Cure Disease will KILL YOU TO DEATH!

[Mouseferatu]

Can I suggest the novel Dragon, by Steven Brust? In synopsis, the main character has to go to the underworld to retrieve the trapped soul of a friend's cousin. Hijinks ensue, topped off by a nice bit of ritual magic to get the characters home again.

Nitpick: You're thinking of Taltos. Dragon comes much later in the series, and is about the battle of Baritt's Tomb.

 

[Vorpal Sword]

Nitpick: You're thinking of Taltos. Dragon comes much later in the series, and is about the battle of Baritt's Tomb.

D'oh. That'll teach me to post on three hours of sleep...

 

[ForbidenMaster]

But from the common villager with a sick child's point of view, her choices are either (a) let her sick child die from the illness, (b) pay the village healer to kill her child before the illness can, or (c) do absolutely nothing and hope a hero walks into town.

There is nothing wrong with "c" of course, except that it puts my story on rails.

So pretty much like real life. If you dont find a competent healer then you are screwed unless you can overcome the disease yourself. Plus even if you find a good healer, he doesnt have to use cure disease. He can just sit there making heal checks every 18 hours in addition to your endurance checks, and a whole bunch of nurses assisting him giving the healer a up to a +8 bonus (assuming all the nurse succeed) in addition to his own stats for WIS, lvl, etc..

 

[Henry]

It wasn't that long ago, that simple spells like Haste had a chance of killing you outright instead of giving you the bonus they offered. I kinda miss that in my newfangled D&D...

...so a person can probably tell how I feel about this Cure Disease thing.

 

[FadedC]

Regarding why the spell would kill the target instead of failing, well if it failed you'd just try again. There is no limit to how often you can cast it, and the components aren't THAT expensive.

The death consequence allows you to justify needing to find a cure for the kings son, as opposed to just trying the ritual over and over until it works.

 

[Celebrim]

There isn't much of 4e that I just want to steal lock stock and barrel.

As soon as I saw the 'Cure Disease Ritual' I knew I had to adapt it to my game. I love it.

The thing that gets me about it is that it is completely tangential to to direction of most of the design in the game. For the most part the designers don't seem to care one whit about simulationist issues. And yet, here we have a ritual which basically serves to explain why disease is still feared in a world where miracles are common.

If I was going to run a 4e game, I'd take a page from 'Cure Disease' to modify 'Raise Dead' from its (I feel) lame incarnation. Rather than paying extra gold as you get higher and higher level, you have to 'fight death' for possession of the dead person's soul. Flub your heal check, and you can die too!

 

[FadedC]

Bleh. When the PCs want to Raise Dead I'm just going to force them to GO GET HIM in the Shadowfell. Before his soul fades away or is lost. I have maps drawn up (well, smallish map ideas mostly) for the first 3 deaths, as well as some encounter ideas. Make them go get the sucker.

After that gets old they'll make a contact in the Shadowfell, an ally, who will guide the dead soul back for them. When the ritual and everything else with it gets stale and we're working on other stuff and want to just gloss over it.

I like that idea, I think I'll yoink it but with a change to keep the player of the dead character from being bored while finishing up the current adventure and then doing the 2nd one.

Raise dead restores your body but not your soul. The raised character still functions, but has little personality and tends to barely communicate or show emotion. If the body isn't reunited with the soul via a trip to the shadowfell within X amount of time, the soul departs and the body dies again.

Paragon level characters tend to have their soul sent to the outer planes right away and as a result they require a more expensive ritual to return them to life (but without the shadowfell visit).