I have never been very satisfied with the diseases in the Dungeon Master's Guide (regardless of what edition of Dungeons and Dragons we're talking about). More often then not they too easily cured and are about as useful in game as a tripping over your own feet. It just seems as though they should matter more than a passing glace.
Does anyone else feel that way or am I alone out here?
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The more diseases and disorders the better! Here's a pretty gnarly Necrotic Ailment table should add some pestilence to your campaign: http://www.rolang.com/archives/327
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link +Michael Raston!
DeleteEh. If you make them easy to cure (Cure Disease spell) they just become a spell tax. If you make them hard to avoid, they become as pointless as tripping over your own feet.
ReplyDeleteBut you can make them worthwhile. Think of them as a kind debility that certain monsters inflict, aside from the usual hp/death stuff. Compare them with level drain.
Also, consider changing the Cure Disease spell to something more like "you get +X on your next 2 disease" checks or something.
Thanks for the good ideas +Arnold K.
DeleteI think there are to many spells that do to many things. The cure disease spell should be broken up into "cure x disease". This would make the spell caster have to pick and choose which to prepare or learn and have a need to roleplay finding out what diseases will be in the region.
ReplyDeleteI've never really liked how any edition of d&d deals with diseases on PCs but on NPCs the DM can do whatever they like. I actually had a list with tour Con score giving you immunity based on how high it was. I had to change the ranges from 2e to 3e to 4e but essentially you could be immune to chicken pox with a 12 con and eventually mummy rot and being raised as an undead (we play as that ability is a disease... We had a walking dead kind of game once or twice) with a 20 constitution .
The rules for diseases in most editions remind of the rules for social interaction. They were tacked on in the end and it is almost like they didn't know what they were doing (not so much in every edition I played but enough to become a common thought).
I wonder how next will deal with them...
Whoops! Sorry I didn't see this comment until this evening Everett! :(
DeleteI like the idea of having the spell caster pick "cure disease X" but the problem is that either you would have to greatly limit the amount of diseases available to you as a Dungeon Master or you would have to group them (which can be done but quickly becomes laborious in the effort).
"I wonder how next will deal with them..."
If I had to take a guess I would imagine that they'll probably be handled similar to Third and Fourth: tacked on flavor without any real bite.