Disease System.

[Catlemur]

To make things more realistic I propose implementing a disease system.
First of all newbies will be immune to them for a certain amount of time.
There would be three ways to cure a disease:
By using magic.
By drinking special potions.
By asking priests at temples to heal you.
A player could catch a disease after getting bitten/hit by a monster.
Here is a list of proposed diseases:
Kikiripox (Kikiris)-Reduces the Musical Instrument skill.
Gobble Bane (Gobbles)-Reduces Mana by 30%.
Mud Fever (Riverlings)-Reduces the Ranged,Find Traps and Set Traps skills.
Cryosis (Arragmas)-Reduces the Strenth stat and makes you weaker to Blue Way magic.
Suclum (Rats)-Reduces  the Empathy skill and the Charisma stat.
Zeagan Plague (Consumers)-Reduces all armor related skills and the Endurance stat.
The diseases won't be transformed from one player to another. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW#Corrupted_Blood_plague_incident)
There would be a set possibility to catch a disease every time you get hit by a monster.

[Gilrond]

Poisoning can also be added. But potions rely on alchemy to a degree.

[novacadian]

By asking priests at temples to heal you.

This is a wonderful idea. For a game that puts so much settings in Gods there is so little interaction with them. It is hard to put a price on the amount of offerings my character has placed on the the altar stone in Gugrontid with no feedback from the God what-so-ever. In truth her faith is beginning to wane. This suggestion would go a long way in making temple visits a regular happening with characters.

Perhaps temple offerings could make one immune from diseases for a period of time?

- Nova

[Sarko]

Hum... Priests, Temples, Gods... Since when religion is healing disease wound ?

[Aramara Meibi]

Hum... Priests, Temples, Gods... Since when religion is healing disease wound ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_man

[Gilrond]

Wiki is still on strike

[Aramara Meibi]

patience, my young padawan.

[Gilrond]

Well, the point of Wikipedia is to raise the awareness of SOPA/PIPA issue. You can still see the content if you really need to, just disable JavaScript in the browser temporarily.

[Phantomboy86]

While normally i'd call BS on faith healing, Planeshift has it down that there ARE gods, and they can walk around and do god stuff. So maybe they could choose to effect diseases (Though i'm fairly certain Catlemur took this idea directly out of TES).
However this leads to whether anyone can just walk to any temple regardless of affiliation (Would a klyros walk over and ask Laanx for healing? I doubt it!)

[Rigwyn]

     F-ing awesome man... I'm sick!.... and will retch wormy, bloody vomit and die unless I find someone who is willing and able to heal me before the little timer on my screen runs out...

     While its kinda cool for healers to be able to cure illnesses and whatnot, do we really want the inconvenience of getting sick - from a game playing perspective at least? To me, sickness is just another form of damage (  like getting attacked by a mob ) except its more cumbersome to fix. You would have to train yet another skill so you can just heal yourself, buy more glorious, heavy potions, or make extra trips back to town -- assuming you don't die enroute.

     From a role playing perspective, why limit yourself to the illnesses and methods of healing that the mechanics would provide?  ( Oh Lordy, I'm starting to sound like freakin Illysia now!?  ) Some folks have roleplayed some rather creative cures ( including transfusions and so on ) and sicknesses that would never really make it into the mechanics. 


Just my measly two cents...

[Illysia]

@Rigwyn: How do you think any of us start saying that kind of stuff smarty pants? :p

Actually, it can be used to good affect. you can use it as a consequence for doing certain actions. For instance, a non BF character hanging around the sewer could eventually catch a disease, a character that hunts a lot of rats could have a chance of also catching a disease. You travel into territory that is dangerous/toxic/full of bitey type creatures like dense jungle etc. Consequences for actions help balance things out and give excuses for characters to do or not do things.

For instance the sewer is a nasty stinky... sewer! It's not a hang out for the average character so the disease mechanic will convince more mechanically minded RPers to find alternatives. On the other hand, for BF characters, the disease could both provide a certain amount of protection from non BF characters (we'll assume said flame protects them) and a hurdle against non BF character just stumbling into their domain.

In short, consequences (good or bad) add a certain deliberateness to the game play and were also promised as an eventual addition for many things. Not to mention I know it should be doable considering how often Weltall threatened to make Lady Peckerly infectious.

[Phantomboy86]

As a precaution though, if this were ever implemented, I warn you devs to make diseases that are fatal/HP draining rather rare until the disease system is ironed out, lest ye be smote by the legions of whine. Perhaps give Dark Way access to spells like this. (Maybe Brown Way too, though they'd be less malicious.)

[tman]

I do agree this would be interesting and in the full game I'd be happy to see it.  It just seems to me like this would be pretty low on the list of priorities right now.

In terms of effect, it would be really annoying if, for example, your strength is immediately decreased by 30% or whatever and you can't move around anymore and have to drop some goods.  I personally think it would be better if there were one disease for each stat and its effects start low (maybe 5% decrease for that stat) and then over time the disease gets worse and worse until you treat it.  It should take a full day or two (in game) to reach it's maximum effect.  After all, when someone sneezes on you in real life you don't get sick right away.  It takes a while.

[LigH]

I'd probably prefer the "mysterious cold" kind of roleplay, especially because it doesn't enforce the participation via game mechanics: You can decide to ignore it.

That doesn't mean I don't like such events. I have a surgeon char, you know...

[Catlemur]

As a precaution though, if this were ever implemented, I warn you devs to make diseases that are fatal/HP draining rather rare until the disease system is ironed out, lest ye be smote by the legions of whine. Perhaps give Dark Way access to spells like this. (Maybe Brown Way too, though they'd be less malicious.)

Indeed I took the idea from TES.A player should be a worshiper of Laanx to be cured at Laanx's temple.Diseases will give the devs an opportunity to create massive events like epidemies,curing a well known NPC from an unknown disease.Diseases will be displayed as debuffs in the effects bar.