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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 6308341" data-attributes="member: 1165">This is hugely edition-dependent. In 4e, Cure Disease is a ritual that costs components, and also requires a Heal check that can damage or even kill the recipient on a failed skill check. In 4e, a noble family might have an item that can cast that ritual once per day (there's no official item like that, but I think that's reasonable) and if there's a big epidemic going around, could make offerings to get rituals to perform it a few more times. Or just hire a confessor, and pay the extra service charge.In 3e, it's pretty easy. Every church probably has a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, and as far as I can tell even a 1st-level cleric can use it, despite not having the skill to cast the spell themselves. Noble families probably keep a few potions in stock (provided you don't have to choose the disease ahead of time). Still, a typical village might have a single 4th-level cleric and 2 2nd-level clerics, which isn't that many clerics and not that many Cure Disease spells (in fact none, since none of those clerics can cast 3rd-level spells). I think epidemics might be controllable, but pandemics would still sweep nations. The nobles would be more likely to survive, of course.Note that even in 3e, spells cost money (per spellcasting services rules), but good-aligned clerics would probably cast Cure Disease for free during an epidemic, and evil clerics would jack up the price. (So NPCs go to the good temples first, then the neutral, then the evil... That's actually a great way to recruit the poor if you're an evil cleric.)And what effect do diseases have on PCs? IMO, diseases should only be a threat to PCs if it's plot-relevant. Diptheria is the kind of disease that was common, but to a PC that's just flavor text. Even smallpox, with a 50% death rate, is probably killing off 60% of the 1st-level commoners, with Fort DCs of only 13 or so. An outbreak of the Black Death is plot-relevant, and so is facing new diseases when visiting the fantasy tropics for the first time. I wouldn't expect most real-life diseases to lay PCs low unless you're running a very grim-and-gritty campaign.</blockquote>

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