Recovery Rules Issues

I Do NOT understand recovery. There appears to be contradictions or at least different explanations in the rules. I will reproduce three quotes which do not seem to line up with each other. Please help me figure out what is going on with these and help me figure out how to GM this properly. Thank you for the time everyone, by Crom!

On Pg. 124 of the Player’s Guide it states…

RECOVERY

A character recovers Stress fully at the end of an action scene, with Vigor and Resolve returning to their full values. This is automatic, requiring only a brief rest.

Harm, on the other hand, must be treated using the appropriate skill (as indicated on the Damage Types table). A skill test to treat a patient’s Harm can only be made once per day and has a Difficulty equal to the number of Harms (of that

type) afflicting the character. On a success, the character treats 1 Harm plus 1 additional Harm of that type for each Momentum spent (Repeatable). Treated Harm doesn’t impose any penalties, but it isn’t fully healed, and if the character suffers a new Harm of that type, then treated Harms immediately return, as wounds reopen under the strain.

Complete healing takes time, rest, and possibly the attention of a healer.”

But on Pg. 122 of the Core Rules it states….

RECOVERING FROM DAMAGE

Recovering from damage is as important as being able to inflict it.

A character recovers all lost Stress — Vigor and Resolve — at the end of an action scene. This is automatic, requiring only a brief rest. The only time this should not happen is if the next scene is set immediately after the prior, with the characters having no time to recuperate.

Stress is recovered at a slower rate within an action scene, though it never reaches a higher value than the char­acter’s normal maximum. Spending 1 point of Momentum (Immediate, Repeatable) allows a character to recover 1 point of any Stress. Alternatively, characters can spend actions to try to recover their own or an ally’s Stress during an action scene. These treatment actions are described in the Counsel and Healing skill descriptions (pages 62 and 66).

Recovering from Harm is a trickier proposition, requiring two stages: treatment and healing. Restoring lost Harm cannot be done during an action scene, except under the most extraordinary of measures or conditions.

To treat Harm, the treating character must choose what kind of Harm is being treated and must attempt an Average (D1) skill test using a skill determined by the type of damage. If successful, this test removes 1 Harm, plus 1 additional Harm for each Momentum spent (Repeatable). A treated Harm no longer imposes any Difficulty increase, nor does it count towards the character’s maximum, but it is not yet completely healed. Until a treated Harm has been completely healed, the character is still vulnerable and the Harm is still present, if latent. If a character suffers a new Harm of that type, any treated Harms immediately return as Wounds or Trauma, reopening under strain.

Completely healing from Harm takes time, proper medi­cal attention, or a combination of both. The pace of healing is at the gamemaster’s discretion, and normally occurs at points in an adventure where the characters stop and rest or in the downtime between adventures. Healing completely removes all Harms the character suffers from, treated or otherwise. Most healing comes during downtime, which is described in Chapter Nine: Gamemastering .”

Then when you go Pg. 294 of the GM section relating to downtime in the same core book it states…

Recovery

While a player character can recover from the cuts and scrapes of a rough life quickly enough, longer-term prob­lems — Wounds and Trauma, as well as issues like Fatigue and Despair — are more time-consuming to deal with. By devoting a period of Carousing to recovery, the player characters make certain that they will suffer no further from any malady or affliction sustained on some prior exploit.

Time spent on recovery means seeking out healers and staying in their care for a protracted period. In exchange, it provides an exceptionally effective means of ridding oneself of Wounds and Trauma. A player character may spend Gold on recovery, which secures the aid of a healer who treats the player character’s Wounds, Trauma, and the effects of poisons and diseases. The total cost is 1 Gold for each Wound or Trauma healed completely (this includes ones that were treated during the adventure), plus 1 Gold for each type of poison or disease removed. There is no test required for this: merely the expenditure of Gold. It is assumed that if one healer is not adequate, another is found who can do the job.

Any character with 3 or more ranks of Healing Expertise may spend the Carousing phase helping an ally recover, but this can only apply to Wounds, poisons, and diseases (unless they also have Counsel Expertise 2 or more). Both player characters can share the expenditure of Gold, spent on supplies and somewhere clean to treat the patient’s wounds. The Gold cost for recovery is reduced by 1 per additional character with Counsel or Heal Expertise 2+ assisting, to a minimum of 1 Gold.”

Is it possible to get a clear step by step clarification of this from the creators. This also needs a clarifications and distinction between the self recovery and "other recovery"

During combat, you have various ways to recover lost Stress (i.e. Vigor or Resolve):

  • Second Wind Momentum spend: You recover one point of Stress for each Momentum spent (repeatable)
  • Recover Action: D1 Resistance/Discipline test to recover 2 points of Stress + 2 per Momentum spent (repeatable). Only works on yourself.
  • Treatment Action: Healing/Counsel test to recover 3 points of Stress + 3 per Momentum spent (repeatable). Difficulty is equal to number of Harms on the target. Only works on others.

Note that you cannot treat Harms in combat. Outside of combat, treatment works a little differently:

  • D1 Healing/Counsel or Resistance/Discipline test. Success treats 1 Harm, +1 per Momentum spent (repeatable). Healing/Counsel works on others, Resistance/Discipline on yourself.

Note that Harms can only be treated here, not healed. Treated Harm does not impose penalties, but when you receive a new Harm, the old ones are back. Basically old wounds are opening up again. Harm can only completely be healed during the Carousing phase.

Of course, Difficulty and skills used are up to the GM and/or dictated by the narrative.

So I’m not sure if this clears it up, or maybe I completely missed your problem.

I think the issue is the contradictions between the players guide and the core rules. I think what I have gotten from the community is that the players guide SHOULD NOT be depended on for any rules and to refer to the core rule.

Apparently the player guide was made from an outdated ruleset yet it is still on the market.This is deeply dissatisfying for those that bought multiple players guides to have a the table. I can not imagine another system doing this. I love Modiphius and will continue to support them but this is a pretty big oversight which is a bit of a let down to consumers and long time supporters. But like I said, I still love the company. Wish there would be some sort of fix for this or recall or something…

Crom is a cruel god…

What are the contradictions? After re-reading both versions, the only difference I noticed was the Difficulty for treating Harm. In the core book, it seems to be a flat D1 while it is equal to the number of Harm in the Player’s Guide. One is a mistake, clearly.

But I highly doubt that you will find an error free print version of any rule book from a game that came out a relatively short while ago. Sure, quality control can always be better and I totally get your frustration over this.

Recovering Stress: Automatic at the end of a scene. During a scene, Stress can be recovered by spending Momentum (1 Momentum, Immediate, Repeatable), or by taking actions (Recover or Treatment action, depending on whether you’re doing it to yourself, or someone else).

Harms: Cannot be tended to during combat. Outside of combat, you can Treat a Harm (remove the penalties) with a D1 Healing or Counsel test (for Wounds/Traumas, respectively) if treating someone else, or Resistance/Discipline to treat yourself. Each additional Momentum spent (Repeatable) lets you treat one additional Wound or Trauma (remember that trying to treat yourself would suffer the difficulty increases from having those Harms). Treated Harms no longer impose any penalties, but they’re not gone - suffering a Harm causes all treated Harms of the same type to “re-open”, no longer counting as treated.

The downtime section in the GM’s chapter of the corebook is about healing Harms completely (removing them, not just treating them) - it doesn’t contradict other sections, and it happens at a different point in the game.

The only disconnect is that the two books differ in the listed base difficulty for treating Harms. Everything else is the same.

1 Like

Thx Nathan, But I just got a reply from Customer Service which seems to contradict this. It stated:

Good afternoon

Healing is simple.

* In Combat you can restore stress (vigor/resolve) by spending momentum (if you want to help a patient you use a skill test and spent momentum)
* Out of Combat you can treat harm (Wounds/Trauma) with a skill test & recover all Stress automatically. If the patient gets another wound all treated wounds come back.
* In Carousing the patient can clear harms completely by paying cash.
* The GM has ultimate Authority to situationally allow/disallow any of the above.

IS there any detail you wish to know from the above?

_Lloyd _

Customer Support

Please note that the healing ALL wounds thing. More confusion here. I posted these answers on the main Facebook group and it still brought up questions for example…

You (in response to customer service) stated that…

“* Out of Combat you can treat harm (Wounds/Trauma) with a skill test & recover all Stress automatically. If the patient gets another wound all treated wounds come back.”

But the core rule states:

"On a success, the character treats 1 Harm plus 1 additional Harm of that type for each Momentum spent (Repeatable). "

That would mean that the healing rules in BOTH the Core rules are wrongly printed.

[Ferdinando Faure] said: in the main manual it says that a resistance test is required to self recover in combat… so basically you have to succeed a test AND spend momentum to recovery vigor?

Another question, Are there daily limits on the out of combat rolls? One for self AND one for others top heal? Or ONLY ONE? Can PC #1 try to heal themselves (with resistance) and have PC #2 heal them (with healing skill). Do both heals affect player #1

Another question, Does the momentum for extra heals also get added back to the pool?

If Both the Core book and the Players Guide contradict each other and are different form the explanation provided above how do people know that if they have bought the products without contacting support?

Should we not have a FAQ/Errata posted somewhere to address this, along with other Players Guide/Core rules issues?

Once again thanks for all your help on this,

See below, there is now a third explanation from customer support which is not the one in the Core or the Players Guide. Supper confusing…

Also see below in response to Nathan… One question that seems to be not looked at is the daily limits on heal/resistance rolls. Are daily limits no longer a thing? If so then what stopss players from just rolluing over and over until all harms are healed. I totally get the idea that it is a new product and I tink it is a great product and Modiphius is a good company but we are like 8 books in in physical, and more in PDF with other products market and still no errat nor FAQ for questions as central to a RPG game as healing. And its not just me. There is a fair amount of confusion on both the main Google plus and Facebook groups from other players and GMs.

PS I totally get the idea that it is a new product and I tink it is a great product and Modiphius is a good company but we are like 8 books in in physical, and more in PDF with other products market and still no errat nor FAQ for questions as central to a RPG game as healing. And its not just me. There is a fair amount of confusion on both the main Google plus and Facebook groups from other players and GMs.

And really, quite heartfelt, thx for the time and keep up the good work.

These are different. You can spend momentum to just remove a Stress (Second Wind) OR you can use the Recover action on yourself (Resistance/Discipline) or the Treatment action on another (Healing Counsel).

Only if unused. So if I am Healing an ally that has 3 wounds and get 4 successes (3 Momentum) I would Treat the 3 Wounds and have 1 left over Momentum that could go into the group pool.

As for how many times you can try Healing, I rule that you get one attempt. If multiple people could heal they need to assist in one roll. If the situation changes (more wounds), or a appropriate amount of time passes, I would allow another attempt. I am not sure if this is RAW or not, but makes sense to me. No point in even having them roll if they can try over and over (other than Complications). If it is a critical situation where they must succeed I would just allow them to Succeed at Cost. But that applies to most skill tests for me.

FAQ is in this thread:

I don’t see how the response from Lloyd contradicts what I said.

Now, I wrote these rules, so you can take what I say as the gospel truth with regards to these mechanics.

During Combat

  • You cannot treat or heal Harms.
  • You may recover Stress through a) the Second Wind Momentum Spend (1 Momentum for 1 Stress, Repeatable, Immediate)
  • You may recover Stress through use of the Recover action (D1 Resistance or Discipline test, regain 2 Stress, +2 per Momentum spent [Repeatable]; may also re-roll cover dice until start of next turn).
  • You may recover the Stress of an ally using the Treatment action (D1 Healing or Counsel test, patient regains 3 Stress, +3 per Momentum spent [Repeatable]).

Outside of Combat

  • You recover all Stress at the end of the scene.
  • You may treat Harms suffered. This is a D1 test (Healing or Counsel if treating someone else’s Harms, or Resistance or Discipline if treating your own), with success meaning that you treat one Harm, plus one additional Harm of that type per Momentum spent (Repeatable). A Treated Harm no longer imposes any penalties, but it is not completely gone, and if you take another Harm later, any Treated Harm stop being Treated (i.e., their penalties come back).

During Downtime

  • You may spend Gold to completely heal all Harms - they’re gone entirely.

Another question, Are there daily limits on the out of combat rolls? One for self AND one for others top heal? Or ONLY ONE? Can PC #1 try to heal themselves (with resistance) and have PC #2 heal them (with healing skill). Do both heals affect player #1

There are no daily limits, but there’s always the risk of complications, and no number of attempts can do more than just treat those Harms. Personally, I tend to limit it to one attempt per person each time they suffer more Harm (so if someone suffers a Wound, and gets it treated, and then suffers another Wound later, they can get another attempt to treat those Wounds).

Another question, Does the momentum for extra heals also get added back to the pool?

You’re spending that Momentum to get the Stress back. As normal, you only add Momentum back to the pool instead of spending it.

1 Like

I have an added question regarding this… I can find multiple references to resisting poison but I can’t find the mechanic for it. (Admittedly I may be being dense). Can you explain exactly how poisons work and how they are resisted?

I believe it is only covered under the Resistance skill.

Most poisons are built into a creatures attack: take for example the Venomous Snake on page 330.
Under Attacks: its bite is Reach 2, 3 Die Damage: Persistent 4, Unforgiving 1

This means that (PERSISTENT- pg 153)- The attack has a lingering, deleterious effect. If one or more Effects are rolled, the target will suffer X§ damage at the start of each subsequent turn for a number of rounds equal to the number of Effects rolled. Each effect rolled on the ongoing damage adds one additional round of duration. This condition can be avoided entirely at the time it is inflicted by adding a number of points to Doom equal to the number of Effects rolled; after this, it can only be removed by waiting for the duration to end or by taking the Clear action.

(That’s poison coursing through someones veins! An example of this can be found on pg 131) And please- dont forget that most poisons can cause the ‘Staggered’ condition- if the GM pays for it…ouch.

Then there is the example of a poisonous gas on pg 273.
For this type of ‘dungeon-trap’ poison…or any other poison your not sure of how to resolve- have the PC roll a Resistance check- set a difficulty based on how strong you want the poison to be- and roll damage

i would also have some poisons effect the mind- get them to roll a discipline check as above.

Just my 2 bob

This makes sense and is very helpful. My only question then is what is the point of antidotes in the system where Alchemists/herbalists are concerned. If poison will simply fade away over time then the damage it inflicts will do the same thing thereby making antidotes essentially a waste of time meta wise. Do you have any thoughts about this?

This is just my opinion but i think this may need the ‘Hand of the Allmighty SteveH’ to confirm…
I have a feeling that once you have been ‘poisoned’ you remain so - much like suffered wounds- until the Carousing period. Under the ‘Recovery’ section of Carousing (pg 294) it mentions that you can pay 1 gold to remove one type of poison being suffered at this point.

To me this means that say a PC is poisoned by the snake in the above example- the PC pays the fortune or doom to not become staggered- but i would make the PC write a note that they are ‘Poisoned’ with ‘Snake Poison’ until the Carousing phase wherein they could get it healed. If the same PC was stabbed with a foul Khitian Poisoned Blade- i would get them to note that poison as well…as for effects of being poisoned (other than the damage) make them feel ■■■■- drop their maximum Vigour/or Resolve by 1/poisoning condition suffered…make it up- but make it fair- and most importantly- make it effect the PCs and NPCs equally!

Now- Antidotes…

Apothecary - under the Healing skill (pg 67) mentions identifying the poison and know the antidote needed to relieve symptoms…and further " You may spend Momentum to have the antidote at hand, though the amount required is subject to the gamemaster’s discretion, based upon the rarity and toxicity of the poison or drug.

Also- in The Book of Skelos- pg 93 under Herbalism- Resistance: it states: An herbalist can use concoctions to help a patient fight off diseases or recover from the effect of poisons, etc. When doing so, the herbalist modifies a single concoction for the patient based on their exact state, directed towards the unwanted condition, allowing the patient to re-roll a maximum of one d20 in a Resistance tests, assuming there is adequate time to consume the concoction and a successful Healing test is made beforehand.

The way i read both of these in relation to Antidotes and poisoning is two-fold:

  1. a herbalist is a little more restricted than the healer in the effects of poison removal (in my opinion) in that i see the herbalist diagnosing the poison (with a healing check) then having to add the herbs to a basic concoction that will allow the target that drinks the antidote to re-roll an extra D20 on the resistance check if he can get it to that person in time to be effective. Mind you: an awesome use of the herbalist skill would be to this: The PCs investigate the lair of a suspect temple of Set. During the investigations one of the PCs is poisoned by a snake or stabbed with a poisoned blade wielded by the guards…they retreat. When safe- the herbalist studies the poison and makes antidotes for that particular poison and hands each PC their own antidote. You could have the antidote make the PCs rolls to resist the poison easier by dropping the difficulty on their resistance rolls; or you could let them have a re-roll/or two if the herbalist did an amazing antidote for say an hour…

  2. the Apothecary may have the antidote on hand by spending momentum- as it says- you may need 1 momentum for common snake poison- but for a secret Khitian assassins poison- you may need 5…very handy indeed.

The other thing i believe an antidote could do- with a Resistance roll with a difficulty based on the rarity of the poison) is allow the PC to cancel the poisoned condition (normally only dropped during Carousing).
Just a few ideas i have- hopefully the almighty STeveH or Nathan can chime in with their words of gospel…