The value of clerics

[Edena_of_Neith]

(is recovering from an attack by a dog. 13 puncture wounds, all anaerobic in nature with no bleeding. Tetanus booster. MASSIVE doses of antibiotics, both internal and external. Rabies test.)

The 20th level fighter: I have 200 hit points. I'm invincible.
The DM: The little dog bites you for 3 hit points of damage.
The 20th level fighter: I chase him off.
The DM: He runs off. Do you treat the injury?
The 20th level fighter: I treat it with herbs. The cleric left, remember? We told him we didn't need his preaching and all that stuff. And we never run into undead anyways.

The DM: One week later, you start to die.
The 20th level fighter: What?!
The DM: Lockjaw. And gangrene. And multiple lesser infections. You're too sick to even seek out a cleric. If the leg is amputated, and you survive that (fortitude save normal) ... and if you make a successful fortitude save at - 8 against the lockjaw, you'll survive. Minus your teeth: they will have to remove those to give you food and water.
The 20th level fighter: oh ...
The DM: After 3 to 6 months, you'll be able to adventure again. You'll weight 50 to 100 pounds less than you did. If you fail a fortitude save at - 8, you'll be down 1 constitution point permanently. Fail a second save at - 4, you're down 2 CON permanently. Fail a third save at normal fort, you're permanently down 3 CON. Also, fail a normal fort save, and you're temporarily down 2 points of DEX. You are permanently - 1 on Charisma, since you are lacking teeth. No save.
The 20th level fighter: oh ... nuts.
The DM: But ... that assumes you survive at all. Now roll those dice, please ....

 

[Planesdragon]

(is recovering from an attack by a dog. 13 puncture wounds, all anaerobic in nature with no bleeding. Tetanus booster. MASSIVE doses of antibiotics, both internal and external. Rabies test.)

The 20th level fighter: I have 200 hit points. I'm invincible.
The DM: The little dog bites you for 3 hit points of damage.

Correction: the little dog coup de grace's the fighter, and he fails his saving throw.

A 20th level fighter who dissed his cleric would spend ranks on heal immediatly. If you assume he's a typical human adventurer, he can get two ranks a level, meaning that, at worst, he'll be up to snuff for treating bites in a matter of years. (To say nothing of just hiring an NPC expert healer.)

OTOH, infected wounds are something that's just, well, interesting to me. DC 12 Fortitude Save or each wound becomes infected, and doesn't heal until you throw off the infection. Dirty situations, lack of care, etc. all add to the saving throw DC.

 

[Silveras]

Correction: the little dog coup de grace's the fighter, and he fails his saving throw.

A 20th level fighter who dissed his cleric would spend ranks on heal immediatly. If you assume he's a typical human adventurer, he can get two ranks a level, meaning that, at worst, he'll be up to snuff for treating bites in a matter of years. (To say nothing of just hiring an NPC expert healer.)

OTOH, infected wounds are something that's just, well, interesting to me. DC 12 Fortitude Save or each wound becomes infected, and doesn't heal until you throw off the infection. Dirty situations, lack of care, etc. all add to the saving throw DC.

Uh, that's 1 rank every 2 levels. Heal is cross-class for the Fighter. So he's also capped at 10 ranks right away, and is capped at 15 ranks when he has risen to 30th level and bought those first 10. Assuming he is not bitten by a dog before then.

 

[Klaus]

Yeah, but the human fighter (aka the feat freak) can spend all of his skill points on Heal (2+1 for human+Int bonus) and get 1.5 ranks in Heal every level. He throws in an Open Minded feat for good measure and gets another 5 skill points. In one level he gets 4 ranks in Heal, meaning he's as good at it as a 1st-level cleric.

Infectious bites are better represented by giving the animal a Injury-type disease. Maybe Filth Fever. For Rabies, Con damage. And the animal that carries the rabies suffers Wis damage and rages like a badger without provocation.

 

[Victim]

Dog bites fighter for 3 HP. Fighter considers damage laughable. Fighter rolls Fortitude save versus the dog's infections. Fighter considers mudane disease laughable. And if it's a little dog, then the fighter gets an AoO because the dog has zero reach and backhands it into ground.

Clerics don't exactly have a monopoly on healing magic either.

 

[Darkness]

It pays to be a paladin. Immunity to disease is pretty neat.

 

[Dakkareth]

See, the important distinction is, that we're talking about a 20th level fighter. If it was a warrior or expert or any other NPC class (like you probably belong to), he'd have the same problems you have. BUT he isn't. He's the ultimate badass dude with a sword surrounded by the glow of PCdom. He's got an incomprehensible cosmic power behind him, watching and guiding his every step. Should an mundane disease ever try to afflict him, it would soon be begging for the honor of hounding the fighter's enemies, if he only please, oh, please!, would stop the spanking.


(And yes I'm serious )
In other words, people with levels in a PC class are the best of the best. Past level 5 (or 10 or whatever, depending on the class) their abilities, even the 'mundane' ones, can only be reasonably explained by magic anyway. So why not go all the way and call it magic? A 20th level character is well on the way to divinity after all ...

 

[Stone Angel]

Kind of cool idea I like it not to mention just the general health issues of traveling and adventuring, pnemonua, different kinds of fever, walking around in undead infested tombs, and sewers.


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Schmoe]

The problem is that, given the abstraction of HP, a 3 HP wound from a little dog amounts to:

"The dog lunges at you, and you spin out of the way, avoiding his jaws but slightly stubbing your toe in the process."

No wound, no save necessary.

The 13 wound puncture is more along the lines of:

"The dog lunges at your leg, ooh, he got a critical. Using our custom critical charts, ooh, he rolled another 20, that's x20 damage to you buddy. You take 60 points of damage, make a massive damage save or die as your lifeblood pumps out of the puncture arteries in your hamstring."

 

[Sejs]

The DM: One week later, you start to die.
The 20th level fighter: What?!
The DM: Lockjaw. And gangrene. And multiple lesser infections. You're too sick to even seek out a cleric. If the leg is amputated, and you survive that (fortitude save normal) ... and if you make a successful fortitude save at - 8 against the lockjaw, you'll survive. Minus your teeth: they will have to remove those to give you food and water.
The 20th level fighter: oh ...
The DM: After 3 to 6 months, you'll be able to adventure again. You'll weight 50 to 100 pounds less than you did. If you fail a fortitude save at - 8, you'll be down 1 constitution point permanently. Fail a second save at - 4, you're down 2 CON permanently. Fail a third save at normal fort, you're permanently down 3 CON. Also, fail a normal fort save, and you're temporarily down 2 points of DEX. You are permanently - 1 on Charisma, since you are lacking teeth. No save.
The 20th level fighter: oh ... nuts.
The DM: But ... that assumes you survive at all. Now roll those dice, please ....

The 20th level fighter: Er, wait.. what happened to my fort saves to shake off the disease from the dog's bite? And when did we start using these homebrew disease rules anyway? If I had known we were playing that sort of thing up so much I would've started investing ranks in Heal ages ago.

The 20th level fighter: And ya know, to think of it, with my base fort save plus my con mod I should be able to shake off most mundane diseases without even trying. It's not like I'm some level 1 commoner with a 8 con, here.