fatigue, injury, and symptoms."

Yup, that's exactly the effect I was going for. Thank you!

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

People hate Healing...so very very much.

I wonder if anyone's compiled a list of (dis)advantages that no one ever uses.
I know everyone pretends that Weak Arms doesn't exist when writing up centaur designs, for example.

[CeeDub]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

People hate Healing...so very very much.

Don't get me wrong, I love Healing. I love that it exists in the first place and I'm very happy with the mechanics for healing injuries. It's just that it gets nearly impossible to use when you try it on a "bad" (-15) disease. The IQ roll is pretty much impossible and even if you make it, spending 30 FP all at once will probably kill you, or very nearly.

I get that you're not supposed to be able to run around the oncology ward, playfully poking people in the ribs and curing their cancer for only 24 CP, but it's comparatively easy to make really serious and life-threatening injuries go poof! with just a few FP.

Maybe it's just me. Anyway, I now have two, possibly three, Kromm-approved alternatives that I'm very happy with. Thank you very much, again!

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I wonder if anyone's compiled a list of (dis)advantages that no one ever uses.
I know everyone pretends that Weak Arms doesn't exist when writing up centaur designs, for example.

Long Arms, for a 2 armed species. Oy. We've cut the cost in half, removed the damage adjustment, and added a note to buy some Arm ST if it seems appropriate.