[RPM] Limits on Healing
 

I'm working on a handout for a low fantasy campaign, very much in the vein of Leiber, Howard and Asprin's Thieves' World anthologies. I'm taking a few flavor cues from the d20 version of Thieves' World, and among one of the principles I'd like to adapt is limitations on healing magic. Basically, straight-on patch-the-wound-healing magic does not exist. Magic does not have to power to directly restore; instead, "healing" is done through transferring damage to another subject (much like the Empathetic version of the Healing advantages presented in Powers), it has some price that affects the healed individual, or it can, at best, only accelerate the healing process.

This would of course greatly limit the effects of Restore Body in RPM. My players are fine with the idea of healing magic working like this, but I'd love some advice on the mechanics. Should my notes on RPM in the handout simply include a clause that states something along the lines of:

"RPM cannot directly heal without some sort of catch, and all rituals aimed at healing the body must include effects to accommodate this."

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

Well you could just outlaw Greater path of body effects. With a lesser effect the best healing magic could do is double whatever current first aid healing is. Now if you're just TL3 first aid shock treating is 1d6-3 and that includes the 1hp from bandaging. So you'd be looking at the greatest possible instant healing spell restoring 1d6-2 or just 2 hp when it's cast. For comparison GURPS says modern TL8 median can heal twice that in 10 minutes.

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

Another suggestion: you could have a house rule making the burning HP a mandatory part of fuelling healing rituals. For example, specifying that at least 20% of the power accumulated must come from this source (adjust figure to suit, naturally). This would have the advantage of scaling to however big a ritual a character wants to produce.

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

Hmm, that's not a bad idea. Perhaps not all Great Effects for Body, but just for Restore Body then?

That's... Actually kind of neat. It really communicates the whole "something for something" rules of transferring life energy. A variation of this might be that the ritual grants either the recipient or the caster with a disadvantage worth some percentage (30%?) of the amount of energy required to cast the ritual.

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

You could rule that all Healing effects are actually Salving effects: see Salving Magic in Pyramid #3/13: Thaumatology. Essentially, Salving magic is magic that cancels the effects of injury and promotes natural healing, but you're still injured and in danger of dying from further injury until you heal naturally.

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

In my urban fantasy campaign - The Chronicles of Ceteri - I allow a maximum amount of healed HP equal to (Total HP x 5) in a single month/lunar cycle. You can go beyond this limit. but every multiple of (HP/2) requires you make a HT roll at a cumulative -1 penalty. Success means you're okay for now. Failure results in a cumulative -1 to HT rolls for one month/lunar cycle. You should -1 in penalties if you don't go beyond your threshold for one month/lunar cycle, double if you were not the subject of healing magic or suffered no HP loss during that time, or tripled if both. It worked quite well. Made my players properly paranoid about taking damage and they acted accordingly in combat.

This is good too.

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

Sounds like that would do you. E.g., a direct healing spell would use Lesser Restore Body and Lesser Destroy Body, and does as much damage to the caster as it heals. If you add range etc. you can target someone else instead. Alternately, you can use Lesser Restore Body + Altered Traits (Rapid Healing) +Adds a bonus (HT rolls, Narrow) +Duration 1 week +Subject Weight 300 lbs, and there's no backlash; they'll just heal real fast for that week.

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

RPM would not fit into the majority of the low fantasy settings, like Howard's Conan, though the Path/Book Ritual Magic from GURPS: Thaumatology could be suitable. I would actually suggest adapting Sorcery from 2nd Edition Conan the RPG, by Mongoose Games, which was designed for a low fantasy setting.

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

Hmm, that is not a bad idea actually. Definitely an option. Might require a bit of fiddly-diddling, but it could work.

I'm rather fascinated by this! Probably won't take this approach, but it's always a joy seeing your stuff, 'Dancer. (Yes, I read your blog... *blushing*)

I somewhat feel like RPM is an improved version of Path/Book Magic, but in all fairness, it's been a bit since I read up on the rules for Path/Book. I'm rather curious though, why do not think RPM has a place in most low fantasy settings?

I don't have the Conan RPG book :(

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

Hey, thanks. :-) That's what the blog is there for. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

RPM treats doing damage (or healing) over a duration as a special effect. Thus, Restore Body effects can be mandated as 1 HP per [insert interval here], and the only way around that is to burn HP or have some sort of backlash on the caster. Treating magical healing as the weakest level of Regeneration should be slow enough that magic still feels useful for healing, while not being over-powered. It should be noted that the first point of healing occurs immediately and includes stopping bleeding.

Re: [RPM] Limits on Healing
 

An alternate way to handle this is here.