Exile Game Studio

[AidanPryde13]

In Desolation, if a character uses the medicine skill to provide first aid, successes alternate between healing non-lethal damage and converting lethal damage to non-lethal.

For example, if the victim has 4 lethal points of damage, and the healer rolls 4 successes, the 1st success turns 1 point of lethal to non-leathal (leaving 3 lethal and 1 non-lethal). The 2nd success heals that non-lethal (leaving 3 lethal). The 3rd success turns another lethal to non-lethal (leaving 2 lethal, 1 non-lethal). And the last success heals the non-lethal (leaving 2 lethal). Or, in other words, 4 successes can either heal 2 lethal or 4 non lethal.

So, my question is, does magical healing work the same way? If my animist character rolls 4 successes to heal the victim mentioned above, does it leave him with 2 lethal levels? Or does it heal lethal damage on a 1 for 1 basis (thus healing it all)?

[Runeslinger]

The chart provided for healing effects in Desolation lists them as being levels added or regained. If you produce a Tough Effect the Animist or Necromancer has to decide if they want to triple the person's natural rate of healing or heal the wounds directly. If they choose the latter, on a Tough Effect 3 levels of health are restored. The type of wound is not important to the effect, it is important to the description of the spell and the changes the spell produces.

As the game suggests that healing of any sort is rare, and life is hard, the intent may have been that a specification needs to be made between the intent to heal Lethal or Nonlethal wounds. In other spell cases it is necessary to be precise and this works well if you follow suit. In many cases characters will not have mixed wound types, but when they do it is evocative of the setting for them to not be fully healed after treatment. The caster chooses to focus on the Lethal Wounds and the Non-lethal wounds remain for nature to care for.

What the chart does not do is produce 'healing successes' to spend versus wounds like the healing skill does. It simply heals full levels, or counters other injurious effects. This is not to say you cannot run effects that way, merely that when playing Desolation we have a certain thematic duty to paint a somewhat bleak experience for the characters for the maximum enjoyment of the players.... who must therefore be somewhat masochistic...?

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Runeslinger

It doesn't matter that it has all been said before