Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

[Dust Raven]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

Regeneration isn't changing unless someone finds a miraculous way to blend it seemlessly into some as yet undiscovered Power structure.

 

Thanks for listening,

 

-k

 

I got an idea of how to blend it in seemlessly.

 

Advantage: Regeration (+1 3/4). Healing with this Advantage becomes a persistant power (constant and costing 0 END). It has no maximum value and it's effects are cumulative, but only heals back at a rate of 2 CP per d6 (similar to using the Standard Effect Rule). This advantage requires the following Limitations: Extra Time (at least One Turn, -1 1/4), which determines the interval between regeneration, and Self Only (-1/2).

 

This makes the Active cost of 1 BODY Regen is 27 Active Points and a real cost of 10.

[actingkeith]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

I got an idea of how to blend it in seemlessly.

 

Here's the seem:

It has no maximum value and it's effects are cumulative

And in that seem two things happen:

 

1. The folks who don't like Regen drive a truck-full of objections through

 

2. It works and costs exactly the same and the way it did in 1981

 

My observation/point is that Regeneration hasn't changed in form or function since it was first invented with the original rules. And since it works, and it's reasonably balanced, why try to contrive something...

 

If you want to 'take Regen out of the Healing Power'... so?

 

If you want to use Regen like it was in 4E or 3 or 2 or 1stE... so?

 

The Power itself hasn't changed... 10 points for 1 BOD/Turn... It doesn't matter how you twist it. Regeneration isn't going away, and it'll always cost 10 per 1BOD/Turn.

 

-k

[OddHat]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

The Power itself hasn't changed... 10 points for 1 BOD/Turn... It doesn't matter how you twist it. Regeneration isn't going away, and it'll always cost 10 per 1BOD/Turn.

 

Well, right now it costs 7.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

For all the poeple who are trying to make Regeneration work within the Healing design (or worse' date=' merely complaining that it doesn't), please remember that Healing is the new kid on the block... an evolved critter from three variations on an idea (Drain... it's reverse (Aid)... and Adjustment Powers in general). It was only after that that people (who were actively looking to make things more concise) started to see the similarities between Healing and Regen... and only after much debate did they decide to shoehorn Regen into the Healing power in 5E.[/quote']

Healing has been around in some form for a long time as well. It was called Aid (well, and Transfer and Absorbtion, but nevermind that for now). With the changes to that and Regeneration, things have suddenly become vastly inconsistent in terms of what it takes to restore a trait to its starting value. For Healing it has become very expensive and totally non-cumulative; for, "Regeneration," it has stayed incredibly cheap and is still cumulative even though it is supposedly built with the non-cumulative Power and some standard modifiers that do nothing to logically make it cumulative. For other Adjustment Powers--well, nevermind because they can no longer restore traits permenantly to their maximum values.

 

So take it as a complaint about Healing and Adjustment Powers in general if you like, rather than Regeneration. I don't care. The problem is there, and lots of people don't like it.

[Lucius]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

I haven't played a ton of new game systems in the last 15 years or so, but it seems to me that every game has some limit on healing. d20 doesn't limit how much you can heal a day, but does limit how many spells you can cast in a day. Hero doesn't limit the number of times you can use your Healing spell, so it needs some other limit.

 

You know, I wanted to say something to this, but…..

 

If Hero were not a game that attempted to be universal I would agree with you. But' date=' since it is "universal" I don't. Some genres require limits of one sort while other genres require limits of a different sort (or no such limits at all). As a result I think having such limits hard-coded into the system, as opposed to leaving them to the game master, is a mistake. Make the suggestion, sure, but more than that is innapropriate.[/quote']

 

 

Those are the implications of having healing magic in a setting. If the GM of a particular game or the writer of a particular setting wants a limit on healing magic' date=' then they should put one in place.[/quote']

 

Von DMan and Kristopher pretty much beat me to it.

 

Yes, in many, maybe even most, games, there should be some kind of limit on healing. **HOW** it’s limited should be up to the guy running the game – and for that matter, *IF* it’s limited should be up to that person too.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And an unlimited palindromedary

[Sean Waters]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

I do appreciate actingkieth's approach, but I can't get right behind it as:

 

1. The power may work in practice the same way it always has but:

 

a) it costs less now (as OddHat pointed out), and

the active cost is an awful lot more, which has implications for adjustment powers - it is much much harder to drain now than it used to be

 

2. Hero should be consistent. If Regeneration HAD to go intot eh healing power, then Regeneration can be built with Healing using 'standard' advantages and limitations (certainly it can in 5ER) but costs more. I really don't like the idea of custom limitations doing the job of standard ones. Here we have a limitation which grants several advantages, which is also incredibly bad precedent. It is not consistent, it is not good design practice and it is not encouraging players to see the game as a coherent whole, but rather, as with so many other systems, as a series of exceptions and non-sequitur rules. What is IS, is happening far too much.

 

**cough** danger sense **cough**

[prestidigitator]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

Before 5ER gave a means of reducing the re-use duration of Healing, I thought the Cumulative Advantage should be applicable to Healing to make it work like other Adjustment Powers (meaning you might have to buy up the Maximum Effect). I'm still not sure that isn't the better approach than the decreased re-use duration.

[Black Rose]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

Regeneration isn't changing unless someone finds a miraculous way to blend it seemlessly into some as yet undiscovered Power structure.

The way I'd prefer it be handled is thusly:

Take REC and put some level of Limitation on it to represent only Recovering BODY. Now, buy the time up the Time Chart to (default) Once Per Turn. If one notch up the Time Chart is +1/2, this would make +4. Thus +1 REC (2 Base Points), Reduce BODY REC Time To 1/Turn (+4) (10 Active Points).

 

You can always buy it not quite as far up the Chart, say REC/Hour or some such, but this keeps the 10 Active Points we all seem to like, and doesn't fiddle with Healing. Now, regrowing limbs and resurrection I don't know about, but I'm sure we can figure something out, right?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

I guess I have something to say on this, but it's a kind of general thing.

 

Regeneration, like Killing Attacks and Energy Blasts, was part of HERO since its inception.

 

The mechanics of these three legacy powers have not changed since late 1980. It's the same with the way STR is/has been built and works.

 

Even though they moved Regen into the more general 'Healing' power in 5E, they didn't change the mechanics of the power; it still works exactly the way it did 25 years ago. So what they did was they said, "It's a kind of healing, so we'll group it like that, but it has its own rules so we'll just include that in Regen's particular description."

 

And here's the thing I wanted to say... It worked 25 years ago; it works today. It was reasonably balanced 25 years ago; it's still reasonably balanced today.

 

And that's all.

 

Regeneration works and is reasonably balanced.

 

For all the poeple who are trying to make Regeneration work within the Healing design (or worse, merely complaining that it doesn't), please remember that Healing is the new kid on the block... an evolved critter from three variations on an idea (Drain... it's reverse (Aid)... and Adjustment Powers in general). It was only after that that people (who were actively looking to make things more concise) started to see the similarities between Healing and Regen... and only after much debate did they decide to shoehorn Regen into the Healing power in 5E.

 

Knocking Regeneration is a lot like knocking the 8th Ammendment to the US Constitution... sure people do it, but no one is changing it. Regeneration isn't changing unless someone finds a miraculous way to blend it seemlessly into some as yet undiscovered Power structure.

 

Thanks for listening,

 

-k

 

Actually, Healing was around before Aid was. Healing first appeared in Champions III (1984) while Aid first appeared in first edition Fantasy Hero (1985). The original mechanics for Healing were almost identical to the 5e version; the original mechanics for Aid were similar but not identical to Succor.

 

Regeneration first appeared in first edition Champions and worked a little differently. Every time you Recovered, whether post-12 or by taking a recovery, you Regenerated as well. So if you were knocked into GM discretion land, your Regeneration was reduced to GM discretion also.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

The way I'd prefer it be handled is thusly:

Take REC and put some level of Limitation on it to represent only Recovering BODY. Now, buy the time up the Time Chart to (default) Once Per Turn. If one notch up the Time Chart is +1/2, this would make +4. Thus +1 REC (2 Base Points), Reduce BODY REC Time To 1/Turn (+4) (10 Active Points).

 

You can always buy it not quite as far up the Chart, say REC/Hour or some such, but this keeps the 10 Active Points we all seem to like, and doesn't fiddle with Healing. Now, regrowing limbs and resurrection I don't know about, but I'm sure we can figure something out, right?

I've seen this mentioned before, and think its quite a clever idea, but with it already having +4 worth of advantages on it, it becomes TRIVIALLY easy to advantage stack it to death. Which is really the only problem I see with this approach.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

If Hero were not a game that attempted to be universal I would agree with you. But' date=' since it is "universal" I don't. Some genres require limits of one sort while other genres require limits of a different sort (or no such limits at all). As a result I think having such limits hard-coded into the system, as opposed to leaving them to the game master, is a mistake. Make the suggestion, sure, but more than that is innapropriate.[/quote']

 

Those are the implications of having healing magic in a setting. If the GM of a particular game or the writer of a particular setting wants a limit on healing magic' date=' then they should put one in place.[/quote']

 

Von DMan and Kristopher pretty much beat me to it.

 

Yes, in many, maybe even most, games, there should be some kind of limit on healing. **HOW** it’s limited should be up to the guy running the game – and for that matter, *IF* it’s limited should be up to that person too.

 

So why not just make Healing the anti-Energy Blast? 5 points per 1d6, read as normal damage, no limit. I'm serious, not being ironic, sarcastic, or facetious. Do put a :stop: on it, though, and explain why.

[Blue]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

I think it's a simple matter of cost consideration. In order to make the power come out at the desired cost and keep it in line with other powers, it was constructed the given way.

 

And as GM the way you mitigate someone saying "How come I can't build my EB AOE blah blah blah this way" is by saying, "Because I'm the GM."

 

Believe it or not, my players accept that, though I've never had to do that in Champions.

[Vondy]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

So why not just make Healing the anti-Energy Blast? 5 points per 1d6' date=' read as normal damage, no limit. I'm serious, not being ironic, sarcastic, or facetious. Do put a :stop: on it, though, and explain why.[/quote']

 

In general, this is in line with my basic philosophy. Its renders the limit discretionary (as it should be!) and simplifies construction for regeneration because it removes the work-around. I've always been content to say no to anything that will unbalance the game (unless I'm absolutely sure of the player), and I've almost never had to say no. Most of my players have somehow just "gotten it."

[prestidigitator]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

Why don't we just knock the cost of Body through the roof? Then Healing doesn't have to be expensive at all; it just has to have a heck of a lot of Active Points to do anything for Body. That way healing other traits doesn't have to be harmed by the difficulty of restoring what is supposed to be a long-term injury.

[Vondy]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

Body is already twice as expensive as stun. Insofar as the aid/healing only heals one and not both, its seems reasonable not to worry about fiddling with the cost of body.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

Here's the seem:

 

And in that seem two things happen:

 

1. The folks who don't like Regen drive a truck-full of objections through

 

2. It works and costs exactly the same and the way it did in 1981

 

My observation/point is that Regeneration hasn't changed in form or function since it was first invented with the original rules. And since it works, and it's reasonably balanced, why try to contrive something...

 

If you want to 'take Regen out of the Healing Power'... so?

 

If you want to use Regen like it was in 4E or 3 or 2 or 1stE... so?

 

The Power itself hasn't changed... 10 points for 1 BOD/Turn... It doesn't matter how you twist it. Regeneration isn't going away, and it'll always cost 10 per 1BOD/Turn.

 

-k

 

Well I definatelly don't want to drop Regen by any means, I just don't want to break/ignore/make exception to any rules just to have it.

[Kristopher]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

It was better when it was its own Power.

[Lucius]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

The way I'd prefer it be handled is thusly:

Take REC and put some level of Limitation on it to represent only Recovering BODY. Now, buy the time up the Time Chart to (default) Once Per Turn. If one notch up the Time Chart is +1/2, this would make +4. Thus +1 REC (2 Base Points), Reduce BODY REC Time To 1/Turn (+4) (10 Active Points).

 

You can always buy it not quite as far up the Chart, say REC/Hour or some such, but this keeps the 10 Active Points we all seem to like, and doesn't fiddle with Healing. Now, regrowing limbs and resurrection I don't know about, but I'm sure we can figure something out, right?

 

Didn't I propose something like this a couple of years ago??

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary seems to remember that

[actingkeith]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

It was better when it was its own Power.

 

I agree. While I see the similarities between Healing and Regen are their, I like the original mechanics of Regen which, I feel, don't at all fit within Healing.

 

...and my ardent apologies for my errors in fact in my previous posts. My mouth (my typing) got a bit ahead of me.

 

Peace,

 

-k

[OddHat]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

I agree. While I see the similarities between Healing and Regen are their, I like the original mechanics of Regen which, I feel, don't at all fit within Healing.

 

...and my ardent apologies for my errors in fact in my previous posts. My mouth (my typing) got a bit ahead of me.

 

Peace,

 

-k

 

We all get the numbers wrong sometimes. Comes from playing such a crunchy system.

[Utech]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

I think this is the clearest example of exactly why we shouldn't keep the trend of abstracting powers until they are all the same power.

Well said!

[actingkeith]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

I think this is the clearest example of exactly why we shouldn't keep the trend of abstracting powers until they are all the same power.

Well said!

I couldn't agree more. Rep to TB.

 

-k

[Sean Waters]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

So why not just make Healing the anti-Energy Blast? 5 points per 1d6' date=' read as normal damage, no limit. I'm serious, not being ironic, sarcastic, or facetious. Do put a :stop: on it, though, and explain why.[/quote']

 

Well healing would not have to contend with defences, so would be far more effective than the equivalent AP in energy blast, needing only one equivalent AP application to undo the work of several eqivalent AP attacks, so battles would tend to last pretty much forever if both parties had an attack and a heal.

[schir1964]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

Analysis Summary

 

Adjustment Concept Components

Ability Aleration: Increase/Decrease of an Ability

Permanency: Whether alteration is permanent or temporary

Target: Whether Self, Others, or Objects

 

Mechanics List

Ability Alteration

Variable/Set Effect: Dice Roll or Set Number Of Points

Maximum Effect: Cap on total amount of points adjusted

 

Permanency

Healing Effect:

Permanent Effect - Adjustment points don't go away

 

Temporary Effect:

Fade Effect - Points fade at specifically set time intervals

Fade Catalyst - Points fade by application of power or stat

Fade Instant - All points fade instantly after set time interval or condition

 

Target

Self - Healing or Boosting of abilities

Others - Healing, Boosting, or Reducing of abilities

Objects - Booting or Reducing of abilities

 

These are the basic components you have to work with.

Changing eany one of them affects the rest as to how it is viewed and what type of results it can achieve.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[prestidigitator]

Re: Regeneration: And Other Examples Power That Violate The Rules

 

Body is already twice as expensive as stun. Insofar as the aid/healing only heals one and not both' date=' its seems reasonable not to worry about fiddling with the cost of body.[/quote']

Yes...twice as expesive. It takes a minute or so get back your Stun, but potentially months to get back all your Body (in the absence of Healing). Do you think it should really only be worth twice as much?