Topic: Disease Purification and Disease level

[Jengada]

My players are about to head into a particularly disease-rich environment, including an encounter with what's best compared to a leper colony or a town with bubonic plague. The levels of the diseases vary widely, and that will obviously affect the chances of contraction. But the spells for disease removal fall into two categories: Purification and Resistance. The latter allows extra RR, if it is active at the time of exposure. Simple and straightforward, but with durations on the order of minutes. You can't have it running for hours, as you explore an area.
The former, Purification, only applies after exposure. It stops infection and/or spread of disease in 1 target, and says "no further damage will occur in uninfected areas of the body." Purification doesn't give the disease, so this 1st level spell can wipe out even the most virulent disease. There are also several ways to read the "no further damage" part.
(1) Everything stops right where it was when the spell was cast. Organs/symptoms are held to that level of affliction. Maybe the body can now heal itself?
(2) Areas or symptoms that were affected will remain so, the disease just doesn't spread. So if they have leprosy and their feet are numb or affected, that won't spread to their hands, but their feet may continue to worsen.
There are probably others. I'm curious what experience others have had with playing disease as a plot-device, and these spells.

[Jengada]

Replying to this in the hopes it boosts it and someone has ideas. Also noticed one typo, I should've said "Purification doesn't give the disease a resistance roll, so this 1st level spell can wipe out even the most virulent disease.
Right now, given the power of this spell, I'm seriously considering wiping it from the list.

[rdanhenry]

The answer according the spell text is (2). If it were (1), there would be no reason to specify "in uninfected areas of the body." However, prevention of spread is not trivial, and in many cases will nerf the disease. A cancer that cannot expand or spread is really just a benign tumor. Most infections will find themselves overwhelmed by the body's defenses once they cannot go on the offensive. On the other hand, you'd best get this cast before leprosy spreads throughout that other hand.

[Jengada]

I've come to a decision about these two spells (Disease Purification and Poison Purification.) As written, they are nightmares. I'm dealing with a disease that's spread through breath, but affects the skin and hair, with onset in a day or two from exposure. But implementing the spell would require me to decide just HOW it gets from breath to skin/hair, and how fast. Presumably blood. I could extrapolate, but the point is, the spell can be a huge, intractable pain for a first level spell.
I'm going to remove these spells completely, leaving the "resistance" and "unXXX" spells to deal with the actual cure or remediation of disease. I'm going to replace them with "Disease Lore" and "Poison Lore" spells. These will identify whether someone is suffering from a disease or poison, and if so, they will indicate the type of disease or poison (according to the Character Law disease & poison types.) This is far more in line with the power level of other first level healing spells. It would be a reasonable spell as a first step, before trying to use any herbs or potions to heal someone.

[MisterK]

The interesting side effect of the Disease Purification spell is that the target is still contagious, just not for themselves. So they could easily contaminate everyone they come into contact with, while not suffering from any obvious symptoms. I can certainly imagine how such a spell could be used by someone of ill intent But the disease carrier becomes a threat for his fellow adventurers in any case.

The upswing, and one that is potentially completely game-breaking, is that the Disease Purification spell is Permanent. One interpretation could be that the target, after the spell is cast on them (and thus, after they have contracted the disease), become immune to it since 'no further damage will occur (...)". The area infected can be re-infected, but in any case, the disease cannot spread further than it already has. Cast it early enough and you basically become a healthy carrier for the rest of your days :p

Interestingly enough, the Poison Purification spell is worded differently ("neutralises any one poison in the system of the target"), which basically does what is on the tin : the poison is removed, but the damage already suffered remains, and another dose of the same poison would be effective. Having the Disease Purification spell worded that way would have been better.

Overall, those spells seem a bit overpowered compared to the higher-level spells on the list. Especially since Undisease and Unpoison are level 14 and 15 respectively (and honestly, the duration of 'P' is a nonsense. Those spells should have an instant duration). Removing them is an option. Giving the ailment (poison or disease) a RR vs the spell (poison or disease level vs either caster level or spell level) would make them less powerful. I like the idea of having Lore spells at low levels - Poison Lore is a 6th level spell in the Lore list, but it gives more information and the Lore list provides many other such spells. It matches the 1st level spells of the Closed Channeling healing lists as well.