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Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Healing and Recovery Woes

One of the things that hadn't worked to anyone's satisfaction in this Encounter Critical edition of UWoM was healing.

Now, EC's roll hit dice method, and receive a bonus if luxuriating, was not to my liking, mainly because it is too chaotic, with the disappointment of low rolls, or too speedy recovery, etc.

I had been using a variant of Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes recovery rules until I realised that it actually took longer to recover the fewer points needed to be healed.  I ran a lot of analysis, and couldn't believe that I hadn't spotted that before.  That was out, especially when players complained it required too much in-game downtime (yeah, I know, whiners).

I briefly toyed with the thought that tougher characters should heal faster, but it turned out that that approach simply made everyone heal completely in 10 days.  That wasn't it either.

Now, I have a method which is still proportional, but where folk with more hit points recover faster from lesser injuries, but still take longer to fully heal than characters who have fewer and lost all of them and mend faster.  I'm still not happy with this.  Something charty looks like it will have to be done, which also doesn't thrill me.

Thoughts or suggestions to fulfill my design criteria?

1). Tougher creatures recover more quickly
2). Having fewer HP and losing most or all of them should take longer to recover from than a creature with lots of HP who lost a lot, but proportionately fewer than the low HP creature
3). Simple method; easy to explain; etc.

4 comments:

  1. So it does require a little more up front paperwork but not much. When characters take damage, have them record how much from each hit. Ie, don't just lose 4 hitpoints and then 6 more and only say "down 10 hp". Have them write -4, and then -6.

    When you heal for a week (or day, or what have you), roll all of your HD.

    If any of the dice match up or exceed an injury, cross off that injury.

    If you do stuff like relax, or bedrest, or have medication, add bonuses to the dice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Zzarchov,

      Thanks.

      I went with a table. One looks up the damage sustained per wound (like minds...) and the listed number of days is divided by the full number of the figure's Hit Points, making tougher figures faster healing as well. First Aid and Surgery and Medicine further reduce the damage points which reduces the recovery time.

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  2. Does this take into account the use of magical means of healing? If a PC or an NPC uses a healing spell or potion does it still take a week to recover your hit points?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No. It does not take weeks to recover with super healing methods.

      Thanks for commenting, M_L

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