Of Healing Factors

[Sketchpad]

So I was working on a superhero character and got to thinking ... for his healing factor, should he use Regeneration (which heals only BODY) or Simplified Healing (BODY & STUN) with Self Only (-1) attached to it? Any opinions between the two powers?

[Greywind]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

Regeneration is fine. Stun gets bounced up by recoveries.

 

If the character is low on stun naturally, you may want the simplified healing just to get the stun up a bit faster.

[Rapier]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

I'll second that. I tend to go with Regeneration, since REC takes care of the STUN.

 

I tend to use Simplified Healing (Self Only) for Stim Boosts, Healing Potions and Adrenal Pumps (etc).

[Markdoc]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

I go against the trend - simplified healing. Why? Because if your regeneration is going to be any use, your defences will be low enough that you going to be taking BOD from time to time and that means you are going to be taking lots of STUN. That means that you will be spending most games lying down, regenerating, but unconscious. Not much fun. Even if you avoid that, you need to blow phases recovering to get your STUN back - also not much fun.

 

There's a variety of ways to handle it: my preference is -

- Simplified healing for the STUN (you'll need to buy the recharge time to make that work and probably will want to make it 0 END, uncontrolled. That's expensive, even with self only, so you are only going to get a few dice, but it just needs to crank you up to the point where your REC can take over

- Damage reduction - to reduce the amount of damage you are taking, to the point where your healing factor can deal with it.

- Slap unified power on the whole package.

 

A character like that won't have much in the way of defences (because you will have blown too many points to afford any!) but will be very hard to put down and keep down. for example,

3d6 simplified Healing (0 END uncontrolled, 1 turn recharge, self only, unified power) will cost you 47 points, plus another 48 for 50% resistant physical and energy reduction (unified power). That means you've spent the equivalent of 93 points on defences - but also means that you are extremely hard to put down and keep down. If you buy just a little DEF you're up to 100 point just on defences. If you had spent those points on 33 PD/ED armour, you'd be essentially immune to attacks under 10 DC: they'll still hurt the regenerator. But you are resistant to big attacks: a 20d6 attack will put 37 stun through onto the 33 PD/ED guy - you'll take about 33 and recover it faster - you'll get 1 BOD back every 4 segments, on average, and 3-4 stun. You're also more resistant to exotic attacks like NND and AVLD.

 

A character like this is viable - he can even go toe to toe with a Brick if he has a good attack, but he's more fragile in some ways (he stuns easy), more durable in others.

 

cheers, Mark

[spaceprincessecho]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

You could go with Regen and then a high REC to take care of the STUN.

[Tasha]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

For all of my healing factor characters. I also include a certain amount of Resistant defenses (ie Armor in 5e or Resistant Defense in 6e), hardened to reflect the certain amount of the damage that is instantly healed by the character.

 

I was inspired by one of the original appearances by the Furry Beast (ie Hank McCoy after he drank the elixir that turned him furry). in those first few issues of Amazing Adventures he would get shot time and time again only to heal faster than most forms of regen can deal with. So after some thought I figured that his resistant defenses were actually instant healing. He would still have regen to take care of huge wounds, but for the small stuff he would "bounce" the attack. I also figured that it didn't make sense for Armor Piercing to half this kind of defenses, so I added hardened.

[Rapier]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

I've also found it very rare to have a Regen character without a bit of extra REC. I like Tasha's take on the rDEF representing a certain amount of instant healing on minor wounds. That's a wonderful SFX.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

The arguments about regaining STN are certainly worth consideration, but in my mind this comes down to character conception. If you want a character that will essentially recover quickly in combat, then simplified healing and/or defenses defined as "instant healing" are probably the way to go. But the limitation there is that if the character ever takes more damage than the healing/defenses can cope with, he is stuck at healing his REC per month like anyone else. So if you want a character that will always come back to full BDY fairly quickly, the regeneration is a better option. If you want a hybrid, you might consider going with some regeneration and then buying extra defenses only vs. STN.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

I went the Regeneration + fairly high REC route with my werewolf character because I wanted him to be very durable and recover quickly from injuries, but not be impossible to render unconscious in a fight (or by things like poison gas and tranquilizer darts).

[Tasha]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

The arguments about regaining STN are certainly worth consideration' date=' but in my mind this comes down to character conception. If you want a character that will essentially recover quickly in combat, then simplified healing and/or defenses defined as "instant healing" are probably the way to go. But the limitation there is that if the character ever takes more damage than the healing/defenses can cope with, he is stuck at healing his REC per month like anyone else. So if you want a character that will always come back to full BDY fairly quickly, the regeneration is a better option. If you want a hybrid, you might consider going with some regeneration and then buying extra defenses only vs. STN.[/quote']

 

I usually use both Regen and Resistant Defenses. The Regen takes care of the larger amounts of damage that the defenses don't deal with. Also you can deal with extremes like regaining lost limbs and even coming back to life (ie like the Cheerleader in Heroes).

[Ice9]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

Regeneration goes well with Damage Reduction based defenses, as you usually end up taking a few BODY. A hybrid approach usually works the best, however. For instance (for a character in a 12DC game):

 

Resistant Defense (10 PD/10 ED), Hardened

Damage Reduction 50%

CON 25+

 

That handles the STUN pretty well (generally ~16 per hit, only a massively powerful attack would stun him), but it does let 1-3 BODY though on most hits, so Regeneration would be helpful to prevent long recuperation times.

[torchwolf]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

Regeneration goes well with Damage Reduction based defenses, as you usually end up taking a few BODY. A hybrid approach usually works the best, however. For instance (for a character in a 12DC game):

 

Resistant Defense (10 PD/10 ED), Hardened

Damage Reduction 50%

CON 25+

 

That handles the STUN pretty well (generally ~16 per hit, only a massively powerful attack would stun him), but it does let 1-3 BODY though on most hits, so Regeneration would be helpful to prevent long recuperation times.

If you're using 6E, you can get a hybrid combination similar to this by replacing some or all of the Resistant Defense with Damage Negation (roughly -3 to -4 DC for 10 PD/ED) with some added benefits:

DN is unaffected by Armor Piercing, reduces effects of Penetrating and reduces KB (something that seems to fit most Fast Healing characters from the source literature even if it's seldom mentioned).

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

The 6e Advanced Players Guide has optional rules for not only increasing the Regeneration rate to per Phase or per Segment, but also expanding Regeneration to Heal not only Body but also Stun (as well as ability point damage to other stats if you like). I've been taking advantage of the various variations when making some of the Supernaturals of Here There Be Monsters, such as the Werewolf.

 

Jon Bregg is an example; in his were-form he has this ability:

 

18 Regeneration (1 BODY per Segment), Can Heal Limbs, Per Segment (APG), STUN Also (APG) (+1/2) (37 Active Points); Does Not Work On Some Damage ([Common attack]; Damage From Silver; -3/4), Perceivable (by Supernatural Awareness; -1/4) 0

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

18 Regeneration (1 BODY per Segment)' date=' Can Heal Limbs, Per Segment (APG), STUN Also (APG) (+1/2) (37 Active Points); Does Not Work On Some Damage ([Common attack']; Damage From Silver; -3/4), Perceivable (by Supernatural Awareness; -1/4) 0

 

Sorry to be lazy, but I don't have the books with me. It looks like the advantage is increasing the costs of healing limbs by 50%, which seems unreasonable given "to heal limbs" is no more powerful for adding the recovery of STUN. That's not to say it's not correct, and it's only 2.5 points (it would be 10 for resurrection).

 

Adding STUN also means the character effectively gets +12 recovery for 10 active points, so actually adding in the 2.5 makes for a pretty reasonable overall result.

 

I hadn't thought about applying the adjustment power advantages (rather than paying for each characteristic recovered as its own Regen power). Is this explicitly suggested somewhere in APG, or just an approach you've decided to allow for the game in question? I

 

Thinking on it, I'm not sure whether 1 STUN per segment seems appropriately priced at 10 points (+12 REC would recover 12 STUN, but would also recover END and, long-term, BOD, impact the long term END rules, etc.) or 20 points (you get that STUN back even if you're KO'd at -21 or lower, when your recoveries would be much slower). But that's why these are "very optioonal" rules. I think I'd be more concerned over whether the ability to always recover STUN will unbalance the specific game (ie whether I'd allow the ability at all) than its specific cost (assuming it would not unbalance the game, so I would allow it).

 

Obviously, you've concluded it won't unbalance the game in question. And it's a very cool power at either cost. I'm just curious about the thought process behind the specific mechanics. If it's an NPC, the actual cost is pretty much irrelevant anyway, since he's going to have the ability either way. Even for a PC, with those limitations, the net effect is either two separate powers (12 points + 10 points) or the 18 points above - 4 points isn't going to have a lot of impact on overalll balance.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Of Healing Factors

 

It's straight out of the APG. I don't do NPC only effects generally, especially not at the low end of point totals so its fair game for PC's assuming concept can justify it; in fact Jon Bregg is one of the Iconic / Pre-Gens presented as sample starting characters.

 

As far as its balance, well, its a new advanced option for a new edition of the rules, so balance is difficult to predict. It seems good, but not overwhelmingly good. Its worth throwing it into the mix and seeing how it plays out to determine if its balanced or not.