A grog takes a light wound, 1 week recovery period.
After 5 days, a +1 PotFW spell is cast on it. Now the 1 week period starts anew.
After 5 days, a +3 PotFW spell is cast on it. Now the 1 week period starts anew.
After 5 days, a +6 PotFW spell is cast on it. Now the 1 week period starts anew.
After 5 days, a +9 PotFW spell is cast on it. Now the 1 week period starts anew.
Finally, the 1 week recovery period lapses, and the patient makes their first 1-week recovery roll - only 27 days after the wound was received.
That. The situation that made you comment in the first place.
Thesituation, in my estimation, is that there was a fundamental breakdown in the development of some of the early concepts for ArM5. New Creo Corpus guidelines were being developed along the lines of the reva,ped magic system. New injury and recovery guidelines were developed without fully condiering the new magic rules. The new magic rules were then revised to conform to the new damage system, without fully considering the ramifications for those changes.
The result, the system as is, results in a workable yet simple system. Push the simulation to hard and it will break, requiring extensive House Ruling. For example, I rule that the guidelines improve a number of wound levels rather than a wound sixe. Heal Light Wound means heal a wound one level, Heal Medium wound mans improve two levels. Healing rituals work on all wound sizes. Gentle Caress of Asclepius is Target Group, improve a group of wounds one level (base 15, +1 touch, +2 group).
Who would ever do anything like this? Your example is an example of a rhetorical argument. It's much easier to do a moon duration Bind Wounds and amazingly, it's the same level as PotFW.
The situation that made me comment in the first place is not what you think it is. It is the OP.
Now, my first reply to you on this subject (but I didn't quote you) was that the proper spell to delay a recovery roll is Bind Wounds. Indeed the Bind Wounds spell prevents the wounds from getting worse under any of the forbidden activity guidelines, while the spells designed to delay a roll on the recovery table as you've demonstrated actually don't delay a roll if the person undertakes activity beyond what their wound level permits. All your example does is delay a recovery roll related to improving the wound level.
And your response is a specious attempt at, once again, avoiding the question on the table.
A mage who does not have the spell, and so must spont it until they get to someone "real", and knows that the grog faces a risky Recovery Roll with anything less than +6 or +9.
Is that practical enough for you?
Which is exactly the example I posted in response to the OP...
But now you do.
And, again (for the 4th time?), you aggressively ignore addressing this glaring counter-example to your position.
PotFW can be used to delay the recovery roll. Which was the answer to the OP that you quibbled with.
Casting a spell to aid in recovery does not delay a roll in the case of the forbidden activity, Bind Wounds does. Period. There's no reading that a spell granting a bonus that aids in recovery rolls removes them in the case when the recipient of the spell engages in activity his wound level doesn't allow.
In your proposed counter example, if someone engages in strenuous activity, that they are prevented from doing based on their wound level, they have to make a recovery roll. Spells that aid in the recovery roll might, and I say might, be allowed to aid here, but they don't obviate the need for the roll, like Bind Wounds does. And when I say that they might aid in the roll to prevent a wound from worsening, that is a generous reading of the text of PotFW which says "+9 to bonus to Recovery rolls to recover from injuries or disease." Emphasis added.
So, if you want to get back home, without having to make recovery rolls to see if your wounds worsen, the spell to do that is Bind Wounds, whether the standard duration or a D:Moon variant.
In the sagas I played in healing spells were always pretty rare (magi had grogs, and grogs had mundane physicians:)) so the issue never came up.
But the problem I see with PotFW is that the natural application of the guideline is indeed to say "you get the recovery bonus only if you are under the effect of the spell for the entire recovery interval", but this would mean that unless you apply the spell before combat it won't help with the first recovery roll - which is counterintuitive. So they came up with the "reset the recovery interval" solution which really isn't part of the guideline, and also turned out to be hard to understand.
I think a better solution would have been to just say in the guidelines something like "for a recovery bonus to apply, the patient must be under the effect of the spell or spells for at least half the recovery interval". And to explicitly say that Recovery bonus spells do not suspend the healing process.
There are effectively two types of recovery rolls. The first type is a "regular" recovery roll, made at intervals, that can result in either improvement and worsening of the wound. The second type is a roll that is made instantaneously as a result of strenous activity, and can only result in worsening of the wound.
I think Chuchulainshound is pointing out that PotFW can be used to delay the first type of rolls. I believe this is in accordance with the (admittedly murky) description of the spell. It certainly can't delay the second type, because its delaying effect is a result of resetting the recovery interval, and rolls of the second type have no recovery interval. Incidentally, I do believe that its bonus applies to rolls of the second type, too, since they are defined as "recovery rolls" (I do agree that it's not as clear as it could be).
Bind Wounds, on the other hand, explicitly delays rolls of the second type. As for the first type, you could both argue that it delays them (since it suspends healing), or you could say that it suspends healing but does not prevent worsening of wounds unless that worsening would be due to strenous activity, so the patient would not roll for strenous activity, but would roll at regular intervals, ignoring any improvement but suffering from any worsening. I think the latter reading is messy and runs against the spirit of the spell, so I'd just say it suspends "evolution" of all wounds, for better or worse. Again, the wording could have been clearer.
Bind Wounds, as I said earlier is the simplest form of Magical Healing, makes the person whole, but they still have the penalties. They actually can't improve while under the effect, based on the Creo Corpus guidelines insert.
Is it a healing spell that is in the "unless otherwise noted" category? Cuchulainshound rejected my contention that PotFW is not a healing spell. Fine. Call it a healing spell, and it's otherwise noted that the healing process is not suspended. If the healing process is not suspended, the wound worsening process is also not suspended, I mean that's pretty clear to me. The only way to suspend the wound worsening process is to cast Bind Wounds, or a longer duration version of a healing spell that removes the appropriate wound level(s).
If PotFW did suspend the healing process, it wouldn't heal a light wound in a week, it would be a month. And upon expiration, the effects of the healing would actually be gone. PotFW does not suspend the healing process, it augments the natural healing process. That seems explicit to me, and is either not a healing spell or at least part of the "Unless otherwise noted" portion of the Creo Corpus guidelines.
The fact that PotFW delays recovery rolls (except those resulting from strain) has nothing to do with healing spells suspending the natural process! Ignore the guidelines, and just read the spell description. It explicitly says that the recovery interval of any wound is "restarted" when PotFW is cast. Cast it on a grog with a Heavy Wound that was inflicted two and a half months before? Bam, the next recovery roll will take place not in two weeks, but in a full season from now; it would do so even if PotFW were cast with D:Diam.
It's much easier to do a moon duration Bind Wounds and amazingly, it's the same level as PotFW.
