Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent

[RobW]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Once again the topic of physicker healing logic came up in the main forum, so I'm starting a thread here to continue the discussion rather than have this sort of discussion there.

It's a good discussion, but I fear this is searching for an answer about Physicker in the wrong way. TFT combat does not reflect the real world. In TFT I can be stabbed with a spear for 6 damage, and then Physicker or not, after the battle I am surprisingly nimble. Maybe I'll go shopping in town for some new gear? Maybe I'll visit the pub? This puncture wound? Ah it's nothing, get them all the time!

Yes, it's unrealistic that you can be shot by 4 arrows from a short bow and then be fully healed. Whether those shots occur in one fight or four! But it's unrealistic that you can be impaled on a spear, or hit a few times with a sword, and then later that day carry on with your adventure.

My point is that trying to work out how Physicker talent should work by whether the effects are consistent and logical in any real world correspondence ultimately (a) won't work, and (b) won't matter.

Instead, Physicker is a talent that lets PCs carry on with these unrealistic battles and deeds. The real question is, how powerful do you want that talent to be? If you allow healing once per combat (hard mode) then it is a valuable but maybe not necessary talent for the party. If a Physicker can heal 2 damage from each attack (casual mode :)) then the benefit of a Physicker are overwhelming, every party will want one.

One reason to go with "easy mode" is that it lets the PCs take on more and more difficult battles with greater hope of success. That to me is a good reason. Whether that is more consistent with the real world in any way, I don't think matters, because we are already in a very unrealistic realm.

[hcobb]

Just remember to roll every ten minutes the characters sit around for something from the table at ITL 74.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by RobW

It's a good discussion, but I fear this is searching for an answer about Physicker in the wrong way. TFT combat does not reflect the real world. In TFT I can be stabbed with a spear for 6 damage, and then Physicker or not, after the battle I am surprisingly nimble. Maybe I'll go shopping in town for some new gear? Maybe I'll visit the pub? This puncture wound? Ah it's nothing, get them all the time!

Yes, it's unrealistic that you can be shot by 4 arrows from a short bow and then be fully healed. Whether those shots occur in one fight or four! But it's unrealistic that you can be impaled on a spear, or hit a few times with a sword, and then later that day carry on with your adventure.

My point is that trying to work out how Physicker talent should work by whether the effects are consistent and logical in any real world correspondence ultimately (a) won't work, and (b) won't matter.

Accurate realism is a different thing from self-consistency and avoiding irrational gamey-ness.

i.e. To me these are clearly two entirely different issues: whether wounds have enough effects; and whether ability to treat injury is based on "fights" or wounds.

Non-skill-impairing spear stabs may be unrealistic, but at least they're self-consistent as it works the same for everyone.

But Joe being unhealable while Bob is healable based only on whether their identical injuries took place during the same "fight" or were spread out in multiple "fights" is, to me, unignorable gamey weirdness with no satisfying in-world explanation.

It also seems to me that it can "work" to house-rule either or both to suit players' tastes. Certainly it did "matter" to us even as inexperienced kids, and it "worked" for us to rule as we did.

[Jeff Lord]

Skarg wrote:

"Accurate realism is a different thing from self-consistency and avoiding irrational gamey-ness."

I agree completely. And I think that the RAW do an admirable job of accomplishing the latter two.

This discussion had led me to fear that I was falling prey to the fallacy of confirmation bias. I've been playing this way (RAW) for decades; it was a distinct possibility. So I reached out to three gamer friends/former students who are also health care professionals (one trauma surgeon and two paramedics).

They all agreed that the RAW are an abstraction (most certainly not simulation) of reality. But they also all agreed that it was a vastly superior abstraction to the proposed treatment per "wound."

They further opined that if they were to make any suggestions to improve upon the RAW, they would have any character that fell under 0 ST make a roll versus their base ST in order for any type of healing to have any effect. I thought that was a pretty neat idea. They had some other ideas that I'll share later since I don't want to muddy the waters here now, so to speak.

At the end of the day, I think that this is purely a matter of de gustibus non disputandum est.

Some people will prefer, as larsdangly put it, the "hard mode," while others might prefer Skarg's treatment per wound. I truly do see the appeal for folks that don't want the lethality of the RAW. As Skarg mentioned, it "worked" for his group. If your table is happy, then by all means, run with it. Because, ultimately, if you're having fun you're "winning."

But I still don't see any real usefulness for people to be tossing around words such as "illogical" and "irrational" (the phrase "doesn't make sense" also gets dishonorable mention when not used in conjunction with "to me").

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lord

Skarg wrote:They all agreed that the RAW are an abstraction (most certainly not simulation) of reality. But they also all agreed that it was a vastly superior abstraction to the proposed treatment per "wound."

This is interesting. Can you say why they thought 'per fight' healing was better than 'per wound'?

[hcobb]

If you heal per combat then you need to track wounds taken in that combat anyway to not repeat the bug in the app of healing two hits after each non-damaging combat.

[Jeff Lord]

Hi MikMod. I'd be happy to try.

First off, I've repeatedly stated that I don't believe that "per wound" is actually a quantifiable thing. What is a "wound," exactly? We have a 5 second combat round (as opposed to 1 second in GURPS); a lot can happen. When a sword (any) hits you for maximum damage, that might be one good shot - or it might be two or three, or more. The same goes for a dagger in HTH. You take "hits" from a successful attack; that doesn't necessarily translate to a single "wound." Admittedly, arrow damage is harder to justify this way but that's a whole other story.

One of the reasons that I prefer TFT to GURPS is that these particular abstractions work for me and my players. YMMV, obviously.

Apologies in advance for trying to sum up (and/or condense) a number of Skype conversations. The gist of what the folks I spoke with said was as follows - "wounds" are not simply the sum of their respective parts. Hence they are not able to be treated as individual, discrete, units. If the human body takes (for example) four points of hits, that's not good. If it takes four points of hits and then another four points of hits, this is actually much worse than four points of hits X2. The accretion of damage will drastically impact the body's ability to "shrug it off." Trauma based shock is not fun.

This is, of course, only important if you want your abstraction to "lean" more towards realism than other abstractions. In the end, they are all abstractions. The argument for wanting to extend play by having the players able to deal with more damage is a powerful and compelling one if such is your desire.

In addition to healing considerations, this has led me to toy with the idea (house-ruled, of course) that players with less than half their ST (or whatever home-brew stat is in use) suffer a -1 DX penalty, just as players with 3 ST or less suffer a -3 DX penalty.

I think Skarg had the right of it when he said:

"But when we play and GM immersive RPGs a certain way for years, our perspectives get pretty developed and it can be challenging to step into another player's different perspective."

And I agreed with him again when he said:

"In my case, when the topic is something I'm convinced of a strong opinion about, I tend to keep trying to explain that perspective until it sounds like people get what I'm saying, especially if they seem to be responding to my posts by asserting things in ways that seem to not get what I've been trying to explain."

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lord

First off, I've repeatedly stated that I don't believe that "per wound" is actually a quantifiable thing. What is a "wound," exactly? We have a 5 second combat round (as opposed to 1 second in GURPS); a lot can happen. When a sword (any) hits you for maximum damage, that might be one good shot - or it might be two or three, or more. The same goes for a dagger in HTH. You take "hits" from a successful attack; that doesn't necessarily translate to a single "wound." Admittedly, arrow damage is harder to justify this way but that's a whole other story.

So in the context of this discussion, I think it is very quantifiable. I'm fairly confident that those of us who land on the 'per wound' side of this debate would define a wound as a single hit or, more specifically, any successful attack action (or threat event) which results in damage to the target’s ST. To your point, that is still an abstraction, but an acceptable one and for the sake of consistency, we should agree on a common lexicon at least.

Originally Posted by Jeff Lord

Hence they are not able to be treated as individual, discrete, units. If the human body takes (for example) four points of hits, that's not good. If it takes four points of hits and then another four points of hits, this is actually much worse than four points of hits X2. The accretion of damage will drastically impact the body's ability to "shrug it off." Trauma based shock is not fun

This is exactly the kind of effect I was trying to address (in abstract, obviously) with my proposed change to how the Physicker talents work, namely requiring an IQ roll that gets harder for each subsequent 'wound' that the healer is attempting to treat.

Originally Posted by Jeff Lord

In addition to healing considerations, this has led me to toy with the idea (house-ruled, of course) that players with less than half their ST (or whatever home-brew stat is in use) suffer a -1 DX penalty, just as players with 3 ST or less suffer a -3 DX penalty.

I like what you are going for here, but I wonder if the half-ST threshold is problematic. Do we round up or down? Would it apply equally to a 30 ST giant as well as a 10 ST human? Should the giant really take a -1 DX penalty when he still has 14 ST?

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lord

What is a "wound," exactly? We have a 5 second combat round (as opposed to 1 second in GURPS); a lot can happen. When a sword (any) hits you for maximum damage, that might be one good shot - or it might be two or three, or more. The same goes for a dagger in HTH. You take "hits" from a successful attack; that doesn't necessarily translate to a single "wound." Admittedly, arrow damage is harder to justify this way but that's a whole other story.

I admit I've never understood TFT this way. There seem to be too many examples of an attack being effectively a single blow. Not just arrows and thrown weapons, which are clearly one blow, but things like charge attacks, and the fact that armour and shields count just once against the attack. Reading the example battle in ITL it seems clear one attack is one strike.

Of course in melee combat there are many feints and a flurry of moves, but I always considered this to be a prelude to attempting to land one solid and disabling blow on your opponent. When I watch HEMA type fights it seems clear that it's usually that you create an opening for a decent strike, if you can, then pull back ready for the next clash, rather than hacking several times. So in my head the 5 seconds is used to try to manoeuver a good strike.

I'm not sure this is in itself is that important regarding healing though.

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lord

The gist of what the folks I spoke with said was as follows - "wounds" are not simply the sum of their respective parts. Hence they are not able to be treated as individual, discrete, units. If the human body takes (for example) four points of hits, that's not good. If it takes four points of hits and then another four points of hits, this is actually much worse than four points of hits X2. The accretion of damage will drastically impact the body's ability to "shrug it off." Trauma based shock is not fun.

Thank you for bringing some 'professional' views to the discussion! :)

Okay, so the point about shock implies that many small wounds can be shrugged off but a big wound is much harder? In TFT terms, eight 1 point wounds should be 'less harmful' in some way than one 8 point wound?

And there is the point that a healthy person can take a wound better than someone who is already wounded? In TFT terms, a 2 point wound should be 'more harmful' to someone who is already hurt?

I'm not sure I get the bit about 'cannot be treated individually'. If a patient has two large cuts, then there must be a sense in which each cut can be treated, even if there is (also) some sort of 'overall' damage to the person as a result of the two cuts - trauma, shock, bloodloss etc, stuff which has 'one' effect on the whole body?

Am I understanding correctly?