Natural Healing - A small rules tweek

[MPT]

Whilst, in many campaigns, PCs have access to so much healing that they never need this rule - I may be running a Pulp campaign where a PCs REC recovery will be relevant.

I am therefore thinking of tweeking the standard 'Recovering BODY' rule (5ER page 424) and saying that the PCs recover their REC in BODY each 24 days (rather than per month). This has the advantage that I can use the SPEED CHART to determine when a PC recovers. The full rules are below - do people think these will work?

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Whenever a PCs BODY is reduced from the maximum starting BODY a record is made of the campaign date.

A night of sleep will heal 1 point of BODY.

To determine when the PC will next heal use the SPEED CHART using the characters REC as their speed (ignoring Post Segment 12) and each segment as one night of sleep.

Example. A character with a REC of 5 is injured on the 1st May for 7 BODY. A REC of 5 gives recoveries on 'segments' 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12.

He sleeps on the 1st and recovers 1 BODY when he wakes on the morning of the 2nd. He then receives 1 BODY on the nights of the...

1 + (3 x 2) = 7th
1 + (6 x 2) = 13th
1 + (8 x 2) = 17th
1 + (10 x 2) = 21st
1 + (12 x 2) = 25th
1 + ((3 + 12) x 2) = 31st

...so on the morning of the 1st June he is fully healed.

Until the PC is at full BODY no further notes need to be made about dates, it is only the first injury that is relevant. A PC who takes damage whilst healing simply reduces their BODY, it does not affect when the PC will next heal.

Example: If the above character is injured again on the 22nd May this does not affect the sequence (except that they will now take longer to heal back to full). If, however, they are harmed on the 1st June or later (when they are back to full BODY) the process restarts that night.

Should a PC have a REC greater than 12 (unlikely) then they automatically heal every other night, and their REC-12 is used to determine the 'odd' days when they recover by calculating from the previous day.

Example: If a character with a REC of 14 is injured on the 5th then they will heal on the nights of the 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th etc. 14-12 equals 2 which gives 'segments' 6 and 12. They therefore also recover on the (5-1)+(6x2) = 16th and the (5-1)+(12x2) = 28th.

If the character does not get a good nights sleep or is otherwise active then the GM can either ignore the day altogether or count it as half a day towards recovery. Days spent in hospital can count as 2 (or more) days towards recovery.

Note that these rules mean that a PC with a REC of 2 who takes just 1 BODY of damage can recover it after one nights sleep - and can recover 1 BODY the next night if they are damaged again. GMs who do not like this possibility should not allow the first 'free' nights healing and start the REC count from the PREVIOUS day. (e.g. If injured on the 3rd then a REC of 2 gives the first healing after sleeping on the (3-1) + (6x2) = 14th (i.e. they recover when they awake on the 15th)).

[Frenchman]

I can't help buy notice that, in your example at least, the character recovers 5 body over the month of May. Just as he would under the normal rules. He even recovers it every 6 days, just as he would if you pro-rated his recovery as is reccomended by the normal rules.
Seems you've found a more complicated way for him to heal 1 BODY every REC/30 days.
Good idea though, for low-powered campaigns to have something like this. In a pulp game I'd allow a paramedics roll to heal 1-2 body right away, and double the healing rate for longer-term care. You could alternately allow characters to heal REC/Week in body, or encourage everyone to take the Fast Healing talent from Fantasy Hero.
If you don't like any of those, I'd reccomend signifigant amounts of 'down-time' between adventures to allow them to heal from their wounds.

[Kenn]

I don't like it.

The 1 point the first night idea isn't a bad one. However, in so doing, one ought to use (REC - 1) for the remainder of the calculations for the time interval since one body has already been healed with in the time interval.
I fail to see the benefit of overlaying the Speed Chart on the calendar. It actually complicates the calculataions. Getting one body back every (REC / 30) days is very straight forward (I use 30 because I do reject the notion that one heals marginally faster in February, and slower in January and march.)

REC 3 - 1 per 10 days
REC 4 - 1 per 7 days and 12 hours (or 7,8,7,8)
REC 5 - 1 per 6 days
REC 6 - 1 per 5 days
REC 7 - 1 per 4 days and 7 hours (or 4,4,5,4,4,5,4)
REC 8 - 1 per 3 days and 16 hours (or 4,4,3,4,4,3,4,4)

Using the Speed Chart actually makes the inervals less regular for SPDs that aren't evenly divisible by 12. In your example, some of the BODY healed 1 per 6 days, others 1 per 4 days.

The other thing is, by shortening the interval to 24 days, it has the effect of giving most Heroic level chracters one more point of healed BODY per month.
Between the extra point healed at the beginning of the interval, and by shortening the interval by six days, it has the overall effect of increasing character's healing rate to (REC+2) BODY per month. In your example, the character with a 5 REC healed 7 BODY in a month.

Now, as I indicated earlier, if you use (REC - 1) for the calculations (after healing 1 the first night) it would help.

Another alternative would be to use 36 days for the interval. You get 3 days per segment, instead of 2. But the extra six days actually counteracts the BODY healed the first night. It does increase the varying times to heal one body though.

[Frenchman]

(I use 30 because I do reject the notion that one heals marginally faster in February, and slower in January and march.)
I do believe you owe me a keyboard.

[prestidigitator]

I can't help buy notice that, in your example at least, the character recovers 5 body over the month of May. Just as he would under the normal rules. He even recovers it every 6 days, just as he would if you pro-rated his recovery as is reccomended by the normal rules.
Seems you've found a more complicated way for him to heal 1 BODY every REC/30 days.
Good idea though, for low-powered campaigns to have something like this. In a pulp game I'd allow a paramedics roll to heal 1-2 body right away, and double the healing rate for longer-term care. You could alternately allow characters to heal REC/Week in body, or encourage everyone to take the Fast Healing talent from Fantasy Hero.
If you don't like any of those, I'd reccomend signifigant amounts of 'down-time' between adventures to allow them to heal from their wounds.
Hmm. The way I understand it it becomes 1 Body every REC/24 days....

Interesting idea. I guess it gets past the roundoff errors you get when you try to divide the character's Rec into the days of the month, and then let them Recover each one of those periods.

[Captain Obvious]

In your example, the character with a 5 REC healed 7 BODY in a month.


That's sort of the point. He wants characters without regular access to magic or superscience to heal faster, so they can scrap more.

[Kenn]

That's sort of the point. He wants characters without regular access to magic or superscience to heal faster, so they can scrap more.

I don't know if that's what he wants, but it's certainly the effect.

[Erkenfresh]

At normal recovery rates, the PCs are likely to wait between adventures until they fully heal anyway unless you have a certain timeline in mind that forces them into the action sooner.

I'd suggest sticking with REC every 30 days. It's much easier in the end since 30 is divisible by a lot of numbers (except 4 of course).

[prestidigitator]

I'd suggest sticking with REC every 30 days. It's much easier in the end since 30 is divisible by a lot of numbers (except 4 of course).
...and 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and anything over 30. :D

But it it's probably not all that hard to handle when it doesn't divide evenly anyway. Using the Speed Chart, holding some points of healing for later, using a least common divisor, guessing...whatever.

[MPT]

Thank you for all the replies.

You are all right in that my basic problem with 1 month/30 days was working out when the characters actually healed each of their 1 point of BODY due to round-off - although I like Kenn's method for REC 4, 7 and 8.

I also did want slightly faster healing so that small scratches (1 BODY) did not have long term effects on characters (which seems to fit the Pulp ideal). I realised that allowing them to heal on the first night effectively increased the characters REC (hence the last paragraph of the rules) but this just seemed 'right'. [It also seemed to fit in with the idea of the 'Free' Post-Segment 12 recoveries that you get for STUN after the first segment of coombat]

The other situation I was trying to get around was what happens if (for example) someone is injured on the 1st for 2 BODY, recovers it by natural healing, and then is injured again on the 24th. The rules do not make it clear when he would recover their first BODY - hence my rule for starting natural healing when they loose their first BODY point.


I will discuss this with my players and may end up a mixture of these and Kenn's rules.

[Erkenfresh]

...and 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and anything over 30. :D


Negative rep! Negative rep! Nahh, j/k. I should have added "most heroic PCs won't get over 6 REC either". ;)