Healing

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PriamNevhausten
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Healing

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:27 am

How does it work?

Yeah, we know the bodies of living organic beings heal on their own (or, at least, without willful input) through a series of chemical reactions (which, by the way, are very cool if you take a look at them on a fine-point level). This is called convalescence, just in case anyone else likes throwing around big words as much as I do. We can probably assume that healing potions replicate this effect in some sense, with greater speed and/or effectiveness, and fewer physical restrictions (i.e. bandaging for binding, or splints for setting while a heal effect is processing, although that might be a neat idea).

What, though, happens when an inorganic being is subjected to healing magicks? I'm talking golems, robots, elementals, and incorporeal entities.

Shini asked me a long time ago what my opinion was on healing robots, specifically, and the question hasn't really faded from my memory much since. At the time I advocated the standpoint that healing magic could be the opposite to entropy, a force that encourages all things towards order. I remember making a comparison to cardiac cells--if you see individual heart cells, each has its own pulse, its own rhythm. But when you bring two together, they synchronize their beating almost immediately, so the two have one pulse. In a similar way, healing magic could give that aspect to unliving parts, so that they 'want' to be together, to function as a whole.

But it doesn't have to be that way, of course. There's also the school of thought that says healing is literal Holy power, and since the sentient races are aspects or descendants of the Divine, the Holy power rejuvenates and repairs.

Another interesting way that I've heard healing magic done is by warping time--by bringing the past body into the present, wounds from the interim can be 'written out.' Or there's the possibility of somehow causing an attracting force between the lost bodily matter and the intact bodily matter (which would cause a fairly eerie effect of blood flying away from an attacker's sword and back to its original host...).

Any number of interesting variants are possible, and it merits consideration so that we have some idea what to do when one of the weird cases comes up. Or even just as an intellectual exercise. What's your opinion? More ideas?

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Unread postby FlamingDeth » Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:34 am

With any character I've ever made that uses healing spells, I've lumped healing in with holy (for the cleric-y type) or nature (for the druid-y type) magic. So, I guess it depends on the focus of the character. If you wanted to make someone with order-based healing spells or time-based healing spells, that could potentially be neat.

In regards to "healing" golems or whatever, I'm betting that an order spell would be way more effective than a nature spell.

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Unread postby NamagomiMk0 » Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:17 am

Hm. The issue I always had was the "Holy power"; honestly, this not only brings into the equation an issue I had always preferred to leave out; that of absolute morality; but also introduces a bit of irony. If living beings are healed by certain holy spells, how are they actually hurt by others? I am willfully avoiding my original argument about absolute immunities/absorbencies for the benefit of the subject at hand, but my point here still does stand.

Admittedly, I can understand the other three--they make a bit more sense to an extent; and at the same time, don't create the same sort of contradiction in regards to "holy" or the whole undead schtick. Hell--who says liches don't want to keep their physical form in as best of a shape as possible? After all, while they are gone, their phylactery tends to be, you know, more vulnerable. Better to prevent such a risk from happening in the first place than to just be overconfident in the pseudo-immortality one has in their living undeath. In a similar sense, one could argue the same for necromancers, or those who do utilize constructs.

I could see some benefits potentially, say, a benefit to healing magic application from proper binding/setting. Couldn't hurt more than doing without.

As far as I see things...

Most basic healing magic, I'd imagine, would be a sort of biological manipulation of sorts. Kicking the body's natural regeneration into a controlled, and often extremely temporary overdrive (at the same time, some healing-over-time spells, the ones often referred to as "regeneration" proper, would keep the body in a less elevated state of regeneration, but for a much longer duration.) This would be the most commonly known field of healing magic to most, I would happen to imagine. At this point, the idea that the body heals on its own, assuming magic and religion haven't kept people in the dumbfuck dark, would be common logic. The downside to this? Only actually has an effect on living beings. Anything else is like a duct tape solution, sans duct tape; really doesn't fix the problem.

The "order" based healing is a particularly interesting prospect, and something I like the idea of. It makes perfect sense, and has the additional benefit of working on just about anything--as well as arguably working on a few things that the standard hyperregenerative magic would not. Of course, the theories behind it would also be a bit more obscure, and as a result it likely wouldn't be nearly as widely practiced as the standard type.

Then there is the temporal form. The thought of reversing time within such a specific locale, as well as the theories behind such, the ways to create such an effect through applied mana, and the raw power to actually make such an effect happen make it arguably the rarest types utilized, potentially an advanced variant of the order-based. Additionally, it would pose a problem that the other two wouldn't have to worry about so much; it needs to be used almost immediately for the best effects; too late, and the reversal might be completely useless. However, since it works through an odd form of temporal reversal, throwing a past, less injured body into the future, one can argue that its effect is potentially far greater than the others, as it could potentially deal with anything short of outright death in an instant; when applied fast enough. It would also arguably be a very useful portion of a resurrection spell; the more in shape the body is, the more easily the reclaimed soul would stick, and the less chance there is of the body simply dying again.

Of course, an odd side-effect I could imagine would be a degree of memory loss equivalent to however much was collected over the time reversed--given that the entire body, not simply the non-nervous system parts, would be involved in the reversal. Arguably a minor setback in a number of cases, it could be incidentally either embarassing, unsettling, or in a few cases, potentially dangerous; they may forget an important detail learned over those seconds reclaimed that would be vital to the situation at hand or one in the future.

Just my two cents.

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Kai
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Unread postby Kai » Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:36 am

NamagomiMk0 wrote:Most basic healing magic, I'd imagine, would be a sort of biological manipulation of sorts. Kicking the body's natural regeneration into a controlled, and often extremely temporary overdrive (at the same time, some healing-over-time spells, the ones often referred to as "regeneration" proper, would keep the body in a less elevated state of regeneration, but for a much longer duration.) This would be the most commonly known field of healing magic to most, I would happen to imagine. At this point, the idea that the body heals on its own, assuming magic and religion haven't kept people in the dumbfuck dark, would be common logic. The downside to this? Only actually has an effect on living beings. Anything else is like a duct tape solution, sans duct tape; really doesn't fix the problem.

The "order" based healing is a particularly interesting prospect, and something I like the idea of. It makes perfect sense, and has the additional benefit of working on just about anything--as well as arguably working on a few things that the standard hyperregenerative magic would not. Of course, the theories behind it would also be a bit more obscure, and as a result it likely wouldn't be nearly as widely practiced as the standard type.

Then there is the temporal form. The thought of reversing time within such a specific locale, as well as the theories behind such, the ways to create such an effect through applied mana, and the raw power to actually make such an effect happen make it arguably the rarest types utilized, potentially an advanced variant of the order-based. Additionally, it would pose a problem that the other two wouldn't have to worry about so much; it needs to be used almost immediately for the best effects; too late, and the reversal might be completely useless. However, since it works through an odd form of temporal reversal, throwing a past, less injured body into the future, one can argue that its effect is potentially far greater than the others, as it could potentially deal with anything short of outright death in an instant; when applied fast enough. It would also arguably be a very useful portion of a resurrection spell; the more in shape the body is, the more easily the reclaimed soul would stick, and the less chance there is of the body simply dying again.

Of course, an odd side-effect I could imagine would be a degree of memory loss equivalent to however much was collected over the time reversed--given that the entire body, not simply the non-nervous system parts, would be involved in the reversal. Arguably a minor setback in a number of cases, it could be incidentally either embarassing, unsettling, or in a few cases, potentially dangerous; they may forget an important detail learned over those seconds reclaimed that would be vital to the situation at hand or one in the future.

Just my two cents.


I agree on the idea that normal healing magic accelerates the body's natural ability to fix itself.

This also makes it different from straight-up holy magic, despite what many people think. Look at the spellbook. Healing magic is listed separately from non-combat holy magic for a reason. Even if it's life-aligned in a similar way, you're doing very different things with the two schools.

I like the idea of order-based healing as well, though really... with organic matter... if you're kicking the body into high gear to heal itself via rapid cell division to achieve superawesome regenerative effects, you're not enforcing order, you're using chaos to create much more rapid change than the body can (or generally should) cause on its own.

This brings up a weird tangent. If a healing spell designed to speed up the body's recovery rate goes out of control and the cells say, "WHEE MITOSIS" do you end up with cancer?

Healing machines with any kind of "normal" healing magic doesn't make much sense to me, and I think I'd have to have it explained to me better than it has been so far. I don't think you should be able to magically heal a pocketwatch, for example. A pocketwatch has no innate ability to repair itself, so accelerating an ability that doesn't exist gets you nowhere.

Time magic has been roleplayed before as having caused memory loss, and that makes perfect sense to me.

This post has been really disorganized, but I wanted to address things as they came up.

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Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:54 pm

The thing about time-magical healing is that you have to either allow it to bring back the dead (within its frame of influence, mind you), or else you can say the spell brings back the body and not the soul (and thus would retain memory but would be utterly unable to reverse death). A little give, a little take.

While we're on the topic of souls, let's address the machine problem. Sentient constructs, like advanced golems and AIs in physical frames and suchlike, might very well be presumed to have a soul, and thus have all manner of things going for them that unsouled items (i.e. pocketwatches) would not. The idea behind the Order-magic healing of machines is that it focuses on that essence, and would drive its parts towards structure such as it once had, using the machine's 'soul' not only as the template for how it would 'rightly' be assembled but also as a focus, a location upon which to attach and target the magicks. And, of course, the greater the magickal force behind the spell, the larger the chunks that would be compelled to move back into formation, and possibly from farther away, knitting together more completely.

Regarding cancer, I suppose that's one possible outcome. But largely, in real cells, cancer is caused by DNA damage that prevents synthesis of proteins that would inhibit apoptosis (cell suicide) and ALSO take away regulators of the reproduction process. All healing magic has to do is create a great overabundance of the cell signal chemicals that trigger the cell's further procession along the cell cycle, and you can have great replication without DNA damage. Et voila. When the chemical catalysts run out, the healing is done.

Which is why, in my opinion, healing potions make more sense than healing magic. If you are providing extra chemical supplies, would you not have to create a certain amount of chemical intake? If you're just magicking the chemical levels higher, where do the extra compounds come from? I suppose an equally important question is where do the extra compounds go, but that is resolved by noting that most of the substances in the process can be broken down into compounds involved in energy production for use; or else they can just become part of the daughter cells that are in the new 'healed' tissue.

Wow, that got pretty technical.
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Unread postby Besyanteo » Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:42 pm

Something I would like point out, as far as how I've seen this handled In Character thus far: There is no single source for healing power in Magic. Ishtarians and Ashurans pull from the plane of light/holy to restore people like them with holy power. Hzar makes Shadow aligned healing spells that rejuvenate those with a shadow aligned/based Aura. Druids heal folks through natural means, accelerated greatly in a localized way. Hell, there's water and fire based healing that I've seen at different times. In effect, the problem becomes not what can heal, but what each person needs to be healed.

That said, we have dozens and dozens of different elemental magics, which are all basically the same UNTIL you run into someone who has a notably strong elemental affinity, or is special in some other way (machines/golems). I don't see why Healing should not be the same.

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Unread postby Archmage » Tue Mar 20, 2007 4:01 pm

I think that the only point I'd like to pitch in is that golems/constructs/etc. should be repairable by magical means, just not the same magic. The spells that accelerate healing in a humanoid may not do the same for objects. If we want to talk about repairing the auras of animated constructs, now we're moving into astral magic; however, repairing the aura wouldn't do a damn thing to fix structural damage.

As such, I'm firmly of the opinion that spells that repair damage to constructs or objects should be in the enchanting/transmuting school of magic.

It is possible that a spell effect might damage the aura without doing physical damage (i.e., astral magic, as mentioned earlier). For constructs, this is a notable issue because it would eliminate the animating force. Perhaps there could be astral spells that repaired damage to auras, but not to tissue--in effect, an astral healing spell that only works to repair damage from other astral spells?
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Kai
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Unread postby Kai » Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:16 pm

The healing school as we have it, in my opinion, should not be worth a damn for repairing a construct. Whether or not such a construct is sentient and could be considered to have a soul is totally irrelevant because that doesn't mean its structure has changed. A sentient pocketwatch doesn't benefit from a healing spell any more than a normal one.

Given that, Besyanteo is correct. Lots of characters use healing spells that are not tied to the life-aligned healing school. As a result, while it might be possible to repair objects magically, whether those objects are animated or not, whether those objects are sentient or have souls or whatever... the healing school shouldn't do them a damn bit of good.

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PriamNevhausten
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Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:51 pm

The question, then, is begged: Should healing spells that work on constructs work on living matter?

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Kai
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Unread postby Kai » Tue Mar 20, 2007 9:16 pm

I'd say no, for the sake of consistency and balance. Otherwise no one would really have to learn healing magic.

Either universal heal-repair magic should be wicked expensive for what it does to keep it balanced with magic that just heals people, or there shouldn't be crossover either way.

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Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:36 am

Brian's comment about aura-healing reminds me. A local GM legitimizes healing spells in saying that it doesn't actually do any magical matter-creation healing, it merely tricks the body into thinking it's got less damage than it does. So your limits are raised, you're still able to fight more, and you don't give in to poisons and such so soon, because your body continues to function since it has every reason to believe it should. This is why healing spells can't do things like reaffix entire severed limbs, where things like stab wounds are not nearly as much a problem: the pierced organ simply continues about its business, not bleeding out because it believes that it's not pierced.

It's an interesting way to look at things, to say the least, and merits consideration in this vein. I was going to suggest that we stick towards a theoretical bent and away from the banal concepts of game balance and numerical figures, but I figure if I see any interesting inconsistencies that seem to be acceptable in the name of balance, that's a magical experimenter character waiting to happen. =D

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Unread postby Archmage » Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:11 am

That's pretty interesting. Mage: the Ascension style healing, or something; there is an entertaining bit here about the power of belief. Perhaps using telepathy there might be a way to convince people that they aren't wounded and have it be so effective that somehow they aren't anymore. In a world where emotion and willpower have a concrete and measurable influence on reality, it's plausible.

As far as a mechanism of action for this, suppose it's possible that everyone, even those without magical aptitude, are capable of the barest manipulation of the astral if only they believe it strongly enough; being strongly hypnotized into believing "you can heal yourself" might unlock someone's latent ability to do so via magical means without even realizing it!

I realize we're not strictly talking game mechanics, but it's where my brain goes in this kind of discussion because my thought processes all tend to come back to Philsys eventually. I am firmly of the opinion that in general, the majority of healing spells (for living creatures that are not firmly shadow-aligned) should be part of the healing spell school. More esoteric healing for living creatures (time, telepathy, etc.) should be considerably harder to achieve the same effect; you're essentially doing "something weird" with the school. It has been demonstrated that shadow magic can be used for healing, depending on the subject (typically, shadow-aligned creatures benefit from this). In theory, time magic could repair objects or living creatures equally well, it just should be difficult or have unusual "side-effects" (memory loss, perhaps, as demonstrated by Isao). Astral magic, as mentioned, could potentially repair damage to the aura, but not to objects or even tissue, so it would only heal damage from other astral spells. Conversely, it should be pretty easy for a transmuter/enchanter to repair objects.

As an aside, holy magic and healing magic are separated in terms of skill ranks mostly as a game balance issue; they're both typically conceived as different ways of using the same "wavelength" of energy.
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Unread postby Idran1701 » Wed Mar 21, 2007 12:16 pm

Here's a question; what about astral beings? I'd agree that healing spells that work to heal living things shouldn't work to heal constructs, but astral beings such as celestials, elementals, or demons aren't exactly living either. Yet healing spells are normally given as working on them just as well as a mortal. How's this work here?

(Personally, I've always liked the idea that living things are a sort of "healing elemental", with healing spells working on them for the same reason that, say, a fire elemental is healed by fire. This would thus indicate that healing magic is that sort of magic that living things are made of, the type of magic that makes them living. But that's got a lot of holes in it, so I won't push it here.)

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Unread postby NamagomiMk0 » Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:14 pm

This is why I like the "regenerative acceleration" idea better. It allows for anything that effectively can create a "pseudo-physiology," such as celestials or demons, to effectively be affected by it--as their simulated bodies would be essentially affected by the magic as well.

You know, unlike the "healing elemental" or "holy power" deals. But that's just me.

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Unread postby GC130A » Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:19 pm

Edit for concise goodness!

I always saw an elemental affinity as an imbalance in the elements inherent in most creatures; a demon has an excess of shadow element and a lack of holiness, but in other affinities they're like a normal person. Having no rejection of fire, fire-based healing works just like it does on everyone.

Also! Exceptions. Artificial humans a la Jaeko would probably respond normally to healing magic; even though they're technically constructs, they mimic the physiology of a human in most or all respects. Time-based healing might have its normal effectiveness on robots with autorepair systems that don't require them to shut down before fixing up.


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