D&D (2024) So how do you remove disease in 5E 2024?

[ECMO3]

Lesser Restoration in 5E 2014 reads: "You touch a creature and can end either one disease or one condition afflicting it. The condition can be blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned."

Lesser Restoration in 5E 2024 reads: "You touch a creature and end one condition on it: Blinded, Deafened, Paralyzed, or Poisoned."

So, RAW, there is no way to remove disease in 2024? ("Disease" is not listed in the Rules Glosssary in the 2024 PHB.)

I found some talk at DnD Beyond that suggests that "disease" is no longer a thing, and that creatures will be Poisoned instead.

This sure is bad news for any 2024 player encountering everything from the lowly Diseased Giant Rat to the mighty Aboleth from the 2014 monster manual... so much for "backwards compatibility"...

Yeah we have a diseased person in the party right now.

 

[Charlaquin]

Diseases were vestigial in 2014. They only existed because curing diseases has always been a thing paladins could do. But if there was a paladin in the party, diseases were trivial to cure. So, the entire exercise just felt like a weird pantomime where DMs were including diseases just to humor the Paladin player, and Paladin players were spending 5 points of Lay on Hands to cure diseases they knew only existed to humor them. By getting rid of diseases as a specific codified category of thing, we are free of that silly artifice. Now, diseases can still exist as bespoke game constructs that include their own rules for how they can be cured, and they can therefore always be as easy or as difficult to cure as the narrative demands.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

* What about when heroes or civilians are bitten by ghouls or rabid dogs?

House rule:

Lesser restauration: No magic infections are healed as if it was rolled a natural 20 in a Con save check.

If no-magic infectious pathogens can be cured by ordinary sanitary means then they can be healed by magic ways.



If it can be healed by an isekai doctor, then also by healing magic.

 

[Clint_L]

Diseases were vestigial in 2014. They only existed because curing diseases has always been a thing paladins could do. But if there was a paladin in the party, diseases were trivial to cure. So, the entire exercise just felt like a weird pantomime where DMs were including diseases just to humor the Paladin player, and Paladin players were spending 5 points of Lay on Hands to cure diseases they knew only existed to humor them. By getting rid of diseases as a specific codified category of thing, we are free of that silly artifice. Now, diseases can still exist as bespoke game constructs that include their own rules for how they can be cured, and they can therefore always be as easy or as difficult to cure as the narrative demands.

I agree with this. In our home game, a diseased party member drove a significant portion of the plot for almost a year, and the first thing they discovered was that it was not curable by the “conventional” methods. At my current school campaign, one player has written a disease into their backstory, and it will soon become a focal point of the campaign.

So with the 2014 rules, whenever you wanted a disease to matter, you just designed it so that lay on hands and restoration didn’t work because reasons, making cure disease into a ribbon ability. I suspect the 2024 DMG will instead address disease solely as a plot point, much like traps, etc.

 

[TiQuinn]

This is one of those things that they changed and I have no idea why. Does this somehow improve the game? Should anyone with any disease with an in game effect, even a mild one, really give you disadvantage on all checks and attacks? Ugh.

Disease is another area where (IMNSHO) 5e should have imported the 4e rules, which were cool, robust, and allowed for highly variable effects from different diseases. Instead we got a half-hearted version of the 3e rules (which were also fine, btw) and now even less differentiation than that.

I think this is a good point. If the goal was to streamline the rules, it may make sense but was this really an area calling for streamlining? Were gaming groups struggling with using disease in their game? As it is, they did take out a rule (so far) that DMs could use as another lever in their game.

But on the other hand, diseases were not a condition in 5e either. It is possible that they will make a return as specific abilities in the Monster Manual or they could show up in the DMG as hazards. In which case, it would seem that catching a disease is something that can’t be cured by a paladin or with a basic spell.

 

[xoth.publishing]

The DM's Toolbox preview video for the DMG 2024 mentions Sight Rot and other diseases, but it sounds like they have been included with curses. Perhaps they are now explicitly magical in nature and include information on how to cure them in their own descriptions.

Why does everything have to be magical? Sewer Plague, from the 2014 rules, is specifically nonmagical (and also includes a description on how to nonmagically recover from the disease).

 

[xoth.publishing]

Also, in the 2024 PHB, you can now drink an Antitoxin to negate the Poisoned condition for 1 hour. So just stack up on these and you are immune to disease...

 

[MarkB]

Also, in the 2024 PHB, you can now drink an Antitoxin to negate the Poisoned condition for 1 hour. So just stack up on these and you are immune to disease...

That's a pretty big stack, and are you going to hook up an IV when you go to sleep?

 

[Charlaquin]

Also, just addressing the elephant in the room: there was a disease-related global tragedy with an incredibly high death toll only a few years ago, the consequences of which are still being felt today. There’s a good chance that WotC and/or Hazbro wants to steer clear of the subject of disease for sensitivity reasons, and if that’s the case I can’t really say I blame them.

 

[xoth.publishing]

That's a pretty big stack, and are you going to hook up an IV when you go to sleep?

"The alchemist did mention that it would take several seasons for it to take effect.... regardless, I have loaded the rest of your prescription on that cart for you.... "