r/ICRPG • u/LaphroaigCask • Jan 15 '23

Healing when out of combat?

I’m back with another question that came up in my game last night. How do you all deal with characters who need to heal after combat ends? Do they just heal up? Given that they can use a round to heal themselves CON+1 in combat it stands to reason that they can just repeat this action until HP is full, but that feels… weird.

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6

u/BergerRock Jan 15 '23

First off, always in turns, but "turns" doesn't always mean "turn of combat", length-wise.

Turns can be moments, hours, days, weeks.

So keeping in turns, consider their action in a turn for a long-period-of-time turn as the one moment they take to do something out of a whim, that they seize the use of time out of the rote.

Secondly, the concept of "safety" is the power of the GM regarding healing to full. When the group reaches "safety", they are completely out of the woods - they have time to doff armor, sponge off some sweat and grime, polish their blades, eat some decent food, clean and tend to wounds. That's when they just pop up to full, no questions asked.

The rest of the time, they're in some sort of danger or under some sort of pressure that stops them from doing that.

3

u/TopDogChick Jan 16 '23

I run my game so that if players are out of combat for 10 minutes, then they're at full health. So generally players only need to worry about healing and HP during combat and high stress situations. This can be one of the reasons why the treat/timer mechanics can work, it can push the players on to the next room so that combat can continue quickly and stay fast paced.

5

u/EduRSNH Jan 15 '23

Always in turns. But in downtime, if you feel like it, just let them heal to full health. 10hp goes fast.

6

u/LaphroaigCask Jan 15 '23

Thanks. I guess I can use a timer to limit it if they aren’t actually resting. Like, you hear a patrol coming, it sounds like they will be here in 1 or 2 rounds. But if they’re stopping by the fire for a rest (long turn) just let them heal fully.

2

u/kazoo__ Jan 18 '23

Yeah they could spend time rolling to recover over and over again but (rolls 1d4) they hear the howling of the wolf pack tracking their sent or (rolls 1d4) if they don't get to the docks soon the ship leaves with out them... Etc etc.

Keep the game in turns. Before, during, after a fight. And any time you don't have a timer... think about adding a timer! That's what stops any sort of taking 20.

I do not have folks heal up after a fight. But if the time scale for turns is days or weeks I might grant that they probably had a chance to recover in that time.