Fatal diseases

[reedixxx]

What about fatal diseases?

For example, there could be some character who will join party but will be definitely dead after couple of in-game months.

Or player himself could get fatal desease (via hookers or syringes if he's drug addict) so he'll eventually die in two in-game years (if average gameplay time is 1-1,5 years). So if player found out that he's deseased it won't harm game process (he'll have enough time to finish the game). But it's kinda cool (and tragic) to know that your lovely character will be dead someday. It will be more cool if game will allow you to play after the storyline is finished (like in Fallout 2) so you can see how this character actually died.

Sorry for my English, it's not my native language.

[unspankable]

This is a great Idea! Maybe not death all the time, but stat degradation or a couple of funky STD super powers!

[Pharo]

Death by disease is a common thing in the barren wastes. There may be a cure out there, then again, there may not. The only way to find out is to press on.

[sync-oz]

This is an interesting idea! Wonder how it would work in gameplay...

[Nex]

Would be quite amusing to have your entire party catch the plague

[Layle Baker]

Would be quite amusing to have your entire party catch the plague

Or.... Wasteland Herpes

[reedixxx]

Would be quite amusing to have your entire party catch the plague

You can split your party so infected characters could be in separate team.

Send them on some suicidal missions

[Postapo]

How about a nanite infection, that slowly petrified you into organic polymer, making you initally tougher and later less agile and eventually killing you and turning your stiffened up corpse into a statue? There could be a whole range of parasitic nanites with all sorts of symptoms the usual germs and viruses couldn't pull off.

[PiPboy]

I don't think this should be a core component of the game.
If needed a quest \ mission which isn't part of the main story line. But a random event that can happen. Then with a branching quest line to find he cure for the said disease. Also with consequences of when and type of cure you choose.

For example you get Osteomyelitis [Bone infection] probably due to the fact you for some reason keep shooting your self in the leg. It becomes infected, till you get it treated your movement speed is reduced, as well as your weight carrying capacity.
Now if you can get it treated within say a month. Which requires you to visit various towns, to find a orthopedic surgeon or something of the sort. You talk to various people who refer you to various places.
some one offers this kind of treatment, others offer you something else.
Some one may even offer you experimental surgery that may even give a bonus when you get treated.
So your basically looking around for the best option.

But during your looking you may not have enough time to reach the previous doctor who could have treated you, resulting in you loosing your leg. Which means you need a prosthetic which gives you a permentant handicap. Now this permentant handicap can be fixed if you find a better prosthetic [not by a doctor] but by random encounter \ knowledge skill \ etc. Or if you get cybernetic surgery done or of the sort, which requires a high cost to get.

etc. etc.

But i wouldn't want it every 5 minutes i get the cold, plague, or erectile dysfunciton.

[GL1zdA]

Make the diseases curable as a sidequest. Don't make it impossible to avoid the death of your party member - it has been done, and you CAN'T beat the death of [spoiler]Aeris[/spoiler] in FF7, don't even try it.

[Wild_Bill_711]

Always thought the original Wasteland 'handled' "diseases" very well...
With most 'poisons', the infected party/parties were merely unable to increase/improve their 'Con' UNTIL 'cured/healed' by a Doctor's Office 'visit & payment'. The "UNC' condition wouldn't/couldn't be improved.
A few 'poisons' (i.e. a scorpion bite in an abandoned building & the poisoned darts on the 'chest' in Savage Village) did 'deteriorate' the victims condition... this could be resolved by a Medic (skill) 'healing' the victim back to "UNC" (before death occurred) during the 'trip' to the Doctor's Office.

Probably the worst scenario in Wasteland was getting 'flushed' out of the Sewers (and 'auto-saved'). into the river, outside of Vegas... hopefully you'd manage to 'scramble' to shore BEFORE reaching the Bay, and be able to get to a doctor's office (for the 'cures')... although this might require several 'tries' / restarts... and being 'cash-poor' would require 'selling' some 'items' from 'characters inventories' !!!

[Sub-Human]

I dunno about fatal diseases. Perhaps NPCs, yes, so you could use them to quickly run through a tough area, after which you'd just normally progress and the NPC would die. But so the plague would spread? That'd be pretty hardcore. Essentially, your whole party could die due to a stupid mistake...