I interpret it literally. Innoculations and anti-viral agents are tailored to specific diseases. There is no such thing as a penicillin for viruses. There is also no difference between the innate resistance of dwarfs and the innate resistance provided by bioware.

You know, its funny in the Player handbook there is a description of a guy making a shiv to fight off ghouls... based on this rule that seems like a total joke, to be even scratched by a ghoul based on either of these rules basis (the hard or the softcore versions) means a huge threat of being infected with an uncurable disease that essentially removes your character from the game.

Here's a question, if a player is cyber'd how do you determine if an attack that hit him damaged his cyberlimb vs his body for infection vector purposes?

No hit locations, you don't.

The guy making the shiv is just acting in futile desperation, very understandable. To fight ghouls, don't get scratched. It's not like armor doesn't exist… or drones!

Actually it is worse than that. The Virus has power 8 so you need 8 hits on the first test to shake off the disease and get -6 dice to protective gear/medicine. If you do you are fine and do not have to worry about the disease anymore (not sure what happens with subsequent contact). If you do not get 8 hits the remaining power is added to the next roll. So even with incredible 7 hits you will have to resist power 9 on the next test. and so on. So now you see how infection equals ghouldom, unless you are below 1 ESS or put a bullet through your brain.

… We *just* went over that. You have minimum 10 tests, period, no 'shaking off'. (Unless someone can find a quote that says diseases do that?)

I'd just like to point out:

"Oh I see, it's succeeding on 10 tests"
"Actually it's worse than that, you have to succeed on one test"

Ummm? How is that worse? (Even if it was correct)

Hehe. I think he was just pointing out how harsh accumulating Power is; if you *don't* succeed, it only gets harder.

Personally, I'm fine with Pathogenic Defense/etc. working, as they provide a chance at a cost. I'm not at all fine with O-Cells ignoring Penetration (and they're probably way too strong anyway), at their relatively low cost. They basically cure all (meta)human diseases, isn't that the holy grail?

Oh right, that bit.

Huh. I guess I have a different reading.



It reads, to me, that once a day, for ten days, you make the test of lose .1 essence.
If you lose 1.0 essence in total, you become a Ghoul.

Which means that if you manage to pass *1* of those tests, you wind up down .9 essence and don't Ghoulflip.

Day 11+, you don't make tests anymore as you've passed the incubation period.

I could, of course, be wrong, and I'll confess that I've never dropped the disease on anyone in one of my games, but, based purely on the quoted thing above, that'd be my read.

Right, that's definitely wrong. 10 is the *minimum* number of tests, but you also have to fight off all the Power (which accumulates), totaling 80 (60 in errata). The quoted bit is just an incomplete summary of the disease rules, that's all.

Yeah, my bad. What it _should_ say, is "The (10) means, that this is the minimum number of disease resistance tests you need to make, so one every day for at least 10 days in this case."

Sorry about the confusion.

You are right, that you do not become a ghoul, if you pass one test. But if you do not pass the first test it gets considerably harder with each subsequent test. So you'd probably just burn a point of Edge on the first test to achieve a critical success, come to terms with being a ghoul or put a bullet through your head.

@Yerameyahu: It might be the intention that you need to roll the other tests as well, but the RAW at least is ambiguous:

There is no restriction that the disease only takes no effect until the next of the tests called for. Having to roll another test could be called an effect.

That is not true. You need to make further tests if you do not get all the required successes in 10 rolls. And for each test you DON'T pass (meaning: less than 8 [or 6] successes), you lose 0,1 essence.
If 1 point of essence loss accumulates: Congratulations, you're now blind, stink and have claws as well as a raging appetite for long pig.

Edit: additionally, I don't think it's how it works, when you say "Having to roll another test could be called an effect.". The _effect_ of the disease is, in the case of HMHVV: Pain, nausea, essence loss, transformation.
The rules are not really ambigious. You need to make at least 10 tests. Power accumulates throughout the tests if you don't stage it down to 0. If power is left, you make further tests.

Based on the example given on the same page, the "effects" are that "other stuff." In the case of Ghoulism, it's the -0.1 essence.



There's also this bit, on page 129, about Speed.



And again under Power, p130:



I would say that in this case, RAW is very very very unambiguous.

Great, now burning Edge isn't even an option, except at the tenth test and .9 ESS lost. Even at Power 6 and Penetration -3 ghouldom is all but certain for Joe Average.

Seems silly to me and rather out and out that the power "resets" during each test rather than just being reduced by however many hits you achieve. But if that's how it's worded I won't be sicking any ghouls on my players. It isn't even a chance, which makes it a relatively stupid negative play experience.

Also remember that with the errata rules they acutally have to do physical damage to you (as opposed to just looking at you funny) and that your standard out of the book ghoul isnt all that much of a challange for your standard Runner.

Not that it isnt still dangerous, but mabye the cybered out troll ghould with 14P base on his claws with 14 dice to hit is a little much..

The power is reduced by each test by the number of hits. It's just that the total power is doled out over doses rather than all at once. It's a 60 power disease and you get 6 power every day. You have the disease until you achieve 60 hits but if you go 10 days where you fail to reduce the power to 0 then you succumb to it.

It basically works out that if you catch it, then you're spending all your edge in the first few days of the disease hoping to get a couple days where you reduce it to 0 and hope that your natural disease resistance can get you over it in 9 days or less. If you fail to get those early reduced to zero days then you're probably SoL and it would require some miraculous luck to not succumb to it. No matter what, you're probably going to lose 0.5 essence to it that can't be gained back in any way.

Isn't there a surgery that can fix essense loss that isn't via limb replacement/loss?

As for house-ruling other than the standard reduction are there any rules changes that anyone can suggest for diseases? Is power rolling over a little much? Are there any conditions where power rolling over should be limited? How about power-undercutting (if you do extremely well one day taking away from the next).

IIRC it states directly that the revitilization treatment will NOT work on HMHVV III in the decription of the disiese

I believe the rules for the disease explicitly state that the essence lost from it cannot be restored.



The rules for diseases aren't that bad. It's just the ghoul virus is extremely punitive if you catch it. Most of the other diseases are recoverable or essentially not likely to be deadly. Herpes, for example, is just 5 stun damage once a month plus malaise and agony. Compare that to what would probably be losing at least 0.5 essence or becoming a ghoul.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...st&p=806513

Of course Stahl. Most people would need to be actively seeking out herds of ghouls to come down with it. They full and well deserve what comes. It's when the GM decides to have a little fun and say a pack of ghouls bursts into a bar the runners frequent and one runner manages a stupidly unlucky roll and gets infected where the issue comes up. Perhaps in such instances a bit of plot immunity is in order otherwise the GM risks coming across as a jerk.

Pro-tip: don't get herpes for real, it's not so much the unbearable itching (it's like having chickenpox, only over a quarter square inch of skin), it's the fact that if you get it in certain places your life will suck horribly; like your eyes. You go blind when it flares up. And it's incurable. Sure, there are various drugs to treat it, but just makes the rash go away in days, rather than weeks.

Also FYI: cold sores are herpes, don't let anyone who is not a doctor tell you otherwise.

The good news is that transmission from person-to-person is difficult. They call it a "sexually transmitted disease" but really all that means is that it requires infected bodily fluid transfer (like kissing: hooray cold sores, the #1 oral disease in humans!).

I'm afraid to ask. Why did you feel compelled to tell us about the herp in such detail? I have such a horrible mental image right now.

Because it effects me several times a year. I do not wish to go blind. I'd cut off my right hand first.

And most people don't know that "cold sores" are herpes. "It's just a cold sore." Guess what, the cold sore my grandmother had when I was eight?

Yeah.

I get to live with that.

(Sidenote: it's not the least appetizing thing I could take about. Some of the stuff I get to deal with at work--and I'm a programmer--makes me lose my lunch)

Yep it sucks, just be glad that in general herpes (specifically cold sores varient) is not a deadly and debillitating disease and in general it only flares up during periods of weakness or specific conditions. (Cold sores are called cold sores for a reason).

Kind of like chicken pox though, earlier you get it (and it's a widely propogated problem) the less damage it does. Ahh the diseases of our lives.

Stress level plays a part too, but then stress plays a part in how efficient our immune system is.



Eeh. Not so sure that comparison works.

But yes, it is not a deadly and debilitating disease. MOST chronic diseases aren't these days if you're an "average healthy adult" otherwise.

That's fine with me, it *should* be scary. If the new numbers are still too rough, we could tweak them more… but it should still be very scary for Joe Average.

As Draco18s said, disease explicitly have Effects; continuing to fight off the disease is not an effect.

Joe Average is not Runner Ryan.

Joe Average has 3 BOD (for a human/elf), 4 BOD (for a dwarf), 6 BOD (for an ork), or 7 BOD (for a troll). Respectively, you get 1 hit, 2 hit, 2 hits, 2 hits on average to resist diseases. That means that on average, the disease would still be "fatal" to most people at power 4. Joe Average is basically screwed without some really good luck in this situation.

I looked at the numbers for the errata. I posted what an average situation would look like while having a very high disease resistance pool (higher than most average runners would have). You need at least an average Edge and the gear to make surviving it an option or you need to have phenomenal luck on your rolls. Now, if you can find about 6 more dice from genetech and nanotech that would apply, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. You might not need edge to survive it at that point and that gives you a lot more wiggle room to survive it but it's still a huge investment towards a singular purpose.

Which to me seems silly, since I suspect that the idea behind becoming a ghoul is that if you get ravaged by a ghoul and survive without medical aid you should succumb, but with no possible way to improve your chances, it seems exactly as someone said, lucky ghoul = making you a dick GM to certain players.

Also makes any varient of prime-runner ghoul especially deadly as after ghoulification there's A: no turning back, B: Possible loss of character via in play repercussions, C: he probably would ravage the crap out of you.

As for fixes I'm pretty sure that current viral infections can be fought with something like a Z-pack, additionally its been found that certain compounds do hinder the capability of virus' to interact or propogate in the body... the idea that nothing like that exists that improves the chances after the fact (because installing ware after the fact seems silly), seems odd.

Further side note in regards to Herpes, Chickenpox is Herpes Varicella. It stays in your body FOREVER. Later in life it can return in what we call shingles (Herpes Zoster). Shingles are extremely painful as they follow nerve lines and can also cause blindness. You find it more commonly in older adults (and they do have a vaccination of sorts for it, Zostavax) but I know someone as young as 37 who has had it flare up on them. Working as a nurse totally desensitizes you to those sorts of topics. I ate the whole time I was typing this.

i'd rather know how a PROGRAMMER has to deal with this kind of stuff at work . .

Pretty much... which is kind of why I directed the comment towards chickenpox. From what I've read all varients of herpes follow this same line of thought.

Ever read bad code?

Hell no, i try and stay as far away from coding ANYTHING, even a simple web-page . .
I am a Networking/Server kinda Guy, not Coding and Databasing stuff x.x

Did not know that chicken pox was a variant. The rest I did know (excepting the clinical name of shingles).



Poorly.
If the question was "how does that come up?" It's because I make training programs for big pharma.

Imagine if you will... a properly configured firewall... and at the very bottom, one of your asshole administrators typed an any-any rule with a small comment that said, "Opened temperorily to check something - dated a year ago"

How would you feel about that?

Ha. That's pretty funny.
And actually I'd get a friend to start doing Naughty Things to the network through that hole (nothing permanent, but enough to throw red flags) until one of the admins went to figure it out. And then go "hey, what's this?" and point at the firewall entry.

Yeah, that would explain that . . My guess was coding for 4chan or something . .

I work for Vodafone. I have to deal with much worse than that -.-

4chan would be a step...up. Mostly sideways, but still a step up.

Looking at the bedsores on some guy's ass is less preferable than what typically shows up on 4chan. Not by much, but still worse.

Like bronies?

We have our deviants, everybody does, but do not throw us all into the same pot and call us black, kettle.

Meh. I have a story in my email now that horrifies most bronies.

MLP/Twilight crossover.
Twilight Sparkler also takes a bite out of Applejack (who likes it).

And that's the tame summary.

But it didn't make me retch. Or want to eat salads for a week.

There are Pharmaceuticals and Biomedicals, in game, that can counter diseases. Unfortunately for HMHVV, these do not work.

This does not surprise me. You did have balls big enough to admit you got herpes from your grandmother without elaborating.

Argh..if only i werent at work, i could link the picture.....

Its Conner and Murphy MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery & Norman Reedus) standing holding the plastic rifles from a Deer Hunter Arcade game, pointed at the back of an Edward (Robert Pattinson) cardboard cutout.....

hehe...still makes me giggle just thinking about it.

Meh. I'm at that point in my life where it doesn't bother me.

Had it been me (and it wasn't), some of the high-end pathogen-fighting cyber, bio, and geneware probably wouldn't have been excluded, although it might not have been as effective against HMHVV as against a mundane virus. I think Bobby went a little overboard, but then, he likes it dark. Really dark. I think a little bit lighter shade of charcoal would still have been effective without making it an automatic "roll a new PC" disease. But that could just be me.

Hell, if i remember, he admitted to having made a mistake with the touch not injection vector . .
He may like dark, but not that dark i think . .

Still gotta go over this with my Co-GM, but I am thinking about running it something like this (subject to change )

Speed: 1 Day (10)
Vector: Injection
Penetration: -3
Power: 6
In order to infect, physical damage must be caused by a natural weapon of the ghoul, or by injections of the bodily fluids (eww). Upon initial contact a test must be made to resist, if this is succesfull, then it did not stick.

(have to look into the cyber/bio/gene ware to see if we are going to allow any of it to work, but if it does, it will probably be at a reduced value)