Copyright (c) 1995 by Purple Kitty

In this file (healing.gurps), I have attempted to improve upon the 
psionic skill Healing. No disrespect is intended toward David Pulver; on 
the contrary, I think GURPS Psionics is the best supplement out there. I 
feel that my improvements add realism and versatility to this power, 
without throwing out the original skill. There are two big changes:

1) The cost of healing is now 2 fatigue/hit point, instead of 3. However, 
attempting to heal a person again, after a successful healing, is treated 
as a repeated attempt. This was an effort to bring Healing into line with 
the magic spells Minor Healing and Major Healing. The spells are cheap to 
cast, but have huge penalties for successive healings. The psi power (the 
original one) has no such penalties, but is incredibly expensive to 
cast. This is a limitation, but effectively prohibits the psi from ever 
healing more than 4-5 hit points, thus making it wasteful to ever buy a 
Power of 6 or more. A lower cost makes higher levels possible, and a 
cumulative penalty prevents this from becoming unbalancing. 

2) I have added "Slow Healing" as an option. This is directly based on 
the Healing skill from the Empathic Healing power in GURPS Bunnies & 
Burrows. This book covered psionic healing in greater detail than any 
GURPS book to date. Under this system, healing can be MUCH cheaper 
(especially at higher levels), but also takes MUCH longer (up to a 
minute). Rules for curing disease/poison/radiation/etc have also been 
added (and clarified); and, in general, these 'extraneous' uses of 
Healing have been changed to take longer (sometimes several minutes). 
This, again, makes Healing more realistic at lower levels, but it is 
still super-powered at very high levels.

I hope you find this helpful.

Purple Kitty            <pkitty@netcom.com>		Meow!

--- CUT HERE --- FILE healing.gurps --- CUT HERE ---

Healing *3 		(by <pkitty@netcom.com)
  This is the basic skill of healing wounds. You must be in contact
with the subject. On a successful roll, you can heal hit points up to
your Power. The roll is at -2 if the victim is unconscious. It can
never bring back the dead!. On a critical success, the healing takes
one second, heals Power hits, and costs you no fatigue. A failed roll
costs you 1d fatigue. A critical failure also costs you 1d of damage!
  Trying to heal the same subject more than once in a single day is
difficult; treat additional attempts as repeated attempts (p. P8),
regardless of successes or failures (i.e., each attempt after the
first costs one fatigue and is at a cumulative -1 to skill).
  There are two ways you can heal hits: Fast healing and slow
healing. Fast healing takes only one second of concentration, but
costs you two fatigue for every hit healed.
  Slow healing is less fatiguing but takes longer. It takes
(60/Power) seconds of concentration to heal each hit. Thus, it always
takes one minute for a psi to heal Power hits. The cost of successful
healing depends on your Power. For Power 1 to 5, the cost is one
fatigue per hit healed; for Power 6 to 10, it costs one fatigue per 2
hits healed; for Power 11 to 15, it costs one fatigue per 3 hits
healed, and so on.
  Healing can be used in many other ways, if you have enough Power.
Diseases can be cured, at a -2 penalty, or worse, to skill (an
additional -1 for every five levels of Power required is suggested). A
successful Sense Aura roll will give +2 to this roll. A common cold
would require only Power 1, pneumonia would require Power 5, rabies
would require Power 8, and terminal cancer would require Power 15 or
more. The fatigue cost is equivalent to the Power required, but never
lower than 4. The time required is one minute for every two points of
fatigue needed. You can halve the time by doubling the fatigue cost,
and vice-versa. Every five levels of Power beyond the minimum needed
reduce the fatigue cost by 2 and the time needed by 1 minute (minimum
1 fatigue and 10 seconds).
  You can also neutralize poisons, at an equivalent time, cost, and
skill penalty to curing disease. Tarantula venom would require Power
3, rattlesnake venom would require Power 6, coral snake venom would
require Power 10, and South American arrow toad poison would require
Power 15 or more.
  At Power 11, you can cure radiation damage, at -4 to skill (Sense
Aura does not help). Subtract 10 from effective Power, and treat every
10 rads as 1 hit point.
  You may even restore a crippled limb or damaged organ to full
health. This requires Power 10, and is done at -5 to skill (-8 to
restore an organ, such as an eye). It cannot restore a severed limb!
This is slow and tiring work; the healer must concentrate for an
uninterrupted ten minutes, which costs him 2d fatigue. He must do this
once a day for 7 consecutive days. Every five levels of Power past 10
reduce this by one day, so a Power 20 psi could heal a limb in 5 days.
Any failure means that the day was lost, but he does not have to start
over; two consecutive failures or one critical failure means that the
healer cannot restore that limb or organ, ever. A critical success
means that that day counts as 1d days of work.