[Powers] Healing Attack concept

[Prince Charon]

The idea is basically like an Innate Attack in all ways, except that instead of inflicting one die of damage per level, it heals one die of damage per level. This is both more and less useful in various ways than the standard Healing advantage, which leaves me wondering what the cost-per-level should be, as well as what other rules should apply. I did think about trying to apply a set of modifiers to the Healing advantage in the Basic Set, but that seems rather clunky.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

(Yes, it was somewhat inspired by Magical Girl shows, among other things, but a lot of those are mainly Anti-Possession spells, with the healing being a side effect.)

[Varyon]

RPM has Healing be the same cost as burning, crushing, and piercing damage, implying [5]/level. I'd personally be inclined to boost this to [10]/level, however, and I feel you should need to target the same hit location as was initially injured to heal it, but that will add further bookkeeping. Note this would be for a healing projectile with Range 10/100 (as standard for Innate Attack), so you need to be able to actually hit the target, and that DR would protect normally against it. You can, of course, change this - Guided to get rid of range penalties (but you'll want to increase 1/2D if you want to be able to hit someone far away without having to steer for multiple turns), Malediction to turn it into a spell-like effect, etc. As for having it get rid of curses and the like, you could probably do something like Side Effect: Negated Disadvantage. My discussion of a Healing "element" in my old wand-based magic thread may potentially be of some use to you.

[whswhs]

When I wrote GURPS Powers: The Weird, one of the powers under Noumena, Demiurgy, could either inflict or cure injury. I based it on Illusion. To make it able to inflict actual wounds, I gave it Broadcast (so that multiple people could see it), Mental (so that the illusion was communicated directly to the mind), and Stigmata (so that the wounds it caused were real). To allow the reversal, I added Cosmic, Can heal as well as harm, +50%.

If you added that last to Innate Attack, you'd get, say, an attack that could either eat away flesh and armor, or restore them, up to the number of dice you bought. Cumulative healing attempts would be at -3 for each additional attempt.

I suppose if you could only heal the modifier would be reduced; it might end up as the slight odd Cosmic, can heal instead of harm, -50%.

[zoncxs]

I would build this healing ability as the following:

Healing (Cosmic, No Die Roll Required, +100%; Reduced Time, +20%; Follow-Up, +300%; Injuries only, -20%; PM, -10%) [147]

+

Compartmentalized Mind 1 (Limited, One Ability, -30%; No Mental Separation, -20%; PM, -10%) [20]

+

Crushing Attack 1 point (Cosmic, Irresistible attack, +300%; No Wounding, -50%; No Blunt Trauma, -20%; No Knockback, -10%; PM, -10%; 1 point attack, x0.25) [4]

Expensive, yes.

Healing advantage requires a concentration maneuver for 1 second, then IQ roll to use. Reduce time makes it so that you can concentrate and use it on the same turn.

Cosmic, No Die Roll Required is so you don't have to roll to heal as long as your IQ is 3 or greater.

Compartmentalized Mind is used because, you need to take a concentration maneuver for Healing and an attack one for innate attack. This lets you do both at the same time.

The crushing attack causes no injury and by-passes any DR.

[Blind Mapmaker]

One of the big drawbacks of the Healing advantage and magical healing both is that they always cost FP. Innate Attack doesn't by default. If you want to make healing attacks just another "damage type", I would port the fatigue cost over. 1 FP per 2 HP would be fair, but you could also go with 2 FP per dice to make it more random and a little more costly (average die roll being 3.5). Then there's the fact that an IQ roll is probably worth more than a to-hit-roll against a presumably close-by and non-defending character.

It being ranged is also a point of note. I would save some points and utility by making it injury only (canonically -20%) and of course you also have the limit of not being able to heal more than your dice roll, though FP is probably more of an issue. Make it so that missing FP come from HP and it looks more or less coherent.

A fair cost would be easier to set if Innate Attack had a buy-in level, but with flat level costs this should probably be no cheaper than 15 points / level. It's probably better for DX-oriented characters than Healing, but it's chancier if your target is farther away.

If you want to save points, then roll healing damage regardless whether you hit or not and charge FP appropriately. This should probably be the default in "unfriendly fire" in any case. If you spend FP even on a miss, I could see 10 (or more likely 12) points / level as justified. Still, it's a bit dodgy to offer healing cheaper than 15 points.

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

The idea is basically like an Innate Attack in all ways, except that instead of inflicting one die of damage per level, it heals one die of damage per level. This is both more and less useful in various ways than the standard Healing advantage, which leaves me wondering what the cost-per-level should be, as well as what other rules should apply. I did think about trying to apply a set of modifiers to the Healing advantage in the Basic Set, but that seems rather clunky.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

(Yes, it was somewhat inspired by Magical Girl shows, among other things, but a lot of those are mainly Anti-Possession spells, with the healing being a side effect.)

My intuitive thought is that it should be 40 points per level.

That's the equivalent of the highest cost Innate Attack type (corrosion) with a +300% Cosmic modifier. And I think it's reasonable for the ability to heal 1d HP every second just by hitting someone with a targeted ray from your hand or whatever, even if it has to bypass DR and can't cure diseases, or reverse crippling, etc.

And I suspect that, if this ability were offered at 40 points per level in a Dungeon Fantasy or Supers campaign, it would get bought regularly by players.

[RyanW]

My first instinct (probably bad) is to start with Affliction (Extra HP) or Affliction (Ablative DR) and start adding modifiers and special effects to make it so close to "virtual HP regain" that you might as well just call it regaining HP.

[Prince Charon]

I'm oddly pleased that there is such a wide difference between responces, and a bit surprised that I feel that way.

[Donny Brook]

Alright then, Afflict (Advantage: Ablative DR, Time-spanning)

[Otaku]

This is probably my ignorance showing, but can someone explain to me why healing needs to be significantly more expensive/difficult than harming? Other than, in the real world (and many settings), the capacity to create (or heal) rather than destroy is far easier to come by?

In other words, I am quite interested in some kind of "Innate Attack" that heals instead of harms. Even the existing variations on Innate Attack (like Crushing, Cutting, etc.) may have some merit applied to healing attacks. Less so than with damage, but if DR needs to be subtracted from "healing damage", then someone backing up troops in armor (or high DR supers) probably shouldn't get "Innate Attack (Crushing Healing)".

Yes, I know my terminology is confusing; I'm sure you all can come up with something better. :)