Fast Health & Improved Accelerate Recovery

[Gavin]

Hi Folks,

So I noticed that if a Healer with the Capstone skill casts Accelerate Recovery on a character that has learned the Fast Health perk, nothing actually happens, as shown below:

• Accelerate Recovery would allow the character to spend 1 Health to awaken with healed limbs after one minute.

• A character with Fast Health can always expend 1 Health to awaken with healed limbs after one minute.

Is there a way to fix this so that Healers don't wind up wasting a spell, just like the spell is not wasted if the target has no remaining Health? I.e., change the incant to something like the following?

Incant: "With my Gift of Alterity I accelerate your recovery. You may expend a health to awaken with healed limbs after one minute. If you have no remaining health or you have Fast Health, please state ‘no effect'."

Thanks!

Gavin

[Varanus]

Alternatively, it could be beneficial. E.g. if you have Fast Health and someone uses Accelerate Recovery on you, perhaps you don't have to expend a Health, you get the benefit for free. Not sure if that works out pointwise (the cost is... 2 or 3? probably too cheap for that if it's 2), but instead of loading up the incant to be even more ridiculously long, it could be something the character with Fast Health knows.

[Boom]

Accelerate Recovery is a 4 point refreshing spell, with a 1 minute treatment requirement as base. It moves to instant with the Healer capstone.

We could also perhaps discuss what information is provided by Triage. It already informs you of current Health total and bleed out count.

As an example, the Triage skill could ask about any active recovery effects or conditions, such as Fast Health or the Prepared condition from the Alteration spell Preparation. (Fast Health is also available from an Extractor's flask.)

Triage states it informs you of their bleed out count. Does that include their healthing up count? Should it?

"Positive" conditions could be seen as the realm of Triage while negative conditions belong to Diagnose. Though that starts to be giving Triage a lot of information.

I'd lean towards providing the Healer with a bit more information (time until Health is expended) as opposed to buffing Fast Health or lengthening an already long incant.

Boom

[Gavin]

Hey Boom,

That all makes perfect sense! I think the issue would be solved if the Triage description were changed to "you may learn the following: obvious wounds, remaining health, and how long until the subject either awakens or bleeds out." Then in the incant, it would be: "Triage, (What are your injuries/How much Health do you have remaining/How long until you awaken or bleed out?)"

Then the Healer with the Capstone knows that they shouldn't cast Accelerate Recovery on someone who is already going to awaken using their own Health in less than 1 minute (which is what Accelerate Recovery would allow the target to do if cast on them).

Thanks!

Gavin

[ambisinister]

The original concern is valid as raised. We've got two ways to manage that that have been suggested here:

1) Bake it into the rules somewhere either in a skill description or incant.

2) Encourage healers to use their diagnostic skills before treating patients (Understanding that if someone is coming by accelerate health via a route that isn't physicker they will not necessarily have access to those tools.).

To the first option, I am all in favor of trying to keep incants short whenever possible so I would support keeping another clause from being added to the incant and baking the exception into the rules text. The shortest way I can think of to convey this information between healer and patient is for the patient to say "no effect, fast health." The drawback to this method is that player with fast health will need to remember to say this and the player doing the healing will need to remember that if they hear it, their skill won't be expended. The advantage is that this exchange won't significantly effect the time to administer healing.

To the second option, this will put the onus of understanding the peculiarities of the healing skills entirely on the player doing the healing with the possible drawback of lengthening the time to administer healing in any circumstance where a healer is trying to prudently use their skills. Now I say possible drawback here as the healing community could very well like the atmosphere and gameplay of needing to decide in the moment if they have the time to use diagnostic skills on their patients to insure the their skills are being expended in the best way possible or if speed is more important than potential waste.

We're going to think about this some more, but please feel free to share your thoughts as well.

Independent of this and how it is resolved, the question of adding information that can be received via Triage is another matter we will consider.

[Gavin]

Thanks, Nick! I don't have much more input to add other than to say that your thought process makes complete and total sense to me.

Personally, I don't mind either option, but I think I'm leaning toward Option 2 (but noting that this should be a "Triage-level" observable, and not an "expend a use of Diagnose-level" observable). I think it actually makes sense from an in-game perspective that a Healer would have to evaluate an unconscious target's condition to know whether this issue was going to arise. The no health = no effect scenario is slightly different, because the effect of the spell literally can't function. In the Fast Health scenario, the effect of the spell can function, it just grants the target the ability to do something they were already able to do through non-magical means.

Cheers!

Gavin