I have a sensitive problem here. I'm running SDttG and one of the PCs is a cleric of Sarenrae with the Restoration subdomain. That means that he gets Remove Disease as a second level spell.
Now that in itself isn't a big deal, and actually it would be a nice perk for him to be able to cast Remove Disease once a day. The problem is the repercussions. Sarenrae is a major church in Korvosa, and if Remove Disease is generally available as a second level spell, then the premises of the adventure are changed.
Of course you could make the subdomains rare and mainly a PC option, but I don't like to go that way. If an option is available to the PCs it should be open to NPCs and seeing that Restoration is actually better than Healing, I see a fair amount of NPCs choosing it. How would you handle this?
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I have a sensitive problem here. I'm running SDttG and one of the PCs is a cleric of Sarenrae with the Restoration subdomain. That means that he gets Remove Disease as a second level spell.
Now that in itself isn't a big deal, and actually it would be a nice perk for him to be able to cast Remove Disease once a day. The problem is the repercussions. Sarenrae is a major church in Korvosa, and if Remove Disease is generally available as a second level spell, then the premises of the adventure are changed.
Of course you could make the subdomains rare and mainly a PC option, but I don't like to go that way. If an option is available to the PCs it should be open to NPCs and seeing that Restoration is actually better than Healing, I see a fair amount of NPCs choosing it. How would you handle this?
This is actually dealt with in a sidebar in that book. Even if every cleric in town capable of taking the subdomain did, disease wins out on mathematics. There simply aren't enough priests with enough disease curing abilities to stop such an epidemic. They could save a lot of lives, but in the grand scheme of things they're not putting much of a dent in the problem.
By the time the disease is on the public's radar, it's already spread to a number of people many times more numerous than the city's population of divine healer types.
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Isn't Sarenrae a pretty martial faith in general? I know it's taken to almost ludicrous extremes in Qadira, but a strong tendency in this direction seems to be in every one of the Dawnflower's remaining churches. Possibly the Healing/Restoration domains are just kind of uncommon over other choices in general.I may not know what I'm talking about here, mind you.
Healing is one of her primary focuses. It's just that different folks focus on different aspects of that deity sometimes. Dawncultists from Garund and Kelesh tend to be more martial than most, IIRC.
I agree with Mikaze on this one, the premise of the adventure does not change. I have one player who is planning on playing a Priest of Sarenrae, and I spent time last weekend war gamming the church of Sarenrae's reaction to the epidemic and the raise to power of the queen. I came to three conclusions for my AP.
First, the church itself, as Mikaze said, focuses on healing and has little martial power available to it. It has a hospital in my version of Korvosa named the "Ray of Hope" and although there are clerics many of the doctor's are infact laymen whith lots of ranks in heal.
Second, during the 7dttg Ileosa politically and socially castigates the churches power by brining in her Queen's Physicians, and although in the end the PC's expose the Physicans as false, the damage is done. Although the church will have the support of the populace it will be politicly impotent. It is likely that the Gray Maiden's may detain a church member close to my PC to further develop his personal story.
Third, the church will continue to support the PC, as best it can, in his/the party's quest to overthrow the queen. If the party is successful in the finale, the church stands to gain substancial noteriety and improve its position politically since one of its members was instrumental in this outcome.
On other note on a cleric/paladin of Sarenrae PC. I think it is important that the DM develop a relationship between the PC and Sabina. This is an awesome opportunity for the PC to redeem a big time NPC.
Thanks for the replies. I guess you are right that the disease wins out even if you push Remove Disease down a level. I was primarily concerned about the prices of potions and wands, but I guess that's overthinking it.
I am a little annoyed when splatbooks make changes to things like this without addressing it at all. We hardly even spotted it (and I even thought it was a typo at first). I don't mind the change, but it could have been more explicit.
As to the PC in question, he's pretty martial, with the Fire domain and the Flame of the Dawnflower trait. I think it's kind of nice that you don't have to be a wuss just because you're a dedicated healer.