D&D General Diabetes in dnd

[Piperken]

"Sigh... hand me my exorcism kit. Rognar has demons in his bowels again."

Then we need an archetype that's all about (im)balancing the humours, and maybe a Discworld-style retrophrenologist.

"Take this. A far superior relic to that old jelly you were chained too. Try it on for size. And, erm, it was... very nice to have met you...Terribly sorry, my friend... Ta." -- Volo, shortly before fleeing camp after performing eye surgery on you, Baldur's Gate 3

 

[tetrasodium]

Gosh, I would hope the technological landscape that enables genetically modified humans to photosynthesize would also enable said humans to avoid hyperglysemic shock from all of the sugars produced. Maybe just stick your arm out in the sunlight every ten minutes. Or, maybe not every skin cell is photosynthetic, maybe just 1 in every 100,000.

Iirc the scene involved a lot of explaining to the cryopod guy who couldn't do it to justify to viewers why the others needed to strip for maximum exposure to the stars and that opened the door to actually mathing it. The photosynthesizing thing isn't their primary energy source, just some kind of energy thing

 

[James Gasik]

Having Type 2 myself, I once wrote a fantasy story about a character from our world who ended up in a D&D-a-like setting. They were really worried about not having insulin, but then were handed a magic item that protected them from disease and were over the moon, while their new adventurer friends were like "yeah, it was just sitting in our handy haversack for a few months, you're welcome to it".

Needless to say, the protagonist thought his new friends had very skewed priorities.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I agree with @Dannyalcatraz.

People keep overselling the healing spells but by raw they only heal injury, disease and specific conditions, there is nothing in them that says they correct genetic variations (eg wearing spectacles) or lifestyle choices (eg addiction)

RAW doesn't really define whether genetics exist, or virus or bacteria, and that might really depend on yours setting. I think if it requires 20th or 21st century knowledge to distinguish it further, we should just treat it as a "disease".

I think one could make a case for something like shizophrenia or PTSD to not be treatable with Remove Disease, because medieval and fantasy people probably would think of this is some problem with the mind or soul and not of physical causes, even though through our knowledge of brain chemistry, hormones and what not we might now have drugs to treat something like that, in addition to psychological therapies.

But maybe it should be wholly setting-dependent. I could see that in the Witcher Universe, where people know about mutations and genetics and I think even atoms, such distinctions might be possibly and made. But mabe that's not a setting I'd try to emulate with D&D.

 

[Clint_L]

If a player wants to work diabetes management into their character, I'm definitely not going to tell them "no, a cleric or paladin just cures it." I'm presuming that this is important to them - maybe they manage it IRL and want to bring that experience into their fantasy world. For example, I had a student, partially reliant on a wheelchair, who desired to make a character who used a wheelchair (she was delighted when I was able to find a miniature for her). I wouldn't even bother coming up with an excuse for why a cleric hadn't cured it or whatever, I would just say "cool" and let them get on with it.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

RAW doesn't really define whether genetics exist, or virus or bacteria, and that might really depend on yours setting. I think if it requires 20th or 21st century knowledge to distinguish it further, we should just treat it as a "disease".

I think one could make a case for something like shizophrenia or PTSD to not be treatable with Remove Disease, because medieval and fantasy people probably would think of this is some problem with the mind or soul and not of physical causes, even though through our knowledge of brain chemistry, hormones and what not we might now have drugs to treat something like that, in addition to psychological therapies.

But maybe it should be wholly setting-dependent. I could see that in the Witcher Universe, where people know about mutations and genetics and I think even atoms, such distinctions might be possibly and made. But mabe that's not a setting I'd try to emulate with D&D.

Hell Yeah!

My fantasy world doesn't even have atoms. That pesky idea just crushes fantasy.