The value of your health

[Sean Waters]

I've been chatting *ahem* about regeneration a bit recently, and one of the things that got mentioned, albeit in passing, was about the cost of regeneration.

 

Now just to be clear, I'm not, absolutely, categorically NOT relating this discussion to build cost using healing or, for that matter, anything else, like advantaged REC or such.

 

All I'm interested in is people's opinions about the effect of changing the cost of regeneration, specifically reducing it quite a bit, to the 3 to 4 points per 1 BODY regeneration level. We'll worry about how we get to that cost later, if at all.

 

What do you think the the play implications of such a move would be?

 

Just to chuck a couple of points out there, regeneration is currently about 7 points per 1 BODY, so in a 60AP game you can manage about 8 Body per turn. That's quite a lot. However, in the sort of games where regeneration is likely to be available to PCs (mainly superhero games, unless you let them play trolls, I'd have thought), it is much much more efficient to buy defences.

 

Reducing thre cost quite drastically like this would allow a meaningfully large 'mega heal' that could substitute for a defence, perhaps. 15-20 points of Body per turn would be possible (and even that is not really a proper substitute for 60 points of armour, I know), which is death's door to fit as a fiddle in 12 seconds. Ay thenkyew.

 

Personally I doubt it would cause any great imbalance, but you may have other insights: What do you think?

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: The value of your health

 

I think the cost of Regen is about right at it stands now. If you lowered it as low as Sean proposes, you might as well just buy more BODY. If Regen is 3 points, and just buying another point of BODY is 2 points plus gives me another point of STUN, I'll take the BODY. Especially if the rationale for lowering the cost is that characters in Superheroic campaigns are sufficiently unlikely to take BODY that Defenses are a better buy. If they're unlikely to take BODY, then the increased STUN will be more helpful.

[pinecone]

Re: The value of your health

 

I don't think it's a breaker, I mostly use Regen in super games for Damage reducers who often take body despite their awesome defences (seldom stunned or KO'd)

 

And for those uses I've never experianced the need for getting a bunch of Regen...

[Sean Waters]

Re: The value of your health

 

I'm not particularly advocating one approach of the other, but I can conceive of a character whose schtick is mega fast healing, and relatively low defences (indeed it takes likke conceiving - there are plenty scattered through the source material). Characters who have decent defences are unlikely to buy much regeneration, whatever its cost, but characters who give up the efficiency of decent defences need something to keep them from shuffling off the mortal coil.

 

If it is there, we'll find a use for it. I was more interested in whether there mght be any game balance issues. Obviously very low cost regen might mean a proliferation of the power, and that is a negative. Are there others?

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: The value of your health

 

One of my oldest characters is like this - low defenses, with Regen (and Damage Reduction). He gets killed frequently, but he always gets back up.

 

And he gets his regen for ~half price because I put it in an EC (Healing normally costs END, and it's not a special power, and Regeneration is just Healing with some Advantages and Limitations on it). It works just fine. It may seem "abusive"/"unbalanced"/"munchkin" at first glance, but it really isn't. He's not a particularly efficient character at all, nor especially combat-effective, even though he's fun to play.

 

If Regen was 3-4 points, I'd probably call it a Special Power and not let it be in frameworks. But even at that price, it's still no substitute for defenses. And IMO, it should be that way. An ounce of prevention is, and should be, worth a pound of cure.

[Bloodstone]

Re: The value of your health

 

Characters who have decent defences are unlikely to buy much regeneration...

 

Bricks might not buy a ton or Regen, but for most it's still really worth getting.

 

Even for the Uber-Brick, there will be attacks that sneak through and do damage. Drain BODY, Penetrating, AP, NND, Does Body and other exotic attacks. Even normal attacks, when thrown by the likes of Dr Destroyer.

 

Regen works equally well against them all with a single purchase, so you don't need to buy tons of exotic defenses (which get expensive fast).

 

Sure you take the damage initially, but you don't go to the hospital! Regen reduces down time. Just about anyone that can afford it and justify it tends to get it.

 

And mind you, lots of characters in comics have significantly accelerated healing, even super tough bricks like Superman or the Hulk.

[Sean Waters]

Re: The value of your health

 

Bricks might not buy a ton or Regen, but for most it's still really worth getting.

 

Even for the Uber-Brick, there will be attacks that sneak through and do damage. Drain BODY, Penetrating, AP, NND, Does Body and other exotic attacks. Even normal attacks, when thrown by the likes of Dr Destroyer.

 

Regen works equally well against them all with a single purchase, so you don't need to buy tons of exotic defenses (which get expensive fast).

 

Sure you take the damage initially, but you don't go to the hospital! Regen reduces down time. Just about anyone that can afford it and justify it tends to get it.

 

And mind you, lots of characters in comics have significantly accelerated healing, even super tough bricks like Superman or the Hulk.

 

That's a good point, and in support of the approach, time the characters spend in hospital recovering is rarely fun game time. A little (cheap) accelerated healing, where appropriate, helps thing sto zip right along...

[Zeropoint]

Re: The value of your health

 

A single point of regeneration, just one, is enough to make sure that your character will never, ever need medical care for any amount of normal trauma. Anytime they're not already dead, they'll be back to 100% full health within ten minutes (for up to 25 BODY).

 

That's pretty powerful for something that costs less than a 2d6 Energy Blast. Granted, it's not much help during combat, but it means that all you have to do is survive; you'll never be worn down by multiple combats. It also means you don't have to worry about accidents, other than things that will kill you instantly.

 

If anything, I think it's too cheap.

[Markdoc]

Re: The value of your health

 

A single point of regeneration' date=' [i']just one[/i], is enough to make sure that your character will never, ever need medical care for any amount of normal trauma. Anytime they're not already dead, they'll be back to 100% full health within ten minutes (for up to 25 BODY).

 

That's pretty powerful for something that costs less than a 2d6 Energy Blast. Granted, it's not much help during combat, but it means that all you have to do is survive; you'll never be worn down by multiple combats. It also means you don't have to worry about accidents, other than things that will kill you instantly.

 

If anything, I think it's too cheap.

 

Yep, for any genre except supers, Regen is (to me anyway) a big fat-ass stop-sign power.

 

In supers it's fine, but you don't need much regen to build a wolvie-type: it's not really meant as a protective power, as far as I can tell. I used triggered, self-only aid/healing instead to build my Wolvie clone, which has the advantage that it brings back STUN - combine it with damage reduction (STUN) and you have a winner. That particular character (Kestrel) was referred to as "weeble" - you can knock him over but he doesn't stay down.

 

He was, in fact, damn near indestructible and as you have commented, how much BOD he took was very rarely relevant: he healed some during the fight and the rest in a minute or two afterwards.

 

cheers, Mark

[Outsider]

Re: The value of your health

 

As has been said, the first point of regeneration is a lot more powerful than subsequent ones since it puts characters with it at 100% health in just a few minutes, while those without it may take many weeks to regain their health.

 

So how about this idea : Regeneration cost a fair amount to start, then is relatively cheap per pip to buy up.

 

Example : The ability to regenerate 1 normal BODY damage per turn costs (say) 20 character points. Each additional BODY of regeneration after that is 5 more points.

[Kdansky]

Re: The value of your health

 

I've seen many characters come up with reasons why they have one point of body regeneration, mainly because it really sucks if you get hurt if you don't have it when there's no breaks inbetween adventures (long campaigns).

 

Regeneration is like life support. You're basically immune to dieing to a wide variety of things (everything that does not instantly kill you).

[Markdoc]

Re: The value of your health

 

As has been said, the first point of regeneration is a lot more powerful than subsequent ones since it puts characters with it at 100% health in just a few minutes, while those without it may take many weeks to regain their health.

 

So how about this idea : Regeneration cost a fair amount to start, then is relatively cheap per pip to buy up.

 

Example : The ability to regenerate 1 normal BODY damage per turn costs (say) 20 character points. Each additional BODY of regeneration after that is 5 more points.

 

You know, that's actually not a bad idea....

 

cheers, Mark