Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent

[Skarg]

Once again the topic of physicker healing logic came up in the main forum, so I'm starting a thread here to continue the discussion rather than have this sort of discussion there.

My position as usual was that the people I played with always found per-wound healing to be needed to make sense to us, and that we also liked the way it allows figures to keep adventuring until/unless they take more severe wounds.

And as usual, some people have different ideas about what does and doesn't make sense:

Originally Posted by Jeff Lord

This is what I wrote on 12/31/18:

"I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind those advocating that the physicker is able to treat each "wound."

Let's say I've got a ST 11 archer. He takes four discrete "wounds" of three points each (3/3/3/3). This takes him down to -1 ST. But with a master physicker and 20 minutes, he would be doing cartwheels? And if (however unlikely) the same thing happened five more times that day he'd still be at his full ST 11?

I realize that each roll might simulate one wound in a one-second GURPS turn, but TFT has a more abstracted five-second turn, so a lot can happen. A roll of 8 points of damage from a two-handed sword could certainly be imagined to have come from a single blow, but the same 8 damage roll from a dagger in HTH might be three or more quick thrusts in a five second span. I think the notion that a single roll for damage equates to a single "wound," in this case, might be oversimplified."

So, with respect, I think we should consider carefully when using words such as "logical" and "illogical." From where I stand, a physicker treating each "wound" is "intolerably illogical" (see above example). I think Steve got it right with RAW and his stated intent. Treating each damage roll as a separate "mishap" can be a perfectly fine, but no more logical, house rule for those who prefer it.

I did not mean to start an argument that my way is the most logical of all ways. Not did I mean to insist that because I mentioned logic, that anyone doing per-fight healing is not being logical. I also would like to suggest that the cases Jeff brought up above are points I agree with, but I see them as different issues about healing, not the same one we were thinking about. What I think about Jeff's points is:


Four three-point wounds:

The figure with four 3-point wounds either dying or being unhurt depending on whether a master physicker spends 20 minutes on him seems to me to be an issue with cumulative hitpoint effects. Those are multiple injuries which each alone would not affect the figure (not even -2 DX for 5 seconds), but since TFT adds all injury points to determine consciousness and death, four of them stack to take someone out or kill them.

I don't think that's a particularly realistic effect in most cases. In other RPGs and house rules, an alternative that avoids this is sometimes called a "wound system" where often taking many small injuries actually has no effect, or only slowly raises the "wound level" of a figure. This is one way to represent how in real life, some people can take a surprising number of wounds and still function for while and not die as long as none of them is itself critical.

In other words, what this example says to me is that TFT's directly adding all wounds together to determine unconsciousness or death is imperfect.

On the other hand, GURPS offers an explanation for its adding of separate wound damage (and the ability to heal it by first aid), which is that a large part of the effect of damage points represent shock, which can be treated by first aid.

So that's how I think about the figure with four 3-point wounds. Each wound isn't really very significant by itself, but with several of them, the person may collapse or die due to shock. But with immediate attention from a master healer, they may be not materially wounded. Being hurt for only the amount a physicker can completely heal is the unusual circumstance where this is possible.

I also think that such a victim would have some healing injuries left, but it's ok with me that they don't amount to lasting damage points, even though the victim would have died of shock if he'd not been treated.

To me, it does not impact at my feeling that injuries should be physicked individually, because if the same figure had received those four injuries in what were considered separate "fights", then per-fight healing would also have that victim be completely healed, or dead if there were no physicker. That is, the thing that makes no sense to me about per-fight healing, is that I don't see why a "fight" should be what determines if each wound can be healed or not.

If I did want to address the seeming weirdness of this issue, I might do something like add a house rule more like one of the "wound systems" I mentioned. Or I might just reduce the amount of physicker healing to 1 and 2 for master rather than 2 and 3 for master, and/or require physickers to roll for each act of healing to see how much is actually healed for each wound (DX and/or IQ rolls, and/or a randomized amount of healing).

I might also add an effect where physicker healing doesn't result in a wound completely vanishing, but leaves a "treated wound" which has some lingering effect until several days later. In fact I do do this, but it usually amounts to cosmetic description and GM discretionary effects. e.g. If the guy who just got his four three-point injuries healed did start "doing cartwheels", I might assign a chance that each time he does, his wounds may open up, undoing the healing status on them.


Some wounds might be multiple wounds

As for the idea that a TFT attack could represent multiple wounds, yes, sure that's a consideration that ideally would be taken into account. But I don't see why it would lead me more in the direction of treating wounds per fight.

For one thing, in some cases attacks seem clearly to be about one wound: missile weapons and thrown weapons in particular. And, missile attacks are also one of the situations where this come up clearly - if you're running into long-distance harassing fire or traps where volleys of arrows hit a group and then they have time to heal, then if you do per-fight healing, it stands out that the guys who take single minor arrow hits can have that happen over and over all day long and not be very hurt, but the guy who got hit by two or three arrows at once, even if they were each light hits, can't be healed very much by the physicker.

Also, if melee attacks are sometimes multiple wounds, that would actually imply to me that some of those attacks would require more time to physick, and that physickers would be able to do even more for those wounds.

So if I wanted to address that issue, I would actually house-rule more in the direction of per-wound healing. i.e. I'd probably reduce the amount each physicker can heal, and then figure out for each melee attack, how many wounds were inflicted. However that seems hard to get right, and like more fuss than I really want if I'm playing TFT rather than GURPS.

[hcobb]

Have Physickers leave behind one point of environmental fatigue per wound healed for blood loss. Recover one point per night of reasonable rest provided they have food, water, shelter, etc.

[larsdangly]

There are examples of simple games that have physically realistic ways of handling multiple non-lethal woulds. Boot Hill and Beyond Enemy Lines are two great examples that have been around for decades. If I were going to tweak TFT to be more like this, I'd separate wound effects from a running tally of ST, and simply impose a consequence for each wound. It wouldn't be that hard; a half page of rules would be enough. You would just need to use care not to make the game radically more or less dangerous overall.

[Skarg]

^ Both good ideas IMO.

[TippetsTX]

So I also prefer the wound-centric healing approach for Physickers, but I also think that healing as a skill shouldn't necessarily be automatic. In the other thread, I mentioned the idea of compounded damage and dimishing returns when it comes to applying the Physicker talents to multiple injuries so here's how I am handling that...

Following the model established by many other talents, healing via Physicker and Master Physicker will require a die roll (3d against IQ) to be successful. Treating a single target with multiple wounds is more difficult so each instance of damage after the first is at a cumulative -1 to IQ. Using the example in the original post, therefore, a Master Physicker with 14 IQ must roll 14 or less to heal the first 3-point wound, 13 or less for the second, 12 or less for the third and so on. This approach also allows GMs the optional ability to add bonuses or penalties based on in-game factors that might decrease or increase difficulty of the task (a bit more for for the GM to deal with, but it adds to player immersion and the drama IMO).

For a Physicker, a failed roll means no ST healed while a Master Physicker can always heal at least 1 ST for each wound (3 ST on a successful roll).

I'm also considering rules to scale difficulty based on the type of wound. A critical hit for example might require 4 or 5 dice depending on the severity.

[hcobb]

Here's my take: https://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#IQ11Talents

BTW: Physicker is a magic talent, just like Alchemist (which it overlaps).

[RobW]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Once again the topic of physicker healing logic came up in the main forum, so I'm starting a thread here to continue the discussion rather than have this sort of discussion there.

It's a good discussion, but I fear this is searching for an answer about Physicker in the wrong way. TFT combat does not reflect the real world. In TFT I can be stabbed with a spear for 6 damage, and then Physicker or not, after the battle I am surprisingly nimble. Maybe I'll go shopping in town for some new gear? Maybe I'll visit the pub? This puncture wound? Ah it's nothing, get them all the time!

Yes, it's unrealistic that you can be shot by 4 arrows from a short bow and then be fully healed. Whether those shots occur in one fight or four! But it's unrealistic that you can be impaled on a spear, or hit a few times with a sword, and then later that day carry on with your adventure.

My point is that trying to work out how Physicker talent should work by whether the effects are consistent and logical in any real world correspondence ultimately (a) won't work, and (b) won't matter.

Instead, Physicker is a talent that lets PCs carry on with these unrealistic battles and deeds. The real question is, how powerful do you want that talent to be? If you allow healing once per combat (hard mode) then it is a valuable but maybe not necessary talent for the party. If a Physicker can heal 2 damage from each attack (casual mode :)) then the benefit of a Physicker are overwhelming, every party will want one.

One reason to go with "easy mode" is that it lets the PCs take on more and more difficult battles with greater hope of success. That to me is a good reason. Whether that is more consistent with the real world in any way, I don't think matters, because we are already in a very unrealistic realm.

[hcobb]

Just remember to roll every ten minutes the characters sit around for something from the table at ITL 74.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by RobW

It's a good discussion, but I fear this is searching for an answer about Physicker in the wrong way. TFT combat does not reflect the real world. In TFT I can be stabbed with a spear for 6 damage, and then Physicker or not, after the battle I am surprisingly nimble. Maybe I'll go shopping in town for some new gear? Maybe I'll visit the pub? This puncture wound? Ah it's nothing, get them all the time!

Yes, it's unrealistic that you can be shot by 4 arrows from a short bow and then be fully healed. Whether those shots occur in one fight or four! But it's unrealistic that you can be impaled on a spear, or hit a few times with a sword, and then later that day carry on with your adventure.

My point is that trying to work out how Physicker talent should work by whether the effects are consistent and logical in any real world correspondence ultimately (a) won't work, and (b) won't matter.

Accurate realism is a different thing from self-consistency and avoiding irrational gamey-ness.

i.e. To me these are clearly two entirely different issues: whether wounds have enough effects; and whether ability to treat injury is based on "fights" or wounds.

Non-skill-impairing spear stabs may be unrealistic, but at least they're self-consistent as it works the same for everyone.

But Joe being unhealable while Bob is healable based only on whether their identical injuries took place during the same "fight" or were spread out in multiple "fights" is, to me, unignorable gamey weirdness with no satisfying in-world explanation.

It also seems to me that it can "work" to house-rule either or both to suit players' tastes. Certainly it did "matter" to us even as inexperienced kids, and it "worked" for us to rule as we did.

[Jeff Lord]

Skarg wrote:

"Accurate realism is a different thing from self-consistency and avoiding irrational gamey-ness."

I agree completely. And I think that the RAW do an admirable job of accomplishing the latter two.

This discussion had led me to fear that I was falling prey to the fallacy of confirmation bias. I've been playing this way (RAW) for decades; it was a distinct possibility. So I reached out to three gamer friends/former students who are also health care professionals (one trauma surgeon and two paramedics).

They all agreed that the RAW are an abstraction (most certainly not simulation) of reality. But they also all agreed that it was a vastly superior abstraction to the proposed treatment per "wound."

They further opined that if they were to make any suggestions to improve upon the RAW, they would have any character that fell under 0 ST make a roll versus their base ST in order for any type of healing to have any effect. I thought that was a pretty neat idea. They had some other ideas that I'll share later since I don't want to muddy the waters here now, so to speak.

At the end of the day, I think that this is purely a matter of de gustibus non disputandum est.

Some people will prefer, as larsdangly put it, the "hard mode," while others might prefer Skarg's treatment per wound. I truly do see the appeal for folks that don't want the lethality of the RAW. As Skarg mentioned, it "worked" for his group. If your table is happy, then by all means, run with it. Because, ultimately, if you're having fun you're "winning."

But I still don't see any real usefulness for people to be tossing around words such as "illogical" and "irrational" (the phrase "doesn't make sense" also gets dishonorable mention when not used in conjunction with "to me").