Is Regeneration a Disadvantage?

[Rhyzvhanic]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Regeneration doesn't have to be supernatural. It exceeds human limits, but could be a product of technology, superscience, or just nonhuman physiology. Admittedly the higher levels tend to strain any kind of physical plausibility, but even so.

There are certainly settings where 'heal super fast but with nasty potential complications' is an appropriate trait.

Okay. But Regeneration isn't that.

Originally Posted by Otaku

Just because an element is fantastic doesn't guarantee it avoids all drawbacks....

When it's the advantage by itself, It literally doesn't. In fact it gives bonuses(!) to resist the exact situation OP presented, as it includes the rapid healing advantage! The GM would explicitly have to remove this advantage bundle from Regeneration for this scenario to play out without a critical failure (practically speaking, of course. You could have dumped your health when taking Regeneration!)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Rhyzvhanic

Regeneration is supernatural healing and thus heals supernaturally. It wouldn't "heal improperly", the power is that all wounds heal properly at amazing speeds. Saying otherwise is just trying to pull one over your players. Ban the advantage and have a spine if you don't want it in use.

Strictly speaking the fact that Regrowth is a separate advantage means that by the RAW not all wounds heal "properly". Now that's easy for me to forget because I long since decided that Regrowth is dumb and regeneration that is unable to regrow lost extremities should be a Limitation on Regeneration. But by the RAW if you get a crippling wound, Regeneration can't fix that, and you might actually need surgery.

[Otaku]

Compound Post as I don't want to double post. So I'm quoting and responding to two posts by two different people.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

However, the default version of any Power probably should be free of inherent defects. Of course, I know of RAW examples where this isn't true. See single-Minded and Invisible as examples.

I hope to see those re-written if there ever is a Gurps 5e. It would be so much clearer if the "default" version of any Power didn't have built-in defects and if your version does it would be because you put them there.

Which I would most definitely welcome. I would also like to see most Advantages reduced to its most basic form, at least, while it can still resemble the intended Advantage. It really helps with getting exactly what you're aiming for with a trait.

Though I'm not sure if everything being discussed really counts as a "defect", as it were. Complications? Sure, but this is why I brought up Damage Resistance. How it interacts with Afflictions isn't so much a defect as a feature. The same if your (always on) DR is the sort that can prevent hypodermic needles from being used on you, or complicate surgery. It sounds bad when beneficial afflictions, injections, and procedures are on the docket, but can be a real lifesaver when an enemy has you otherwise helpless.

Originally Posted by Rhyzvhanic

When it's the advantage by itself, It literally doesn't. In fact it gives bonuses(!) to resist the exact situation OP presented, as it includes the rapid healing advantage! The GM would explicitly have to remove this advantage bundle from Regeneration for this scenario to play out without a critical failure (practically speaking, of course. You could have dumped your health when taking Regeneration!)

I'm a bit unclear what you think I'm saying. Then again, I cannot say I'm completely clear as to what all I've said. XP My position is not that of the GM mentioned in the opening post. I just think that, with Regeneration, there is reason to believe it may not be completely free of complications. As you said, it provides bonuses for avoiding crippling injuries. That suggests to me that Regeneration doesn't guarantee crippled limbs heal correctly automatically, but thanks to the bonus, it all but guarantees it for individuals with average or better Health.

What I've been saying has at least partially been keeping pace with the larger discussion. So I'm also trying to wrap my head around Regeneration and surgery, Regeneration and foreign material in wounds, Regeneration and cybernetics (or even more mundane medical implants), etc.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rhyzvhanic

Okay. But Regeneration isn't that.

Unmodified regeneration isn't that.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

If you can toggle it then the Temporary Disadvantage isn't much of a disadvantage and should be worth much less points.

Toggling is the whole point of Temporary Disadvantage: if you couldn't toggle the ability you'd just take the Disadvantage, not the limitation, unless you were using this as a means of getting around disadvantage limits the GM imposes.

Originally Posted by RedMattis

If you want regeneration to mess you up I'd prefer to do something like:

Regeneration (Nuisance Effect: Appearance moves towards Monstrous, lowered DX, etc. based on amount healed Requires significant time and some effort to undo, -25%)

Not sure how you got to that price, but the idea of progressively worse limitations applying as you use more of your abilities is basically the same as Declining Enhancements

I consider DE to be part of a broader scope "Partly Modified Abilities" based on:

Partially Limited Abilities (P46)
Partly Limited Abilities (PU8p6)

The idea that you can just apply modifiers (enhancement or limitation) to just some instead of all levels.

The easy-math option of "Declining Enhancements" is when you have equal cost per level. For stuff like Regeneration or Leech you can't really do a formula, just treat it like separate advantages...

Rapid Healing [5]
upgrade Slow [5]
upgrade Regular [15]
upgrade Fast [25]
upgrade Very [50]
upgrade Extreme [50]

You would have to use the same thing for appearance levels due to it also having non-linear pricing (which is sad since they're all multiples of 4 so it SHOULD be possible except it skips some multiples of 4)

Assuming someone's Attractive [4] to begin with you could do these Temporary Disadvantages on progressive Regeneration levels:

Shutdown Attractive -4%
Unattractive -4%
downgrade to Ugly -4%
downgrade to Hideous -8%
downgrade to Monstrous -4%
downgrade to Horrific -4%

The flaw in my plan is -4% is 1/25 savings, so while it's fine for the final 3 levels it greats a problem in that it doesn't save points for the first 3 when you split like that.

One option is to just take "Attractive Becomes Ugly -12%" to save 3 points on Regeneration (Regular) [25] and forget about dividing the first three tiers up?

Something like "I can use Rapid/Slow and just be Normal/Unattractive instead of Ugly" seems like it could fairly be called a 0% feature.

The way I'm looking at it is 1/25 of 5 points is 0.2, so you're reducing the first 2 tiers of Regeneration (Rapid Healing and Slow) to 4.8 each (sum 9.6), and then saving 0.6 on the Regular upgrade (14.4) which works out to paying 24 points. You're just avoiding the rounding until the end.

[Rhyzvhanic]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Unmodified regeneration isn't that.

But are we talking about a modified regeneration?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Otaku

I definitely remember an issue of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. where something related to this came up.
Wolverine was a guest character, so I am pretty sure it was Volume 3, issues number 27 and 28.
I recall Wolverine
getting so annoyed with whomever was helping him out by removing some slugs from his body
he snatched the scalpel (or whatever instrument was being used), and started doing it himself.
He didn't want the wounds to heal over the bullets, forcing him to work even harder to dig them out.

I wish I'd known about this example during in this November discussion: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=170987

Originally Posted by Otaku

Note that Wolverine's healing factor, after temporarily being nerfed, was then greatly accelerated.

Which gives an example of even uber-healing being unable to get rid of bullets, supporting the idea I had of designing a severely nerfed "Warp" advantage to represent that process.

Originally Posted by Otaku

I'm not assuming it to be the rule for Regeneration;
it makes about as much sense to argue that, as wounds heal,
foreign bodies are slowly pushed out by new tissue.

I can see grounds for assuming that with EXTREMELY superficial injuries, especially if "out" is the only direction it could possibly be pushed because DR prevents in moving in another direction.

Wolverine's HF in the X-Men 2 film for example did push out a slug that was embedded in his forehead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfEOlFVSYcAo&t=9 (ff to 1m41s for when it pops out and he opens eyes)

but that's by nature superficial since it did not penetrate the skull (it being adamantium: no way lead it going to get through there)

Probably a more interesting question here is why wolverine actually got knocked down (and seemingly knocked out) as you wouldn't expect that to happen unless it did actually penetrate the skull and hit the brain...

I guess one option is that Wolverine's skull DR operates like "Flexible" (due to "Tough Skin: it's subdermal) even though Adamantium wouldn't actually literally be flexible like chainmail...

The intent being that you could suffer Blunt Trauma on head injuries...

You need flexible DR to stop 10 points of Piercing Damage to suffer 1 HP of Blunt Trauma...

X2 came out in 2003 when https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servic...#United_States says .45 calibers were standard...

so if I go with the "Auto Pistol" on B278 that's 2d damage, so it's possible the cop got a lucky shot (rolling 10 on 2d is rare enough) just enough to inflict 1 HP on wolverine via blunt trauma.

This would not be a major wound (even if the x4 applied, but AFAIK you don't apply wound multipliers to blunt trauma?) but I think B420's "Knockdown and Stunning" rule would apply: Wolverine has less than 20 HP so 1 HP loss is enough to cause a shock penalty for him: so he would need to make a HT roll and probably failed it.

If it was a normal fail then he would've lied prone until his Stun wore off. In theory he might've been able to do an active defense at -4 but nobody was attacking him.

He lies there a LOT longer than you'd expect it to take for him to pass a HT roll to end the stun, so if it was a normal knockdown HT fail, he might've been playing posse at first.

This would make especial sense if you use the "Last Gasp" rules: suffering injury saps you of Action Points, so if your first Do Nothing ended the stun but didn't recover your AP, you might take more Do Nothings until your AP was at max. GM might even decide that Regeneration uses up some AP too.

That couldn't take very long though, and you'd expect Wolverine to jump up to stop Pyro murdering cops sooner if he were conscious, so the simpler explanation is that Wolverine CRIT-failed his HT roll (or failed by 5+) causing an actual knockout.

B423 would then apply: takes 15 minutes to wake up.

Logan didn't take that long so he probably has Recovery... but he took more than 15 seconds... more like 90 seconds.... would that be something like taking 2 levels of Takes Extra Time for a -20% discount to reduce it to 8 points, perhaps?

That'd be 3 minutes recovery at -30, 6 minutes at -40, 12 minutes at -50, and there's be no point in taking TET 6 (24 min) since then you're actually taking longer to do it than if you lacked Recovery altogether.

Another way to slow it down might be if Recovery and Regeneration were Alternative Abilities for him, in which case maybe Recovery only activated after the 1 HP of Blunt Trauma was healed?

If we define "push out bullets" as an Alternative Ability (as I did in the November thread) that'd be another slow-down: 1st Warp runs, 2nd Regen runs, 3rd Recovery runs.

Wolverine opened his eyes instantly after the bullet fell out and the wound closed though, so I don't think this is the right approach, as you would expect a 15-second delay.

Unless... maybe it somehow cycles between all 3 abilities instinctively? You might preprgram how that went.

IE 1 second worth of Recovery is 1 minute's worth, so you would get 15 seconds (minutes) worth of it after 90 seconds if it activated 1 second per 6 seconds. The other 5 seconds of those intervals could be split between Regeneration and Warp (or maybe TK: that could also pull out a bullet hands-free)

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Is there anything in the description of the Regeneration advantage that suggests that this isn't the case with the advantage?

I think you would need to opt-in a benefit like that, not just assume it's there and opt out.

My instinct last month to call this Afflictions: Warp was probably a bad idea due to the high base cost of Affliction (10) and of the Advantage enhancement (+1000% for 100pt ability)

Using TK would be a lot simpler, you only need 1 level of TK (5pts) to move a bullet, after all.

TK would need a lot of modifiers to model this... I actually got it to work out to +0% so you could just charge 1 point for it as an Internal Advantage.

Enhancements +170%

1) Reflexive +40%: so you don't need to pay a Concentrate maneuver (included Reduced Time) and so it activates itself w/o conscious input (takes bullets out of you even if you're not aware of them, or unconscious)
2) Persistant +40%: to give TK a duration of 10 seconds so Independent can be used (it requires a duration)
3) Independent +70%: to remove the require for maintaining concentration for it to work
4) Based on HT +20%: because rolling DX to grapple stuff feels weird here

Limitations -170%

1) Reduced (1/10) Range -30% because you don't need more than 1 yard of reach
2) Reduced (1/10) Duration -20% because all you really need is 1 second for Independent to work: Reflexive will re-activate it every second as a free action!
3) Visible -20% this isn't an invisible force, it's actually the tissues of your body connecting with and moving the objects out
4) Blood Agent, Reversed -30% (can only move things he's bled upon)
5) Attraction or Repulsion -60%
6) Requires HT roll -10% (just to round things out, cause some occasional FP costs, shut down the TK if FP was low: this would be distinct from using HT to do DX grapples)

With the last one it's a bit of a headscratcher due to being an internal advantage: "away from me" in this case means "away from my deepest tissues towards my superficial epidermis"

Since a Reflexive ability "activates itself" you could just RP that it's only goal is to expel foreign objects, being a simple intelligence.

[Plane]

I thought about "Uncontrollable" but that would imply Wolverine could prevent his TK from working using a Will roll and that seems wrong.

To reflect how it took such a long amount of time to move a 1lb object less than 1 yard could be done with how you RP the Reflexive/Independent TK. Probably the way it should operate is:

1) telegraphic AOA (determined) to establish a 0 CP grapple at HT+8. There would be -10 vision penalties (operating blind) so you need to offset that, so you roll against HT-2 to grapple the bullet
2) telegraphic AOA (strong) to roll 1d-4 control points at HT+4 to hit. Since a grapple is established there is no -10 vision penalty per TG11's note "Attacks to improve control of an existing grapple or to break free are allowed at -4 in all postures" so this cancels out the +4 for Telegraphic and you can make raw HT rolls to improve CP on the bullet.
3) AOA strong is repeated until CP reaches maximum, which is normally 1 CP, or 2 if using the "double trained ST" optional rule
4) then an All-Out-Attack (Contest: TG20) is used, either for Pickup or for Shoving People Around is used
5) if that fails, AOA strong is used to rebuild spend CP, rinse and repeat until technique succeeds and the bullet is lifted or steps

"Shoving People Around" rules to force the bullet to "take a step". MA118/TG25 says to use the better of ST/DX but in this case HT subs for DX so you would roll against HT instead of rolling against ST 1 of the TK.

Bullets can't make active defenses (like someone who took an All-Out Attack, basically) so they would resist the Quick Contest via TG20's "Strength as a Proxy for Mass" and roll against ST-4.

I'm thinking they probably have ST 0 so that would mean rolling against -4: it would always generate a margin of failure (the lowest possible with a 3 would be MoS 7, up to MoS 22 for an 18) so the TK roll would not need to pass, just fail by a lesser amount.

Alternatively to Shoving People aAound (can a bullet even "take a step"? perhaps things in a Lying posture should be immune to SPA?) would be using the "Pickup" technique, and then after passing that contest using your Move 1 to "walk" the bullet out through the wound channel.

Whichever Quick Contest you use, Control Points can be spent to influence Quick Contests, so as mentioned before, to slow down the TK (explain why Wolverine's HF took so long to kick out the bullet) you could RP "Reflexive" as not using these techniques until it has built up maximum control points, and then spends them all on the contest.

This would repeat until the contest was won, even if it might be better to gamble on doing a 0CP (no bonus to contest) attempt to shove the bullet out faster: the player doesn't control the Reflexive TK (the reflex does) so he doesn't get the option.

Hm, maybe for that reason I should apply the "Unconscious Only" limitation even though it lacks "Uncontrollable"? The idea being that you can't direct what the TK does (only the preprogrammed Reflexive consciousness) so there's no flexibility in options.

Wounds closing quickly is a problem because if the wound is still open the body can just "walk the bullet out" unimpeded. But if the wound has closed, there is now a wall (your flesh) in the way, so it can't get out: it needs to make an exit.

I don't think this was done in the film because the wound wasn't deep enough to close behind the slug: The average thickness of forehead skin is 1.70 mm and superficial fat is 1.99 mm. so there's only about 2.69mm (0.269 centimetres) of flesh atop the skull: there just wasn't enough room for the slug to go deep enough to be buried: this is a problem which would happen if there wasn't a layer of bone right below the skin though, like getting shot in the leg or torso.

One way for the body to get those out would probably be "Kiss the Wall" on MA118. Taking attraction/repulsion prevents "punching" with TK, but since you can move objects you should be able to (after having grappled them) slam them into something, such as your own skin.

This normally does thrust-crushing, but I would not apply the +1 for hitting a hard surface (skin isn't hard, as per the Twofers note)

Thrust crushing for ST 1 is 1d-6 so the TK would opt for an AOA for +2 (it doesn't need to defend) and keep going until it scored 1 HP to form a new exit wound to push the bullet out through.

Once that's created you'd have a window for Shoving Bullets Around until it closed again. If you have hyper-regeneration (HP healed every second) you'll never act fast enough to take advantage of this, which is probably why Wolverine helped things along.

To make TK a bit "smarter", I think maybe it could alter it's approach a bit if the wounds were closing over every second: make 2 attacks per second instead of 1 attack.

So this would be a Rapid Strike (combination) of KissTheWall+ShovingPeople Around (both at -6) so you'd roll at HT-6 for both if there's a barrier impeding the bullet.

Although... you can do "Pickup" with there being a barrier and then just WALK (as much as TK walks) on subsequent maneuvers, so you could probably just use the guaranteed 2 steps that AOA gives after doing Kiss the Wall to walk out...

For that reason RPwise it's probably good to not use "shoving people around" and as a policy always have the internal TK do a "pickup" technique and then just walk: it makes more sense tactically if there's a need to push through a closed scap to get the object out.

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Wolverine, Cyborg and many others might have different ideas on this.

Cyborg from Teen Titans had Regeneration? Or you mean not inherently but his metal parts repair themselves... hm I think if it's actually statted as your character it's n olonger considered foreign.

Wolverine's healing factor actually was impeded by the implants, so that could be modeled as his TK constantly trying (and failing) to rip the adamantium off his bones. FP spent on this couldn't be spent on his usual regeneration.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Plane

Cyborg from Teen Titans had Regeneration? Or you mean not inherently but his metal parts repair themselves... hm I think if it's actually statted as your character it's n olonger considered foreign.

I'm only familiar with him from the Doom Patrol show and the JL movie, but Googling found a wiki page that said he had 'self-regeneration' for his fleshy bits as well as his mechano bits, which is all I'm going on.

Wolverine's healing factor actually was impeded by the implants, so that could be modeled as his TK constantly trying (and failing) to rip the adamantium off his bones. FP spent on this couldn't be spent on his usual regeneration.

Again, it depends on the version. I don't think the movies get into such detail, only saying that his regen enabled him to accept the adamantium in the first place, until it eventually poisons his regen in the last movie.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I'm only familiar with him from the Doom Patrol show and the JL movie, but Googling found a wiki page that said he had 'self-regeneration' for his fleshy bits as well as his mechano bits, which is all I'm going on.

I could see that as nanobots being able to effect organic repairs in addition to inorganic ones. As opposed to something he might've had prior to becoming a cyborg, which I don't recall being a thing for Vic Stone.

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Again, it depends on the version. I don't think the movies get into such detail, only saying that his regen enabled him to accept the adamantium in the first place, until it eventually poisons his regen in the last movie.

The regen was basically because the surgery caused massive damage people would just die from internal bleeding of normally. I'm sure other guys like Deadpool/Sabertooth/Flash could've taken it, long as you're a fast healer.

Adamantium was sterile/nonpoisonous in the comics I think. I see poison as actually a metaphor here. The key line in the film is:

Adamantium implants leeching into his system,
causing chronic pain and diminished healing

Leeching is probably because his healing factor is gradually deconstructing some of the adamantium: it's not as permanent/indestructible as we're led to think (least not in the movies). Think about how water gradually wears rock away.

In addition to TK for moving foreign objects, you could also give Healing Factor some kind of Internal Corrosive Attack for gradually breaking down objects it's not able to expel (like for example something wrapped tightly around your bones)

Corrosive Attack 1d-3 is 0.1 dice (a perk on a 10/die attack) and if you want it to be slow-working you can take Exposure Time: 1 Week -50% which along with Melee Attack -30% pays entirely for Aura +80%.

There's actually no incentive to take Internal Attack in terms of price reduction here, that's just something you do so your can hit stuff with the inside of your body instead of the outside: otherwise you'd need to reach an outside body part into your body to hit with an aura I think?