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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 3685353" data-attributes="member: 9254">I never understood why anyone thinks that D&D magic would stop the Black Death.  Let's start with the bubonic variant of Plague being carried by infected fleas within wool or other textiles that has an onset time of 6 days.    Town size is 500.Day 1.  fabric arrives at the weaver/tailor/etc.   One of the weaver's sons that unloaded the material becomes infected immediately.  Day 2.  infected fleas begin spreading and encounter the dogDay 3.  infected fleas continue to spread and infect the catDay 4   the weaver's son and the cat begin infecting the household flea populationDay 5   every person in the household has been exposed, assume 1-2 more have been infectedDay 6   those infected spread the infection through town by either leaving infected fleas behind or infecting the fleas that bite them.  Day 7   The weaver's son develops the first symptoms and becomes contagious via contact.    There's a 10% chance that the weaver's son will hide the fact or ignore the symptoms.  Let's say he goes public.  The house is immediately quarantined.  Any goods sold by them are burned.  Riders are sent out to nearby villages to provide warning.    Odds are poor there's a priest who can cure disease by bog-standard D&D but go with it and say there's a 6th level priest who can cast 2 Remove Disease's day.  He RD's the son and probably the sickliest person in the house as a preventative measure.   Odds are 100 people in town have been exposed to the plague through goods sold, visiting the weavers, or running into them at the market, church, or ale house.   The priest prays over those who have been near the weavers and gets lucky, providing a boost to saves so only 25 of those exposed become infected. Day 8.  The priest fires off 1 more RD on the household and dumps another on himself to be safe.  Day 9   the cat shows symptoms and is killed.  The priest puts an RD on the two people with the most contact with the weavers.   Day 10  Two more priests come into town and begin to share the RDs around, by chance reducing the total infected to 20.   Those 20 infected begin to share it via infected fleas, likely exposing another 100 despite containment efforts (households are likely 4+ people).  Day 12 & 13 the priests hold small ceremonies to pray over the townsfolk and again manage to cut the infection rate in half so that only another 25 are infected.Day 14  The infected 20 become symptomatic.   Quarantines are enacted and all but 6 of the infected are quarantined.   They expose another 100 of the town to the disease, again only 25 are infected.  Day 15  The priests RD 6 of the symptomatic, cutting the symptomatic down to 14.  Day 16  The infected 25 from day 12 become symptomatic (total 39).  The priests RD 6 of them (total 33).   Day 17  5 people die (1% population).  Priests RD 6 more leaving 28 symptomatic.  Day 18  5 people die (10 total).  Priests RD 6 more leaving 17 symptomatic.  Day 19 5 people die (15 total).  Priests RD 6 more leaving 6 symptomaticDay 20  3 people die (18 total).  The 25 infected on day 14 become symptomatic and have exposed another 50 people (people are getting paranoid) with 13 infected. Priests RD 6.  22 are symptomatic.Day 21.  The priests RD 3 people plus themselves leaving 19 symptomatic.  Day 22   Priests RD 6 more leaving 16 symptomaticDay 23   7 die (25 total)  Priests RD 6 more leaving 3 symptomaticDay 24  1 die (26 total), priests RD remainder of symptomaticDay 25  Priests RD themselves and the weakest people in town who have the most exposure, curing 1 of those infected on day 20 by chance.  Day 26 12 infected on day 20 become symptomatic.  At this point the priests can quickly kill off the plague.  But we've got 26 dead out of 500 (5% mortality) under the lucky circumstances of having a priest onsite with RD, two more able to be requested and arrive in 3 days, and the improbable circumstance of not being reinfected by the fleas in the house or on the animals in town.  As the population increases the impact of the priests' drop quickly until mass heal becomes available.  Even that becomes moot with a very long incubation period (10-14 days) that would allow for rapid dispersal of the disease beyond the ability of the high level priests to cope with.  The only real advantage D&D magic provides is the possibility of some divination providing warning of the disease prior to a full blow outbreak.</blockquote>

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