Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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:

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

^ Both good ideas IMO.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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).

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

Best house rule ever... :)

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

Like Skarg, we wanted to be able to keep adventuring instead of spending a lot of time resting up. We didn't use the one-physick-per-wound idea though, and as a result we had to (a) boost healing potions to 1d3 and (b) make them very easily available. At which point nobody bothered getting physiker and no wound short of death or amputation was the slightest worry unless potions were running low.

Not ideal.

This time round I'm going to allow one physicker heal per wound and keep potions under control. That should mean serious wounds have consequences, armour becomes more important, and high damage critters will be much more dangerous to the PCs.

It's not just a case of which version of 'realism' you are chasing re healing itself, it's the knock on effect on other aspects of the game IMHO.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

I've mentioned this before but it's relevant here. In short:

Fact: as the rules stand, a figure suffers no ongoing detriment till it reaches ST3.

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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

This approach seems to me to have the same problem it does in games with piles of hitpoints. It doesn't make enough sense to me that people would have a "cushion" of woundedness, windedness and demoralization being caused by attacks using to-hit mechanics. Or that light attacks almost surely won't actually injure me the first few times, but then they certainly will. Etc.

If I want the game to include a lot more whiffage instead of injury (which I might), then I'd (use GURPS and/or) tend to add more things that cause attacks to fail completely - such as active defenses or other traits or calculations that just make avoiding injury explicitly less likely, but are not so directly ablative and predictable the way hitpoints are.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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").

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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?

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

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.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

Pretty much, yes.

I think what stands out to me about these and other repeated discussions where experienced TFT players play in different ways, is that different players have different conceptions of what the mechanics represent, and notice, care and prefer different things about them. And it sounds like groups of players that play together for a while tend to share a perspective. People house-rule where they see a need, and don't where they don't, and some players and groups agree what needs house-ruling and how to do it, and others have different ideas.

But when we play and GM immersive RPGs a certain way for years, our perspectives get pretty developed and it can be challenging to step into another player's different perspective.

In my case, when the topic is something I'm convinced of a strong opinion about, I tend to keep trying to explain that perspective until it sounds like people get what I'm saying, especially if they seem to be responding to my posts by asserting things in ways that seem to not get what I've been trying to explain.

And yes, I was a realism/simulation/consistency-oriented player even when playing "war" on the playground in third grade, and while playing TFT in fifth grade, and the seeming illogic of healing "per fight" was something our group couldn't ignore even then. Since we pretty much always did healing "per wound" as a consequence, we developed our understandings of TFT injury around that, and we very much like the effect on gameplay. Though yes, I still tend to choose consistency and more realistic-seeming detailed rules unless they're unmanageable... but I can manage quite a bit.

As I mentioned before, if I felt that per-wound were causing too much healing, no that would not have me use "per fight" healing because it's a consistency problem for me. Instead I'd address the perceived problem (I mentioned reducing the amount of healing per wound and/or adding random factors that tend to reduce the amount of healing). Or if I were sensitive to the four three-point wounds vanishing case, I might also use something like JimmyPlenty's elegant suggestion above, where 2+ point wounds can't be healed to less than one point each.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

This is interesting. Can you say why they thought 'per fight' healing was better than 'per wound'?

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

If you heal per combat then you need to track wounds taken in that combat anyway to not repeat the bug in the app of healing two hits after each non-damaging combat.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

Hi MikMod. I'd be happy to try.

First off, I've repeatedly stated that I don't believe that "per wound" is actually a quantifiable thing. What is a "wound," exactly? We have a 5 second combat round (as opposed to 1 second in GURPS); a lot can happen. When a sword (any) hits you for maximum damage, that might be one good shot - or it might be two or three, or more. The same goes for a dagger in HTH. You take "hits" from a successful attack; that doesn't necessarily translate to a single "wound." Admittedly, arrow damage is harder to justify this way but that's a whole other story.

One of the reasons that I prefer TFT to GURPS is that these particular abstractions work for me and my players. YMMV, obviously.

Apologies in advance for trying to sum up (and/or condense) a number of Skype conversations. The gist of what the folks I spoke with said was as follows - "wounds" are not simply the sum of their respective parts. Hence they are not able to be treated as individual, discrete, units. If the human body takes (for example) four points of hits, that's not good. If it takes four points of hits and then another four points of hits, this is actually much worse than four points of hits X2. The accretion of damage will drastically impact the body's ability to "shrug it off." Trauma based shock is not fun.

This is, of course, only important if you want your abstraction to "lean" more towards realism than other abstractions. In the end, they are all abstractions. The argument for wanting to extend play by having the players able to deal with more damage is a powerful and compelling one if such is your desire.

In addition to healing considerations, this has led me to toy with the idea (house-ruled, of course) that players with less than half their ST (or whatever home-brew stat is in use) suffer a -1 DX penalty, just as players with 3 ST or less suffer a -3 DX penalty.

I think Skarg had the right of it when he said:

"But when we play and GM immersive RPGs a certain way for years, our perspectives get pretty developed and it can be challenging to step into another player's different perspective."

And I agreed with him again when he said:

"In my case, when the topic is something I'm convinced of a strong opinion about, I tend to keep trying to explain that perspective until it sounds like people get what I'm saying, especially if they seem to be responding to my posts by asserting things in ways that seem to not get what I've been trying to explain."

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

So in the context of this discussion, I think it is very quantifiable. I'm fairly confident that those of us who land on the 'per wound' side of this debate would define a wound as a single hit or, more specifically, any successful attack action (or threat event) which results in damage to the target’s ST. To your point, that is still an abstraction, but an acceptable one and for the sake of consistency, we should agree on a common lexicon at least.


This is exactly the kind of effect I was trying to address (in abstract, obviously) with my proposed change to how the Physicker talents work, namely requiring an IQ roll that gets harder for each subsequent 'wound' that the healer is attempting to treat.


I like what you are going for here, but I wonder if the half-ST threshold is problematic. Do we round up or down? Would it apply equally to a 30 ST giant as well as a 10 ST human? Should the giant really take a -1 DX penalty when he still has 14 ST?

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

TippetsTX wrote:

"So in the context of this discussion, I think it is very quantifiable. I'm fairly confident that those of us who land on the 'per wound' side of this debate would define a wound as a single hit or, more specifically, any successful attack action (or threat event) which results in damage to the target’s ST. To your point, that is still an abstraction, but an acceptable one and for the sake of consistency, we should agree on a common lexicon at least."

That's the problem for me. I don't find this particular abstraction "acceptable" at all. As a result, I am unable to agree to your proposed definition/lexicon. I am not calling you "wrong" and I understand that this works for you (and others), but my players and I simply, but respectfully, don't agree. I feel that the abstraction that we play by, "leans" in the direction of realism more than any other that I have seen thus far.

I maintain that a "wound" is still very hard to quantify. Nothing in TFT, LE or otherwise, would definitively indicate the intention of "hits taken" as equating to the concept of "wounds" under discussion. And I'm sure there are quite a few folks out there with fencing, HEMA, MMA, etc. experience (including myself) who would also maintain that too much can happen in any given 5 second increment of time to say that only one single "wound" could occur. It's one of the reasons I've enjoyed TFT for so long; it has never claimed to be a simulation. Still, the whole "leaning" thing. . .

TippetsTX further wrote:

"This is exactly the kind of effect I was trying to address (in abstract, obviously) with my proposed change to how the Physicker talents work, namely requiring an IQ roll that gets harder for each subsequent 'wound' that the healer is attempting to treat."

I liked your ideas quite a bit. I found them very well thought out. As stated, above though, I disagree with your base premise of "the wound." And, ultimately your proposed changes were just a touch too "crunchy" for my group's style - still cool though.

And finally:

"I like what you are going for here, but I wonder if the half-ST threshold is problematic. Do we round up or down? Would it apply equally to a 30 ST giant as well as a 10 ST human? Should the giant really take a -1 DX penalty when he still has 14 ST?"

Thanks for the catch; I should have said "half your ST or less." And yes, I think the giant should take a -1 DX penalty when he still has 14 ST. His overall system is just as taxed as his human contemporary (i.e. he has taken a proportional number of hits). It's still early days yet though and I'm not done playing around with the concept.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

Replace Physicker healing with the following:

Any figure may attempt to bandage up any other figure's wounds on a five minute attempt. First roll 4/IQ (minus one die for each of Physicker, Master Physicker, or Vet that applies) to know what you are doing. On a critical failure inflict one (or on a break weapon result two) hits and stop.

If this roll succeeds then roll 5/DX to attempt to fix the problems you have identified. Subtract one die for each of Physicker, Master Physicker, or Vet that applies, and subtract another die for having a Physicker kit. The degree of success is the number of hits on the target that are converted into fatigue. On a critical failure inflict one (or on a break weapon result two) hits and stop. On a "double effect" roll halve the fatigue inflicted. On a "triple effect" roll no fatigue is inflicted.

An undisturbed bandaged up figure with negative adjST purely due to fatigue rests for one fatigue per hour until they reach zero adjST.

Healing past this new baseline may be attempted once per day, but heals at most one hit per day. (Two for a double effect result and three for triple.)

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

While I agree that your proposal is a more realistic approach (assess then treat), it seems unnecessarily complex given TFT's default bias for simplicity. Obviously, my own houserule also contradicts this bias, but limits the impact to one roll instead of two... a compromise.

I do like your idea of using 4 dice as the base difficulty and reducing by 1 die if using a physicker's kit, however. I will be adopting that into my own ruleset.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

Do you like the degree of success as the amount healed? Then it doesn't matter how many wounds there are, just the skill of the healer.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

No, I still prefer the 'pass/fail' abstraction I initially proposed using the values from ITL.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

I admit I've never understood TFT this way. There seem to be too many examples of an attack being effectively a single blow. Not just arrows and thrown weapons, which are clearly one blow, but things like charge attacks, and the fact that armour and shields count just once against the attack. Reading the example battle in ITL it seems clear one attack is one strike.

Of course in melee combat there are many feints and a flurry of moves, but I always considered this to be a prelude to attempting to land one solid and disabling blow on your opponent. When I watch HEMA type fights it seems clear that it's usually that you create an opening for a decent strike, if you can, then pull back ready for the next clash, rather than hacking several times. So in my head the 5 seconds is used to try to manoeuver a good strike.

I'm not sure this is in itself is that important regarding healing though.

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

Thank you for bringing some 'professional' views to the discussion! :)

Okay, so the point about shock implies that many small wounds can be shrugged off but a big wound is much harder? In TFT terms, eight 1 point wounds should be 'less harmful' in some way than one 8 point wound?

And there is the point that a healthy person can take a wound better than someone who is already wounded? In TFT terms, a 2 point wound should be 'more harmful' to someone who is already hurt?

I'm not sure I get the bit about 'cannot be treated individually'. If a patient has two large cuts, then there must be a sense in which each cut can be treated, even if there is (also) some sort of 'overall' damage to the person as a result of the two cuts - trauma, shock, bloodloss etc, stuff which has 'one' effect on the whole body?

Am I understanding correctly?

Re: Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent
 

Yes, for me too it works fine as an abstraction.


Yes, there are several cases where an attack or other cause of damage does seem to be a single event that would almost always cause a single wound:

* missile shots
* thrown weapons
* missile spells
* many traps

Also, returning to considering the way damage from individual wounds are all individually healable even when doing per-fight combat, IF the wounds are taken each in separate fights.

Why would that matter?

Particularly when low-damage foes are encountered (e.g. nuisance creatures), player awareness of a "per fight" healing system will strongly reward the gamey knowledge of the players that that's how healing works, to rotate out anyone who gets even slightly hurt in a fight in favor of putting people who haven't been hurt in that fight yet to risk being in harm's way, with the idea all the damage will vanish if no one takes more than 2 or 3 points, but they'll be lasting injury if someone has 4 or more 1-hit rat bites or something.

And as MikMod wrote, the way armor subtracts from damage of an attack once strongly implies to me that the damage and protection math is about single hits.