4e Cure Disease badly worded/overpowered

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by maximara

The way Cure Disease is set up in 4e as written it would seem to be a great way to cure scurvy or beriberi neither of which is the result of a microbe or virus.

While true, I'm not sure that it matters or makes it particularly more potent than it already was.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

While true, I'm not sure that it matters or makes it particularly more potent than it already was.

Not so much as long as the GM gets to decide what counts as "disease". "He's sick with excessive hit points and high combat ability! I cure him." needs to be avoided, but otherwise I think it's fine. It's not like there aren't saints whose reputation is built on miraculous cures for cancer or epilepsy or impotence or some other organic malfunction.

And too in a lot of settings, diseases are *never* caused by micro-organisms. They're the result of unbalanced humors, witches curses, the weight of past sin, failure to observe taboo, bad air, or accumulated microtoxins. Whatever writeup you use, you need to be careful it doesn't specify the mechanism of disease too closely.

I'd note too that more than a few diseases have changed "cause" to something infectious in my lifetime - ranging from ulcers to cervical cancer - so there's always a risk if you say no that next year....

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by maximara

I was looking through 4e Cure Disease and realized just how badly worded/overpowered it is.

"Eliminates one type of disease ''or'' infection from the body of the subject."

The classic version was saner: "Eliminates all disease, plague, or infection microorganisms of one chosen type from the body of the subject. (...) If no organism is responsible, the spell has no effect!"

Made a blunder and can only correct it in post:
Should read:

The way Cure Disease is set up in 4e as written it would seem to be a great way to cure scurvy or beriberi neither of which is the result of a microbe or virus.

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.

I see "Cure Disease" as a removal of whats causing the condition, there is nothing in the spell which indicates that it has any kind of additive effect.

[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 maximara

The classic version was saner: "Eliminates all disease, plague, or infection microorganisms of one chosen type from the body of the subject. (...) If no organism is responsible, the spell has no effect!"

This isn't much better than the 4e wording, since "plague" can represent a host of ailments and "organism" can represent the subject. Thus, you could count arthritis as a "plague" caused by an "organism" (misguided immune system cells) produced by the subject.

The 4E wording allows for the possibility of curing magically-induced disease, which a magical Cure Disease spell should definitely be able to do.

Given that the odds of an important NPC, much less a PC, in a fantasy game will be stricken by a dietary deficiency are almost nil, it's a trivial increase in spell power to allow Cure Disease to heal such ailments.

It's slightly more unbalancing if the GM allows Cure Disease to cure chronic or terminal conditions, since that makes it a cheap version of Wish or Resurrection.

The quick house rule to fix this problem is to narrow the definition of "disease." The slightly more complex way to handle the problem is to import the mechanics from the Healing advantage, which give a penalty to cure really nasty problems.

Making the point cost of Cure Disease variable would also be a nice bit of play balance. It should cost less energy to cure a 24-hour virus which causes the sniffles than Stage 4 metastatic bone cancer.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

It's slightly more unbalancing if the GM allows Cure Disease to cure chronic or terminal conditions, since that makes it a cheap version of Wish or Resurrection.

As far as I'm concerned, if a character with a disease represented by one or more Disadvantages tries to cheese points by just using Cure Disease, they'll at most stave things off for a short period of time before the condition returns. Or they'll be affected by something else that has the same effect or at least total point value. At least until they save up the points to get rid of the Disadvantages.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

This isn't much better than the 4e wording, since "plague" can represent a host of ailments and "organism" can represent the subject. Thus, you could count arthritis as a "plague" caused by an "organism" (misguided immune system cells) produced by the subject.

Viruses are some what similar in that they hijack a cell and with no cells to hijack they just sit there.

Undead microbes would be a terror as would MR microbes and Viruses.

[RGTraynor]

Beyond that, look. While GURPS is far better at this than most games (in so far that non-adventuring spells actually do exist), the magic system's design still revolves around adventuring/non-adventuring paradigms. A spell that puts hit points of damage on a target gets three paragraphs and can be cast in a second or two. Cure Disease gets three sentences and takes ten freaking minutes to cast. And if the authors devoted enough space to spell out all the complexities of Cure Disease, we all know there would've been many protests: "Who the eff cares whether Cure Disease can handle beriberi or not? Is that useful in a dungeon?"

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've houseruled the casting time down twentyfold, and that it won't work on viral diseases (short of criticals) ... TL4 (or 5) just has no notion of a virus.

But even with that, there's been chalktalking. One of my longtime players has been seriously diabetic (as in dialysis as a teenager) his whole life, and I've been myself the last decade. But "eliminate" the diabetes all you want, it's not the result of an infection, it's the result of the pancreas no longer producing enough insulin OR the body's cells no longer processing insulin properly. Are such metabolic disorders susceptible to Cure Disease?

My houserule is "no." It can repair the retinal damage, fix the neuropathy ... but the risk factors? My coming down with diabetes was always a possibility: my family's riddled with it, and more than one has died early from it. What safed the bet with me was when my joints broke down to the point I couldn't do combat LARPing any more, or the six hours of fight practice I was doing a week at age 42 to keep up with my juniors, and I put on 40 pounds in a year. Cure Disease isn't going to bring me back down to fighting weight.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

But "eliminate" the diabetes all you want, it's not the result of an infection, it's the result of the pancreas no longer producing enough insulin OR the body's cells no longer processing insulin properly. Are such metabolic disorders susceptible to Cure Disease?

My take on something chronic is Cure Disease might work fine now, but it's a temporary solution. Nothing after all stops you from being reinfected with even an infectious disease you've been cured of. With the causative factor still being there your lack of ease it comes back in the usual time it takes for that agent to make you uncomfortable. I might even consider letting you Cure Disease to hold your breath another interval or not die of dehydration today.

[sir_pudding]

There are also no mechanics for nutritional deficiencies, as far as I know. There are mechanics for infections and communicable diseases. I believe Radiation damage is the only mechanical way to get cancer in GURPS.