Help me build my DM toolbox...Limits on healers

Perhaps it was that second glass of tempranillo while watching NOVA online, but I got a yen to add a scenario to my DM toolbox--a thing I toy with from time to time on the off chance that I might actually DM a game.

A piece on baumanii/Iraqibacter got me thinking about a scenario that runs ike this: An evil deity tricks a more chaotic(to use 3e terms) deity into allowing a new disease to evolve (to put it in 21st century terms)--perhaps because the populace is deemed soft or inattentive, and "the only constant is change" needs to be relearned. This disease rises to pandemic levels; its spread is furthered by war. So how many remove disease rituals can a single healer cast in a day? Or, to put it another way, how long before a Spanish Flu pandemic situation could be created in a series of towns/cities? When are the riots in the streets to begin? How about the scapegoating of suspect races/occupations? How long before a theocracy's hold on power is undermined?

I'm thinking this could become a high level (possibly epic) skill challenge. Consult histories, then sages or deities to learn how to stop the disease, and how the whole mess got started. Enlist the help of the tricked deity or an exarch to help the races survive. Forge alliances between warring cities/nations/races to implement the preventative measures needed to stop the spread of the disease (think of the merchants who would need convincing to curtail their travels and stop spreading the contagion--the Black Death comes to mind).

Thanks in advance for your input.

First off, that idea gave me goosebumps..

you don't need to worry about the crunchies when it comes to plagues. You could simply have the disease be born in smaller thorps and villages, possibly by the followers of this CE diety poisoning water supplies and the like, and then, by the time the villagers were fleeing to the larger cities to requesition help, it'd likely be too late.

Nothing like contagious refugees flocking to populated areas to catch goodie clerics off-guard.

And again, love your idea.

In addition to what Master Kaul said, consider the cost of using a remove disease ritual. If you're using 4E (which I'm assuming because of the reference to rituals), then most places and people aren't going to have the resources to cleanse as many people as could be infected by such a plague. This is assuming they have a nearby ritual caster to begin with.

So yeah, just make the plague and don't worry about it. Also, I like the skill challenge idea. Something like the PCs make one or two checks per session, and they have to make like 20 in order to succeed?

~

Paizo's "Seven Days to the Grave" takes a real long look on how disease can spread in a fantasy setting where there are clerics who can cast "Remove Disease".

One of the ways is simple: The clerics get infected. They have to spend time and resources removing it from themselves several times because they are exposed to the sick.

Another is snake oil salesmen selling "false" cures. And agents who intentionally spread the disease (multiple cults or followers of evil gods would have reason to do this, as would profiteers, and some monsters).

Many thanks

...for the feedback. Lots of food for thought. /dry handwash of evil glee