Author’s Notes for February 18, 2020

Sean here. I waited two and half hours for the Nevada Democratic caucus today. That doesn’t mean I ducked out of writing for Covenant, though. Find out more below the fold.

I’d intended to write more about healing in Covenant, but my adventures in the American electoral process today took it out of me. So today, I’ll post the rules for healing during scenes. Tomorrow will the rules for healing during downtime, or the time between scenes and chapters.

Characters can heal damage to each other by making medicine bids. You spend Discipline to make a bid, and your patient regains some of xir Discipline. You can also cure some conditions, like being demoralized or having a muscle sprain.

It needs work. The medicine bid’s cost is fixed instead of being based on the number of advantages and disadvantages it has. Still, I think it’ll work, especially since you can spend advantages to increase your bid.

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Here’s what I wrote today.

HEALING DURING SCENES

• Characters can heal or recharge other characters’ damage by making fixed medicine bids.
• The cost of healing damage depends on its severity:
  • Scene Damage: Half-cost (spend 1 Discipline to recharge 2 scene damage to free Discipline)
  • Chapter Damage: Normal cost (spend 1 Discipline to recharge 1 chapter damage to free Discipline)
• Characters can also heal other characters’ physical and mental conditions by making fixed medicine bids.
• The medicine bid’s target to heal 1 condition is 10, unless the condition has a specified medicine bid target or cure.
• Each medicine bid can heal either damage or 1 condition.
• A character can normally heal 1 other character with each medicine bid. However, xi may have have abilities or gear that increase the number of characters that xi can heal with each bid.
• A character can normally only heal characters in the same area as xir. However, xi may have abilities or gear that increase the number of characters that do can heal with each bid.
• A character normally cannot heal xir own damage or conditions. However, xi may have abilities or gear that make this possible.

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That’s it for today. See you back here tomorrow.