Healing Stun, Why won't magic work? Options

[Mordinvan]

As I understand it, most stun damage is a combination of exhaustion, bursing/strains, and pain. Each of these symptoms can be fixed individually with magical spells, but lable them as stun, and suddenly they are unfixable. If the stun if from magical drain, or a mana based stun spell I can understand that as having suppressed the targets spirit without actually damaging it, and it just takes a while to stoke the furnace again to get it running properly. But how is the damage inflicted from a gell round somehow immune to being repaired by the same method which would fix the hole left by a 44. magnum slug, when the pain can be treated, the brusing can be treated, and even the unpleasant memory of having been shot can be removed?

[WearzManySkins]

IIRC the act of casting a spell the caster is being a conduit of magical energies, the body is not designed to be a conduit for magical energies so when you exceed your bodies limit for such you take damage that closely resembles stun or in the case of over casting physical damage.

When summoning a spirit again your body/magic is straining to pull that spirit into this plane of existence, same effects when you exceed your limit on summoning.

If you search here there are some interesting discussions on this here.

WMS

[Mordinvan]

as I said, I understand not being able to heal drain based damage. But not that inflicted by a gell round.

[WearzManySkins]

Again search here for "+healing +stun +damage", and watch the topics that come up.

WMS

[Fortune]

First Aid can be used to heal Stun damage. Just not damage from Drain (whether Stun or Physical).

[Muspellsheimr]

First Aid can in fact heal Drain damage, but what the OP is asking is, why can the Heal spell not heal damage caused by a Gel Round, or Electricity.

My answer is, probably for game balance, and although allowing Heal to cure stun damage might make it to good of a spell, I do not see why you could not have an identical spell that cures only stun. As it is not one of the things forbidden by Street Magic spell design rules, go ahead and make the spell. Might even have a drain of -3 for only healing stun damage, although the stun modifier as written I believe only applies to damaging spells.

[AngelisStorm]

Because their stupid...?

I've wondered the exact same thing myself. In our game you can heal stun damage through magic. If you can heal a gaping bullet wound, there is no reason you can't heal the bruises from the same bullet if it doesn't go through your bullet proof vest.

[ornot]

I thought you could heal stun damage (so long as it wasn't drain related) with magic. Anyone got a page ref?

[Fortune]

First Aid can in fact heal Drain damage ...

You're right. I'm batting a thousand today ... maybe I should stop smoking for a while. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

... but what the OP is asking is, why can the Heal spell not heal damage caused by a Gel Round, or Electricity.

Shrug. The original poster does not mention the Heal Spell specifically (not once in two seperate posts), but healing in general, hence my (partially correct) response.

[Fortune]

I thought you could heal stun damage (so long as it wasn't drain related) with magic. Anyone got a page ref?

Magical Healing
The Heal spell can be used to repair physical injuries. Each hit from the Spellcasting Test heals one box of Physical damage (up to a maximum equal to the spell’s Force). See Heal, p. 200.

Heal
Type: M • Range: T • Duration: P • DV: (Damage Value) – 2
Heal repairs physical injuries. It heals a number of boxes of Physical damage equal the spell’s hits from the Spellcasting Test. Hits can also be used to reduce the base time for the spell to become permanent; each hit spent this way shaves off 1 Combat Turn (hits can be split between healing and reducing time as the caster desires).

[ornot]

Thanks Fortune. My bad.

[FrankTrollman]

The limitation was originally in there as an attempt to limit magical drain healing (and the obvious problems that would cause). It's basically a legacy in from previous editions where they shortsightedly tried to limit Drain Healing but putting cramps on Magicians trying to get rid of Stun. Heck, in the old days Stim Patches used to cause Magic Loss!

---

Limiting Stun Healing never really did the job it was supposed to do, and it's in there as an afterthought more than anything. If you wanted to house rule in that Heal could be used to fix Stun that would be fine. Nothing bad will actually happen because of that.

-Frank

[Wasabi]

As an aside, I had never really though to do it before, but using Counterspelling can undo a Heal spell as long as the Counterspelling used to dispel it is performed between when the Heal is cast and when the P duration actually becomes permanent.

[Shiloh]

As an aside, I had never really though to do it before, but using Counterspelling can undo a Heal spell as long as the Counterspelling used to dispel it is performed between when the Heal is cast and when the P duration actually becomes permanent.

Only if the person subject to the Heal decides to resist it and is in receipt of the Counterspelling dice... Counterspelling isn't an active *dispel* it's a bonus to people *resisting* spells. It might seem like an active dispel when you're considering things like Invisibility, which observers get a chance to resist the first time the subject comes in sight, at which point they get the assistance of any Counterspelling a friendly Magician might be providing.

[ornot]

Don't you use counterspelling to dispell anchored or quickened spells?

Even if I was to allow counterspelling a heal spell you'd probably be far better off hitting both targets with an offensive spell, so I don't see it coming up as an issue.

[ArkonC]

Our GM introduced a new spell (Second Wind I think he called it) that works just like Heal, but for Stun Damage, it still can't heal drain and it isn't particularly game ruining, we have no mage in the party, so only the opposition uses it...

[Nightwalker450]

If healing Stun would the drain be based off their stun track damage?

I'm assuming heal as is now, you don't count their stun damage when figuring drain.

[ArkonC]

If healing Stun would the drain be based off their stun track damage?

I'm assuming heal as is now, you don't count their stun damage when figuring drain.

I would assume for healing Physical damage you base drain on the Physical Damage Track and for Stun the Stun Damage Track...

[Nightwalker450]

I was kind of thinking along the lines of healing physical only checks the physical damage track, but healing stun will take both into account. Bruises won't matter as much when your healing gaping wounds, but trying to heal bruising around gaping wounds might be a tad more difficult.

Just a thought, healing stun altogether is outside of RAW, so I thought I'd just add this to the table. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[ArkonC]

I was kind of thinking along the lines of healing physical only checks the physical damage track, but healing stun will take both into account. Bruises won't matter as much when your healing gaping wounds, but trying to heal bruising around gaping wounds might be a tad more difficult.

Just a thought, healing stun altogether is outside of RAW, so I thought I'd just add this to the table. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Hmmm, you do have a point, from a realistic point of view...
But from a game mechanics perspective, I'd keep them separate...

[FrankTrollman]

Only if the person subject to the Heal decides to resist it and is in receipt of the Counterspelling dice... Counterspelling isn't an active *dispel* it's a bonus to people *resisting* spells. It might seem like an active dispel when you're considering things like Invisibility, which observers get a chance to resist the first time the subject comes in sight, at which point they get the assistance of any Counterspelling a friendly Magician might be providing.

He's talking about dispelling, not spell resistance. Still uses the Counterspelling skill. And since every Permanent spell has to be a Sustained spell for a number of rounds, then yes that would totally work.

Of course, for very similar drain you could just Mana Bolt the victim and give him some new injuries, so whatever.

-Frank

[paws2sky]

He's talking about dispelling, not spell resistance. Still uses the Counterspelling skill. And since every Permanent spell has to be a Sustained spell for a number of rounds, then yes that would totally work.

Something I hadn't considered before: can you cast a Permanent spell through a sustaining focus, so that it maintains the spell while the sustaining duration counts down?

-paws

[FrankTrollman]

Something I hadn't considered before: can you cast a Permanent spell through a sustaining focus, so that it maintains the spell while the sustaining duration counts down?

-paws

Yes. You can also pawn it off to a bound spirit while the ticker goes if you care.

-Frank