[TW/ED] Healing

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
Slimcreeper
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by Slimcreeper » Wed Jan 25, 2017 6:19 pm

Oh! and for dying characters, I am going to be testing allowing negative results from Recovery Tests. And if you are unconscious, you can't refuse recovery tests. So if you are really hurt, you need a physician. A dying character is an unconscious character with a lot of wounds. Rules as written, if you fall off a cliff and take 7 wounds and are between your Unconscious and Dying ratings, you'll just get up after a couple hours. With this in place, the character will probably die within a few hours.

Lys
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by Lys » Wed Jan 25, 2017 9:51 pm

The Undying wrote:Blood Damage can only be healed once the source of the damage is removed or nullified (e.g., Blood Damage caused by the insertion of a Blood Charm cannot be healed until the Blood Charm is physically removed from the creature or it is spent and the magical effect cancelled).
Where is that stated? Because as far as i know one of the great things about Fireblood and other in-combat healing is that they let you reset blood charms such as Desperate Blow. Hell in Nations of Barsaive IV: Crystal Raiders there's a blood charm with the following description: "The principal use of the fire of an’grak is to allow raiders who do not possess the Fireblood talent to heal in combat in order to recharge any other blood charms they have already used."

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The Undying
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by The Undying » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:16 pm

Lys wrote:
The Undying wrote:Blood Damage can only be healed once the source of the damage is removed or nullified (e.g., Blood Damage caused by the insertion of a Blood Charm cannot be healed until the Blood Charm is physically removed from the creature or it is spent and the magical effect cancelled).
Where is that stated? Because as far as i know one of the great things about Fireblood and other in-combat healing is that they let you reset blood charms such as Desperate Blow. Hell in Nations of Barsaive IV: Crystal Raiders there's a blood charm with the following description: "The principal use of the fire of an’grak is to allow raiders who do not possess the Fireblood talent to heal in combat in order to recharge any other blood charms they have already used."
You know, you could very well be right, and I could very well have misread this. Here's the text:
Player's Guide, Blood Charms, pg 416 wrote:Charms that may be recharged after use require the character to first heal the Blood Magic Damage taken when implanting the charm. Then the character takes Blood Magic Damage again to recharge the charm. Because the blood charm is already attuned to the character, he does not need to wait another one day before again using it.
Then, later, when you look at all the items, they use the word "implanting", a la "Implanting a desperate spell charm causes the character 3
Blood Magic Damage."

Was it always like that? Was I playing it wrong even in ED3?

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The Undying
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by The Undying » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:25 pm

Slimcreeper wrote:Oh! and for dying characters, I am going to be testing allowing negative results from Recovery Tests. And if you are unconscious, you can't refuse recovery tests. So if you are really hurt, you need a physician. A dying character is an unconscious character with a lot of wounds. Rules as written, if you fall off a cliff and take 7 wounds and are between your Unconscious and Dying ratings, you'll just get up after a couple hours. With this in place, the character will probably die within a few hours.
Dying creatures aren't necessarily unconscious creatures with a lot of wounds. RAW, it's POSSIBLE (especially for the squishy Disciplines) for a character to go straight from "I'm okay" to "*croak* I deaded" very quickly without racking up wounds. I could easily see a magician going down with two solid blows, meaning that they'd only get two wounds during those hits (again, RAW).

As for negative results, I would personally shy away from that. Non-Recovery tests cannot result in anything less than 1 (and rolling less than 1 is definitely possible in the very low steps given the numeric subtraction). From that perspective, I'd say that RT should always provide at least 1. And I still think that hits the spirit of what you want: a character with 7 wounds, a poor RT Step, and no bonuses (which is how my stuff is currently written for dying characters) is still very likely going to die if they're only getting 1 health per RT.

One last note on all this: this material is based off the Player's Guide as I wanted it focused on material that is already front-and-center to the players. I get the feeling that roping in some other stuff could change a couple things. For example, I don't think I want to make dying more trivial by allowing increased field bonuses. HOWEVER, once we get the questor's book, I am VERY confident we'll see some specific powers related to improving recovery chances for dying characters, which really drives the party towards "better hope your buddy lasts until you can get them to a temple of Garlan," or maybe some VERY hard to get Garlan-specific potions and salves.

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The Undying
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by The Undying » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:28 pm

Slimcreeper wrote:I understand the drive behind separating out the different kinds of damage, but it doesn't appeal to me. I've done away with stun damage altogether. Instead, Attacking to Stun has a damage cap - it will not take a character past Unconsciousness + 1. Otherwise it's just like damage.
Similar here. I'm personally not a huge fan of Stun, and while I wouldn't use it (such an edge case), I figured I'd include it here for completeness. Strain, though, I think deserves to be separate as, at least from my perspective, the optional rule for auto-healing Strain every day is pretty commonly implemented. Personally, I'm torn on that optional rule, too: close combatants already get tons of buffs, allowing them to be used willy-nilly because "hey, that 30 damage just resets with the sunrise" exacerbates the situation. I like the idea that "yeah, you have a larger pool of health to draw from, but all that means is that you're dealing when you'll get to heal those wounds..."

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The Undying
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by The Undying » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:49 pm

@Lys

No, it's looking like I'm right, I skimmed too quickly in Player's Guide:
Player's Guide, Blood Charms, pg 415 wrote:All blood charms cause the wearer damage that cannot be healed until the charm is used or destroyed.
So, here's the battle rhythm:

1) Adept implants a Desperate Blow charm, suffering 3 blood damage. This blood damage cannot be healed until the charm is used, removed, or destroyed (as above).

2) Adept uses Desperate Blow charm in combat. Charm is now used, allowing the blood damage to be healed. Per the charm description, and my previously quoted text from the Player's Guide, the charm cannot be "recharged" until this damage is healed.

3) If they Adept wants to "recharge" the charm in combat, they have to heal the damage. This can be done with Fireblood, spells, or the thing you referenced. All of these heal damage, so all accomplish the same purpose: if you can get your damage count down low enough, you heal the damage from the spent charm, allowing you to recharge it.

4) Adept recharges the charm. Goto to #1, but replace "implants" with "charges."

Lys
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by Lys » Thu Jan 26, 2017 12:08 am

Oh crap, somehow i read the statement i was quoting as saying that Blood Magic Damage had to be healed last. Looking at it now i do not comprehend how i could have possibly read that, but that's what i was reading and objecting to. Yeah that exact sequence of events is how i understood the rules. You can't heal the damage of the charm until you either use it or lose it.

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The Undying
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by The Undying » Thu Jan 26, 2017 1:38 am

You did read that statement, it's just in a different location from what you quoted and talked about.

Blood Magic Damage is a bit wonky. TECHNICALLY, Blood Magic Damage can't be healed - it's powering some ongoing effect that is continually leeching off your life force. This is how pretty much everything works, whether spells or items: it inflicts Blood Magic Damage when the item is implanted or when the spell starts, and it remains until the spell ends or end of the various item things trigger. It doesn't count against healing wounds, and it doesn't count against rested requirements for advancement, training, etc.

What happens when Blood Magic Damage stops being Blood Magic Damage is the weird part. TECHNICALLY, it just becomes regular damage, which means it goes into the pool of "Normal Damage". HOWEVER, many of the spells and items (it's most clear in Blood Charms) cannot be used again until the associated former Blood Magic Damage specifically for that spell/item is healed. ED doesn't track "Normal Damage" on a source level - it's just a big pool. As a result, ED also doesn't have a solid concept of "healing damage X before damage Y," despite such requirement being implied by this system.

My group has always handled that by basically treating Blood Magic Damage is the kind that can't be healed (because the effect is active) and that can be healed (because the effect has ended). Tracking Blood Magic Damage is definitely a thing, so this process is streamlined. Beyond that, I don't have a good reason as to why we've treated it as "must be healed last," or even where that thought came from. It does cut back on the idea that Blood Charms can be easily reused in a battle, since fighters are consistently taking Strain and Normal Damage meaning they can't heal down to that now-healable Blood Magic Damage, but I'm personally okay with that.

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etherial
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by etherial » Thu Jan 26, 2017 3:41 am

The Undying wrote:Dying creatures aren't necessarily unconscious creatures with a lot of wounds. RAW, it's POSSIBLE (especially for the squishy Disciplines) for a character to go straight from "I'm okay" to "*croak* I deaded" very quickly without racking up wounds. I could easily see a magician going down with two solid blows, meaning that they'd only get two wounds during those hits (again, RAW).
Yup. In my last campaign, one of the Swordmasters went from "mostly ok with a lot of strain" to "dead" in one hit.
The Undying wrote:As for negative results, I would personally shy away from that. Non-Recovery tests cannot result in anything less than 1 (and rolling less than 1 is definitely possible in the very low steps given the numeric subtraction). From that perspective, I'd say that RT should always provide at least 1. And I still think that hits the spirit of what you want: a character with 7 wounds, a poor RT Step, and no bonuses (which is how my stuff is currently written for dying characters) is still very likely going to die if they're only getting 1 health per RT.
I'm not sure how anyone is "very likely going to die" if their HP is increasing 2-3 points her day unless you roll up some "random encounters". We played with negative results all through ED1 and ED2 and it made being mostly dead a lot more interesting.

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The Undying
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Re: [TW/ED] Healing

Post by The Undying » Thu Jan 26, 2017 3:47 am

Slim's comment was "for dying characters, I am going to be testing allowing negative results from Recovery Tests."

"Dying" characters have passed their Death rating. Negative results means they can never rise above that, meaning it's just a matter of time (Toughness Step hours) before they die. Allowing a minimum of 1 per RT, even if they're only get 1-2 per RT, they're STILL very likely to die with the available resources: they're going to get maybe 2-3 RT, so 2-6 health, which likely isn't enough to come below their Death rating. Even if you're slathering on the Last Chance Salves, which only activate one per hour, you'd only be getting another 1-2 health per Slave (or 1-2 health per 500 silver).

"Unconscious" characters are beyond their Unconsciousness rating but not their Death rating. These characters aren't "dying."

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