How would a healing power work?

[ahunting]

Type: Thaumaturgy, biomancy
Complexity: Typically 8-10 (4 base complexity,
plus 4 to represent the consequence reduced)
Duration: Immediate
Effect: The spell reduces a moderate physical
consequence to mild for the purposes of
recovery. The consequence still occupies its
original slot.
Variations: It’s possible a caster could sink a lot
more power into this to reduce serious conse-
quences to moderate, requiring at least 6 addi-
tional shifts of complexity, but that might be
beyond the reach of this sort of magic. A GM
might allow removal of a mild consequence,
but they tend to go away quickly anyway.


As I said, its what the ritual says, of course as with all things in an table top, GMs call, its clear where you come down on this topic. But that may not be where everyone comes down on this topic.

[ryanroyce]

 I don't think anyone has suggested the ability to magically heal extreme consequences.  At best, consistently-applied therapeutic biomancy MIGHT be able to allow a full recovery from such wounds (provided that recovery is even remotely possible) in a manner similar to Wizard's Constitution allowing Harry to keep his hand, but that's about it.  Also, death is not an Extreme consequence;death is a Taken Out consequence.

 The problem stemming from these contradictory rules is that it is hard to know where the "wiggle-room" is in terms of Biomancy.  Reiki is allowed by default because it's a sample spell in the bloody book, but when it comes to creating new/different healing spells... what can you do?

 For example, say I want a spell that can temporarily suppress the pain and disability presented by a given physical consequence.  The drawback is that the injury's recovery time is increased by at least double, or more depending on how long the suppression lasted.  So, using this spell to clear out a severe consequence would increase the recovery time to at least two full scenarios, but would give the PC the ability to stay in the fight for as long as the spell lasted, possibly meaning the difference between succeeding or failing at that scenario.  Only one consequence of a given severity can be suppressed at any one time.  The inspiration for this idea comes from the bracelet of stones McCoy gave Dresden to temporarily suppress the pain in his hand, which would have been excruciating otherwise.  As the dust settled, the last of the stones shattered and the pain came back.  Is this sort of spell allowed with biomancy?

[Kordeth]

For example, say I want a spell that can temporarily suppress the pain and disability presented by a given physical consequence.  The drawback is that the injury's recovery time is increased by at least double, or more depending on how long the suppression lasted.  So, using this spell to clear out a severe consequence would increase the recovery time to at least two full scenarios, but would give the PC the ability to stay in the fight for as long as the spell lasted, possibly meaning the difference between succeeding or failing at that scenario.  Only one consequence of a given severity can be suppressed at any one time.  The inspiration for this idea comes from the bracelet of stones McCoy gave Dresden to temporarily suppress the pain in his hand, which would have been excruciating otherwise.  As the dust settled, the last of the stones shattered and the pain came back.  Is this sort of spell allowed with biomancy?

Sure, I don't see why not. I'd give it a base complexity of the number of stress the consequence in question can absorb and say that, for the duration of the spell, that consequence costs 2 Fate Points to invoke or compel (you only get one FP back from the compel, but if it's a character doing the compel rather than the GM they pay 2). It's still there, you're not healing anything, it just doesn't bother you.

[ahunting]

It is a deep set of Issues. Potentially unbalancing. The Reikie Spell is pretty clear abouts its limits. So GM can easily say no to anything over a moderate if they like. Now that doesn't do anything to address the contradiction, and leaves us an interesting Gray Area. I'd say it might have been easier to put in a spell about adding inhuman abilities through Biomancy- now clearly that opens up a whole other can of worms but adding inhuman recover would solve the healing problem for the most part without going near effecting Extreme.

Now that aside, I agree that you should be able magically suppress physical or perhaps even mental consequences, flavor effects, and potentially be able remove the ability to compel them systematically as a result. (Biomancy for the first and Psychomancy for the second) See the pickme up potion which I think has a similar type effect.

But it's clear that consequences should not be allowed to simply go away, so players can get off scott free, but they also shouldn't be allowed to get in they way of the over all story ether. I'd say doing some kind of a full night sleep requirement or just a longer term rest would be a good method of keeping that sort of thing underhand. A GM can always keep up the pressure if the need arises.

GO GO MORE NINJAS!!!

[blues.soldier]

For example, say I want a spell that can temporarily suppress the pain and disability presented by a given physical consequence.  The drawback is that the injury's recovery time is increased by at least double, or more depending on how long the suppression lasted.  So, using this spell to clear out a severe consequence would increase the recovery time to at least two full scenarios, but would give the PC the ability to stay in the fight for as long as the spell lasted, possibly meaning the difference between succeeding or failing at that scenario.  Only one consequence of a given severity can be suppressed at any one time.  The inspiration for this idea comes from the bracelet of stones McCoy gave Dresden to temporarily suppress the pain in his hand, which would have been excruciating otherwise.  As the dust settled, the last of the stones shattered and the pain came back.  Is this sort of spell allowed with biomancy?

This could be represented by a potion, as well. I'd have it take up multiple slots, though, to offset the power.

[toturi]

If you simply want a pain suppressing potion, why not just get a pain suppressing/combat stimulant drug?

[ahunting]

If you simply want a pain suppressing potion, why not just get a pain suppressing/combat stimulant drug?

The original combat drugs were all things like speed, and that family of drugs. These days we use them to fight
ADD, and as study aids. I'm not sure what your gm will have to say about your character getting hopped up on Adriol, but
I doubt he will make it any kind of advantage.
 

[Mattastic]

Some good thoughts here. Thanks gang.

What about a transfer of healing, sharing the wounds between one or more people?
Jimmy Kwai using his healing and fixes Harry broken ribs to sore ribs and now Jimmy has sore ribs too.
Is that doable?

Also the adding of inhuman recovery temporarily until the wounds are gone, is that possible?

[Deadmanwalking]

I don't know about sharing Consequences, but adding Inhuman Recovery is very doable with the Thaumaturgical Shapeshifting rules on p. 283 and the Temporary Powers rules on p. 92. It's probably around Complexity 5 + Duration, but also requires a couple of Tags just to power the effect.

[newtinmpls]

Suppressing Pain: as I recall, the bracelet from McCoy was worn when Harry was sleeping, so we never saw what it would do if he tried to use that hand in combat or something. In other game systems, I’ve had the injury severely aggravated by being able to magically “ignore” it. I’d probably do the same thing here. So a minor ignored becomes a moderate and so on. Think about it – if you continue a fight with cracked ribs, it’s much easier for your foe to break them.

As for the transfer of healing; I’d insist on incomplete “removal”, leaving at least a minor consequence (or higher if that was filled) besides the transfer.

Dian