Faith Healing

[Ubby]

I'm playing around with a concept for my campaign world that I'm in the process of porting over to use BW. In this world, there is one religion that is dedicated to healing the sick and injured. They would accomplish miraculous feats with a "prayer circle" for lack of a better term.

Now for treating injury, here's what I'm thinking: A true circle (or more accurately a Pentagram) would include a high priestess and 4 lesser priestesses, all with the Faith attribute. The high priestess would be the "primary" and use her Faith exponent and gain +1D for each assisting priestess. This Faith dice pool would then be used as a Surgery roll, with each extra success being added to the patient's Health roll. Again, only this neutral faith has the ability to do this, and while generous, they do exact a price that would keep this from becoming an oft used approach.

Why not just give each priestess the Surgery skill? Well I thought about this, but A.) I think it's just cooler story-wise, B.) It gets around the 1 doctor + 2 assistants per wound rule without going overboard, and C.) it will give a higher success rate than "mundane" surgery because each additional success adds to the Recovery Roll rather than each additional 2 successes from Working Diligently.

I think it's a good compromise between adding a magic based healing process at the same time keeping within the spirit of the BW rules.

Thoughts?

[luke]

I agree -- any type of magical healing in BW should add bonus dice to the Health test for recovery. Get enough dice, and healing can be quite miraculous!

Also, it is quite possible to have "magic surgery" that stops the bleeding, puts the patient on the road to recovery AND gives bonus dice to Health.

I think that Faith should act as the Surgery skill would in this case. But Faith is open-ended and performed through prayer rather than all that messing cutting and sewing.

-L

[Ubby]

I think that Faith should act as the Surgery skill would in this case. But Faith is open-ended and performed through prayer rather than all that messing cutting and sewing.

Exactly the point.

Also, I don't know what you plan on doing with the Enchantment rules, but I envision the temple in the example above selling a "healing potion" that adds X dice to the Health Test. That should improve the chance of a wound healing successfully, or help Superficial and Light wounds to heal faster.

[Kublai]

I agree that any healing magic will affect the Recovery tests and not simply erase pips on the Greyscale. Healing potions and items will most certainly grant extra dice - or even auto-successes - to the Recovery roll.

BW dislikes "Jesuses" as we refer to them. It nearly ruined Shadowrun for us. There was one mage who had Heal Moderate/Serious/Mortal and would use it all the time - even during combat. Nobody was afraid to get into a fight because "Jesus" was right there to get you back on your feet in an instant. That's why BW prefers that all healing magics effect the Health stat instead of removing wound pips from the Greyscale. No matter what, it's going to take at least a little time to recover from your wounds, thus keeping combat risky and meaningful.

And for you doubters, trust me. My character recently took a Mortal Wound from a long bow, but with his high Health stat and some MAJOR healing magic, he was completely recovered after only 4 months. It should've taken well over a year - if he succeeded at all!

[Eric Minton]

How about the old "Empathic Healing" technique, where you transfer a wound from someone else's body to your own?

[Drozdal]

How about the old "Empathic Healing" technique, where you transfer a wound from someone else's body to your own?

Heh suicidal priests? I would rather see priests who transfer wounds/diseases from followers of their god onto sinners or blashemers :twisted:

Droz