Hello

I have been recently inflicted with a disease and I just wanted to ask if I'm the only one that thinks that overcoming a disease seems really hard.

Now diseases on average have a rating of 4 (and so does mine), that means that I have to get 4 successes on the resilience check I roll each day

I play a Dwarf coachman (thus 4 toughness) with resilience trained twice (so 2 extra yellow dice) and since I'm an elder race I get a bonus to recovery ( 2 white dice yay)

So my roll to overcome the disease is 4 blue dice 2 yellow 2 white and 2 purple, now I usually get one or two successes sometimes 3 but never 4 so far, I've even spent fortune points to convert blue dice to green (From contemplative) and still I only got 3 successes.

Not only that but every time that I roll I have a 1 in 4 chances (the chance to get a chaos star in 2 purple dice) of getting another symptom (and thus have to succeed in more rolls)

Now I think that I'm quite well off, I get enough bonuses and stuff to overcome it, and at some point I probably will succeed (probably get a potion or two for an extra white die or two) but let's say that a social character (let us say a human burgher) was afflicted with a disease, if he had a toughness of 3 he would roll 3 blue dice and 2 purple to get 4 successes, even with potions and stuff it could only go up to 3 blue + 2 white with 2 purple to get 4 successes, that is not just hard that's borderline impossible

Do you think that the rules for disease are a bit harsh?

We have an elf in our party with a toughness of 4 with 4 criticals (severities 2 and 3) and she only just managed to get rid of some of them last session by using the just purchased robust talent (lowers critical rating when being treated) and me rolling 4 successes on my first aid check) I'd hate to think what would happen if she got a disease (actually it would be hilarious cause she's the GM's wife, hilarity always ensues when she gets a crit)

Now on to my question

I got the talent Contemplative, it says that I can spend 1 fortune point to "convert one more characteristic die to a conservative die than my stance would normally allow"

The way I see it there are two interpretations to this:

a) let's say my max conservative depth is 3 I can spend a fortune point so that I can get my current stance + 1 as green dice without being limited by my maximum (so if I was at 1 depth I would use 2 dice, if I was at 3 I would use 4 dice)

b) let's say my max conservative depth is 3 for a set amount of time (until the encounter ends????) I can reach 4 depth without affecting my current stance (so if I was at 1 depth I would still roll only 1 green die but I could reach up to 4 green dice as the encounter progresses)

I've been using it so far as a) but is there a chance that b is the correct way?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide

Being inflicted with disease was often a death sentence before modern treatment, so it's meant to be harsh.

- Players are for one meant to use herbs and medicines to recover from diseases (some gives 1+ whites)

- Recovery should be done under the care of someone trained in medicin, and in good conditions (2-3+ whites)

So under the right conditions, with trained personel taking care of you, you now have (for a standard human) 3 Blues, 3-4 whites and 2 purples. This should give you 4 succes after roughly 2 weeks (14 tries). I didn't calculate this, but it should do so after 14 tries.

2 weeks seems okay to recover from a disease (remember, we're not talking a cold here, it's nasty diseases).

Without care... well... very few survived nasty diseases in the Dark Ages without proper care, and even with care many succumbed.

You need medicine and treatment. That will make it a lot easier to overcome the disease.

But death has to have a cause and disease is a nasty way to go and a nasty way to go is the only way to go in warhammer

Haha, your replies are hilarious. Mostly because the OP is a player in my campaign, and I suppose he was looking for sympathy which he got none!

Secondly, did you spot the ROBUST reference in his post!

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Kidding aside, when does a chaos star equal an extra symptom? When his check generates more challenges than success, or when he get more success than challenges, but still less than his severity rating?

plutonick said:

It's on a failed check (no success) and a CS that you get an new symptom if i remember correctly (and not a new symptom if you fail to get rid of one you have, it would be insane that way )

You could (house)rule that it's only when there is one or more "net" challenge(s) instead of "0 or less" success if you find it's harsh or to quick to aggravate the disease.

plutonick said:

Hehe I guess players just need to complain a bit once in a while. Mine do, although surprisingly none of them have died yet and we have played through eye for en eye and are starting on the 5th chapter of TTT. They are all rank 2 (23 exp I think).

There have been a few hairy situations though, where they have been close to dying and since I roll all my dice in the open they know that they have full control over their destiny. That is, running if things turn bad.

Disease rules introduced next session, so perhaps that claims one of them soon

Gallows said:

23 Exp should be Rank 3 characters

I think only the use of spells & blessings are restricted (higher cost, harder dificulty) by the character's Career (Rank 2 spells for Disciples/Acolytes, etc.)

****, a group with 23 xp, and no deaths?

I'm sorry to tell you this, but your players are using loaded dice

Or they are questing to see who can get the highest score in cribbage.

I came to realise (only a few weeks ago), that my players characters would always have some niggles (i.e. never be fully heatlhy, unstressed, unfatigued, completely sane) unless they spend considerable amount of time in a Warhammer Health farm

I really like that aspect - adventuring in the Old World is going to have a negative health aspect, which should only be completely cleared by prolonged rest.

Spivo said:

Yeah I suspect that too and yes they are rank 3 of course.

It's not that the enemies haven't been tough, because some of the foes they have faced have been well beyond their capabilities... but they have managed do dodge some tough confrontations by playing wisely.

Three times they have been very close to losing a player dying, but every time someone else has saved the day. I guess it's still a success, because the players know it was close and they have a lot of respect for combat. They know my dice rolls and know I don't intervene if someone bites the dust (no plot protection in my game, we figure out the story, but no players are saved). But I still find it quite surprising that they have survived this long. Especially when TTT is in fact a quite tough campaign.

Many encounters are balanced to be either slightly too hard or slightly too easy for them (I try to balance but the end result is never completely known because of dice rolls and things you never thought of). Then I have some easy encounters where the players are sure to win and finally some encounters where the players will most likely perish if they don't flee or find a peaceful solution.

But TTT gets slightly harder from chapter 5 so lets see how long they make it.

To answer the original post - you're not doing anything wrong big guy.

Think about the real world. When you get sick, and something knocks you on your bum, you have to take a few days off. Bedrest, plenty of fluids, medicine. And you're right as rain.

Simply do the same treatment in warhammer. Get some serious rest, take medicine, and have someone tend you. It changes your 4b+2y dice into a much more sizeable pool (extra dice for clean and comfy surroundings, the person caring for you can roll on your behalf to give you extra white dice, and the medicine helps insomuch as it adds dice and sometimes reduces the number of successes needed). Your dice will serve you well in resisting getting the disease in the first place. Unless you fight a plaguebearer or somesuch. Then you just might be out of luck.

As to whether it's too hard? Welcome to warhammer. The land where people don't have shiny white teeth, sparkling armor, and the bad guys are all caricatures. It's par for the course. ^_~

I highly recommend that you donate some cash and spend some time at a Shallyan hospice (ie a hospital). Not only does this provide extra fortune dice (both for sanitation as well as medicines), but also a second roll to remove the disease. In addition, there is always the possibility that that particular hospice might have a priestess that knows some Blessings which can aid in the recovery from diseases too.