Immunity to Disease

   A paladin has complete immunity to all forms of organic disease. This immunity includes diseases from rat, otyugh, and neo-otyugh bites, as well as nonlethal but disabling maladies like measles and earaches. A paladin never catches a cold or suffers from tooth decay, and is unaffected by parasitic monsters such as green slime, violet fungi, gas spores, phycomids, and rot grubs. His wounds never become infected. The process occurs instantly, automatically, and painlessly; the paladin isn't even aware of exposure to a disease.

   A paladin's disease resistance is divinely given and can't be transferred to another character. A magical blood transfusion, for instance, would not grant disease immunity to the recipient. Nor are a paladin's progeny automatically immune to diseases, unless they become paladins themselves.

   A paladin experiences the normal consequences of the following:

   Physical trauma. All wounds inflict normal damage. A paladin is as susceptible to concussions, broken limbs, and exhaustion as any other character, and also suffers the normal effects of extreme temperature, such as sunburn, heatstroke, and frostbite.

   Poison. A paladin is vulnerable to nearly all types of ingested, injected, and inhaled toxins. These include irritants (acids, mercury), organic toxins (poison mushrooms, snake venom, crystal ooze), nerve poisons (belladonna, arsenic), and poisonous gases (vapors that stop the heart or inhibit breathing). The paladin can become intoxicated by drinking too much alcohol, and may experience allergic reactions to pollen, dust, or other substances, but does not suffer from virus-based or bacteria-based toxins, such as the saliva of a rabid dog or bat.

   Curses and magical diseases. Lycanthropy, mummy rot, and similar afflictions are curses and not diseases. A paladin suffers the normal effects. (See the PH, page 27, and the DMG, page 131, for details.)

   Note that paladins are immune to the cause disease spell. The DM may decide that very powerful diseases, like mummy rot, may override the paladin's natural immunity, but could be cured by the paladin's cure disease ability.

   Effects of aging. A paladin ages at the normal human rate. Age brings the ability penalties given on Table 12, Chapter 1 of the PH, and also the normal debilitations associated with aging. For instance, even though the paladin's teeth resist bacterial decay, they may still fall out as a result of enamel erosion. A paladin whose body wears out dies, at the same age as a normal human.

   Psychological disorders. A paladin is as prone as anyone else to hallucinations, nightmares, memory loss, insanity, and similar mental and emotional disorders, providing the disorder isn't a consequence of a disease (such as a fever-induced delirium).

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