# D&D 5E Plague Doctor Campaign



## Belos-Hunter (Today at 1:30 AM)

I had an idea to do a plague doctor campaign and wanted to figure a way to do it. Like how would I introduce combat?


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## pogre (Today at 1:32 AM)

Belos-Hunter said:


> I had an idea to do a plague doctor campaign and wanted to figure a way to do it. Like how would I introduce combat?



Welcome to ENWorld.

I am not sure what you mean by a plague doctor campaign. Would the players be doctors treating plague victims?


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## Belos-Hunter (Today at 1:36 AM)

pogre said:


> Welcome to ENWorld.
> 
> I am not sure what you mean by a plague doctor campaign. Would the players be doctors treating plague victims?



It would most likely be a horror campaign. I was thinking along the lines they are trying to treat a magical disease, but at first they would think they are treating a normal disease.


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## pogre (59 minutes ago)

Belos-Hunter said:


> It would most likely be a horror campaign. I was thinking along the lines they are trying to treat a magical disease, but at first they would think they are treating a normal disease.



I see. I guess to get a combat opponent I would have a nefarious force behind the disease. Like Nurgle or Skaven in Warhammer or perhaps a demonologist or other ne'er-do-well. Just having the disease be the opponent would be less engaging for the average D&D player.

A campaign like this probably would benefit from special rules for treating diseases. The problem with D&D in this type of campaign is you could just send in a bunch of paladins and save the village or a few lesser restoration spells. You will probably have to customize your campaign background to take this into account. Nerfing stuff at session zero is lot better than nerfing abilities after characters have been created.


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## Belos-Hunter (55 minutes ago)

pogre said:


> I see. I guess to get a combat opponent I would have a nefarious force behind the disease. Like Nurgle or Skaven in Warhammer or perhaps a demonologist or other ne'er-do-well. Just having the disease be the opponent would be less engaging for the average D&D player.
> 
> A campaign like this probably would benefit from special rules for treating diseases. The problem with D&D in this type of campaign is you could just send in a bunch of paladins and save the village or a few lesser restoration spells. You will probably have to customize your campaign background to take this into account. Nerfing stuff at session zero is lot better than nerfing abilities after characters have been created.



Yes, I agree, just fighting the disease would be lame, and maybe one of the reasons the disease is so deadly is that magic doesn't work on it? What would you recommend said special rules would be?


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## pogre (49 minutes ago)

Belos-Hunter said:


> Yes, I agree, just fighting the disease would be lame, and maybe one of the reasons the disease is so deadly is that magic doesn't work on it? What would you recommend said special rules would be?



I think I would lean into something along the lines of skill challenges in 4e. You can do a search on how those worked. I am not just being lazy, but I only playtested 4th edition and I am not confident I can lay the system out for you correctly.

Here's an article about how to do it in 5th edition:
How to Build and Run Skill Challenges in 5th edition

Again, since I don't run skill challenges, I cannot vouch for the quality of the article, but it is a starting point for you.


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## Belos-Hunter (26 minutes ago)

That seems like it could work quite well. Maybe the disease could be something like lycanthropy?


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