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Originally Posted by Plane
Who says the healing spell is simple? Maybe there's low (-5) or very low (-10) mana, or you can only heal ceremonially (10 seconds, not 1) or you're too far away (-1 per yard)
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Ever since reading a scene in
Elantris where a character was unable to heal a deep wound with his weak healing magic (the magic would just heal the surface damage, and then the wound would simply reopen and keep bleeding), I've felt it would be interesting to implement something in GURPS that made magical healing more difficult based on wound severity, rather than just meaning you can chip away at it with lesser healing effects (so you need a particularly potent potion, for example, rather than just being able to chug a quart of the weak stuff). Conditional Injury lends itself well to this; currently I'm leaning toward healing that is 3 or more severity classes lower than the wound being ineffective, healing that is 2 classes lower reducing severity by 1, healing that is 1 class lower reducing by 2, and healing equal to or exceeding severity eliminates the wound. It would probably be OK to have this mechanic replace healing iteration penalties (that is, the penalty you suffer for trying to heal the same character multiple times).
For more basic magic/Healing Advantage/whatever, a penalty based on the severity of the worst wound the foe has suffered wouldn't be out of line (although it does make supernatural healing less effective). Of course, in a setting where magical healing can readily restore someone from the brink of death, I don't see a problem with allowing magical healing to restore someone from the brink of death. Hostage-takers may have to figure out something that works quicker than a knife to the throat if their enemies have access to such.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plane
GM is also left to define what "obviously lethal" is. It's a bad first since that can be a blurry line with weak weapons and strong characters.
Handwaiving this also seems to be a contradiction to 4e abandoning 3e's decapitation rules because it too easily caused deaths.
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I'm not familiar with 3e, but I believe the Instant Death rule is more along the lines of "If the character surviving would wreck the GM and players' Sense of Disbelief, it's OK to not bother with any rolling and simply declare 'He's dead, Jim.'" In general, however, I'd be more inclined to see what the dice say.