Spell resistant diseases

[Thurbane]

I'm just curious on how people feel about various natural deseases evolving Spell Resistance in response to various healing spells.

In the "real world", many bacteria do a pretty good job of becoming resistant to antibiotics, and was wondering how a fantasy equivalent might play out?

 

[Vorput]

Heh, that's actually a really cool idea...

I wouldn't make it too common, but the occasional strain (or even just one strain) that's resistant to remove disease would be sort of a cool problem for the PCs to solve...

 

[I'm A Banana]

It was a stupendous idea when Nyambe introduced me to it.

I adopted the rule and haven't looked back. Similarly, I've given SR to poisons and curses. I don't like a "magical off switch." Give those powers a fighting chance.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wouldn't make them immune except maybe once for a major plot reason. But I like them having SR.

 

[Thurbane]

It was a stupendous idea when Nyambe introduced me to it.

I adopted the rule and haven't looked back. Similarly, I've given SR to poisons and curses. I don't like a "magical off switch." Give those powers a fighting chance.

Nyambe? Is there a rule for this someplace?

 

[Arkhandus]

Nope. Only magical diseases of significant power or insidiousness (like demonic plagues) should have any chance of that happening. Natural stuff will not.

And how would it evolve a resistance anyway if a Remove Disease spell wipes it out from a person's system? It's not like any of that stuff is going to survive the divine purging. Natural diseases only evolve resistances because they spend a while in the host's system before it uses antibodies or the like to fight off the disease. So it eventually adapts to the antibodies.

But magical disease-removal is rather more sudden and drastic; I'd only see a resistance build up, even in magical diseases, if the disease were magically engineered to do so (and engineered to be highly resistant in the first place, not to the point of actually having SR, but to the point of partially escaping a magical purge; some bits of the disease escaping when exposed to the magic, fleeing to another host body), or if the Remove Disease spell took something like a week to purge the disease (allowing some of it to escape as a result of simply having time enough to do so after exposure to some of the purging magic).

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Very discworldy idea!

I would certainly grant it to supernatural diseases, or those who were "engineered" by mad spellcasters.

I'm not sure whether I'd use the idea of evolution in vanilla fantasy D&D. Of course, Talona (or whoever deity is the patron of sick stuff in your campaign) could use her power to alter diseases thus. In a fantasy setting, I wouldn't say that diseases are the result of tiny creatures attacking your body, but something like spiritual entities attacking mortals at the disease god's behest.

Nyambe?

Isn't that that African-flavoured campaign setting?

 

[Merkuri]

And how would it evolve a resistance anyway if a Remove Disease spell wipes it out from a person's system? It's not like any of that stuff is going to survive the divine purging. Natural diseases only evolve resistances because they spend a while in the host's system before it uses antibodies or the like to fight off the disease. So it eventually adapts to the antibodies.

Now, nothing says the process the disease went through to get SR has to be anything like evolution, but I think this could feasibly happen. If you assume there is a gene for SR, and that one "germ" (bacteria, virus, special magical disease particle, etc.) spontaneously evolves SR it could survive a Remove Disease spell. The patient or healer might not even notice. If a whole bunch evolve SR around the same time they could end up going through the same process as antibacterial-resistant strains of diseases today.

But I think it's a good idea to use as a plot (not to be used on every disease), regardless of its similarity of actual science.

 

[EricNoah]

Actually had a major plotline in a previous campaign that centered around the manufacture and distribution of a "magic-immune" poison. It was manufactured in a dead magic region in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[freyar]

Actually had a major plotline in a previous campaign that centered around the manufacture and distribution of a "magic-immune" poison. It was manufactured in a dead magic region in the Forgotten Realms.

Isn't there an FR book basically about this?

Anyway, this is a neat idea! Arkhandus and Merkuri seem to have it about right from the bio perspective. Hmmm. Haven't used diseases much yet, but something like this could be interesting.

Would granting a disease SR automatically make it a supernatural disease?