Author Topic: Magical Healing  (Read 2256 times)

Offline pogoman

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Magical Healing
« on: April 14, 2010, 10:29:11 PM »
So one of the uses for Seelie Magic is being able to cast "healing" at evocation speed.  Unfortunately, I only found one example of a healing spell, and I'm a little confused on what the difficulty would be to cast one.  What would you need to do to remove the higher consequences?  Also: would you pick an element for your healing spell?  Or do focus items simply not apply?

Offline Deadmanwalking

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Re: Magical Healing
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2010, 10:34:54 PM »
Well, it's Thaumaturgy (even when cast at Evocation speeds), so you'd need a Thaumaturgy Focus Item to help.

As for removing consequence entirely...magic doesn't do that. It speeds healing and (with the Reiki spell) can reduce a particular consequence's severity, but it can't just flat out remove them.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2010, 11:08:22 PM by Deadmanwalking »

Offline iago

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Re: Magical Healing
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2010, 10:37:09 PM »
Yeah, healing magic is a bit of a weird topic. In the novels, it's suggested that actually removing wounds and such (consequences) is an act of incredibly high power.  Anything that wizards do appears to be the sort of thing that substitutes for a really good medical attention roll (ala Scholarship), so I'd mainly think in terms of roll simulation for starters.

To actually REMOVE consequences... well that's some deep magic that borders on "transforming another", Law territory.  I think that I'd probably make it take as much effort (or close to as much effort) as it would to transform someone (which is usually priced on "what would it take to kill them?") but I'm a hard-ass for the canon details.

If you wanna go for a more lightweight calculation, figure out how many shifts it would take to *inflict* the consequence if the character's stress and consequence tracks were completely empty, and maybe use that as a guideline.
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Offline Mal_Luck

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Re: Magical Healing
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2010, 11:46:43 PM »
Yeah, healing magic is a bit of a weird topic. In the novels, it's suggested that actually removing wounds and such (consequences) is an act of incredibly high power.  Anything that wizards do appears to be the sort of thing that substitutes for a really good medical attention roll (ala Scholarship), so I'd mainly think in terms of roll simulation for starters.

To actually REMOVE consequences... well that's some deep magic that borders on "transforming another", Law territory.  I think that I'd probably make it take as much effort (or close to as much effort) as it would to transform someone (which is usually priced on "what would it take to kill them?") but I'm a hard-ass for the canon details.

If you wanna go for a more lightweight calculation, figure out how many shifts it would take to *inflict* the consequence if the character's stress and consequence tracks were completely empty, and maybe use that as a guideline.
Perhaps the healing, the removing of consequences, is better aided by the high Scholarship (explaining why some Wizards repeat Med School multiple times, to improve their medical knowledge).

In comparison, a Mutant from the Marvel universe named Elixir could heal relatively simple injuries but couldn't do complicated stuff (ie, regrowing an organ, fixing someone's eyesight). He gets vast amounts of medical knowledge downloaded into his brain and is then able to correct someone's eyesight and regrow a heart, this didn't make his ability stronger... just refined it.

Probably just speculation on my part, but I think that explains why a Wizard would repeat Med School. But then runs into flaws like "Why didn't Harry make a trip to Edinburgh to have his hand healed?" So my point probably doesn't matter.
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Offline Archmage_Cowl

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Re: Magical Healing
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2010, 12:59:23 AM »
i think it would be cool if when healing was needed a character threw together a thamaturgical spell that would give the injured character increased healing speed ala a temporary inhuman recovery or something like that. It would be one of those things where i think it would be easier to let the persons brain fix the problems by giving them the power to do it.

Just my two cents.
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Offline Moriden

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Re: Magical Healing
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2010, 01:34:59 AM »
The books are pretty clear that magic cant make healing any faster then science can, they also give examples of poof healing, to me this means that you can do instant or ritual healing spells that will just plain make you get better, but unless your doing it to yourself or not human your shattering the don't transform people law, since your transforming them from "wounded" to "healthy" why magic that rips people apart doesn't invoke this law is beyond me though. Same thing with temporarily giveing them healing powers.


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