Disease Resistance (Talent)
The character possesses an unusually robust physiology and adaptive immune response, allowing them to resist, mitigate, and eventually master the effects of disease.
Base Effect
:
The character gains a +2% per rank bonus to their Normal Save when making saving throws vs. disease.
- This bonus applies regardless of which characteristic is used for the save (CON or otherwise).
- This bonus applies to:
- Natural diseases
- Supernatural or magical diseases (unless explicitly stated otherwise)
- Poisons that function as diseases (GM discretion)
Rank 2 – Hardened Constitution
- If the character successfully saves, reduce the disease’s initial severity by one step (GM-defined).
- Minor illnesses (common colds, mild infections) resolve in half the normal time.
Rank 5 – Accelerated Recovery
- When affected by a disease:
- Recovery time is reduced by 25%
- The character gains a +10% bonus on follow-up saves against an already contracted disease.
Rank 8 – Adaptive Immunity
- After successfully resisting or recovering from a disease the character gains temporary immunity to that specific disease for a period (e.g., weeks or months, GM discretion).
- Mild Disease: 1 week per rank
- Moderate Disease: 4 days per rank
- Severe Disease: 1 day per rank
- Severe Magical Disease (e.g., lycanthropy): 1 hour per rank
- If exposed again during that time no save is required (unless the disease is significantly altered or magical in nature).
Rank 10 – Purging Vitality
- Once per day, the character may attempt to purge an active disease:
- Make an immediate additional saving throw with a +15% bonus. Success either:
- Ends the disease outright, or
- Reduces it by one or more severity stages (GM discretion)
- The character becomes highly resistant to carriers and environmental exposure (reduced chance of infection in borderline cases).
Rank 12 – Resilient Physiology
Assense Disease skill roll (((PER + MA) - 30) x 2) + ((rank - 10) x 8)
- The character may function normally while diseased:
- Ignore penalties from mild or moderate diseases
- Halve penalties from severe diseases
- Gains a passive awareness when infected such that they are immediately allowed an Assense Disease skill roll to know if they are diseased and gain a rough sense of severity.
- Once someone else has shown signs of disease, they make an Assense Disease skill roll to better understand the disease, the severity and the possible side effects.
Rank 15 – Master of Flesh
- The character’s body actively suppresses disease. They automatically succeed on saves vs mundane diseases.
- Once per day, the character may transfer their resistance (base effect only) to another creature via blood transfusion. This lasts for 24 hours.
- The transfusion requires:
- Someone with First Aid 10 and Anatomy 10
- Transfusion kit consisting of specialized tools (400 sp) and one time disposables (10 sp each)
- Mages of the following colleges can perform the transfusion with a spell point instead of a kit. This requires touch and is a full round action.
- Battle Mage
- Lay Healer
- Necromancer
- Phase Mage
- Transformation Mage
- White Witch
- With Success Plus or better on a save, the character may delay the onset of a disease by 200% (i.e., if onset was supposed to be 1 round, it becomes 3 rounds; if it was supposed to be 5 minutes, it becomes 15 minutes, etc.
Old Description (and ChatGPT prompt)
The character gains a bonus of 3% per rank to his Normal Save for the purpose of making saving throws vs disease.
Some exotic diseases may use a characteristic other than CON for the saving throw, in which case this talent still applies.
GM: The above is the current description of a talent I have in my game called Disease Resistance (saving throws are made on d100 instead of d20). Flesh out this talent to make it more interesting. Keep the base ability described above relatively intact but maybe add new abilities at higher ranks with the skill. |