Xill Implant ability and Paladins


Rules Questions


Quote:

Implant (Ex)

As a standard action, a xill can lay 2d6 eggs in a helpless creature. A xill's eggs hatch in 24 hours, at which point the young consume the host from within, inflicting 1 point of Con damage per hour per young until the host dies. The young then emerge and planewalk to the Ethereal Plane, if possible, to mature. A remove disease spell (or similar effect) rids a victim of all implanted eggs or active young , or they can be cut out one at a time with DC 20 Heal checks (each attempt takes 10 minutes). If a check fails, the healer can try again, but each attempt (successful or not) deals 1d4 points of damage to the patient.

Divine Health (Ex)
At 3rd level, a paladin is immune to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases, including mummy rot.

Does a Paladins Divine Health prevent the Implant ability, or at least the incubation of the eggs? It doesn't state that the eggs are a disease, but are removed with Remove Disease?

I ask because I have a story revolving around an NPC Paladin that was captured and tortured by an Incubus and his Xill bodyguards. For purposes of the story I'm having Divine Health protect her (while she was forced to watch her comrades die, now she's haunted by it, etc etc) but would like to know what the ruling should be.


Pathfinder Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
CRB pg. 332 wrote:

Remove disease can cure all diseases from which the subject is suffering. You must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against the DC of each disease affecting the target. Success means that the disease is cured. The spell also kills some hazards and parasites, including green slime and others.

Since the spell’s duration is instantaneous, it does not prevent reinfection after a new exposure to the same disease at a later date.

Note bolded part. The Xill eggs would be parasites that generally kill the host.

I don't think it is unreasonable to allow Divine Health to protect against this (especially considering other things it protects against), but if so for consistency it should also protect against those other hazards as well.

If you rule that Divine Health doesn't protect, give the NPC the Diseased mercy. That would have allowed her to live and assuming she couldn't lay hands on the others would have still allowed the plot to go as you specified.


Compare 'Implant' to other abilities like mummy root or ghoul fever:

Mummy root wrote:
Mummy Rot (Su) Curse and disease—slam; save Fort DC 16; onset 1 minute; frequency 1/day; effect 1d6 Con and 1d6 Cha; cure —. Mummy rot is both a curse and disease and can only be cured if the curse is first removed, at which point the disease ...
Ghoul fever wrote:
Disease (Su) Ghoul Fever: Bite—injury; save Fort DC 13; onset 1 day; frequency 1/day; effect 1d3 Con and 1d3 Dex damage; cure 2 consecutive saves. The save DC is Charisma-based....

In both descriptions the abilities are marked as 'diseases'.

In my opinion 'Divine Health' dont help against the 'Implant' ability.


FrozenLaughs wrote:
Quote:

Implant (Ex)

As a standard action, a xill can lay 2d6 eggs in a helpless creature. A xill's eggs hatch in 24 hours, at which point the young consume the host from within, inflicting 1 point of Con damage per hour per young until the host dies. The young then emerge and planewalk to the Ethereal Plane, if possible, to mature. A remove disease spell (or similar effect) rids a victim of all implanted eggs or active young , or they can be cut out one at a time with DC 20 Heal checks (each attempt takes 10 minutes). If a check fails, the healer can try again, but each attempt (successful or not) deals 1d4 points of damage to the patient.

Divine Health (Ex)
At 3rd level, a paladin is immune to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases, including mummy rot.

Does a Paladins Divine Health prevent the Implant ability, or at least the incubation of the eggs? It doesn't state that the eggs are a disease, but are removed with Remove Disease?

I ask because I have a story revolving around an NPC Paladin that was captured and tortured by an Incubus and his Xill bodyguards. For purposes of the story I'm having Divine Health protect her (while she was forced to watch her comrades die, now she's haunted by it, etc etc) but would like to know what the ruling should be.

RAW would be a no, as it isn't a disease but instead a creature's ability causing damage.

Sovereign Court

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Remove Disease often gets called in to remove parasites, but it doesn't really seem like parasites are a disease per se. Rather, they're rare enough not to have a standardized game mechanic. When a spell is needed to evict them, Remove Disease seems appropriate.

Based on that, I'd understand a ruling going either way, although I'll lean towards interpreting parasites as being disease effects. I think this fits a trend where infestations are lumped together with diseases for game-mechanical purposes, such as with Diagnose Disease

Quote:
You determine whether a creature, object, or area carries any sort of disease or infestation (including molds, slimes, and similar hazards), or any exceptional or supernatural effects causing the sickened or nauseated effects. If there is disease present, you know what disease it is and its effects. If the target is a creature, you gain a +4 bonus on Heal checks to treat the creature's disease. The spell can penetrate many barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it.

Note how the text of that thing first includes a list of things that are sufficiently like diseases that the spell would function, and then continues talking only about what you learn about diseases, suggesting that "disease" is now a cover-all word for all the things mentioned earlier.

Likewise, Remove Disease has text talking about it working on parasites. So at least part of the ruleset thinks that the next closest thing to parasites is disease.


Interesting, thank you for the mention of Diagnose Disease, I hadn't read that before. I couldn't find any direct reference to parasites being a disease when I dug thru my books and it seems just odd enough to not have any real google results

Sovereign Court

Parasites are a pretty niche part of the game. I guess that means it doesn't justify adding whole new spells and abilities you'd need to deal with them. That would certainly not help classes like the Oracle who have limited spells known.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Going into it, did anyone else think that this was going to be a thread asking if a paladin would lose his powers for performing an abortion procedure?


I would call it a "similar effect" for this purpose, but it's certainly up for interpretation.


That has never crossed my kind, I imagine Clerics would get that request most often.

I am however running a homebrew slant on her addressing the psychological effects of imprisonment and torture by an Incubus. She's been broken physically and mentally, to the point that she so adamantly blames herself for the failure and death of the men she brought with her that she has lost her powers due to her own beliefs, rather than being cut off by her God.

But that's not a rules discussion for here. :)

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Xill Implant ability and Paladins All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.