Low-tech healing without magic/psi

[acrosome]

Odd question...

I'm making a 'low fantasy' setting with no magic, but it is going to have something a lot like chi powers (justified as something like Frank Herbert's pranha-bindu training from the Dune series). It's basically going to be a format for detailed martial arts combat. The setting isn't really a traditional fantasy- it's almost scifi. It's set on a terraformed Venus in the far future after a technological collapse, and the chi stuff and things like hypnosis, meditation and enthrallment are justified by widespread standardized genetic engineering in the past, neurocognitive engineering, etc., so it's almost more akin to biological hacking.

The problem is healing. Combat can be incredibly lethal, obviously, and leave characters out of action for months while they heal, if they aren't crippled outright. Fantasy settings mitigate this with magic, and scifi settings with magical technology.

But how can I make healing quick enough that recovery times don't sink the enjoyment? Esoteric Medicine skill basically just replaces Physician, but doesn't have improved effects, really. The Healing advantage seems more like magic than anything else. I'll include healing herbs and such things under the justification that they are engineered, too, but that only helps so much.

Basically, I guess I'm asking if there are rules for chi-based healing that are a bit less miraculous than magical healing. But I suspect that there is just the Esoteric Medicine skill, and I'm going to have to make something up myself.

Maybe I can add some appropriate modifiers to the Healing advantage?

Maybe increase the time it takes with Takes Extra Time or Preparation Required- maybe the Weakened Without Preparation version. (And can things like Time Spent on Basic Set p.346 increase the chance of success for advantages like Healing that require an IQ roll?) Can I both increase the time it takes and add Preparation Required or Weakened Without Preparation? It seems like the former might be forbidden, but the latter allowed since it would still leave the advantage usable on a combat timescale, albeit at reduced effectiveness. I could probably also add Limited Use or Takes Recharge, right?

Then, is there a way to make the healing that occurs take a bit of time, too, like some version of Onset? Since presumably this chi-based healing fires up the target's own body's ability to heal, it would be neat to make each HP of healing take an hour or so once the healer makes the IQ check, or maybe make the first one instant and all the rest take an hour.

Would I have to make it Chi-based [-10%] or something like that?

[Ulzgoroth]

There's nothing stopping you from making Esoteric Medicine function as TL 8 or better Physician instead of as low-tech Physician. Justified by some combination of chi and engineered medicinal herbs. (High tech Physician can restore one or more HP per day - You won't be out of action for months under a decent doctor's care, though over a month is plausible if you're badly hurt and not great at natural healing. Ultratech Physician can restore HP more than once a day...)

Another option if it's okay for people to recover fast even without medical care is making Slow Regeneration standard.

[Varyon]

Rapid healing would, realistically, likely require a marked increase in caloric consumption as well as generate a good deal of waste heat. This means you may not want it to come into play on its own anytime a person suffers trauma, as it may well result in rapid starvation, dehydration, and/or heat stroke outside of a controlled environment. So, perhaps as part of the genetic engineering package everyone benefits from, there is a latent healing ability, meant to be activated by medical professionals when they are in a position to provide the needed nutrients, hydration, and cooling. To keep with the chi theme, I suggest the activation stimulus be some fairly precise acupressure techniques (in the Old World, these would have been readily trainable - although hooking the patient up to a machine to do it might have been more common - yet unlikely to activate by accident). The healing boost should probably only last for a short while per treatment, to prevent overdoing it. Perhaps people normally have Slow Regeneration (as suggested by Ulzgoroth), which gets boosted to Regeneration for four hours - but burns up a full meal and a quart of water, as well as shifting the character's preferred temperature range down 10 or so degrees - when activated. That should cut down healing times markedly (each treatment heals 40% of HP over the course of 4 hours; even someone at the edge of death would recover with 15 treatments, or in 5 days with 3 treatments each day).

I'm wracking my brains trying to think of a way for hot springs to help here, but am getting nothing. Cold springs would likely be of use, however.

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by Varyon

So, perhaps as part of the genetic engineering package everyone benefits from, there is a latent healing ability, meant to be activated by medical professionals when they are in a position to provide the needed nutrients, hydration, and cooling. To keep with the chi theme, I suggest the activation stimulus be some fairly precise acupressure techniques.

That is exactly what I was thinking, of, yes. And that's why I'm trying to think of a modifier to make the actual HP gain take an hour or so per point. I don't like giving everyone Regeneration (though I suppose it could be built as a Regeneration Affliction if needed)- I'd rather make it a version of Healing. I like the idea of requiring extra food, but how do I do that, limitation-wise? Mitigator? That doesn't seem right...

FYI, the setting is TL3 advanced in medicine, so Esoteric Medicine/Physician/Surgery act as TL4. Even making Esoteric Medicine act as TL8 would probably be too slow- modern therapy times for major injuries can take months.

Also, I do want bleeding to be a danger, so someone still needs to be able to stop bleeding. Maybe the Healing advantage can stop bleeding too, but I intend for it to take long enough that this is rarely practical other than for very minor wounds that happen to bleed. That's one reason for trying to increase the time.

The BIG question is how do I make the actual HP gain take 1 hour per point after the IQ roll? If I can't figure that out then maybe Regeneration as an Affliction would be a better model.

[Anaraxes]

Build the healing as a Cyclic effect and it will take a while to take effect -- days, if you like. Onset works if you just want to delay the appearance of the effect (probably until out of combat). Or both.

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Build the healing as a Cyclic effect and it will take a while to take effect -- days, if you like. Onset works if you just want to delay the appearance of the effect (probably until out of combat). Or both.

But Onset has to be linked to Blood Agent, Contact Agent, Follow-Up, Malediction, or Respiratory Agent, none of which are applicable to Healing, right? Don't they have to modify attacks?

Likewise, Cyclic is only available for burning, corrosion, toxic, or fatigue damage.

Maybe Affliction is a better model after all?

Afflicting Slow Regeneration (1 HP/12 hours) would cost 20/level, and Afflicting Regular Regeneration (1 HP/hour) would cost 35/level. Does the target have to resist? But this is also a ranged attack, so I assume that I can put the Contact Agent [-30%] limitation on it? But Afflicting an advantage gives an instantaneous effect once, so does that mean it only heals the first 1 HP and I would have to add Extended Duration for any more? In such a case, I assume that Extended Duration basically sets the limit on how much can be healed: 1 HP, 3 HP, 10 HP, 30 HP, etc.

[vorpalvitto]

The Healing advantage is magical only if you want it to. Every advantage in GURPS can be given a source - be it magic, divine, demonic, etc in nature.
You spend FP (energy,mana,chi, whatever you want to call it) and the target recover HP - call it Accelerated Natural Healing if you want, it doesn't matter.

Do you want it to take more than a second to activate the ability or for the healing to occur?

For the first option then the Takes Time limitation (Basic p.115) doubles the time required to activate the ability, in our case from 1 second (which is always the time required if no time is specified) to 2 seconds for 1 level of takes Time, to 4 seconds for 2 levels and so on.
Now if you want the healing to happen some time later instead of instantly then Onset (Basic p.113) is probably what you want. While the minimum time listed is 1 minute for -10% limitation, you could say that anything less than that is -5%.

Another option is the Imbue advantage (Power-Ups 1 - Imbuements) and the Vampiric Weapon imbue. You "charge" your weapon and then heal depending on how much damage you did. That also can be either ​magic/chi/psi/divine/demonic.

The most expensive option is Regeneration with multiple limitations, like Requires Concentration, Costs Fatigue, Chi and anything else you like. Otherwise you can create an Affliction that gives Regeneration to someone.

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by vorpalvitto

Now if you want the healing to happen some time later instead of instantly then Onset (Basic p.113) is probably what you want. While the minimum time listed is 1 minute for -10% limitation, you could say that anything less than that is -5%.

To repeat- Onset has to be linked to Blood Agent, Contact Agent, Follow-Up, Malediction, or Respiratory Agent, none of which seem applicable to Healing. Or am I wrong?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by acrosome

That is exactly what I was thinking, of, yes. And that's why I'm trying to think of a modifier to make the actual HP gain take an hour or so per point. I don't like giving everyone Regeneration (though I suppose it could be built as a Regeneration Affliction if needed)- I'd rather make it a version of Healing. I like the idea of requiring extra food, but how do I do that, limitation-wise? Mitigator? That doesn't seem right...

There's nano in Bio-tech that causes a high degree of sweating while using Regenration. That's a small Nuissance Effect IIRC. "Extra food" wouldn't count for much more.

For comparison Regeneration is (by default) no roll required, happens over time and requires no outside activation. Healing always comes from outside but requires a Roll (!Q +Talent usally), happens immediately and requires FP expenditure from the healer rather than the healed.

You seem to be sort of halfway between either but I believe Regeneration (requires Esoteric Medicine to activate) and -5 to 10% in Nuissance effects might be as close as you'll come.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by acrosome

Even making Esoteric Medicine act as TL8 would probably be too slow- modern therapy times for major injuries can take months.

Sure, but GURPS rules for medical care almost can't do so unless your doctor is incompetent. You get one HP every day that you make an HT roll at +1 for being under medical care, plus one HP ever day that your doctor makes a Physician roll. If you're at close to -5x HP and have garbage HT (in which case it's a wonder you survived getting so low) you might be looking at two months.

Originally Posted by acrosome

But Onset has to be linked to Blood Agent, Contact Agent, Follow-Up, Malediction, of Respiratory Agent, none of which are applicable to Healing, right? Don't they have to modify attacks?

Likewise, Cyclic is only available for burning, corrosion, toxic, or fatigue damage.

What you're looking for doesn't act like the Healing advantage in most if not all respects. Anaraxes is most likely talking about building it as an Affliction that grants Regeneration. EDIT: Though in that case Cyclic wouldn't be needed, so maybe not...