Healing Champions

[Chimpira]

Have you ever had players try to stretch for reason that they would have a power, even if the character concept does not support it?

 

I had my players come up with concepts for my ' Millenium Blues' game. This was going to be their first time with this system. After everyone came up with their idea, they discovered that no one was playing a character that could heal for the group. Three players started to come up with ideas so that they can do that. They were reaching pretty hard. I listened to them and said that it just did not fit into the concept that they gave me. No one got a healing power, mainly because they could not justify why their character would have one beyond it being convient. Later (after four games sessions and close to the conclusion of the story arc that have been working on for all four sessions.) two of the characters take some Body damage and a player tries to take a dig at me. " If we had a healer, we could take care of this." I shrugged and let it pass. They finished the arc successfully and I did not need to point out that they had done so without a 'healer' in the group. Most of my players had come off of D&D and online games, so I can see where they believed a healer was essential.

 

My question is (I know, I know, finally) how essential is someone that heals in your Champions campaigns.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Healing Champions

 

Healers are for wimps!

[Vondy]

Re: Healing Champions

 

So, you're telling me they decided their superhero team needed a cleric?

[Hermit]

Re: Healing Champions

 

More than once (and sometimes at my own recomendation as GM) I have allowed "Regen Beds" to be put in the med bay of a team base. The base buys the healing (In one form or another... sometimes it's more like +20 REC rather than true regeneration) power. This means Captain Awesome can take a massive hit one adventure, and I don't have to worry about keeping track of his broken arm next one when we game again. On the other hand, because you can't carry your base around, it means out during the adventure or on the field the PCs can't just yell "Cleric!.. Uhm, I mean Healer!" and get patched up then and there any time any place.

 

Of course, in all fairness, my players haven't given me the same hassle yours gave you about it that I recall. If one of them wanted to make a healer, I probably would allow it if it fit the powers ("My character can stimulate growth of new cells with his organic control powers" etc) but I don't think any of them have done that yet.

[Chuckg]

Re: Healing Champions

 

I like the "Rapid Healing' Talent from Fantasy Hero.

 

Can't do the exact build from memory, but it was 5 points, and it was 1 BODY/Hour Regeneration -- Only During Bed Rest.

 

IOW, the Action Movie Hero advantage of "It doesn't matter I got shot in the arm this week, in a couple days I'll be out of the sick bay and I'll be fine!"

 

(Seeing as how you're healing 24 BODY with every full day of bed rest, I'd say so!)

 

And as a Talent, it would be suitable for 'Danger International' type games as well as superhero games. I mean, fug, we know that James Bond had this one.

[Vondy]

Re: Healing Champions

 

More than once (and sometimes at my own recomendation as GM) I have allowed "Regen Beds" to be put in the med bay of a team base. The base buys the healing (In one form or another... sometimes it's more like +20 REC rather than true regeneration) power. This means Captain Awesome can take a massive hit one adventure, and I don't have to worry about keeping track of his broken arm next one when we game again. On the other hand, because you can't carry your base around, it means out during the adventure or on the field the PCs can't just yell "Cleric!.. Uhm, I mean Healer!" and get patched up then and there any time any place.

 

Of course, in all fairness, my players haven't given me the same hassle yours gave you about it that I recall. If one of them wanted to make a healer, I probably would allow it if it fit the powers ("My character can stimulate growth of new cells with his organic control powers" etc) but I don't think any of them have done that yet.

My long standing team had rejuvination tanks. They were big gothic-sci-fi looking sarcophogi filled with oxegenated "blue goo" which acted as an anasthetic and a regeneration med. It a low-level regen (1d6 Healing Per Day) and some life support (due to its regen properties this incl. aging). The drawback was - once you were in it someone else had to take you out of it because it put you in a state of stasis-coma.

 

But the insta-heal combat cleric, well, maybe if your caped crusaders are on a dungeon crawl...

[Ghost Archer]

Re: Healing Champions

 

Over the years I have found far too many PCs with some form of healing and I think it detracts from the sense of danger inherent it the type of combat Champions PCs encounter. This sense of danger is even more true in the case of Fantasy Hero or Star Hero. Both can claim a certain ease of availability for Healing through magic or technology. Champions, unlike other genres, tend towards huge amounts of stun as opposed to body simply because of the higher levels of defenses. I am guilty of allowing PCs that can quickly recover from massive Body in order to avoid a PC being forced to sit out a game. In Fantasy/Star Hero, we expect blood and death on a regular basic and a healer is probably necessary. In Champions? Not really.

[Chuckg]

Re: Healing Champions

 

In the New Sentinels campaign, we do have a healer -- me.

 

So far, I haven't healed any of the party yet... I've been keeping wounded bystanders from dying. (Heck, in one issue, VIPER detonated a cortex bomb in some poor guy's head after his usefulness as a patsy to them was over, and it took the combined efforts of Starguard /and/ Warmaster Fielan to salvage the guy.)

[Chimpira]

Re: Healing Champions

 

So' date=' you're telling me they decided their superhero team needed a cleric?[/quote']

Yeah something like that. I had a player that is into covering all the bases, mainly because he has had a constant diet of Online RPG's.

[Chimpira]

Re: Healing Champions

 

More than once (and sometimes at my own recomendation as GM) I have allowed "Regen Beds" to be put in the med bay of a team base. The base buys the healing (In one form or another... sometimes it's more like +20 REC rather than true regeneration) power. This means Captain Awesome can take a massive hit one adventure, and I don't have to worry about keeping track of his broken arm next one when we game again. On the other hand, because you can't carry your base around, it means out during the adventure or on the field the PCs can't just yell "Cleric!.. Uhm, I mean Healer!" and get patched up then and there any time any place.

 

Of course, in all fairness, my players haven't given me the same hassle yours gave you about it that I recall. If one of them wanted to make a healer, I probably would allow it if it fit the powers ("My character can stimulate growth of new cells with his organic control powers" etc) but I don't think any of them have done that yet.

Actually, I did not even think about Regen Beds but they have not put together enough scratch for the base yet. (first adventure and all) Good idea. I can see that as more of a compromise between myself and the players. It will, also, stimulate them to think more about getting a base, instead of working out of the Italian Restaurant.

[Blue]

Re: Healing Champions

 

If it were Fantasy hero, sure. But Champions? That must be one brutal game to need a healer!

 

One guy does have healing (he's got time powers) and he justified it as a kind of time lapse acceleration of the healing process. Simple enough. He's even got resurrection, though it's got limits (how long they've been dead, the means of death, etc.), and I gave him a good moral dilemma to get him thinking about whether to use it or not last time

 

Healers are rarely, very rarely needed in my campaign. Characters get hurt, they fall down, they wake up and get up again. Their enemies need healing more than they do.

 

I have one NPC healer in the game, and they have empathic healing and a huge number of Body and Strun. You see wounds open up on the healer when they use the power. The character also has resurrection, but it's 1 use EVER, because it will kill them when they do it.

[OddHat]

Re: Healing Champions

 

I require all "natural" supers to take regeneration as part of the package. Most of the magicians are permitted to learn healing spells if they want them. Super Normals just have to hope. Most of my games are not bloody enough for it to be an issue, though a heroic healer to save NPCs is always useful.

[Hermit]

Re: Healing Champions

 

Actually' date=' I did not even think about Regen Beds but they have not put together for the scratch for the base yet. (first adventure and all) Good idea. I can see that as more of a compromise between myself and the players. [/quote'] Glad to help. It's also (IMO) more in genre. Healers on super teams seem uncommon, but things like top notch medical facilities, tanks like the ones D-man mentioned, or mysterious healing rays at a base/HQ are seen a bit more often in the comics.

 

It will, also, stimulate them to think more about getting a base, instead of working out of the Italian Restaurant.

 

Maybe, but the manacodi won't be as good.

[JmOz]

Re: Healing Champions

 

In the game I play in our mentalist has a simplified healing as part of his mental MP, Empathic/TK healing

[JMHammer]

Re: Healing Champions

 

From this old thread:

http://herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7183

 

Here are my thoughts on this:

-----

Tactical Concept: Defeat in Detail

 

I'm not a big fan of things like Combat Luck as it just doesn't feel right to me. If you want to avoid damage, you should avoid the damage with DCV, levels, or whatnot - not by buying damage resistance/reduction with a "Missed me!" special effect. I tend to allow it only for characters who have Super Luck as a power or some precognition, and even then I don't like it very much.

 

Anyway...

 

I've found that access to fairly easy healing makes for a better game, almost without regard to the genre unless I'm simulating "reality" or purposely trying for a more realistic, or at least grittier, game. Easy healing might not make for the best fiction, but players appreciate being able to keep their characters in play. Out-of-battle healing, even if it's not instantaneous, goes a long way toward keeping everyone happy.

 

In-battle healing is OK but tends to make players sloppy and far more reckless than they would be otherwise. In a game, if you know your character will get beaten to a pulp but can be all but raised from the dead you'll go ahead and take the damage in order to accomplish the objective. A person in real life, or a character in fiction, unless totally insensate, at least hesitates before absorbing that kind of punishment even if he knows there will be no long-term consequences.

 

Most fantasy games I've played involve the players defeating the enemy in small groups, rather than taking on every baddy at once. This divide and conquer approach makes sense for small unit tactics as well as big battles. Healing takes the place of reinforcements and permits the story to continue to unfold without undue delay caused by a need to sit around for a month or two while healing naturally.

 

I also like the "paramedic" rule where each character can heal 1 BODY from each wound given a bit of time out of combat to a maximum of REC in BODY per day.

 

John H

[Klytus]

Re: Healing Champions

 

My long standing team had rejuvination tanks. They were big gothic-sci-fi looking sarcophogi filled with oxegenated "blue goo" which acted as an anasthetic and a regeneration med. It a low-level regen (1d6 Healing Per Day) and some life support (due to its regen properties this incl. aging). The drawback was - once you were in it someone else had to take you out of it because it put you in a state of stasis-coma.

 

But the insta-heal combat cleric, well, maybe if your caped crusaders are on a dungeon crawl...

Funny, our regen-tanks always used green goo. We use the blue goo for our Danger Room. But yeah, this has become a staple of all of our superhero bases as well.

 

There was one character in all of our campaigns who had healing fit the concept: Anaba. She's an Amerindian shaman with Bear totem powers, and Bear is a totem of healing (at least, according to Shadowrun it is).

[Argus]

Re: Healing Champions

 

Have you ever had players try to stretch for reason that they would have a power, even if the character concept does not support it?

...snip...

My question is (I know, I know, finally) how essential is someone that heals in your Champions campaigns.

 

 

I don’t disallow healing, but I discourage it

I permit Regeneration, but like it to take longer then 1Body / Turn.

 

I Don’t like regeneration usable on other at all.

 

I’ve had some players with the Cosmic Power Pools that have said. “I “Could†heal them all easily.†And I would say, “Do you want to be know as the hero who can cure everyone of every disease. Cure Injuries with the touch of your hand. Who could bring the dead back to life?â€

 

All but one player has thought about it and come back with “No, not really.â€

 

The one who said. “Yes.†Ended his run with me with hundreds of thousands of people flocking to him to get healed.

 

So I don’t disallow healing, but I discourage it.

 

The Hero System is not that combat deadly that it requires Clerics.

 

 

Just my dime.

 

A.

[Vondy]

Re: Healing Champions

 

Funny, our regen-tanks always used green goo. We use the blue goo for our Danger Room. But yeah, this has become a staple of all of our superhero bases as well.

 

There was one character in all of our campaigns who had healing fit the concept: Anaba. She's an Amerindian shaman with Bear totem powers, and Bear is a totem of healing (at least, according to Shadowrun it is).

We had a telepath with a hurkin' pool (80 points!) and a frightful skill roll who performed "psychic surgery" on occassion - but that was more frequently used as a transform (altering personality traits, erasing memories, etc). There was one occassion where I let her rerout the neural pathways of a character who had been rendered braindead by a neural disruptor. That was pretty cool.

 

I don't mind insofar as its fairly limited and tightly in concept. For most supers - however - thats not usually the case.

 

Though "Flesh Morphing Man" has a pretty good justification for it.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Re: Healing Champions

 

If you're going to imitate the genre, healing should be among the rarest of all CHAMPIONS powers. Short of medibay beds and healing chambers, there are very, very few characters with the power to heal others in all of comicdom. Raven is one, and hers has a pretty herky side effect (takes the wounds onto herself before Regenerating them).

 

Really, such powers should only be allowed for those with very, very appropriate special effects/concepts: Ones that come to mind immediately include empathic-transfer characters (ala Raven), characters with the power to influence/alter biological reactions (including "psychic healers"), and those with angelic or otherwise "miraculous" powers.

 

Something like a "super-first aid" kid might include something like 1d6 Healing, with the Limit "Usable only once per character per fight/injury incident," but that should be about it.

[Chuckg]

Re: Healing Champions

 

I’ve had some players with the Cosmic Power Pools that have said. “I “Could†heal them all easily.†And I would say, “Do you want to be know as the hero who can cure everyone of every disease. Cure Injuries with the touch of your hand. Who could bring the dead back to life?â€

 

All but one player has thought about it and come back with “No, not really.â€

 

The one who said. “Yes.†Ended his run with me with hundreds of thousands of people flocking to him to get healed.

 

With the exception of raising the dead, which she can't do, Starguard is having pretty much that very same problem. Her first day healing someone, she almost caused a riot at the hospital.

 

It was a very natural sequence of events. Starguard discovered her healing power when talking to somebody who'd gotten a black eye -- her sympathy for them unconsciously activated her VPP.

 

Now, the day befoer, during her very first superfight, one of the Ultimates had gotten badly mangled due to the carelessness of a teammate. Despite the fact it absolutely wasn't her fault, as soon as Starguard found out she had the power to heal, off she went to the hospital to Do The Right Thing.

 

Of course, being a very responsible young lady, she asked his doctor first, rather than sneak in.

 

And that doctor had a very critical infant patient down in the Emergency Room, and...

 

... well, things got a little carried away by their own enthusiasm. And by the time it all settled out, she'd healed almost every critical case in the hospital, news had spread out to the media, there was an almost-riot in progress, and the local PRIMUS detachment and Silver Avenger Sanchez had to deploy to restore order...

 

... she hasn't been out much in public since then. Then again, that was only 1-2 days ago, campaign time.

 

But yeah, Jeff has promised me, it's going to come back and bite me. Which I knew going in, really.

[caris]

Re: Healing Champions

 

Really' date=' such powers should only be allowed for those with very, very appropriate special effects/concepts: Ones that come to mind immediately include empathic-transfer characters (ala Raven), characters with the power to influence/alter biological reactions (including "psychic healers"), and those with [b']angelic or otherwise "miraculous" powers[/b].

 

At one time Damian Hellstorm, the Son of Satan, while he was going by that name, had healing powers. IIRC, there is an issue of Defenders, I think, that the write decided to wax poetic about how ironic all the denizens of Hell found it.

[The Watcher]

Re: Healing Champions

 

If you're going to imitate the genre, healing should be among the rarest of all CHAMPIONS powers. Short of medibay beds and healing chambers, there are very, very few characters with the power to heal others in all of comicdom. Raven is one, and hers has a pretty herky side effect (takes the wounds onto herself before Regenerating them).

 

Really, such powers should only be allowed for those with very, very appropriate special effects/concepts: Ones that come to mind immediately include empathic-transfer characters (ala Raven), characters with the power to influence/alter biological reactions (including "psychic healers"), and those with angelic or otherwise "miraculous" powers.

Thought of one more, sort of: Temporal Manipulation. As far as the injuries are concerned, they're healing at the normal and natural rate. It just seems incredibly fast to the rest of the universe.

 

Of course, since it's just the body's natural healing process accelerated temporally, one would have to take some limitation preventing the healing from affecting anything that the subject itself could not naturally get over.

 

EDIT: Just thought of a variation that wouldn't have such limitations. Rewinding the subject back to the state before the injury was inflicted, and then letting them go on their way.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Re: Healing Champions

 

At one time Damian Hellstorm' date=' the Son of Satan, while he was going by that name, had healing powers. IIRC, there is an issue of Defenders, I think, that the write decided to wax poetic about how ironic all the denizens of Hell found it.[/quote']

 

Well, that would work, as devils - including Satan - are angels, albeit fallen ones. In the legends, devils and demons often offered ill and injured people health - in exchange for their souls.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Re: Healing Champions

 

Thought of one more, sort of: Temporal Manipulation. As far as the injuries are concerned, they're healing at the normal and natural rate. It just seems incredibly fast to the rest of the universe.

 

Of course, since it's just the body's natural healing process accelerated temporally, one would have to take some limitation preventing the healing from affecting anything that the subject itself could not naturally get over.

 

EDIT: Just thought of a variation that wouldn't have such limitations. Rewinding the subject back to the state before the injury was inflicted, and then letting them go on their way.

 

Yeah, that's a fine one. I noted the ones that came to mind, but there are no doubt other ones. The key is "appropriate." There's no reason Space-Ring Guy and Captain Weapon-Master and Dr. Super-Mage should have typical healing spells, though - that's breaking genre.

[caris]

Re: Healing Champions

 

Yeah' date=' that's a fine one. I noted the ones that came to mind, but there are no doubt other ones. The key is "appropriate." There's no reason Space-Ring Guy and Captain Weapon-Master and Dr. Super-Mage should have typical healing spells, though - that's breaking genre.[/quote']

Jeffery, stop doing this to me. You keep triggering my memories of comic book healings. Now, I'm remembering stories where the Golden Age Green Lantern used his ring to heal people. In the particular story, I'm remembering there was some sort of curse on the JSA where everything they did solved the immediate problem, but than created some new problem. For example the people Alan Scott healed, absorbed the green energy and became rapaging ring energy monsters.