A question, and a proposal. Options

[SpeedFreak]

First off, in my group we had a bit of a quandry come up. It seems that way back through 2nd Ed there are no rules to guide you in creating new PhysAd powers. Now my friend remembers using them once before, but after a thourough searching of all 3rd and 2nd Ed magic (and magic related) books, we found zip. Anybody got a book ref on these? (If they exist at all.)

2nd, this hunt came about because I wanted to make a new PhysAd power called Regeneration and wanted some feedback on a balanced magic cost. To clarify, I did not want it to be a carbon copy of the creature power because I think it is way to arbitrary and random and therefore sucky. The power I finally came up with was this:

Regeneration:

The healing processes within your body are magically enhanced to supernatural levels, allowing you to heal even life-threatening injuries in a matter of moments. Additionally, your enhanced immune systems make drugs and toxins much less effective and even allow you to recover non-lethal damage faster.

Mechanics:

Each level of Regeneration causes your character to automatically heal one box of physical damage at the end of every round of combat. This ability only applies to physical damage, and not stun damage. Additionally, this ability does not function on overflow damage. This does allow you to heal those types of damage fatser though, with each level reducing the base healing time by half. Multiple levels have cumulative effects.

Cost: 3 points/ level.

Ok let me know what you think of the power and if there are any rules for creating PhysAd powers please let me know where I can find them.

Thanks.

[Ol' Scratch]

Hmm. If you're dead set on something like this, I'd probably start off with a price guideline like this. I know it's a little overcomplicated, but this is an immensely powerful ability.

Cost: 3 points +1 point per level for levels 1-2, +2 points per level for levels 3-5, and +3 points per level for levels 6-9. Thus if you want Regeneration 9, it'll cost you a whopping 23 Power Points or 17.25 with geas (good luck). Not quite as expensive as yours, though, but it follows the same trend you'll find in things like Damage Compensators.

If you toned it down so that the regeneration took place every 10 Combat Turns after the initial wound, on par with the Heal or Treat spells, a lower pricing guideline would be more practical. But as written, I'd give it a heft pricetag. Maybe requiring a test of some sort in order for it to work would be in order, too.

[BitBasher]

There are no canon rules for creating adept powers, and AFAIK there never were.

I tend to think that regeneration is too powerful for PC's, even nerfed down like that.

[Bossemanden]

Well. Make it cost 6 powerpoints. Make it a first level power only and make it heal one box every 10 turns, and you´ve got me convinced.

[Crimson Jack]

I like Bossemanden's idea (if it must be done). Keeping the PP cost high and the effects... tame, make it something that won't be a given if you're planning to play a PhysAd. There is always the option of playing a Shapeshifter...

[Voran]

Even one box every 10 turns seems a bit too powerful to me. Maybe taking something akin to the nanoware symbiotes effects and modding them a bit. I've been fiddling with a version more related as 'experimental bioware/genetic engineering stuff' but it could probably be modded towards a physad ability.

Base stun healing moved from 60 mins to 30 mins.

(Here's where I'd differ it from the nanoversion)

Base wound damage. Maybe healing 1 box per day. Base time like a light wound, starting a 24 hrs, minimum time based off successes, 2 hours. TN based on normal healing TNs per damage sustained.

So theoretically with your PhysAd, depending on amount of Body dice, could probably heal 1 box every 4 to 6 hours or so regularly. Roll for each
box. This still gives the PhsyAd an automatic healing power that is on average, much faster and cheaper than typical healing. Even at worst, with 10 boxes of physical dmg, they'd be 'up and running' within 4 days. At best, 20 hours. Works nice with that Rapid Healing edge that gives you a -2 to healing TNs.

As a physad power, maybe a cost of 2 or 3 pp?

[Ol' Scratch]

I was thinking about it last night. If I wanted to create a Regeneration power, how would I go about it? Here's what I came up with and figured it'd be a good place to start playtesting from. It makes healing light and moderate wounds fairly easy, but anything beyond that quickly becomes nearly impossible to heal at any significantly useful speed.

REGENERATION
Cost: 5 Power Points

Game Effect: One minute (20 Combat Turns) after you suffer a wound, make a Magic Test with a TN equal to the number of boxes you've suffered and adjust it with your wound penalty. Each success lowers your damage by one box. You may repeat this test, recalculating your target number each time, every minute thereafter. If at any time you fail to make any successes on your test, you can no longer regenerate that set of wounds; only rest, hospital care, and use of other types of magic will help. If the adept receives any other form of healing between regeneration tests, he uses the newly adjusted damage level but suffers a +2 target number modifier on his Magic Test to regenerate further (this last one might be removed after playtesting -- I just put it there to plug a potential loophole).

If you have the Rapid Healing adept power, you may apply the bonus dice to your Magic Test. Pain Resistance (or other similar implants or edges) reduce your wound penalty as normal, but it does not lower your base TN for purposes of your regeneration tests. Bioware affects these Magic Tests just as it does other Healing Tests. Cyberware affects the Magic Attribute normally (and geas can offset its impact).

Example: Joe Blow is an adept with Regeneration. At the end of combat, he has a Serious wound with a total of 8 boxes of damage. 20 Combat Turns later, he makes his first regeneration attempt and rolls his Magic 6 against a TN of 11 (8 boxes of damage with a +3 wound penalty), and scores only one success. He still has a Serious wound, but only 7 boxes of damage at this point. 30 Turns later, he'll be able to make another Magic Test against a TN of 10 (7 boxes with a +3 wound penalty).

If Joe Blow had Pain Resistance 3 and Rapid Healing 2, he would instead have originally rolled 8 dice (Magic 6 plus his two Rapid Healing dice) against a TN of 10 (8 boxes of damage, but only a +2 wound penalty thanks to his Pain Resistance 3).

Potential Changes: The frst thng I would probably remove is the +2 modifier for healing inbetween regeneration attempts. As I said, that's mostly there as a potential loophole plug. If it proved not to be worth the 5 Power Points, I'd probablby change it so that you could make yourf irst regeneration test at the end of the Combat Turn you tok the wound, but still allow another one only 20 Turns laer. If it still wasn' all that useful, I'd consider allowing Pain Resistance to lower the effective target number as well as the wound penalty and see how that worked out.