General Fantasy setting question! but in riddle its ekstra

[Ingenious]

On page 135 is the seal wound spell.

Modifying it as a formalized spell makes it a CTN of 8.
Performing it in segments of spells of One however makes things a bit more interesting...especially if formalized.

Formalized composition component:
T=3
R=1
V=1
D=0
L=3
-2
CTN=6
Uses composition and intricacy to reshape the area of the wound.

Formalized growth component:
T=3
R=1
V=1
D=0
L=1
-2
CTN=4
Uses maturing to age the wound thus making it clot faster and stop the bloodloss.

Formalized conquer component:
T=0
R=3(can you really SEE someone's mind?)
V=0(a mind has no volume, as stated in the book under other spells)
D=0
L=1
-2
CTN=2
Uses repress to eliminate pain.

Thus, looking at it from this standpoint.. you don't really *need* the sculpture part at all.. growth/maturing and conquer/repress do the grunt work of the spell(s).. and thus you can use just those two individually. They are also much faster because they're spells of one.

A spell of three using the last two spells combines would result in this:
T=3
R=1, or 3
V=1
D=0
L=1(both levels are one, and it's formalized)
Thus resulting in a CTN of 6, or 8..depending on how you do the range thing. Thoughts on that specifically?

Doing it as a spell of one that is formalized, in its individual components is a major step towards what you are looking for IMO Dain. It's simple, keeps the characters from dying.. and isnt so uber-godly that it's crazy. It also leads to this thought, let's say that someone has a high WP and that negated the pain of a wound.. would you want to use the conquer component when it isnt needed? No.. all that would be needed is the bloodloss.. quickly done by aging the wound to clot verrrrry quickly.

Also, shock is a one time payment of dice... unless:
'An area is attacked multiple times, then the highest shock value is used'..
Thus, it doesnt really matter if shock is negated..unless the same area is hit a second time... in which case you have a whole amount more of things to worry about than shock.. new pain and bloodloss that would need repairing on the spot.. and would that same sorceror that healed you(possibly DURING combat) last time be willing to again.. and thus possibly incur more aging and take away dice from his SP? The separate spell components also help in the sorceror's world too, enabling him to help with the minimal amount of effort devoting to SAVING YOUR ASS.. which means he can focus more on roasting someone, shrinking their armor.. throwing them 100 feet into the air and letting gravity do the rest.. etc.

So there is the "just keep me from dying healing with minimal CTN's"..

-Ingenious
Appologies for any non-coherence and length of post.

[Dain]

Thanks Ingenious. Those numbers are a WHOLE lot more palatable.

[bottleneck]

Character survivalbility... tough one. Depends a lot on the players, anyway. If they pick their fights wisely etc. etc. they may live for some time. On the other hand, if they're assassinated (blindsided when unarmored and such), they are likely to die.

bleeding cases: when combat is 'over', blood loss drops by one. You could interpret that as one per wound. Then you could fiddle some with the "bleeding outside of combat" rules. For ex. if you succeed an endurance check and have aid, you will survive. Or something. This might help a bit  - esp if 'killed' by several lev 2-3 wounds.

for dismemberment cases it's worse. Sure, the GM could always interpret 'severed' as meaning "dangling halfway off and totally useless, but might be healed by a skilled surgeon if taken care of within two seconds". As in: give the character in question one excange to finish his enemy or surrender. After this one exchange, he must hold the hand/arm/foot in place and get first aid/surgery within very short time, or he will lose his arm.

severed head or other "instant death" cases: wel... instant death is just that. go to backup character.

ANYways, the big survivability factor is the society. If everybody fights to the death, people will die. If they flee, surrender, take prisoners and ransom them - then people will survive. If your players are fighting orcs or other "monsters that do not deserve mercy", make the orcs slavers that try to capture people more or less alive (at least the first few times).

[[MKF]Kapten]

I think the main reason for the inclusion of the extra pain is realisim.  There are reasons EMTs don't treatpatients  on scene, they only stabalize them for transport.  One of these reasons is that treating a patient is often more painful than the wound itself, wich carries with it increased risk of shock.  More trauma cases die of shock than the physical damage caused by the wound.  This is especially true of wounds like gunshots, which tend to damage a large area.  Even without hitting a major vital center a gunshot wound can easily be fatal bgecause of the pain and stress caused by this type of injury.  
Pain will immediately stimulate increased release of andrenalin, which is likely already present in large quantities in the blood because of the circumstances immidiately preceeding the wound (being in a fight).  This causes two things to happen right away: first the heart begins pumping much faster and harder, second the artieries and blood vessels begin to constrict, thus increasing blood pressure.  More pain will increase this effect, eventually the patient will either pass out, resulting in a sudden loss of blood pressure and possible death (insuficient blood reaching important organs) or die of shock (heart attack, embolisim, etc.).
Obviously you want to avoid this if you are treating a patient.  So you use a large dose of morphine and stabalize the patient BEFORE you begin treatment.  Since morphine hasn't been invented in Weyrth they have to use the conquer vagary.

One possible option to reduce the CTN would be for two sorcerors to work on a patient at once.  Once could handle the healing spell while the other used conquer to control pain and avoid shock.

I thought the biggest reason why you dont treat people on the spot is that you dont have x-rays, large blood banks and several specialists on the scene, but you may be right on the pain reason.

One terminology thing, though: Shock is when blood pressure rapidly drops to potentially lethal levels. The adrenalin effect can be dangerous for people with weak or insufficiently vascularised hearts but it really saves you from shock.

[Tash]

A few more things to consider: you can use rituals to cast a spell into an item, when the spell is cast the item takes the aging, not the caster.  Useful for an emergency backup "gotta save this guy NOW" spell that may have an incredibly risky CTN under "field" conditions.

Also stablizing a patient (in real world terms now) is much easier than than healing them.  Basically it involves three things: stopping blood loss, treating for shock, and preventing infection.  The easiest way to do this (in a medival setting like RoS) is cauterization (applying hot metal to a wound).  Its messy, painful, and can cause infection, but it allows a patient to be moved to a location where more extensive messures can be undertaken (such as the casting of a ritual healing spell).

[Tash]

I was using shock loosely, as in "bad things that happen to you when you get hurt that aren't directly related to the thing that hurt you".

Usually adrenaline is what helps you respond to and survive traumatic injury.  Sometimes it can hurt, such as when patients have compromised cardiovascular systems to begin with.  I know of one case (when I was working in a hospital) where an older patient with an aneurysm (stretching/weakening of a major artery, often in the brain) died while having a compound fracture reset.  The resulting increase in blood pressue due to (primarily) pain response was too much for the vessel, which ruptured and killed him.

Lack of facilities and equpiment is certainly a factor in not trying to treat injuries on site, but basically EMTs are taught to generally eliminate as much stress as possible while transporting the patient so as to avoid pushing them too far and causing more dangerous conditions to develop.

[[MKF]Kapten]

Sorry if I sounded harsh before. Im glad to see someone who knows what he's talking about when it comes to medicine :)
Im a bit tired of some of the BS on the issue that circulates in the web, thats why I over reacted when I read what you wrote about shock. I think I should have read the rest of the post more carefully ~~

[Tash]

I kind of grew up surrounded by medicine:  my dad is Radiologist, my mother is an RN, both of them worked in trauma related fields before I was born.  Typical dinner conversation would include things like partial amputations, crushed limbs, and foreign bodies lodged in strange places.  
My older brother is also a Doctor, but not medical.  He's a professor of Cognitive Neurosciences and does research on perception and awareness issues (like what is physically going on in the brain when we "see" an event occur).

Personally I did the first part of EMT training and worked as a hospital security guard before deciding I didn't want to get into the "family buisness" as it were.

[Lance D. Allen]

Overall, I think most of the spells listed in the book are too much with required vagaries and CTNs.. But Seal Wound is about right on, if you ask me.

Consider: Sculpture 3 is obvious; Growth is too, because the new tissue needs to be generated. For clean cuts where the flesh sets neatly, perhaps growth might be unnecessary, though. Conquer is also necessary.. The reason isn't physiological reactions like adrenaline, so much.. as the raw pain of month's worth of healing happening in an instant. The patient would be out cold due to shock, if not dead. Shock as much as actual bodily damage kills people.. and I don't mean necessarily the type of shock caused by bloodloss.

Seal Wound is still better for level 4 wounds than first-aid though, I'll tell you that. Healing rolls are made against the unmodified pain score, so if you got a pain of X-WP, you're rolling against X. Much nastier CTN than 8-10, in most cases.