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modern medicine vs. D&D magic

BiopunkOtrera

BiopunkOtrera

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how good a match for modern medicine is D&D magic. How much and what level of clerics do you need to match say, a modern hospital?

Edit: how does this change by edition?
 
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Well seeing as how at just level 5 Divine magic (which is a minimum of Level 9), you can bring anyone back to life as long as you have their remains and they died within one day? I would say DnD magic wins on that aspect alone.
 
Modern medicine pretty much loses horribly as soon as d&d gets fifth level clerics. Even more so when they get third level artificers willing to build a 30k gp retail(without any munchkining) use activated item of that spell. Six seconds to kill disease in a target is effing ridiculous, with a couple low level clerics working in shifts that's 14400 cured every day of what ails them. At higher levels with sufficient financial backing death from anything other than old age is a minor inconvenience.

Note, this is third edition. Second and earlier lack the ability to reliably make magic items but still outperforms the modern world with sufficient availability of clerics, fourth I give no fucks about.
 
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In the new edition, modern medicine looses to like, 3rd level clerics.

Heck, even without the new lower level Raise spells in fifth edition 3rd edition would overstep them by a good margin.

A level 1 cleric gets Spare The Dying/Stablize as an orison. That means he can prevent anybody who isn't already dead from dying and set them on the road to recovery.

Stuff like Cure Wounds and Cure Blindness are just icing on the cake. There is a reason D&D sets life expectancies to humans at around 75 years despite the setting being in a low mediviel period.
 
Aaron Peori said:
In the new edition, modern medicine looses to like, 3rd level clerics.

Heck, even without the new lower level Raise spells in fifth edition 3rd edition would overstep them by a good margin.

A level 1 cleric gets Spare The Dying/Stablize as an orison. That means he can prevent anybody who isn't already dead from dying and set them on the road to recovery.

Stuff like Cure Wounds and Cure Blindness are just icing on the cake. There is a reason D&D sets life expectancies to humans at around 75 years despite the setting being in a low mediviel period.
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Of course it raises the question why people would ever stay dead in canon, what with priests who can literally bring back the dead.
 
Polokun said:
Of course it raises the question why people would ever stay dead in canon, what with priests who can literally bring back the dead.
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Usually it's because of expensive material components. You need like 5000 GP in diamond dust to raise someone from the dead, which, based on this website, is over 1.6 million dollars.

Though I would be curious as to how the artificial diamond industry would impact Raise Dead, or is it just
 
On one hand since it's magic you'd probably have to pay 5000 gp equivalent in order to get a raise dead no matter what. :p

On the other hand it'll probably depend on how well supply meets demand and what the various nations are doing about this diamond issue. Demand is inevitably high because you want them at the very least for armed forces and government work, as well as inevitable accidents that cause fatal harm and crime. While the supply of diamonds is a bit higher in our world, they're also not being consumed constantly because bringing people back from the dead is a huge benefit especially for children and adults in the prime of their life.

You can potentially have DeBeers be the British East India Company of the 21st Century on one extreme and another would be OPEC's wet dream as the nations with significant diamond reserves wield significant soft power to boss around other nations. Artificial diamonds would be an attempt to help meet demand but it's probably not the silver bullet given its capital intensive production process as well as the fact that it's also needed for industry too. It would not surprise me if there were wars for diamonds given it's importance to petroleum.

So it'll probably easily be within the realm of the rich but for the middle class and poor there'll probably be restrictions on being able to use raise dead if high prices and the lack of available specialists didn't already deter them.
 
It all depends on what power level the d&d world in question has achieved. At sufficiently epic levels, breaking off a chunk of your moon sized chunk of platinum to make a 'rod of chain true resurrection' to bring back a couple hundred thousand dead per day becomes a matter of 'meh, why not, I haven't trolled the gods of death yet this month'.
 
FBH said:
how good a match for modern medicine is D&D magic. How much and what level of clerics do you need to match say, a modern hospital?
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(Basing it on 3.5, which is what I know.)

The problem is that clerics restore HP, which is this metaphysical thingy that real humans don't have. There's no way to map "restores ten HP" to "can fix a broken limb" or "can cure cancer" or even "close massive chest wound". A D&D character with 1 HP left can't be said to be actually wounded in any sense we understand; a D&D character with -5 HP has clearly been injured but there's no wait to map that to any set of injuries - it might be better to imagine them as having their metaphysical defenses stripped and having had crude reality inflicted on them until those defenses are regenerated.

Clerics to have a "remove disease" ability, but the problem with that is that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't prevent the person from being reinfected and there's no indication of whether or not it actually allows the subject to build immunity; so it might not be a practical alternative to vaccines. Also, this only removes, as far as I can tell, invasive organisms, but not all 'diseases' are caused by those. Note that this is a 3rd level spell - while that's small stuff by high level D&D adventurer standards, it's not exactly common in what we imagine as a 'typical' D&D world and there's not a lot of good options to use that ability en masse.

You need a 13th level cleric to do either resurrection or regeneration, which is even more rare.
 
Is the modern hospital in a D&D setting or do clerics come over here?

Clerics are going to do physically impossible healing stuff in any edition. But modern medicine has some advantages. Since D&D disease is usually caused by demons and disease gods and stuff, normal people in-setting don't really get how disease or hygiene works (well maybe in more advanced settings like Eberron or Spelljammer but they're a whole different kettle of fish). For the average Joe Peasant, mass-produced antibiotics or knowledge that raw sewage and malnutrition is bad for you might be pretty useful.

Actually, does anyone here know about Planescape, Eberron, or Spelljammer medicine? I know Eberron has like 19th century industrial magic, Spelljammer is D&D IN SPACE, and Planescape is everything and the kitchen sink when it comes to content. They might compare better if there's less supernatural mechanics.
 
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Bran the Blessed said:
Is the modern hospital in a D&D setting or do clerics come over here?

Clerics are going to do physically impossible healing stuff in any edition. But modern medicine has some advantages. Since D&D disease is usually caused by demons and disease gods and stuff, normal people in-setting don't really get how disease or hygiene works (well maybe in more advanced settings like Eberron or Spelljammer but they're a whole different kettle of fish). For the average Joe Peasant, mass-produced antibiotics or knowledge that raw sewage and malnutrition is bad for you might be pretty useful.
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In that case, they do get how disease and hygeine work...in their own world. The question is whether their magic would work on our microbial diseases, and for that matter if our medicine would work on their supernatural ones. I'm inclined to say no to both.
 
Acatalepsy said:
(Basing it on 3.5, which is what I know.)

The problem is that clerics restore HP, which is this metaphysical thingy that real humans don't have. There's no way to map "restores ten HP" to "can fix a broken limb" or "can cure cancer" or even "close massive chest wound". A D&D character with 1 HP left can't be said to be actually wounded in any sense we understand; a D&D character with -5 HP has clearly been injured but there's no wait to map that to any set of injuries - it might be better to imagine them as having their metaphysical defenses stripped and having had crude reality inflicted on them until those defenses are regenerated.
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Except that's not really how it works. HP damage is supposed to represent some combination of physical injury, fatigue, luck and so on but it does still represent physical injury. Blood-born poisons have to be administered via attacks that do HP damage, even as little as 1 HP.

Bleed damage, which is literally bleeding to death, is halted by any amount of magical healing. Plus all the various Ability damages and drains that a Cleric can fix with various versions of Restoration starting at only level 3.

But if you're going to be so rules lawyery I call Benevolent Pun-Pun and he makes everyone into immortal, unkillable beings.

Clerics to have a "remove disease" ability, but the problem with that is that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't prevent the person from being reinfected and there's no indication of whether or not it actually allows the subject to build immunity; so it might not be a practical alternative to vaccines.
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How needs vaccines when Purify Food and Drink exists? Or Protection From Poison/Delay Poison which literally renders you immune to poison for hours at a time?

Or, for that matter, a Periapt of Health which can be crafted by any 5th level Cleric for only 3700gp.


Also, this only removes, as far as I can tell, invasive organisms, but not all 'diseases' are caused by those. Note that this is a 3rd level spell - while that's small stuff by high level D&D adventurer standards, it's not exactly common in what we imagine as a 'typical' D&D world and there's not a lot of good options to use that ability en masse.
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Cancers and various others stuff would be represented in D&D turns by ability damage and drain (or just low Ability scores) all of which can be negated by Restoration spells or just magic items that give enhancement bonuses to the ability score in question.

You need a 13th level cleric to do either resurrection or regeneration, which is even more rare.
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Yes, but rare is about all the percent better than "impossible" which is where we stand with bringing back the dead.
 
SpacePaladin said:
That's over 1.1 million dollars in material components.
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Exactly.

People forget that the adventurers in D&D are the exception rather than the rule. Being able to raise dead and purify food is good and all, but how many clerics of that level will be available for public service rather than, say, keeping idiot adventurers from dying in some dark, dank dungeon somewhere? And how many common folk have enough money for their services? Sure they can be ordered to do community service by their deity of choice, but where are they going to get the money for those diamonds and spells?

The advantages of modern medicine is that it elevates the amount of care that the common person can get. That raise dead spell is nice and all, but if you can't afford it, then it is might as well as be nothing at all.
 
Well if we get into D&D Economics, GP currency should be incredibly devalued because every enchanted weapon sells for more than the net worth of a small village, and adventurers sell tons of those. Strictly speaking, 3700 GP should be enough to buy a chicken and a jug of milk :V.
 
Personally I think that the D&D Economy is simply alien to our own and is incompatible with our way of rationalizing economics and that we should move on from the subject of economy.
 
Polokun said:
Of course it raises the question why people would ever stay dead in canon, what with priests who can literally bring back the dead.
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You have to want to come back, and there's assorted afterlives that for most people will range from "like mortal life except you don't need to worry about food" to "everyone and everything is beautiful and food and shelter grows on trees".

Only Evil characters (which will be a minority most of the time, since normal petty human nature generally falls under Neutral) will really want to come back most of the time, and even then only if they're not in a setting like Forgotten Realms (where your afterlife is based on the god you worshipped rather than alignment) or if they don't think they can succeed in the afterlife (and mostly grossly cruel or sociopathic types probably will think so).

The minority of non-Evil types who are willing to come back will be exactly the same category that PCs fall into: strongly motivated by material goals while having an almost absurd tolerance for the unpleasantness and pains of the material world.
 

The D&D economy is held in place by the Powers associated with Trade, Wealth, and Commerce.
This includes almost a dozen deities, at least one arch-devil, and the entire draconic pantheon.
 
EXCEPT for a couple of outliers such as the various raise deads and insta cures I think modern medicine whoops the shit out of dnd magic. I base this only on shear intuition.
 
Pandora's_Folly said:
EXCEPT for a couple of outliers such as the various raise deads and insta cures I think modern medicine whoops the shit out of dnd magic. I base this only on shear intuition.
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Your intuition is faulty. Remove Disease as written is fundamentally broken from the point of view of modern medicine, and there's no way around it without being thoroughly dishonest and going 'well obviously when they said it removes all disease they don't actually mean disease but what I want it to mean'. Even if you decide to apply the d20 modern uber-nerf of only letting it cure diseases to which there is a cure, d&d still has the ability to cure any disease without that restriction, plus blindness, deafness, insanity, and pretty much any other thing short of missing limbs by going up to a fourth level spell.

Anyone attempting to ascribe a dollar amount equal to the market value gold bases of the weight of gold pieces should take a look at this page and hang their fucking heads in shame.
 
consequences said:
Your intuition is faulty. Remove Disease as written is fundamentally broken from the point of view of modern medicine, and there's no way around it without being thoroughly dishonest and going 'well obviously when they said it removes all disease they don't actually mean disease but what I want it to mean'. Even if you decide to apply the d20 modern uber-nerf of only letting it cure diseases to which there is a cure, d&d still has the ability to cure any disease without that restriction, plus blindness, deafness, insanity, and pretty much any other thing short of missing limbs by going up to a fourth level spell.

Anyone attempting to ascribe a dollar amount equal to the market value gold bases of the weight of gold pieces should take a look at this page and hang their fucking heads in shame.
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Indeed. A magic item which provides immunity to all disease forever (note, it never breaks down or needs replacing or fails and can thus be handed from generation to generation) costs less than a boat.
 
ok i am a dying hog farm. now how do i find this cure disease that you speak of?

or plop the plague or ebola or just the spanish influenza in a small port city. what happens then?

so lets break down the trained hireling's average wage of 3sp. if the spell without components cost 90gold pieces and iirc its 10sp to 1gp then its 300 days of work to pay for the cure disease. that just covers mercenary's, warriors, smiths, and other Trained people.

I bet the peasantry is basically at the whim of gods, clerics, paladins, and merciful lords.

though I didn't think about using cure disease to cure difficult things like mental disorders. that's pretty damn spiffy.

I still think modern medicine as a societal force is more effective and increasing the culture's health levels than dnd magic.



I wonder....how long do the fucking nobles live? thats gotta be like almost another species. 200 to 400 year old magically extended lifespans ruling over a sickly mound of peasants.

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Aaron Peori said:
Indeed. A magic item which provides immunity to all disease forever (note, it never breaks down or needs replacing or fails and can thus be handed from generation to generation) costs less than a boat.
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right still out of the hands of....99% of everyone

not a boat a freaking Galley
This three-masted ship has seventy oars on either side and requires a total crew of 200. A galley is 130 feet long and 20 feet wide, and it can carry 150 tons of cargo or 250 soldiers. For 8,000 gp more, it can be fitted with a ram and castles with firing platforms fore, aft, and amidships. This ship cannot make sea voyages and sticks to the coast. It moves about 4 miles per hour when being rowed or under sail.

how many people do you know that employ 200 people
 
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