Topic: Arms Law to Character Law to Spell Law: Healing Sync question: Nerve Damage...

[Old Man]

Hey folk,

So here's a critical:
100 B Unbalancing: Inspired back strike sends foe flying 10' and onto his face. Severe nerve damage. Foe is paralyzed from waist down.

Sounds like a typical Character Law "severe injury" -51 or more penalty (say -100 for paralyzed legs... the "useless" penalty)

Flip to Spell Law - hmm, Nerve/Organ Mastery only has "Minor" and "Major" Nerve repair.

So, you as GMs or ICE, how do you all typically map:
Character Law: Light, Medium and Severe injuries
to
Spell Law: Minor and Major Repair Spells?

(Typically I have had Minor == Light = -20 penalty or less... Sometimes in a generic N minus case, I have had N/20 == # of Minor spells needed. Say, -80 muscle damage is "4" muscles and hence needs 4 Muscle Repair Is... But in this case, "severe" damage doesn't map well... 5 nerves? One nerve?)

Perhaps I overthink this and Major Nerve Repair is sufficient?

Thoughts?
Old Man

ps A humble plea to please sync this in whatever future version of the system appears... common language for wounds and healing.

[Marc R]

It says "Damaged" not "Destroyed" so "Major Nerve Repair" will work. . .destroyed means you need "Nerve Regeneration" instead.

[Old Man]

So one might say Severe == Destroyed (generally), while Light and Medium could map to Minor and Major ...

[Marc R]

It depends.

Like, your hand could be smashed with a spell, powdering the bones (i.e. severe damage destroying them) but causing only moderate muscle and nerve damage.

The wound overall is severe, but the nerve and muscle damage is moderate.

The "Regenerate" spells are for when the body component is gone, destroyed. . .the major are for serious damage, the minor are for light damage. . .I've never had much problem mapping them out, but it's case by case.

[Old Man]

It depends.

Aieeee ...

Like, your hand could be smashed with a spell, powdering the bones (i.e. severe damage destroying them) but causing only moderate muscle and nerve damage.

The wound overall is severe, but the nerve and muscle damage is moderate.

The "Regenerate" spells are for when the body component is gone, destroyed. . .the major are for serious damage, the minor are for light damage. . .I've never had much problem mapping them out, but it's case by case.

And there in lies the complaint - "case by case" - one GM (me) would prefer not to have to pop over to the ICE forums for every third critical or so (an exaggeration of course)... It is a time-consumer that I'd rather save for campaign detail...

[Marc R]

The "Depends" lies in the specific injury, mostly due to how the muscle, nerve, bone and skin interact.

But the spells themselves are crystal clear if you treat them as logic.

i.e.

"Nerve Law" Closed Channeling

4) Minor nerve repair. . .any nerve damage that results in penalties up to -20 (no more)

9) Major nerve repair. . .any nerve not destroyed

30) Nerve regeneration. . . restore even destroyed nerves.

OK, that's a clean logic progression.

Not destroyed, penalty of -20 or less use level 4.
Not destroyed, no penalty limit, use level 9.
Any nerve injury at all cured by level 30.

So you have nerved burned out (destroyed) in your arm, you need level 30, if it's a -40 penalty but not destroyed you need level 9, if -15 penalty the level 4 will do.

It "depends" but it's not really all that hard to figure. Any specific injury should be easily assigned to a minimum spell needed.

[Old Man]

The "Depends" lies in the specific injury, mostly due to how the muscle, nerve, bone and skin interact.
But the spells themselves are crystal clear if you treat them as logic.

...
It "depends" but it's not really all that hard to figure. Any specific injury should be easily assigned to a minimum spell needed.

The "depends" occurs in the description of the critical not the spells. See the first example... There iff you assume Arms Law Severe == Spell Law Major, then all is good.

Amusingly, the RMSS version of the same critical (100 BU) is less clear -

"Send foe flying 10 feet. He lands on his face. Twisting of his neck causes nerve damage. He is paralyzed from waist down."

Here, no adjective ... Is the damage minor or major? Is the Spinal Cord 1 nerve or 100 nerves ...

Do you want further examples?

[Marc R]

The problem lies with the lack of a listed penalty in that critical.

Paralyzed is worse than -20 penalty, so it's not minor, the word destroyed is not used, so it's major, not regenerate.

It's pretty clear Major is the required spell.

The only thing missing from that Critical is a penalty.

Like, if that ended with you being paralyzed from the waist down -75 penalty, that would clearly state that the penalty is worse than -20, rather than just assuming that permanent paralysis from the waist down is worse than -20.

Is there another critical that lists paralysis from the waist down?

[yammahoper]

The rule is in the fine print, lol: if an area is described as useless, destroyed, etc, the penalty is assumed to be -100.

I believe the rule is in Arms Law text, in one of the paragraphs describing the function of the critical tables.

[Marc R]

I know that reference, but. . .

I dunno, if I paralyze your pinky, making it useless, likely it's not a -100 penalty, as you can still function (You may still even be able to use that hand fairly well).

Each box on the crits that impairs should have a penalty, with no penalty = 0 penalty, since many of the heal levels are based on penalty.

[yammahoper]

I know that reference, but. . .

I dunno, if I paralyze your pinky, making it useless, likely it's not a -100 penalty, as you can still function (You may still even be able to use that hand fairly well).

Each box on the crits that impairs should have a penalty, with no penalty = 0 penalty, since many of the heal levels are based on penalty.

Whatever.  If you wish to add a broken pinky to the B 00 crit, fine, but the crit described has nothing to do with such a minor wound.  That said i agree with you previous resolution of the nerve damage question, in case you think I'm being cocky.  I'm not.  I'm staying on task and trying to help resolve the question, and part of the question seemed to me to be: "What is the penalty for this wound when none is listed?"

As for paralyzed pinkys, a minor wound, though devestating to all tea drinking mnvs, I'm sure.  Apply full penalty!

 

[Marc R]

No offense intended, just that the destroyed/useless = -100 should be taken with more than a few grains of salt. . .in context. . .which is what I think OM was objecting to, that context and judgment rather than A=A B=B are in play.

[Old Man]

No offense intended, just that the destroyed/useless = -100 should be taken with more than a few grains of salt. . .in context. . .which is what I think OM was objecting to, that context and judgment rather than A=A B=B are in play.

No. I was objecting to having to interpret the criticals from one book to another because of no consistent language/terminology.

[Marc R]

Heh, that's what I meant by A=A and B=B. . .you need to logic it out, rather than it being blatantly obvious in all instances.

[Old Man]

Heh, that's what I meant by A=A and B=B. . .you need to logic it out, rather than it being blatantly obvious in all instances.

Ah so incomplete rules are a *feature* not a *bug*

Sigh

[Marc R]

Not really, it's just the two refer to two different scales, which I'll admit can be sub optimal if you are looking at it as apples and apples, but what you're looking at is apples to apple trees.

I smash you in the elbow with a hammer, this tears the muscle, severs nerves and breaks the joint. A total -70 penalty. . .a "severe" injury.

None of these elements were destroyed, but the penalty is over the threshold where this needs the major versions of muscle, nerve and joint repair spells to fix.

Light/Moderate/Severe refers to the whole of the injury.

Minor/Major/Regenerate refer to fixes to the specific sub system that make up the injury.

An X Muscle repair won't fix that severe injury, because the injury effects nerve, bone and muscle.

I agree that specific critical result is flawed, in that it fails to specify any penalty at all. . .which is kind of irritating, you can be paralyzed from the waist down and drag yourself forward with your hands and stab your foe in the leg. . .it's not a total incapacitation per se, though it might be if the actual penalty is -100 or -150. . .if you have a PC in that situation, and says they drag forward and have at legs with a dagger, what's the penalty?

That aside, the "Severe" nerve injury is definitely -51 or worse, and the word "destroyed" is not used, so you know the minor nerve repair isn't enough, the major is sufficient, and the regenerate will work, but is not mandated.

I find that critical problematic in terms of how you'd play out the remaining combat, short of just saying "you're paralyzed and lay there." but in terms of mapping it out to the right spell, it's not problematic. The correct spell to heal that injury is Major Nerve Repair, minor won't work, you could use Nerve Regeneration, but the lower level MNR will work so that would be overkill use of a 30th level spell.

It does require following the logic chain of:

Severe = worse than -50 so minor won't work
The word "destroyed" is not used, so Major will work

But I don't find that a crazy reach of logic.

I will admit it could be made clearer. (Especially if that critical had a numeric penalty listed).

[Old Man]

Not really, it's just the two refer to two different scales, which I'll admit can be sub optimal if you are looking at it as apples and apples, but what you're looking at is apples to apple trees.

** I only have a minute, so I will reply to the first thought...

Given I play Rolemaster (Arms+Spell+Character Laws) I would hope to have Apples across the board.
(And don't focus on just this one example... to quote the comedian - 'I got a million of them' ... )

[Marc R]

Agreed, it could be made clearer. . .and that's not nearly the worst possible example, but most of them have the information you need (like this one) just not stated in the most clear way possible.