Cure for Cancer (Healing)

[tribe]

I was hoping to garner some ideas for creating a power that can effectively cure all diseases, including cancer.

 

I mocked up a major transform power (transform diseased body into non-diseased body) but was reading the description for Healing and saw that it could be used to heal diseases.

 

Not sure how that works, or if it's a fudging thing.

 

What are people's thoughts?

 

How would you make a power that can cure disease?

 

Thanks

 

Ben

[Steve Long]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Since this is a "how to" and not a rules question, I've moved it to "Discussion" so anyone who's interested can participate.

 

My two cents: before you can decide what it takes to cure cancer in game terms, you have to define the effects of cancer in game terms. Is it a Killing Attack? A long-term Drain? Something else?

 

Once you specify its negative effect, that will tell you how to cure it. Though Transform definitely remains a good fallback possibility.

[Wanderer]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Hmm, Steve, I'd say that Cancer in game terms might be either defined as NND (Defense is Regeneration or Life Support:Immortality) Killing Attack or NND Drain Body with Does Body and Delayed Return Rate, both with Continous, Uncontrolled, and either of Extra Time or Gradual Effect.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Not to contradict the estimable Mr Long, but my problem with using transform is that you can't use it on yourself. This may be just what you are looking for, but if not then you'll need another way or a buddy with the same powers.

 

The advice about working out what it is in game terms is good, but as Wanderer suggests I would imagine that most diseased were some form of NND.

 

I would disagree with the suggested defences though. Immortals just don't age - they are not immune to cancer necessarily, especially if it is triggered by an outside source, say radiation, and regeneration is basically only a form of healing - it would keep you alive if you had cancer as it would deal with most Body loss, but it wouldn't prevent you getting it.

 

Thinking of the NND as an attack, I would say the defence would be having the appropriate immunity (or being a species that disease does not effect). This leads to an obvious solution: LS (immune to specific or broad range of diseases) UBO/UAA. You could have it cost END, you may want to have a RSR (medicine/diagnosis), extra time or whatever, but that is your basic power.

 

Having the immunity even for a short time would break the NND and so you would be cured of the disease (although the debilitating effects already applied would have to be seperately fixed; they wouldn't just go away, but that could be done with the heal power, aid or time), and you would be vulnerable to re-infection, obviously.

 

It is cheap to be immune to disease in Hero, so it shouldn't cost that much to cure disease, IMO.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Not to contradict the estimable Mr Long' date=' but my problem with using transform is that you can't use it on yourself. This may be just what you are looking for, but if not then you'll need another way or a buddy with the same powers.[/quote']

 

So you buy "Immune to Disease, Non-Persistent" so you can cure yourself. I'd alow that. I wouldn't allow "1 point Immune to Cancer, Usable Against Others, total cost 2 points".

 

In fact, I'd carefully consider the campaign effect of a character who can cure cancer. Shouldn't he be using that gift full-time to save lives, rather than scrapping with bank robbers and VIPER agents?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

So you buy "Immune to Disease, Non-Persistent" so you can cure yourself. I'd alow that. I wouldn't allow "1 point Immune to Cancer, Usable Against Others, total cost 2 points".

 

In fact, I'd carefully consider the campaign effect of a character who can cure cancer. Shouldn't he be using that gift full-time to save lives, rather than scrapping with bank robbers and VIPER agents?

 

Well, indeed. There's all kinds of heroes...

 

As for curing others for 2 points, I would probably have it cost less, because i'd want all sorts of interesting limitations, like activation rolls, extra time and so on: it wouldn't be reliable. Of course you could buy transformation to do it, but that isn't going to cost much more: Transformation 1 point major transform (1CP) cumulative (+.5) - sick person to well person, transformation reversed by re-infection, 4 points total, less with limitations.

 

Thing is, disease is not a big part of most campaigns, so dealing with it probably shouldn't cost many points on a pure utility analysis, but I quite agree that the ability to cure dealdly illnesses is something that has practical effects way beyond points totals.

 

Can you imagine if it got round that The Angel could cure cancer with a touch...you'd have all these terminally ill people turning up at every team appearance, even if that is mainly super-brawls around mid-town...

[MitchellS]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

I would just consider curing a disease like cancer to be a +10 point adder to healing. Regrowing limbs is 5 points, resurrection is 20 points, so curing diseases seems to be about right at 10 points as it's more powerful than repairing a limb but less powerful than bringing someone back from the dead.

 

Sometime we get so caught up on how to do somethings within the system that we forget we can add things to the system. Steve Long has added plenty of things but even he can't think of everything.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

A very sensible suggestion, if I may say so! That's the problem with too much choice: it is as bad as not enough if you are not careful as you wind up not seeing the wood for the trees (whatever that means).

 

Thank you for keeping us one the one true path, Woodcutter!

[Wanderer]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Lemming- It is true that cancer (and most kinds of degenerative diseases, like lupus, diabetes, and Alzeheimer, BTW) aren't very well covered for by hero system. However, this is a defect common to almost all RPG systems, which mostly envision disease as infectious disease mostly (or poisoning). I think this comes both from the fantasy setting roots of RPG, where disease mostly was indeed infections, and from PC typically being healthy, young subjects in their prime, not very liable to degenerative disease. However, in a modern scenario this is extremely unrealistic: real health concerns, both for individuals and the community, are chronic, "internal" diseases like cancer, lupus, kidney failure, diabetes, Alzheimer, Parkinson, induced by a mixture of genetic liability, unhealthy lifestyles, environmental long-term damage, again damage, and human body simply not being built to last forever, and even infections that are still a major concern have similar features (chronic course, cumulative long-term damage) AIDS and hepatitis. (of course, this callously completely ignores the plight of third-world areas where "classic" infective diseases are still a very major concern).

 

Therefore, for cancer (and similar "modern" diseases) in Hero you can either: add to the system some tweaks (such as Healing adders and LS subtypes) that explicitly cover it, or seek the most appropriate features in existing system. Assuming the latter approach (which I'd prefer): you can assume that Healing works just as well to repair body damage induced by cancer and chronic degenerative diseases as it does for wounds, infections, poison, radiations, fire, etc. damage: almost all RPG systems work under the same assumption, after all. There is something for semplicity, and it no great stretch of disbelief to assume that Healing, whatever its SFX, works as well on cancer that it does on life-threatening wounds. As reagrds Regeneration, well, one may assume that just as it is able to quickly repair wounded tissue, it works equally well to eliminate cancerous cells as they mutate, or repair DNA damage. It works very well for typical Regeneration SFXs (hyper-efficient immune and healing systems, nanotech repair, healing enchantments, etc.).

 

As it regards immunities (ie. LS), well, cancer may be assumed in most cases to be caused by lifetime exposure to cumulative aging damage, radiation damage, environemental chemical poisons: so you can assume that cancer immunity may come from being immune to such sources of damage: in hero terms, having any or a combination of: LS: longevity (aging damage), LS: radiation, LS: poisons.

 

Anything that would prevent body cells from mutating to cancerous cells, reapir harmful mutations as they occur, and/or quickly eliminate cancerous cells as they develop before they are able to grow to a sizable cancer mass, would make one effectively immune to cancer.

[Wanderer]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

So you buy "Immune to Disease, Non-Persistent" so you can cure yourself. I'd alow that. I wouldn't allow "1 point Immune to Cancer, Usable Against Others, total cost 2 points".

 

In fact, I'd carefully consider the campaign effect of a character who can cure cancer. Shouldn't he be using that gift full-time to save lives, rather than scrapping with bank robbers and VIPER agents?

 

Well, this is a very real(istic) concern for any character with Healing powers, not just for cancer, but for any major life threatening disease. Every moment, somewhere, there is someone whom you might have saved, as pressing, irate, desperate, tearful patients and relatives will be *always* eager to remind you, once they know about it. Notwithstanding how many people you save, there is always someone you didn't either because you cross a line, or because you couldn't: you were occupied with other equally pressing concerns (if you hadn't stopped Omnipotus from gobbling the sun, your terminal father would have died anyway, and many others), you need time to recharge your powers, and well, you need some R&R here and then, and you are going to burnout. Or you draw a line and make priorities, and if so, how: the young first, the nearest first, the people with dependents and relatives first, the otherwise healthy first, the most "precious" persons first (e.g. the famous scientist or artist vs. the intellectually-challenged janitor). Notwithstanding the rule the char makes, there will be always some resentment (and sometimes deep, heartfelt hate) from the ones (and their relatives) who found themselves at the bottom of the priority scale, and often they will not be willing to listen to reason (sometimes, it is the kind of thing that can cause lifelong hate, and move someone to violence or long-term revenge: e.g. cause for a Hunted).

 

This will be immediately evident if the character ever happens to give help on a mass disaster area (and any superhero with Healing powers will face the scenario on a regular basis), but it would be a major concern even in normal conditions, e.g. cancer patients, AIDS patients, realtives of people with Alzheimer, parents of children with genetic diseases, crowding the character in public appearances.

 

Unless the character has Healing powers of truly godlike proportions (being able to affect hundreds or thousands at once), in which case less emotionally poignant, but no less meaningful on the long-term, issues will develop, such as masses of people growing dependent for their health concerns on the character, overpopulation, the balance of life and death (either in an environmental or mystical sense) being upset, etc.

 

Healing is an excellent Power to highlight the impact of superpowers (or magic) on mankind and society, and one of the most reliable and powerful tools to improve the conditions of common man (and build a helluva positive rep and good PR in the process), but once you start using it, drawing the necessary line becomes a real hell.

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

What about poison. How would you handle that (healing poison that is)?

[MitchellS]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

What about poison. How would you handle that (healing poison that is)?

Because of the relative high active point costs of poisons in the game [iirc Rattlesnake venom is a 245 active point power] the use of dispel because improbable. You'd need an 70d6 dispel [assuming and average roll] to stop the rattlesnake venom. You are then left with only a few options:

 

1- Purchase an adder on healing like I did above [+10 points for poisons & +10 points for diseases both seem reasonable].

 

2- Assume that any body healed will stop the venom [i don't really care for that option as it gives too much power to simple healing].

 

3- Buy LS: Immunity to poison usable by other and state that when you give someone the immunity it turns off the poison [This works but I feel it's cumbersome to me].

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

I like the LS/UBO option, but it seems too... simple. A healing adder also seems a bit easy -- how much healing do you need to buy to heal poison? Just 1d6? The damage caused? What if the poison acts as a drain or hallucinogen?

 

Currently I use a custom power for each of disease and poison. 1d6 "cleansing" or "purification" for 10 pts which dispels 20 active points per point of BODY rolled (assumes the typical NND does BODY structure of poison). That however is a complete kludge, but gives a graduated affect.

 

For more of a d20 "Remove Disease/Neutralize Poison" (which are medium level spells) it seems that 40-60 active points of power should be required to perform either task. LS/UBO is only 20 pts or so, and that seems too cheap.

[MitchellS]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Well a cure/heal poison using the adder method would be:

 

5d6 Healing, +10 poison adder, variable effect any one characteristic at a time: +1/4. Cost: 75 points before limitations.

 

The adder negates the nnd effect of the poison shutting it off. The healing heals the injuries caused by the poison, one at a time.

 

The life support method would be:

 

LS: Immune to poisons, usable by others plus

5d6 Healing, variable effect any one characteristic at a time: +1/4. Cost: 74 points before limitations.

 

In this case the life support negates the nnd poison effect and the healing heals the damage.

 

The cost is basically identical with the two but the adder method is easier to use, imo.

[schir1964]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Just thought I would throw out a couple of random thoughts about different ways to handle this.

 

1) Addendum to "Living In A Dangerous World": Set up a standard rule set for Disease Damage. Resistance to catching the disease can be vs CON, or some type of LS Level vs Disease. If the character is infected, then there would be a rule set for curing. Base on SFX it could be a type of Healing, Transform, or even another CON roll. I'll have to think about this more and get the details hammered out.

 

2) Addendum to "Character Disadvantages": Set up a standard rule that all character's automatically have a zero level of "Infectibility". This would include a chart based off the "Enraged/Berserk" chart. Example:

 

Value / Circumstance

0 / Character has no special resistance and no immunity to infection (Normal = CON/5 Adds Bonus to Rolls).

5 / Character has minor weakness to infection (-5 To Infection Roll).

10 / Character has major weakness to infection (-10 To Infection Roll).

15 / Character has severe weakness to infection (-15 To Infection Roll).

 

Modifiers

+10 Character's CON adds no bonus to Rolls.

+20 Character's abilities (perks/talents/powers) grants no immunity and no bonus to Rolls.

-10 Character Weakness is Limited (Group Of Infections/Non-Infections Only/etc...)

-20 Character Weakness is Very Limited (Specific Infection)

 

Infection Roll (Chance Of Infection) / Contagion Level (Method)

8- Roll / Non-Infectious (Requires Ingestion or direct insertion into body)

11- Roll / Infectious (Requires Physical Contact)

14- Roll / Very Infectious (Airborn Contagion)

 

Recovery Roll (Chance Of Recovery) / Intensity Level (Strength)

8- Roll / Severe Infection

11- Roll / Strong Infection

14- Roll / Moderate Infection

 

Modifiers

+10 / No Cure Known (Reduce Recovery Roll By 6)

+5 / No Medicine or Healing Exists (Reduce Recovery By 3)

 

Damage (Drain vs STR, BODY, STUN, and END simultaneously Every 20 Minutes, 5 Pts Returns Every Hour)

Moderate Infection: Drain 5 AP

Strong Infection: Drain 10 AP

Severe Infection: Drain 15 AP

 

GM Modifiers

Value / Roll Modifier or Damage Modifier / Description

+5 / Infection Roll Increased By 3 or Damage x2 / vs Genetically Designed Infection

+10 / Infection Roll Increased By 6 or Damage x4 / vs Super Infection

 

Procedure

Character Rolls for Infection on first exposure.

Character Rolls on each step of the time chart for prolonged exposure until infected or is no longer exposed.

Once Infected...

Character Rolls damage based on Intensity of the infection.

Character Rolls on each step of the time chart (beginning with his phase of infection) for resisting/recovering from the infection until he resists/recovers.

Character Rolls Damage every 20 Minutes.

Character Recoves 5 Pts of Damage every hour.

 

Just Throwing Out Some Ideas

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Sean Waters]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Kudos to Wanderer for some thought provoking posts on the effects of healing.

 

Can I just mention one point on healing poison and disease. It is ludicrous that rattlesnake poison should cost 245 points (I don't know where the write up is from but the Hero Syste, Almanac 1 has it listed at 200 active points using a drain mechanic). That is akin to the old chestnut: how many points to build a spoon? It does, however illustrate a point. It is all very well saying I'll have a healing adder or a LS UBO power and be able to sort out poison and disease, but what of the poor villain Rattlesnake who has actually paid 245 points to be able to do what his beloved Squamata Viperidae Crotelus Atrox* can do. Isn't he going to be ticked if you are immune to his precious venom because you spent a couple of points on a minor power?

 

How do you handle this? Differentiate between normal diseases and poisons and ones you have paid points for? No real sense in that or it seems pretty pointless building the diseases and poisons in the first place. Tell Rattlesnake he'll justhave to live with it? There is no real satisfactory and consistent answer.

 

You could take it further..by the same principle you should be able to neutralise say 'gravity powers' - they are not too common - with a Life Support power or whatever.

 

I don't know what the answer is really - you'll have to make up your own mind based on your campaign, but be aware of the problem: especially if the main villain group is COIL!

 

 

 

*The Western Diamondback rattlesnake

[Sean Waters]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

One difference between disease and poison is that if you have a degenerative (relatively long term) disease like cancer you will (probably) have it through disadvantages. Immediately deadly infectious diseases and poisons will have been inflicted on you in-game by the application of powers.

 

You can't build a power that 'cures' disadvantages (although transform could do so temporarily). You can build powers that neutralise attacks. No real point to make, just thought I'd point this out for you to think on.

[tribe]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Thanks for all the debate on healing, which has been very interesting reading. I am glad that a lot of readers picked up the problems associated with being able to cure cancer (and other sources of "damage"), as that is what I had planned with my own character.

 

The hospital he worked for (as an intern) was not ready for his miraculous gifts and when he brought a patient back from the dead, they decided to get rid of him and avoid masses of paperwork and media coverage, rather than investigate his powers and use him to heal.

 

His powers will undoubtedly lead to some public hysteria and I'm really looking forward to the angst associated with that.

 

Anyway, thanks very much for the feedback.

 

Ben

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Just throwing my two cents and all, but does anyone else see the bitter irony of using accelerated healing to cure cancer?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

I've often thought that regeneration would be an awful power to have if you had cancer..life expectancy about two turns. That's why I'm not keen on the idea of using standard healing (or any of the standard variations) to deal with it.

[MitchellS]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Ultimately the power called "healing" should be the one used to heal things, IMO. To me it doesn't matter if it's a disease or a poison or a wound or a drain or a flash. The point of the power is to heal back things which are wrong with the character. I prefer it as an adder to healing. It's just cleaner and easier to work with rather than having to buy a multipower full of effects to be able to heal diseases and poisons and wounds and bla bla bla.

[Wanderer]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Kudos to Wanderer for some thought provoking posts on the effects of healing.

 

I'm glad you appreciated them. Nice to see all those real-life Xp I've spent in Paramedic, SS-Biology, SS-Medicine and SS-Psychology turn out useful in the geeky area, here and then

 

To those posts, I'd have to add that any character with Healing powers (or VPPs that include them: cosmics, wizards, gadgeteers. etc.) would be serviced well by giving some thought about how, for whom, how often the character is going to use them, and issues about their use may be a very poignant plot hook or RP element in a story. The disaster area scene is just the most obvious element. Just take the concept of triage (ie. putting up a scale of priority for emergency medical health) and transfer it to Healing: and then hit the players with an emotive appeal that challenges it (e.g. the characters are giving help in a disaster area with massive amounts of critical wounded: the burdened physicians all but deputize the supers with Healing; but they are needed elsewhere to stop a menace of comparable or greater risk; leaving will surely cost several lives. Also, while characters are giving help according to professionals' advice, a desperate parent or spouse approaches them begging to use their powers to save their dying child or loved one. Characters may do so, but saving him/her may cause several less severe patients to risk dying).

 

 

Two quite good superheroic scenarios that include scenes focusing on Healing are in the Aberrant Worldwide I & II sourcebooks. The former has a godlike delusional super with healing/biomanipulation powers playing Davidian and about to release super-plagues. The latter has a very good ER mass disaster scene from which I got the scenario I've described.

[The Hyborian]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

This is how I am handling disease and poison cure spells for my new fantasy campaign:

 

First define the powers of the disease/poison, typically with either a continuous attack, or an attack with gradual effects.

 

Healing can heal the characteristic dammage that the attack inflicts, be it body, dex drain, whatever. It does not remove the underlying problem, it just repairs the dammage. The disease continues to run its course.

 

A spell that would purge the poison/disease would be a Major Transformation, transform a sick/poisoned person into a healthy one. This does not repair any of the dammage done by the disease/poison, but it stops it from doing any more.

 

For example: A disease might be defined as a drain agaist several charcteristics with a gradual effect and delayed recovery of the points. Heal purchased for the proper stat can give you the drained points back, but not stop the drain. Transform would stop the drain, but not give you points back right away. Of course, the consumate cleric would have both spells in the MP/VPP.

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

What level of transform do you require? Cosmetic, Minor, or Major?

 

The only problem I see with Transform is the cumulative nature of it. Granted it would take time, time that perhaps someone doesn't have when dealing with poison, but low power transforms could eliminate all poison or disease?

 

Within the campaign, how does the world deal with hedge wizards/initiates being able to cure all disease/poison within miniutes?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Cure for Cancer (Healing)

 

Depends: if it causes a rash, cosmetic.

 

If it causes a cough that might give you minor skill or combat penalties, minor, and if it is practically incapacitating then major.

 

On causing disease:

 

Don't forget though: you can not use transform to kill, so if you go this way with your zombies there has to be a reversal mechanism.

 

I wish I could recall who came up with this (IMO) brilliant idea for a zombie disease: a gradual effect killing attack and a linked triggered transform. it is on a recent thread.

 

The killing attack kills you then the transform kicks in: corpse to zombie. The reversal mechanism is killing the zombie, thereby transforming it back into a corpse.