Ox-Body Technique

[Greenstalker]

After reading core book again, I see an interesting point in the book.


For Solars almost noone suggests taking one 0 health level since its always considered as a trap option.


Is it really the case? I am not sure anymore.


Core only a solar can only heal lethal damage on his own with body mending meditation (if there is any other charm I miss please give the page number) Body mending meditation only increase healing rate so lets see healing rates for damages. 0 level; 6 hour rest 12 hour normal activity, -1 level; 2 days rest 4 days normal activity. Without body-mending meditation even with normal activity -1 level heals 4 times slower than 0 level. Which means you could heal four 0 level health while lets say walking and avoiding from your enemies in the town rather than healing one -1 level health by resting. For -2 health levels things are even worse.


So I am asking; Is ox-body techniques one 0 level health option really that useless to be considered as a trap?


A small example with some numbers is below


Asuming one solar has one 0 and 4 -1 health level (total of 5 before -2 level) aonther is two 0 and 2 -1 health level (total of 4 before -2 level). In this case if there is 2 lethal damage first one heals at 2 days and 6 hours resting at best while later one heals in 1 day with normal activity at worst. Even with 3 damage first one heals in 4 days and 6 hours with resting at best while other one heals at 5 day with normal activity at worst and 2 days and 12 hours of rest at best (having a combination of 2 days rest for -1 and 12 hours of normal activity for each 0 level for 3 days is optimum and still better than previous ones best).

 

[Plague of Hats]

Doctors can treat themselves as patients.

 

[Greenstalker]

Doctors can treat themselves as patients.

Where does it states so? And how come you can treat a wound on your back or on your dominant arm?

 

[Synapse]

More importantly, faster healing won't help you if it doesn't happen during combat. As deadly as Exalt Combat may be, the extra health levels will still help you survive more than not.

 

[Plague of Hats]

Where does it states so?

I don't think there's anywhere in the books that say outright "A doctor can treat himself as a patient," if that's what you're asking. Try looking up crazy medical tales sometime, and you'll find awesomely horrifying stories of crazy shit doctors have been doing to themselves for centuries.

And how come you can treat a wound on your back or on your dominant arm?

Stunts.

 

[Greenstalker]

Where does it states so?

I don't think there's anywhere in the books that say outright "A doctor can treat himself as a patient," if that's what you're asking. Try looking up crazy medical tales sometime, and you'll find awesomely horrifying stories of crazy shit doctors have been doing to themselves for centuries.

And how come you can treat a wound on your back or on your dominant arm?

Stunts.

I am not seeking cheat-way answer of stunts. Its same for first one the thing you are describing is also a stunt. Once or twice may seem cool doing it every time after you get hurt is not.


Synapse's response make more sense but for solar exalted I think they will be on run from a wild hunt or sidereal death squads more than they actually battle with them to the end so faster healing even saves a day looks more promising to me. Maybe its because I usually play night caste with dodge and resistance heavy so I get rarely any wounds and when I does I usually run away to hit another time. One thing bothers me is the lots of time it requires to get back even one level of health since almost noone uses bashing damage.


My question was is it a useless choice? Otherwise if it all boils down to having more health than 2 -1 is also a trap when compared to one -1 two -2 since it gives most health level.

 

[Cryoseraph]

The biggest disparity for these health levels is between combat time and dramatic time. There are few to no charms that let people heal health levels in combat to help balance against levels lost. There are more often charms that help one to ignore wound penalties however, so they all become -0 health levels if other charms are invested in.


By comparison, in dramatic time is when people take the time to heal. This is far more dependent on the storyteller than the mechanics of the game, and so falls into the 'depends on your game' section. For some, the quick healing time can allow a narrow escape. For others, they get a year of downtime as some heal, some nation-build, and others craft a cool item or five. That's a pretty big difference that is completely up in the air for a gaming group.


Granted, most of this also brings into question the issue of the 'realistic' health levels of White Wolf products. Most characters of a regular and sensible sort would stop fighting completely if they started taking penalties, so anything before -1 would be glorious. Other types of characters, frightfully common (but not bad) in RPGs, are the ones who want to beat you to death with the arm you cut off of them earlier. As long as they can still swing a sword, they'll keep going. I would not call these realistic characters, but they are heroic and melodramatic, big pluses for Exalted. Which side of the coin you play on is mostly up to you, and even moreso, your party and ST.

 

[gatherer818]

I like to stack up -0 levels on my really heavy tanks - they tend to take scratches rather than huge losses, so being able to continue at full capacity is nice. Very often, though, I'll combine more levels rather than better levels and an effect to reduce wound penalties. Got a guy in my tabletop that doesn't suffer penalties unless he's in his -4 level, so he took every -2 he could get his hands. Insane.

 

[cyl]

As gatherer818 suggested, it highly depends on your build.


If you're a martial artist, the question is not about healing, it's about taking a beating so +3 HLs per ox body technique is better than +1.


If you rely on armor, you can mix both, but considering the damage ratings of the weapons, any decent challenging combat will get you at least down to the -2 levels... so it's better to have more "stamina" in case you need to keep on fighting after this type of duels ("I once fought two days with an arrow through my testicle !").


As healing can be accelerated through various means and it comes only after the fighting, the only pertinent factor to consider is how bad you can get beat during the fight IMHO...


Another option is not to make them count in the healing process.


Since they are bought with charms, they are like essence phantom health levels... you heal them automatically once you've healed your normal health levels... that way you're tougher than the average guy, but you don't have to spend double the time in bed to get back on your feet...

 

[Captain Hesperus]

Also Exalted are able to staunch their own bleeding reflexively and are more resilient to infection/disease than mortals are. I remember running a game where one of the PC's Henchmen got injured in a fight. The PC's went about healing themselves and forgot about him until he collapsed as he bled out to his Incapacitated health level. He later died to an untreated infection. A very sheepish Solar Circle, especially when they all had Medicine Charms that could have saved him...


Captain Hesperus

 

[Skrakes]

The Ink Monkeys released the charm Soul Fire Resurgence, which permits you to heal yourself.