Magic Healing, A question concerning it. Options

[BlackRabite]

I feel like I am missing something blatantly obvious here, but a few of the spells under the "Healing" section don't mention anything changing with the Force of the spell. The ones that come to mind right now are Heal and Improve Reflexes. Heal just says it heals a number of Phys damage equal to your hits on in the spellcasting test with the drain being the amount healed. Imp Reflexes uses Force in the Drain Value calculation but as far as I can tell the only variable is the threshold for the number of Init Passes you are going for.

I have read and re-read the lead in for the Healing section but it's the only section that doesn't give a static use for Force in the spells. We're going to start our first SR campaign tomorrow and I was brushing up on my general knowledge (Everyone playing is new to SR) before the questions start flying.

[Ravor]

Hits are capped by the Spell's Force, and the higher Force the harder it is to Dispel/Disrupt your Spell.

[Jaid]

[Adarael]

And this is why spells with high force are only able to be cast legally by liscenced magicians.

Because the guv'mint wants you to suck unless they've okayed you to be good at something.

[Ravor]

Still, Increased Reflexes (Force 3) will give you a total of 3 IPs, which should be more then enough as well as being more managable when the Mage has to cast it more then once in the middle of a Run.

[Kyoto Kid]

...in Kat Markova's words, "magic healing, bah! вздор".

First Aid 6 (Combat Wounds) + Logic 7 + Medikit rating 6.

...base DP of 21 and can heal a max of 6 boxes damage.

[WearzManySkins]

Hmm I though the procedure was

First use First Aid or Kit for same then plus Logic, max healing is the rating of the first Aid Skill or first aid kit rating.

Then you use magical healing to try and heal the rest. Max healing being the force of the spell cast.

So technically you could heal 6 boxes using a First Aid Kit/spell, then heal 6 more boxes from a force 6 healing spell.

WMS

[Jack Kain]

[toturi]

[odinson]

[Zolhex]

P242 SR4 Using first aid ( I just gonna hit the hi points here.)

First - You can only use first aid with in 12 hours of the damage.

Second - The test is First Aid + Logic (2) test (add modifiers as needed, self treatment add your wound mods).

Third - If you have a Medkit add it's rating as a die pool to the test.

Fourth - This test is a complex action and takes a number of combat turns equal to the number of boxes your healing.

Fifth - Evey hit on the die roll beyond the 2 needed heals 1 box of damage this means you need 3 hits to heal 1 box of damage. 4 for 2 5 for 3 6 for 4 so on and so fourth.

Sixth - Critical on the test adds 1d3 of damage to your condition monitor.

Seventh - Max damage boxes you can heal is equal to your first aid skill.

Lastly - you may only heal wounds with first aid once you can how ever heal your damage then take more and then heal that damage. It's Like this you have 5 damage you heal 4 damage on your test. Next round you take 3 damage you now have 4 damage but you can only heal the 3 damage you just got not all 4. Also you may not heal damage left over from a healing spell you can however use a heal spell to heal damage left over after a first aid test.

Do note that first aid can heal both stun and physical while magic can only heal physical.

Hope that helps and have fun playing.

[Big D]

All of which is why a good mage should have at least a couple points+spec in FA, plus a high-rank medkit.

[Buster]

I'm curious, how would you describe the first aid treatment for stun damage from spell drain? Are they just popping ibuprofen? Applying cold packs to their throbbing heads? Cotton packs for nose bleeds?

Also, how long does it take to treat stun damage with first aid? Can it be done in combat?

[Tarantula]

Stun and Physical are the same duration for treatment for first aid.

[Eryk the Red]

Any first aid can be done in combat, but it takes time (which makes you a sitting duck).

[Kyoto Kid]

[Jaid]

actually, as i read things the adept ability that improves skills *actually* improves skills. that is, you don't have a +2 to your dice pool when making a first aid check, you actually have 2 more points of first aid when you have the adept ability at rating 2.

that being said, it is much cheaper to just get yourself a reflex recorder...

[Kyoto Kid]

...true that would raise the maximum for healing boxes of damage. However, that is moot since again, Kat was brought up as an example of a totally mundane character who can do a pretty decent job of patching up damage without the aid of any magic.

The Reflex recorder unfortunately works only with Combat & Physical skills, First aid & Medicine are technical (Logic based) skills. The only implant that would help in her case would be getting the final rating level of Cerebral Boosting (3) which she does have the :nuyen: for after the last run.

Now there may be other enhancements forthcoming in Augmented that could add to her skill, but we will have to wait & see.

[hyzmarca]

[Kyoto Kid]

...in my experience all healing has been pretty much been done after combat was over.

I have yet to see a mage take a full IP to cast a heal spell while combat is still going on and then take the additional sustaining penalty afterwards (usually he or she already would have other spells running at the time).

It is more efficient to cast Resist Pain and negate wound modifiers as the target doesn't need to be administered to after the initial casting action, thus not subjecting the mage to a -2 DP modifier until the damage is healed.

[hyzmarca]

That really depends on what strategy they're using. A dedicated support mage who hangs back while the troll melee tank rips through the opposition is going to get more mileage out of combat healing than casting pain resistance.

[cx2]

It could be argued that tanking in SR is a fast way to get killed anyway :P

[knasser]

[Moon-Hawk]

Well, Force isn't completely metagame, it can be assensed and it directly impacts the amount of time a signature lasts. Signature lifespan is probably the simplest, clearest way to reliably measure force in-game.
Of course, these are again things that only magicians can measure, so it all comes down to mysterious expert testimony, in the end.
So I feel like force is meaningful for the magical theorists in SR, but the legality limit is pretty impractical.

[Dashifen]

@knasser

Edit: what Moon-Hawk said.

... plus Sustained Spells have an aura while they're sustained, so you could Assense that aura specifically and with enough hits get a sense of the aura's force or the exact force.