Disease that is made stronger by divine magic

[ParagonDireRaccoon]

I'm playing around with the idea of a disease that is made stronger by divine magic. It could be used for a zombie apocalypse campaign, or as part of a demon invasion. The disease gestates indefinitely, and is activated when a host is affected by a divine spell. There is a daily Fort save that must be made every day against DC 15+level of spell that activated it, with a +1 for each day the disease has been active. Success means resisting the disease and becoming immune to it. Failure means it worsens. Worsening either means -1 to SR and Will saves (minimum 0 for each) for a demon invasion campaign, or -1 Con if it is an undead apocalypse campaign. At Con 0 the victim becomes an undead, or the GM might have undead or demons transforming weakened disease victims.

Thoughts?

[ParagonDireRaccoon]

The inspiration for this somewhat macabre idea is European colonization of North America. Europeans brought a lot of diseases and had a high resistance to disease (diseases like smallpox and measles generally transfer from livestock to humans- Europeans lack hygiene for several centuries and lived in close proximity to livestock). Native Americans had little or no resistance to smallpox, measles, and other diseases. In addition, some East Coast tribes treated diseases by having the sick person immerse in cold water, then the tribe would huddle together to warm up the sick person. There was probably a disease for which hugging it out after a cold immersion was an effective treatment, but this was a very effective way to spread smallpox inadvertently. Some East Coast tribes had mortality rates higher than 90%.

So I tried thinking of a way to simulate that in PF. A disease that spreads as an airborne pathogen, then is triggered and made stronger by divine magic would probably have similar results. The twist is that paladins who are immune to disease would be immune, and with the right mercies could cure it. So as part of a campaign with demons or undead using the disease, by the second or third chapter the BBEG would send minions to eliminate paladins.

[Set]

This seems like something a truly nasty anti-theist group would come up with. (Much, much nastier than the sorts of folk who inhabit Rahadoum. We're talking Aboleth-level 'we hates the gods, precious, and all who follow them.') But yeah, I could see demons spreading a remove disease resistant strain of Demon Fever around the Worldwound.

Since remove disease is conjuration (healing), like cure wounds spells, it could be *assumed* that it involves positive energy, somehow. Positive energy, in theory, is beneficial to life, and would, in theory, accelerate disease and tumors and infections out of control, normally (while negative energy, inimical to life, would be the go-to 'cure' for diseases, tumors, infections, etc.). That's not the case, so clearly there's something built into the spell that allows the positive energy to only 'enliven' the target creature, and not the parasites / contagion / whatever killing them.

A disease that has evolved, or been modified, to be able to hide from whatever this 'targeting system' is for the positive energy of a remove disease spell would gain a massive rush of energy from an attempt to 'cure' it with positive energy, since the positive energy would just end up *healing the infection* and making it stronger.

.

A tamer mechanical game effect would simply be to have the disease have a form of spell resistance. If it makes the SR roll, it has 'tricked' the remove disease spells 'targeting' and the disease is strengthened, forcing another immediate roll at the diseases normal DC for ongoing damage. (So if the disease was a variation on Demon Fever, if the disease makes it's SR to 'trick' the remove disease spell, the patient would have to make a DC 18 Fort save or take another immediate 1d6 Con damage, and a second save to avoid a point of that being Con drain.)

If the remove disease succeeds in overcoming the diseases SR, the spell has it's normal effect (caster level check to end the disease completely).

A stronger effect would skip the SR completely, and just have the disease automatically metabolize positive energy used to attempt to remove it. I'd avoid that, because it's probably a bit too much.

I'd also avoid having the disease interact with other positive energy sources, such as cure wounds spells, lesser restoration spells, channeled positive energy, etc. as that would be extremely brutal (particularly if just attempting to get a lesser restoration to survive the disease instead made it worse!). If that route is taken, OTOH, and every cure or restoration spell or positive energy channeling is going to force another Fort save, the disease probably should have a much reduced effect (1 pt. of Con damage per failed disease save) or something. The Fort DC might even vary, based on the effect triggering it. Say, base DC 10 or 15, with a +1 or +2 / level of the spell triggering it (with channeled energy counting as a spell level equal to it's dice of effect).

[ParagonDireRaccoon]

Thanks Set! This is why I post asking for feedback- I would have never thought of the spell resistance approach.

[Alleran]

Set wrote:

Positive energy, in theory, is beneficial to life, and would, in theory, accelerate disease and tumors and infections out of control, normally (while negative energy, inimical to life, would be the go-to 'cure' for diseases, tumors, infections, etc.). That's not the case, so clearly there's something built into the spell that allows the positive energy to only 'enliven' the target creature, and not the parasites / contagion / whatever killing them.

There was an Elder Evil in the late days of 3.5e that had positive energy used in a "bad" sense - Ragnorra. It even swung right in line with "anti-theistic" given that Ragnorra is an Elder Evil. The amount of positive energy caused tumours, growths, and various other problematical effects on people who received healing.

You could definitely take a few cues from that.