Question: Can a Scion with Assess Health use it on himself by looking in a mirror or other reflective surface?
Question: Hey, I noticed on your Health purview write-up that you restrict its use in some ways. While I understand the need to make it a non-spammable asset for the PCs, I still wonder about how you explain that restriction in-game.
A double-header! Two questions that are really asking about the same thing.
The first one's easy: no. As it says clearly at the beginning of the Health purview, "no Health Boon may ever be used by a Scion on himself unless it explicitly states otherwise." Mirrors will not somehow circumvent this rule any more than bending over to look at one of your body parts would.
As for the second question, I assume you're also referring to the rule that Health boons can't be used on yourself, and there are reasons for that: the Health purview is geared only for healing others because that's how it works in mythology. Gods of healing or medicine almost invariably heal others and bestow blessings or curses on their people, but they never doctor themselves, which is why Dian Cecht, doctor extraordinaire, died of a plague, or Shennong, master of all medicinal herbs, died of poison. Healing gods heal others, but they seldom heal themselves; their legends are all concerned with saving other important gods, curing the plagues of humanity or visiting pestilence on those who anger them. Apollo is always on deck to heal the other gods, but there is no story of Apollo saving himself from death's door; Sekhmet visits disease on humanity like nobody's business, but she never gets sick herself.
Mechanically, this is also important because affecting your own body and health is covered by Epic Attributes and knacks rather than by a purview. Mastery over the bodies of others falls under Health; mastery over your own body falls under Stamina, for healing yourself, armoring yourself against disease and so forth, and Appearance, for sculpting your looks and body into whatever form you please. If Health were also usable on yourself, it would be one of those indispensable skills that every PC would want to take just to use on themselves, and the end result would be a bunch of people with Health who didn't actually use it to heal anyone but themselves - the exact opposite of how healing power generally appears in mythology.
So Health is restricted to use only on others because it's both more mythically resonant and more mechanically balanced. Gods of Health are doctors, healers, scientists and plaguerats that spread their gifts to others, not themselves; that's what Stamina, open to any character, is for.
(Of course, there are the two exception boons in Health - Virility/Muliebrity and Blessing of Health/Curse of Frailty - which get to be used on the Health Scion as they don't break the above rules. They're the only powers of their kind in the game, and even if they weren't, gods of Health often are associated with fecundity as illustrated by their own offspring, not just the babies they help others out with.)
Question asker here, Ι tottaly grasp the concept you described, but there's also the once-per-day limitation, where does that stand ?
ReplyDeleteAh, I see!
DeleteThat, sadly, is a mechanical necessity. Health would be insanely overpowered if you could use it without restriction as many times as you wanted - when it costs a Scion only a single point of Legend to completely clear a friend's bashing damage or only three to clear their lethal, being able to do that constantly whenever they wanted would make damage almost meaningless and combats drag on forever (with both sides just healing to full all the damn time). Health is very powerful already, so much so that most players can't imagine not having at least one person with Health in a band, and making it unlimited that way would either make it an instant win button for the band (if the Storyteller didn't counter by also giving Health to enemies and making their health pools ridiculous) or an endless combat prolonger (if he did). Stories would have far more closed doors, as diseases, injuries and physical maimings would simply cease to ever matter or be meaningful because they could be instantly cleared up by a Health Scion who just used their boon several times in a row, removing the dramatic possibilities of those injured soldiering on or finding other ways to help.
Considering that by Legend 8 a Scion can already Bolster AND Heal AND Salve AND Restore AND Holy Font AND Martyrdom her friends, she's already getting close to being an unstoppable healing battery, and that's with the restriction. No restriction would make her the most powerfully important person in the group, bar none.
In in-game terms, we usually explain this necessity by saying that Health boons lend a target's flesh and blood the power to mend themselves, and that once they're already doing that they need time to finish and recover before the Scion's healing powers can coax them to try again. Or, alternatively, the Health Scion does the absolute best he can when he uses a boon (reflected by how high he rolls) and must take some time to come up with new techniques or ways to help the same target once he's exhausted his first round of medical care. It's something that needs to be there for game balance, so it's really up to you how you envision the effect within the game's world.
I know, it's necessary for game balance, I was just curious about the explanation you give for flavor. Thanks for the time you took to answer :)
DeleteNo problem!
Delete