Template:Avoiding/Overcoming Disease

Avoiding/Overcoming Disease (Resistance, Medicine)

In the world of Exalted, plague is a horrifying prospect. The Chosen might be virtually immune to sickness, but mortals have no such protection. See Disease and Infected Wounds. In addition, characters can also become diseased from a magical effect with a Sickness effect keyword. These diseases are sometimes conventional and sometimes sorcerous ailments with their own idiosyncratic rules. Characters who are immune to all illness ignore both natural ailments and those caused by Sickness effects, even if the Charm uses its own rules. Characters who are immune to natural ailments ignore only those diseases that use these following rules.

When a character is first exposed to a disease through its usual vector, roll her (Stamina + Resistance) against a base difficulty of the Virulence of that disease. Reduce this difficulty by as much as two if the contact is brief, or increase the difficulty by as much as two if the vector is practically unavoidable (like the stinking miasma of festering rot in a plague-wracked ruin). If the roll succeeds, the character avoids catching the disease. On a failure, she contracts the sickness.

Once a character has caught a disease, she has a period of time equal to its Incubation before it threatens her life. (She may develop symptoms much sooner, putting her at -1 or -2 internal penalty to all actions from discomfort.) Once this period is up, reroll (Stamina + Resistance) every day against a difficulty of the illness's Untreated Morbidity. If the character receives medical attention from a healer before the Incubation period elapses, the difficulty is the disease's Treated Morbidity instead. With a success, the character’s symptoms never worsen. They fade over a day as her immune system overcomes the malady.

Mortals and animals whose players fail this roll spend a number of days equal to their Stamina rating dying (during which they are at -4 to all actions from pain and exhaustion rather than the usual -2). Exalted and other similarly hardy magical beings are at -2 to all actions as a result of failure, but their players may recheck each day until the characters throw off the disease and have their full health restored. As long as the Chosen carry a sickness, they could be contagious, so they must be careful when they encounter a serious malady that they do not accidentally spread it to others. Spirits and Fair Folk are completely immune to normal disease—they resist magical diseases as Exalted. Only the Great Contagion has ever proved an exception, slaying 90 percent of the world's population regardless of Exaltation, leaving only spirits and the Fair Folk untouched.

Treating a sick character requires an (Intelligence + Medicine) roll with a difficulty rather unsurprisingly based on the disease's Difficulty to Treat. If the disease's difficulty to treat is unknown, it equals the (Essence of the character who caused the Sickness effect + 1). Physicians cannot treat a disease until they have diagnosed it (see Diagnose Patient).

Treating illness is a dramatic action, requiring a minimum of a full hour to administer poultices, herbs and/or other curative regimens (the necessary ingredients of which normally have a materials cost of Resources 1, but may be higher for rare diseases). Village healers and witches often gather their herbs and drugs rather than purchase them, requiring a successful (Perception + Survival) roll (difficulty 2-3) assuming proper ingredients can be found in the area.

For dramatic purposes, Storytellers should allow ingredient substitution so this roll has a chance unless finding a rare and exotic ingredient is a plot point. In such a case, characters might be forced to journey to strange lands or to seek magical assistance from spirits, the Exalted or even stranger beings in order to administer a cure.

If a physician actually spends a full day regularly checking in on a patient, the healer's player gains an additional die on the roll. This bonus increases to two dice if the healer does virtually nothing else but administer treatment throughout the day. Giving treatment to a character who is dying from disease after receiving no aid allows the victim's player a reroll at the disease’s Untreated Morbidity. If successful, the character recovers. On a failure, the character continues dying and without magical assistance will expire. Characters suffering from Sickness effects with no stated Untreated Morbidity automatically shake them off, without a roll, when they successfully receive treatment.