Surmounting Advantages

During the discussion of greatly enhanced healing in fantasy settings there came a question of what will some parties do to combat this advantage in their enemies. This is an important question not just in the circumstance of accelerated healing or of resurrection, but in general, both in gaming and in all fiction. For every advance or advantage there is a considered response to negate it. Those who do not have an advantage will want to copy the advantage for themselves, or barring that steal the other party's source for it. This push and pull, garner or steal, is another basis upon which to build conflict in stories. In gaming it is a consideration that the Game Master must make at every turn to keep the pace, the tension, and promote a surmountable challenge.

There are a few categories of elements that fit this mould. There is durability or immunity to harm, powers that cannot be defended against, normally inescapable circumstances, and overwhelming forces. These can be negated directly or indirectly. Direct negation requires stripping the individual(s) of the power or overwhelming it to the point it is not an issue. Disruption powers come into play or powers that are in opposition to the troubling one. Ice or water is used against fire, mind blocks prevent psychic attack or intrusion, and similar. Particular methods of killing cancel regeneration. Specific disposal of the body prevents it from rising from the dead. Then there are weaknesses built into characters such as deadly allergies to certain materials such as Superman and kryptonite.

Indirect negation can include circumventing the difficulty. Those invulnerable to damage may be suffocated or drowned. Those immune to fire may still be harmed by falling debris caused by a fire. The opponent may be the one that is immune to the character's abilities. All of these put a wrinkle in a game changing element or a power. They can only be used so often and put to smart use without negating the reason for having these capabilities in the setting, or unfairly treating the player of such a character by hobbling them unlike the other players. Tempering these changes to provide threat and tension is only desired in balance and when it enhances the storyline. It may even be better to turn the tables and have the protagonists seeking to deal such powerful foes.

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Nothing But Time

The game changing nature of powerful healing at accelerated rates presented two factors upon which the differences were built. The first was the change in risk aversion factors. The second was the effect on the time scale. The shortened time makes for altered pacing. In the fantasy setting this is especially true because of the otherwise limited state of medicine and lack of pain medication. While quickening the plot pacing changes the game or the story one way, shifting things in the other direction has alternate effects. Longevity has its own way of changing the game in a setting. Long lives, immortality, and the changes caused by continued healing and durability are one possibility. The other is less fantastical but no less powerful and involves controlled cross-generation planning.

Many fantasy settings have long lived elves and other inhuman beings. They have immortal wizards both of the perpetual living and living dead kinds. The same is true of settings with vampires of enough intelligence to keep a lower profile and out live generation upon generation of mortals. It is not often enough that the immensity of possibilities this creates is touched upon. These beings can achieve singularly what others cannot. They can plan according to the long view of things, adapting as they go, patiently manipulating events in tiny increments over a vastly extended time. This affords them a lot of power. Beyond that it allows them to cultivate great experience and with it wisdom. This experience and wisdom is stronger for being first hand.

Magic, supernatural biology, or the science and futuristic equivalents of those, are not strictly necessary to take advantage of this game-changing element. Family groups, organisations, secret societies and sects, and some tightly focused societies can do so as well. For them it requires more discipline due to the larger number of members required. It also requires all parties being able to understand the plan not only to fulfill their parts of it, but also to the greater degree of being able to pass on the knowledge and impart the importance of the actions that go into it. If any later generation fails in understanding or implementation, even in gradual degrees from one generation to the next, then the plans and their benefits diminish, fail, or outright disappear.

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