Permanent Drain Damage Options

[Tycho]

Drain damage, regardless of whether it is Stun or Physical damage, cannot be healed by any means other than the natural properties of the body—that means no magical healing and no medkits. If you overdo it, you’ll simply need to make time for some rest.

Healing is an Extended Test.

You get -1dice every roll in an Extended Test:


So let's say a Mage has been overcasting for 5P Drain Damage. As many Mages he is not the the toughest guy and only has Body 2

So to heal the 5P drain he rests: 1. day he has 4d6 scores 1 hit; 2. day he has 3d6 and he scores 1 hit; 3. day he has 2d6 and no hit; 4 day he has 1d6 an scores another hit:

Now he has no dice left and still 2P Drain Damage left. Which he cannot heal anymore.

[Torquar]

This doesn't just apply to Drain, it's any healing really.
My guess is this is just another "oopsie" that needs to be picked up in errata. I don't think the -1 die should apply to healing, there's no reason why the average (bod 3) persons healing gets slower every day then simply stops after a week (-6 die). They also stand a pretty high chance of critically glitching on day 5 and 6 too (2 and 1 die respectively).

[blaze2050]

I don't think, that the -1 is a mistake in natural healing. It is very well possible, that you have wounds or diseases that don't heal by just lying down for a few days.
That's why we have hospitals and doctors and medicine skill. For all "normal" wounds, diseases etc. it makes sense, that people with a weak constitution have problems to heal naturally even lighter wounds.
You only have to have Body 3 to have 6 dice in the Extended test. In a world without glitches and rolling average you would have 7 hits without medical assistance (better loose some hits by not rolling the last 4 rolls to avoid glitches, so the averages guy heals about 4 boxes just by resting; in the old times of SR2 3 boxes was called medium wound, 6 were serious, so I can live with an average guy having to go to doctor with a more than medium wound. (A body 4 guy has 8 dice, average no-glitching 12 hits, lose 3 hits for not rolling the last 4 rolls, means a guy with somewhat more than average constitution recovers from 9 boxes, from near bleeding to death, by just resting, no medical help at all)
(edit: corrected how many boxes to expect, had forgotten, that you get Body times two , not only Body)

But if we interpret the quote as "no medical assistance helps with magical drain", the drain damage does pose problems and I admit that.

I see only two ways out of this:
You get very literal and say that medicine is an enhancement of natural healing and you may use it and that the quoted sentence only explicitly excludes medkits (first aid) from helping you. So if you go into a hospital, they can help you there, but it will takes days. No first aid on the battlefield for magical drain.

or

You houserule that the natural healing test for drain is rolled ad infinitum without the -1, but other wounds still have it, because as I said it's not a bad thing that broken bones, a shot through the lung etc. don't heal completely by just resting.

[Jaid]

how is natural healing an extended test?

if i rest for one day, i heal in that time. immediately. i'm not doing an extended test to heal X boxes of damage once i've completed the entire test, i'm making a test to heal Y boxes today (or this hour, for stun).

this does not describe an extended test, where you perform multiple tests and total your hits to see if you've reached the threshold. your results are on a per-test basis, and your success or failure in the previous hour/day has absolutely no impact on your success or failure in this hour/day.

[Draco18s]

Oh god this thread makes me think of a project I did at work.

It was for a product called Medihoney (which is basically pure raw honey, no really, just buy a jar, it's cheaper) that was intended for use on ulcers that weren't healing after two weeks. Whether or not the rules were intended to have that outcome or not, never-healing wounds do happen in real life.

[BishopMcQ]

The rules now support Stigmata. Woot!

Edit: You could also use Increase Body spells in a sustaining focus or have somebody else cast and sustain it to help with healing.

[kzt]

Whether or not the rules were intended to have that outcome or not, never-healing wounds do happen in real life.

They do. But they are typically only affect pretty sick people. For example, severe long-term diabetics and elderly people with other major issues already. It's not at all common for young healthy people.

[blaze2050]

And those sickly or very elderly people have Body 1 or Body 2 and will have lasting problems if having been wounded severly and not having been treated at all.
Remember that somebody with Medicine will add on the average +1 die to the healing roll of the patient per 3 dice he has in Logic+Medicine. That helps a lot in healing normal damage and in my opinion should also help in healing magical drain. I think it's enough that Medkit's (and First Aid) don't count.

[Epicedion]

how is natural healing an extended test?

if i rest for one day, i heal in that time. immediately. i'm not doing an extended test to heal X boxes of damage once i've completed the entire test, i'm making a test to heal Y boxes today (or this hour, for stun).

this does not describe an extended test, where you perform multiple tests and total your hits to see if you've reached the threshold. your results are on a per-test basis, and your success or failure in the previous hour/day has absolutely no impact on your success or failure in this hour/day.

This right here.

[Tycho]

Make a Body x 2 (1 day)Extended Test.

The is not much to argue here: The Rules clearly state it is an Extended Test!

The problem is with Drain because everything else you can heal with first Aid, Magic etc. but Drain is only healed by Natural Recovery, everything else does not work.

[Sendaz]

The is not much to argue here: The Rules clearly state it is an Extended Test!

The problem is with Drain because everything else you can heal with first Aid, Magic etc. but Drain is only healed by Natural Recovery, everything else does not work.

But If you also look at the example on pg 207, we can see that the -1 per extended is NOT being applied.

Now that all the Stun is healed, Full Deck can start
rolling to heal his Physical injuries. He decides to keep
resting at home, lounging around on the couch and ordering
takeout. Full Deck rolls (Body 2) x 2 once per
day. Over the next five days, his hits are as follows:
1, 0, 0, 2 (glitch, double the healing time), and 0 (critical
glitch) hits. The glitch means that one day’s worth
of healing actually took two days, so at this point Full
Deck has healed 3 boxes of Physical damage in 6
days.

On day 4 he scored 2 hits, if the -1 per ext test was being applied he wouldn't have even been able to roll 2 hits since he would have consumed all but 1 die just from the penalty. And we are assuming no edge or some other exploding dice since it doesn't make mention of it.

So Healing may be an exception to the normal rule for extended or the example is wrong. 50/50 I guess given the track record for stats to examples to date.

Personally I am inclined to think it is the exception. Extended test penalties were to reflect that if you didn't pick the lock on the first go after all that set up time it seems unlikely you will do it the second time and to just prevent someone from rolling and rolling until they get lucky.

Healing is just an ongoing process and the extended test was used to reflect that it simply takes time to heal.

And people wonder why some mages go looking at blood or green magics to divert that drain elsewhere......

[Draco18s]

Reminder:
When the rules and the example conflict, the rules take precedence.

[Jaid]

well, it shouldn't be an extended test then. unless you know of other extended tests where every hit has an immediate effect.

[Draco18s]

And that's why we have an errata thread. :3

[kzt]

And that's why we have an errata thread. :3

I've heard that some game companies expect that the writers and developer to actually understand the rules. Luckily there is no such stick in the mud attitude with CGL. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

[blaze2050]

If they meant this to be a kind of Extended Test, they should have written, that is an Extended Test with a Threshhold of the damage the patient has and that in contrast to a normal Extended Test hits that you collect do count, even if you didn't reach the Threshhold.

Also as already quoted the example would be wrong and nobody thought of the consequences, if you connect a rule that says that natural healing cannot always heal somebody completely with a rule that says that magical drain only gets natural healing.

Unfortunately, a sloppy use of a defined term like Extended Test, a wrong example and a not thinking through the consequences of two rules connecting seems to be quite possible with Shadowrun.

I personally have no problem with Body 1 and Body 2 characters not being able to heal to complete health without medical assistance and/or Edge and/or magical healing.
But then you have to rule, the only Medkits do not affect magical drain, but medical assistance that takes days does help.

Here is some longish guesstimations how a system with Extended Tests natural healing works:

(I call the last 2 rolls of an Extended Test (only 1 and 2 dice) Very Dangerous Dice and the last 4 (4,3,2,1 dice) Dangerous Dice because of their high critical glitch chance.

1 Body : the patient is very old and/or frail and/or sick, can roll only the Very Dangerous Dice and has only 3 percent to heal 3 boxes, never more. On the average he will have 1 box healed, but probably lower because of the high critglitch chance (I think it's about 27%), where he will be worse after healing, because of the 1D3 critglitch damage boxes.

2 Body: low constitution, can only roll the Dangerous Dice, with extremely low probability, but possible (about 1 in 60000) the patient has all dice hits and heals 10 boxes (shot within 1 box of instant death, first aid only stabilized and he then fully heals just by resting 4 days) , on the average he will heal 3 boxes, or less, if he is leaving the Very Dangerous Dice aside, because he doesn't want to risk critglitch)

3 Body: average constitution, can leave the Dangerous Dice aside, if he wants, and has still 5+6 dice left. Heals about 4 boxes when not using the Dangerous Dice and up to 7 when using them, probability of being worse after healing is very low

4 Body: some better than average constitution, can heal about 9 boxes (26 dice) without the Dangerous Dice, more if he risks them. This guy has a high probability to come back fully healed from being shot, stabbed, poisoned to within one box of damage of instant death, and all he has to do is rest 8 days.

5 Body: very fit, without the Dangerous Dice the patient has 45 dice to heal with 15 boxes on the average. Being shot to near instant death with 15 boxes of damage he can normally heal them all by lying on his couch for 10 days.

For those with Body 2 and more they might add the Try again rule, that allows a test to be repeated with -2. In essence this would be adding the stuff you would have had, if your Body was one lower in the list above. For people with Body 1 this is of course impossible, for Body 2 it's very risky to go another round with -2 and for Body 3 it begins to be interesting.

If you add somebody with Logic+Medicine this helper gives +1 die for the patients natural healing per 3 dice he has in Logic + Medicine. In a way this means, that per 6 dice in the helpers Logic+Medicine the patient heals as if he had one Body more.
So if you have a beginning doctor with Logic 3 and Medicine 3 help the Body 1 patient, you can look up the result what happens to the Body 2 person. If the doctor is very good with 12 dice (like Logic 4 and Medicine (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) the Body 1 patient behaves like Body 3 and can fully recover from a lot of punishment even though he is very old/frail/sick. If you have one of the best doctors in the world with 18 dice (Logic 6 + Cerebral Booster 3 + 9 Medicine) the Body 1 person heals/recovers like Body 4, so he can come back from 9 boxes of damage (as near to instant death, as he could be) to full health. But only with the very best doc.

This all is leaving gear boni aside which a fully equipped hospital may give (don't know the SR5 rules for these yet). You probably need the boni from the Medkit/Autodoc/Hospital to counter patient's implants and/or being a magician.

So if somebody with Body 1 or Body 2 get hurt they cannot fully recover without medical assistance. I have no problem with that. These are not stigmata, but rather a limping, a damaged organ, that could not be fully repaired, scars that still hurt etc.

In world where you just have to rest for x days to heal anything, no matter how bad, what do doctors do? Why are there still hospitals?

By the way, putting together these thoughts, another problem occured to me, if one says that the mage cannot use any medical assistance: do Trauma Patches work? If they don't work and First Aid is not allowed, mage who are bleeding to death will never saved. According to the rules, a character with Overflow can only be stabilized by outside sources and so people can say that this is not natural healing and so Stabilization would be a no-go for magical drain.
Of course I don't share this opinion, but the door for this interpretation is open.

[binarywraith]

I've heard that some game companies expect that the writers and developer to actually understand the rules. Luckily there is no such stick in the mud attitude with CGL. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

Man, this is SR5. They don't expect the rules to even be able to be found within the document, much less make sense when you find 'em.

[FuelDrop]

So... does this permanent damage include permanent stun if you're really unlucky or whatever?

[blaze2050]

Mages with Body+Will of 4 have a lot of problems, but yes, being forbidden from using an aspirin (Medkit) against against your Stun magical drain seems to strange effects and I would houserule Medkit back in for Stun. I don't know if one will ever see mage, that has so little willpower, that he won't be able recover from his Stun, but in that case a Medkit should help.

[Sengir]

And those sickly or very elderly people have Body 1 or Body 2 and will have lasting problems if having been wounded severly and not having been treated at all.

Even BOD 4 means you only roll 10 dice total, i.e. ~3 hits on average...

[BishopMcQ]

Sengir--It's a Body x 2 test
8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 -- 36 dice, 12 hits on average

[Shemhazai]

By the way, putting together these thoughts, another problem occured to me, if one says that the mage cannot use any medical assistance: do Trauma Patches work? If they don't work and First Aid is not allowed, mage who are bleeding to death will never saved. According to the rules, a character with Overflow can only be stabilized by outside sources and so people can say that this is not natural healing and so Stabilization would be a no-go for magical drain.
Of course I don't share this opinion, but the door for this interpretation is open.

I would think that a magician physically draining herself unconscious would not be able to be revived. There's one caveat: does stabilization count as healing? Perhaps a magician can be stabilized but can only use natural means to get out of her coma.

Do the dice from the quick healing adept power count as magical healing? It says it is magical in the power description. Do the dice from an increase attribute (body) spell count as magical healing? Does any medical help whatsoever count as not being of the body's natural healing abilities? There's also a quick healer quality that I think does count as natural. That's a great one for awakened characters.

[Sengir]

Sengir--It's a Body x 2 test
8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 -- 36 dice, 12 hits on average

Right, my bad. But please don't tell me you calculate dice totals like that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Draco18s]

Right, my bad. But please don't tell me you calculate dice totals like that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Quick, give me the sum of all numbers from 1 to 100, inclusive!

(That was actually the plot for an Adam's Family episode: they had 24 hours to figure it out and kept messing up. Eventually they figured out a shortcut.)

[Sengir]

Quick, give me the sum of all numbers from 1 to 100, inclusive!

(That was actually the plot for an Adam's Family episode: they had 24 hours to figure it out and kept messing up. Eventually they figured out a shortcut.)

100*101*1/2 = 50 * 101 = 5050. Did nobody have the story with young Gauss in school?