Author Topic: Biomancy Medical Spells  (Read 11799 times)

Offline dragoonbuster

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #15 on: October 17, 2016, 07:00:23 AM »
Here are the healing rules we adopted for Dominium Fuego:

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  • The number of shifts needed on a roll to begin someone's recovery using mundane medicine is equal to the highest number of shifts of the consequences you intend to begin treating (e.g. if the worst Consequence is Moderate, you need 4 shifts), but you will be limited in what severity of consequences you can treat depending on your training and the resources available to you for treatment.
  • Healing with magic requires justification just as with mundane medical treatment; you must have an appropriate Sponsor (the Seelie Court, for instance) and/or appropriate training and background (an Aspect, the Doctor stunt, etc plus Thaumaturgy/Biomancy powers, etc) to be able to justify beginning recovery for someone else with magic.
  • Magic healing complexities are calculated as such: 5 shifts + 1 shift per shift of Consequences the spell intends to cover.
  • For example, this means a spell to begin recovery of another PC's Moderate Consequence would be 5 + 4 shifts, or 9 total complexity/power needed. To begin recovery of a Mild, Moderate, and Severe Consequence, that would cost 5 + 2 + 4 + 6 = 17 shifts of complexity/power. This applies to thaumaturgy, evothaum, potions, etc.
  • For each consequence you begin recovery for with magic, you may place a sticky aspect on the patient that can be tagged/invoked as a counter to tags or invocations of the existing consequence. For instance, a spell that begins recovery of a Moderate Physical [Twisted Ankle] might place [Knitting Tissue] on the patient. This aspect could later be tagged once to counter-effect an opponent's invocation of the Twisted Ankle. Note that these aspects may disappear before the Consequence is fully healed and you may require additional shifts of power/complexity to keep the aspects there longer; the base duration for such spells is typically "until Sunrise" or "the scene," but is ultimately up to the GM's discretion.
  • Healing spells may place extra tags and additional aspects on the patient as usual.

Regarding the math there, we settled on 5 shifts for the base surcharge because the varying formula the RAW gives is a bit odd. We picked 5 shift vs, say, 3, because we wanted to make healing with magic fairly difficult, and because spells tend to get pretty big at Dominium Fuego. If your table prefers, just reduce that initial surcharge. Our formula would require 7 shifts to start healing a Mild consequence with magic (an Epic difficulty), but reducing the surcharge to 3 would make it a Superb difficulty/complexity, so maybe some would prefer that narrative.

Feel free to take what you like.

My two cents as far as theory is you should never allow any healing actions from PCs to actually *clear* consequences. Even allowing them to heal faster is really iffy and I won't allow it at my table. I would reserve both for boons from powerful NPCs.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2016, 07:06:43 AM by dragoonbuster »
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Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #16 on: October 17, 2016, 07:34:11 AM »
Strong Bandages seems a bit too easy. A 10-shift ritual isn't all that hard, and severe consequences are a pretty big deal.

Probably the patient would have to roll Endurance and/or Discipline to avoid mental stress from being cut open. Up to the GM's discretion, probably.

So...why cut the patient open at all? The other healing spells don't seem to require that.

PS: This thread might be worth a look.

Offline blackstaff67

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #17 on: October 17, 2016, 12:45:59 PM »
My two cents worth: I'd be really tough on concessions for PCs if they have access to magical healing as it makes a mockery of the concession process.  If only for physical conflicts, I doubt I'd be handing out as many Fate Points as I would without such healing being available.  Feel free to laugh at/ignore me, though.
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Offline Mr. Death

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #18 on: October 17, 2016, 03:02:35 PM »
Strong Bandages seems a bit too easy. A 10-shift ritual isn't all that hard, and severe consequences are a pretty big deal.
It would still take time to heal as a Moderate -- on the scale of the games I usually play, a whole scenario will take at most a week, so a moderate consequence tends to last until the next scenario.

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So...why cut the patient open at all? The other healing spells don't seem to require that.
Same reason you'd cut someone open in real life medicine for some injuries, but don't for others.

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PS: This thread might be worth a look.
Okay, I'll take a look.

My two cents worth: I'd be really tough on concessions for PCs if they have access to magical healing as it makes a mockery of the concession process.  If only for physical conflicts, I doubt I'd be handing out as many Fate Points as I would without such healing being available.  Feel free to laugh at/ignore me, though.
The healing still takes time and energy, and several of the spells I listed are at or above the casting character's effective Lore for biomancy -- so she'd have to spend fate points herself to do the healing if it's Severe or higher. Surgery, for instance, is double her effective Lore -- so she'd need at minimum four aspects to declare to get started, and risks a huge injury herself if she blows any of her Discipline rolls.

And if she decides to do it one or two shifts at a time, well, maybe that risks her taking too long and the patient bleeds out and dies anyway. Lots of potential for drama and compels there.

So while the numbers might seem low, there's still real risk involved.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2016, 03:56:15 PM by Mr. Death »
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Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #19 on: October 17, 2016, 11:40:25 PM »
Same reason you'd cut someone open in real life medicine for some injuries, but don't for others.

So which spells require cutting, under the rules you're using?
« Last Edit: October 18, 2016, 10:43:14 AM by Sanctaphrax »

Offline Mr. Death

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #20 on: October 18, 2016, 02:22:45 AM »
So which spells require cutting, under the rules you're using?
The surgery one, mainly. I envision that for things where there is significant, urgent internal injuries that require invasive surgery.

Come to think of it, even it that only amounts to a Severe, you'd probably need the Surgery spell to treat the amount of cutting you'd have to do to get in there. In which case, I guess, you're using the shifts gained from inflicting the moderate consequence to treat the moderate consequence you inflicted? ... Okay, I guess that's a little two-steps-forward, two-steps-back. But I guess if you need to get in there, you need to get in there.
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Offline Quantus

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #21 on: October 18, 2016, 02:46:21 PM »
But do you actually Need to get in there?  Surgery is almost never the preferred route, it has all kinds of extra risks.  The only reason they do it is for Access, and with magic and enough sensory abilities you may not actually need that?

On the other hand, Evocation requires Line of Sight, so that's one reason you might need to crack somebody open.  Thaumaturgy doesnt, but I get the sense that it does require more significant power to reach into a person directly for that kind of precision work, which might get bypassed if you are literally elbow deep in the person. 
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Offline Mr. Death

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #22 on: October 18, 2016, 03:25:10 PM »
But do you actually Need to get in there?  Surgery is almost never the preferred route, it has all kinds of extra risks.  The only reason they do it is for Access, and with magic and enough sensory abilities you may not actually need that?

On the other hand, Evocation requires Line of Sight, so that's one reason you might need to crack somebody open.  Thaumaturgy doesnt, but I get the sense that it does require more significant power to reach into a person directly for that kind of precision work, which might get bypassed if you are literally elbow deep in the person.
Yeah, I'm thinking access because cells work funny. Look at cancer -- cancer is, basically, rapid cell growth. Just in the wrong spot, with corrupted cells.

So say you need to heal internal bleeding in one of the intestines. You have a spell that encourages cell growth -- but there's also skin, muscle, the other intestines, stomach, kidneys and liver in the same general area and you don't want that spell to hit the wrong thing. If you're not careful then, congrats, your intestines stopped bleeding! But the bit of your liver that had been perfectly healthy before now has a tumor.

There's a reason that the book says you need medical knowledge to use healing spells.

Alternately, sometimes treating a consequence means having to take things out -- bullets, shards of teeth and metal, etc., in which case you might need to enlarge the entry wound to take something out.
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Offline Quantus

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #23 on: October 18, 2016, 05:58:23 PM »
Yeah, I'm thinking access because cells work funny. Look at cancer -- cancer is, basically, rapid cell growth. Just in the wrong spot, with corrupted cells.

So say you need to heal internal bleeding in one of the intestines. You have a spell that encourages cell growth -- but there's also skin, muscle, the other intestines, stomach, kidneys and liver in the same general area and you don't want that spell to hit the wrong thing. If you're not careful then, congrats, your intestines stopped bleeding! But the bit of your liver that had been perfectly healthy before now has a tumor.

There's a reason that the book says you need medical knowledge to use healing spells.

Alternately, sometimes treating a consequence means having to take things out -- bullets, shards of teeth and metal, etc., in which case you might need to enlarge the entry wound to take something out.
Hmm, how would you feel about having a Doctor's Bag of functional utility spells, rather than the more application-specific "Biomancy" trees you outlined. 

So for example, instead of a Treat Poison spell, you have a three-spell process, each of which might require different preparations and circumstances.  Step one would be a basic Diagnostic spell where you touch a person's aura and are able to perceive the infection, the damage, etc.  I'd probably say that in the case of poison you can identify the agent with a high enough roll, but for other things you'd need to recognize it based on it's effects on the body and treat accordingly. 

Step 2 would be a telekinetic spell, something that can manipulate substances in the body directly. Call this one thaumaturgy so it requires an appropriate sample of the body (blood, skin, bone, brain matter, etc).  Given a few moments of quite time for treatment it could isolate the foreign substance and make it inert, postponing any degradation of symptoms; think of it as a medial version of that permeable barrier that Elaine made that filtered smoke but not air, something that wraps the target and prevents the poison from reacting to anything and causes damage.  It would then take a more extended Step Three treatment to then telekinetically 'bleed' the contaminant from the body (without causing damage and maybe exsanguination).  This same spell could be used for general trauma first aid, to set bones, to stop bleeding or even to extract shrapnel. 



Other toolkit spells might be a euphoric sort of psychomancy spell that acts as a short burst anesthetic, with a more powerful application causing mid to long term sleep. 

A generic Water Magic spell to speed up the natural healing processes of the body, for long term treatment.  A more powerful application might be to actually shapeshift the damage away (including massive issue damage and even loss of limbs).  Would require a mental connection so that the change is at least partially guided by the person being heal (failure to do so might run afoul of the Laws as well as more immediate and mutagenic side effects).




If you are establishing a healing magic framework, it could also be a fun if they have a more powerful and all-encompassing Healing Ritual, as sort of Get-Out-Of-Jail Free card for the table, but one that gets less powerful the more they use it.  Let the players bank say, one shift each per game session, and if they get enough and they can get back to HQ they have the option to invoke their healing spirit in a sunrise ritual, using up their stored shifts to fix something catastrophic.  But if they rely on it too often then the ritual is less and less powerful, until eventually they are no more powerful than an aspirin and a cup of coffee.   
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Offline Mr. Death

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #24 on: October 18, 2016, 07:00:54 PM »
Hmm, how would you feel about having a Doctor's Bag of functional utility spells, rather than the more application-specific "Biomancy" trees you outlined. 
To some extent, that's present (like the sleep and anesthetic spells are basically generic that she can pop off almost at will, in preparation of the others).

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So for example, instead of a Treat Poison spell, you have a three-spell process, each of which might require different preparations and circumstances.  Step one would be a basic Diagnostic spell where you touch a person's aura and are able to perceive the infection, the damage, etc.  I'd probably say that in the case of poison you can identify the agent with a high enough roll, but for other things you'd need to recognize it based on it's effects on the body and treat accordingly.
Definitely doable -- with this character, her Scholarship and Doctor stunt, though, just makes it easier for her to diagnose the normal way. I could definitely see using The Sight to help with diagnosis, though.

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Step 2 would be a telekinetic spell, something that can manipulate substances in the body directly. Call this one thaumaturgy so it requires an appropriate sample of the body (blood, skin, bone, brain matter, etc).  Given a few moments of quite time for treatment it could isolate the foreign substance and make it inert, postponing any degradation of symptoms; think of it as a medial version of that permeable barrier that Elaine made that filtered smoke but not air, something that wraps the target and prevents the poison from reacting to anything and causes damage.  It would then take a more extended Step Three treatment to then telekinetically 'bleed' the contaminant from the body (without causing damage and maybe exsanguination).  This same spell could be used for general trauma first aid, to set bones, to stop bleeding or even to extract shrapnel.
It seems like this could be different flavor for what is, mechanically, the same spell that I have listed. Though it would depend on just how fine telekinesis can be for something going through a body -- I'd think you'd need some biomancy to get past whatever interference the body itself would create.

This does give me an interesting idea, though -- voodoo dolls as biomancy foci for medicine. ... Maybe if I make a healer from New Orleans instead of New Jersey some day.

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Other toolkit spells might be a euphoric sort of psychomancy spell that acts as a short burst anesthetic, with a more powerful application causing mid to long term sleep.
Again, seems an alternate way of doing it -- induce sleep via psychomancy, or via biomancy by triggering something physical in the brain.

Quote
A generic Water Magic spell to speed up the natural healing processes of the body, for long term treatment.  A more powerful application might be to actually shapeshift the damage away (including massive issue damage and even loss of limbs).  Would require a mental connection so that the change is at least partially guided by the person being heal (failure to do so might run afoul of the Laws as well as more immediate and mutagenic side effects).
I was more or less working with the idea that biomancy was water element magic -- based on what Jim's said about Listens to Winds being a water magic specialist (water is also one of my doc character's three Evocation elements).

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If you are establishing a healing magic framework, it could also be a fun if they have a more powerful and all-encompassing Healing Ritual, as sort of Get-Out-Of-Jail Free card for the table, but one that gets less powerful the more they use it.  Let the players bank say, one shift each per game session, and if they get enough and they can get back to HQ they have the option to invoke their healing spirit in a sunrise ritual, using up their stored shifts to fix something catastrophic.  But if they rely on it too often then the ritual is less and less powerful, until eventually they are no more powerful than an aspirin and a cup of coffee.
Ah, so this would be some kind of sponsored magic, right? Maybe for a party that's working for a patron deity, so they can do some small, repetitive ritual when they get back to base, then cash in that power when one of them takes a really bad hit? Definitely something to think about (particularly as this version of the character I'm using is aligned with Death, the Horseman and Anthropomorphic Personification), but might not work in her setting -- she's working with the Fellowship of St. Giles, which will probably involve moving around a lot.
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Offline Quantus

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #25 on: October 18, 2016, 08:29:52 PM »
It seems like this could be different flavor for what is, mechanically, the same spell that I have listed. Though it would depend on just how fine telekinesis can be for something going through a body -- I'd think you'd need some biomancy to get past whatever interference the body itself would create.
You could treat some of that as a side effect of being a Doctor, something along the lines of how a Water Mage can be less bothered by doing magic over deep water. 
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This does give me an interesting idea, though -- voodoo dolls as biomancy foci for medicine. ... Maybe if I make a healer from New Orleans instead of New Jersey some day.
Ooh, take it one step further.  Use the same idea for Corpse Surgery, where you use a dead cadaver from the local morge/medical school and use it as the worlds most detailed voodoo doll. Make the thaumaurgical connection then perform the surgery on the corpse, which would negate the need for a proper operating room and clean tools and whatnot. 
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Again, seems an alternate way of doing it -- induce sleep via psychomancy, or via biomancy by triggering something physical in the brain.
I was more or less working with the idea that biomancy was water element magic -- based on what Jim's said about Listens to Winds being a water magic specialist (water is also one of my doc character's three Evocation elements).
Agreed, biomancy could and probably should be treated as a subset of Watermagic, though the distinction between Biomancy and Shapeshifting is a fuzzy one.  It's mostly a personal preference on how technical to take the Biomancy idea.  If it's just Biomancy School of magic, is feels like it would either end up with a lot of duplication (like all the different spells having a Pain-Killer stage) or else turn into a certain amount of hand-wavy RPG Healing Magic.  There are a lot of different functional effects that would be hard to bring under that single umbrella of water magic, but if instead the Magical Doctor had a toolbox of entirely separate skills that all lent themselves to medical treatment, but are otherwise different schools and types of magic, it just seems more technically satisfying (to my weird engineer brain). 

It also might lend itself to a Sponsor Magic Theme, like how Summer Magic can be both plant growth and Fire magic, even if mechanically they are far removed from each other. 

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Ah, so this would be some kind of sponsored magic, right? Maybe for a party that's working for a patron deity, so they can do some small, repetitive ritual when they get back to base, then cash in that power when one of them takes a really bad hit? Definitely something to think about (particularly as this version of the character I'm using is aligned with Death, the Horseman and Anthropomorphic Personification), but might not work in her setting -- she's working with the Fellowship of St. Giles, which will probably involve moving around a lot.
More or less sponsored magic, though the details of Sponsor magic arent my strongest suit so I dont know what complications might arise;  what Im aiming for is less Winter Knight Mantle and more Outsider Entropy Curse style ritual. 

I dont see why a single actual location would be necessary, more just the idea that it takes time and privacy to pull off, so it's something they cant expect to do any old time.  Restricting it to a single time of day does this a reasonable bit too. 
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Offline Mr. Death

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #26 on: October 18, 2016, 08:42:00 PM »
Ooh, take it one step further.  Use the same idea for Corpse Surgery, where you use a dead cadaver from the local morge/medical school and use it as the worlds most detailed voodoo doll. Make the thaumaurgical connection then perform the surgery on the corpse, which would negate the need for a proper operating room and clean tools and whatnot.
Just gotta do something about the smell.

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More or less sponsored magic, though the details of Sponsor magic arent my strongest suit so I dont know what complications might arise;  what Im aiming for is less Winter Knight Mantle and more Outsider Entropy Curse style ritual. 

I dont see why a single actual location would be necessary, more just the idea that it takes time and privacy to pull off, so it's something they cant expect to do any old time.  Restricting it to a single time of day does this a reasonable bit too.
Ah, the first thing that sprung to mind for me was having a temple or home base of some kind where the party would 'store up' that energy. You gotta figure, a 'get out of grievous injury free' card would have a lot of power behind it, which to me implies something large and stable to store and channel it.
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Offline Quantus

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #27 on: October 18, 2016, 08:47:07 PM »
Ah, the first thing that sprung to mind for me was having a temple or home base of some kind where the party would 'store up' that energy. You gotta figure, a 'get out of grievous injury free' card would have a lot of power behind it, which to me implies something large and stable to store and channel it.
Ah, gotcha.  I was thinking more in the gumball machine analogy from Blood Rites, which basically just says that the entity that is fueling it has a limited amount of energy and needs time to recharge.  As long as they had access to the requisite ritual gear and connection to the supernatural Being that was fueling it, they'd not need to store the energy themselves.  The ritual might require specific locations like a Catholic Church or Holy Ground or some such, but not necessarily a specific shrine or temple.  You can make it require a specific object as a connection, if you want it to be able to be taken away (this might be good fodder for an IoP if the character is interested. 
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Offline Mr. Death

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #28 on: October 20, 2016, 04:09:47 PM »
Ah, gotcha.  I was thinking more in the gumball machine analogy from Blood Rites, which basically just says that the entity that is fueling it has a limited amount of energy and needs time to recharge.  As long as they had access to the requisite ritual gear and connection to the supernatural Being that was fueling it, they'd not need to store the energy themselves.  The ritual might require specific locations like a Catholic Church or Holy Ground or some such, but not necessarily a specific shrine or temple.  You can make it require a specific object as a connection, if you want it to be able to be taken away (this might be good fodder for an IoP if the character is interested.
Aye, it could go either way, really, depending on what you were going for.
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Offline Taran

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Re: Biomancy Medical Spells
« Reply #29 on: October 20, 2016, 04:48:40 PM »
The surgery one, mainly. I envision that for things where there is significant, urgent internal injuries that require invasive surgery.

Come to think of it, even it that only amounts to a Severe, you'd probably need the Surgery spell to treat the amount of cutting you'd have to do to get in there. In which case, I guess, you're using the shifts gained from inflicting the moderate consequence to treat the moderate consequence you inflicted? ... Okay, I guess that's a little two-steps-forward, two-steps-back. But I guess if you need to get in there, you need to get in there.

So, I lost track of the thread after this post, but I wanted to comment on it.  I apologize if it's already been covered.

You have all these rituals that lead up to the big Ritual Surgery.  Instead of 'requiring' those other rituals - or making people take stress/make mental fortitude checks - why not use the 'lesser' rituals to create maneuvers and aspects so that you can get the complexity you need to do the surgery and control the power being invested?

Example:

Anesthetic: 3 shifts, numbs pain, creates maneuver that can be tagged to counter a compelled or tagged consequence.

- creates an aspect: 'numbed pain'  which can be added to the complexity of the ritual or tagged for control since the patient isn't screaming in pain as you operate.

Disinfectant: 4+X, with X
Adds aspect 'sterile' to scene which adds to complexity of ritual surgery

Deep sleep: 6 shift, induces deep, lasting, dreamless sleep (4 for 'take out', 2 for duration).
- Adds Deep Sleep to the target which can be tagged for complexity as the patient can recover quicker or tagged for control since the patient cannot hinder the caster.

Let's add:
X-Ray:  divination ritual.
Allows caster to better understand the extent of the injury.  Adds to complexity.

etc.. etc...