[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Terquem

Limiting the total availability of "magical" healing has always seemed to me to give TFT a different feel altogether from other conventional role playing games

I like the idea that characters can survive, hopefully, one encounter, but need to make serious choices about what to do if they have another encounter before a time to rest is had.

I like, and have introduced, healing naturally in less time, and have always liked the "healer's kit" concepts of many games, with a limited number of uses that restore strength at a fixed rate, never random, per use.

It just seems to me that when magical, player character available healing spells are introduce it always leads to abuse of the system, or the feeling that someone must play a healer (which is a false premise, in my opinion). I like the feel of a game that puts serious decision making on when to fight and when to run away in the player's court.

Exactly! And as I mentioned in some posts above, there are ways to abuse the spell SJ suggested that require thinking about using the Aid spell and resting etc., which are also such heavy effects that once you realize them, it seems foolish not to, creating a similar feeling that not only would a party be foolish not to have a healing wizard, they'd be foolish not to have at least a couple of other people who know Aid, and dumb to not have a wagon they can rest in while marching, etc.

What I love about TFT is that almost all of its mechanics are about how the situation works. So you get a game about what's involved in going out adventuring and figuring out how to deal with situations including what tactics work and dealing with unpredictable consequences, and injuries are a big part of that.

Healing spells tend to remove serious lasting injury from the game. The degree depends on how the spells work (or can be made to work with help from Aid and rest etc), but beyond a certain point, you start to lose the experience of people having to deal with being seriously wounded and needing to recover. And, you lose some of the weight of making choices to avoid that consequence, and to prepare for it and work around it.

I like my adventures to be full of considerations and practical problems to face and overcome and natural consequences. I don't much care for too many magical solutions to those unless they introduce other interesting considerations. For example, magic Light items tend to remove lighting problems from the game. In other magic systems, there are items that produce infinite food an/or safe water out of thin air, removing supplies from the game. In some there are magics that remove encumbrance and logistics from the game (e.g. bag o' holding). In many there's so much easy healing and revival that non-TPK consequences of combat are more or less removed from the game.

So if a healing spell is added, I'd want it to at least have some risks and trade-offs that are interesting and limits that keep it from mostly removing serious lasting wounds as a part of play.

I'd also like to avoid adding new resulting tactics that could get annoying. Having the limit try to be the ST cost, invites getting around that with the Aid spell and having multiple low-skill assistants and other odd tactics. And smart NPCs would logically have their own schemes for healing their best people up, etc., which complexity ordinarily I like, but I don't much like the flavor of feeling like any fighting team is foolish if they don't have a healing wizard and a bunch of resting IQ 9 servants with Aid... I wouldn't mind playing that for a bit, but it seems a bit gamey and like it would get annoying to track and deal with.

Originally Posted by larsdangly

This is spot on. There are hundreds of fantasy roleplaying games on the market, and only a few lucky ones are distinctive enough in their feel during play that you would miss them if they were gone. TFT is one of those distinctive games, and part of what makes it distinctive is that you die when someone brains you with a pole axe, and there is almost nothing under the sun that will bring you back. I also find it distinctive and enjoyable that healing exists in the game, but it is modest in its effects and mostly in the hands of high-skill characters rather than magicians or priests.

Also, well armored characters should not turn their nose up at a master physicker; 3 points of healing per wound goes a long way when you have 5+ points of armor! It is quite plausible to play TFT as originally published and get into a half dozen or more fights per day. Its just that they have to be fights you win, and you have to be sufficiently well armored that you rarely take more than 3 points of damage per 'mishap'.

An important detail about the Physicker talents: it is ambiguous as to what constitutes a 'mishap', and therefore how many times per day one character can benefit from non magical healing. If you rule one 'mishap' means all damage you take from any source in a given fight or scene, then things get a bit tricky. If one 'mishap' is a single blow/fall/arrow/etc., then you are in much better shape. A simple house rule that lets you play the game as-is and dungeon crawl to your heart's content: Allow a physicker one attempt to heal each individual injury. If you are a goof ball who runs around without armor this won't keep you alive very long. But well armored characters will get patched up as good as new more often than not.

YES!

This came up in an earlier thread here. The people I played with tended to quickly notice the weirdness of the Physicker wording, and we all agreed it made no sense at all for it to be limited per combat. So we played it as a limit per wound, which did make sense, was very easy to do, and also generally made physicker healing stronger and only the people who took major wounds would have lasting serious injuries. It did mean it took longer to heal up a whole group with a bunch of minor injuries, but that was an interesting short-term effect.

Originally Posted by Dave Crowell

I think we are on the same page. I like that TFT combat is gritty, hurts, and is potentially deadly. Increasing the availability of healing between combats should have the efect of making longer periods of adventuring more survivable. If you can heal faster between fights you can afford to get in more fights between periods of extended rest and healing. It still keeps individual fights a significant risk to be weighed against the potential reward. No (or very limited) magical instant healing during the fight.

I like that combat hurts. I fighter who has taken most of his hits does not fight as well as he did when he was fresh. This is in sharp contrast to a lot of RPGs where a fighter fights just as well at 1 HP as he did at 50 HP. He is just more likely to die if he gets hit.

Yes, quite.