So How Does Wound Recovery Actually Work?

So I triumphantly managed to nail the powerful sorcerer in my group with a Traumatic wound.

It wasn’t the god that they slew. It wasn’t a horde of orcs with bows. It wasn’t the titanic frog-fish demon that threatened to level a city. It wasn’t the hordes of mage hunters trying to slay him.

It was a chump guard with a B5 power and a sword.

But I did it!

So we got to Traumatic wound recovery, and, well, I’m somewhat unclear on how exactly this is supposed to work. Here’s what happened:

  1. Party “leader” Circles’d a surgeon successfully.
  2. Surgeon succeeded on his Ob 5 test to provide treatment. He exceeded his obstacle by 1, providing a +1D advantage to the mage’s Health test.
  3. Two party members worked together to brew a healing potion that gave +1D to the Health test, and made the Health test open-ended.
  4. The mage blew 3 Persona points…
  5. And failed the recovery roll.

So now the question is: mechanically, what happens? I think it goes like this:

  1. He automatically recovers 1D of wound penalty after the successful treatment test (pg 493). This brings his wound penalty to -3D.

  2. Because he failed the Health test, he’ll take the full time to recover (pg 495 under “Failed Recovery for Midi…”), which is 6 months (according to the Traumatic wound entry on 493). OK, good so far.

  3. According to that “Failed Recovery” section on pg 495, he will only recover half of the lost dice. How does this math work? Does that mean he can only recover 2D, since the wound was originally 4D? Or do we consider the value of the wound after the successful treatment test (3D)? In the latter case, do you round up or down? The math works out the same for a Traumatic wound, but would be different for a Severe.

  4. The remaining dice (2D no matter the answer to 3) are subtracted from one stat. How are they subtracted? Do we lower the exponent by two, or do we assign a -2D penalty to that stat via trait (the trait you take to represent the reduction in the stat cap)?

4a) When are these dice subtracted - immediately after the failed test, after the six months, some time during the entire healing process? And does this subtraction reduce the wound penalty accordingly?

A literal reading makes me think the process works like this:

-Successful treatment immediately removes 1D of wound penalty. Remaining penalty: 3D. Time elapsed: one scene.
-Failed Health test means the character immediately loses 2D from a relevant stat, by lowering the exponent. Remaining wound penalty: 1D. Time elapsed: the same scene
-Healing takes 6 months. At the end of 6 months, the last 1D of wound penalty is removed.

Is that right? Seems like a very rapid removal of a wound penalty. One successful test and a failed Health test means that you immediately lose 3D of wound penalty - 1D comes back from treatment, but 2D are subtracted from a stat. Those wound dice no longer apply to the character once they’re subtracted from the stat. Then you walk around with a paltry 1D wound penalty for 6 months.

I’d guess the full -3D is healed over the six months, but for that one stat, it can only heal the -1D over those six months? So 2 months per D to all but, say, perception. Six months to heal the 1D of perception.

The wording is still awkward. Chuckles mostly has it right. Recover as normal, but the depleted stat won’t recover the last half of the dice lost ( 1D for Midi, 2D for Traumatic). That stat’s exponent is lowered by that amount (note that you will lose all advancements tests on that stat). The stat also has its maximum reduced by 1, and for that you take a trait.

So to break it down.

  1. Traumatic wound (-4d to all abilities)
  2. Treatment (-3 to all abilities)
  3. Failed Recovery (-3D to all abilities except depleted stat, depleted stat is -1D and has its exponent lowered by 2, and maximum by 1)
  4. 2 months out (-2D to all abilities except depleted stat. depleted stat is recovered)
  5. 4 months out (-1D to all abilities except depleted stat)
  6. 6 months out (fully recovered)

OK, that’s a bit more brutal than I had thought. Yeah, the wording is definitely a bit wonky.

How about a Severe wound? Would the stat be dropped by 1D or 2D? Stupid rounding.

(note that you will lose all advancements tests on that stat)
Ooh, I didn’t know that. That does change things slightly.