Regeneration.

[ice_117]

Seeing as there are creatures in the game that possess regeneration (e.g. trolls, hydra, etc.) I was wondering how to handle the issue of things like hacked off limbs and severely damaged organs. I'd like to imagine that a hydra can still perform its iconic feat of regrowing its heads (though no extra ones) and the idea of a troll, having had one of his arms hacked off and his intestines yanked out, just being like "Whatever." is an awesome image.

So I ask the forum: what's the verdict?

[tfwfh]

Seems reasonable to me.  I'd be worried a little bit that a fight with one of these things would just turn into a tedious chore.  If the troll is having limbs hacked off and intestines spilled everywhere, it's clearly losing the fight, but if its regeneration is keeping it from going from "losing the fight" to "lost the fight", then it could quickly get a little old.  But as long as you don't intend to let it get that far, then I see no problem.

[Antilles]

The Regeneration NPC quality mentions that critical injuries (which is what lost limbs and severe internal injuries fall under) heal in 1d4 hours instead of 1d4 months, so a troll couldn't regrow that arm during the combat it lost it, but if you let him get away for a couple of hours he'll have a new arm again.

[ice_117]

This gives me a few ideas.

- I might rule that if a regenerating character can secure the severed limb I'll half the heal time (though it is tempting to let them pull a Deadpool and just stick it back on)

- A character with a severed head (who is not a hydra) is out of the fight, as the body has nothing to take orders from and just kind of lays there, but is not necessarily finished. They lose all their physical stats but retain their mental ones, they can't use the majority of their skills but can still make spot and listen checks, and the only major issues they have to worry about are a lack of locomotion, the inability to speak, and the likelihood of dying from thirst/starvation. Assuming neither the body or the head are destroyed the two could be reattached.

Thoughts so far?   

[tfwfh]

This isn't something that I would ever let a PC have, so unless you think the characters are going to cut the head off a troll and then put it in a jar to see what happens, I'm not sure that it matters.  If that is the case, though, I think I would be inclined to have the body regrow from the head.  I would use the everlasting quality for that.  Although, using the splitting quality in this case would also be very tempting.

[ice_117]

True, the second option does reek of overpowering. However I think I might try the first one and see how it takes.

Beyond the mechanical range of things there are a few flavor options that I could imagine arising for regenerative species.

For instance:  - Hydra don't keep their brain(s) in their heads.
                    - Trolls have no taboo against self-mutilation (as it rarely lasts).
                    - If trolls are crazy enough they can have contests to see who can regrow a limb faster.

Add more if anyone likes.

[Sletchman]

                    - If trolls are crazy enough they can have contests to see who can regrow a limb faster.

My mind went right to the Deadpool comic where a bar full of people are taking bets on how long it takes him to regrow his missing finger.


In my view: Unless their brains are located outside of their heads, removing the head really needs to kill them (the lack of blood flow to the brain will result in brain death pretty rapidly).  Unless the regeneration is magical in nature - in which case all bets are off.  For something to survive a beheading Everlasting has to be a factor in my mind, which seems like a fairly supernatural/mystic quality - Deadpool's Curse by Thanos, a Lich's Phylactery, etc.

[ice_117]

Oh god.

A troll bar fight must look like something out of Splatterhouse.

I was definitely thinking that hydra regenerate purely on organic power, no mysticism about it...unless the hydra is a mage in which case there is plenty of magic but in a totally unrelated and coincidental manner.

All this talk of regeneration gets thinking of all the weird/bizarre/just-plain-wrong things that regenerating critters could get up to. A hydra literally arguing with itself could wind up with one of its irate heads taking fangs to neck flesh and biting off one of its siblings, knowing that it would just grow back. Or perhaps a particularly mean-spirited troll would go around carving off his fingers and sticking them in places where people could find them.

[spinningdice]

I know in Iron Kingdoms Troll-Species sometimes eat their own body parts (though troll regeneration in that setting is based on food-intake - so eat enough to live now, and it'll grow back once I find a proper food source).