Interesting use of Disease mechanics

[unobserved]

Keith Baker posted an interesting "potential" use of disease mecahnics on his blog earlier today.

I say potential because he explicitly stated that he was just making up fluff off the top of his head to satisfy a question asked in the comments section of his blog.

Broken Arm
Level 12 disease
Special: Cannot be cured by the Cure Disease ritual
Endurance improve DC 28, Maintain DC 18

1. The victim is cured.

2. Initial Effect The target can make no use of the injured arm. This will prevent the use of a two-handed weapon or both weapon and shield. The character suffers a -1 penalty on Acrobatics, Athletics, and Thievery checks.

3. The infected break becomes painful. Increase the skill penalty to -2. The victim cannot use the arm.

4. Gangrene begins to set in. The victim cannot use the arm; increase the skill penalty to -4. The victim loses one healing surge that cannot be regained until he is cured; each subsequent failure causes an additional loss. If the victim begins the day with no healing surges, he dies.

Full post along with more detail description can be found here:
http://gloomforge.livejournal.com/11215.html#cutid1

Seems like this mechanic might be useful for a couple more things then just everyday run of the mill diseases, but could be dressed up many different ways.

 

[cdrcjsn]

a friend is considering using it for some taint/mutation thing for his warhammer campaign.

 

[unobserved]

i think it has great applications for:

- insanity
- lingering injuries
- addictions

 

[mattdm]

Hmmm. I'd like to hear a little bit more about why the "cure disease" ritual doesn't work.

 

[Khaim]

Hmmm. I'd like to hear a little bit more about why the "cure disease" ritual doesn't work.

Yeah, I'm not seeing the reason you can't heal broken limbs with ritual magic.

 

[WhatGravitas]

This disease mechanic is really, really fun! I like that much, much more than the 3E "take ability damage"-mechanic. Stands out as one of the best things in 4E for me!

Cheers, LT

 

[matthewseidl]

I'd be a bit scared if 'Cure Disease' could cure a broken arm. I'd be tempted to allow something like Cure Moderate Wounds to fix it though.

 

[Hand of Vecna]

Hmmm. I'd like to hear a little bit more about why the "cure disease" ritual doesn't work.

Because a broken arm isn't a disease (though it follows much the same mechanic)?

 

[unobserved]

Hmmm. I'd like to hear a little bit more about why the "cure disease" ritual doesn't work.

Not to put words in his mouth, but I believe there were a couple of flavor elements at play.

The characters who were at risk of being "afflicted" were part of a ship-wreck (I believe) so there was the potential (or at least desire) for an on-going semi-long-term effect that was unlikely (but possible) to get worse, but able to heal on it's own over time (thus the low maintain and high improve DC's for it's level)

In addition, the "disease" was posted in regards to the usefulness of House Jorasco's services in Eberron now that PC's have a much better ability to heal themselves.

For those of you unfamiliar with the setting Jorasco has a bit of a stranglehold on the healing for money business in most urban areas of Khorvaire (less so in rural areas). A "disease" like that would give reason for characters to visit House Jorasco enclaves for something other than a Cure Disease spell (thus maintaining the flavor of the organization as 1-stop-healers in a post 3e world).

The idea would be that the NPC's of the house would have a Ritual that *would* cure that "disease" specifically. One that might (or might not) be attainable by PC's.

Obviously it's not for every one or for every campaign, but given the off-the-cuff nature of it and the concept alone that the disease mechanics can exist for uses other than a regular disease and have cures outside of "cure disease" can allow for an interesting variety of options for DM's given enough creativity.

 

[FadedC]

I'd think at the very least a cure disease ritual should cure the infection and gangrene and put somebody back to the initial stage of the "disease".

Keep in mind too that once you hit the final stages of the disease you can no longer make checks to recover. There should be some way not to die if you get gangrene (preferably other then the traditional method........)