Spawn of Kyuss vs. the Paladin

[Herremann the Wise]

This came up in our game yesterday and I thought it worthy of clarification.

A paladin is struck by a Spawn of Kyuss' natural attack; the spawn then as a free action transfers a worm from it's own body to that of the paladin.
The question is whether the Paladin's divine health protects him from the worm's attack?
On the surface it would seem not as this is a Create Spawn (Su) special attack/ability and not a disease.
However, a remove disease will kill the worm. Now, "logic" says that just because remove disease kills the worm, this does not automatically imply or infer that immunity to disease will nullify the worm too. Or does it?

Any thoughts on the matter would be most appreciated.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Cabled]

I'd probably let the paladin be protected from the worm infestation. As you note, there does seem to be some precedent for it with the Remove Disease killing the worm, and in my experience the paladin's disease immunity sees use so little that it's very nearly a nonability...diseases seem to be rare and mechanically they're about the least dangerous thing in the world.

I'm assuming this has come up in the Age of Worms...don't worry, there are plenty of other ways to kill paladins there besides a worm infestation

 

[Legildur]

There was a thread about this a couple of weeks ago. And it was in respect of Age of Worms.

 

[Nightfall]

Herr,

I'd actually let the worm by pass it since the infection isn't by disease per-se more like a parasite. Parasites can cause disease, but while remove disease can kill most anything, it's also good at removing most parasitic creatures.

Divine Health only works against most normal things.

 

[TimSmith]

In this thread http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/ageOfWorms/paladinsAndWormInfestation on the "Dungeon" message boards, James Jacobs (Adventure Path head honcho) says that in his opinion the worm infestation is not strictly avoided by the Paladin's immunity to disease. Of course, the Paladin can cure disease to remove the infestation.

However, James does state that he feels it wouldn't be a bad house rule to allow the Paladin's disease immunity to protect them, since it would make that ability useful for a change.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Thanks guys,

Just so you know where I'm coming from, It was in my Age of Worms campaign and it was the first time they had seen a Spawn of Kyuss (Favored Spawn of Kyuss Template from Dragon 336).

The two party fighters, wizard and cleric panicked from its aura, leaving the paladin and scout to fight it alone. The Paladin (assuming that the worms would not affect him) stayed with the scout to fight the spawn. Suffice to say, the Spawn ripped the two of them apart whilst the rest of the party were left cowering. Eventually, the rest of the party weighed in blasting the Favored Spawn with magic. Unfortunately, their former allies arose sending the fighters packing once more. With the cleric infected by a worm and the former allies/spawn now melted by the wizard's fireball, chaos ensued as he tried everything to remove the worm. Fortunately, he pulled out a remove disease which worked a treat.

Let's just say that I had several players saying afterwards that this was one of the most horrific encounters they had seen. There is genuine fear from the party in regards to meeting up with more spawn. However, the fact that remove disease actually killed the creature caused a little debate in regards to the Paladin's divine health. As far as I can judge, I think I ruled correctly in that the worm is not a disease and the intelligence damage is caused from the creature eating the victim's brain more so than through some sort of infection. These are the first PCs to go down in the Adventure Path so it really left an impression.


Best Regards
Herremann the Wise