Dragon Warriors
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A more indepth look at healing?
http://www.libraryofhiabuor.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=324		 Page 3 of 3
Author:  Cobwebbed Dragon [ Sun Feb 25, 2018 10:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: A more indepth look at healing?
WodenKrait wrote:
Maelstrom (a fairly obscure game from the 80s which some of us on this forum remember fondly) had healing applied to each wound, not the sum total. Although this meant you had to keep track of every wound you sustained, it also meant you took a lot longer to recover from a single major injury than from a lot of little ones, even if overall they added up to the same amount of damage. This seems more realistic to me although I have nothing to back up that impression!

This is exactly what I was trying to replicate with my much-simplified First Aid rules - you can only actually treat the last wound suffered (or sequence of wounds over a short period, in the example of combat), so whilst small wounds of 1-2 HP can be restored easily(ish), and even heavy wounds of 3-4 HP can be restored by a talented physician, any more than that can only be healed by magic or the slow baseline level of healing.

It encourages caution amongst players not to hurl themselves into every combat opportunity that comes along, but it doesn't penalise them too heavily for a poor die roll or two for failing to avoid a trap, for example.
Author:  Starkad [ Sun Feb 25, 2018 10:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: A more indepth look at healing?
Quote:
Maelstrom (a fairly obscure game from the 80s which some of us on this forum remember fondly) had healing applied to each wound, not the sum total. Although this meant you had to keep track of every wound you sustained, it also meant you took a lot longer to recover from a single major injury than from a lot of little ones, even if overall they added up to the same amount of damage. This seems more realistic to me although I have nothing to back up that impression!

Harnmaster has a similar concept - where each wound is treated separately. Each successful strike causes Injury Points which are specific to the wound and have differing effects depending on whether the injury is caused by a blunt, edged, point (&c.) weapon.
Each wound must be treated and heals separately, using a system of Healing Rolls made once/day for each wound. There is a table to determine what the Healing Rate is for each wound depending on the nature of the wound, the severity, whether any treatment was applied, and how successful it was (or not). The Healing Roll is then a % dice roll against the character's Endurance x Healing Rate with varying success or failure determining how many Injury Points are recovered. It is possible for wounds to aggravate and to become infected.
(Harnmaster is realistic, but really quite complicated.)

Quote:
It encourages caution amongst players not to hurl themselves into every combat opportunity that comes along...

Definitely a comment which could be applied to Harnmaster and its combat rules!
(It's a game for those who like tables and minutiae...)
Author:  WodenKrait [ Sun Feb 25, 2018 12:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A more indepth look at healing?
Harnmaster wasn't related to Rolemaster by any chance was it? Now there's a system that takes rules and tables to the extreme!

Cheers,

-Kyle
Author:  Starkad [ Sun Feb 25, 2018 1:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A more indepth look at healing?
Quote:
Harnmaster wasn't related to Rolemaster by any chance was it? Now there's a system that takes rules and tables to the extreme!

No. Rolemaster (or Rulemaster, as I sometimes call it) was a step beyond Harnmaster in terms of rules, tables, complexity...

I once heard a story that the critical tables in Rolemaster were intended to be copied and pinned to a dart board. You would then throw darts to see what you got.
(If you look at the critical tables, you'll see the really nasty results tend to have small boxes while the less damaging criticals have longer descriptions - and larger boxes.)

I don't know how true that is, but I liked the story. :?
Author:  wimlach [ Sun Feb 25, 2018 4:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A more indepth look at healing?
I've converted some of my old wounds & healing rules to gdoc format for reference:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c_B ... sp=sharing

The recuperation rules are somewhat more complex than typical DW, but they are normally only applied post-adventure or during a lull in dangerous activity.
This was originally used with a variable damage system rather than the fixed damage of normal DW, so the 'Wounds Thresholds' may not be entirely compatible with vanilla DW.

A simplified version could be derived from this - use the 'Wounds Thresholds' as documented in the above link, but then have a simple healing rate based on the largest wound received. Ignore everything else, including penalties for wounds. This is simply a system for determining healing 'downtime' between adventures, and perhaps give some context to losing health points.

Light: Rest for 1 day, then remove the wound and regain health as normal.
Serious: Rest for 1 week, then remove the wound and regain health as normal.
Mortal: Rest for 1 month, then remove the wound and regain health as normal.

Receiving any new wound (even a light one) resets the healing of any existing wounds.
Every point of magical healing received is the equivalent of a week of rest - so a Lesser Healing will immediately remove a serious wound, and a Greater Healing will immediately heal a mortal wound.

Once rested, characters regain health points at a rate equal to the highest value in their 'Light Wounds' threshold, so an average character will regain 3 HP a day.
Author:  Starkad [ Sun Feb 25, 2018 7:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A more indepth look at healing?
I read that and it feels like an almost completely different game to Dragon Warriors...

Quote:
A character may attempt to fight unconsciousness and stay awake. They must roll under their Looks on a d20 at the beginning of each round to remain conscious.

Shouldn’t there be a penalty to the roll as a character’s health gets increasingly negative?
(It should be increasingly difficult to remain conscious as shock kicks in…)

I quite like the idea of modifiers for recovery. Currently wondering how I can incorporate those into my ‘house’ rules (which stick rather more closely to the standard DW rules)... ;)
Author:  wimlach [ Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A more indepth look at healing?
Starkad wrote:
I read that and it feels like an almost completely different game to Dragon Warriors...

Quote:
A character may attempt to fight unconsciousness and stay awake. They must roll under their Looks on a d20 at the beginning of each round to remain conscious.

Shouldn’t there be a penalty to the roll as a character’s health gets increasingly negative?
(It should be increasingly difficult to remain conscious as shock kicks in…)

I quite like the idea of modifiers for recovery. Currently wondering how I can incorporate those into my ‘house’ rules (which stick rather more closely to the standard DW rules)... ;)


Heh - I used to play a more 'gritty' version of DW, so any rules extensions tended toward the simulationist side of things (though I tried to avoid over-complicating anything that would slow down general play).

I also have some fairly comprehensive rules for environment survival and disease. Monsters and magic weren't the only dangers facing adventurers in my version of Legend.

Regards staying conscious, you could apply a penalty - but in practice it's not easy to stay conscious for long anyway. Every roll is another chance to fall unconscious, so I didn't bother with further modifiers based on how far gone the character was. Even with the maximum Looks score of 18 there is a 15% chance each round.

A simple test every round is as complicated as I would want to make it - an easy roll to remember and apply. Trying to figure out further penalties, not worth the extra effort.
Author:  Starkad [ Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: A more indepth look at healing?
Quote:
I also have some fairly comprehensive rules for environment survival and disease.

If you don't mind, I'd be interested to see those (perhaps in a different thread).

Quote:
Regards staying conscious, you could apply a penalty - but in practice it's not easy to stay conscious for long anyway. Every roll is another chance to fall unconscious, so I didn't bother with further modifiers based on how far gone the character was. Even with the maximum Looks score of 18 there is a 15% chance each round.

A simple test every round is as complicated as I would want to make it - an easy roll to remember and apply. Trying to figure out further penalties, not worth the extra effort.

I suppose that's a fair point. I find there's a lot to be said for keeping things simple. :)
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