Disease

Disease is somewhat omnipresent. Whenever a character falls in an open sewer, gets bitten by a rat, eats food he isn't sure is good, or enters the wrong ward of the hospital, that character has been exposed to a disease. Whenever the GM decides it is appropriate, the character begins to be infected. Characters do not normally catch disease without an obvious reason, but the GM may of course throw disease at them essentially at their discretion - everything is airborne, and it is easy to get food poisoning.

All Heal checks against disease are long-term care.

Each disease has a save DC, an incubation period, a number of effects, and a method of transmission. Some have more than one DC, as they might be, for example, very hard to catch but very difficult to get rid of. If in any case it is unclear what DC to use, use the lower one.

When a character is first exposed to a disease, they must make a fortitude save equal to the disease's DC. If they are aware they will be exposed to this specific disease and a heal check (DC 20) has been made in the past hour, they get a +1 on this save. If they succeed on this save, they cannot be affected by this disease for another hour. Each hour of exposure requires a new save.

If the save is failed, they are now infected by the disease, which lays dormant for its incubation period. The character does not know that they are infected, though a successful heal check (DC disease's DC - 5) will reveal that they are infected. At this point, a character may make heal checks to cure the disease, as below (beat DC by 5).

At the end of the incubation period, the disease takes effect. It immediately causes its effects on the first day, and on every day afterwards. Each successive day allows a new save. If the save beats the DC by less than five, no effects are taken from the disease. If the DC is beaten by five or more, the disease is cured and recovery may begin. A heal check may be substituted for either of these fortitude saves, though the healer must spend at least 2 hours each day to make the check. A character who is not resting takes a -1 on this check for each hour they are active - this penalty applies to possible heal checks as well.

Some diseases have a cap on the amount of damage they can deal, meaning they are only lethal to the very weak.

An infected character does not heal normally. They regain no hit points naturally, nor do they recover sublethal damage.

During recovery, the character regains lost ability score points at the rate of one a day. Damage is regained normally and other effects, if not specifically mentioned, go away when the character has returned to full health. A heal check can decrease recovery time - for each five points the DC is beaten by, the character heals as if they had recovered an extra day.

Sublethal damage dealt by disease bypasses sublethal damage reduction.

Unless otherwise noted, a character can be infected with an unlimited number of diseases. Checks are made separately for each disease.

Types of Disease

Basically, there are two types of disease - those you can get many times and those you gain immunity to. The first graph below are all diseases you can get many times. The second group you gain immunity to after having them once.

Diseases

Disease Name	Method of Transmission	DC	Incubation Period	Effects
Flu	Airborne	20 initial, 25 all other	1d6 days	1 point con, 1 point str, 1d6 sublethal
Food Poisoning	Ingested	20	1d2 days	1 point con, Nauseated

Immunity Diseases

Disease Name	Method of Transmission	DC	Incubation Period	Effects
Smallpox	Airborne, Fluids, or contaminated objects	25	3d6 days	Nausea, 1 point con (Max 8), 1 point str, 2d6 sublethal

A Heal check (long-term care) or a Craft (alchemy) check of DC 10 higher than a disease's DC provides immunity against a single immunity disease. Failure infects the patient with the disease, which skips the incubation period and goes straight to dealing damage.