How would a healing power work?

[Mattastic]

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

[CMEast]

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.

[Deadmanwalking]

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.

[Wordmaker]

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.

[CableRouter]

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.

[blues.soldier]

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.

[Llayne]

Listens to the Wind has several medical degrees, he goes back every couple of decades.

[Wordmaker]

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)

Lea healed Harry's injuries after he lost Amoraccius in Grave Peril

.

[2814]

   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.

[ryanroyce]

On a related note, I wonder how to reconcile this...

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....

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.

[blues.soldier]

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.

[ryanroyce]

 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".

[ahunting]

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.

[ahunting]

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.

[John Galt]

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.