Healing College - Healing yourself penalty?

[Dreadbane]

I took the difficult job of creating a "Self-sufficient front line magical field medic" and then a stumbled at the healing college limitation for self-healing when injured (Magic P88).

I'm trying to make sense why the penalty only applies to himself and not when healing others, for example. For first aid or medicine, ok, makes perfect sense, but it's magic that with high skill doesn't even need a gesture.

If the party has only one healer and he collapses from negative HP, it's quite sure that he will not be able to recover so soon if applying the penalty stated. But the stranger thing is that he can full recover a partner at no penalty even if he himself is in bad shape.

[Taneli]

If you find it offending, just remove it from your game - assuming that you're the GM.

In our campaign I ruled that it does not affect the Healing Slumber -spell and thus leading to the party healer often getting into Odin Sleep.

[JulianLW]

I think the rationale is that it's as difficult to heal yourself as it would be, say, to do surgery on yourself. A fix I think would be plausible and totally within the spirit of the rules would be to say that the self-healing penalty with Healing College spells can never exceed -10 and that this penalty would not ever stack with the -3 for a repeated attempt. So you could heal yourself three times at -10 each day ... if you could make the spell roll at -10. That would cost an extra 40 character points (though in fact probably less, since you wouldn't be obliged to buy up past, say, 23 or 24 to have a very high probability of success - and at worst you blow one of your "repeated" attempts, which wouldn't count the first three times anyway since they'd be subsumed in the maximum self-healing penalty).... This house rule would make Healing College spells about consistent with the Healing advantage at 30 points, with the Affects Self +50% enhancement, which would cost 45 points.

[Dreadbane]

Originally Posted by Taneli

If you find it offending, just remove it from your game - assuming that you're the GM.

Originally Posted by JulianLW

I think the rationale is that it's as difficult to heal yourself as it would be, say, to do surgery on yourself.

Thanks for the replies, but I'm just trying to make sense of it. Why it's more difficult to heal yourself with a spell? To do surgery, ok, I get it. You need both hands free, clear vision, lack of pain, etc, things that you cannot do/have when you are the patient. But why would any of this matter while casting a spell? A doctor can try a self-diagnose or even try to give guidance to other relating to his own injury, and a spell is a predominantly mental effort with little to none physical participation.

If it's about the lack of "vital energy" to power the spell, seeing most of the college is about share and lend, and the caster is in a weakened state, then the penalty should hinder the healing others attempt too.

It's confusing why a mage can cast complex spells (mind reading, control other, etc) with no penalty while being injured but to heal yourself, and only yourself, you get a penalty.

[JulianLW]

Well, the main reason (not the rationale) is simple game balance.

Self-healing with no penalty would make Healing (both the spell and the advantage) potentially far more valuable than Regeneration, which is (for the kind of big, quick effects you can potentially get with a Healing spell) a much more expensive trait. Self-healing gives a character the power to turn 1 FP into 2 HP (for the Healing advantage and the Major Healing spell), which is a pretty huge benefit. Self-healing at no risk to the spellcaster could potentially turn them into superheroes, especially if they have a big Energy Reserve.

Anyway, as has been suggested, you should feel free to ignore those penalties or find another house rule to make them less difficult. But be prepared for Magicians and Clerics with Major Healing to turn into potential combat monsters! Because you've just taken away a lot of the worst consequences of combat for them!

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Dreadbane

Thanks for the replies, but I'm just trying to make sense of it. Why it's more difficult to heal yourself with a spell? To do surgery, ok, I get it. You need both hands free, clear vision, lack of pain, etc, things that you cannot do/have when you are the patient. But why would any of this matter while casting a spell?

Magic.

Actually, it's for game balance, as others have said, but the in-game reason is that that's just how the magic works. You won't find a mechanistic reason.

[gmillerd]

If you play with various optional rules or there are active effects that cause wounds ongoing, this is a very big limitation that makes healing almost impossible played vanilla. As coupled shock is a beast and other effects this is a beast.

I find that "life cleric" like characters are often on the receiving end of fright checks as well as there is that close up/touch aspect along with some actual medical skills often. Which makes for gory heists gone wrong.

With the modifier not scaled to relative healing ... I have 8HP or 50HP max, 5 damage is a beast to overcome either way.

I have played in games where the healing was applied to any healing school where the target was self or others minus the damage from the caster. That was fun actually.

You really need to gets some other modifiers into the mix: effort/empower, longer casting time concentration, etc. That's how we use it normally play with it and the "reason" for it is clear.

You also might want to have some "heal over time" spells or "healing seed" spells and or perks available to the characters. The "life seed" on physical damage heal, the "inspiration", on healing crit add DR to the target, or "regrowth" crit heals also have a heal over time effect thereafter, etc ... and healing missiles of course. A perks to tone down the recast limitation as well.

In the end, preheal/pot, run the end game combat scene, live, die, live again.

[Dreadbane]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

Well, the main reason (not the rationale) is simple game balance.

But be prepared for Magicians and Clerics with Major Healing to turn into potential combat monsters! Because you've just taken away a lot of the worst consequences of combat for them!

I have to say that I wasn't applying that rule for, well, years now, but due to oversight. The cumulative for repeated healing spells, yes, always, but never the self-healing penalty. Can't say it broke the game in any form, most of the time my party understood that is smarter to avoid getting hit that healing the damage after, mostly because it's far too easy to cause damage then to mend it, and it's more reasonable, rp wise. The healing during combat was most of a extreme measure.

About the regeneration, it's a exotic advantage, I wouldn't allow it for normal humans and alike, not without a good explanation.

And since you mentioned Clerics, it gets even more weirder for them, having a penalty to receive the divine favor of their own god.

But thanks again, if is just for game balance, I find it easier to think of other solution that doesn't sound so "displaced".

Edit: I would say that Vampiric Weapon (imbuement) cause a lot more imbalance in that matter, as it gives a combatant character the ability to self-heal a lot (even 10 or more HP for 1 FP) with no special penalty.

[Dreadbane]

Originally Posted by gmillerd

With the modifier not scaled to relative healing ... I have 8HP or 50HP max, 5 damage is a beast to overcome either way.

Precisely. A caster with lots of HP, even before the risk of death, can sum a penalty of -20/-30 or more to self-heal. It's a bit...exaggerated. It would take a lot of repetitive healing on others to start getting close to this.

[edk926]

I'd just drop the self-heal penalty but keep the repeated healing within 24 hour penalties, or maybe you could have the self-heal penalty only apply to Great Healing. The others are healing just a little at a time and become less possible each time anyway, so they aren't that unbalancing in my mind.