Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: bmoham on <07-27-18/2037:11>
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I have a couple of questions about medkits and recovery.
First, do they give a bonus to Medicine rolls (for recovery) or just First Aid?
Item description (on page 450 of my book) says it's rating applies to First Aid test. It says nothing about Medicine.
But in the section on Medicine (p208) there is a chart that says wireless medkit add "+ rating", and in the example ("Wombat is injured yet again..." seems to be adding the med kit rating to the doctor's Logic+Medicine for the recovery check.
Tangentially, can a Medicine roll help with the "natural" healing necessary to heal drain? It says "no magical healing and no medkits". I assume it means no first aid or stim patches. I can't imagine why it would mean no use of Medicine or why it would matter if the medical care included a medkit (assuming, medkits even apply to Medicine rolls - per my first question).
Thanks
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First, yes.
Second, on page 207, it says that natural healing can be augmented by medkits and autodoc drones, as long as they are attached and operating.
Clear as mud?
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The general consensus is to heal from drain especially stun damage the only thing you can do is rest.
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The only thing you can do to heal from Stun drain is rest, though a Stim patch would suppress it temporarily. If the drain is physical, then you can use first aid or magic to heal it.
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The only thing you can do to heal from Stun drain is rest, though a Stim patch would suppress it temporarily. If the drain is physical, then you can use first aid or magic to heal it.
Not exactly. SR5 p.278: "Drain damage, regardless of whether it is Stun or Physical damage, cannot be healed by any means other than the natural properties of the body -- that means no magical healing and no medikits."
[EDIT] Regarding the OP, a Medicine + Logic [Mental] Test adds bonus dice to a character's own natural recovery dice pools, so yes, I think Medicine could help recovery from Drain. No bonus from a medkit, though, as that's specifically disallowed.
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Hmm. That's a change from 4e, then. Interesting.
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The only thing you can do to heal from Stun drain is rest, though a Stim patch would suppress it temporarily. If the drain is physical, then you can use first aid or magic to heal it.
Not exactly. SR5 p.278: "Drain damage, regardless of whether it is Stun or Physical damage, cannot be healed by any means other than the natural properties of the body -- that means no magical healing and no medikits."
[EDIT] Regarding the OP, a Medicine + Logic [Mental] Test adds bonus dice to a character's own natural recovery dice pools, so yes, I think Medicine could help recovery from Drain. No bonus from a medkit, though, as that's specifically disallowed.
Just keep in mind that the Medicine test adds to the healing test, after the allotted time is up for the healing test. So while Medicine can greatly speed up the amount of time needed overall, it can not remove damage boxes (in this case drain, either physical or stun) "right away"...
So, after an hour of rest, a mage could attempt a Body + Willpower + (Medicine hits) extended healing test to remove stun damage from drain.
After a day of rest a mage could attempt a Body x 2 +(Medicine Hits) extended healing test to remove physical damage drain.
Drain sucks. Avoid it, manage your spell casting!
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Drain sucks. Avoid it, manage your spell casting!
This. This is the point I raise any time someone says that mages are uber powerful. Sure, they've got tricks, but your sammy doesn't get worse at shooting because he walked into a room with bad mojo, and shooting someone doesn't make him cough up blood unless he's doing something REALLY wrong.
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I literally ran into the situation in Dragon Song... 2? 3? that a mage summoned a Force 6, ate 8 Drain after Edge and had to stay at a safe distance. Drain can be real dangerous because there's no easy recovery. The Streetsam taking a bullet can easily recover inbetween fights.
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I literally ran into the situation in Dragon Song... 2? 3? that a mage summoned a Force 6, ate 8 Drain after Edge and had to stay at a safe distance. Drain can be real dangerous because there's no easy recovery. The Streetsam taking a bullet can easily recover inbetween fights.
Which is why I laugh at people who cry about the 'Spirit Army of DOOOOOOOM'.
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I literally ran into the situation in Dragon Song... 2? 3? that a mage summoned a Force 6, ate 8 Drain after Edge and had to stay at a safe distance. Drain can be real dangerous because there's no easy recovery. The Streetsam taking a bullet can easily recover inbetween fights.
Which is why I laugh at people who cry about the 'Spirit Army of DOOOOOOOM'.
SHHHH!!!!!!
Thou. Shalt. Not. Speak. Of. Spirit. Army. Of. Dooom!!!
(Because it's trademarked. failure to honor the trademark leads to long, drawn out forum threads filled with hate and whine about said Spirit Army of Doooom! <TM> , and usually leads to someone getting a forehead brand in the shape of Fastjack's BanHammer... )
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The only thing you can do to heal from Stun drain is rest, though a Stim patch would suppress it temporarily. If the drain is physical, then you can use first aid or magic to heal it.
Not exactly. SR5 p.278: "Drain damage, regardless of whether it is Stun or Physical damage, cannot be healed by any means other than the natural properties of the body -- that means no magical healing and no medikits."
[EDIT] Regarding the OP, a Medicine + Logic [Mental] Test adds bonus dice to a character's own natural recovery dice pools, so yes, I think Medicine could help recovery from Drain. No bonus from a medkit, though, as that's specifically disallowed.
You can still play Kick the Can with (Stun) Drain by applying Stim Patches.
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The only thing you can do to heal from Stun drain is rest, though a Stim patch would suppress it temporarily. If the drain is physical, then you can use first aid or magic to heal it.
Not exactly. SR5 p.278: "Drain damage, regardless of whether it is Stun or Physical damage, cannot be healed by any means other than the natural properties of the body -- that means no magical healing and no medikits."
[EDIT] Regarding the OP, a Medicine + Logic [Mental] Test adds bonus dice to a character's own natural recovery dice pools, so yes, I think Medicine could help recovery from Drain. No bonus from a medkit, though, as that's specifically disallowed.
You can still play Kick the Can with (Stun) Drain by applying Stim Patches.
CRB 451
Stim patch: This patch removes a number of boxes
of Stun damage equal to its Rating. This effect lasts for
(Rating x 10) minutes—after that period of time, the patient
takes (Rating + 1) unresisted Stun damage (which
may be well become physical overflow by that point).
While a stimulant patch is in effect, the character is
unable to rest. Frequent use of stimulant patches may
require Addiction Tests. Treat it as Addiction Rating 2,
Addiction Threshold 1.
Only for so long.
You can delay the stun damage - IF you GM doesn't rule Drain can't be covered by Patches due to the "Drain damage, regardless
of whether it is Stun or Physical damage, cannot be healed by any means other than the natural properties of the body—that means no magical healing and no
medkits." line under Drain in the CRB.
- But only for so long, and then it comes right back, with a +1 chaser. Some people have argued you can continue to apply Patches.... but a some point, you do just pass out. (Full stun track).... And have to deal with healing the drain, and all the extra damage then. At best you get what? 4 patches before you're out? So 4 extra hours.
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This is suddenly feeling very relevent, as I'm about to start playing a Mage with magic 2. (Casting and summoning is very much a sideline for the character, but you know how temptation is ....) I admit I had not thought about medikits/autodocs not helping on healing up physical damage from drain, and it had been so long since I've dealt with physical damage that had to heal over time I'd forgotten that it was bodyx2 and not body+will. This could hurt!
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This is suddenly feeling very relevent, as I'm about to start playing a Mage with magic 2. (Casting and summoning is very much a sideline for the character, but you know how temptation is ....) I admit I had not thought about medikits/autodocs not helping on healing up physical damage from drain, and it had been so long since I've dealt with physical damage that had to heal over time I'd forgotten that it was bodyx2 and not body+will. This could hurt!
You... may want to consider changing things up a bit. Especially since a Mage starts with Magic 3 on Priority C, the lowest one you can be a Mage on. An aspected mage could have a Magic of 2 at priority D, however. If you were going to do something like that, I'd actually suggest aspected Alchemist. The advantage of being able to sleep off your drain with alchemists really helps at lower magic ratings. Also, reagents to increase limits while keeping Force the same is going to be your friend for when you need something more potent.
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The only thing you can do to heal from Stun drain is rest, though a Stim patch would suppress it temporarily. If the drain is physical, then you can use first aid or magic to heal it.
Not exactly. SR5 p.278: "Drain damage, regardless of whether it is Stun or Physical damage, cannot be healed by any means other than the natural properties of the body -- that means no magical healing and no medikits."
[EDIT] Regarding the OP, a Medicine + Logic [Mental] Test adds bonus dice to a character's own natural recovery dice pools, so yes, I think Medicine could help recovery from Drain. No bonus from a medkit, though, as that's specifically disallowed.
You can still play Kick the Can with (Stun) Drain by applying Stim Patches.
CRB 451
Stim patch: This patch removes a number of boxes
of Stun damage equal to its Rating. This effect lasts for
(Rating x 10) minutes—after that period of time, the patient
takes (Rating + 1) unresisted Stun damage (which
may be well become physical overflow by that point).
While a stimulant patch is in effect, the character is
unable to rest. Frequent use of stimulant patches may
require Addiction Tests. Treat it as Addiction Rating 2,
Addiction Threshold 1.
Only for so long.
You can delay the stun damage - IF you GM doesn't rule Drain can't be covered by Patches due to the "Drain damage, regardless
of whether it is Stun or Physical damage, cannot be healed by any means other than the natural properties of the body—that means no magical healing and no
medkits." line under Drain in the CRB.
- But only for so long, and then it comes right back, with a +1 chaser. Some people have argued you can continue to apply Patches.... but a some point, you do just pass out. (Full stun track).... And have to deal with healing the drain, and all the extra damage then. At best you get what? 4 patches before you're out? So 4 extra hours.
That's why I called it Kicking the Can. You're fine for NOW. You're just kicking the problems to something you worry about Later On. That's Future You's problem. Now You is fixed! :D
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This is suddenly feeling very relevent, as I'm about to start playing a Mage with magic 2. (Casting and summoning is very much a sideline for the character, but you know how temptation is ....) I admit I had not thought about medikits/autodocs not helping on healing up physical damage from drain, and it had been so long since I've dealt with physical damage that had to heal over time I'd forgotten that it was bodyx2 and not body+will. This could hurt!
You... may want to consider changing things up a bit. Especially since a Mage starts with Magic 3 on Priority C, the lowest one you can be a Mage on. An aspected mage could have a Magic of 2 at priority D, however. If you were going to do something like that, I'd actually suggest aspected Alchemist. The advantage of being able to sleep off your drain with alchemists really helps at lower magic ratings. Also, reagents to increase limits while keeping Force the same is going to be your friend for when you need something more potent.
There is some misinformation here.
First, a Mage can have less than 3 Magic - If the character takes 'ware to reduce Essence.
Second, with a low Magic you really want to use Reagents to change the Limit to equal your Magic. In 5e, the Drain switches to Physical when your number of hits on your Spellcasting exceeds your Magic attribute, not when the Force of the Spell does.
Remember that if the number of hits you rolled when casting the spell (Step 4) exceeds your Magic rating, then the Drain causes Physical instead of Stun damage.
So, assuming you could bypass the Magic x 2 restriction on the Force you could cast, with 2 Reagents you could cast a Force 6 spell without ever taking Physical Drain.
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Sorry, shouldn't have let those thoughts go out my fingers -- didn't mean to distract from the main point (and house ruled character creation rules)
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This is suddenly feeling very relevent, as I'm about to start playing a Mage with magic 2. (Casting and summoning is very much a sideline for the character, but you know how temptation is ....) I admit I had not thought about medikits/autodocs not helping on healing up physical damage from drain, and it had been so long since I've dealt with physical damage that had to heal over time I'd forgotten that it was bodyx2 and not body+will. This could hurt!
EVERYONE forgets that healing physical damage is Body x 2. And most mages totally forget that point, making their uber high drain resistance stats totally useless for them once they have taken that damage :D
Which has led to mages sitting out WEEKS of time healing their physical drain from trying to conjure that over cast spirit .... which leads to Runners dumping "Idiotic" mage players by the wayside....
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Bah, that's why mages have the shapechange spell and a friendly Spirit of Man to cast it for them. Turn into a cat put all your successes into body and start purring until nose bleed stops...
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I'll add that to my "Why the Shapechange spell doesn't exist in any game* that I run" list ;-)
*Should I ever end up running official Missions, I'll have to grudgingly make an exception.
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I'll add that to my "Why the Shapechange spell doesn't exist in any game* that I run" list ;-)
*Should I ever end up running official Missions, I'll have to grudgingly make an exception.
Meh. That is such a niche thing, and really only helps on downtime, giving you an alternative to paying for a hospital stay to help the healing go faster. Does nothing to help you in the middle of the run.
The limitations of Shapechange are harsh enough that, like shifters, while there are some benefits in niche areas, turning yourself into an unarmored nonmagical critter is just... not really worth it. Especially since you can't talk while you are shapechanged, and your gear doesn't change with you, which limits your usefulness on recon or B&E. And Combat is going to go poorly for you if you try to fight while in your critter form. Why do I know how bad Shapechange is in practice? Because I was at a table where one player was doing a 'joke' character, where the character was a mage who believed he was a monkey, and ran around as a monkey most of the time. And the limitations cost us a lot of money and rep as their antics kept the team from working together.
So it is a spell that, used well, can be useful (scoping the outside of a compound as a pigeon draws a lot less attention than a mage in the astral examining the wards). However, the limitations usually punish users who try to go crazy with it without the DM ever needing to get up to tricks.
That said, I have used a modified version of Shapechange, back in 4e, for Naga and other paracritters to take on a metahuman form.
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@Mirikon
Not that I want to disagree with you - the limitations of the shapechange spell are plenty - but there are builds that can make this still viable and even effective. Rex in my signature is such a character.