D&D 5E Can a Paladin Cure Addiction?

[doctorbadwolf]

Can you back up your claim that in 5e addiction would have a DC or not? These evasions are tiresome.

Do you even know what the word “would” means, Max?

You can’t give examples of a “would”. “Would” explicitly precludes making a statement about the extant nature of a thing.

Seriously, what conversation are you even having, because it seems to be with yourself and I’m a bit tired of being dragged into it.

 

[Maxperson]

You'd think that it would be more sensible to go through the DMG and all the monster sourcebooks, see that all the examples of disease given involve CON saving throws and physical effects ranging from status effects to HP loss to HP max reduction to disadvantage on ability checks to gaining levels of exhaustion to having a Slaad tadpole eat its way out of your chest, and that purely mental effects are relegated to the realm of madness, charm effects, and fear effects no matter their relation to real-world counterparts of those things, and use those existing trends to draw an inference from there; than to engage in pointless pedantry and wringing your hands over definition of terms.

You'd also think that a thread focused on speculating on how to model mental illness in 5e would focus on 5e, not go in real-world tangents that just might not be relevant to 5e game design.

He'd rather twist and evade, than acknowledge the overwhelming evidence in 5e that is against him and the zero evidence that supports him.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

He'd rather twist and evade, than acknowledge the overwhelming evidence in 5e that is against him and the zero evidence that supports him.

Your engagement in this thread is genuinely one of the weirdest things I’ve witnessed on enworld. I can’t fathom what you even think is happening in this thread. It’s...bizarre.

 

[Maxperson]

You asked a question. "Can a paladin cure addiction?" The answer is very simply, no. The evidence is overwhelmingly against it being a disease, with zero evidence to support it being a disease. If you want paladins to be able to cure disease, just make a house rule allowing it to happen.

 

[Azzy]

The real world is irrelevant here. We are talking about 5e.

I'm not sure how to respond to this other than to laugh.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not sure how to respond to this other than to laugh.

How are real world diseases which act very differently from 5e diseases relevant?

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Its pretty obvious that "disease" (the way the designers meant that word as can easily be seen by decades of content and listed examples) was meant in the classic "illness by infectious contagion" sense of the word.

 

[Azzy]

How are real world diseases which act very differently from 5e diseases relevant?

Reality informs how we play the game whether we choose to hew closely to reality or to veer away from it—it's a starting point for everybody because we all live in Reality Land(TM). Just because 5e doesn't give an example for something (and 5e is all about rulings, not rules—so there is a lot of empty space in the rules) doesn't mean that something doesn't and can't exist. 5e doesn't have rules for everything, least of all something that can be as offputing as addiction.

I mean, if you don't want paladins to cure addictions in your game, that's entirely your right. However, arguing that it can't happen by the rules because the rules don't explicitly cover it (in a rules-lite system) or arguing that that reality can't be used to adjudicate an issue where the rules are silent is not very rational.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You asked a question. "Can a paladin cure addiction?" The answer is very simply, no. The evidence is overwhelmingly against it being a disease, with zero evidence to support it being a disease. If you want paladins to be able to cure disease, just make a house rule allowing it to happen.

Examples aren’t rules, bud. There isn’t an actual answer.

Everyone but you understands the thread.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Its pretty obvious that "disease" (the way the designers meant that word as can easily be seen by decades of content and listed examples) was meant in the classic "illness by infectious contagion" sense of the word.

Adding to my previous post id like to say that if anything the people engaging in serious relocation of goal posts and doing so just by holding their position (not normally possible but it is the case here) are those who are holding to the premise that alcoholism is a disease. By certain standards it is. But its a clear expansion on the original intended qualifiers.