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Old 05-18-2021, 08:13 AM   #11
Otaku
 
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Default Re: Hypothetical: Thoughts on Regrowth after normal healing?

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Originally Posted by Curmudgeon View Post
At first blush, I would rule that having Regrowth doesn't affect the stump because it is healed, but if the stump were to take enough fresh damage, Regrowth would then kick in to grow the leg back, on the basis that Regrowth is in some way accessing the character's DNA, which presumably is baseline human and the Regrowth effectively says, "Right, there should be a leg here. Rebuilding to specification."

The question then becomes how much damage needs to occur before Regrowth can kick in. I tend to think of attacks causing 0 damage, for example, punches and kicks, as being bruises. Regrowth would fix the blood vessels and any minor scrapes and scratches but not trigger Regrowth. One hit point of damage might trigger Regrowth for small body parts such as a finger joint or a toe, but in general, I'd tend to require enough damage to potentially cripple the limb to trigger Regrowth. I might reduce the required damage depending on the description of the damage. You'd still be Lame (One Leg) whether you lost your leg at the hip, the knee, (or just your foot at the ankle?), but it should be somewhat easier to trigger Regrowth if you're only missing a foot rather than the whole leg.
Is it RAW that 0-point injuries are only bruises? I thought any kind of damage could leave a 0-point injury. Given how much 1 HP's worth of damage is in GURPS, there is a big gap between not being cut and having a 1-point laceration, not being burned and having a 1-point burn, etc.

As for the notion that the old (improperly healed) wound would require fresh trauma to trigger, if that fits the style of play and the setting, I can roll with that. However, I would just require all scar tissue be removed from the old injury. I mean, if I want a vaguely "scientific" trigger. If we're talking about a human suddenly having regrowth, we're probably not dealing with hard science restrictions here. Either way, this is for the slower forms of Regrowth. If you have Regrowth coupled with some level of Regeneration, you're already outside the realm of realism for a human, right?

Getting more general in my answer, if this gets rid of a Disadvantage for which you received points, or received in lieu of paying points/losing points elsewhere, the player needs to cough them up. If they don't have them, it will depend on the rest of the narrative. If it fits their character concept, they can opt to keep the Disadvantage and their Regrowth (for some reason), won't treat this old injury. Or maybe it does, but just so happens to do so at a pace that matches how much CP they are earning each session, CP that is going directly into paying down the Disadvantage. Similarly, there may be plausible replacement Disadvantages available, especially used in conjunction with "buying down" the amount over time.

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
You could add Trigger: Injury for -15% and just do a 1 HP pinprick to get a minute's worth of regrowthing.
Just pointing out that 1 HP is far more than a pinprick in GURPS.
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Old 05-18-2021, 12:10 PM   #12
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Hypothetical: Thoughts on Regrowth after normal healing?

This would be heavily dependent on the metaphysics of the setting (and possibly this particular flavor of Regrowth, if there are more than one in that setting). For some fictional examples, let's consider The Zombie Knight Saga and The Stormlight Archive. In the former, the regrowth Servants gain is dependent on a "template" of sorts that is generated when they first become a Servant. Someone who already had missing bits well before they died and were raised by a Reaper will still be missing them (ditto for those with scars, tattoos, etc), while any such they gain later are lost when healing. So, there's no way to recover in that setting - if you lop off the stump to try to get the arm to grow back, you just get the stump back. Oddly, while a Reaper can allow a Servant to continue to age (but can halt the aging process), they cannot allow a Servant to gain "wounds" like tattoos, scars, etc.

In The Stormlight Archive, the regrowth Surgebinders gain is largely based on their perception of themselves - the Lopen spent years with a missing arm (I believe it's indicated he lost it as a child), but upon gaining access to Surgebinding the first thing that happened was he regrew said missing arm (well, it took him a little while, considering he didn't have ready access to the large amounts of Stormlight required). This can go beyond just simple regrowth - one character who needed glasses from a young age "heals" his eyes when he becomes a Surgebinder, allowing him to do without. Of course, Kaladin is in many ways a broken man, and he cannot heal the slave brands on his head - indeed, his body goes so far as to reject the ink when he tries to cover it up with a tattoo (I'll note I haven't read the most recent book, however, so it's possible Kaladin has had some personal breakthrough that allowed him to erase the brands). Wounds, however, he has no issue healing from.


For my personal preference, I'd be inclined to allow Regrowth to restore a limb or other bit lost well before the character gained the Advantage, and would set my metaphysics to match (probably leaning toward the way things work in The Stormlight Archive). However, a limb would at the least have reduced DX, and possibly reduced ST, until the character gets used to it. Other bits would get similar treatment - a character with a regrown eye would be somewhere between No Depth Perception and normal for a time, for example. If there's a Disadvantage that needs bought off (that is, something the character had when initially created, or that he gained due to an exposed Secret, in some sort of sacrifice to gain some other Advantage, etc), I'd require buying it off slowly, again with the reduced performance while in the process of this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Otaku View Post
Just pointing out that 1 HP is far more than a pinprick in GURPS.
Agreed, but how much more depends on what rules you're using. Using default Injury rules, 1 HP is pretty serious - take 10 such wounds and a typical person is at risk of passing out when doing anything strenuous, and 20 of them may well be fatal (60 are guaranteed to kill). Using Conditional Injury, 1 HP is still worse than a pinprick - even in the midst of combat with adrenaline flowing, it's enough to make you stumble (shock penalty, and a hit to the Face risks knockdown) - but really not much more than that (highly unlikely to accumulate).
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Last edited by Varyon; 05-18-2021 at 12:17 PM.
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Old 05-18-2021, 04:25 PM   #13
Plane
 
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Default Re: Hypothetical: Thoughts on Regrowth after normal healing?

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Originally Posted by Otaku View Post
Is it RAW that 0-point injuries are only bruises? I thought any kind of damage could leave a 0-point injury. Given how much 1 HP's worth of damage is in GURPS, there is a big gap between not being cut and having a 1-point laceration, not being burned and having a 1-point burn, etc.
I don't even know if a 0pt injury can exist. If one were doing some kind of fractional damage system then maybe it could be something like -1% per 0.1 damage?

-15% seemed a bit high for 1 HP considering it's -10% for Costs HP. -5% because you need to find a way to self-injure (maybe costing an attack?) perhaps?
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Old 05-19-2021, 09:16 AM   #14
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Hypothetical: Thoughts on Regrowth after normal healing?

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
I don't even know if a 0pt injury can exist.
A "0 HP Injury" would be the result of an unarmored person being struck for less than 1d cr, and the roll being 0 or lower (if getting punched in the chest by someone who punches at 1d-3 cr, you've got a 50% chance of taking a 0 HP Injury), or of a character with IT:DR (Cosmic, Round Down +50%) being hit with something that would normally deal less Injury than his divisor. A GM may also rule someone in armor suffers a "0 HP Injury" if the damage roll was close to (but didn't exceed) the DR value (or for flexible armor, was close to but didn't exceed the threshold to cause blunt trauma).

It wouldn't have any real mechanical effect in combat, but the GM might have it penalize the character in some way after the adrenaline and endorphins have worn off, due to soreness. I think there are some rules in Martial Arts that have injuries become more problematic after battle (or even during it, if it lasts too long) that could be adapted here, and I think Conditional Injury has a category (Scratch IIRC) below where GURPS would peg a 1 HP Injury that could also be adapted (in that case, there is a shock penalty, but no wound accumulation), but none of this is really relevant to this thread.
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