Beating the Odds and Healing

[socom242]

Greetings everyone!

Every few years I dust off my RIFTS books and try and run an adventure or campaign, only to have it derailed by player’s who constantly question my rulings. Now, here I am again, but I’m just gonna stand my ground behind my convictions and forge ahead. Still, there are a few situations that I’m curious if there’s an official ruling or at the very least how the community at large would handle them.

Quick break down.

Someone (a Maxi-Man) got hit with a critical strike with 4 mini-missiles and took a ton of damage. Instead of death, I used the “Beating the Odds” survival rules on pg 359 on RUE. They rolled that they damaged their heart and lung, cybernetics or bio-systems required.

So this means that these organs are beyond repair and regular healing and require replacements. Here is how I ruled.

1) Their regular healing abilities cannot repair the organs. Only if they were able to regenerate or restore could they repair the organs.
2) Only spells or abilities that also regenerated or restored limbs or organs would work.
3) Heal Wounds, Greater Healing and Super Healing all work with healing damage, but only Restoration specifically mentions repairing internal organs and restoring limbs.

In the final analysis, the character should have died from the attack. Those survival rules are there to pull the character from the brink of death, but not completely “scott free”. They will be maimed and should require some sort of replacement procedure. And I feel only a restoration or regeneration effect would be the only thing that can bypass this effect.

Thought, opinions, official rulings, examples…all are welcome.

Thank you all and have a great day!

[Shark_Force]

that all sounds pretty reasonable to me. i'd also let the tattoo that raises people from the dead work, and of course, if he's still working for atlantis then the splugorth (and in particular the kittani) have access to medical technology that lets you clone organs as well.

i would also allow abilities like psychic surgery to extend the amount of time to get proper treatment. alternately, if they can find a compatible donor, it could be possible to perform a transplant (also likely only a temporary solution, given his body would likely reject the other person's organs without the appropriate drugs and such being given... just a temporary solution until a proper one can be found)...

but yeah, overall... he should be dead or dying if he doesn't get the proper kind of treatment. given that this is something that would have killed him outright, it's not going to be something where he's just fine and going to come out of it without so much as a scratch.

[socom242]

that all sounds pretty reasonable to me. i'd also let the tattoo that raises people from the dead work, and of course, if he's still working for atlantis then the splugorth (and in particular the kittani) have access to medical technology that lets you clone organs as well.

i would also allow abilities like psychic surgery to extend the amount of time to get proper treatment. alternately, if they can find a compatible donor, it could be possible to perform a transplant (also likely only a temporary solution, given his body would likely reject the other person's organs without the appropriate drugs and such being given... just a temporary solution until a proper one can be found)...

but yeah, overall... he should be dead or dying if he doesn't get the proper kind of treatment. given that this is something that would have killed him outright, it's not going to be something where he's just fine and going to come out of it without so much as a scratch.

Funny enough, they have that tatoo, but I think they are trying to be cheap about it. And they are basically in the New Mexico (New West) territory, so no real cloning facilities. I'm running a more dingy, gritty RIFTS game than normal, so again I feel they're lucky they are alive. PLUS it's not like they don't have the money. They won a battle again a small bandit gang and made off with a small fortune. So it's not like I'm severely limiting their situation. AND finally, bio-system implants don't impair any Practitioner of Magic abilities, so it shouldn't even affect the Maxi-Man.

Thank you all for your input so far!

[Mech-Viper Prime]

I stand by my I willnt try to kill your character, but I will mess them up.

One friend had a character modeled after marvel's thunder strike, well after having his arm ripped off and his jaw removed , he looked like lockjaw from he-man after I got done with him.

[Dr. Doom III]

I stand by my I willnt try to kill your character, but I will mess them up.

One friend had a character modeled after marvel's thunder strike, well after having his arm ripped off and his jaw removed , he looked like lockjaw from he-man after I got done with him.

Trapjaw.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

I stand by my I willnt try to kill your character, but I will mess them up.

One friend had a character modeled after marvel's thunder strike, well after having his arm ripped off and his jaw removed , he looked like lockjaw from he-man after I got done with him.

Trapjaw.

Oops got the names mixing up thanks