Disease Rules Fix

[Kyeudo]

I like much of what you've done here. I wish I'd had this a month ago when I stuck my players on an island where the Great(ish) Contagion had broken out!
One alterations I would suggest, although it would complicate matters a little, is a "slashed" Diagnosis: Diagnosis (minor symptoms only/major symptoms). For example, while the victim only suffers minor symptoms, the Great(ish) Contagion is exceptionally difficult to diagnose. Once the skin starts to turn green though, it's dead easy.


--Kkat

What I've gone with on Diagnosis is that the Diagnosis difficulty is what you need to roll while the Disease is still during the Incubation. Once that's over, the full symptoms show up and the Diagnosis difficulty drops by 1. As you say, once the main symptoms roll out, the disease gets easier to diagnose.


As for the Great Contagion being easy to diagnose once the green tinge shows, I'm not so sure. First, it's been 700 years since the Great Contagion was commonplace. Only the oldest of Terrestrials, Lunar elders, and the higher ups amoung Sidereals remember the disease, so actuall experience with the disease is rare. Second, Creation is bound to have some odd Wyld-spawned diseases that do all sorts of things, like turn your skin green. That tinge alone won't necessarily mean the disease is the Great Contagion.


Yes, stories exist, so treating for the Great Contagion when you see a green tinge may well be what a healer unable to definatively diagnose such an illness would do, but he won't be entirely sure until the patient dies and the whole body rots in a matter of days. Those that have seen the disease alot before should probably recieve extra dice as a circumstance bonus (along with good material for some stunts).


Think of it like House. House knows about all these different diseases. Each has its own distinctive set of symptoms, but shares some of those symptoms with other diseases. They can't ever be sure which disease (or combination of diseases) that the patient has until they eliminate what it can't be.


Did any of this rambling make sense?

 

[Kkat]

You make several good points! After all, I severely doubt I could correctly diagnose the Black Plague.


OTOH, given that the source material states that the Great Contagion is extremely easy to diagnose after the green tinge appears, perhaps it might be appropriate to give the Great(ish) Contagion a modified difficult drop after symptoms.


(I like the House analogy, BTW!

)


Overall, an excellent rework of the rules! Again, wish I'd had this a handful of sessions ago.

--Kkat

 

[Kyeudo]

I suppose you are right. After all, the only common symptom of the Great Contagion is probably going to be one of the best remembered symptoms. I added this to the Great(ish) Contagion:


"After the disease's Incubation, the Diagnosis difficulty drops to only 2 (including the 1 point reduction from the onset of symptoms)."


Do you think 2 is too low? 3 is the only other viable option, since 1 just seems too easy and 4 was what it naturally dropped to after the Incubation.


I still have no new ideas on how to make epic disease treatment worth more than just the drop to Treated Morbidity. Anybody have thoughts?

 

[Kkat]

"After the disease's Incubation, the Diagnosis difficulty drops to only 2 (including the 1 point reduction from the onset of symptoms)."
Do you think 2 is too low?

That sounds perfect to me.

I still have no new ideas on how to make epic disease treatment worth more than just the drop to Treated Morbidity. Anybody have thoughts?

Well, the drop to Treated Mobility is appropriate, and for anything that just adds dice (like a Medicine Excellency), I wouldn't expect any more than that. So I wouldn't change it.


The problem you are facing now is a weakness of the Medicine Charms, not the Disease mechanics. My solution to this would simply be to let the players know I was relatively open to characters creating new Medicine Charms that fill this gap.


--Kkat

 

[Kyeudo]

It still bothers me. Gryphon had a good point on how exra successes should matter. After all, if I swing a sword at a city gate and get 5 successes, I put a dent in it. If I swing the same sword at the same gate and get 20 successes, I cleave it in two.

 

[The zombie cat]

Actually my problem with the wound infection rules was that they are not lethal enough.


Ok, only in on very specific way. cauterizing is far from perfect as a prevention for infection. I would suggest virulence 3-sucseses on int + medicine (min 1). Leave describing the method for cleaning the wound to stunts


The low infection rates today are based partly on the fact that almost everybody has at least 1 dot in first aid (unlike exalted we can take specializations without the base ability), partly on the fact that our environment is much cleaner and partly on widely used immunization against tetnus.


Of cause if we wanted to make mortals live like real world people without modern medicine then it would be really bad. Fail the virulence roll on tetanus and you die a horrible death. Until the vaccine came out the only effective treatment was amputation and if you waited to be absolutely cretin that it was tetnus that wouldn’t work. Call it virulence 1 on all wounds administered in the vicinity of dirt. 2 if the weapon was actually dirty, or if you spent some time lying in the dirt afterwards. If you make the first morbidity check its only bad, fail it and you’ll be lucky to loose only a limb.


On the importance of successes.


While swinging a sword it dose matter that is actually the only time it matters. When hiding, in social combat, when using lore for knowledge or history or occult for knowledge of demons any successes over the difficulty are wasted.


The greatness of the exalted is modeled threw there charm’s. A twilight that has medicine 4 and no medicine charms is no better a doctor than a heroic mortal with medicine 4.


I say leave it as is.


Edward

 

[Kyeudo]

Thanks for the input.


I guess you are right and that I should just not worry about advanced medical treatment being part of the rules proper, since Exalts are just going to go "Screw the Rules, I have Charms!"


As for Wound Infection, I think leaving the cauterization option availible works better and gives mortals a break. They already live in a world full of things that can kill them without so much as blinking, so I don't think I'm letting them off too easy. Keeping the Virulence as a fairly static number makes it easier to remember, so I'd rather not deal with multiple possible Virulences for different conditions. The +1/-1 for exposure should cover things well enough.


I just added a maximum Tenacity for all the diseases, changed the Great(ish) Contagion to more closely resemble its write-up and to differentiate it from the Embrace of Decay (which, incidentally, made it more deadly), and I added the Shepherd's Disease for kicks and giggles. I also put in the time it takes to treat a patient.

 

[MaximumBrax]

When it comes to the maximum tenacity, I assume that this is not to say that after x rolls they're miraculously healed, but rather that they can't require more than the maximum number, right?


Examplepotamus:


Joe contracts Cholera. The initial tenacity is 4, max is 8. He fails his morbidity roll. Four times. Now his tenacity is at 8. I assume he does not at this point heal, but rather simply doesn't increase the tenacity further until he has decreased it by one?


If I'm right you might just want to clarify that a little bit, but beyond that, you solved my disease dilemma perfectly. Thanks!