(TFT) Injury and Healing rules --> discussion of -2 & -3 DX penalties for damage.

[Rick Smith <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

On Sun, 2004-12-26 at 15:33, Charles Gadda wrote:
> Introduction
> I intended to send these out a while ago, but never quite finished them
> until very recently. 

	Hi Charles.
	Thanks for the post!  New rules are always what
most interest me on the list.

	Damage is so complicated that we MUST simplify
it for TFT.  That said I would rather the rules be fast
and unrealistic than more complicated generally.  So 
my bias is stated up front. 

> I also wanted to make firm demarcations between magical and non-magical
> healing "potions" - with the non-magical ones made by Master Physickers
> simply speeding healing and the magical ones, made by alchemists, providing
> a much more miraculous recovery. While requiring more record keeping than
> before, I do not think it is too difficult.

	In my Chemists / Alchemists rules I say that
healing potions use magical ingredients but do not need
magical processing.  Thus Chemists / M. Physickers can
make them.  

	I did this deliberately.  We want the chemist
potions to be powerful in game effects and simple to
describe and use.  This means that they are required to 
be unrealistically quick or have other 'magical' effects.  
If every chemist potion that was unrealistically powerful 
in some way was moved to the Alchemist side of the fence, 
we would have darn few chemist formulas left.

	However, your rules do close this illogical
problem.


> 4.3 REACTIONS TO INJURY. ...

> Effects of Injury
> Body Hits:
> 1/2 - 2/3 ST damage in one turn from any number of sources: -2 adjDX 
> on next turn ONLY ...

	Speaking to Erol / Peter here.  I am not 
troubled by the -2 adj DX.  I think that the 
penalty should remain.  Consider this story:

	Grog the barbarian is fighting a group
of thugs.  He takes a 5 point wound.  Next round
he attacks with his DX of 14 (-2 for the 
injury) and rolls a 6.  Critical hit!  A spear
carrier goes down.  That turn a dagger goes into
Grog's spleen; another 6 hits.  The next turn 
Grog rolls a 12 and takes down another guardsman.
A spear man hits Grog for 3 points.  Grog is now
at 2 ST basic and is at -3 DX.  Grog strikes and
rolls an 8.  A hit!  Another guardsman goes down
and the rest flee, shaking their heads how Grog
fought unaffected by his wounds over 3 turns.

	Even under the TFT standard rules I would
expect a LOT of anecdotal evidence of people who
were forced to fight for their lives 'not being
affected' by serious wounds.

	Another story real life.   In a knife fight 
I read about in LA a man was attacked by two thugs.  
He knocked down one attacker and took his knife.  
But the other stabbed him, and the victim was unable 
to inflict major damage on the attacker.  The victim 
was robbed & ended up in in hospital.

	However the newspaper did not mention the
fact that the guy missed his attacker because of
the -2 DX penalty!  What shoddy reporting!  Well,
maybe the guy missed because of the -2 DX or maybe
because he was at a -4 DX penalty for attacking 
with out the Knife skill or maybe because he just 
had a poor DX.

	My point has been made I think.  Anecdotal
evidence is very poor for formulating effects of
damage rules.  You will be able to find LOTS of
evidence on both sides of the argument, and it you
still won't know for sure if someone missed an
attack because of the -2 DX or some other reason.


	I would suggest that we go with A)  what is
fun, and B)  what is more dramatic  and C)  what is 
easiest to play.

	Erol's suggestion to just ignore -2 DX for
serious wounds -3 DX for permanent negatives has
the advantage C) in spades.

	As for is it more fun & more dramatic...  
well I can remember lots of fights when the PC's 
seemed to enjoy putting the enemy at -2 DX, which
made them safer.  Admittedly sometimes they were on
the short end of that stick, but usually my PC's are
more experienced than the bunch of NPC's they are 
fighting.  And I do think that it is dramatic that
they are so badly hurt that they are at significant
damage penalties and they choose to keep on fighting
and win.  Just shows that their DX is really, really
excellent!  Ha! my 18 DX sneers at -2 + -3 penalties!
(Unless, of course, you roll a 14 to hit and then 
you aren't sneering any more.)
	And then when you have the enemy battle ax guy 
attacking you at 6 DX and he hits anyway...  well that 
has caused some shouting & loud bemoaning of the winds
of cruel fate in my time.


	However if Erol is bugged by the unrealism 
of -2 DX, it won't be fun for him.  By all means 
dispense with the penalty!!!  One fewer things to 
remember during combat!

	Erol,  please do not think I am picking on
you.  I actually think that this rule discussion was
excellent.  Any rule change that could simplify the
rules should be given very serious consideration.

	In fact, tho I think that that getting rid of
the -2 DX penalty is less realistic,  (on faith and
hunches _I_ guess it is more realistic) I may play
test your version and see how it goes.  Will it really
impact fun / drama in my gaming group?  If not, maybe
we should stick with the simpler rules.



> Grave Wounds
> A figure that receives a SINGLE injury that inflicts damage equal to or
> greater than = of the figure's basic ST suffers ... a Grave Wound. 

	I feel your rules are more realistic.  However
as I said above, I do not worry much about realism
now-a-days.  I question are Grave Wounds fun, dramatic,
and fast?

	Obviously they are not faster.  My feeling is
that most players do not generally like more realistic
damage rules.  After all they get a critical hit and
cripple an NPC.  The NPC's life is ruined but the PC's
don't care.  Not much difference from killing the NPC
on the spot.  However, having a favorite PC crippled
or missing fun adventures is a downer.  Admittedly 
you can magically heal, but that just puts more 
emphasis on the technology of magic and the whole 
Industrial Disease discussion.

	Would the rules be more dramatic?  Well yes, I
think they would be.  Being Gravelly Wounded is more
dramatic than saying, "...and in the fight near the 
Pebble I was knocked down to 2 ST!!!"  Note that they
are not MUCH more dramatic if you have Industrial 
Disease and the PC's just magically heal.  If that is
the case, I would rather not go there and force the
PC's to keep a healing wizard in their back pocket.


> Optional Rule: Lingering Injuries
> Any grave wound may cause a lingering injury that impairs the victim in some
> manner. For example, a severe leg wound, even if it does not cause loss of
> the limb, might force a permanent limp. ...

	I don't like this.  Sure it is realistic.
But this is an area where I don't want realism.
Sure it can be solved with Industrial Disease but
I already think TFT has too much magical Industrial
Disease...

> All attribute points lost as a result of a lingering wound may be recovered
> normally through experience, but the "lost" point is still counted towards
> the character's point total. 

	I do not want to add insult to injury.  
This is also another think to keep track of.  It
would also be a real temptation for the PC to
cheat.  If the GM does not bother to double 
check the PC's addition, then the only people
who are punished by this are the honest players.
I do not like this.


> 4.3.1 OPTIONAL RULE: REMAINING CONSCIOUS IN SPITE OF INJURIES.

	I think this is dramatically important
enough to keep track of.  'Fighting for 
consciousness, I slew the dragon and stumbled
out of the lake of acid before passing out...'

	See my healing rules for how I handled
this.

> 4.3.2 REST AND HEALING
> 
> 4.3.2.1 NORMAL HEALING
> A figure may recover damage from regular injuries at a normal rate of =
> point per day of bed rest for every 8 points of basic ST the figure has. 

	Interesting that healing rate is based on 
ST.  I guess that explains how Conan recovered
so quickly between fights.  Do you care to comment
on the logic / evidence on this Charles?  I'm not
arguing against it, I would just like more 
discussion on this point.



> 4.3.4.1 PHYSICKER REVIVAL.

	Your Physicker revival seem very familiar.
Did you adapt them from other rules?  I've 
experimented with a few varieties of Physicker 
revival rules but they always seem to end up too
complex to easily remember.  (The fact that they 
keep changing no doubt exacerbates the problem.)

> HEALING TALENTS
> BARBER (1). Basic Healer's ability. 

	I like the name far better than the 
'First Aid' talent that I've seen in a couple
of places.

> HEALING AND CURING MAGIC/SPELLS
	I prefer my version of healing spells,
(see past posts).  However I really like that
if the wizard has Physicker etc. he can heal
more and better.
	Unfortunately this won't fit that well
in my campaign.
	If I was going to go with a 'spend fST
and get health back' type healing, I would 
definitely give the spell more kick for healers.
In general it opens up the whole idea that some
spells are more useful if you have talents.
Very cool, and it should be widely applicable.

> 
> IQ 20 REGROWTH (T) ...

	I think that this spell should have a 
lower IQ than Revival.  It would not break my
heart to see Revival go up to 24 IQ for example.

> 
> OTHER HEALING
> ELIXIR OF HEALTH: This very potent potion will heal 1d+1 ...

	Generally I do like rolling dice to see
how much healing I get.  If I'm spending more than
2 grand for a healing elixir I would be choked if
I rolled a one and got only 2 points back.


	Overall thoughts:
	-----------------

	Generally a very good, playable set of 
rules.  I agree with most of what you said and 
did not comment on them.  The only places where
I talked was where I disagreed with you, so it
may seem I am quite negative.  Not so.

	Thanks for the well written article!

	Rick
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