7 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Has anyone put this to the developers?

Submitted the following:

Questions on the Heal spell:
1. Can you target yourself? Other spells (Augment, for example) specify that you can, but this does not.
2. If you CAN target yourself, does the difficulty get increased the way it does when using Medicine on yourself?
3. Is there any limitation on the amount of healing a character can receive from magic (the way it was limited for the Force Power, for instance)?
4. Is there any limitation on using Heal to remove Critical Injuries?

15 minutes ago, yeti1069 said:

Submitted the following:

Questions on the Heal spell:
1. Can you target yourself? Other spells (Augment, for example) specify that you can, but this does not.
2. If you CAN target yourself, does the difficulty get increased the way it does when using Medicine on yourself?
3. Is there any limitation on the amount of healing a character can receive from magic (the way it was limited for the Force Power, for instance)?
4. Is there any limitation on using Heal to remove Critical Injuries?

1 and 2 have not been asked.

3 and 4 have been answered (no and no).

Edit: For those wanting the exact text, it's the first question in the FAQ.

I'm curious where groups have landed on some of the questions asked here. I think it's pretty clear you can heal yourself (in nearly every RPG this is true), but some more interesting questions emerged.

• Is strain definitely applied after the spell is cast? If so, you can never remove your last two casting strain regardless of net advantages. That seems likely to be true.
• How long is the space between structured encounters? How often can you cast heal? It seems barring particularly bad luck, you could, within minutes, completely heal all wounds, all crits, all strain on the party, and all but two strain on yourself.
  • Contingent question: can you "heal" someone who's fully healthy just to target any remaining strain they might have?

I'm considering making the space between structured scenes into a "narrative scene" as @Doughnut suggested above, so the once per scene abilities can't be used more than once. I'm also very tempted to play it that each character can only be the subject of a single heal check between structured scenes. Assuming the healer is on the other end of the open line with a divine source, the source is going to grow a bit impatient with continued requests to heal the same person. Basically their "answer" to the prayer is the result you can gain off one die roll.

3 hours ago, Dragonshadow said:

I'm curious where groups have landed on some of the questions asked here. I think it's pretty clear you can heal yourself (in nearly every RPG this is true), but some more interesting questions emerged.

• Is strain definitely applied after the spell is cast? If so, you can never remove your last two casting strain regardless of net advantages. That seems likely to be true.
• How long is the space between structured encounters? How often can you cast heal? It seems barring particularly bad luck, you could, within minutes, completely heal all wounds, all crits, all strain on the party, and all but two strain on yourself.
  • Contingent question: can you "heal" someone who's fully healthy just to target any remaining strain they might have?

I'm considering making the space between structured scenes into a "narrative scene" as @Doughnut suggested above, so the once per scene abilities can't be used more than once. I'm also very tempted to play it that each character can only be the subject of a single heal check between structured scenes. Assuming the healer is on the other end of the open line with a divine source, the source is going to grow a bit impatient with continued requests to heal the same person. Basically their "answer" to the prayer is the result you can gain off one die roll.

For your first point, page 211 says that the character casting a spell " suffer 2 strain after resolving the check. " Part of resolving the check is spending and , so you're correct that you won't be able to recover those 2 strain based on the roll.

That point also leads to your second bullet point: yes, you can cast heal as often as you want as long as you take the strain hit. But it's not guaranteed that you'll succeed on all your checks. Thus, you are more likely to run out of ST before everyone is back up to full. And since the strain cost of casting is added after the roll is resolved, you'll always end up with a minimum of 2 strain after each spellcasting check (as you can't recover the strain with the roll since you haven't suffered the strain yet).

You'll always get a +2 strain at the end of the roll, so I agree you could probably wind yourself down eventually, but I think the number of advantages a decent healer can generate (and then use for existing strain removal) will allow quite a lot of spells to be slung between action scenes.

I'm tempted to say as far as wounds go (not crits!) that all wounds are healed with a single 3 difficulty roll to determine the net stress the healer suffers, and to determine if he successfully removed all wounds or some still linger. Each net failure could equal a single remaining wound, and each threat could deplete additional strain. That way a group of five players doesn't have to sit through more than 5 rolls for healing, and the act of post-battle healing isn't trivialized to a few minutes of recordkeeping in the story.

As far as crits go, I'd allow them to narratively try to build up some boost via prep, but then allow them only a single roll for each critical wound during the "narrative scene". You ask your god to heal that broken bone? Your god is busy right now and will get back to you later.

wonder what long-term effect to game balance would be if you capped the amount of strain you can get back from a roll to one or two. (or perhaps making it so you can never end up with more strain then you before you rolled)

this is of course save for strain recovery roll. this would lead to spell casting always declining or even resource. heal you could still be able to give other people strain but you would need lots of more advantages or lose strain you would not able to get back(till you rest).

For self-healing some factors are the same as healing somebody else, others will be unique to trying to heal yourself- I'd say it's a case partly of the GM assessing how realistic/ difficult this would be and choosing the conditions depending on the current situation- if you need to heal yourself your abilities may be compromised making it harder to make the spell (or medical intervention) work than if you were functioning at 100% and attempting it on someone else, if magic in your world is cast from a wand or directed in some way that could be difficult, it's probably way harder to bandage your own arm than somebody else's, ... ... but it isn't in theory impossible for any of these things to be done, many factors would affect the difficulty including if you're still under threat (being attacked etc), what you're trying to heal and the severity of it (which also likely varies your ability to do so), your actual capabilities and past experience ... ... so it's very situational.

Cumulative harm is also important too- especially cumulative critical injuries. And if you're being pushed closer to death through difficulties such as breathing or blood loss or your magic's seeping out of you time will play a part too- the more time passes the worse your odds may get.

Example: a knife cut from a conflict would be easier to fix than a full-on stab injury or worse a lost limb or high risk stab wound, but all would be possible just increasingly difficult, especially if you haven't yet escaped your attacker(s) and they're hitting you while you're down. And if the weather or anything else is against you things start to look even less rosy. If you're in the realm of those pesky spider creatures maybe you're webbed, poisoned and trying to survive further attacks whilst trying to break free and either survive, mitigate or heal the harm already done. Or maybe you're having to try and run away from a situation at the same time as trying to survive its consequences with your attacker(s) in pursuit and so on. Not the greatest of days!

Conversely even if the friends (unless you're alone) around you can't help with the tougher healing maybe their moral resolve or calm in a crisis or whatever else could be useful will work in your favour. Maybe they can help with things difficult for yourself while you focus on the healing they perhaps aren't skilled enough for- maybe you're trying to heal wounds while they're cutting you out of the spider webs, doing what little they can to just keep you alive and give you time and stopping the enemy picking off the weakest member (currently) of the party so again the odds shift back in your favour a bit. Maybe they can't do magic or act as your medic but they can administer an antivenom, help secure that bandage under your instruction or do some very basic keep-you-going first aid. Such things might just be enough for you to make it and avoid your demise.

Superheroes, battle hardened characters or similar characters with good survival stats or history might have better chances. A GM of a long campaign may up the chances if they think the player's character has a history that would make them tougher or/and more able to survive such adversity or counter it as well. 'They've survived all that so I wouldn't put it past them!'

So as a GM you'd take all relevant factors into consideration in terms of the current situation and weigh up the likelihoods, respective difficulty etc.