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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Mattastic on June 04, 2010, 03:22:53 PM

Title: How would a healing power work?
Post by: Mattastic on June 04, 2010, 03:22:53 PM
I'm thinking of a Lay on Hands type of power. Like asian medicine/ kung fu chi.
Lay your hands on the target and the longer you stay connected the more healing is accomplished, or poison expunged from the body.

How would it work?
(I am still reading the rules and I am not sure how to do something like this.)

t.i.a.
Matt
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: CMEast on June 04, 2010, 03:30:50 PM
There is actually an example of such a spell on page 300 of your story called 'Reiki Healing Spell'.

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 it's original slot.
Variation: It's possible a caster could sink a lot more power into this to reduce serious consequences to moderate, requiring at least 6 additional shifts of complexity, but that might be beyond the reach of this sort of magic. A GM might allow the removal of a mild consequence, but they tend to go away quickly anyway.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: Deadmanwalking on June 04, 2010, 04:14:39 PM
Yep. Personally, I'd allow access to a single Spell as a -1 Power, and then allow an additional -1 to the power per +3 bonus to your base Complexity for that specific spell. At -4 or so that's a +9 and casual healing...for -4 Refresh. That all sounds about right.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: Wordmaker on June 04, 2010, 04:25:20 PM
The Reiki Healing Spell is fairly powerful as healing magic goes.

Another option I'd be willing to allow is to perform a ritual that allows a declaration to be made for physical injury to start recovering. I think that would fall under the "Making the Impossible Possible" use of thaumaturgy.

Other than that, I know healing magic is supposed to be quite limited when it comes to what mortals can manage. At best, it can match mundane medical treatment. For true "healing spells" that repair injury rapidly, you'd need angelic or faerie magic.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: CableRouter on June 04, 2010, 10:24:24 PM
Quote from: Wordmaker on June 04, 2010, 04:25:20 PM
Other than that, I know healing magic is supposed to be quite limited when it comes to what mortals can manage. At best, it can match mundane medical treatment. For true "healing spells" that repair injury rapidly, you'd need angelic or faerie magic.
  This isn't a restriction due to being mortal, it's a matter of skill.  You have to direct the spell.  How many people have the know how to repair a severed spinal cord if handed the means?  The book lists faerie magic, and sponsored faerie magic as being able to heal because they are supplying the know how.  I don't see any reason that a trained surgeon couldn't use ritual magic to pull off impressive feats of magical healing.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: blues.soldier on June 05, 2010, 03:27:47 AM
Yes, but how many surgeons could make it through magical OR medical training? We've seen how hard it is for Harry to keep his cool around technology-- in a medical setting the consequences could cost lives.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: Llayne on June 05, 2010, 03:50:24 AM
Listens to the Wind has several medical degrees, he goes back every couple of decades.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: Wordmaker on June 05, 2010, 11:14:53 AM
Listens to Wind is regarded as the ultimate authority on mortal healing magic, and even he can't simply make injuries vanish with a single spell.

If a wizard has the medical knowledge (Scholarship with the Doctor Stunt) then he can basically make a ritual that's as effective as a fully-equipped medical suite, and put his knowledge to use.

What I meant by mortal magic being limited is that a wizard can use magic in place of medical treatment, but it's not going to be more effective or much faster than what a mundane doctor of the same skill would be able to manage in a hospital.

For true "healing spells" that remove injuries right before your eyes, you need some other power to be at work, like when
(click to show/hide)
.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: 2814 on June 05, 2010, 03:00:09 PM
   There are mentions of Biomancy in the book, it sounds like that is a good start. Putting things back together is never as simple as it was to sunder them. The only times you see instant healing is an innate ability( vampires using blood to heal) or when a higher being( angel, fae etc) does it. If you are going to go down the road, it should be thaumaturgical. The necessity of a sacrifice( burning a copy of Grey's anatomy. book not tv show) or something more tangible should not be ruled out either.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: ryanroyce on June 05, 2010, 09:45:11 PM
On a related note, I wonder how to reconcile this...

Quote
BIOMANCY (YS284)
"Remember, the recovery time can’t be shortened with these kinds of magics—the target still has to go through the healing naturally."

with this....

Quote
REIKI (YS300)
Effect: The spell reduces a moderate physical consequence to mild for the purposes of recovery. The consequence still occupies its original slot.

...since Reiki is clearly shortening the recovery time from 1 full session to 1 full scene.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: blues.soldier on June 06, 2010, 02:07:58 PM
Quote from: ryanroyce on June 05, 2010, 09:45:11 PM
On a related note, I wonder how to reconcile this...

with this....

...since Reiki is clearly shortening the recovery time from 1 full session to 1 full scene.

I think the easiest (and intended) way is this: the consequence still takes up its original slot, but changes type (i.e. bruised ribs becomes sore ribs but still uses up the consequence slot that bruised ribs started in) but the recovery time is determined by the new, post-reiki consequence level. Meaning that Harry is dealing with recovering from sore, not bruised ribs. And once he has recovered from that, the slot opens up again.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: ryanroyce on June 06, 2010, 06:29:48 PM
 Oh, I know how Reiki works, I just don't see how it is compatible with the Biomancy text I referenced, since the spell explicitly reduces recovery time of a moderate consequence (or even a severe consequence, with more shifts).

 That said, I think that healing magic is one of those things that should be addressed during the "setting the dials" phase, since attitudes towards the scope of such magic vary greatly between tables.  Or, in other words, one size doesn't fit all.  The effectiveness of healing magic should vary from table to table depending on where they want to be seated on the range between "grim-noir" and "pulp-swash", or even all the way up to "D&D cure spells".
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: ahunting on June 10, 2010, 12:57:19 PM

I think you may have a point, RyanRoyce. It does seem to be in direct contradiction with original rule.
I can only put forward that point that the wound still recovers naturally and what your doing is simple make the wound not as bad, so it not actually speeding up recover but changing the nature of the wound.
Yeah its splitting hairs real close, and allowing that kind of logic to work is probably more then i would be comfortable with if i was gming.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: ahunting on June 10, 2010, 01:17:02 PM
Ok that said If we think about what they are trying to do it seems to make sense. They have to avoid characters finishing a fight and then poping their healing potions and suddenly feeling all better. But still having a method that makes it so magic can prevent you from carrying around a Severe for a whole session. So I guess this is the compromise point. The consequence stays where it is. But systematically magic will let you reduce it duration and easy of getting it healed. I do agree that probably still violating the Letter of that Biomancy rule, but its clearly cannon so carry on I say.

Its true in the end though, If your GM says sure you can magically heal whatever want then thats how it is, and if he think consequences are there to suck then you should accept that as well.

There maybe other ways to go at this systematically Maybe you can create ritual that temporarily grants you inhuman or supernatural Recovery, and just use those to drop of lower end consequences. My 2 cents.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: John Galt on June 10, 2010, 01:37:03 PM
There's no way I'd let magic reduce an extreme or severe consequence.  That completely destroys their effectiveness in game mechanics.  The whole point is that you over exerted yourself and pushed too hard and now you broke a leg or half destroyed your mind.  If there were a ritual that fixed that, consequences would loose their potency. 

There's canon for the power to reduce a moderate or mild consequence, but that's it.  Necromancy can reduce an extreme consequence (death) to a less extreme one (almost dead) but it doesn't actually heal anything.

And as for Listens to Wind, I'm pretty sure he's more effective than a mortal doctor.  He's just not a quick-fix healer.  Carlos' recovery time was pretty short for his injuries.  So, for example, if you broke your leg, it might take 6-8 weeks in a cast and 2 weeks of physical therapy, but Listens to Wind can get you out of the cast in 3-4 weeks and out and about with a few days of physical therapy.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: ahunting on June 10, 2010, 02:11:30 PM
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.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: ryanroyce on June 10, 2010, 10:25:43 PM
 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?
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: Kordeth on June 10, 2010, 10:49:40 PM
Quote from: ryanroyce on June 10, 2010, 10:25:43 PM
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.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: ahunting on June 11, 2010, 01:16:05 AM
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!!!
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: blues.soldier on June 11, 2010, 04:55:44 AM
Quote from: ryanroyce on June 10, 2010, 10:25:43 PM
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.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: toturi on June 11, 2010, 01:41:13 PM
If you simply want a pain suppressing potion, why not just get a pain suppressing/combat stimulant drug?
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: ahunting on June 11, 2010, 02:58:58 PM
Quote from: toturi on June 11, 2010, 01:41:13 PM
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.
 ???
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: Mattastic on June 11, 2010, 06:33:22 PM
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?
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: Deadmanwalking on June 11, 2010, 07:53:22 PM
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.
Title: Re: How would a healing power work?
Post by: newtinmpls on January 04, 2011, 12:36:24 PM
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