I’ve been reading the new Recovery rules and… hm, I think there’s a problem here. In v8, recovery is explicitly medical – you get a PC with Physicker or an NPC doctor to treat you. But Harm isn’t – Seduced is given as an example of Harm, and I’m not sure why we need a doctor to treat that!
Pulling together all Harm under one system looks good, but it includes things that really ought to be temporary conditions that only apply for the current Score – or at least ought to be treated differently for Recovery purposes.
I’m also not sure I like the way that it make Physicker almost necessary for a starting crew. Since getting a doctor is an Acquire Assets roll a Tier 0 crew is likely to get a very bad one. So a Leech with Physicker let’s you roll a minimum of 3d to Recover, and without one you need to take an action to get a doctor who is unlikely to be better than 0d unless you spend coin… it’s such a huge leap in effectiveness, but it takes up a PC’s special ability slot. That doesn’t seem like a great thing to do. Especially given that the Leech needs to pay 2 Stress to treat themselves, so it’s an ability that is much better for the other PCs…
There is the possibility of having a contact who can help, I guess. That takes some of the weight off the Leech, but leaves it entirely up to the GM what quality to give the NPC – and tying it to Tier still makes sense as the default for that.
Honestly, I preferred the earlier system where Physicker makes you better at healing people but anyone can roll an appropriate action or their lowest attribute to heal. Or am I misreading something here and getting it all wrong?
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I believe that they are treated differently for recovery purposes. The book says that you need to seek help, but doesn’t specify a physicker for everything. “You might visit a physicker who can stitch your wounds and soothe your mind with anatomical science or a witch who specializes in healing charms and restorative alchemy.” You can also tough it out without help. Just roll 0d.
It seems like that means your treatment must fit the injury. So if you’re alchemically terrified, to the point of constant fear, you seek out a chemist; if you’re mystically terrified by a demon, you need whisper instead (or maybe a physicker that also specializes in psychology). If you’re Seduced to the point that it’s harming you and your life, you need someone to help break you out of it. Seek out another madam, or a chemist to help you with your humors, or a psychonaut to plunge into your memories and fix them.
Also, your Tier 0 crew can still get a high tier NOC physicker. Buy it up! Every coin gets you a better asset. Did that ruin the take? Great! Time to get a new job.
Your Leech also gets a lot more from Physicker. They just give everyone +1d to healing, even if they tough it out and are otherwise rolling 0d. They can Study corpses and similar things for clues. It’s a great, many-faceted ability. The fact that they can act as your doctor for stress instead of coin is just a bonus.
To add: I think every playbook but the Lurk now has a contact who could be a passable help to recover. Yes, tying them to tier might make some sense, but I’d personally default to them being independent, competent friends. I mean, if they’re listed as Physicker or Psychonaut, that’d be what they’re known for, so at least 2d.
Yes, a Leech who takes Physicker will be good at keeping the crew healthy, but that’s awesome! It gives them a chance to fulfill their playbook xp condition, and show us how they treat the crew and that part of their “job” within it. That’s 2xp and 1 crew xp in one go, and a cool scene to describe. It’s a jump in effectiveness, but not one that will make the game unplayable without one.
Yeah, the trouble is that the Physicker ability is worth about 5 coin per downtime… it’s not a problem if the Leech’s player wants to be the medic, I agree, but if they don’t then that’s a lot of coin to drop! (For one character I’d argue they’d be better off spending that coin on multiple Recovery actions or boosting the success instead – sure you’ll only get one tick an action unless you’re lucky, but you can buy that up pretty high…)
Really, that’s so expensive that I can’t see a Crew wanting to rely on that.
And toughing it out costs 1 stress for a 0d roll, so it’s almost always going to be worse than getting even an awful doc in.
You’re right I guess about the contacts being likely treated as better than 0d – okay, so the likely solution is to make damned sure that the Crew either has a Physicker or a relevant contact. Just going to need to make that clear to the players, because it looks like having neither is a pretty bad newbie trap – fine if you want to play on hard mode, but not good if you just stumble into it by mistake!
There are a lot of other options besides the Leech for a cautious group that’s fearful of harm. First, don’t fail rolls! Use the fear of Harm to push teamwork actions, which can also help them get more xp and feel more secure. Second, resist. Protect A Teammate. Use your Load for armor. Use that xp for your playbook armor. Level 3 harm can be stepped down pretty fast if you allow armor and resistance and protection.
If you are hurt, let’s not forget about getting lost in your vice. If you’re really badly injured, get Lost when you overindulge. Free healing, and you get to try out another character for the day.
You could also use your starting cohort to become an expert physicker. It’s expensive since it’s both upgrades, but it might be worth it. They get better as the crew does, too, so that’s motivation to Tier up.
I don’t understand what you mean by “newbie trap”. Everyone knows their playbook’s contacts, even if they aren’t specifically friends or rivals. They’re available, and probably willing to work for favors, or cheaper than 5 coin. Unless you’ve got a full crew of Lurks, someone will know somebody; even if you need to Acquire an Asset with your tier, that friend could give you +1d. If you’re using the same asset time and again, you’ll get a bonus to the roll. You also could engage in a project to add them as a friend (or even take them as a cohort as you upgrade the crew).
I’m not sure where you’re getting 5 coin for the physicker ability. Asset roll at 0d means it’s likely to be a tier 0 doctor. +2 coin gives them 2d, which you then have them roll for your first recovery. That probably won’t give you all 4 ticks (but might!), and you pay another coin to have them roll again. 3 coin, baring bad luck (and likely I’m inaccurate in some way, but it’s napkin math).
And even if it’s taking a ton of coin, I think that killing the dough with bad luck is part of the fun. If you’re running the game, dangle a risky but BIG score out there. If they pull it off, they equalize. If they don’t take the bait, great! What’s their plan? Stay poor, or stand up and take some claims/revenge?
My experience is that there isn’t a ton of harm in every score. Stress bars go up, but harm stays low unless luck really isn’t with you. Harm is more of the Sword of Damocles than hit points; it’s there to make it feel real and risky. But once you have harm, there are a lot of options to deal with it. One of the player principles is to embrace the scoundrel lifestyle, and I think this is part of that.
By default, healing is kind of troublesome — it can be slow and costly. That’s the nature of the setting.
But the GM ultimately determines the availability of healers and their skill level. If you don’t want healing to be troublesome, don’t make it troublesome. It’s a very simple dial to turn.
“Who has a friend who can help with recovery? Okay, yeah Quellyn can do it. She has 2d plus one because she’s a friend in downtime. Roll 3d for her.”
I love this about the setting.
John Dornberger I think the 5 coin they are talking about comes from extra downtime activities. They might be thinking that for a Physiker to heal you costs them a downtime as well. I don’t think it works that way though, the Leech just throws potions or bandages on you, the actual downtime comes from the r&r later
No, that’s not it. I was maybe being a little too specific though. A Leech with Physicker rolls a minimum of 5d (EDIT: that’s a typo – should be 3d).
A tier 0 roll has a 75% chance of getting 1-3. Spending coin to buy that up to a crit gets you to 2d for 3 Coin – and you can buy that last die for an extra 2 Coin. Of course it’s a pretty silly idea to actually do it that way, I admit – those last two coin (at the very least) are better spent buying extra heal actions.
However, it does also cost an extra action to get the doctor at all, so that’s another 1 Coin worth of expense. Physicker is a huge cost saver if your crew gets hurt – unless you’ve got other NPCs who can do it for you.
I’m not sure where you’re getting the minimum 5d for a Leech with Physicker. The minimum should be the starting 2 Tinker +1 for the ability, so 3d minimum, right?
As for aquiring an asset, a few playbooks either have a Physicker, or someone who could pass for a healer. Supposing the entire crew consists of playbooks which don’t have a healing contact (which is certainly possible), then they would have to acquire one. Ideally, they’d attempt to leverage a friendly contact’s connections to at least get +1d to their Tier 0 roll, but it’s still possible they get a 1-3. So they could buy up the quality if necessary.
Next time they need a doctor, they acquire an asset again, hopefully going through their contact again. But “if you acquire the same asset again, you get +1d to your roll” so now they’re rolling 2d. And “if you want to acquire an asset permanently, you can … work on it as a long-term project to set up a permanent acquisition.” (pg. 154) Further projects could secure better supplies, tools, and space for the doctor, bumping up their quality rating. It doesn’t have to be a ton of coin every downtime session.
And that’s just if the table wants to engage the mechanics as they exist. Could always just say “That sounds like a pain. How about, since nobody knows or wants to play a healer, you guys know one already.” I agree that the Leech got some pretty big buffs and incentives to have one on the crew, but they’re only necessary if you engage with the game in such a way as to make them necessary.
We ran into this last night. Arquo from the Doksvol Spectral Society had so much harm. All of his level 1 and level 2 harm was filled. Most of it was physical but one of them (a Level 2) was “Screams of the Dead” from his contact with the Empty Vessel.
He went to uncle Melvir, his super racist family friend and physiker who was putting spiritbane charms on his forehead and trying to convince him not to hang out with Tycherosi anymore, but ultimately unable to do anything about the haunting. He did however, tell him to go to the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh sanctorum where the quiet would leech away the spirits that plauged him. So, it ended up costing some extra coin to do, but he managed to get it down to “whispers of the dead” (level 1) and will probably leave it there for a while since he’s Tough as Nails and mere whispers aren’t going to bother him any!
Minimum Leech Physiker dice = Tinker (3) + Physiker (1) = 4 + pushing yourself = 5 + assist = 6.
Maximum coin spent for a tier II doctor = 2 coin (this is for the whole group to use).
Rating for a friend that can heal: typically 2 but GM discresion
Steven Dodds Sorry, I’ve edited in a correction – minimum for the Leech should have been 3d. The maths were based on 3d, though.
Seduced is given as an example of Harm, and I’m not sure why we need a doctor to treat that!
You need a doctor because they’re lovesick.
You need a cardiologist, if they have a broken heart…
+100000000Â Tony!
Other options if you don’t want to be beholden to a Leech: take a Physicker as a Cohort; load up on abilities like Vigorous, Tough As Nails and Anointed to make healing easier and faster; load up on abilities like Connected, Calculating, Pack Rats and All Hands to make downtime actions and acquiring assets easier; load up on Special Armor abilities and abilities that increase your Load, to reduce Harm before it happens; load up on abilities that help Resistance rolls, abilities that increase Stress capacity and abilities to make indulging your Vice easier, so that you can substitute Harm for stress; load up on abilities that get you Coin or Rep so you can just spend your way out of problems.
There are a lot of options.