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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jfdlsjfd" data-source="post: 8201283" data-attributes="member: 42856">I think that examining the description of diseases themselves sheds some light on this topic, perhaps more than examining the curing spells. If disease had a biological origin, most disease would target a specific species. Diseases in RPG, for the sake of simplicity, generally are able to target any creature and cause similar effects and progression. This puts them more in a "spirit/magical" side than in the "biological side" in the first place. I'd also look at how the non-magical treatments work. In 4e D&D, IIRC, heal checks actually helped a lot (especially when several characters attempted it) to recover from a disease (so it hinted at a mundane origin, though we don't know the specific of the heal check, maybe it was chanting prayers to shoo the bad spirits away and not giving herbal remedies....) In 5e, the few examples given in the DMG all rely on the victim making CON saving throws. A doctor won't help you at all, unless he casts a spell. I know we have horrible depiction of the medieval doctors in our minds, and bleeding patients to death was probably not the brightest idea in many cases, but to make them totally irrelevant to curing disease seems excessive if dealing with biological disease. I'd say it entrenches 5e D&D diseases more into the supernatural side than it was in 4e.(BTW, I loved the RQ disease spirits).</blockquote>