Topic: Subconscious Spells Cue up awake, or Not?

[Marc R]

Was reading:

http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=3505.0

and this issue was never really resolved.

The Closed Channeling healing lists all come with a "lore" at the bottom of the list, so the Cleric can find hidden or non obvious issues and fix them with the higher level spells.

The healer's lists are all (s) and there are no lore spells on them.

The healer can obviously cast any of these spells manually-consciously for an injury they are aware of. . .but they might have an injury they are not aware of, like a disease, poison, internal bleeding, organ damage, etc that may not be obvious.

Will a healer's (s) spells just cue up and fix things, even if the healer is not aware of them to manually-consciously cast the spell? Or must they assume a trance state or be knocked unconscious before the (s) spells start to go off to save their life?

[Old Man]

Hmmm. So the Healer misses a perception roll and gets a knife in his/her head... Well, does the subconscious get a roll as well?

I have usually assumed a Transferring healer is aware of the wounds on their body - comes with the ability...

[Marc R]

What if they sustain the damage themselves, rather than transfer them?

[Cory Magel]

I believe the intention is so that the healer can transfer an injury to themselves that would incapacitate them, the subconscious spell would then trigger automatically in order to cure it.

I forget how it was accomplished, but we once had a player with a healer that was able to cast spells with a target of "self" as "touch".  Fate Points simply were not needed in that particular campaign.

[Marc R]

Problem lies with wounds that are non obvious. . .like those "behave normally then die in 6 rounds" crit results.

[Old Man]

Problem lies with wounds that are non obvious. . .like those "behave normally then die in 6 rounds" crit results.

Well, those are "non obvious" criticals as the system defines them but then the players inevitably ask - "I diagnose/first aid/Lore spell myself - what is wrong?" and I as GM have to define that the damage is. Then they can cast consciously or subconciously the necessary repair spells.

That tends to be one of the pesky GM jobs in healing - defining the actual damage. Like a -X wound is how many muscles? etc.

[Marc R]

Looping back to the first post of this thread. . .the closed channeling healing lists all start with a lore. . .for exactly the purpose of diagnosis before healing with a higher level spell.

But there's no "lore" on the healer lists, and all their spells are (s).

If a healer is unconscious, their subconscious will just cue up the (s) spells and fix whatever needs fixing.

But if they're awake, and not consciously aware of an injury, will the (s) spell try to go off?

in other words, is that why healer lists don't have lore spells, because the fact the spells cue up to go off informs the healer that there's something to fix?

[Elton Robb]

Problem lies with wounds that are non obvious. . .like those "behave normally then die in 6 rounds" crit results.

Well, those are "non obvious" criticals as the system defines them but then the players inevitably ask - "I diagnose/first aid/Lore spell myself - what is wrong?" and I as GM have to define that the damage is. Then they can cast consciously or subconciously the necessary repair spells.

That tends to be one of the pesky GM jobs in healing - defining the actual damage. Like a -X wound is how many muscles? etc.

Especially when your knowledge of anatomy is woefully limited to the major organs and the muscle groups.

[Cory Magel]

Problem lies with wounds that are non obvious. . .like those "behave normally then die in 6 rounds" crit results.

Note: I'm looking at this from the Healer profession spells. Are we talking about 'healing' in general, or the specific profession?

First of all, it depends on what you tell your player in terms of what kind of critical they just took.  We have full disclosure.... maybe some of those injuries should be unknown to the player, but that's really just no fun in terms of six rounds later then saying "Oh, by the way... you fall over dead."  Also, since we have Fate Points, the player needs to know if they need to spend a Fate Point.  Even if you aren't going to tell them what the injury is, you do need to give them the opportunity to use their Fate Points, so at worst it will be "Um, you probably want to Fate Point that critical..."

Ok, so Transfer transfers one injury from a target to the Healer.  This implies the Healer needs to know what they are transferring.  However, I believe there is no Lore spell for the Healer profession.  So, where do you go from there?  Basically, in my opinion, the Healer starts the to transfer the entire one injury without necessarily knowing how serious that injury was and then, during the transfer, learns how serious it was.  Why?  Because "Transfer" requires the Healer to expend as many power points as he would need to expend to fully heal that injury.  So, if you need to stop bleeding, repair a tendon, and fix a broken bone, the "Transfer" costs the cumulative amount of power points as those three spells combined.  Transferring can be expensive, and therefore I would rule that it imparts all knowledge needed about the injury.

As far as the whole subconscious issue; I'd say, subconscious injury, subconscious spell... it works.  Now, at worst I'd let the Healer stop the spell from triggering automatically if he were conscious.  At best I'd say the Healer has limited control over the subconscious spells.

Really, you have to decide if, in your game as a whole, subconscious spells are automatic if a player is unconscious or if you are going to allow some kind of control over them.  We just automatically went with a limited amount of control over them simply because it sucks not being in control of your character.

[Marc R]

I am indeed discussing the Healer Profession specifically, though I'd assume all (s) spells would work the same way.

The healer transference notes state that the healer doesn't actually need to know the details of what injuries they take on, they just yank all your wounds to them, at a cost equal to the worst injury.

And yes, I can see some logic of the transference process imparting some knowledge of what came over, even if that's not explicitly stated.

I also agree that (s) spells will go off when you're unconscious, but you can still choose to cast them when awake like any other spell. There's no indication anywhere in the rules that (s) spells only work when out, just that unlike non (s) spells, they will work when you are unconscious ALSO.

We seem to agree on all of that. . .none of which is the question I am asking. I bet I'm being unclear, let me try again.

When a Healer has a non obvious issue inflicted on them. . .like a sliver of that broken rib puncturing the Aorta, Botulism in the beef they just ate, or poison in the wine, whatever, some injury they are unaware of sustaining. . . .

If they are unconscious, the S spell will automatically cue up and heal it.  . . that's RAW and we all agree there.

What I'm asking is if they are awake. . .will the spell cue up, alerting the healer to the fact that there's something medically wrong with them that they were not aware of?

[Cory Magel]

The healer transference notes state that the healer doesn't actually need to know the details of what injuries they take on, they just yank all your wounds to them, at a cost equal to the worst injury.

From the PDF... "To transfer a severed limb, the caster must know all 4 Joining spells and he must spend 28 PPs (7 for each Joining spell).  However, the caster may choose to only spend 7 PPs and leave the target with a stub (i.e., only casting the Joining spell from Blood Ways). For example, Rana the Healer is 10th level and has 75 power points (PPs). Ringlin the Fighter has just suffered: a severed hand, a damaged arm (two severed muscles, and a minor fracture), 80 concussion hits of damage, a gash that is bleeding 5 hits per round, and a serious skull fracture. Rana must cast 8 Transfers: one for the severed muscles (4 PPs for Muscle Repair III), four for the severed hand (28 PPs for all the Joining spells), one for the minor fracture (1 PP for Minor Fracture Repair), one for the bleeding wound (4 PPs for Clotting V), and one for the concussion damage (12 PPs for Heal X). Total PP expenditure would be 49."

So, you pretty much need to know what you are healing in the first place.  I guess the GM could be secretive and just tell you the PP you need to spend, but that is going to require the GM to look that up (when the player should have the spell lists in front of themselves), but the player is going to know soon enough anyhow and I rule that as soon as the transfer starts you're going to know anyhow (and could potentially cancel the spell before complete).  From a 'real life' perspective, I'd say you wouldn't truly know until you started to transfer it, but from a gaming standpoint there's really no reason to require that.

I guess part of my answer related to how I would tend to treat a transfer.  I would allow the transfer of one wound, meaning everything done in that one attack (or strike) could all be transferred at once instead of doing it in pieces.  So the bleeding, muscle damage, tendon damage, bone damage and hit damage from one strike to an arm could all be moved at once.

What I'm asking is if they are awake. . .will the spell cue up, alerting the healer to the fact that there's something medically wrong with them that they were not aware of?

I'd say a definite yes.

[Marc R]

Funny, I always felt a healer could transfer over a severed arm, it would re-attach, and the healer's arm would fall off. . .then they'd need to deal with the consequences from there. In fact, the same Rana example in the RMC version of SL (p122) has Ringlin's hand re-attaching and Rana falling into a healing coma after casting just 2 of the needed joining spells.

There's also the note:

Note that the Healer is able to transfer wounds up to their level in severity even if they do not possess the necessary spell list to heal the damage

OK, so the "cue while conscious" for (s) spells, would that apply to any (s) spell?

[rdanhenry]

Yes. If the subconscious think it is time to cast a spell, it readies the process, but the conscious mind can veto it when you are conscious (maybe because you think Bladeturning that oncoming scimitar is more urgent that patching up the last slice it took out of you). Normally, however, the player will be aware of the potential for the spell, so the GM doesn't need to prompt. OTOH, the subconscious isn't omniscient. A poison will start to have some effect before it can be noticed even subconsciously. It does seem natural, though, to allow the subconscious to try to get a curative spell off before the conscious is aware of the problem in certain cases, however. And in the case of deliberately going into a trance-like state to do healing, I'd say that there would be diagnostic component to the process, so that subtle issues would not be missed.

[Marc R]

So, in this instance, a Healer would also make a very good "royal food taster" also.

[Ecthelion]

The Closed Channeling healing lists all come with a "lore" at the bottom of the list, so the Cleric can find hidden or non obvious issues and fix them with the higher level spells.

The healer's lists are all (s) and there are no lore spells on them.

The healer can obviously cast any of these spells manually-consciously for an injury they are aware of. . .but they might have an injury they are not aware of, like a disease, poison, internal bleeding, organ damage, etc that may not be obvious.

Will a healer's (s) spells just cue up and fix things, even if the healer is not aware of them to manually-consciously cast the spell? Or must they assume a trance state or be knocked unconscious before the (s) spells start to go off to save their life?

We play it that way that we fully disclose all wounds. And we have no problem if a Healer character then uses this knowledge to transfer all of the wounds, even those which are perhaps not obvious. I would use these 1st level Lore spells on the Closed Channeling healing lists for NPC clerics etc. that have only little magical healing knowledge but may use these spells for diagnostics and then use mundane healing.

[Marc R]

OK, it seems we're all on the same page in terms of that. . .I need to go check out the other (s) spells and see if I can find any non healing implications to (s) spell cues.

[markc]

  IMHO I would think about giving the healer a talent or skill for free that does the above. That would make NPC's and non-pure-healing professions at a disadvantage.
MDC

[Marc R]

Before going there. . .all the (s) spells are Hs or Us (all the Us are effectively Hs self healing spells)

So why restrict it to just healers? Healers get the most benefit anyway, since every one of their spells is Hs except Transference.

[Cory Magel]

I think there's simply a balance factor that works into this.  Healers in RMSS have, hands down, the absolute best healing spells... but they can only cast them on themselves.  Thus, the (s) restriction on many of their spells.  The rest the healing classes in RMSS had to work a little harder to get to the same level of healing, but they can cast them on someone else.

[pastaav]

I think it is magic so the healer should learn automatically what he is dealing with...and it is great drama if the healer start to work, collapse from the injuries and leave the other players hanging about if he took care of all the critical injuries or just those he could handle.

If we are talking about poison I would rule the healer does not get to know the exact poison, but only the general type and perhaps its strength.