D&D 5E Can a Paladin Cure Addiction?

[Man in the Funny Hat]

If it's a disease, by any definition, can a paladin simply cure it?

ANY definition? No. But if it's a disease by the GAME'S definition, then yes.

If so, if a Paladin can cure a disease that is at least partly psychological, can they cure disorders that we don't define as diseases, in the modern world?

Again, define it as a disease FOR THE GAME RULES and it can be cured. What it is defined as in the real world is irrelevant.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

ANY definition? No. But if it's a disease by the GAME'S definition, then yes.

Again, define it as a disease FOR THE GAME RULES and it can be cured. What it is defined as in the real world is irrelevant.

Does 5e have a strictly defined set of parameters that determine what a disease is? I rather doubt it, given how 5e is written. Instead, I’m 99% sure the DM has to do some amount of personal decision making using their own judgement.

 

[Salthorae]

Or, would you argue that it can't even cure chronic diseases that are unambiguously physical?

I would say that a Paladin (or anyone with curative magics) can remove the physical effects of addiction or withdrawl, but probably not the mental craving.

The question of chronic diseases is an interesting one. Heart disease for instance. Would a cure spell wipe out the plaque in people's arteries? Would it heal the body's insulin production levels for a diabetic? The fiction of D&D presents us with fat/overweight people, but we rarely dive into the real implications of that. I.e. Mirt the Moneylender is grossly overweight but is still a capable fighter in the fiction we see.

No one dies of heart attacks in D&D fiction/lore do they? Or cancer? Something I never thought about.

Secondary consideration, what can or cannot be detected by Detect Poison and Disease?

I'd think that any drug would be detectable by this spell, even alcohol is poisonous to the body really. I don't think it'd pick up purely mental disorders or things like "addiction", though as I said before I think curative magics WOULD heal the physical symptoms of addiction.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Does 5e have a strictly defined set of parameters that determine what a disease is? I rather doubt it, given how 5e is written. Instead, I’m 99% sure the DM has to do some amount of personal decision making using their own judgement.

It is not strictly defined, no. However, the description and sample diseases that the Standard Rules describe, lead to an interpretation that Lesser Restoration only works on contagions, like fever or the flu. It even says that more complicated and dangerous diseases may not be cured by Lesser Restoration.

I think you may have a better argument for curing Madness, which the rules say;

A Calm Emotions spell can suppress the Effects of madness, while a Lesser Restoration spell can rid a character of a short-term or long-term madness. Depending on the source of the madness, Remove Curse or dispel evil might also prove effective. A Greater Restoration spell or more powerful magic is required to rid a character of indefinite madness.

I would argue that Greater Restoration could cure some like Addiction/Depression permanently (which as others have said, is partly genetic). A Lesser Restoration should only work as a treatment plan, much like medication if used sparingly.

 

[uzirath]

The question of chronic diseases is an interesting one. Heart disease for instance. Would a cure spell wipe out the plaque in people's arteries? Would it heal the body's insulin production levels for a diabetic? The fiction of D&D presents us with fat/overweight people, but we rarely dive into the real implications of that. I.e. Mirt the Moneylender is grossly overweight but is still a capable fighter in the fiction we see.

No one dies of heart attacks in D&D fiction/lore do they? Or cancer? Something I never thought about.

This is intriguing. We know that in a typical D&D milieu, humans are mortal and thus die. Some editions of the game have included life expectancy charts for humans and other races. (I don't recall, off hand, if 5e has this somewhere); human lifespans have never seemed particularly unusual. Typical D&D humans seem to do better than real world medieval Europeans, but not noticeably better than folks in modern industrialized nations. Yet, in the real world, to die of "old age" is usually to succumb to disease or have an accident (see, for example, Do People Really Die of Old Age?). If the complete cessation of illness were trivial, you'd expect life expectancy to go up quite a bit.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I would say that a Paladin (or anyone with curative magics) can remove the physical effects of addiction or withdrawl, but probably not the mental craving.

The question of chronic diseases is an interesting one. Heart disease for instance. Would a cure spell wipe out the plaque in people's arteries? Would it heal the body's insulin production levels for a diabetic? The fiction of D&D presents us with fat/overweight people, but we rarely dive into the real implications of that. I.e. Mirt the Moneylender is grossly overweight but is still a capable fighter in the fiction we see.

No one dies of heart attacks in D&D fiction/lore do they? Or cancer? Something I never thought about.



I'd think that any drug would be detectable by this spell, even alcohol is poisonous to the body really. I don't think it'd pick up purely mental disorders or things like "addiction", though as I said before I think curative magics WOULD heal the physical symptoms of addiction.

To be fair, something like cancer, while known in medieval times, was not even close to effectively treated (believe it or not, blood-letting and laxatives do not cure cancer). So most people just died of it, and I'm pretty certain even doctors didn't refer to the death as "died of cancer," as they didn't really know what cancer even was. The idea of what cells were didn't emerge until the 19th century.

Anyway, heart attacks/cancer probably do happen in D&D, they just don't call them that. These are fairly modern terms.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I would say that a Paladin (or anyone with curative magics) can remove the physical effects of addiction or withdrawl, but probably not the mental craving.

OTOH, for chemical addiction, the craving is partly physical. The disease has rewritten how your body processes certain chemicals.

The question of chronic diseases is an interesting one. Heart disease for instance. Would a cure spell wipe out the plaque in people's arteries? Would it heal the body's insulin production levels for a diabetic? The fiction of D&D presents us with fat/overweight people, but we rarely dive into the real implications of that. I.e. Mirt the Moneylender is grossly overweight but is still a capable fighter in the fiction we see.

No one dies of heart attacks in D&D fiction/lore do they? Or cancer? Something I never thought about.

Exactly, and what about diseases like diabetes, which are caused by an organ malfunctioning?



[/quote]I'd think that any drug would be detectable by this spell, even alcohol is poisonous to the body really. I don't think it'd pick up purely mental disorders or things like "addiction", though as I said before I think curative magics WOULD heal the physical symptoms of addiction.
[/QUOTE]
See, I’d think that anything that can be cured by an effect that cures disease could be detected by magic as well.

 

[Salthorae]

See, I’d think that anything that can be cured by an effect that cures disease

I'd not thought about Lesser Restoration/Restoration in terms of the curing/restorative magics, I know I know.

The restoration strain of spells can cure madnesses of different levels. But can they... uff.

D&D rules don't do a good job, and I'm not necessarily arguing they should, of delineating types of mental issues. It doesn't need to be that granular, but it makes discussions like this hard.

 

[the Jester]

Assume, for the purpose of this discussion, that addiction is not just a failure of character, or a personal weakness, or whatever other anti-junky argument one might think to make, and instead that addiction is some manner of affliction upon a person.

If it's a disease, by any definition, can a paladin simply cure it?

If you start by defining it as a disease, then of course!

The question is in your underlying assumption. Is addiction a 'disease' in the sense you are assuming? I'd say a better angle to approach this from (as a DM) is, "Do I want cure disease to fix addiction?" If so, sure, it's a disease. If not.... then it isn't.

If so, if a Paladin can cure a disease that is at least partly psychological, can they cure disorders that we don't define as diseases, in the modern world? Can they cure ADHD? What about Anti-Social Personality Disorder (Psychopathy/Sociopathy), or Schizophrenia?

Insanity/madness has long required other approaches than cure disease in D&D. And I think that's good. Nor do I think cure disease effects ought to do anything to congenital 'diseases'.

Now, these things aren't diseases in the modern definition, and it's dangerous to classify them as such, because of how humans have treated eachother when mental disorders and the like are defined as diseases, curses, or the like, but I think there's a decent argument that since we know that mental health is physical health, meaning a mental disorder is a physical disorder whose symptoms effect the operation of the mind, and since some mental health issues can be gained due to environmental and experiential factors, such as Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD, we can conclude that Lay On Hands should be capable of genuinely curing these disorders.

Or, would you argue that it can't even cure chronic diseases that are unambiguously physical?

It depends. Leprosy? Sure, that's subject to a cure disease effect. But something you're born with, that we would consider a genetic issue, e.g. Down's syndrome? Sorry, you're out of luck.

A lot of this boils down to, "Just how powerful do I want cure disease to be?" I would argue that it's a low-level effect and should be treated as such. I'd also argue that you're trying to pour way too much modern thinking/knowledge onto D&D.

 

[the Jester]

No one dies of heart attacks in D&D fiction/lore do they? Or cancer? Something I never thought about.

Spoilers for DragonLance novels:

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure Flint, from the OG DragonLance trilogy, dies of a heart attack.