[RPM] Limits on Healing

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Bazial

I'm working on a handout for a low fantasy campaign, very much in the vein of Leiber, Howard and Asprin's Thieves' World anthologies. I'm taking a few flavor cues from the d20 version of Thieves' World, and among one of the principles I'd like to adapt is limitations on healing magic. Basically, straight-on patch-the-wound-healing magic does not exist. Magic does not have to power to directly restore; instead, "healing" is done through transferring damage to another subject (much like the Empathetic version of the Healing advantages presented in Powers), it has some price that affects the healed individual, or it can, at best, only accelerate the healing process.

This would of course greatly limit the effects of Restore Body in RPM. My players are fine with the idea of healing magic working like this, but I'd love some advice on the mechanics. Should my notes on RPM in the handout simply include a clause that states something along the lines of:

"RPM cannot directly heal without some sort of catch, and all rituals aimed at healing the body must include effects to accommodate this."

In my urban fantasy campaign - The Chronicles of Ceteri - I allow a maximum amount of healed HP equal to (Total HP x 5) in a single month/lunar cycle. You can go beyond this limit. but every multiple of (HP/2) requires you make a HT roll at a cumulative -1 penalty. Success means you're okay for now. Failure results in a cumulative -1 to HT rolls for one month/lunar cycle. You should -1 in penalties if you don't go beyond your threshold for one month/lunar cycle, double if you were not the subject of healing magic or suffered no HP loss during that time, or tripled if both. It worked quite well. Made my players properly paranoid about taking damage and they acted accordingly in combat.

Originally Posted by Celti

You could rule that all Healing effects are actually Salving effects: see Salving Magic in Pyramid #3/13: Thaumatology. Essentially, Salving magic is magic that cancels the effects of injury and promotes natural healing, but you're still injured and in danger of dying from further injury until you heal naturally.

This is good too.