Medic : Treat condition and diseases

[Zergor]

The treat condition feat (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2029) allow to remove some conditions except for specific cases : "Treating a Condition that is continually applied under certain circumstances (for instance, the enfeebled condition a good character gains from carrying an unholy weapon) has no effect as long as the circumstances continue."

Is a disease a specific circumstance that continually apply the condition ?

If not, can a medic remove all the effects of a disease that only gives one of the three conditions and how long will that last ?

Thanks a lot.

[breithauptclan]

Zergor wrote:

Is a disease a specific circumstance that continually apply the condition ?

If not, can a medic remove all the effects of a disease that only gives one of the three conditions and how long will that last ?

A disease is not a condition. It is an affliction.

There is Treat Disease that helps with diseases. And Treat Poison for poisons.

Treat Condition is for instantaneous effects that leave a lasting condition. For example a magical hazard that fires a beam of energy that causes the target hit to become Clumsy 2 for one minute. You could use Treat Condition to help with that because the beam was an instantaneous effect that has already ended - it isn't re-applying the condition again immediately after you finish the two actions of Treat Condition. A disease that was causing Clumsy 2 would be.

If you want to go into houserule territory you could have the Treat Condition suppress the condition that a disease is causing for some amount of time, but part of that houserule creation is going to be determining how long of an amount of time that is. You might look at something like Claim Curse or Snap Out of It for balance guidance.

[Zergor]

Ok so a disease reapply the conditions each round if I understood you correctly so I would not be able to remove the clumsy part of for example bog rot (https://2e.aonprd.com/Diseases.aspx?ID=1) because it would indeed be instantly reapplied.

Thanks.

[Super Zero]

You can treat a condition. The affliction may reapply it, which may make treating symptoms of fast-acting afflictions ineffective.

Injury poisons and venoms, which are meant to apply in combat, usually have stages measured in rounds (often 1 round), so treating individual symptoms might be largely pointless as they'll either come back or would have ended anyway depending on the next save.

For slower things like diseases, treating symptoms can be more useful (and is something we do in real life, too).

[Zergor]

Thanks Super Zero. There seem to be a rule for conditions from affliction, I did not find it initially.

But that does mostly clarify what happens if the condition has a duration that does not match the stage duration.
What is the baseline ? Should I read it like the affliction gives the condition for the duration of the stage at the start of the stage and is not reapplied (if for instance removed using medicine) until a new stage is reached ?

[Baarogue]

Zergor wrote:

Thanks Super Zero. There seem to be a rule for conditions from affliction, I did not find it initially.

But that does mostly clarify what happens if the condition has a duration that does not match the stage duration.
What is the baseline ? Should I read it like the affliction gives the condition for the duration of the stage at the start of the stage and is not reapplied (if for instance removed using medicine) until a new stage is reached ?

The rule Super Zero linked is just that if no duration is listed for the condition, for instance if it just says "clumsy 1"* like the Bog Rot you linked, it can last longer than the affliction itself. In the case of clumsy, it would be permanent until removed since clumsy doesn't have a base duration or baked-in removal rules like Frightened, Sickened, or Drained do. Even if the condition were removed, each time the victim's save (at whatever interval the infliction calls for - in Bog Rot's case once per day) results in a stage with a condition, it would be reapplied. Note that the Clumsy could be removed, but I know of nothing that can remove the movement penalty applied by the worse stages of Bog Rot

*the (1 day) after clumsy 1 in Bog Rot's description is the stage interval, not the condition's duration

[Zergor]

Thank you for your answer, so conditions for an affliction are permanent but only applied once each stage, and removed automatically when reaching an other stage if those conditions don't have a different listed duration or specific rules to be removed like drained seem to have (reduced each day in that case).

That seem unnecessarily messy.

So that gives me an other question :
If an affliction gives sickened and has the caveat that this sickened can't be removed as long as the affliction continue, that sickened condition would continue after the affliction end (but a simple fortitude check would allow to remove it) because sickened include a rule for recovery like drained.
On the other hand an affliction that gives clumsy that end would remove the clumsy part instantly because there is no duration rule for clumsy.
Am I right ?

[Baarogue]

Zergor wrote:

Thank you for your answer, so conditions for an affliction are permanent but only applied once each stage, and removed automatically when reaching an other stage if those conditions don't have a different listed duration or specific rules to be removed like drained seem to have (reduced each day in that case).

That seem unnecessarily messy.

So that gives me an other question :
If an affliction gives sickened and has the caveat that this sickened can't be removed as long as the affliction continue, that sickened condition would continue after the affliction end (but a simple fortitude check would allow to remove it) because sickened include a rule for recovery like drained.
On the other hand an affliction that gives clumsy that end would remove the clumsy part instantly because there is no duration rule for clumsy.
Am I right ?

No, read the rule he linked. Conditions from afflictions remain after the affliction ends, or even after the stage they were applied ends, unless they are overwritten by a higher severity condition, or given an explicit duration, or they have a baked-in removal rule. They are not "auto-removed" upon stage change or expiration of the affliction unless the affliction states they are

So the clumsy from Bog Rot would remain after the Bog Rot itself ended, until the clumsy condition is removed somehow. If the victim reached stage 3 of Bog Rot, giving them clumsy 2, and then went down to stage 2 or stage 1 or even was cured altogether, they would still be clumsy 2 even though lower stages only cause clumsy 1 because clumsy 2 is higher severity and has no baked-in expiration

[Zergor]

If that's the case how would the clumsy condition ever go away ? Aside from specific feats there is no simple way to remove clumsy.

[Baarogue]

That's what makes diseases and other afflictions so dangerous. The Restoration spell is one way to remove clumsy and similar conditions

[Darksol the Painbringer]

The problem is that Clumsy, Enfeebled, et. al. aren't conditions that have natural means of removal, which means the idea that they should persist longer than the affliction is absurd, since that makes basic afflictions which inflict minor conditions significantly more powerful than they should be at higher levels, assuming their Save DCs scale with the party (which most apparent threats do).

The example they give for the "Afflictions with Conditions" entry is Drained, which is stated to last longer than an affliction, but it says that it's normal for the Drained condition. It's probably not normal for other conditions as well (most likely, conditions without a natural means of removal), otherwise it wouldn't have mentioned that it's normal for that condition in particular.

I would expect afflictions which have natural means to remove them, like Fatigued, Drained, Frightened, Sickened, Doomed, etc. to persist. Other conditions which don't have this (such as Stupefied, Clumsy, and Enfeebled) are likely to be removed once the affliction ends, or should have specific time frames for how long these conditions last, since there is no natural means to remove them.

[Errenor]

Baarogue wrote:

No, read the rule he linked. Conditions from afflictions remain after the affliction ends, or even after the stage they were applied ends, unless they are overwritten by a higher severity condition, or given an explicit duration, or they have a baked-in removal rule. They are not "auto-removed" upon stage change or expiration of the affliction unless the affliction states they are

So the clumsy from Bog Rot would remain after the Bog Rot itself ended, until the clumsy condition is removed somehow. If the victim reached stage 3 of Bog Rot, giving them clumsy 2, and then went down to stage 2 or stage 1 or even was cured altogether, they would still be clumsy 2 even though lower stages only cause clumsy 1 because clumsy 2 is higher severity and has no baked-in expiration

Exactly the other way around. If they have a default duration or a default built-in way to remove them, they can remain. In all other cases they are tied to the affliction/effect that caused them and removed at the moment the cause is removed. So of course clumsy will be removed the moment the disease is cured.

[Cordell Kintner]

Please read the clarifications for the CRB

Quote:

Page 458 (Clarification): If an affliction makes me enfeebled 1 without listing a duration and the affliction ends, am I enfeebled forever?

The rules on Conditions from Afflictions note that a condition can last for a longer duration that the affliction that caused it, using drained as an example. There are three categories of effects from afflictions here.

1. Immediate effects like damage happen as soon as you reach the stage.
2. Conditions that have a way to end them by default last for their normal duration. This includes conditions like drained, frightened, persistent damage, and sickened.
3. Conditions that always need to include a duration because they don’t have a normal way to recover from them—such as clumsy or paralyzed—last as long as the stage of the affliction on which they appear. This also applies to effects that are ongoing but specific to the affliction rather than being defined conditions, such as a penalty to certain rolls.

So if a Disease or Poison makes you Clumsy 1, you are not Clumsy 1 forever, only until the affliction is gone or you go to a stage that doesn't have it. They got rid of ability drain because it sucked, please don't try to bring it back.

[Zergor]

Thank you Cordell Kintner. That clarification is indeed really useful. That seem way clearer now.

So I guess that the answer to my first question is that I can use the feat treat condition on conditions that come from afflictions (specifically clumsy and enfeebled) as if they were conditions with a duration of the stage but they could come back at the next stage depending on which one it is (except for sickened, but all conditions that give sickened explicitely say you can't remove it anyway).

[Castilliano]

Baarogue, I do not agree with your interpretation. The cited rule does not say "conditions from afflictions remain after the affliction ends", which is how I used to interpret it too due to 3.X/PF1 ability damage. It says "An affliction might give you conditions with a longer or shorter duration than the affliction." The "might" makes all the difference, suggesting there's a way to determine when the condition does or doesn't share the same duration (noting also that "permanent" is not anywhere to be found.)
Unfortunately the rule neglects to clarify what that way is!
So maybe the "might" refers to whether it even gives you a condition or not, a fair interpretation except the emphasis of the paragraph is on durations and permanent-until-fixed leads to a major problem. I think therefore one must look at the condition to see if it's one "with a longer or short duration than the affliction" which suggests that "duration the same duration as the affliction" would be the default.

That major problem involves conditions that have no normal duration, like the speed penalty mentioned above. When does it end? There's also the Brain Collector whose poison inflicts Slowed 1, which also has no remedy. Need a Wish? This lies dead center in the "too bad to be true" category. (That poison has remained written the same as in the playtest, despite the issue being raised on the forums even then.)

Again, the rules don't clarify the determiner, yet it seems if the "permanent unless stated otherwise" has anomalies with no solution, then maybe it's because the default reading is supposed to be that the condition lasts only as long as the affliction. The "might" would then refer to unusual conditions. The first example then supports this by addressing Drained, noting that Drained remains "as is normal for the drained condition".
There is no "normal for the Slowed" condition, nor for having a speed penalty. The Clumsy condition also does not have a "normal" despite being a "lower ability" like Drained (which unfortunately doesn't have a "normal" duration so much as a normal remedy).

(The other example deals with Persistent damage, being the inverse situation where the condition ends before the affliction, but not stopping the affliction nor a recurrence of the condition from the affliction.)

Anyway, I empathize with your interpretation, Baarogue, because it matches what mine had been at first. Except I think PF2's principles (and the aforementioned anomalies) go a different direction. Attrition, as w/ 3.X/PF1 ability damage, plays less a role in PF2. Or at least that's how I understand this.

tl:dr The rules state there might be conditions w/ durations that differ from their afflictions, implying its normal that they share the same duration.

ETA: So many medical ninja! :-)

[Baarogue]

Yeah, I forgot about the clarification. Thanks Cordell