Cure Disease will KILL YOU TO DEATH!

[Jack Colby]

I absolutely love the way it works now. The threat of death makes it more exciting.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

True, but making it potentially life-threatening isn't a step in the right direction IMO. Why can't the ritual simply fail? or does something only matter when it can kill you?

The only way it would be life threatening would be if the disease itself is life threatening. You know what the level is right when you start the ritual. The only reason why a character would continue with the actual ritual knowing that there is a chance of death for the character would be if that is the only other option (at least I would think so).

 

[Boarstorm]

The physic exits the tent, eyes downcast. She approaches slowly, wearily. Grime mars one cheek.

"I'm sorry," she says at last. "There's nothing more we can do. He'll live... for the moment. But the disease remains. There is nothing more we can do for him. For some reason, the salve did nothing for him. I just don't understand it. The extract of adder venom has always worked before..."

 

[MerricB]

I love this change. It makes plagues possible. It mirrors what we've seen with a lot of fantasy fiction.

Quite simply, disease becomes relevant again.

Cheers!

 

[Lurker37]

As others have said, there's only danger if you attempt this ritual on an injured character, or if the ritualist knowingly continues to try to cure a disease beyond their skill.

As to how it can kill, a few ideas come to mind. One of the simplest is that the ritual accelerates the patients metabolic processes to burn the disease out. This results in dangerously high fever, rapid dehydration, wildly accelerated pulse and elevated blood pressure as the patient gasps for air their now oxygen-depleting blood requires.

So if all this isn't carefully managed (hence the need for Heal skill rather than Religion) the patient could end up unconscious, or even dead if the ritualist could not keep up with the fever etc. ( A foolish risk since they know as soon as they start the ritual if the symptoms would possibly get to that level of danger.) If, however, the patient was already in a weakened condition (i.e. less than full hit points) then even if the ritualist is up to the task the patient's weakened body may not cope with the stress, and they could expire.

That's just one way of visualising it. I'm sure there are plenty of others.

 

[CleverNickName]

Why?

Because it doesn't make sense to me.

(This is the point where the thread gets derailed in a realism vs. gamism argument, and everyone starts debating physics against imagination and forgets what we were discussing in the first place.)

I'd prefer that the ritual failed harmlessly, and those expensive components get used up in the attempt.

 

[Alkiera]

Heh.
Before we know very much:
"OMG, 4E is 2EZ. PCs have a million hp, godmode, and will never ever die!"

After we get actual rules:
"OMG, 4E is so harsh. I'm gonna house rule this so it's less painful, and make this easier, and not use that rule at all!"

lol @ teh internets.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

I can't believe no one mentioned the disease themselve by this point.

So we have a 16 wis ritual caster of level 6, trained in heal and with no special bonus (Can't say I'm min/maxing, here). He has +11 to heal. Minimum result 12.

Mummy Rot is Level 11. My example can't kill you while trying to heal mummy rot! Any disease that could kill you if this guy was your doctor would have to be worse. Something like Mindfire (level 16) or Hellfever (level 21).

Bottom line, cure disease might kill you only if you are afflicted by some really high fantasy version of the ebola!

 

[Korgoth]

I love this change. It makes plagues possible. It mirrors what we've seen with a lot of fantasy fiction.

Quite simply, disease becomes relevant again.

Cheers!

I agree.



As to the threat of death... the official WOTC excerpt says the following:

To perform a ritual that you have mastered, you spend a certain amount of time (specified in the ritual description) performing various actions appropriate to the ritual. The actions might include reading long passages out of the ritual book, scribing complex diagrams on the ground, burning special incense or sprinkling mystic reagents at appropriate times, or performing a long set of meticulous gestures. The specific activities required aren’t described in most ritual descriptions; they’re left to your imagination.

So maybe the ritual does involve trepanation, bleeding, excision or any of a number of things; maybe it even varies by the disease. Or maybe the ritual involves the caster having an out of body experience and throwing down with the possessing disease spirit. Maybe medicines have to be injected or administered... maybe some of them are volatile or potentially toxic. Green Dragon Brain Extract is touchy stuff... and don't even get me started on Dire Puffer Fish Toxin.

Also, it boggles my mind that people would complain about this. Now every town that has a 5th level cleric is not immune to my plague plotline. Win for the DM!

 

[CleverNickName]

So we have a 16 wis ritual caster of level 6, trained in heal and with no special bonus (Can't say I'm min/maxing, here). He has +11 to heal. Minimum result 12.

I'm curious how this will work for NPCs using the Cure Disease ritual. I don't have the books yet, so I can't look it up for myself. But I seem to remember a thread a while ago about an NPC priest using a ritual, without having any levels of cleric. Could someone with the books tell me if NPCs (and monsters) have an effective caster level for the purposes of completing rituals?

I hope so, anyway. Because otherwise, it wouldn't make much sense having a Healing Temple in town. If one of our third-level characters contracts lycanthropy, well...I'd hate for that to be a death sentence.