From: Graeme A Lindsell (gal502@cscgpo.anu.edu.au)
Date: Wed 25 Aug 1993 - 21:47:24 EEST
> It's been a while...
It has indeed.
> Ah, but that was before he did his wrists in. Nope, I'll chuck my tuppence
> behind Roderick's proposal that adrenaline more than counters any pain felt
> from wounds *while still in combat*. I had thought of doing the same for
> basic fatigue, too: you don't get the whack for a brief fight until it's
> over, but it can be more severe with less bookkeeping as a result. But I
> never used fatigue anyway...
That might be the best solution: only have some form of long term
fatigue, for dealing with long marchs and deserts, and ignore combat
fatigue entirely.
> Yeah, the Crimson Bat is going to be unfairly penalised by both these
> rules. Poor little Bat. I weep for it.
Well you should, it gets a hard time from the media. All that bad
press...
> On Heal spells, I'm another fan of "Healsharp" - Heal as a +5%/+1 modifier
> to First Aid skill. Find a good rename for "First Aid" and this'll be just
> fine for me. The methods which require a running check on how large the
> last Heal on each wound was don't go well with Heal as an "instant" spell
> (thus not possible to dispel on your foes, alas!). If "Healsharp" were made
> Active, too, you'd get more realism than the current "laying on of hands"
> -- no reason why it shouldn't still take time to treat wounds, even if
> you're doing it with magical help.
Though I proposed the "Healsharp" idea, I'm tending towards the dispel
magic style heals instead (I managed to track down the origin of the
dispel magic style heals: an idea of Loren Miller's a few months ago,
though he wanted it to apply to all damage on the location, not just
from each wound). First Aid is limited to one application per wound,
so you'll have to keep track of each wound. If that limitation is
removed, then the only effects will be healing needs a skill and
can't be done easily in combat: there still won't be any long term
injury, since 5 minutes after a battle will close all the wounds.
A possible combined solution: make First Aid "dispel magic" style
as well. That is, you roll the skill, if you suceed then roll 1d3:
if you roll greater than the amount of damage in the wound the
wound is healed; if you roll less, nothing happens, though you
do stop any bleeding.
You can use spirit magic Heal in two ways: on its own, it is an
instant spell and again dispel magic style: the points in the
spell must equal or exceed the points of damage from the wound for
it to have any effect at all, if it is less then nothing will happen
You can also use Heal as a booster to First Aid as in "Healsharp":
it is then an active temporal effect, aiding all attempts at first
for its duration. The spell adds +5% to the chance of skill success
per point, and adds 1 to the 1d3 roll per point, increasing the
chance of successfully healing a wound.
I think this might be the best way to combine the skills and spells:
If someone is badly injured, then the party might have to spend
a long time and a lot of MP standing around watching the healer
trying to save the victim: casting her most powerful healing and
then trying to critical First Aid to get +1d3+3 heal and overcome
the wound. The party may even be incapable of healing someone, and
have to find a better healer.
There could be an associated problem with making Heal weaker, no matter
what way is used: since healing is so important, players will be
motivated to carry the most powerful heal spells they can get. This leads
us to:
>
> Oh, and I liked Lewis Jardine's suggestion for cult-set upper limits to
> spirit spell points on the Daily (and the spin-off "overcome variable
> points plus modifier [all squared] to gain a new point of spell" method
> someone else followed it up with). Makes you think more about what your
> cult can and can't do: no more "Heal 6 Humakti" etc. And seems to fit in
> with the RQ3 philosophy of limiting Spirit Magic availability.
Yes, this seems a good idea. There is nothing limiting Humakti to having
Heal 6 if they want right now. This would be a fairly simple modifier
as well.
> ====
> Nick
> ====
>
(Nick: did you see the postscript to my review of "Dorastor", that
Arkat found the Unbreakable Sword during his Heroquests? I think Greg
is definitely telling us something about the Arkat=Humakt theory)
Graeme Lindsell a.k.a gal502@huxley.anu.edu.au
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