Scarring and magical healing

[SilverLeaf167]

In most literature and other media, scars (especially those received from combat) often act as either a sign of experience and badassery or a subject of shame. However, in game systems with magical healing, unless you live in a totally mundane environment almost any wounds that don't kill you will probably be healed through magic, or you'll at least receive magical healing at some point in your life.

Has anyone thought about this, and how do you handle it? A very high-level barbarian or fighter ought to have some cool scars to show off, but if healing removes those, it is very unlikely. I'm considering the option that healing closes your wounds etc. but leaves just as nasty scars as natural healing, maybe even more prominent in some cases. No more beauty queen skin for you, adventurers!

[ArcturusV]

Well, it's now As Written in most games, but generally I rule that damage which would normally prevent regeneration typically leaves a scar. Fire is common for that, Acid, holy/unholy water depending on the situations. Spectacular and dramatic critical hits are another way that they creep into games. Sometimes depending on the system I'll rule in something like "instead of dropping to dead you can get a permanent, debilitating injury which cannot be healed away", which also has the Scar functionality.

[Ranting Fool]

I like the fire/acid idea but with all those fireballs most murderhobos should look like a prune.

I've gone the "If you are not healed shortly after being hurt then it leaves a scar" root.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Anything that requires more than 1 healing spell to fix?

[Joe the Rat]

For me it depends on what you're healing.

In the classic "hit points as abstract ability to take a hit" format, most attacks are superficial damage. It's the one that puts you into the negatives that'll leave a scar - pencil-line thin, perhaps, but a definite scar.

If you really want to scar them up, anything that takes a significant chunk of HP (50%+ of total) ought to leave a mark. This explains why those badass warriors have a significant wicked scar or two, but rarely pick up any more during the current story: They got them all when they were low level.

For wound-level systems - where you are measuring the damage done to the body, getting put into "wounded" or somewhere near the bottom of your BODY pool should leave a mark, particularly if it's from a no-regenerating/must be healed naturally source.

Regenerators should get off scott-free in this regard, unless there's something specific they are vulnerable to.

[supermonkeyjoe]

I had an idea once to play a cleric of Kord or other god of battle, he would happily heal you but warned that all his healing spells caused the wounds to scar.

RAW, being injured and healed doesn't scar, It's entirely fluff but I would definitely say that any attack that took you into negative hps could have a chance to scar.

[Rhynn]

Why wouldn't magical healing leave scars? Who says it's that perfect?

Just decide that magical healing does leave scars.

[Jay R]

One idea is to consider the social effects of having magic that doesn't leave scars. Now, scars don't indicate great warriors who've been through hard battles.

Instead, they represent poor people who cannot afford magic, and just heal naturally.

[CoffeeIncluded]

I would say that any wound that mostly heals naturally and/or knocks you into negatives would scar.

[Chilingsworth]

Acording to wikipedia, scars form most readily from wounds that take at least a month to heal. Relevant article:

Now, you could read that as wounds that would require that period of time absent aid. If you did so, then any wound that dealt damage at least 28 times your HD would be likely to leave a scar, 21 times would have a chance to, 14 times or less would be very unlikely to. At least, those would be the figures for 3.5. I'm not sufficently familiar with other systems to comment on them.

Of course, this is wikipedia, so it might not be perfectly accurate.

[supermonkeyjoe]

Acording to wikipedia, scars form most readily from wounds that take at least a month to heal. Relevant article:

Now, you could read that as wounds that would require that period of time absent aid. If you did so, then any wound that dealt damage at least 28 times your HD would be likely to leave a scar, 21 times would have a chance to, 14 times or less would be very unlikely to. At least, those would be the figures for 3.5. I'm not sufficently familiar with other systems to comment on them.

Of course, this is wikipedia, so it might not be perfectly accurate.

It would take some serious cheese to have 28HP per HD you would need 42CON and a d12 HD having rolled maximum every level, or or 54CON if you rolled average. Possibly do-able at higher levels but then that would produce a world where no commoners ever got scarred, they just got brutally killed outright.

[Chilingsworth]

It would take some serious cheese to have 28HP per HD you would need 42CON and a d12 HD having rolled maximum every level, or or 54CON if you rolled average. Possibly do-able at higher levels but then that would produce a world where no commoners ever got scarred, they just got brutally killed outright.

I'm quite aware if that. Although, a 1st level barbarian with 19hp isn't impossible. Such a character taking 28 points of damage would be quite unconcious, but not dead.

Also, since when do commoners ever get anything but brutally killed outright, anyway? (Or just left alone.)

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I've been working on a wounds-based system, where death is supposed to be fairly rare, but serious injuries are nasty and tough to heal. One of the rules is that near-fatal injuries (1 away from being fatal/severed) cause permanent damage; that body gets a permanent light wound, which would take the equivalent of regenerate to fix.

[tyckspoon]

It would take some serious cheese to have 28HP per HD you would need 42CON and a d12 HD having rolled maximum every level, or or 54CON if you rolled average. Possibly do-able at higher levels but then that would produce a world where no commoners ever got scarred, they just got brutally killed outright.

Just another side effect of D&D's HP system being fundamentally a game construct and not really simulating anything solid at all: the same commoner that will often be lethally wounded by a 10-foot drop (2 or 3 HP against 1d6 damage) will, assuming he didn't bleed out, fully recover from that near-death experience within a couple of weeks. He can even carry out normal work as soon as he gets back to positive HP. If he's given care and restricted to actual complete bed rest, he will make a full recovery from almost any injury (things that in real life would have required emergency surgery and probably lengthy ICU stays to make sure he didn't die anyway) in a few days.

So.. your average low-HP D&D character is both incredibly fragile and incredibly tough, in that they can potentially be killed by almost anything, but if they aren't killed they'll come back to healthy absurdly quickly.

[ReaderAt2046]

Has anyone thought about this, and how do you handle it? A very high-level barbarian or fighter ought to have some cool scars to show off, but if healing removes those, it is very unlikely. I'm considering the option that healing closes your wounds etc. but leaves just as nasty scars as natural healing, maybe even more prominent in some cases. No more beauty queen skin for you, adventurers!

Well, if magical healing works by ultra-accelerating natural healing, it would leave the same scars.

[warty goblin]

Well, if magical healing works by ultra-accelerating natural healing, it would leave the same scars.

Which means it would also leave those other wonderful long-term effects that come with scar tissue: stiffness, sensitivity to pressure, and general nerve damage.

[Rhynn]

Which means it would also leave those other wonderful long-term effects that come with scar tissue: stiffness, sensitivity to pressure, and general nerve damage.

Sounds sensible. You can use the usual D&D rules for those - the same ones that apply for wounds that heal naturally, i.e. none...

[Kane0]

If you needed a save vs massive damage, there will probably be a scar
If you dropped into negatives, there will probably be a scar
If the healing spell doesn't heal the majority of the damage you've taken, there will probably be a scar

/2cp

[TuggyNE]

One idea is to consider the social effects of having magic that doesn't leave scars. Now, scars don't indicate great warriors who've been through hard battles.

Instead, they represent poor people who cannot afford magic, and just heal naturally.

That's the best idea in this thread so far, I think.

Especially since it doesn't need any new rules at all.

[Jay R]

Another consideration is whether people want scars.

According to McAleer's book Dueling; The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siecle Germany, people dueling with schlagers wanted dueling scars, and would have the doctor sew a horsehair into the wound, to generate a more visible puckering. Can't see why it wouldn't work just as well with clerical healing.

[Glimbur]

I would leave it up to the player whether their character gets scars or not. As for NPCs, how many scars they have depends on what I want the PCs to know/think about them.

[Averis Vol]

Some of my more tribal characters explicitly refuse healing unless its life threatening; they use herbal remedies and sow their own wounds, which leads to numerous scars all along the body.

Granted, these are the same characters I optimize to a length where they take very little damage in combat sooooooo, yea, theres that.

EDIT: I Realized this wasn't too constructive. In one of the dnd novels called the rage, an ogre shaman shatters the cleric Pavel Shemov's leg and sets it wrong so it won't heal normally, to make sure he can't escape. Later on it describes that, though healed correctly now, there are some significant scars where the bone pierced through.

[Surfnerd]

Scarring, Losing body parts or being crippled are something I've always struggled with in 3.x and beyond. With so many clerical spells, healing salves and the abstract concept of HPs I can't even imagine a normal army triage after a major battle in an RPG. If my DM includes an amputee or cripple I scratch my head and wonder how that even happens in these magic filled times.

Which I guess would mean the poor = scarring concept would be right on the money. I mean its in the rules that clerics are shameless capitalists.

[Guizonde]

my dnd group has a "heal spells leave scars" policy. you have to actively seek out a caster who can alter your features through magic to get rid of scars. we found it illogical that suddenly *poof!* despite getting stomped by godzilla's big brother you've got baby-smooth skin.
so far, i'm 35-40% scar tissue (i'm a dwarven cleric who refuses to abandon the front line. i'm stubborn like that). the warrior is at around 60%, but he did get his face cleaned of all but one scar (a german-duelist type scar, iirc). our elven rogue has a crescent shaped scar under an eye (a dragon getting a crit on her face, or so the story goes), and the monk has got craggy skin (rocks don't scar, they crag, same for monks, apparently)

since it's mostly a cosmetic issue, i'd say go with how you feel like it, but a quest for cosmetic surgery can be quite a character developper. imagine a big tough rugged good looking warrior seeking out derpity, son of derpson, greatest alteration mage in all the land. his punishing lifestyle has finally reduced our brazen hero to the appearance of that which he fights. unable to look himself in the mirror, he goes on an epic quest to get back the face he once had so as to continue fighting evil wherever it may roam.

[/waxing lyrical]

[hamishspence]

since it's mostly a cosmetic issue, i'd say go with how you feel like it, but a quest for cosmetic surgery can be quite a character developper. imagine a big tough rugged good looking warrior seeking out derpity, son of derpson, greatest alteration mage in all the land. his punishing lifestyle has finally reduced our brazen hero to the appearance of that which he fights. unable to look himself in the mirror, he goes on an epic quest to get back the face he once had so as to continue fighting evil wherever it may roam.

[/waxing lyrical]

Nice idea actually.

[warty goblin]

Sounds sensible. You can use the usual D&D rules for those - the same ones that apply for wounds that heal naturally, i.e. none...

Well sure. It's not like most of the time it'd be worth a stat penalty or anything like that. But since the entire point of the conversation is essentially about a quirk for roleplaying purposes, I figured it probably worth pointing out there is a difference between your genuine scar and fancy make-up. Gonna roleplay the thing, may as well do it right, no?

[Amidus Drexel]

I've always ruled that magical healing doesn't leave scars and that natural healing does. It's only been brought up once, though, when a party member joined a cult whose initiation involved ritual scarring.

[Coidzor]

Scars are only generated by narrativitium and aren't healed by casual healing magic. A lot of it is about how the scar interacts with the morphic field and self-image of the person though. Your average scantily clad sorceress chick isn't going to ever imagine herself looking right with a giant scar from where her midsection became the site of an impromptu bisection courtesy of that orc's falchion, so that scar's going to get taken care of by the combination of anti-death magic and healing magic working with her morphic field to restore her to her image of herself.

A grizzled barbarian on the other hand or an orc warrior from one of the tribes big on ritual scarrification, they're going to be familiar with their identifying marks and so those marks have become part of the identity and morphic field of the body. So healing them is going to get rid of the big hole in them from getting a dragon's claw through their midsection while they were chewing off its face, but the stuff that really gets the ladies/pleases Gruumtiggles? Nah.

Regenerating them on the other hand, everything is all fresh and new and as awkward as a newborn babe.

[Jack of Spades]

Jeez, this thread made me realize how long it's been since I was in a game that even had magical healing...

Anyhow, I generally assume that magical/supernatural healing doesn't leave scars, but natural/mundane healing does.

However, that really depends on how magic works. It depends on whether the spell is creating new flesh or speeding up natural healing. I forget which DnD healing is supposed to be.

[NichG]

I'd say that magical healing leaves a different kind of 'scar' than natural healing. Basically, you're supercharging the body there and causing it to basically grow all the tissue it needs to fill gaps and repair damage in an instant. So you get a region where all the cells are, at the same time, new. You might have a difference in skin pigmentation there, or even have the entire scar area be eerily uniform. Age might not show the same in the healed area versus non-healed area (imagine an old man with a 3-inch line of unblemished, unwrinkled skin on his face).

Its interesting I think if you can tell if a scar was produced magically, naturally, alchemically, etc. Gives those guys with lots of skill at such things another way to figure out stuff about people.