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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Mr. Death on December 23, 2014, 08:51:20 PM
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So, kind of just thinking aloud here/looking for feedback on my wizard healer character for a friend's game. Wanting to suss out just how healing would work without leaning on sponsored magic, mechanically speaking, so I thought I'd jot down ideas for spells and such.
Also, yes, the healer does have the Doctor stunt and a high Scholarship skill.
Bandage
Healing mild physical consequences.
5 shift total
3-shift maneuver to numb pain (i.e., the target can tag it to counter a compel against the consequence)
2-shift maneuver to begin/accelerate the healing process (may not even be necessary -- mild physical consequences going away after a scene anyway)
Disinfectant
Healing poison
3+X shift total
3-shift maneuver to numb pain (if poison is indeed causing pain)
X-shift maneuver to counter the poison (cost dependent on what the strength of the poisoning is)
Strong Bandages
Healing Moderate consequences (Cuts and contusions)
7 shift total
3-shift maneuver to numb pain
4-shift maneuver to begin the healing process
Splint
Heal moderate consequences (broken bones)
10 shift total
3-shift maneuver to numb the pain
3-shift maneuver to support the broken bone (like numbing the pain, this is meant to counter a compel while it heals)
4-shift maneuver to begin the healing process
Surgery
Healing Severe consequences
14-shift total
5-shift maneuver to induce deep sleep
6-shift maneuver to accelerate the healing process once everything's put back in (should it be higher?)
3-shift maneuver to act as a "cast" or bandage, and protect wounds from further infection/reopening/rebreaking (countering a compel)
I'm unsure on the costs and whether they're appropriate -- I figure some of the 'numbing pain' ones may have multiples, or extended durations.
Also curious, would making an incision to start surgery be counted as inducing a mild physical consequence to help cover the cost of a spell?
General thoughts and ideas welcome and encouraged.
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Hmm... hmm hmm hmm...
Healing spells are a tricky thing to do. In most RPGs they are pretty much mandatory and will cut down the groups downtime significantly and makes adventuring possible in the first place. In Dresden Files, not so much.
See, the thing that's sort of bothering me with this is that it kind of means that every character potentially has mythic recovery. Given a night downtime, the whole group is as good as new. And at that point, I wouldn't bother with spells, I would simply make that baseline. Decouple recovery phases from milestones and simply say that as soon as you have a bit of time, the doctor can heal people and be done with it. Especially since most of the time, you'll be taking your time in the first place, since fallout on a healing spell will not be very healthy.
If you want to stay with the recovery rules as they are, maybe just give everyone the effects of "inhuman recovery" for free and allow them to take more because the doctor is in the house.
For active spells, I would go for things that are more needed in the moment. Maybe even some biomancy. Pull the poison from a wound, temporarily increase strength, suppress pain (and therefore the use of an aspect) during a fight, etc. Maybe some stuff specific to the campaign, a critter with a particularly nasty poison that keeps a wound from healing or other fun stuff. With a character like that in a DFRPG campaign, something like that should definitely come up. That's where you should be able to really shine, and I feel like that's where your spells should be focused on.
That out of the way, my goto difficulty for a spell like this would be
5 (taken out) + 4 (creating/removing a lasting aspect) + 2*[consequence value]
So a mild (2) consequence would be 13 shifts, a moderate would be 17 shifts and a severe would be 21 shifts to remove. I think it's either a staple of the game (see above) or it's something really difficult to pull off.
Creating a mild consequence to cure a severe one would be equal to reducing the severe consequence by 2 steps. For reducing a consequence, I would remove the "2*" part in the equation above, but add the values together. So reducing a severe to mild would still be 19 shifts, which is exactly what you'd get if you took the 21 for healing the severe and tagged the mild consequence. The incision would mostly be there for dramatic effect.
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the tricky healing.
I like that you create an aspect that can be tagged to pay off compels. That is very smart and a very smooth way to legally "heal" someone in combat since no-one can take advantage of the consequence...although, it doesn't make the consequence go away, so they could just spend a FP to get hit it again...but, I don't think that'll come up often and you always earn the FP when someone invokes your consequences.
The maneuver to heal a poison works well. Technically, it's a scholarship skill replacement spell since scholarship is the First Aid skill to stop poison. Maybe you want to expand that and have a powerful enough spell that could be used an anti-toxin or immunization to poison. An appropriately powerful enough maneuver (greater than the maneuver created by a venomous creature) that can be used to 'pay off' the invoke so that the poison doesn't affect them in the first place.
As for actually reducing/recovering consequences...I don't really have any further input. I think I tend to lean towards Haru's formula but I've never actually used it in play.
It might have been you who mentioned a healing spell changing the name of an aspect to make it less serious. A moderate of 'broken rib' becomes 'bruised rib' or something...so a compel has less weight to it since it's 'healing'.
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They look fine to me. Though I think you're stretching the definition of "maneuver" too far, that doesn't really affect the mechanics.
Also curious, would making an incision to start surgery be counted as inducing a mild physical consequence to help cover the cost of a spell?
Sure, why not?
See, the thing that's sort of bothering me with this is that it kind of means that every character potentially has mythic recovery.
Either you're reading these wrong or I am, because to me it looks like these don't do anything Scholarship doesn't. They just start the healing process, that's all.
That out of the way, my goto difficulty for a spell like this would be
5 (taken out) + 4 (creating/removing a lasting aspect) + 2*[consequence value]
So a mild (2) consequence would be 13 shifts, a moderate would be 17 shifts and a severe would be 21 shifts to remove. I think it's either a staple of the game (see above) or it's something really difficult to pull off.
I'm not a fan. Tougher people shouldn't be harder to heal...if anything, it should be the other way around.
And those complexities seem too low to me.
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Disinfectant
Healing poison
3+X shift total
3-shift maneuver to numb pain (if poison is indeed causing pain)
X-shift maneuver to counter the poison (cost dependent on what the strength of the poisoning is)
I kind of like this, but I'm also a little bit leery of X-shift rituals for healing purposes, simply because thaumaturgy isn't supposed to be fast. If you need to counter a poison of power X, how many turns of maneuvers and control rolls would actually be needed to get rid of the poison? If the poison is strong enough, wouldn't a character probably be better off getting healed by a one turn scholarship roll plus some fate point expenditures?
The others seem to be line with Recovery and Skills on pg 220 of YS, but given that justifying healing under pressure would almost certainly be faster through scholarship, I'm not sure how useful they are. It seems like justifying consequence recovery after the fact would be the way to go for magical healing, since it probably requires less mess than, say, an impromptu surgery for those inconvenient bullet wounds.
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Either you're reading these wrong or I am, because to me it looks like these don't do anything Scholarship doesn't. They just start the healing process, that's all.
If that's all they do, they should be cheaper. I read them as removing the consequences.
I'm not a fan. Tougher people shouldn't be harder to heal...if anything, it should be the other way around.
I use 5 shifts as the standard take out against anyone, toughness powers, lower or higher endurance etc. be damned. It's a good place to start any transformation spell, I think.
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the tricky healing.
I like that you create an aspect that can be tagged to pay off compels. That is very smart and a very smooth way to legally "heal" someone in combat since no-one can take advantage of the consequence...although, it doesn't make the consequence go away, so they could just spend a FP to get hit it again...but, I don't think that'll come up often and you always earn the FP when someone invokes your consequences.
Yeah, it's kind of how like in the more recent books, Harry can keep going for a while ignoring his injuries, but eventually no matter how much pain is dulled, a broken arm just plain isn't going to work right. So these spells provide protection against one or two compels, but not more than that -- so, someone with a busted leg might get a freebie on a sprint, but if they keep trying, eventually the leg's going to give out.
The maneuver to heal a poison works well. Technically, it's a scholarship skill replacement spell since scholarship is the First Aid skill to stop poison. Maybe you want to expand that and have a powerful enough spell that could be used an anti-toxin or immunization to poison. An appropriately powerful enough maneuver (greater than the maneuver created by a venomous creature) that can be used to 'pay off' the invoke so that the poison doesn't affect them in the first place.
That's a good idea, aye.
They look fine to me. Though I think you're stretching the definition of "maneuver" too far, that doesn't really affect the mechanics.
Well, yeah, but I mean, they're not an attack, a block, or a sprint, so what else can I call them?
Either you're reading these wrong or I am, because to me it looks like these don't do anything Scholarship doesn't. They just start the healing process, that's all.
Yeah, they're an excuse to start the healing process; the reason it's not just Scholarship rolls is they're meant to be done outside of a medical facility. This character is a White Council healer, so A. she doesn't want to operate out of a hospital, and B. her patients usually don't want to go to hospitals either.
If they meant to make it substantially faster, that'd add to the cost, reducing the severity of the consequence. That might come as she levels up and gains power.
And those complexities seem too low to me.
They seemed high to me -- I mean, a 13-shift ritual to heal something that's going to heal on its own anyway by the time you're ready to cast the ritual?
I kind of like this, but I'm also a little bit leery of X-shift rituals for healing purposes, simply because thaumaturgy isn't supposed to be fast. If you need to counter a poison of power X, how many turns of maneuvers and control rolls would actually be needed to get rid of the poison? If the poison is strong enough, wouldn't a character probably be better off getting healed by a one turn scholarship roll plus some fate point expenditures?
Oh, this isn't meant to be fast, or done in the middle of a fight. These are regular thaumaturgic rituals. That said, the character I'm designing them for has effective lore for biomancy at 8 (meaning half of them she can do without the extra prep) and Discipline at 4, so she could do them in two, three rounds.
Also, logically, countering poison would require a particular antivenin. If you have magic, that makes it something you could do anywhere, instead of having to have a specific countermeasure.
I suppose you could also divide them up -- have a generalized 3-shift pain relief spell, and then, separately, use the base lore for the actual healing spell. Given her stats, she could actually do the 3-shift pain relief spell almost at will, barring a terrible roll.
The others seem to be line with Recovery and Skills on pg 220 of YS, but given that justifying healing under pressure would almost certainly be faster through scholarship, I'm not sure how useful they are. It seems like justifying consequence recovery after the fact would be the way to go for magical healing, since it probably requires less mess than, say, an impromptu surgery for those inconvenient bullet wounds.
Sometimes you have to heal in the field for one reason or another -- maybe the wizard can't go to a regular hospital, maybe you're stuck on a trip to enemy territory, maybe you really need that tank to be back on his feet, if only for a couple rounds. I have, as a GM, compelled players to attempt to heal right away for drama's sake (said healing involved sponsored magic).
If that's all they do, they should be cheaper. I read them as removing the consequences.
Well, they'd be cheaper if you nixed the pain relief.
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Well, yeah, but I mean, they're not an attack, a block, or a sprint, so what else can I call them?
In Fate Core they'd be Overcome actions, I think. In DFRPG they don't have any specific name.
They seemed high to me -- I mean, a 13-shift ritual to heal something that's going to heal on its own anyway by the time you're ready to cast the ritual?
True, the mild one isn't so bad. But the moderate and severe ones aren't much harder than it, even though their effect is much bigger.
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So, what would you suggest be the additional cost to reduce the healing time of a consequence, like making a Moderate heal as quickly as a Mild, a Severe as quickly as a Moderate, etc?
The Reiki Healing spell is 8-10 shifts, with four shifts representing the consequence being healed, and four as a "base complexity" to represent "that healing magic is partially transformative, though not to the degree of more hostile magic."
So by this logic, would adding a blanket four shifts to a spell have that effect? Or should it scale up with the consequence being healed (I.e., add six shifts to the Surgery spell to make that Severe consequence heal like a Moderate)?
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So, what would you suggest be the additional cost to reduce the healing time of a consequence, like making a Moderate heal as quickly as a Mild, a Severe as quickly as a Moderate, etc?
I guess I'd use whatever the difficulty of reducing the healing time with Scholarship is (which is a GM call, of course), plus a surcharge of maybe 6 shifts to cover the complexities of healing magic and the benefit of not needing medical gear.
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I'd have the cost go up by cumulative cost so that a mild consequence costs +2 shifts to heal while a moderate would cost 6 (2 from the mild + 4 from the moderate), a severe would cost +12, and so on.
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I'm trying to remember my formula but it didn't take consequences away, it just down graded it.
So, it was similar to Haru's but that 21 shift ritual would not cure a severe it would down grade it to moderate. You'd then have to spend 17ish shifts to down grade it to minor and then more shifts to remove it. But I think a minor was only7 to 9 shifts total.
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Okay, so it looks like I'll actually get to use the healing character as a PC, so I've revised these slightly. All the actual "healing" ones have the base of 4 added for the transformative aspect (i.e., that you need to 'take out' someone to make these changes).
Anesthetic: 3 shifts, numbs pain, creates maneuver that can be tagged to counter a compelled or tagged consequence.
Disinfectant: 4+X, with X being the strength of the venom.
Bandages: 8 shift, makes Moderate consequences heal like they're Mild consequences (copied from Reiki Healing - 4 for transformation, 4 for value of consequence)
Strong bandages: 10 shift, Severe heals like Moderate (principle of Reiki, applies to Severe - 4 for transformation, 6 for value of consequence)
Deep sleep: 6 shift, induces deep, lasting, dreamless sleep (4 for 'take out', 2 for duration).
Surgery: 16 shift, accelerates healing of multiple consequences (deep sleep should be administered first, and anesthetic probably before and after - 4 for transformation, 6, 4 and 2 for consequences).
Thoughts?
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I like the premise. I suppose it depends how lenient the GM is for allowing rituals and using declarations to get the shifts.
(deep sleep should be administered first, and anesthetic probably before and after - 4 for transformation, 6, 4 and 2 for consequences).
Like a real operation. But do you NEED to do all these other rituals? What prevents PCs from not?
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I like the premise. I suppose it depends how lenient the GM is for allowing rituals and using declarations to get the shifts.
Like a real operation. But do you NEED to do all these other rituals? What prevents PCs from not?
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.
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Here are the healing rules we adopted for Dominium Fuego:
- 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.
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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 (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,44775.msg2143623.html#msg2143623) might be worth a look.
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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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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.
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.
PS: This thread (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,44775.msg2143623.html#msg2143623) 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.
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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?
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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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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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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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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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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).
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.
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.
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.
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).
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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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.
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.
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.
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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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.
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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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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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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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...
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It's an idea -- but I'm honestly not sure if it's kosher to use rituals to add shifts to other rituals. I don't think we've seen anything like that in the books and to me it doesn't seem to fit with how spells are described in the RPG.
Tagging anesthetic's aspect for a control roll sounds like it makes sense, though.
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I think doing minor rituals to get extra complexity is fine. I've seen it written somewhere before - There's was an example somewhere of how the Blackstaff got the complexity to bring a satellite down on the Reds and it was a pretty good example.
But it involved several "astronomy" rituals and a few other things.
It was done by Belial666, I think. I'll see if I can find it.
Edit: http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,34132.msg1610637.html#msg1610637
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I think doing minor rituals to get extra complexity is fine. I've seen it written somewhere before - There's was an example somewhere of how the Blackstaff got the complexity to bring a satellite down on the Reds and it was a pretty good example.
But it involved several "astronomy" rituals and a few other things.
It was done by Belial666, I think. I'll see if I can find it.
Edit: http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,34132.msg1610637.html#msg1610637
Nothing official, though. And it still doesn't sound right to me -- like, those wouldn't add to the complexity of the final spell, they'd just be other effects on it. Or they'd be flavor components of the final spell.
It's always seemed to me that what you do to build up shifts are different from actions actually taken in the spell, if that makes sense. Like if you're doing a spell to unlock something, you would gather components that are symbolic of unlocking rather than, say, starting to pick the lock physically.
Which is to say, doing those preparatory spells might lessen the number of shifts needed for the final effect, because you're already doing work on it, but they wouldn't work to build up the shifts of that final effect.
That's kind of my intention here -- instead of a mammoth 25-shift spell that has to be cast all at once (and thus needs 17 shifts of additional buildup), you have a 3-shift spell that can be cast at will, a 6-shift spell that can be cast with no additional prep, and a big spell that only needs 8 shifts of prep.
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It's an idea -- but I'm honestly not sure if it's kosher to use rituals to add shifts to other rituals. I don't think we've seen anything like that in the books and to me it doesn't seem to fit with how spells are described in the RPG.
What specifically bothers you about it? Im not sure I understand your objection.
Looking for examples from the books, Would it count when Harry went "full ritual" the first time he used Little Chicago? Or, I always imagined that the Bloodline curse in changes was a similarly multi-part Ritual, with then doing one stage each time they sacrificed a "Fuel" person, and then a different ritual requirement to actually fire the thing off. The Genus Locii bonding required like 5 spells, one to call him and 4 elemental attacks to make it stick. The entropy curse was arguable broken into three different parts, maybe that would be a reasonable restriction to stacking multiple effects into a larger ritual?
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What specifically bothers you about it? Im not sure I understand your objection.
The components to a ritual spell do one of a couple things -- they give a target, they give shape to the intent and they provide power. They symbolically create the connections and form the spell. We don't have any examples where the preparation for a big spell is, 'Cast smaller versions of that same spell.'
Looking for examples from the books, Would it count when Harry went "full ritual" the first time he used Little Chicago?
He didn't use spells to build up there -- he meditated, he washed, he got naked, he lit incense, but he didn't cast spells. And most of that was just to buff his control roll to make sure the casting was safe for him, personally.
Or, I always imagined that the Bloodline curse in changes was a similarly multi-part Ritual, with then doing one stage each time they sacrificed a "Fuel" person, and then a different ritual requirement to actually fire the thing off.
That's not how it's described, though. It's one single, gigantic spell -- a fairly simple one, really. The sacrifices were about putting power into it to extend its range and penetration.
The Genus Locii bonding required like 5 spells, one to call him and 4 elemental attacks to make it stick.
The spells he cast there were during the larger casting -- they weren't things done in preparation beforehand. That wasn't, "Okay, i cast an Earth spell, that adds 2 shifts to get me to 15 complexity..." it was more like, "Okay, I do my first roll to control 3 shifts of the 15-shift spell... I'll describe that as calling up earth... second roll, another 3 shifts, let's say it's a fire..."
The entropy curse was arguable broken into three different parts, maybe that would be a reasonable restriction to stacking multiple effects into a larger ritual?
Nah, the Entropy curse was one spell, just with three people helping to control it. Kind of like the scene in Shaun of the Dead where they're all trying to fire the rifle together -- one person pulling the trigger, another person helping reload, a third person keeping an eye out for targets, etc. No one person involved had all the necessary skill to cast it on his or her own, so they divided up components of it to help them handle it -- but they weren't each casting spells for it.
In fact, I would argue that it would be wiser not to cast spells as part of preparation, because spells are dangerous and taxing in themselves. When you're doing a big ritual, you want to do it as fresh as you can -- not after you've spent a bunch of time using up your magic to create the spell in the first place.
It's also dangerous precedent for a GM -- any wizard could, effectively, cast an infinite number of small rituals effectively for free and ratchet up the power of any spell far too easily. If you're allowed to build up a complexity for a big spell with a bunch of little spells, what's to stop this:
Player: Okay, I want to do a 36-shift ritual to kill the badguy.
GM: Okay, you've got a Lore of 4, so you'll have to do a bunch of quests and gather a lot of items to --
Player: Nah, I'll just do a bunch of 2-shift rituals. I can make those rolls easily and it won't cause any stress to call up that little power.
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The components to a ritual spell do one of a couple things -- they give a target, they give shape to the intent and they provide power. They symbolically create the connections and form the spell. We don't have any examples where the preparation for a big spell is, 'Cast smaller versions of that same spell.'
He didn't use spells to build up there -- he meditated, he washed, he got naked, he lit incense, but he didn't cast spells. And most of that was just to buff his control roll to make sure the casting was safe for him, personally.
That's not how it's described, though. It's one single, gigantic spell -- a fairly simple one, really. The sacrifices were about putting power into it to extend its range and penetration.
The spells he cast there were during the larger casting -- they weren't things done in preparation beforehand. That wasn't, "Okay, i cast an Earth spell, that adds 2 shifts to get me to 15 complexity..." it was more like, "Okay, I do my first roll to control 3 shifts of the 15-shift spell... I'll describe that as calling up earth... second roll, another 3 shifts, let's say it's a fire..."
Nah, the Entropy curse was one spell, just with three people helping to control it. Kind of like the scene in Shaun of the Dead where they're all trying to fire the rifle together -- one person pulling the trigger, another person helping reload, a third person keeping an eye out for targets, etc. No one person involved had all the necessary skill to cast it on his or her own, so they divided up components of it to help them handle it -- but they weren't each casting spells for it.
In fact, I would argue that it would be wiser not to cast spells as part of preparation, because spells are dangerous and taxing in themselves. When you're doing a big ritual, you want to do it as fresh as you can -- not after you've spent a bunch of time using up your magic to create the spell in the first place.
It's also dangerous precedent for a GM -- any wizard could, effectively, cast an infinite number of small rituals effectively for free and ratchet up the power of any spell far too easily. If you're allowed to build up a complexity for a big spell with a bunch of little spells, what's to stop this:
Player: Okay, I want to do a 36-shift ritual to kill the badguy.
GM: Okay, you've got a Lore of 4, so you'll have to do a bunch of quests and gather a lot of items to --
Player: Nah, I'll just do a bunch of 2-shift rituals. I can make those rolls easily and it won't cause any stress to call up that little power.
OK, I think I can wrap my head around your objection. It sounds like the hangup is a matter of stacking., you dont want somebody to spam the same small-level spell over and over again and cumulatively make a big one (closest thing in the books I can think of are the Wards that the Paranet put on Murphy's place). But I dont think that's a danger here. It woulnt ever be casting the same spell over and over to build up the complexity, it would always have to be different spells/ritual to add different aspects that logically contribute. Taran's latest example boils down to anesthesia, radiology, and sterile operating environment, and in that case Id argue that the pain-killers and the Sleep spell wouldnt stack, but the others are from separate sources so they could. And if a Player could come up with 18 different small spells that could all logically add together, Id say they earned the 36-shift.
That being said, I dont think I fully grasp all the practical difference between "adding complexity shifts" for the final affect versus "lessening the number of shifts for final effect?
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That being said, I dont think I fully grasp all the practical difference between "adding complexity shifts" for the final affect versus "lessening the number of shifts for final effect?
In the former case, you're taking efforts to boost the final spell -- counting those smaller spells toward building the complexity of the effect. In the latter case, each spell is, itself, having an effect on the target, and therefore you don't need to hit it as hard the final time.
In the case of Asteroid Dresden, what the example you linked suggests is that Ebenezer did several spells, each of which built up to a target complexity for a massive, 70+-shift spell that Ebenezer then had to cast.
The alternate I'm talking about is that each of those spells lowered the difficulty of the final spell -- that in the end, after doing those other spells as prep, Ebenezer had basically done half the tangible work, and so would have been able to get his effect with a much smaller amount of shifts in the final casting.
Or, to look at it like a combat scenario, what you're suggesting is like a bunch of maneuvers that all get tagged for a massive boost to a single killing blow, versus whittling down the target's stress so the target can eventually be taken down with a much lower roll.
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In the former case, you're taking efforts to boost the final spell -- counting those smaller spells toward building the complexity of the effect. In the latter case, each spell is, itself, having an effect on the target, and therefore you don't need to hit it as hard the final time.
In the case of Asteroid Dresden, what the example you linked suggests is that Ebenezer did several spells, each of which built up to a target complexity for a massive, 70+-shift spell that Ebenezer then had to cast.
The alternate I'm talking about is that each of those spells lowered the difficulty of the final spell -- that in the end, after doing those other spells as prep, Ebenezer had basically done half the tangible work, and so would have been able to get his effect with a much smaller amount of shifts in the final casting.
Or, to look at it like a combat scenario, what you're suggesting is like a bunch of maneuvers that all get tagged for a massive boost to a single killing blow, versus whittling down the target's stress so the target can eventually be taken down with a much lower roll.
OK, that makes sense. Id say in that case medical procedures would be a little bit of both, and that situationally they'd have to fall on one side or the other based on how you describe: Do they A)affect the spell/procedure itself, or do they b)produce separate effects on the target that simply make the procedure easier to accomplish. For example, a spell to disinfect the area really doesnt contribute to the success or failure persay, it just avoids certain detrimental side effects, so its a good idea to do but more of a general environment aspect. Pain-killers or Sleep spell happen to affect the same target and make the surgery easier, so that would be B. But trying to use Sensory magic to feel your way around, Kinetomancy to move bits around, and Water Magic to make the cells repair themsleves faster, all at the same time? Those feel like an A scenario. If say your patient was a shapeshifter themselves, adding some direct psychomancy to try and guide their own abilities to do some of the work would be A, but a leveraging a modified shared Dream sleep spell to accomplish it while also providing pain-insulation might be B. In general I think B would likely be more common, but I dont think A is entirely out of the question.
Hopping back to the topic of Book examples of chained rituals adding shifts/complexity/power, what about the first uses of the Bloodline curse in SF? Werent they using two spells, one using sex rituals to tap the storm and provide power and a separate one that was what the Ramps used later (substituting Sacrifices for the storm power).
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But trying to use Sensory magic to feel your way around, Kinetomancy to move bits around, and Water Magic to make the cells repair themsleves faster, all at the same time?
See, that strikes me just as flavor for the one big spell. Basically, to me, once the spell starts, everything in it is just channeling the complexity and power you already built up.
Hopping back to the topic of Book examples of chained rituals adding shifts/complexity/power, what about the first uses of the Bloodline curse in SF? Werent they using two spells, one using sex rituals to tap the storm and provide power and a separate one that was what the Ramps used later (substituting Sacrifices for the storm power).
Nah, it was all one spell, the only change was the scale and the power source. He might have been using magical ability to channel the lightning, but it was all just part of that spell, not a separate, distinct spell happening at the same time. The RPG's write up of it has it as all one big spell, just with a crapload of components adding to the complexity (like inflicting consequences on his family, etc.).
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The Reiki Healing spell is 8-10 shifts, with four shifts representing the consequence being healed, and four as a "base complexity" to represent "that healing magic is partially transformative, though not to the degree of more hostile magic."
That is the basis of my own ideas of instant heals effects; I use them in the Healing power post I just made in the custom powers thread. Essentially, I use four shifts to represent "move the recovery time one step down in duration". So healing a mild instantly is 4 + 2 + 4 + 4, as it needs to go from "end of next scene" to "end of this exchange" (two time increment shifts, roughly), for 14 shifts. Healing a Moderate is 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 (reduce time increment from session to full scene to half scene to turn, 3x 4 cost plus moderate cost of 4 + base cost 4)=20. Severe is 4 + 6 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4=26. Extreme would be a whopping 4+8+4+4+4+4+4=32 shifts, which is the same power rating of Victor Sells' Heart Exploding Spell. I'd say those are actually pretty comparable. I might say healing an extreme would need 4 or even 8 more, tbh. Either way, the Aspect change doesn't go away.
For simply justifying healing's start, I'd call that a Moderate transformation that doesn't need to change time increments at all, so base 4 + Consequence stress value. Maybe Base 2 instead. A talented mage could maybe cast that as an evocation with a proper focus and Specialization with lower level consequence (and some justification for it working as evocation for them, like a sponsor)! The pain-reducer spells I'd say are a 3 cost maneuver per instance it can be tagged, so also easily usable as evocation with justification. I'd ok it as evocation with a proper aspect on the character if they have a strong medicine-background, and maybe bought a stunt for it.
I'd think every one of these has a linked Scholarship roll to study the wounds, which creates a taggable aspect to make these spells castable.
Also, this stuff that is being said about diagnostic spells. That sounds to me like a ritual is being used to replace a scholarship roll to create a taggable aspect for the man ritual. So instead of rolling Scholarship, you'd cast this extra spell. That does indeed have some interesting game effect, and the spell itself would thus carry its own risks. Its kind of like a purification ritual. My main concern? Someone going all "I cast fifteen preparatory spells to create all the aspects that let me cast ma uberspell!" XD