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Old 10-19-2016, 03:00 PM   #1
VariousRen
 
Join Date: Apr 2015
Default Limb Viablity after being Severed

A player of mine in a low fantasy game recently lost an arm during a fight, and is looking for a way to reattach it. We're using Sorcery as our main magic system, and a spell based on Regrowth (Reattachment only) is a nice cheap alternative to regrowing the full limb. Unfortunately the parties wizard is currently a few days away, so the spell cannot be cast right away.

I don't imagine a limb is going to be viable for reattachment forever, but I'm not sure how many hours/days it should be able to last and still be reattach-able. If anyone has run into this problem or has an idea how to handle it, I'd appreciate the input.
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Old 10-19-2016, 03:03 PM   #2
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Limb Viablity after being Severed

Well, with modern technology the time limit is a couple hours.
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Old 10-19-2016, 04:12 PM   #3
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Limb Viablity after being Severed

Like any form of "meat", it depends on the cut and the environment for how long it lasts. More than a couple of hours in a cool but not freezing location wouldn't work.
Heck, my life mate would get sick eating chicken left out that long. So I'd gather that means some nasty things occur that, while not bothering my digestive system, probably aren't good if you want to reattach the leg.

Maybe magic doesn't need a limb to be medically viable as it's the symbolic representation that matters. As long as it has some flesh on the bones, there's enough for the wizard mojo to work on.
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Old 10-19-2016, 07:17 PM   #4
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Default Re: Limb Viablity after being Severed

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Maybe magic doesn't need a limb to be medically viable as it's the symbolic representation that matters. As long as it has some flesh on the bones, there's enough for the wizard mojo to work on.
This seems like the key. Personally, I'd want to target the arm with a Regeneration effect first to restore it to health, but who knows? Maybe all that's needed are the bones, and magic provides the rest.
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Old 10-19-2016, 07:57 PM   #5
VariousRen
 
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Default Re: Limb Viablity after being Severed

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Originally Posted by McAllister View Post
This seems like the key. Personally, I'd want to target the arm with a Regeneration effect first to restore it to health, but who knows? Maybe all that's needed are the bones, and magic provides the rest.
On that note, do you feel that Healing or Regeneration would restore an arm to a pristine state, or slow the decay? Healing doesn't work on corpses, so there's definitely a line to be drawn between living and unliving objects that can be Healed.

For my arm-less player this looks to be an important discussion. A true limb regrowth spell would be beyond the skill of the groups wizard, or any wizard they could hope to find in the area. The group still has the arm, but it's going to be about 2 days between limb separation and regrouping with the wizard to have the spell cast.
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Old 10-19-2016, 08:05 PM   #6
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Default Re: Limb Viablity after being Severed

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Originally Posted by VariousRen View Post
On that note, do you feel that Healing or Regeneration would restore an arm to a pristine state, or slow the decay? Healing doesn't work on corpses, so there's definitely a line to be drawn between living and unliving objects that can be Healed.

For my arm-less player this looks to be an important discussion. A true limb regrowth spell would be beyond the skill of the groups wizard, or any wizard they could hope to find in the area. The group still has the arm, but it's going to be about 2 days between limb separation and regrouping with the wizard to have the spell cast.
Who's to say healing doesn't work on corpses? Is Unhealing part of the "dead" template? The way I see it, objects have hit points, and effects that restore those hit points work unless otherwise specified. The Advantage, Healing (which I consider to be really problematic as a general tool), doesn't say anything about living targets.
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Old 10-19-2016, 08:13 PM   #7
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Default Re: Limb Viablity after being Severed

Quote:
Originally Posted by McAllister View Post
Who's to say healing doesn't work on corpses? Is Unhealing part of the "dead" template? The way I see it, objects have hit points, and effects that restore those hit points work unless otherwise specified. The Advantage, Healing (which I consider to be really problematic as a general tool), doesn't say anything about living targets.
Yes it does! If you want the healing advantage to work on unliving things you need to buy an enhancement. (Unless you're unliving yourself then you need to buy an enhancement to make it work on living beings)
Quote:
Originally Posted by basic page 59
Xenohealing: You can heal beings quite dissimilar from yourself. Examples, assuming you are human: All Mammals, +20%; All Earthly Life, +40%; All Carbon-Based Life, +60%; Anything Alive, +80%; Anything Animate (including undead, golems, etc.), +100%.
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Old 10-19-2016, 08:24 PM   #8
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Limb Viablity after being Severed

Healing, the word, means to fix a living creature that's injured but still alive. Fixing the dead is resurrection, not healing.
I admit the spell word Restoration is wonderfully vague enough to allow more general use, theoretically.
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Old 10-19-2016, 11:35 PM   #9
VariousRen
 
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Default Re: Limb Viablity after being Severed

So the Healing advantage by default only works on races "similar" to your own. While I might have two arms, if one walked up to me in a bar I wouldn't feel any particular kinship with them and want to hang out. So I would think by default a severed arm couldn't be healed on it's own. It also wouldn't fall under the category of "All Mammals" for +20%, since it isn't it's own species. You'd have to go up to "All Earthly Life" for +40% to get a healing ability that would definitely include severed arms.

So I suppose with an enhanced healing ability one could heal a severed arm to get rid of damage done to it. It's a different thing entirely to keep it living without a body. It strikes me as a situation similar to a person without food, you start taking FP damage (which healing can't fix) and eventually die. So maybe "preserving" a severed limb is actually restoring FP to it as quickly as it loses it. Which leads to the question, how many FP do we assign a severed arm, and how quickly should it lose it in the first place?
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Old 10-19-2016, 11:39 PM   #10
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Default Re: Limb Viablity after being Severed

It's time to play a quest to get that mechanic-magical arm of the legends! Turn this situation to involve the party in a new and exciting adventure!
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