[Rustbelt] contemplated rules change: Blood recovery

[Marshall Burns]

The Blood recovery rules stick out like a sore thumb to me, but I couldn't think of an alternative until I saw No Country for Old Men (which is a very, very, very Rustbelt movie).  It kinda went *click* and I slapped my forehead.  So, here's the idea:

You take a quick scene for recovery (i.e. you've got to be in a position where you can take the time for this), in which there must be made a check against the amount of Blood you want to recover +10.  If successful, you recover the number of points you were trying for.  If you Give, you don't heal.  Before you can do another recovery scene, you have to participate in some other scene.

Exactly who makes this check, what attribute is used, and what can the Price be when Pushing is necessary?  That depends on the situation.  Some scenarios that come to mind:

Convalescence - you're holed up somewhere safe, resting, letting your body heal itself.  Roll your Tough.  You can get Advantage for taking medicines or something.  The Price should almost certainly be in Time (default is in days, but you can scale it to the pacing of your Yarn).

Hospitalization - this refers to proper hospitals, field hospitals, or any situation in which you are attended by a medical practitioner.  The doctor/medic/whatever rolls his Savvy.  The Price can be in Time, or Sweat.

Home Surgery - pulling shrapnel out of your own arm with a tweezers, disinfecting with whiskey, stitching yourself up with fishing line, that sort of thing.  This actually used to come up a lot in older Rustbelt versions (one guy stopped up a gunshot wound with a wine cork), and I don't know why I cut it from the latest version; it's going back in.  Roll your Grizzled.  Go ahead and take Advantage if you drop people's jaws with the description of how you do it.  The Price can be in Time, Injury, maybe Loss, or Sweat.

Ritual Healing - laying of hands, being put into a hibernation-like meditation and waking up better, or any other healing by supernatural means.  Healer rolls his Uncanny.  Price should be in Rust effects (i.e. Manaburn), Blood, Sweat, or Tears.  Now, doing things this way opens the door for the Rust to get involved.  It can either cooperate with the healer (if it's satisfied with the ritual) and add its roll to his, or it can try to interfere, posing some sort of weird, unpleasant threat.  In the case of such interference, the healer's roll is compared against the Rust's roll first; if he beats the Rust (by Pushing if necessary), then compare the same roll against the damage.

Consolation - this is basically convalescence made more comfortable by the attentions of someone who cares about you.  You know that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when they're on the boat, and Indy's all beat the fuck up, and Marion's trying to clean his wounds, and he's like "It's not the years, it's the mileage" and she kisses him and he falls asleep, and after that scene he's better?  That's what this is.  The consoler rolls Personable.  Price can be in Time and Tears.


Anyone got any thoughts?  Does this diminish the seriousness of Blood damage?  Does it make it too much like hitpoints, such that you just slap on a Cure Moderate Wounds after the fight and you're good as new?  I hope not.  I think that the prevalence of the Time Price will keep the timescale in the same general area.

-Marshall