healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

I haven't really been able to find rules on how stuff like "there's a bullet in me" would impede healing, what kind of rolls you would use to try and remove things, and if there are any advantages which would just let your body be so good at healing that it pushes that stuff out without needing surgery. Anyone know?

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Well... if you want to stop healing, you can use a cyclic attack, with "surgery" as a way to stop the damage.
But I don't know how to make healing or regeneration affect that.

Edit: If you consider surgery as part of that relatively common set of circumstances, but it might very well be for a cyclic attack that deals very little damage daily.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

In reality there usually isn't much reason to remove a bullet in and of itself. It's usually just a side-effect of fixing the injuries the bullet has caused. Or put another way, there is no need to remove the bullet, but there is a need to fix the hole it made in your colon...

I have left many bullets and shell fragments in people (until a couple of years ago I was heavily involved in trauma surgery in the Army) who have gone on to live quite happily. Ronald Reagan would have been better off if that little .22 slug had just been left where it was- it was basically only removed to make everyone involved look good.

So leaving a bullet or arrowhead in place won't necessarily impede healing at all, absent an infection or unless it is physically interfering with something like it's stuck in a joint or a tendon or such. This is probably more of a worry for arrowheads, which will probably be much dirtier than a bullet, and are likely to still have a shaft or part of a shaft attached. (You'd have to remove an impaling shaft, obviously, but for other reasons.) Bullets were more of an issue back in the days before antibiotics and when bullets were much larger and thus much more likely to track debris and clothing fragments into the wound with them- see the bullet extraction scene in the film Master and Commander. I'd model such things with a penalty on your roll to avoid infection, and then make the infection incurable until the arrow was removed. But moderns bullets, not commonly.

Mind you, I'm simplifying incredibly. I can of course come up with many situations in which I would/have had to remove all sorts of fragments from people. Larger fragments, in particular. The guy who had an RPG hit blow his rifle's stock and buffer spring into his back comes to mind...

But if I had a bullet in my liver, I would definitely prefer to leave it there. Taking it out would be infinitely more dangerous than ignoring it. Bullets and fragments in muscle, tendon, and other mechanical tissues sometimes get bothersome when they cause scarring and contraction (and thus pain or decreased function) and people will come to you wanting them removed, and that's not as much of an issue. If something like that hurts, I've generally been willing to remove them. But that's not a problem of immediate wound healing. Ones close to a neural structure can cause problems, too.

Anyway, in a modern campaign I wouldn't sweat bullets and fragments much, unless you needed it for some dramatic purpose. Just use the GURPS injury system for deciding if someone needs surgery. It's actually not a terrible system, as I have written elsewhere on this forum many times- see my sig below.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Well, having a bullet left inside of you is a certain amount of damage that can't be healed until the bullet is removed (though it's generally below the resolution of the GURPS game system), so regeneration that involves healing perfectly presumably has a method of getting rid of foreign objects.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Not really. You're just around the bullet. Bodies can remodel to a minimal degree, though there certainly are problems that retained foreign bodies can cause, of course.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

[QUOTE=acrosome;2351975

I have left many bullets and shell fragments in people (until a couple of years ago I was heavily involved in trauma surgery in the Army) who have gone on to live quite happily. .[/QUOTE]

In the late 1970s we discovered that my granfather still had some shell fragments in him from WWII. To my knowledge they didn't get removed then either.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

750 grain bullets weigh more than an ounce, sixteen ounce-bullets in you and that's a pound of non-functional encumbrance ;)

Also kind of an interesting way to get "payload without paying for it" if you end up not removing a ninja-star and later want to pull it out and use it.

There could also be nuisance effects like "sets off metal detectors" or "Magneto will have fun with you" if stuff like that isn't removed.

In which case, distinguishing between healing which can push it out and healing which can't might be interesting.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

It was, in theory, an explosive bullet (lead azide filling). It hadn't gone off, but having that sitting in the president would surely make people nervous?

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

I've played around with the idea of making straight Regeneration only accelerate natural healing, leaving scars and bones that need to be set quickly. Regrowth would push bullets out. Not sure if that "natural healing only" bit should be a limitation on Regeneration or not.

Edit: I use PK's lower cost for Regrowth.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Fascinating.

Is lead poisoning not an issue with leaving bullets in people?

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Yes, it is, though it looks like the recommendation isn't to change policy about removing them, just keep an eye out for later issues.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Good Lord, Brother, if you've been hit by sixteen 750 grain bullets then you have far bigger problems than your encumbrance...

Just sayin'.

The lead isn't in a particularly bioavailable form. Not normally a problem. But $#!+ happens.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

I rather suspect that 16 750 grain bullets (a not atypical value, if a tetch high, for a .50 BMG round) have struck a human, the result is “hamburger.”

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Bear in mind that this is in the context of supernatural healing or regeneration, and thus might involve supernatural injury tolerance as well.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Well, Unkillable 2 mostly. Unkillable 3 leaves this problem behind him and UK1 doesn't get far enough. IT:Diffuse isn't dead unless he had very few HP to bagin with. IT:Homogenous might get the UK1 guy far enough for it to matter if he also had a base of 30+ HP.

That's off the top of my head but It looks like it's a pretty specialized situation.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Even without UK1 we aren't necessarily talking about mortals getting all these bullets in a short period of time.

Maybe you get 1 bullet lodged in you per day with the wound healed by your mage friend, and at the end of the month you're 2 pounds heavier because they didn't get removed?

IT:Damage Reduction / Supernatural Durability might also whether the wounds.

DR (natural or worn) is also an interesting consideration too.

If you're wearing DR5 and some 1d attacks occasionally get 1 Penetrating Damage, wouldn't the entire slug still be in your body?

Or... what happens to the 5/6 of shots that are entirely stopped by DR? Do some stay lodged in your dented metal plate (though you could probably remove them more easily than from your flesh) vs bouncing off and falling to the ground near you?

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

A .50 BMG even out of one of the shorrter barrels is 12D or 42pts of penetration and 63 pts of tissue damage. That's beyond the -5xHP point for anyone with 10 HP to start with. So surviving even one of those is unlikely for an average guy.

Unless you're using the "blowthrough" rules and in that case there is no remaining projectile. It's probably only the lower end of pistol bullets or shorgun pellets that don't blow through and those won't add up to an ounce per. A whole load of shotgun pellets is only c. an ounce and a half or less.

Enough Damage Reduction to keep rifle bullets from blowing through does complicate the situation. What happens with Supernatural Durability is anybody's guess as the rules in that are dubious holdover's from G:Vampire the Masquerade and I find them hard to parse.

Bullets may remain in ballistic fiber armor or even ballistic fiber carriers for harder trauma plates. Actually steel-like armor will see most non-penetrating bullets either riccochet or shatter.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Yeah I probably shouldn't have gone w/ the heaviest round for this example... lighter rounds would be a more common threat anyway

checking for something lighter on B278...

a .36 revolver has a 0.24 weight for payload, divided by 6 shots = 0.04 per round.

I don't know exactly how much of a cartridge is the % of weight which is the fired bullet so I'll just say 25% for convenience (low-ball?) to make that 0.01

This would means it would take getting shot 100 times (whether in your fiber armor or your flesh that your mage friend heals) to gain 1 pound of weight? Could still add up.

This could especially matter for creatures like zombies who can just keep on truckin' due to how Unliving reduces Piercing damage (as Homogenous). They have lower Cover DR so heavy rounds would be more likely to overpenetrate and not get lodged, but low damage should still stay stuck.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Sources for bullet weights are pretty common. Your problem would be that US sources tend to be in grains. There are 7000 graisn to the pound and common weights for things that might not blow through are 147 grains for a 9mm HP. That rounds up to 48 to the pound.

It's 62 grains for a 5.56mm NATO and at short range that might not blow through because it'll break up

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Now, figure out how much dead weight Wolverine would have picked up over the years (though occasionally getting skeletonized and regenerating back probably takes care of it).

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Pretty sure he doesn't need to get skeletonized to do it...

I CAN HEAR STUFF SLOSHING
INSIDE OF ME, TRYING TO KNIT
ITSELF TOGETHER.

I CAN FEEL THEM BULLETS
SCRAPING MY ADAMANTIUM-
LACED BONES AS MY BODY
TRIES TO EXPEL THEM.

If we don't consider this part of basic HP restoration, I did have one idea on how to do it...

We can use Exoteleport to Warp small objects...

net modifiers -80% below reduce Warp to a 20 point advantage.

-240% in limitations

Blind Only -50% (B89)
Drift -15% (B89)
Exoteleport -50%
Modified Capacity -30%
Range Limit -50% (10y)
Reduced Range 1/10, -30%; (1y, legal per PP68)
Trigger: Injury -15%

+160% in enhancements
Based on HT +20%
Blink +25%
No Strain +25%
Reliable 10 +50%
Tunnel +40%

modifiers for Affliction net +150%

+320% enhancements:
Advantage: Modified Warp (as above) +200%
Aura +80%
Reflexive +40%

-170% limitations:
Contact Agent -30%
Costs two Fatigue -10%
Costs two HP -20%
Blood Agent, Reversed -40%
Melee -30%
Onset: 1 minute -10%
Requires HT roll -10%
Super -10%
Uncontrollable -10%

Total cost of 25 points at 1/5 for being an "Internal Advantage" (can't Warp a bullet that you bled on if it's OUTSIDE you) and by making it an Alternative Ability to Rapid Healing or greater, you reduce that to a perk: I'd figure Uncontrollable could force you to switch to this to expel objects even if you'd rather be healing damage, and Reflexive could let you do it even if you didn't know a foreign object was inside you.

Expulsion (Psionic Powers 69) is another option, but the problem there is you only get 1 attempt per object (can't retry if it fails) and works a bit too quickly (sometimes takes time for Wolvie's HF to work bullets out) plus there's no cost (Wolverine logically is going to lose some HP/FP pushing bullets out, it just doesn't matter because he has crazy HP/FP regeneration.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

heh every time it happens he leaves a small pile of fragments and bullets! Kind of like a very extreme full body cleanse/colonic irrigation



So OK to the OP I'd maybe have 1pt perk to for various super healing to handily expel any foreign objects while healing.

But what I'd also say is if the healing has a limitation based on certain materials I'd rule the expelling effect doesn't work on fragments and objects made of that material and if they stay in there your super healing doesn't work (i.e you hav eto go digging for them if you want them out and your healing to deal with teh injury.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Whether basic Regeneration - or, more likely Regeneration with Regrowth - automatically pushes things out of your body (or breaks them down, or whatever) or not is ultimately up to the GM. One of the few cases where it would make a significant difference would be with impaling weapons that get stuck (be it due to being sw imp, a barbed arrow/spearhead, or whatever), as it allows you to remove the offending object without a skill check (against Surgery, typically, although some GM's may allow for First Aid/Physician) or taking half the damage again by simply waiting for your regeneration to push it out.

Personally, I'd be inclined to say Regeneration alone is insufficient (and thus stuff gets "stuck," requiring surgery of some sort to later remove if you are so inclined), but Regrowth works just fine for pushing things out (even if you lack any level of Regeneration). Not being able to do this is probably worth a small Limitation on Regrowth - about -10%. Doing this without Regrowth is essentially a Perk version of Regrowth (although if you charge the full [40] for Regrowth - note many use a houserule to drop this to [10] - pushing stuff out is arguably worth [4] instead, which I'd be inclined to round up to [5]).

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

I understand why "I chop off my hand so when the new hand regrows there's no longer a tracker chip inside the new hand" would work...

But sometimes regeneration can take a long time, and be conspicuous, so being able to expel implants w/o lopping off the extremity seems like an advantage.

Especially since some might want to be able to prevent their regrowth from doing stuff like that.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

The question is, should default Regrowth do this, or should it be an Enhancement? Given the narrative and mechanical effect of Regrowth is to restore the character back to normal regardless of injury* (provided he/she survives), I’d say the default should be sufficient, but if the GM disagrees, a +10% Enhancement should suffice.

*Certain “weird” attacks don’t, to my knowledge, interact with Regrowth, such as Afflictions, aging attacks, and radiation effects. If you want to lump implants and stuck projectiles in with that, that’s certainly an option.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Actually, since B80 only talks about regrowing "lost" limbs, it sounds like it wouldn't actually help recover a crippled limb any faster (or allow recovery of a permanently crippled one) unless you triggered it by adding to the damage and lopping the crippled part off.

IE if a cow bites and crushes my hand regrowth won't give me an uncrippled hand unless I let a lion eat it off entirely.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

If you want to be pedantic to the point of uselessness, sure. Also, there are several bits in Powers that indicate Regrowth should help with crippled (but not severed) bits. For example, Regrowth Only (a Limitation) on Regeneration specifically notes how much it reduces crippling time, and Reattachment Only on Regrowth calls out mangled limbs (that is, permanently crippled but not necessarily detached) as not being recoverable as a difference from how Regrowth normally works.

Still, a GM who wants to rule unmodified Regrowth will only work on a cleanly severed limb is well within his rights to do so.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

P70 "repairs limbs, not HP" ?

Interpreting to mean lessens crippling recovery times?

The "Limited" limitation for regeneration's first sentence is "accelerates an advantage" which would mean what Regrowth adds.

Regrowth normally can't reattach body parts unless you take P71's "Reattachment" enhancement, otherwise it needs to rebuild them.

"Severed but intact" is a standard restriction when using that enhancement (although "intact" might benefit from some embellishment)

"useless if the part is mangled, vaporized, eaten," for Regrowth Only just means you have nothing "intact" (manged = non-intact, presumably) to reattach.

The distinction is that vaporized/eaten limbs are already detached, while mangled/unintact limbs can still be attached.

Voluntarily severing a limb is a choice, which would put mangled/unintact limbs in the same situation as vaporized/eaten ones: you have a stump which your body can regrow a limb from.

Look at wording for P71's Bane limitation:

"regrow a body part if it’s lost to .. "
"if the stump is exposed to .. "

A crippled body part isn't "lost" nor is there a "stump". It needs to be severed to make room.

That's also how the "Doubling" enhancement works. You need to "lose" the limb, it's a "missing part", you can't just start growing an extra arm any time you want w/o severing it first.

Powering Up does give a Talent bonus to the HT roll to recover from Crippling Injuries though, so it does sound like you could buy "Reliable" for Regrowth to get that HT bonus.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

The way I see it, Regrowth is a very expensive advantage, so much so that most people consider it considerably over-priced, and so it's ability should be interpreted generously. The advantage says 'limbs and organs', so I see no reason it shouldn't allow regrowth of damaged or destroyed skeletal muscles, bones, tendons, etc. as well even when a limb isn't completely gone.

At its core it's the ability to recover from permanently crippling injuries, so whether or not the crippled limb is gone or not shouldn't matter.

Whether regrowth includes expelling foreign matter, resetting cosmetic surgery, not scarring vs. scarring and so on is, I think, a matter for each instance of the power.

Re: healing/regeneration and non-surgical bullet/arrow expulsion
 

Funny thing is P71's Regrowth (Reattachment Only -50%) [20] is actually more expensive than P52's Independent Body Parts (Reattachment Only -50%) [18] yet and it takes 1 minute of holding the limb in place either way, unless you have Regeneration, which speeds up Regrowth's reattachment but not IT:IBP's.

To get 1-second reattachment w/ regrowth needs Regeneration (Fast) whose 50 pt cost could be reduced by 40% to 30... so that's a sum of 50 points, 15 points costlier than IBP (RO -50% IRA+50%) [35]

IBP also seems better despite being cheaper since it gives the limbs a separate HP score and injuries to them don't carry over to you like they do with Regrowth.

Not really sure why they built reattachment into IBP at all, would've been a lot less confusing if they just said to buy RG:RA separately for that benefit.

B59 does distinguish between crippled limbs and LOST limbs, so Healing w/ Affects Self could cover that ground.

Regeneration boosts Regrowth to where a destroyed limb can be regained in the same time as Temporary Crippling (B422: until HP is back to 100%) but otherwise, Regenerationless Regrowth takes a lot longer...

1d+1 or 2d+2 months is longer than the 1d months a Lasting Crippling would take so I guess there wouldn't really be any benefit in that situation, so it's likely we're exclusively talking about it allowing "permanent crippling" to be recovered in slightly longer.

P71's "avoid or recover" ... any idea which of those B422 would be? B79 under Rapid Healing mentions "see if you can get over" so I'm thinking "recover" in which case "avoid" must be situations where crippling can occur through an avoidable means, like perhaps to resist Affliction (One Arm) or Innate Attack (Side Effect : One Arm) ?