Murphy's Rules

[JoelSammallahti]

It would actually be fairly realistic not to scale healing rate with HP in any way, because HP are very close to scaling with the inverse of metabolic rate, which should determine how fast one heals. A rat will recover in a couple of days from an injury that will keep a horse out of circulation for a month.

[smurf]

But the damage to a rat is not as much compared to a damage of a horse to put it out of action...

Of course hitting a horse with a sledge hammer will hurt it but hitting a rat with a sledge hammer will make a red eeky smear.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

It would actually be fairly realistic not to scale healing rate with HP in any way, because HP are very close to scaling with the inverse of metabolic rate, which should determine how fast one heals. A rat will recover in a couple of days from an injury that will keep a horse out of circulation for a month.

No, it's sort of fraction of size and not linear. Biotech goes into the math biut it's irrelevant to this question as what it's measuring is the necessary energy intake (and espcially the amount radited awy as body heat) and not cellular activity. That's pretty constant. A cell is a cell is a cell. Bigger critters just have more of them.

Something that a rat heals in 2 days is only a shallow gash. Use the same amount of force on a horse and you end up with an even more shallow gash, even in terms of skin thickness much less in protion tot he whole animal's size.

To make a _proportionally_ equivalent wound you need to use more force. You really do need to scale healing with HP.

Fred Brackin

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

It would actually be fairly realistic not to scale healing rate with HP in any way, because HP are very close to scaling with the inverse of metabolic rate, which should determine how fast one heals. A rat will recover in a couple of days from an injury that will keep a horse out of circulation for a month.

I think horses aren't the best examples to use for your point. Most of their injuries involve lower legs. With little circulation in that area coupled with exteme stress from keeping them off their feet long enough result in slow and difficult healing.

I still mostly agree with your view. Small animals, especially endotherms, get sick and die extremely quickly while human sized critters allow the science of vetrinary diagnostics to have a moment or two to work with.

But to get really realistic we have to deal with the even more extreme issues of damage types involving surface areas. Burns are FAR worse for a given percentage of skin involved the smaller and therefore more surface to volume one has.

[Lord Carnifex]

Originally Posted by The Benj

That's much less of Murphy than the issue that a 19 HP character takes almost double the time to heal as a 1010 HP character.
But you could partially explain that as that a meatier character can take more punishment, but that extra punishment needs extra time to heal, I guess.

Think of the extra time as being for the physical therapy needed to rebuild damaged muscle tissue and time for the restoration of fat lost due to prolonged inactivity. That's the seemingly plausible rationale I can come up with.

[Antiquation!]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Exactly, we need to enter pastures new. In the Swedish RPG "Viking", you had your basic move, and this was given a penalty for each encumbrance level you would carry. The problem was, the RAW indicated that if your character carried too much, you would actually start floating backwards.

Now, I've never seen these rules, but through the use of my *expert skills of deduction* you could carry SO much gear that you would move backwards even faster than your regular move. Sounds like something I'd set up for my main method of travel.

But not too much gear, now. Don't want to crush anything.

[Antiquation!]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Well, you see, if you're really strong you just hold the bow with the arrow nocked and your elbow bent, and then snap your arm forward at the elbow really fast. The inertia of the arrow makes the bow bend. Then, while you hold the bow out, it straightens and thus fires the arrow.

This is very similar to the effect that keeps coyotes in midair after they run off cliffs, but before they look down.

HAHAHAHAHA. Wow.

And to think I started reading this comment with the belief that it was serious.