Regeneration + Mitigated-Unhealing based on Number of HP Regenerated?

[watsonsword]

Making a character who's body contains a reservoir of substance it can use to heal itself. When this substance runs out, the character can no longer heal until this substance is replenished.

I thought I could do this by combining regeneration and minor-regrowth with total-unhealing. The total-unhealing would have a treatment-mitigator. This treatment is not based on time, but on number of HP regenerated. The character can only regenerate X HP before total-unhealing activates. It then deactivated with treatment.

Thing is, with my current sources, there's no way for me figure out what the point cost would be!

[lvalero]

I would use Healing (or regeneration) + Costs Energy Reserve (not Fatigue). This ER would be the "substance". So, when you run out of ER you can heal no more.

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by lvalero

I would use Healing (or regeneration) + Costs Energy Reserve (not Fatigue). This ER would be the "substance". So, when you run out of ER you can heal no more.

This sounds right to me.

[Farmer]

Agree with the above. And then you can cost it based on how easy or difficult it is to replenish the reservoir.

[the_matrix_walker]

Originally Posted by lvalero

I would use Healing (or regeneration) + Costs Energy Reserve (not Fatigue). This ER would be the "substance". So, when you run out of ER you can heal no more.

This is the way to go, and acquiring a substance to replenish your ER would be a special recharge limitation.

[Plane]

another idea might be to take "Aftermath: Unhealing" which is 1/2 the value it'd be as a Temporary Disadvantage, and lasts 10 minutes or however long you had your Regeneration on, whichever is longer

To do this you would need some kind of limitation on how long Regeneration stays on to, like Maximum Duration.

[ericthered]

Could this be a weird vitality reserve? That might be the simplest way to represent it

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by watsonsword

Making a character who's body contains a reservoir of substance it can use to heal itself. When this substance runs out, the character can no longer heal until this substance is replenished.

I thought I could do this by combining regeneration and minor-regrowth with total-unhealing. The total-unhealing would have a treatment-mitigator. This treatment is not based on time, but on number of HP regenerated. The character can only regenerate X HP before total-unhealing activates. It then deactivated with treatment.

Thing is, with my current sources, there's no way for me figure out what the point cost would be!

The GM would need to come up with a base assumption for how much damage the character is likely to take during, say, a day of adventuring (if this is in excess of your character's healing rate, he'd use your character's maximum healing rate instead). You then set the rate of treatment based on that.

So, let's say the GM decides your character is unlikely to typically take more than 100% of HP* of damage during a day of adventuring, and your character can regenerate at least that much (Regular Regeneration is good for 240% of HP per day). If you have a reserve of 100% of HP, that calls for Daily treatment. If you have a reserve of 1000% of HP, that's right between Weekly (700%) and BiWeekly (1400%), and so forth.

*I typically set each HP of regeneration as 10% of HP - so a character with HP 15 and Extreme Regeneration would recover 15 HP per second, not 10. Makes the jump from HP 19 to HP 20 less extreme. If you prefer to stick with things as-is, the above become 10 HP, 24 HP, 10 HP, 100 HP, 70 HP, and 140 HP, respectively.

[watsonsword]

I apologize. I left out an important piece of information.

This substance does not replenish itself. So this feature is similar to a dependency, except it's not based on time. It can last indefinitely if the character takes no damage. But if it runs out, unhealing activates until the character ingests more.

Using current GURPS advantages/disadvantages and their mods, there's doesn't seem to be any way to do this!

Now, it would be so easy to simply invent this feature. Making these rules is not a problem. The problem is simply figuring out the point cost. According to the setting, Varyon's suggestion of a 24 HP reservoir for regeneration would be ideal.

The character is a class of NPCs called Zoids. Their bio is in the form a dialogue, this being the most important part:

Are the Zoids machines or organic?

Something in between.

Cyborgs?

No. Cyborgs are organic with machine parts, or machines with organic parts. Even at the molecular level, the Zoids aren't machine or organic, but something in between.

Well... we've all seen the advantages of that firsthand. What about the disadvantages?

They can't heal naturally.

The hell are you talking about? I've seen them heal from getting impaled through-and-through in less than a day! Scarlessly!

They have reservoirs of a base substance that their bodies are made of. Their wounds don't heal themselves. Instead, they use this substance to heal. And their bodies can't make the stuff. Imagine you have a bag of stem cells inside you. If you get cut, your skin can't regenerate. Instead, your body uses up some of those stem cells to close the wound. And those stem cells can't replicate! When you run out, you can never heal from anything again until your bag is refilled from outside.

How's that different from us needing food?

There's a reason organic life is made of such soft stuff. It might be easy to break, but it's also easy to mend. But if you're made of harder stuff? You don't mend so easy. Our bodies can use food to make the substance they need to heal. Imagine you can't do that. Instead, that substance has to be manufactured in a lab. And if that lab disappears...

You starve?

Maybe after years. But the main thing is, you just can't heal anymore.

So the superhuman powers of the Zoids come at the expense of adaptability?

[ericthered]

Perhaps vitality reserve that doesn't immediately keep you alive is appropriate?