Quote from: RPGPundit;836126There's a lot of potential drama in illness. Its just that the combination of bad mechanics and clerical-magic tends to undermine it in D&D.

This 100%

It's a feature in my campaign, but not a major one. If the PCs go wading through sewers, sifting through a pile of shit looking for hidden gems, rifling decaying corpses, eating spoiled food or drinking foul water, they roll one saving throw vs Poison to see if they caught something and a second to see if it's fatal. Simple, and it stops PCs from wasting time with chickenshit of the sort I described above.

It can help a lot if you don't make clerical cure-disease automatically work.  If it requires a saving throw, for example. Possibly with a penalty depending on the PC's alignment.

Quote from: RPGPundit;836802It can help a lot if you don't make clerical cure-disease automatically work.  If it requires a saving throw, for example. Possibly with a penalty depending on the PC's alignment.

Even better if you have something more detailed to track adherence to the faith of both the cleric and the target.

For proselytizing faiths the cleric's faithfulness* would matter since healing unbelievers is a good way to recruit new believers. Many people see all religions as proselytizing due to actions of the two big monotheistic faiths, Christianity and Islam, but a lot of ancient religions were neither exclusive nor focused on seeking out and acquiring new worshipers. For those religions, the faithfulness or lack of faith of the cleric and the worshipper should act as modifiers.

* For faithfulness (which is a state of mind) we should probably substitute right practice or proper observance of ritual since these things are observable and measurable and thus easier for the GM to administer.

Quote from: Bren;836807Even better if you have something more detailed to track adherence to the faith of both the cleric and the target.

For proselytizing faiths the cleric's faithfulness* would matter since healing unbelievers is a good way to recruit new believers. Many people see all religions as proselytizing due to actions of the two big monotheistic faiths, Christianity and Islam, but a lot of ancient religions were neither exclusive nor focused on seeking out and acquiring new worshipers. For those religions, the faithfulness or lack of faith of the cleric and the worshipper should act as modifiers.

* For faithfulness (which is a state of mind) we should probably substitute right practice or proper observance of ritual since these things are observable and measurable and thus easier for the GM to administer.

Sure, but we have to be careful not to slip into the "making things too complicated" problem of diseases I mentioned above.

Quote from: RPGPundit;836802It can help a lot if you don't make clerical cure-disease automatically work.  If it requires a saving throw, for example. Possibly with a penalty depending on the PC's alignment.

Given my usual system caveat, I've a couple suggestions.

* Make your priests priests of religions, not big-city ER healbots.  Sheesh, you'd think that the cleric-as-healbot crowd has never met a real-life priest, or has the faintest conception what they do.  Like conducting services.  Like performing customary rites like marriages, funerals, initiations, blessings, and suchlike.  Like administering their parishes.  Like pastoral counseling.  Like ministering to the downtrodden amongst their flock.  Like missionary work.  Like political advocacy for their faith.  IMHO, heal-on-demand services for adventurers is well down the list of the things priests are supposed to be doing with their time.  If the local priest is out at the one-month premature birth seeing to the health of the mother and the blessing of the newborn, the bleeding PCs are SOL.

* In most systems, the power of priests to heal is finite.  Terrific.  So it works only on co-religionists.  Are you a faithful follower of the Sea Lord?  No?  Sorry, bucko, but the priestess' power is for the congregants of her parish and their families.  If there's anything left of her juice by the end of the day, she'll consider it, but fishing is a hard, dangerous life and every second fishing schooner that comes in has SOMEone who's banged up: don't count on it.

(And I mean faithful follower.  Your gods are "real" and aware, right?  So are mine.  Someone who gets initiated just to get access, and then doesn't practice the faith, he's an apostate, and the power doesn't work on him either.)

* In my setting, Cure Disease works only on bacterial diseases.  It doesn't work on viruses, and it doesn't work on fungal maladies, and it doesn't work on genetic/cellular diseases such as sickle cell anemia or cancer.

* Limit the range.  Of the eight leading deities in my setting, one's the goddess of healing, one's the god of war.  They get pretty much the full range of curative magics, that being in their field of endeavor.  The other six don't: minor healing, cure disease, long-term restoration of damaged organs, control bleeding, that's about it.

Quote from: Ravenswing;837190Given my usual system caveat, I've a couple suggestions.
* Make your priests priests of religions,....

Yes this is exactly what I meant.

Quote* In my setting, Cure Disease works only on bacterial diseases.  It doesn't work on viruses, and it doesn't work on fungal maladies, and it doesn't work on genetic/cellular diseases such as sickle cell anemia or cancer.

What's the rationale? After all a viral disease is still a disease.

Quote from: Bren;837277What's the rationale? After all a viral disease is still a disease.

In the fashion that in the English language, the term "disease" = "something that's wrong with your body that can't be chalked up to injury or long-term wearing out of the parts."  Never mind that to medical science, there's a huge distinction between bacterial infections (relatively easy to cure) and viral infections (almost impossible to cure).

In any event, it's not only magic, but divine magic as well.  No one really knows why a priest's healing powers work on consumption, lockjaw, common infections and pneumonia, but not on the common cold, influenza or rabies, though there are a few theories.

I've been thinking about a way to make diseases more resistant to magic, as I find easy fix magic in these cases awefully boring.

The most simple solution would be to give diseases a fortitude save, as that would hook right into established mechanics. And, after all, most diseases are basically swarms of creatures infesting a body and a cure disease spell is basically a kill spell to them, so giving them a con save only makes sense and is in line with the rules.


Of course, if I am to bother with such a houserule, I need to make diseases themself interesting as well. As they are, they are just a drag on gameplay everyone (including me, the DM) just wants to get rid of.

I liked 4th editions disease track and might snatch it up.

I also have spend some time thinking of making diseases mechanical effects more interesting. One thing I came up with is to make them downright horrible from a PCs perspective, but more ambiguos to the players, meaning in effect, they give non-crippling disadvantages, but also minor advantages.

By the by, everything I wrote here also goes doubly for curses, which my thought originaly developed around (except curses use that casters charisma save, not a con save).

Quote from: Ravenswing;837190* In my setting, Cure Disease works only on bacterial diseases.  It doesn't work on viruses, and it doesn't work on fungal maladies, and it doesn't work on genetic/cellular diseases such as sickle cell anemia or cancer.

I would rather divide diseases up between curable and non-curable in some way that doesn't import real world knowledge that undercuts the fantasy feel (at least for me) - it would be like putting "Species" on the blank character sheet instead of "Race".  But I am delighted by the idea of bacteria developing MPR (Multiple Pantheon Resistance).

I lean towards things like Cure Disease, Remove Curse, Regenerate Limb, etc. having a cost in some resource that requires adventuring to obtain; PCs are more likely to be stuck with the bad stuff for a few adventures and to be motivated to adventure.  I don't much care if it's divine favor, rare spell ingredients, being owed a favor by the NPC who is the only one who can cast the spell, or whatever. (And a given religion might have a supply of that resource to benefit its followers only.)

Quote from: Ravenswing;837190Given my usual system caveat, I've a couple suggestions.

* Make your priests priests of religions, not big-city ER healbots.  Sheesh, you'd think that the cleric-as-healbot crowd has never met a real-life priest, or has the faintest conception what they do.  Like conducting services.  Like performing customary rites like marriages, funerals, initiations, blessings, and suchlike.  Like administering their parishes.  Like pastoral counseling.  Like ministering to the downtrodden amongst their flock.  Like missionary work.  Like political advocacy for their faith.  IMHO, heal-on-demand services for adventurers is well down the list of the things priests are supposed to be doing with their time.  If the local priest is out at the one-month premature birth seeing to the health of the mother and the blessing of the newborn, the bleeding PCs are SOL.

* In most systems, the power of priests to heal is finite.  Terrific.  So it works only on co-religionists.  Are you a faithful follower of the Sea Lord?  No?  Sorry, bucko, but the priestess' power is for the congregants of her parish and their families.  If there's anything left of her juice by the end of the day, she'll consider it, but fishing is a hard, dangerous life and every second fishing schooner that comes in has SOMEone who's banged up: don't count on it.

(And I mean faithful follower.  Your gods are "real" and aware, right?  So are mine.  Someone who gets initiated just to get access, and then doesn't practice the faith, he's an apostate, and the power doesn't work on him either.)

* In my setting, Cure Disease works only on bacterial diseases.  It doesn't work on viruses, and it doesn't work on fungal maladies, and it doesn't work on genetic/cellular diseases such as sickle cell anemia or cancer.

* Limit the range.  Of the eight leading deities in my setting, one's the goddess of healing, one's the god of war.  They get pretty much the full range of curative magics, that being in their field of endeavor.  The other six don't: minor healing, cure disease, long-term restoration of damaged organs, control bleeding, that's about it.

This is all mostly good advice.

In my Albion game, there is only the one god in the area (the Unconquered Sun) so everyone is a religionist to some degree, but I require that the character receiving the healing make a saving throw to see if it works.

Also, as you said, the Clerics are not mainly there to heal PCs.  Since the level-ranges are generally very low (there are only a handful of Clerics who even MIGHT have Cure Disease in the entire kingdom), these will be very judiciously given.  The order will favor those who are known true-believers, who are fighting Chaos, or who are people of importance (since the Clerics too have to play some politics, but not as much as the rest of the bureaucracy of the Church).  

Many magical diseases in Albion might require BOTH a Cure Disease and a Remove Curse to be permanently gotten rid of.

However, unlike Bless (which works only on those who have been named in the faith), Cure spells do potentially work on unbelievers or heathens; after all, there's a value in it being used as a conversion tool.

Quote from: Gold Roger;837429One thing I came up with is to make them downright horrible from a PCs perspective, but more ambiguos to the players, meaning in effect, they give non-crippling disadvantages, but also minor advantages.
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This is precisely how I handle afflictions from insanity in ZWEIHÄNDER. Here's an example:

DARK PASSENGER
Faced with the brutal truths of the world, your wounded mind has given sanctuary to a voice that is not your own. Called the Dark Passenger, this "other self" seeks to possess you, urging you towards heinous, murderous acts. At times, you are able to ignore its demands, retaining control. At your weakest moments, the Dark Passenger becomes the driver, using your body as its vehicle for destruction.

Some who are possessed by the Dark Passenger may attempt to control these urges by abiding by a code of twisted ethics. This code may help you control its wrath with self-imposed limits as to when you kill, how you kill and who you kill. Regrettably, the code continues to lead you down the path to true insanity, as you remain possessed by unmitigated rage. The Dark Passenger will have you, both body and soul.

Effect: Whenever you fail a Resolve Test or Critically Fail a Skill Test, ignore your Order Alignment and embrace the Character's Chaos Alignment for purposes of role-play until the Character goes to sleep. During this time, you must flip the results to fail all Fellowship-based Skill Tests. Additionally, you may add an additional 1D6 Chaos Die to Damage whenever you strike during combat, but only in exchange by gaining a Chaos Point. You gain 1 Chaos Point every time you wish to add an additional 1D6 Chaos Die due to your Affliction.

Quote from: RPGPundit;837843However, unlike Bless (which works only on those who have been named in the faith), Cure spells do potentially work on unbelievers or heathens; after all, there's a value in it being used as a conversion tool.

Sure, that's a defensible position, and no doubt it'd be the answer most D&D DMs would give.

Great.  What happens when there's no chance in hell it'd actually work?

Most GMs should have a pretty good handle on what our players think about religion.  Some players love playing pious PCs, some are receptive to the notion, and some -- if you'll excuse the pun -- don't give a good goddamn.

If our gameworld deities exist, are paying attention and have the level of omniscience regarding their priests' activities most GMs credit them with having, they ought to have as good an idea as the GMs when PCs have no intention of converting, and at best will only pay lip service to the notion in the hopes of cadging more healing spells.

Quote from: Ravenswing;838410If our gameworld deities exist, are paying attention and have the level of omniscience regarding their priests' activities most GMs credit them with having, they ought to have as good an idea as the GMs when PCs have no intention of converting, and at best will only pay lip service to the notion in the hopes of cadging more healing spells.

I prefer deities who are not omniscient. Like the Greek/Roman and Norse Gods. One of the things I liked about the deities in Glorantha is their lack of omniscience.

As far as who they favor, I prefer the Gods to rely on demonstrated behavior of their worshippers like sacrifices, observing the proper ceremonies and rituals, and emulating the behaviors of the deity or the behaviors the deity says they value. I'm also cool with deities who play favorites or favor attractive, clever, skilled, and charismatic mortals.

Not all settings will have omniscient deities.  But you can also have healing spells require a saving throw to actually work.

In any case, if the PC is clearly lying about his intentions or faith, then I'd be fine with an omniscient deity refusing to allow the healing spell to work.