4e Cure Disease badly worded/overpowered

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by bocephus

See I would rule that Cure disease has no effect on either Scurvy or Beriberi.
If I (as GM) was being as specific as choosing an actual condition that the PCs would be expected to deal with as a simulation, this would require the introduction of the missing vitamin/mineral.

You can't "remove the cause" of the condition, the problem is arguably that the removal has already happened and only the introduction of the appropriate material would fix it.

So would I, and for the same reason; you can't claim that Cure Disease would "cure" starvation or dehydration either.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Me being firmly in the "magic has rules, it's not just a handwave" camp, I've given a good bit of thought to the spell.

I'm in a similar camp, but I also firmly support Kromm's ruling that "Cure Disease cures whatever ailments the GM allows it to cure."

In a relatively light-hearted DF campaign, Cure Disease should be a one-stop cure for just about any nasty bug one acquires while adventuring. In a grimdark Low Fantasy setting, where life is nasty, brutish, and typically ends with a wheezing death rattle, it should be useless against really vicious plagues.

As written, the two big play balance features of the spell are its one-shot nature and its long casting time.

The easiest way to play balance it by campaign is to borrow the rules from the Healing advantage (which inexplicably is never referenced for any of the Healing College spells), basing casting cost and skill penalty on the severity of the disease to be cured.

If the GM wants curing chronic ailments like diabetes or AIDS to be the stuff of miracles, just assign a -15 skill penalty and a 30 FP energy cost.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

I'

The easiest way to play balance it by campaign is to borrow the rules from the Healing advantage (which inexplicably is never referenced for any of the Healing College spells), .

The Spells predate the Advantage and some of us have never been that impressed with the mechanics of the Advantage.

Then of course, this whole thread started with Maxiamra noting what he thought was an undesirable change in 4e rules.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The Spells predate the Advantage and some of us have never been that impressed with the mechanics of the Advantage.

Then of course, this whole thread started with Maxiamra noting what he thought was an undesirable change in 4e rules.

Not so much undesirable change but really poor wording. Take the Black Death for example — we now know it was actually three related diseases: Bubonic, Pneumonic, and Septicaemic plague. Even GURPS itself (Bio-Tech) recognizes two parts of it:

*Bubonic Plague: Blood (insect borne); HT-2 to resist (critical failure results in pneumonic plague); 1d+1 day delay; 1d-2 toxic damage; six-hour cycle with 12 cycles; Mildly contagious (highly contagious if the flea-borne vector is not understood and precautions taken)
*Pneumonic plague: Respiratory; HT-6 to resist; 1d/2+1 day delay; 1d toxic damage; 12-hour cycle with 12 cycles; Highly contagious

But for many people it was a single disease — Black Death. Does knowing more about the Black Death make Cure Disease less effective?!

For those of you with a more alchemist bent and don't want Clerics running around curing everything from colds to cancer, Isekai Yakkyoku (Parallel World Pharmacy) is an interesting take. — While there is magic in abundance Healing is strictly alchemic in nature.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by maximara

Not so much undesirable change but really poor wording. T.

You do not find "really poor wording" undesirable?

[StevenH]

Originally Posted by Witchking

At some point...someone will try it. Casting Cost 15 or 20 points is low enough that it would happen. It would take either someone who has the spells or someone with silly money but even the random organ method would eventually work.

Cast. Wait a month for results. If necessary Cast again. Repeat as necessary.

The symptoms are quite noticeable but I would figure you would get 18 to 24 attempts minimum (i.e. 1 1/2 to 2 years) before you would likely lose the patient.

People with money do silly things...

The question is whether it got written down/survived in oral tradition.

* cough cough Alchemical Aperitifs cough cough*

With the spell Body-Reading, getting information about this kind of experiment isn't terribly difficult. It's a truly useful spell that can give a mage/researcher a lot of good information.

I'm surprised, tbh, that Body-Reading isn't a prereq for most Healing spells...after all, how do you know how to direct the magic to do the healing? Does the mana know to fix that hole, but not that one? Does casting a Healing spell negate the weight training workout you did earlier?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by maximara

But for many people it was a single disease — Black Death. Does knowing more about the Black Death make Cure Disease less effective?!

That's largely wrong. All of these are caused by the same organism, the gram negative coccobacillus Yersinia pestis, just infecting different parts of your body. Cases can morph from one to the other as different tissues get infected (and in fact usually has to in order to kill you, the rare infection that stays confined to the lymph nodes, the classical bubonic form, is rarely fatal)

Still it does get at the difference between the spells indirectly. A spell designed to cure a "disease" with a particular set of symptoms - i.e. a subset of the 4th edition spell, would presumably only work on only one of them, but might work on similar diseases that happened to have the same symptoms (pneumonic plague for example has pretty much identical symptoms to a dozen other kinds of pneumonias). while one that was a subset of the 3rd edition version, that targeted a particular organism, would work on any of them, but not touch an identical appearing disease that actually [was] caused by heathens poisoning the wells.

[sir_pudding]

Yeah, it's interesting in retrospect that the 3e version, as written, is literally useless except in rationalized settings like Yrth where germ theory is true. This makes it obvious why it was made more generic in 4e.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You do not find "really poor wording" undesirable?

"undesirable change" is not the same as "really poor wording".

I like the changes done with Partially Limited Magery ("Limited Magery 0"?) in GURPS Thaumatology pg 20 but the main text is so badly worded that it is best to use the examples which overrule the examples given in the Basic Set.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by malloyd

That's largely wrong. All of these are caused by the same organism, the gram negative coccobacillus Yersinia pestis, just infecting different parts of your body. Cases can morph from one to the other as different tissues get infected (and in fact usually has to in order to kill you, the rare infection that stays confined to the lymph nodes, the classical bubonic form, is rarely fatal)

Still it does get at the difference between the spells indirectly. A spell designed to cure a "disease" with a particular set of symptoms - i.e. a subset of the 4th edition spell, would presumably only work on only one of them, but might work on similar diseases that happened to have the same symptoms (pneumonic plague for example has pretty much identical symptoms to a dozen other kinds of pneumonias). while one that was a subset of the 3rd edition version, that targeted a particular organism, would work on any of them, but not touch an identical appearing disease that actually [was] caused by heathens poisoning the wells.

An interesting book is Plagues and Peoples (1976) by William H. McNeill which goes into how diseases change over time.

What was called Leprosy in ancient times is not the disease we know by that name. Ancient leprosy caused scabs and crusts on the skin, leaft white patches (similar to vitiligo) on the skin, turned hair white, and caused bald spots.

Another weird disease is the "English Sweats" (1485 to 1551) — theories aobund as to what it really was. Some have suggested a variant of Scarlet Fever (which many of its symptoms resembled) while others suggest a hantavirus or some variant of anthrax.

I should mention that in very early versions of D&D (which heavily inspired Dungeon Fantasy) limited Cure Disease to "those (diseases) of a parasitic, bacterial, or viral nature" (PHB 1e pg 47)