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Message no. 1
From: Luke Kendall <luke@********.CANON.OZ.AU>
Subject: SR II healing vs SR I healing
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 13:06:50 +1000
Another question. We've stuck to SR I healing rules, for these reasons:

1) You can heal characters back to normal in 15 mins or less in SR I,
which means you don't have to stop playing a character if
he or she is injured badly (with TN penalties of +2 or +3, the
character is relatively useless). And if enough characters
needed a month to recuperate, the whole adventure ends.
So SR I healing, though less realistic, keeps the play going.

2) Characters with low essence in SR II are not likely to able
to be fully Healed. Those with high essence are likely to be
completely Healed through a single spell-casting. Which means,
mages are favoured once again over street samurai.

How do the people that have adopted SR II healing rules, cope with these
problems?

luke
Message no. 2
From: Jirawat Uttayaya <jirawat@******.PHYS.UFL.EDU>
Subject: Re: SR II healing vs SR I healing
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 04:21:39 -0400
I love the SRII healing rules for the very reason you hate them: they're
so deadly. If you get fragged enough to do 8D damage, you best take
the +3 TN modifier. This is not D&D where you can jump off a cliff,
lose 50 hp, and go home for a leisurely dinner. The healing rules
reflect the dangerous and deadly nature of shadowrunning. It makes
you think twice before entering a gunfight and hopefully curbs down
on indiscriminate firefights.
Exsqueeze me? You want to be death on two legs AND have easy healing?
Nope, ain't gonna happen chummer. That's the price you pay for ripping
out your arm to put in a brand-spanking new cyberarm. Sorry, no dice.

Sincerely,

Jirawat Uttayaya a.k.a. Peaking Duck
Message no. 3
From: Matt <mosbun@******.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
Subject: Re: SR II healing vs SR I healing
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 09:08:41 -0500
>How do the people that have adopted SR II healing rules, cope with these
>problems?


Don't get shot. If you must get into combat, shoot from surprise- preferably
into their backs. Get out of combat as quickly as possible.
Admittedly this doesn't always work, but an ounce of prevention is worth
a pound of cure. I like the SRII healing rules, for the very reason that it
isn't a cure-all, "Get-Out-of-Death-Free" card. Characters who realize that
the team's mage probably won't be able to heal them back from a Deadly wound
tend to be a little more careful, in my experience.

Matt
Message no. 4
From: King of Pain <mcgowan@*****.BUCKNELL.EDU>
Subject: Re: SR II healing vs SR I healing
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 10:56:53 -0400
On Fri, 9 Sep 1994, Matt wrote:

> >How do the people that have adopted SR II healing rules, cope with these
> >problems?


Another really good way to avoid getting hit in the first place is to
always, as your first action(even if it takes a complex or two to pull it
off) GET GOOD COVER. With the Fields of Fire partial cover rules, just
50% cover will increase the target number to get hit by 4. Its an easy
and amazingly effective way to prevent yourself from getting hit too
often. Of course if there is no cover...


RDM
Message no. 5
From: Joanna Goodhartz <JGOODHAR@****.STEVENS-TECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: SR II healing vs SR I healing
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 17:03:18 -0400
>
>How do the people that have adopted SR II healing rules, cope with these
>problems?
>
>luke

Don't get hurt <g>. Umm, one thing to be considered: in our game, we don't
go on runs right after each other. The theory is to give our trails some
time to cool off. Usually, there's at least a few weeks (game time) between
runs.

Joanna Goodhartz
(argh, I really have to make that sig <g>)
Message no. 6
From: Luke Kendall <luke@********.CANON.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: SR II healing vs SR I healing
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 09:17:18 +1000
Jirawat Uttayaya writes:

> I love the SRII healing rules for the very reason you hate them:
> they're so deadly.

[Other obvious stuff deleted.]

Maybe you could answer these questions: do you avoid combat altogether?
If you don't, what happens when a significant part of your group is
hit with serious wounds - go home and tell Mr Johnson `Sorry.' ???

Maybe you all have several characters to play, and `retire' injured
ones and replace them with backup ones. I guess that would work.
Bummer for karma improvements, though.

And, why on earth would you choose to play a cybered character
instead of a mage, when the former is *very* hard to heal, and
the latter is *trivial*?

And `Jerm' wrote:

> Sure, you might be in bed for a month from taking serious damage, but
> it's everyday that you almost get yer arm cut off, or you happen to find
> your body with more orafices (sp?) than usual :)

Maybe half our runs end up with at least one character Serious or Deadly,
before healing. (And please don't assume that's because we're nitwits
who hose up badly all the time.) Each run takes... hmmm... anywhere
between 12 hours on up, to play out.

and:

> As for it being hard for a mage to heal a sammy....It makes sense...

Sure, it's just the enormous disparity (say, TN 10 vs. TN 4, where
the healing mage probably has 12 dice, and could easily have more)
seems to tilt the game balance in SR II so heavily towards mages,
that I can't understand why anyone would play anything else...

And Matt writes:

> Don't get shot. [...] Characters who realize that
> the team's mage probably won't be able to heal them back from a Deadly wound
> tend to be a little more careful, in my experience.

Uh huh. This approach strongly discourages risk taking and colourful
play. Very realistic - as far as the cybered people are concerned.
The non-cybered are still easy to heal, however.

luke@*****.puzzled
Message no. 7
From: Chad Hessoun <chessoun@*******.COLUMBUS.OH.US>
Subject: Re: SR II healing vs SR I healing
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 18:15:40 -0400
On Mon, 12 Sep 1994, Luke Kendall wrote:

> If you don't, what happens when a significant part of your group is
> hit with serious wounds - go home and tell Mr Johnson `Sorry.' ???

Well, when the party gets hosed (as is almost always the case), they do
go limping home, or stick it out. It's only reasonable to expect that when
you shoot someone they would have the decency to die or malfunction, as
the case may be. I don't like the "magic wand" SRI healing because it does
not reflect the effort of healing someone; the body is very complex and
minute and it takes a certain amount of care to fix it properly.

> > Don't get shot. [...] Characters who realize that
> > the team's mage probably won't be able to heal them back from a Deadly wound
> > tend to be a little more careful, in my experience.
>
> Uh huh. This approach strongly discourages risk taking and colourful
> play. Very realistic - as far as the cybered people are concerned.

If someone has so much cyberware that magically healing them becomes an
issue, are they all that likely to care about that thin layer of flesh
getting a few holes in it? "Let 'em shoot, I know the address of the local
grease monkey."

> luke@*****.puzzled

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