HEAL spell?

[Anthony]

Realistic healing is fine for a game where fights are rare or where being injured in a fight is unlikely. For a game that is primarily about combat (which, if you look at the number of pages assigned to the topic relative to everything else, you would expect TFT to be), and where people want fights where the tension is "do we win" rather than "do we win with zero injuries", some degree of enhanced healing is called for.

If you want to limit self-sufficiency, you can always add a material component. There's a decent literary precedent for food -- say, a regeneration spell heals 1 point over an hour, during which time you also consume a day's worth of rations.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Realistic healing is fine for a game where fights are rare or where being injured in a fight is unlikely. For a game that is primarily about combat (which, if you look at the number of pages assigned to the topic relative to everything else, you would expect TFT to be), and where people want fights where the tension is "do we win" rather than "do we win with zero injuries", some degree of enhanced healing is called for.

Excellent point. Advanced Melee comprises about 1/4 of the total TFT:ITL rules set. Advanced Wizard is another 1/4 and a goodly portion of Advanced Wizard deals with combat as well, say 1/3 at least.

That works out to something like 1/3 of the rules being related to combat. Therefore, as you suggest, it's logical for players of TFT to expect that lots of combat will occur. And to expect a healing system to support that.

[ak_aramis]

If adding a healing spell (and I feel one is needed, at least as an option), suggesting that it be limited to those with the priest or physicker talents sounds good. I see no issues with the spell as written fitting in, as it's not much use. It is slightly better than Drain St (which is 5:1, and the caster pays nothing).

The biggest issue is that it will need cleaned up Fatigue vs Damage rules.

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

If adding a healing spell (and I feel one is needed, at least as an option), suggesting that it be limited to those with the priest or physicker talents sounds good.

This is a very interesting notion you are suggesting. Something in my head is telling me you might be onto something significant Ak_Aramis; but I am not sure where this idea might go.

So, if I can throw the question on the table - without invoking a derailing fire-storm of cries in support of wizards getting the healing spell too - I would be interested in learning ideas for how we could limit the assignment of a healing spell to Priest-types only, and avoid having those characters reduced functionally in play to a mobile first-aid station *disguised* as a Priest?

In other words, is there a way we could do this honestly; and not end-up with players creating characters who are simply magical healers with the Priest talent added-on as an afterthought to make it legal.

Thoughts?

JK

[Skarg]

Clearly there will always be people who think they want a healing spell in TFT. But TFT can and did work very well without one. Having to actually deal with the possibility of lasting wounds is central to the play and balance of all of the published TFT adventures - the Death Tests, Orb Quest, GrailQuest, Security Station, Master of the Amulets, and Tollenkar's Lair, all are balanced for no magic healing spells, and they're all challenging and interesting that way, and I think would lose a lot if healing up were fast & easy, and certainly everyone should be able to see that they'd need to be rebalanced and would play quite differently.

So, since adding a strong healing spell will change campaign play quite a bit, I'd say there ought to be a section about healing spells being an option a GM might want to consider whether to include or not, and what the considerations will be.

Also because, if you just add a healing spell and then let GMs start out campaigns, they're going to have a peculiar time when/if they and players start to discover the implications during play.

(BTW, I once had a similar discovery experience long ago playing a computer RPG (Phantasie III). My first sessions were something really different and interesting, as my party would start to do ok but then one of my characters would die or have an arm chopped off or a leg crushed, and I'd retire that character in a town and take on a replacement. I knew it was possible to heal them, but that it was hard. This seemed to be a really challenging and interesting game, and I thought it was awesome that I had several experienced veterans with crippling injuries scattered around the game world awaiting possible eventual healing. Then I realized that there were healing spells that could be used during combat, and that if you did that, you'd pretty much never get a lasting crippling injury at all. The destroyed limbs could be restored as easily as throwing a knife. Suddenly the game became a cake walk and the crippled veterans became irrelevant and the interesting game vanished in a puff of magic.)

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Realistic healing is fine for a game where fights are rare or where being injured in a fight is unlikely.

Or a game where people get seriously hurt, but usually only in the boss fight that ends the adventure, and there's expected to be a pause for healing after that.

people want fights where the tension is "do we win" rather than "do we win with zero injuries", some degree of enhanced healing is called for.

Strongly agree with this.

If you want to limit self-sufficiency, you can always add a material component. There's a decent literary precedent for food -- say, a regeneration spell heals 1 point over an hour, during which time you also consume a day's worth of rations.

Problem here is that this makes healing an economic affair: either you're making enough per raid that you can afford to regard the healing as a cost of doing business, in which case injury is just a fine, or you aren't making enough and you still have all the problems you have without healing. The game shouldn't be just economics.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

I think David B. alone has suggested making the healing spell much more effective than that 64:1 ratio.

If the effect of healing was that everybody recovered immediately when a fight was over, so that wounds were relevant only to the extent they caused a risk of death during the game, would that be a good thing? Perhaps it would. Maybe that's the paradigm we want, at least for a lot of games.

And making it available to parties with lower IQ spells.)

This is the point I care about. I think the basic healing spell should be easier, and any higher IQ versions should have nice features, e.g. can be used in combat. I see healing in combat as an optional extra: we don't need it but it might be interesting to force people to choose between prosecuting the fight and protecting their friend.

he started off saying that he thought that Steve J. healing spell was going about healing the wrong way.

It's more the game design philosophy that bothered me. It's best to know what you're trying to achieve before writing the rule, and Steve just gave us a rule without a reason. I've decided I'm happy with Steve's rule, because it fits the reason I eventually picked. And quite likely he had a perfectly good reason, even if he didn't tell us what it was and I have no idea if it's the same as mine.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Jim Kane

ideas for how we could limit the assignment of a healing spell to Priest-types only, and avoid having those characters reduced functionally in play to a mobile first-aid station *disguised* as a Priest [...] and not end-up with players creating characters who are simply magical healers with the Priest talent added-on as an afterthought to make it legal.

Caveat: I'm against this plan, because it's too derivative of Christianity and D&D. But if 'tis done, when 'tis done, methinks 'twould be well it had these properties:

• Expensive: If it's cheap it can be attached on the side of a character that's actually something else. If you want it to be a defining feature of a character then it has to cost, or it has to impose inconvenient handicaps, or something of the kind.
• Useful: If it's going to be expensive then it has to do things that aren't just healing. Useful things that players will value.
• Fun: Implementing the powers of a priest must be an interesting and fun thing to do. Not just routinely and industrially fixing problems but difficult tasks that might succeed or fail and it matters which.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Caveat: I'm against this plan, because it's too derivative of Christianity and D&D.

Since Christianity is one of the common faiths on Cidri - and one of the major faiths in human history (and the largest currently) - I have no problem with TFT replicating parts of Christianity, any more than I do it replicating parts of feudalism.

I’m a bit more ambivalent about adapting too much of AD&D’s specific approach. Although I’ve made some suggestions about how a cleric might be added, it was rather different than AD&D and really more of a thought experiment.

And I really don’t see any particular reason for healing spells to be restricted to a new magic using class.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by tomc

It's not fun for me. I like my heroes keep heroing, rather than conceding to the weaknesses of the flesh and walking away to heal up. Indiana Jones didn't take a week off after being dragged a few miles by the Nazi truck. He sucked it up and kept heroing.

Some folks enjoy a more realistic world, and some trade what they see as tedioum a for less realistic, but more appealing approach.

Folks roll different.

Yes, exactly. <golf clap> Well said sir.