How do you handle healing?

[CaptD]

It seems healing is a little broken or I'm not wrapping my head around it. As I understand it, It's 10 pts per die. You can do it the simple way and you just roll your points and give the target the amount of stun/body you rolled once per day. So in my campaign I have a 75 AP cap on any power. So a guy wants A player who is a healer. So he can heal 7 1/2 dice of damage to a team member. On average he can heal 26 stun.

 

If a character is hit with the average attack a 15d6 EB (75 AP). That character will on average get hit for 53 stun. So, he might be able to heal the brick. (30 pd/ED). But not the rest of the party.

 

On the other hand, everyone can keep track of every wound and he would be able to heal them to better. But, I don't like the bookkeeping that has to take place. So I was wondering how you handle healing. Or do you just use it as is.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

At the power's creation the Healing can be defined to target any characteristic. You are referring to the optional simplified healing which is anything but. Healing vs. Body with a reduced reuse Advantage is usually the way to go.

 

That's what I was referring to.

[CaptD]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

Don't the rules say once per day? And if your keeping track of wounds then its once per day per wound? If they want more they have to buy it with an advantage to cure a character more than once per day.

[Sean Waters]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

The way I play it you can heal stun that you have not previously tried to heal once per day. In effect you are more or less healing per wound, but not necessarily.

 

So, You take your 53 points of stun, stop 20 with your defences and lose 33. You bang off your 7 1/2d6 healing, and heal up 26 points. You are down (33-26)=7 points. You can't heal those 7 points until tomorrow...but there is nothing to stop you recovering them with REC.

 

You take another hit before your PS12, and you take another 33 through defences, so you are down 40. You can use healing again, and you roll 26. Now you are down 14 - and you can't heal them until tomorrow, but you can recover them.

 

If you didn't get healed between the two hits you would have been down 66 points, and if you THEN got a heal you would be down 40 points, and you couldn't heal them until tomorrow, but you can stil recover them.

 

The advantage of this method is that you only have to keep track of stuff once a heal is attempted*, and there are real advantages to healing someone early rather than when they are beaten to a pulp. I like that approach: you might not.

 

 

 

 

*i.e. you just need to track one number, not every wound: the un-healable damage. RECs always come off unhealable damage first.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

It's once per target per day.

 

In fact it's not once per target per day. It's the max amount on your dice per target per day.

 

STUN and END, I just house rule that they're always fully cumulatively Healed, just because they come back relatively quickly anyway.

[Kdansky]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

I go with Maximum Effect. If a healer can Heal for 6d6, that means he can restore a total of 36 character points to anyone per day. Usually, that gives anyone two uses, since you roll about 3.5 / 6 per die. I am not yet sure how I will manage multiple healers, I think I will just let them work in paralell. So if three party members can Heal (simplified), for 3d6, 6d6 and 4d6 (+20 maximum Effect as with adjustment powers, = 10 cp adder) respectively, that means they can heal for 18 + 36 + 46 total. Allowing more maximum for less dice works well I think. I hope it does not get out of hand.

 

Similar Question: If I Aid/Succor Stun, how do you handle it? Base 30 stun, currently 22 stun (lost 8 due to an attack), succor/aid for + 20. Possible solutions:

 

42 current, 50 maximum. (both get the +20)

42 current, 30 maximum. (only current gets the +20), this means you cannot REC the +20 gained.

 

22 current, 50 maximum. (only maximum gets changed, makes this a long term buff, not a heal spell)

32 current, 40 maximum. half/half or any other distribution that you agree to beforehand.

 

36 current, 36 maximum. 8 points of 20 got used to bring them to equal value (30), and then one point each for current and maximum.

 

I think those ideas cover all. So?

[Lord Liaden]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

I'm afraid that 5E Healing is something I've never been able to get behind. IMHO the Power runs counter to HERO's design philosophy, in that it has too many "game-balance" conditions built in at the start. I would prefer to have a simpler, more broadly useful Power as the basic default; then if I want more restricted healing abilities for a particular genre or setting, I can Limit them as I desire.

 

For my own games I've been using the rule from Fourth Edition, that points in a Characteristic or Power gained through an Adjustment Power don't fade below the starting value of the Characteristic or Power. That makes for much simpler, cleaner builds for healing or recharging IME. Healing isn't a separate Power in my games; Aid is the basis for most healers, with the "Only To Starting Values" Limitation. Aid costs 10 points/ 1d6 as in 5E, but costs END to use as in 4E; and the restrictions on 5E Healing can be taken as a -1 Limitation for Aid.

 

[Tony Stark] "And it's worked out pretty well so far." [/Tony Stark]

[Doc Democracy]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

I agree with Lord Liaden. I dont like the current system, it is clunky, cumbersome and bureaucratic.

 

I would prefer a power where I could stimulate a recovery in another person with an advantage that provided 1/10 REC in BODY (round down).

 

This would be a nice clean system simply allowing the player to get the benefits of a mechanic already in the system.

 

Doc

[Sean Waters]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

Healing is generally a non-combat activity: you might use it to keep the brick standing one more phase but, generally, it is a way to get back up to speed quickly in a quiet moment, at least in my experience. This is driven by the fact that an opponent can generally cause more damage than a similar AP power can heal in a single phase.

 

If that is how it is generally used then the current 'bureacratic' method makes sense - if healing is generally not time-critical then there is no real advantage to buying a lot of it.

 

Don't forget the system allows 'per wound' healing as an option, although that is generally even more paper work intensive.

[Kdansky]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

Noncombat Healing is completely irrelevant, honestly. Even the smallest amount of regeneration will very quickly recover all damage for any amount of points. 60 real points or 10 real points don't really make much difference there. The same goes for Healing (once per Minute, 1d6: 20 points or so?).

 

Incombat is much more interesting, but a lot harder to use due to how it currently works. A rework might be interesting. I'm thinking DnD, yes, where you have a "Healer".

[Qelan]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

I'm afraid that 5E Healing is something I've never been able to get behind. IMHO the Power runs counter to HERO's design philosophy, in that it has too many "game-balance" conditions built in at the start. I would prefer to have a simpler, more broadly useful Power as the basic default; then if I want more restricted healing abilities for a particular genre or setting, I can Limit them as I desire.

 

I was making this point in a similar thread, makes me feel credible if my opinions are echoing others.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

I typically rule that STUN or END healing can be applied again once the target has, or would have, naturally recovered all his STUN/END previously used. You can get a less expensive effect using an Aid than a Heal power, since Aid costs no END, can exceed the character's normal top stat (so you can limit it for a healing effect) and accumulates to its maximum. The only drawback is the fade rate, and a +1/4 advantage makes that go away as combat rarely lasts more than a minute.

[Markdoc]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

I was making this point in a similar thread' date=' makes me feel credible if my opinions are echoing others.[/quote']

 

You're not alone: I also find the current healing system paperwork intensive and irritating to use.

 

There are (for me) two problems.

 

1. Healing is too weak. The limitations placed on it mean that in combat the amount of damage dished out rapidly exceed the ability of a healing-type to keep up. That means it's of limited use in combat

2. Healing is too strong - if you can use it repeatedly or "per wound" which amounts to the same thing - then you may not be able to keep up in combat but a healer can patch everyone up post-combat in just a few minutes. So out of combat, it's of great use.

 

In some cases, #2's genre appropriate. Yeah, the Justice league gets the snot kicked out of them by the villain du jour but next scene everyone's fine. But in pulp or fantasy games, it rather takes the flavour away of a rugged hero battling through the odds, if everyone's patched up 5 minutes after a fight.

 

Currently the (house rule) system I use is that you can heal up to your maximum dice of healing, but that once a target is carrying your maximum effect, you can do no more until he heals some of that back naturally (which will normally take a few days for BOD, a few phases for STUN). That means a healer can repair one or two major injuries per person, but then can't do it again for some time. Since he can give more healing as a person recovers essentially it means that a healer can always at least double the natural healing rate and it's not paperwork intensive - as a GM all I have to track is how much magical healing a person currently has received. It's a bit of a kludge, though.

 

My preferred solution would be to dump healing as it exists. For rapid healing in combat, simply substitute Aid and re-examine the maximum aspect (similar to the way transfer and drain currently work). That would allow you to use the power over and over - but it will fade in time. I'd also dump Regeneration as it currently exists, and substitute an advantage or power allowing you to move your REC down the time scale. That way a few points sunk in Regen would let you recover in days, not weeks, and a big investment could shift that to phases. Recovery from death simply comes by making it continuous, uncontrollable, 0 END.

 

cheers, Mark

[Doc Democracy]

Re: How do you handle healing?

 

There are a couple of issues there Mark and you are right there are a few things that you want feel wise in a game without making it too much drudgery either for the players or the characters.

 

I was thinking of using the recovery system that I had outlined but, as you say, you could quite easily see everyone fine five minutes after a fight.

 

I think that a side effect of the healing should be that every advanced recovery that you get inflicts some long term STUN (possibly long term STUN and END) that you recover at a rate of 1 point per hour spent in restful sleep with proper food and water.

 

Given that you'll get eight hours in a night I think that I'd set that long term STUN/END at five points per Recovery for supers and three points for heroic campaigns.

 

That effectively limits its use and if it has to be used extensively then the recipient will be unconcious or fatigued for a long time.

 

Slight amount of extra paperwork but useful enough to ensure that people survive and respect the impact that major fights have.

 

 

Doc