Healing for NPCs

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Healing for NPCs
« on: June 09, 2011, 10:49:37 AM »
So in my game one of the PCs is an Angel, and some actions Doc took brought to mind a question.

How do you handle an Angel using their kit on NPC? Obviously NPCs are more fragile than PCs in AW, but they don't always die when they take harm. The one time it came up so far the NPC had taken 1 harm, and I had him be alive but requiring attention to survive long term.

Well the Angel decided to provide attention and I checked the Harm and Healing chapter and there was no advice on how NPCs heal. How I resolved it was decided that in this case the NPC would be treated like a PC at 9:00 for purposes of healing with the kit. If no one has a better idea, my general intention is that if an NPC is alive (or just dead, but not obliterated) that if the Angel wants to treat them, I'll have the NPC count as some position on the clock justified by how bad their damage is in the fiction (which is itself determined by how the harm compares to the NPC countdown clock)

Any thoughts?

Re: Healing for NPCs
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2011, 02:38:55 PM »
I actually use the rules straight from the Angel playbook. 4 days unconscious under an Angel's care for 1-harm, 1 week for 2-harm, and roll on an Angel kit if the NPC doesn't die instantly for 3-or-more-harm.

Re: Healing for NPCs
« Reply #2 on: September 24, 2011, 02:56:09 PM »
Sorry to dig the topic, but how you deal with NPC healing and jingle? And, as well, stock. If angel really uses his angel kit's stock on NPCs, then it should be fairly costly for a chopper to call for a patch-up job after some job gone wrong way(assuming chopper who cares about his boyz). Or it's supposed to be their jingle(which they get how much, interesting)? Or they're not too important, so stock should be spent only if they're dying, thus making NPC healing not too costly?

Re: Healing for NPCs
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2011, 07:30:02 PM »
Sorry to dig the topic, but how you deal with NPC healing and jingle? And, as well, stock. If angel really uses his angel kit's stock on NPCs, then it should be fairly costly for a chopper to call for a patch-up job after some job gone wrong way(assuming chopper who cares about his boyz). Or it's supposed to be their jingle(which they get how much, interesting)? Or they're not too important, so stock should be spent only if they're dying, thus making NPC healing not too costly?

An Angel only has to use stock to stabilize someone who's dying, and even then they can choose not to spend stock and to roll +0. So as long as none of the chopper's gang is dying, it shouldn't cost any stock and even then it might not cost any if they use cheap treatments instead of using the "good stuff" to make sure none of them die. Then you'd just be paying the Angel for their time/skill.
If a lot of the men are at risk of dying, maybe some of them will die unless you spend extra to convince the Angel to use more expensive treatments, in which case more barter means more lives saved?

Re: Healing for NPCs
« Reply #4 on: November 29, 2013, 06:05:31 PM »
Sorry to drag up an old topic, but I'm still a bit lost when it comes to this. Would an angel still roll+stock spent to save the life of a dying NPC? The countdown clock functions so differently for NPCs, 2 harm means they have wounds that are fatal, occasionally immediately fatal, so without angel care they will likely die. I know in the section that describes disclaiming decision making one of the options is to put it in the players hands, so if an NPC is going to die and a PC saves the , they live. However, an Angel is likely to want to save as many lives as they can, so I'd say just handing it to them doesn't give them a strong chance to be cool and show off.

Does anyone have specific examples of how they've handled this?

*

zefir

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Re: Healing for NPCs
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2013, 08:19:29 AM »
One question that came to my mind regarding helping Choppers gang - if the gang is getting wounded as a whole, is it also healed as a whole by angel?

Re: Healing for NPCs
« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2013, 12:29:13 PM »
I actually use the rules straight from the Angel playbook. 4 days unconscious under an Angel's care for 1-harm, 1 week for 2-harm, and roll on an Angel kit if the NPC doesn't die instantly for 3-or-more-harm.

OK, upon rereading this, that makes sense. They are easier to kill, but easier to heal in terms of the severity of their clocks.

Zefir, I would say that the Angel would heal the chopper's gang individually. Check out the example in the book for when a gang takes harm, page 170:

Quote
Dremmer’s gang inflicts 2-harm, +1harm because it’s bigger, -1harm for Uncle’s gang’s 1-armor, for a total of 2-harm to Uncle’s gang. ?at means a couple of fatalities and all the serious wounds I want to dish out, plus 2-harm to Uncle himself since he’s leading his gang. With him as its strong, present leader, the gang will hold together just fine through this exchange, and through another one like it. ?e danger to this gang is that they’ll be massacred, not that they’ll break.

“Well, you hold firm,” I say. “Mifflin and Putrid go down — Putrid’s guts are all over you — and Pallor and a couple of others are badly hurt. You take a bullet yourself for 2-harm.

Looks like Mifflin and Putrid are out of the picture, but Pallor and a couple others could come around if they can get to the angel or the angel can get to them. When or if that comes up, "a couple others" get names of course.