Natural Recovery as Long Tasks?

[Plane]

B328 mentions that to be able to do the HT roll to recover HP you need "rest and decent food" with modifiers to that HT roll based on "conditions".

This raises the question of "how much rest" and "what is rest".

B346 has rules which seem like they could be interesting to apply here...

Like for example what if we considered "getting enough rest to make a HT roll to recover HP" as being a 16-hour job? (you're assumed to be resting the 8 hours of sleep already I think?)

For those with "Slow Healing" you could multiply those hours rather than the days.

This would allow "Time Spent" modifiers to penalize the HT roll as one of the conditions (less than ideal rest duration). So for example if you could only rest 8 hours (50%) you'd have to make the HT roll at -5, and if you got no rest whatsoever you'd roll at -10?

The "decent food" thing also makes me wonder: should it really be impossible to heal on a day you haven't eaten? There's usually a delay between actually eating a meal and incorporating the proteins/fats in the food as actual structures in your body, after all...

I was thinking instead you just apply a token FP cost to Natural Recovery which is easy to get back. B160 (Very Unfit) has double the FP recovery time (1 per 20m instead of 1 per 10m) so maybe something like 1 FP per hour like P159 uses for Abilities and Exertion (same as Hiking) ?

This is also an approach we might take with stuff like Regeneration?

This would help to explain the importance of food since meals can give bonus FP recovery. Though I think there should be a delay between eating (digestion actually CONSUMES energy, initially) and getting the FP reward. Like an Internal Leech (Aura, Exposure Time) w/ Temporary Disadvantage: Dependency (FP per interval). Energy-dense foods would heal at x3 the rate (exceeds dependency cost) while energy-negative foods (I think celery? more energy to digest than calories provided?) would not?

B426 assigns at least 1 FP per hour of unencumbered hiking so charging 1 FP per "hours the body is working to try and heal itself" sounds kinda-reasonable...

So a "wounded hiker" would lose 2 FP per hour (or 1 FP per 30 minutes) and need to take more frequent breaks because in addition to walking using up FP their natural healing process is also consuming energy.

That should probably shut off at 0 FP though because past there FP loss results in HP loss too, which defeats the purpose. I'd just assume someone at 0 FP is unable to gain "healing hours" until their FP goes up to 1 and they can pay the fee.

Even though B427 says "walking around" isn't "resting quietly" (can't recover FP) given that "Hiking" can be faster than "1 step per second" it could perhaps be less fatiguing (or even restful?) if someone is moving at sub-Hiking speeds?

B351 reduces Basic Move for both injury (HP loss) and exhaustion (FP loss) and encumbrance (weight carried) but assuming none of those to subtract it's Move x 10 Miles per day. You can boost that 20% with a successful Hiking roll but for simplicity I'll assume people fail those.

Not sure if day means 24 hours (total hours) or perhaps 16 (awake hours) or 8 (working hours) but even at the slowest (per 24, meaning you won't actually move the listed amount unless you don't require sleep) basic speed 5 x 10 = 50 miles per 24 hours, or 25 per 12.

There are 1760 yards in a mile, so that's 44000 yards per 720 minutes.

4,400 yards per 72 minutes simplifies to 2200 yards per 36 minutes or 1100 per 18 (1080 seconds) or 110 yards/108 seconds (55 per 54)

Normally you can move just 54 yards per 54 seconds when taking a step maneuver, so the effect of hiking long term seems to be +1/54 travel speed, largely negligible. The biggest difference being that "Step" in combat doesn't suffer reductions due to HP/FP/encumbrance (only Move does) which actually makes Hiking worse off than "cumulative step" approach.

Rather than "60 minutes on, 10 off" approach to fatigue, you might instead say that since it takes 70 minutes to move a "1 hour hiking distance" and net 0 FP, that you could have a "unfatiguing hike" while moving at 6/7 the speed?

This would be different for unfit (they lose 2 FP per 60 minutes, so they would need to move at 6/8 or 3/4 speed) or Very Unfit (they also take 20m to recover 1 FP, so 40m to recover 2 FP lost to 1 hour hike: so it takes them 100minutes, so they need to move at 6/10 or 3/5 speed)

To have a "restful hike" would need to be even slower, since you are adding in extra rest intervals:

*80 minutes per 60 (6/8 or 3/4 speed) could recover 2 fp per 80 minutes: 1 per 40
*90 minutes per 60 (6/9 or 2/3) could recover 3 fp per 90 minutes: 1 per 30
*100 minutes per 60 (6/10 or 3/5) could recover 4 fp per 100 minutes: 1 per 25
*110 minutes per 60 (6/11) could recover 5 FP per 110 minutes: 1 per 22
*120 minutes per 60 (6/12 or 50% speed) could recover 6 FP per 120 minutes: 1 per 20

There's probably some way we could do a formula where you insert % of your hiking speed and it generates "interval at which 1 FP is recovered" which approaches 10 minutes as speed approaches 0. Just not sure how to code that as my algebra is limited.

This is realistic in the sense of how Fartlek training works: you sprint and then "walk off" the fatigue until you're able to sprint again: you never stop moving but still recover.

That's also sorta how "Last Gasp" deals with Action Points: you can move (Evaluate gives 1 step) and still get a HT roll to recover AP that you spent on a Move previously.

The idea is just to make this a bit more granular for amounts between 10/20/50/100% Basic move.

If this "walking recovery" approach seems too good (you not only expend no energy, but actually recover it, moving 6 ft per second?) then using the slower FP recovery rates in Last Gasp (Pyramid 44 pg 6) as "Mild Fatigue" for someone with FP 10 takes 2 hours to recover (not 10 minutes).

So doing that, you instead get "1 hour losing 1 FP to hiking, 2 hours to get it back" so "hiking at 0 energy loss" would be at 1/3 hiking speed

This roughly matches up to the Action Point balance on the per-second approach: HT 10 succeeds an AP recovery roll 1 per 2 seconds, so if you spend 1 AP on a move maneuver and 2 seconds to recover from it, the net effect is 1/3 speed for 0 energy balance.

well not exactly: Cole initially had 1 AP per 20% which on blog was changed to 1 AP per 50%, but there's that whole "if you're already moving don't pay AP to accelerate" thing which lessens the cost... even though it would be fatiguing over time to maintain a velocity... so this is a compromise in between

"hiking to recover FP" could happen by doing 1 hour hike, 4 hours recovery: traveling 1/5 speed nets you 1 FP per 5 hours.

Even though you can't use decimal FP, you could probably just tabulate it that way (0.2 fp per hour of walking 1/5 speed .. 0.5 fp per hour of complete immobility) for people who are doing a variety of changing things over a time period.

0.1 fp per 12 minutes immobility should match up with secondly HT+4 rolls for Do Nothing, except that unlike Action Points and Hit Points the recovery of FP is not actually based on making HT rolls:

instead the rate is based on what your max FP is, which SORTA makes it linked to HT since FP is derived from HT, except you can buy up FP without buying up HT:

doing so makes you recover FP faster but not recover AP or HP faster.

To allow for continuousness I thought maybe a system where surplus AP regens FP (instead of a % of max FP fixed rate) which you could use in the short-term (longterm you would just handwaive it like "no nuisance rolls")

NNR policy as of Psionics is "effective skill 15" so if +4 doesn't get you there, people could take Time Spent (longer rest periods) to get a bonus of up to +5 to the HT roll, and maybe Task Difficulty Modiifers (up to +10) to represent how it's easier to recover AP when you're doing nothing outside of combat compared to a DN inside combat (you're just more relaxed)

Even someone with HT 1 could then get +14 bringing them up to the HT 15 required to waive a success roll (PP8:bike)

You could apply that not just to a roll to regain AP, but a 2nd HT roll done to try and convert AP back into FP. Like "spend 50% of max AP on attempt to get 1 FP back: only works if HT roll succeeds, AP is spent regardless of success", and this is only spent from a "surplus AP" pool which is overstocked only when you recover excess AP beyond your max AP.

To make it slow we should maybe just always assume the body automatically uses "Time Spent x30" to get up to +5 on this roll to get it up to skill 15, it only uses lesser time periods if high HT or high TDM get it to 15 with less time.

The idea being that we skip on the HT roll to convert AP>FP wherever possible, only doing so in situations where effective HT 15 is not possible even with maxed-out time. In that situation the body just always inherently takes the most time possible to get a HT bonus, so that we don't need to roll so often.

You need at least a +3 TDM to avoid rolling (very favorable: mildly risky) so I dunno maybe you could link the TDM bonus to how much you're exerting yourself? +10 for 0% ST, +5 for 50% ST, +3 for 30% ST, +0 for 100% ST, penalties for going beyond your ST via Extra Effort?

(as effective ST is reduced for low FP or encumbrance/grappling this would be increasingly hard)

For those with that quirk which allows +6 for x60 time we could either ignore that, or make that an extended mandate for those with low HT / low TDM. This seems like the ideal since then you're just rolling once per minute, and it allows a bigger realm of "no roll" situations.

[Plane]

If this is all too easy, we could do equipment modifiers: -5 for relaxing (convert AP to FP) without assistance (lying on a hard floor) -2 if you have a soft floor (improvised bed), -0 for bed, +1 for waterbed/foam (good quality) +2 for massage pad (fine quality)

Assuming that -0 is for lying down (ideal rest posture) you could do penalties for more strenuous postures: -1 for sitting, -2 for kneeling, -3 for crawling, -4 for standing?

Crit fails on AP>FP rolls could expend 1 base AP in addition to the 50% accrued surplus AP

crit fails on basic AP recovery rolls could do a -1 on the next second's roll (non-cumulative) to make it interesting

[AlexanderHowl]

Healing assumes 1 day per HT roll with 24 hours of rest (take Regeneration if you want to heal without rest). If we assume that normal rest is required for even the remotest chance of healing, it would probably be realistic to give a penalty of -1 to the HT roll for every 1.6 hours spent resting during a day. For example, if someone spent 8 hours at work and 1.6 hours outside of resting, they would suffer -6 to their HT rolls. FP recovery does not require HT rolls, so Time Modifiers would be meaningless, as you recover FP as long as you rest, and is unrelated to healing (though reducing fitness by one level while recovering from non-critical injuries and by two levels while recovering from critical injuries, minimum Very Unfit, would probably be realistic).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Healing assumes 1 day per HT roll with 24 hours of rest (take Regeneration if you want to heal without rest).

If we assume that normal rest is required for even the remotest chance of healing, it would probably be realistic to give a penalty of -1 to the HT roll for every 1.6 hours spent resting during a day.

spent NOT resting, that is?

1h36m intervals i think that would be, probably rounding up to the nearest.

For example, if someone spent 8 hours at work and 1.6 hours outside of resting, they would suffer -6 to their HT rolls.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

FP recovery does not require HT rolls, so Time Modifiers would be meaningless, as you recover FP as long as you rest, and is unrelated to healing (though reducing fitness by one level while recovering from non-critical injuries and by two levels while recovering from critical injuries, minimum Very Unfit, would probably be realistic).

I guess if we wanted HT-based FP recovery you could take...
Very Unfit [-15]
Not Very Unfit (requires HT roll -10%) [14]

that'd work out to be a quirk, though you'd rarely spend the FP needed to reroll once you failed the HT roll (defeats the purpose) so my design here is sorta pointless...

I guess you could maybe take a -5% for normal FP being unable to fuel it, and pay the FP cost via an Energy Reserve though.

[AlexanderHowl]

The anti-disadvantage builds always seem to only produce bad options at every turn, as they mostly seem to make quirks that are much worse than -1 CP would indicate. A better deal would be Very Unfit (Mitigator, Constant, Resting, -60%) [-6], which would mean that the character suffers Very Unfit only when they are not resting.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The anti-disadvantage builds always seem to only produce bad options at every turn, as they mostly seem to make quirks that are much worse than -1 CP would indicate. A better deal would be Very Unfit (Mitigator, Constant, Resting, -60%) [-6], which would mean that the character suffers Very Unfit only when they are not resting.

is there a list of mitigators somewhere for building that though? I mainly resort to anti-disads due to a lack of mitigators list

[AlexanderHowl]

The rules for Mitigator are fairly straightforward. Is it required constant state, worn device, a daily activity, or a daily dose, then it is -60%. Is it a weekly activity or weekly dose, then it is -65%. Is it a monthly activity or monthly dose, then it is -70%. If it is rare, add +5%. If it is unqiue, add +10%.

For example, a necromancer might have an amulet of protection that prevent them from suffering from the decay of the grave. Without the amulet, they suffer Chronic Pain (Agonizing, 8 hours, 15-) and Terminal Illness (One month), meaning that every day without the amulet is a day closet to death spent in agony. Since the amulet of protection needs to be constantly worn to avoid issues and is unique, the necromancer receives Chronic Pain (Agonizing, 8 hours, 15-; Mitigator, Constant, Unique, -50%) [-45] and Terminally Ill (One month; Mitigator, Constant, Unique, -50%) [-50].

Another example would be a character who receives monthly shots for controlling their aggression. Without the shots, they suffer from Bad Temper (6-) and Berserk (6-; Battle Fury, +50%), meaning that they are a danger to themselves and others. With the shots, they receive Bad Temper (6-; Mitigator, Monthly shots, -70%) [-6] and Berserk (6-; Battle Fury, +50%; Mitigator, Monthly shots, -70%) [-16]. As long as they get their shots, they are fine, but missing their monthly shot can send them into a rage fueled spiral of destruction that could end up with them being gunned down in the street by the police.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

required constant state, worn device, a daily activity, or a daily dose, then it is -60%.

So is this "constant state" of rest, or "daily activity of rest"?

B112 initially only says "item or substance" but then goes on to say "treatment" which is "available at pharmacies".

That kind of implies not just accessibility (need to go to pharmacy) but also cost (need to buy some ointment)

whereas w/ rest you can do it for free and don't need to go to some store to procure it: but on the downside you need a restful settings and to set aside more time: Jan can just take his experimental AIDS drug and then live as normal without needing to lie still

I'm guessing we have examples of more mitigators in later books to supplement B112 to expand to stuff like "constant state" or "daily activity"...

But it seems like it could vary based on:

1) how many hours a day needs to be dedicated to the activity
2) how inconvenient is the "constant state" (ie "I'm not Unfit when I lie down but I can Concentrate" vs "I'm not Unfit so long as I only Do Nothing")

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

For example, a necromancer might have an amulet of protection that prevent them from suffering from the decay of the grave.
Without the amulet, they suffer Chronic Pain (Agonizing, 8 hours, 15-) and Terminal Illness (One month), meaning that every day without the amulet is a day closet to death spent in agony.
Since the amulet of protection needs to be constantly worn to avoid issues and is unique,
the necromancer receives
Chronic Pain (Agonizing, 8 hours, 15-; Mitigator, Constant, Unique, -50%) [-45]
and
Terminally Ill (One month; Mitigator, Constant, Unique, -50%) [-50].

Not sure where to find constant, but this seems to line up with B118's -60% for "vulnerable, and easily
stolen, broken, or misplaced" w/ the +10% for "can only get your treatments from one specific source"

This approach treats all amulets as equal though: it doesn't quantify how "easily broken" it is.

If we instead applied Gadget Limitations (higher % discount for easy to hit or less DR) to "Not Chronic Pain" and "Not Terminally Ill" then you could have a wider spectrum of options to reflect amulets of different sizes or toughness.

Interesting thing there is Unique is a 25% difference instead of 10%...

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Another example would be a character who receives monthly shots for controlling their aggression. Without the shots, they suffer from Bad Temper (6-) and Berserk (6-; Battle Fury, +50%), meaning that they are a danger to themselves and others. With the shots, they receive Bad Temper (6-; Mitigator, Monthly shots, -70%) [-6] and Berserk (6-; Battle Fury, +50%; Mitigator, Monthly shots, -70%) [-16].

Hm, four alt ways I guess one might approach using w/ Not Berserk / Not Bad Temper...

1) "Trigger, Extended" from PU8 which is 1/8 the discount trigger usually gives if it lasts 8 hours... definitely way short of "monthly"

2) "Temporary Disadvantage, Shutdown" (also PU8) with something like Maintenance, which is I think what Supers 34 does with 3 power modifiers (electronic/mechanical/nanotech): -5% if a lack of weekly maintenance shuts down an ability. That's per B134 "skilled care" and instead of losing HT your ability shuts down. Weekly is a 1/2 multiplier which means the base disad value would be 10: only 1 person is needed. Doesn't seem to specify what skill level is needed or what penalties would apply though... just that it's a base 1 hours time I guess for Time Spent purposes... will make a sep thread asking about that.

alternatively if I'm wrong about immediate failure for Elec/Mech/Nano powers, maybe they track "pseud-HT" for each ability and follow standard rules of it depreciating by 1 per missed period, normal fails being GM-specified incapacity with only the "potentially fatal outcome" resulting in total failure of an ability: we're given the example "a vehicle's brakes may fail" as an equivalent to "Heart Attack" on B143

3) also TD:shutdown but maybe with something else like Dependency (B130) except instead of losing HP your ability shuts down

4) use "Required Disadvantage" with something like "Addiction : anti-Rage Drug". If you cease to fulfill your disadvantage requirements (you MUST succumb to them) then your "Not Berserk" ability can't function.

Approaches 2+3 probably work better if combined with Gadget Limitations since then you have some HP/HT separate from yourself that you could have it interact with. If you take that more conservative approach (TD shutdown is a gradual depreciation of something which CAN shut it down) instead of the brutal approach (ability fails the first time you miss a dose/treatment) then 1+4 would seem like the better approaches since it wouldn't be possible to adapt the conservative approach to 2+3 unless you had some kind of "imaginary HT or HP" representing "my capacity to tolerate anger"

I guess you could do that... there doesn't actually seem to be anything preventing you from defining a gadget as a piece of yourself. To do that it'd just be unique (you can't replace it with a part of someone else) and can't be stolen, and any lost HP or DR can't auto-regenerate (gadgets are unhealing) so it would require repairs.

For organic gadgets the repairs would be surgery, like how you can use surgery to restore HP lost to your unhealing zombies (stitch them back together) which is I think how werewolf/selkie skin is approached in Horror.

Actually for unhealing stuff that doesn't bleed or have vitals (my default assumption w/ "gadgets as characters"), maybe something less than surgery would be fine, like for example sewing or taxidermy? I think why surgery is normally used is concerns about blood loss / vitals.

"Repairability" is -15% if you can't repair something, so the value of "takes X skill to repair" seems to depend on "do I have this skill?". IE you can take -15% if it requires one of B190's Engineer skills to repair and you both lack that skill and also lack a default in it because it only defaults to other skills you also lack (none of the Engineering skills default to attributes)

Which should probably mean you can never take the -15% for a skill which defaults to attributes (EVERYONE has them) unless there's some kind of trait which prevents using defaults in them.

If at some point someone DOES gain the ability to use a skill (like they put a point in a skill it defaults from) they should probably be forced to buy off that -15%.

Another approach might be if we view "-15% cannot repair own gadget" as offset by +15% "can repair own gadget", you might limit that 15% by things which complicate the procedure beyond normal considerations of skill use.

Like for example if you specify Engineering: Psychotronics can repair your gadget, and you have that skill, it's harder for you to operate on your gadget than someone else with the skill: you could add "requires HT roll -10%" (reducing +15% to +13.5%)

This might imitate that since you're doing brain surgery on yourself (as opposed to a psychotronic device which is just worn and not part of you, which you could repair risk-free) so you only get "one minute's worth of repair time" if you pass a HT check, and if it fails you don't get another HT check to try for another minute w/o paying 1 FP: plus you can't attempt it at all if your FP falls below 4.

Or you could add "requires IQ roll" and substitute a hard skill (maybe even the same one) requiring TWO successful checks due to lack of perspective: the FP loss in this case due to mental exhaustion instead of physical inconvenience.

"Unsupported" is also an option there, which can actually cause HP loss or crippling if an HT check is failed. That's intended for ST/DX but really could work for a big variety of stuff.

Another thing you might do is add Unreliable: Malfunction to limit the "Can Repair My Gadget" enhancement. Unreliable: Malfunction is like halfway between normal reliable (non-variable chance of things going wrong) and requires skill roll (variable chance of righting the wrong) since you use skills to clear blockages in equipment or repair them when the equipment is damaged.

In this case that "repair" is actually the preceding setup for "ability to repair normally" so it's similar to using "requires IQ roll" to add a 2nd skill check, except that it doesn't interact with FP.

[AlexanderHowl]

Or you can just use Mitigator, which is much simpler than designing a gadget-based anti-disadvantage.

[Black Leviathan]

I run healing very similarly to the books. Here's my interpretation.

Rest is a 24 hour period without performing tasks that have rolls associated. So you can walk but not travel, read, eat and be helpful to others but not to the point where they get a bonus to a roll because you're napping and laying down most of the time. You can definitely keep an eye on things around the HQ, but you're not walking a patrol so no Per checks. If there's an attack at the hospital and you grab your gun and take a single shot to end the fight, but fall right back into bed, then that's not enough of an interruption to fail your healing for the day.

If someone is there looking after you, fetching you food and water, cleaning your wound, generally making you rest, you get +1 on your HT roll. If they're a doctor you can roll your HT+1 or their Physician skill.

Resting for recovery presumes that you're eating sufficiently and hydrated. Not enough of either is no health roll. I haven't encountered it but if someone made some comfort food and hot beverages for my resting player I think I'd give them a circumstance bonus of +1 on healing, because I love hot cheesy food when I feel like crap.

If you buy Very Rapid Healing, I don't care what the book says, you already spent more than Regeneration so that extra HP is healed regardless of rest or HT roll, it's just a free one every day.