"The target can't recover except by magic."

[Zapp]

Let me try to ask the question without spoiling anything.

There exists a disease that has this to say about the conditions it imposes on its victims:

"The target can't recover from the disease's drained or sickened condition except by magic."

What does that mean?

Does it mean
a) you can't recover from the disease naturally (moving from stage 3 to stage 2 for instance) but a successful Remove Disease will instantly remove the disease and its conditions?
b) you CAN move "up" stages, but you still suffer from the conditions of the "lower" stage. If you make a successful save during the disease natural course, you can leave, say, stage 3 for stage 2 - but you can't improve to Drained 1 from Drained 2 since you can't "recover except by magic".
c) that after removing the disease with Remove Disease, the conditions remain, and must be individually removed (with Restoration)?

I guess I'm really asking why the conditions are singled out by this sentence. Why not simply say "The target can't recover from the disease except by magic." What would be different if this phrasing was used?

It's likely you need the actual disease to provide a full reply, so here it is:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Diseases.aspx?ID=21 (spoiler)

[SuperBidi]

You can recover from Drained by resting and from Sickened by spending an action vomiting. These ways of recovery are not allowed with this disease. That's all in my opinion.

[shroudb]

As written, even if you remove the disease (either by making the sameves or remove disease) its effects (drained and sickened) remain and you have to remove them magically (through restoration as an example)

[SuperBidi]

shroudb wrote:

As written, even if you remove the disease (either by making the sameves or remove disease) its effects (drained and sickened) remain and you have to remove them magically (through restoration as an example)

Effects remain for all afflictions: "An affliction might give you conditions with a longer or shorter duration than the affliction. For instance, if an affliction causes you to be drained but has a maximum duration of 5 minutes, you remain drained even after the affliction ends, as is normal for the drained condition."

So, the only thing is you can't recover from Drained and Sickened by resting/vomiting. That's all.

[shroudb]

SuperBidi wrote:

shroudb wrote:

As written, even if you remove the disease (either by making the sameves or remove disease) its effects (drained and sickened) remain and you have to remove them magically (through restoration as an example)

Effects remain for all afflictions: "An affliction might give you conditions with a longer or shorter duration than the affliction. For instance, if an affliction causes you to be drained but has a maximum duration of 5 minutes, you remain drained even after the affliction ends, as is normal for the drained condition."

So, the only thing is you can't recover from Drained and Sickened by resting/vomiting. That's all.

yes, that's what i said: you aren't recovering from the effects until magical healing for them. No natural healing from there even if you remove the disease.

[SuperBidi]

shroudb wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

shroudb wrote:

As written, even if you remove the disease (either by making the sameves or remove disease) its effects (drained and sickened) remain and you have to remove them magically (through restoration as an example)

Effects remain for all afflictions: "An affliction might give you conditions with a longer or shorter duration than the affliction. For instance, if an affliction causes you to be drained but has a maximum duration of 5 minutes, you remain drained even after the affliction ends, as is normal for the drained condition."

So, the only thing is you can't recover from Drained and Sickened by resting/vomiting. That's all.

yes, that's what i said: you aren't recovering from the effects until magical healing for them. No natural healing from there even if you remove the disease.

I agree.

So, it's B and C in Zapp's list.

[Zapp]

Thank you both

[Ventura]

Is there any magic (either spell or item) that removes sickened? Because so far I haven't been able to find any. Restoration would only be able to remove the drained condition.

Edit: A champion with lay on hands and 8th lvl greater mercy feat would be able to do it. So if it turns out there are no spells/items a helpful NPC champion will do. :)

[SuperBidi]

Ventura wrote:

Is there any magic (either spell or item) that removes sickened? Because so far I haven't been able to find any. Restoration would only be able to remove the drained condition.

Same, I haven't found any of them. This disease is badly made...

In my opinion, you should recover by moving through steps. Only if you want to recover for the conditions of your current step you would need magic. That's way more logical that way.

[Squiggit]

The Paladin/Blessed One feat Greater Mercy allows you to remove sickened with Lay On Hands and the level 12 Blessed One feat Blessed Denial lets them reduce the intensity of a Sickened effect by 1.

That's it as far as I can tell.