healing

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

So after thinking for a little while I came to the realization that for all we decided and agreed upon at game on Tuesday, one thing was not discussed concerning healing. That is, how often can it be used on a person.

The two ways that I see it from my research is as follows and I am not sure which one we are running with.
1. When ever the stat changes.
2. A set time period. (The 5th ed revised suggests no more than once every 24 hours. That is you can only use the healing power once on someone in a 24 hour period.)

Both of them have their flaws and advantages.

1. Flaws: Can lead to the bleeding someone to heal them. So if all we need to do is reduce the stat for healing to take effect all that needs to be done is to do some body damage and then roll again. I see this as slightly abusive.
2. Flaws: Time, when you need/want to be healed now or as fast as possible you have to wait for the healing, but this is much less abusive than the option one flaw.

So this is what I see, and would like to have an answer...time and sanity permitting of course.

Comments

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

I want to state at this point that HERO appears to have mastered the art of ambiguity.

The sidekick says:

"Healing can only be applied to a given injury or wound once per day. If a second character tries to apply Healing to the same wound, he must exceed the amount rolled by the first application to have any effect, and the second application of Healing only affects the subject to the extent it exceeds the first use"

I take this to mean:

If we have Dingo (2 dice healing), Jane (1 die healing), and John (3 dice healing) trying to heal Gawen (7 body wound) and Dingo rolls 3 body, Jane rolls 1 body, and John rolls 6 body then Dingo heals for 3, Jane's healing doesn't work, and John's healing adds 3 more body to Dingo's 3 for a total of 6. If Gawan wants to have that last point magically healed he has to wait 24 hours before Dingo, Jane, or John can attempt to heal it again. On the second day Dingo rolls 2 body which heals the last point of damage but adds no extra body to Gawen.

There is an example like that in the Sidekick which simply ends with "In a day, both Friar Hengist and Father Geoffery can try their Healing spells on Hendring's wounds again"... which is frustratingly unclear on the point of whether it works like above or whether it tops up the previous healing again.

In the interests of easy book keeping I suggest we use my interpretation unless there is something explicitly written in the Revised edition that says that the second interpretation is correct.

You know... there is a very good reason why I used my GMing experience as an example of "interpreting rules" during my job interview.

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

*nods* Thanks for increasing my understanding. As I said I came across a couple of different ways to run the "when can I next heal someone?" Question.

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

There are a few areas in the books that are ambiguous... this appears to be one of them.

Unless we have a good reason not to, we'll go with the example I gave above.

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

*nods* Well in the revised book is where I got some of what I talked about in my original post.

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

You mean other than picking up revised, since things seem to be much clearer than in 5th ed normally?

No offence to those who use the 5th ed book but from when I look at it, as a new player, it seems like a lot of things are taken for granted and with the expectation that what they leave out you should already know.

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

I got the 5th edition when it came out and the Sidekick when it came out but for quite a while myself and Mark were the only ones with books. I tried to encourage everyone to buy the sidekick (it has many of the clarificaitons that later went into the revised edition) but it went out of print. Mark is no longer in the game but Ironphoenix bought a 5th Ed book before the Revised came out. Since two of us had the 5th Ed and the Revised appeared to be nearly the same (clarifications not new rules mostly) and the books cost 50$ each minimum we decided to go with 5th ed. Other players bought books to supliment things (I'm unsure who has bought what at this point) and we shared around.

When you arrived the original 5th ed had gone out of print (I think) and Revised was out but hard to find in hardback (and still $50+ dollars). Pdf copies existed but those are hard to use in a game and I work in IP so ripping copies gets into some thorny issues for me. Hence we stayed with the status quo ... 5th ed... even though it wasn't the ideal. I will probably pick up the Revised the next time I find an actual copy for sale when I have money to buy it with.

I agree with you that HERO in general and HERO 5th ed are not user friendly. They remind me of when I was programming processors in assembler and machine code... very very precise codes with not very good instructions on how to use them.

[ancalagon-tb.livejournal.com]

Ok... now let's suppose that we still have Gawen with a 7 body wound, but only Dingo (2 dice of healing) is around to heal him (no other healing has been received). Dingo rolls poorly and only gets 1 body. Can he keep trying until he gets his max (4 body) or does he only get one try per day?

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

Based on the sidekick clarification he'd only get one shot per day per wound. (Which is pretty much what he was doing anyway.)

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

From everything I have read under the healing power I thought it was, he could (in one day) use as much healing on me as he wanted but was capped at his maximum, and each time he made a roll he had to exceed his previous effect for the extra healing to have any effect.

Ex:
With Dingos 2 dice he tries and heals jo smoe. Who has a total of 8 body damage. He makes three healing rolls on him and gets the following results. 2, 1, 3. Healing the man 2 body on the first try, no body on the second and three on the third. If Dingo wanted he could continue to try and heal the man until he got a total of 4 body.

I have this understanding because they state that you can heal someone up to your maximum dice. In the revised it has the clarification that you can only get this effect once per day.

Just putting out what I read from the books and from your post about the sidekick notation. If you want to keep it that someone can only heal someone once per day and that is it, cool I am willing to run with it.

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

All of the examples in both the 5th ed and the sidekick use multiple characters and not a single healer healing multiple times. The sidekick explicitly states another character (see above excerpt) and the 5th ed does not specify either way except in the examples (which are multiple healers).

The max heal stat in the 5th ed is explained within a context of both multiple healers (from the point of view of the person being healed) and adding extra body points beyond normal (not allowed).

I'll need you to show me in the Revised edition where it allows multiple healings by the same healer in order for me to take that interpretation in light of what is in the 5th ed and the sidekick. If you can then we'll go with that.

In either case, Dingo should be able to heal Gawen up to full in a few days. He got max on his first roll (at combat) for the first wound then 2 and 4 (for each of his two wounds) on the second day. Total healed was 10 BODY.

[ancalagon-tb.livejournal.com]

The last paragraph of page 186 of the revised edition talks about this issue - unfortunately, for some reason it won't let me copy-paste! bah!

I will send you the text via an image by e-mail, since I cannot post it here :(

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

Got it. Looked at it. It applies. I am willing to allow extra time to be used to max the roll. I'll make another post to summarize it all.

I will be transfering over to the revised book (as the standard) for future games I think.

[m-danson.livejournal.com]

See note on previous post about Gawen's sword.

[nightstriker.livejournal.com]

ok cool I see it now.