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havocfett
2011-06-10, 12:42 PM
So, I've been trying to create a leper/nerve damaged character and realized: there aren't many good traits, flaws or diseases for this in DnD. With this in mind, I propose the following flaws and traits, though more are welcome.

Note: These are based off of my experience with leprosy due to family members with the syndrome, some things may be inaccurate due to complications or habits that my family members in particular deal with, tell me if I get them wrong)


Traits:

Leper:

Advantage: You are highly resistant to pain due to having fewer nerve cells than most other people. You gain a +2 to rolls to continue a forced march, you gain +4 to rolls to resist spells that cause pain as part of their affect (E.G. Symbol of Pain). Your resistance to pain also causes you to go in when others would stop, giving you an extra hit point per level.



Disadvantage:
You are unable to notice small wounds due to a lack of pain stimuli. Though you as a player know of how much damage you have taken, your character is unaware of small wounds and should act accordingly. The GM should disallow this flaw or trait if the player proves to be unable to restrain himself from metagaming in order to remove the downside of this trait. The Character must make a DC 20 search or heal check in order to find small wounds. You find one hitpoints worth of wounds for each point you exceed 20 by on the check, you automatically find large wounds (Over 5 hitpoints of damage). As a result small wounds may go untreated and do not heal properly due to your disease. If at the end of the day you have unfound wounds damage you must make a fortitude save DC 15+Unfound wounds (Max 5) or have the wound be infected with a disease of the GMs choice. You must make a save weekly no matter what due to minor wounds becoming infected.


Flaws:

Numb:

Disadvantage: You take a -4 penalty to skills involving manual dexterity to the lack of feeling in your extremities. Examples or Open Lock, Climb, Disable Device and some cases of Use Magic device

Infested Wounds:

Disadvantage:
You are unable to notice small wounds due to a lack of pain stimuli. Though you as a player know of how much damage you have taken, your character is unaware of small wounds and should act accordingly. The GM should disallow this flaw or trait if the player proves to be unable to restrain himself from metagaming in order to remove the downside of this trait. The Character must make a DC 20 search or heal check in order to find small wounds. You find one hitpoints worth of wounds for each point you exceed 20 by on the check, you automatically find large wounds (Over 5 hitpoints of damage). As a result small wounds may go untreated and do not heal properly due to your disease. If at the end of the day you have unfound wounds damage you must make a fortitude save DC 15+Unfound wounds (Max 5) or have the wound be infected with a disease of the GMs choice. You must make a save weekly no matter what due to minor wounds becoming infected.

Roleplay ideas:
Leprosy is not always visible, but a low charisma Leper may have particularly visible side-effects.

The Leper may be sensitive about his condition, attempting to hide what symptoms there are, and may be more standoffish than the rest of the party due to an erroneous belief that they are infectious.

They may avoid combat, as even minor wounds can kill them due to disease, or they may revel in their near-painless state and ignore injuries until danger is passed and it's time to treat the injuries.

Lepers are almost certainly compulsive about having wounds checked and treated, though some may be more thorough than others. A Leper may simply check thoroughly for his wounds and ask for treatment for what he finds, or they may demand healing even after visible wounds are found in the belief that they've probably missed something, likely causing the healer to waste resources.


notes

Diseases need to be pinned down. Can't find mundane diseases though. :(

Currently making the trait a plus health trait, but I think that what I'm basing that off of is how my relatives act instead of a common thing with the disease. So that's subject to change.

I think that the flaws need tweaking, Numb might not be debilitating enough and Infested Wounds might be too debilitating.

Trying to balance 'Massive Wounds are obvious' with 'if I make certain wound thresholds obvious, then how much healing needs to be done can be inferred and the disadvantage negated'


If anyone has ideas on more stuff, and actual disease, or improvements, it would be appreciated.

Throgg
2011-06-10, 12:58 PM
Leprosy is a medieval code word for ostracization. Any flaw relating to it should carry some major social downsides. Big minuses to diplomacy and the like. Perhaps NPCs are being treated as one category more hostile when interacting with the character? While nowadays we understand the disease, back then it was considered fairly frightening.

Remember, historically Lepers were quarantined and outcast. As most DnD settings mirror such times... Society would probably act accordingly. And don't forget the prevalence of "Remove Disease", which costs a mere 1,500 to get cast (assuming there is no party Cleric around).

havocfett
2011-06-10, 07:41 PM
Leprosy is a medieval code word for ostracization. Any flaw relating to it should carry some major social downsides. Big minuses to diplomacy and the like. Perhaps NPCs are being treated as one category more hostile when interacting with the character? While nowadays we understand the disease, back then it was considered fairly frightening.

Remember, historically Lepers were quarantined and outcast. As most DnD settings mirror such times... Society would probably act accordingly. And don't forget the prevalence of "Remove Disease", which costs a mere 1,500 to get cast (assuming there is no party Cleric around).

Oh duh. Medieval connection.

Social Side effects of being a leper:

If a Disguise check is not made to hide the leprosy, all NPCs without leprosy are treated as being one stage more hostile than they otherwise would be. The Disguise check varies based on the severity of the leprosy. (DC 15 base)

In addition, all diplomacy and bluff checks are made with a -4 penalty if the target knows that the Leper has Leprosy.


Infection: Leprosy is not particularly infectious, and it is unlikely to spread once someone is infected, but in the off chance that someone has been infected with the disease, they must make a DC 15 fortitude save of else suffer the following effects:

If they succeed, their body fought off the infection, and they suffer no side effects.

If they fail by less than five, the leprosy is not particularly noticeable, only affects extremities and is not particularly debilitating. The DC for the disguise check to hide leprosy decreases by 5, they gain the numb flaw.

If they fail by between five and ten, the leprosy is noticeable and debilitating. They gain the leper trait, numb flaw, Slow flaw, take a -2 penalty on initiative and all attacks and take 1d6 charisma damage upon contracting the disease. The DC to hide leprosy increases by 5.

If they fail by more than ten, the leprosy is obvious, horrific and will likely result in the lepers death. They take 1d8 charisma, strength and dexterity damage, gain the Infested wounds, Numb and Slow flaws, take a -4 penalty on initiative and all attacks, and -2 on saves against disease upon contracting the disease. In addition, the DC to hide leprosy increases by 10.

Note: Flaws gained due to disease do not give bonus feats. Upon a 'Remove disease' spell being cast on the leper, all damage from the disease disappears.

havocfett
2011-06-10, 08:35 PM
Probably going to make this a generic 'horrible diseases' thread. Assuming I'm not doing to badly so far for leprosy (I can't find the description for mundane diseases in the DM's guide, so I'm kind of winging it here), I'll probably do bubonic plague next, though it's pretty simple.

Owrtho
2011-06-11, 03:55 AM
Well, don't have too much to say at the moment, but when it comes down to it, the idea of a mechanic that keeps you from knowing your hp and requires the DM to keep track of it is generally a bad idea. In most cases the DM already has enough to keep track of with out having to deal with keeping track of one of the players hp totals (along with needing to remember all the effects they do or don't have to prevent or heal damage) and hide it from them (the difficulty of hiding being it makes it hard for them to make sure they didn't miss anything).

Also on the part about untreated hp damage at the end of the day causing wounds, if you insist on keeping the hidden hp part, it should likely instead be based on hp damage that wasn't found. I say this as characters without leprosy aren't penalized for trying to rest with wounds (and at early levels may use it as part of their means of healing), though it could be seen as their knowledge of said wounds allows them to take precautions to avoid infection, which the leper could likewise take if they know of the wound even if they lack the means of treating it.

And related to that, it would more likely be wounds to minor to cause hp damage that a leper is likely to get infected. Things like scratches, paper cuts, nicks, bug bites, etc. that aren't major enough on their own to cause any impediment other than slight discomfort, but can allow diseases in if nothing is done.

Owrtho

havocfett
2011-06-11, 03:49 PM
Well, don't have too much to say at the moment, but when it comes down to it, the idea of a mechanic that keeps you from knowing your hp and requires the DM to keep track of it is generally a bad idea. In most cases the DM already has enough to keep track of with out having to deal with keeping track of one of the players hp totals (along with needing to remember all the effects they do or don't have to prevent or heal damage) and hide it from them (the difficulty of hiding being it makes it hard for them to make sure they didn't miss anything).


You have a good point here. Maybe the Player is told about damage, but can't treat it without the check?





Also on the part about untreated hp damage at the end of the day causing wounds, if you insist on keeping the hidden hp part, it should likely instead be based on hp damage that wasn't found. I say this as characters without leprosy aren't penalized for trying to rest with wounds (and at early levels may use it as part of their means of healing), though it could be seen as their knowledge of said wounds allows them to take precautions to avoid infection, which the leper could likewise take if they know of the wound even if they lack the means of treating it.

And related to that, it would more likely be wounds to minor to cause hp damage that a leper is likely to get infected. Things like scratches, paper cuts, nicks, bug bites, etc. that aren't major enough on their own to cause any impediment other than slight discomfort, but can allow diseases in if nothing is done.

Good point, I'll implement the change when I get home. Maybe weekly or monthly saves no matter what, decrease the search DC if larger wounds are sustained, and cap the penalty for unfound wounds to represent large wounds being obvious?

Maybe 5 for the DC increase cap, and minus 5 to the search DC if over 5 damage is sustained?