Restoration & Recovery Mechanics

Health Restoration

Heal: The action restores a portion of the affected character's health.
- Heal 1-20: The action restores the indicated amount of the affected character's health.
- Heal All: The action restores all of the affected character's health.
Recover: The action can only be used on a resting character, and restores all of that character's health once he or she finishes resting. If the character's rest is interrupted, the effect is wasted and no health is restored.
Revive: The action can only be used on a dead character, and restores that character to life.
- Revive: The action restores the affected character to life at 1 health.
- Revive Full: The action restores the affected character to life at full health.

Status Restoration

Cure: The action removes any active Decay, Mute, or Weakness effects from the affected character. The action can also be used to counter these effects.
Regenerate: The action restores one or more of the character's Maimed limbs. The action can also be used to counter a Maim effect.
- Regenerate: The action restores one of the character's Maimed limbs. The action can also be used to counter a Maim effect.
- Regenerate All: The action restores all of the character's Maimed limbs. The action can also be used to counter a Maim effect.
Release: The action removes any active Freeze, Pin, Slow, or Snare effects from the affected character. The action can also be used to counter these effects.
Repair: The action restores a Ruined object. The action can also be used to counter a Ruin effect.
Rouse: The action removes any active Charm, Daze, Fear, Frenzy, or Sleep effects from the affected character. The action can also be used to counter these effects.

Action Restoration

Refresh: The action refreshes one or more of the affected character's expended actions.
- Refresh: The action refreshes one of the affected character's expended actions. The action restored may not be a trump action.
- Refresh All: The action refreshes all of the affected character's expended actions, including trump actions.
Trance: The action puts the affected character into a trance. During this time, the character is asleep but may rest or refocus in half the usual time (i.e., actions refresh after 30 seconds and the character may refocus after 5 minutes). The effect ends if the character is awakened. The character may also choose to end the effect after refreshing or refocusing.

What you see above is a list of restoration and recovery mechanics. It's short but varied, with a few additions, such as Heal All, Recover, and Revive Full. The methods at which these can be used and the levels at which they're acquired will be a matter for the Character Design group, but I wanted to go over them in Combat first to see if there was anything we wanted to add, revise, or remove. Here are a few notes in no particular order:

Recover will be a central mechanic that is available early on to any theurge. Saying you get all of your health back when you're done resting is just too easy to pass up, and makes the whole "armor is health" change much easier to deal with. It also takes emphasis off of burst heals as the method of getting a party back on its feet.
Splitting up Revive and Revive Full will allow us to include Revive at a lower level.
I could stand to see Regenerate renamed. It doesn't quite say what I mean it to. Is there a straightforward word you guys can think of for restoring a limb?
The list reflects recent changes and omissions. Reveal and Revert have been dropped. Rouse now counters Daze.
Refresh now restores only one action for simplicity's sake. The downside of this is that it may not be available to lower-level bards.
Another mechanic that someone suggested to me at the last event was a Revive-like effect that restored a dissipated character to life. I'm fine with it thematically, but I could use some help trying to figure out how to make it work in play.

I'm going to start with giving you an option for re-naming Regeneration before I forget it: Mend OR Mending. I think it makes the most sense because you're technically "mending" a maim. That or Restore/Restoration, but I think people would confuse it with Refresh on that one. Moving right along.

As for bringing a dissipated character back from the dead, I would say this can only be a Theurge action. Call on the spirits (Shaman or Warlock) to bring the character back. I think the best way to do this is to make it accesible at a high level (8 +). As for an actual in-game mechanic, I don't know how we'd do it. I'd say performance factor, but that may cross the line for some. Maybe some sort of Oil or Liquid that must be distributed over the area of the persons death? It should take some time; not just a one minute thing.

When we Refresh, are we only gaining one action back, or is this limited to the Bard Refresh? Will Refresh All eventually be available to all PC's? I'm only worried about massive TPK'S with people having to rest for a minute and only gain one action back. You'll see a lot of people running like chicken's trying to get away every 60 to 90 seconds if you are talking about Refresh in general. Or will we still be able to gain ALL actions back with resting for one minute?

I agree with the heal, evive, and counter effects. I think they are simple and easy enough to understand. Unless it says full, it's available at lower levels and is point limited. If it says Full you're back up and running. I like it.

I considered Mend as an alternative, Heather, but that might make people confuse it with Repair.

I agree that Resurrect (not sure of the name, but let's use it for the moment for clarity) should be theurge only. In fact, most of these will be theurge actions. My problem with it is that the person to be restored should rightfully be on their way to the rez deck by the time anyone thinks to do it.

Refresh won't be changing much; you still get your actions back after a minute. The mechanic is for bards more than anyone. Refresh All may be available as a trump action. I'll have to weigh that one for awhile; it seems overpowered now that I think about it.

I agree with you Thad on the "Mend".
If we're talking about Resurrect bring back a PIFFed character (after the 5 minuets), it should be elaborate. Some sort of performance ritual, and only at high level like 8-10 and not for generalist.
Refresh is a good mechanic. I do think that a Refresh all. I think at high level it is viable.
If we dig into Bard I like the Performance actions best, that way you dont need a Refresh All just stick around long enough to get as many as you can. Maybe a Burst Refresh. But enough about ME.
Breaking Heal into pieces is great. Heal 5, Heal 10, ..., Heal All.
I like the Idea of bring a downed character back to 1HP at lower levels, & reserving coming back at full for higher level.

Agree with everything, although have no idea for a word to replace regenerate.

What about Renewal? Or Rejuvinate? You could add limb to the end of either so it's clear.

How about Revitalize for the name of the action?

Anyways, everything looks good so far. Though, I feel that Refresh should be available to bards of all levels. Refreshes are a big thing of theirs. Maybe the Refresh effect could refresh one action equal to or less than bard level? I know that's character development stuff there, but it's bound to happen a few times. The effects of combat actions and when they get them are very tighly woven with character development, IMHO.

I personally think Revitalize is entirely too close in name to Revive. It could be interpreted incorrectly. Just my opinion.

I don't think Thad is talking about taking Refresh completely away from bards, I think it's more of level limiting how much they can do with it.

I knew he wasn't taking it away. He said that it might become unavailable until higher levels. That brings the usefulness of a lower level bard down some.

Anyways, thought up on the dissipated revival thing some. First, call it Resurrect. Secondly, after dissipating, the player would be able to walk around OOG. Any sense spirit or similar action would reveal the player to that character. The player would remain like this for an additional 3-5 minutes. The action could either be performed by a high enough level healer alone (10+ maybe?), or by a ritual-like healer only class item that would have to be made by higher level healers and would require 2-4 healers to perform. Maybe make it so the more healers helping (4 max), the less time it takes. During the ritual, the time count stops. Any interruption, including talking, ruins the ritual and possibly ruins the item.

Idk, that's just the basis of an idea. Thoughts? Criticism?

I will say that group actions did not work well before and probably will not work that great now either. Collaborative actions are tough to do, especially if we are talking about every healer having to get around one downed person. If they are all huddled and dancing around all nimbly bimbly, how are they going to be able to protect themselves or heal those protecting them? In the end Collab actions were never used before and were taken out for a reason. That is my take on it though. what does anyone else think?

I'm with you on Collabs Mark.

I'm very tentatively leaning toward Renew as the new name for Regenerate. I may just cave and make the effect the same as the spells the current call it (i.e., Renew Limb and Renew Body). (THS 2)

I like the Resurrect idea. It's just a matter of how long spirits can walk around and how they can be detected. I'll have to think on it more, but multiple degrees of revival are appealing from a character design standpoint since we need to fill out 10 more levels worth of abilities. (THS 4)

Refresh currently works the way you're describing, Chris. It's followed by a number and if you're higher-level than the number, it doesn't work. The problem is it's confusing; people think you refresh that number of actions. I'd rather come up with something else to make the bard more useful early on and make Refresh simple. (THS 8)

In three years of gameplay, collaborative actions and rituals were never used. I think a longer casting time spell action is fine, but saying multiple people need to be involved tells us that people will simply never use it. (THS 10)