Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Fact? What about effects of injury (-2 DX, falling down, hit location effects)?
.

These are all temporary effects in combat time scale. The -2 DX only lasts for a turn, you can stand up after a turn etc. Hit location is an optional rule. The -3 DX for reaching 3 ST lasts for the entirety of a combat.

[JimmyPlenty]

I am liking a lot of ideas here. I guess it comes down to personal desire to get deep with it.

Here's my combo of what you all brought up;

Unless the wound is a 1 wound hit(which gets completely healed), all other healing leaves a 1 wound minimum. Any severe wounds (5+ hits) require 3/IQ, major wounds (8+ damage) requires 4/IQ.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by JimmyPlenty

I am liking a lot of ideas here. I guess it comes down to personal desire to get deep with it.

Here's my combo of what you all brought up;

Unless the wound is a 1 wound hit(which gets completely healed), all other healing leaves a 1 wound minimum. Any severe wounds (5+ hits) require 3/IQ, major wounds (8+ damage) requires 4/IQ.

That makes sense and will work, though it's a bit of extra bookwork. But if it fits your play style then go with it.

[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").

[RobW]

Originally Posted by Skarg

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.

Yes, absolutely. I didn't mean what I wrote to be argumentative that way. It looks like what I wrote must have sounded dismissive, and I apologise for that. Believe me that was not my intention.

If I can rephrase? What I hear from what you're saying is that at some point consistency concerns on this point cannot be ignored, and you will go for consistency regardless (or mostly) of the game effect.

By "won't work", I simply meant game conventions about damage mean there will be weird effects regardless of how you approach the healing rules. I get it, you have convinced me, much of that consistency relates to things outside the per-wound/per-combat distinction. Even so, the more important to my mind is that one's ruling about healing and Physicker produces game effects that you like.

ANd by "wont' matter", I only meant that if someone thinks that "hard mode" is more consistent, but leads to too much PC mortality, it makes more sense to me to go for the desired game effect and not worry too much about the consistency angle. Similarly, if one thought "per-wound" was a more consistent approach, but led to undesirable effects (eg physicker being too powerful a talent), then again it makes sense to me to let game effects override the consistency concern.

If you find that your approach yields both consistency and the effects you like, then perfect.

[RobW]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Assumption: a figure is not "wounded" till it reaches ST3, all other damage being minor knocks, being winded, temporarily demoralised etc.

Therefore, all damage above ST3 can be quickly regained between combats if the figure has a little time to catch their breath, steel their nerves etc. A figure at ST3 or lower has actually been physically wounded and will require much longer to recover or healing intervention.

This allows for longer dungeon crawls but will probably require some amendment to the physiker Talent.

This is a really interesting idea I hadn't seen before.

So how might physicker be modified? It sounds like physicker would work as normal (however your group interprets that) until the character reaches 3 ST. Then what? Are they basically stuck at that level barring magic or extensive medical care and treatment? Or as Jeff Lord suggests, a saving roll for care to have an effect?

[larsdangly]

That could be a path to take if you like a game that has a kind of D+D like quality of stringing together chains of combat oriented encounters. On the other hand, if you go for physical versimilitude then penalties from injuries should appear or increase between encounters. I.e., the sort of wound modeled by a 5 point hit in canonical TFT (i.e., puts you back on your heels, even in the midst of an adrenalin fueled fight to the death) must represent a significant cut, sprain or blunt-force blow that in reality would have you moving very gingerly an hour later. And any punctures or deep cuts that serious would be life threatening over a period of hours to days without the intervention of skilled medical care.