A question came up yesterday at the gaming table: Can remove disease cure a gambling addiction?
Does an addiction / impulse control disorder count as a disease?
What about schizophrenia, phobias and other mental stuff?
If it works, how?
Your turn, roll for initiative!
Addictions are classified as a disease, in this case it would be a mental disease. I would say it works by the rules in the book, caster level check vs. the DC of the addiction. But like all addictions, it is possible to fall back into the old routines.
A question came up yesterday at the gaming table: Can remove disease cure a gambling addiction?
Does an addiction / impulse control disorder count as a disease?
What about schizophrenia, phobias and other mental stuff?If it works, how?
Your turn, roll for initiative!
It removed a similar addiction in an AP, which actually surprised me so when it was used that way. In other words, yes.
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It removed a similar addiction in an AP, which actually surprised me so when it was used that way. In other words, yes.A question came up yesterday at the gaming table: Can remove disease cure a gambling addiction?
Does an addiction / impulse control disorder count as a disease?
What about schizophrenia, phobias and other mental stuff?If it works, how?
Your turn, roll for initiative!
I think you have to slot that one under "It's magic" which washes away any preconception about real world wrongness of an idea.
Actually a disorder like schizophrenia isn't classified as a disease. Disorders don't have organic causes and are typically from genetics, early environment etc.
Say the cause of a disease is some sort of traumatic event. If you could cure someone's brain with this spell, then what else could you cure with it? If you're a nobleman and know your wife and another man are sleeping together, why not remove disease both of them to remove all attraction they have for one another? For a less stretchy comparison, this is like curing the party thief's "kleptomania" with this same spell.
In such a world, clerics and paladins could just cure all the criminals of being bad guys, and then slowly cure the free will of the masses until the entire world is under their control.
The cause of a psychological addiction is something like "my life is crappy" which cannot be just removed (like the cause of physical addiction which are basically changes in the brains structure like an enhanced array of luck hormone receptors as in nicotine addiction)
To cure such an addiction ingame, I´d rule that you have to use spells that raise happiness and self-esteem like a bard´s song of courage or just the feeling of a cleric´s positive channeling (which could become a replacement drug - in discworld, on time rincewind actually casts a spell and is high for some hours just because of the tremendous feeling of casting a spell, he takes it even as an explanation why wizards aren´t that much interested in coitus)
As for remove disease, I regard that as a purifying of the physical body which has nothing to do with a characters psyche
(the term "disease" is quite vague - you could rule inherited disfunctions as disease or also st. anthony´s fire which actually is a poison ingestion - I´d rule, that remove disease works against diseases caused by germs, which include virus infections, bacteria and parasites like the malaria parasite or worms, magical diseases like ghoul fever and external caused bodily malfunctions like cancer, prion diseases and physical addiction, as for some other syndroms like paraplegia I´d rule that you have to combine remove disease with for example lesser restoration, but that´s all not RAW)
A question came up yesterday at the gaming table: Can remove disease cure a gambling addiction?
Does an addiction / impulse control disorder count as a disease?
What about schizophrenia, phobias and other mental stuff?If it works, how?
Your turn, roll for initiative!
Pathfinder and D&D don't follow the "mental conditions= disease" mentality common in political correctness. A disease is always an external force in pathfinder (either a pathogen or a pathogen caused by a spell) , so it wouldn't be affected by remove disease.
Pathfinder doesn't have a whole lot of rules for the mentally insane, or mentally quirky. About the only thing it even has a condition for is fear (phobias), which can be temporarily removed with spells.
Heal specifically cures insanity and, presumably, other mental disorders as well.
Heal specifically cures insanity and, presumably, other mental disorders as well.
No, heal specifically cures insanity, the level 7 sorcerer/wizard spell. It does not cure your general cases of insanity.
Edit: Then again, it looks like most cases of insanity are assumed to be not naturally occurring. So the distinction seems small in most cases.
Heal specifically cures insanity and, presumably, other mental disorders as well.No, heal specifically cures insanity, the level 7 sorcerer/wizard spell. It does not cure your general cases of insanity.
Edit: Then again, it looks like most cases of insanity are assumed to be not naturally occurring. So the distinction seems small in most cases.
"Heal enables you to channel positive energy into a creature to wipe away injury and afflictions. It immediately ends any and all of the following adverse conditions affecting the target: ability damage, blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, poisoned, sickened, and stunned. It also cures 10 hit points of damage per level of the caster, to a maximum of 150 points at 15th level.
Heal does not remove negative levels or restore permanently drained ability score points.
If used against an undead creature, heal instead acts like harm."
Heal lists insanity as one of the conditions it heals. It makes no qualification as to the source of the insanity.
Heal lists insanity as one of the conditions it heals. It makes no qualification as to the source of the insanity.
Both the official PRD and the Core Rules PDF link to the insanity spell.
However, I'd say that this powerful spell will heal your mind, whether your insanity (let's just ignore the whole PC stuff and lump all sort of mental disorders and conditions and whatsnots together under "insanity") stems from magic or just traumatic instances.
The power from the gods will heal your mind so it can deal with problems in a more healthy fashion.
You can always change that if you want to go Ravenloft or Call of Cthulhu on your players and erode their sanity with unspeakable horrors.
You can always change that if you want to go Ravenloft or Call of Cthulhu on your players and erode their sanity with unspeakable horrors.
We do not care if those self-glorified cultists can restore a mind we drove insane. They can do that a few times per day at most (and they need to be powerful to do that). We can destroy minds for hundreds of hours in the same time.
Heal lists insanity as one of the conditions it heals. It makes no qualification as to the source of the insanity.
Both the official PRD and the Core Rules PDF link to the insanity spell.
However, I'd say that this powerful spell will heal your mind, whether your insanity (let's just ignore the whole PC stuff and lump all sort of mental disorders and conditions and whatsnots together under "insanity") stems from magic or just traumatic instances.
The power from the gods will heal your mind so it can deal with problems in a more healthy fashion.
You can always change that if you want to go Ravenloft or Call of Cthulhu on your players and erode their sanity with unspeakable horrors.
I'm pretty sure under the Mental Disorders section of Afflictions, it says Heal gets rid of them.
Heal, the cure-all of the body.
here it is:
Curing Insanity
All insanities have a DC that represents the insanity's strength. An insanity's DC indicates the Will save you need to roll in order to resist contracting the insanity when you are initially exposed to it, but also the DC you need to make to recover. Recovering from an insanity naturally is a lengthy process—once per week, you make a Will save against the insanity's current DC. If you succeed on this save, the insanity's DC is reduced by a number of points equal to your Charisma bonus (minimum of 1). You continue to suffer the full effects of the insanity until its DC is reduced to 0, at which point you are cured and the insanity vanishes completely.
Lesser restoration has no effect on insanity, but restoration reduces the current DC of one insanity currently affecting a target by an amount equal to the caster's level. Greater restoration, heal, limited wish, miracle, or wish immediately cures a target of all insanity.
as for drugs and addicitons, they're all classified as Diseases, meaning Heal gets them too.