HEAL spell?

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by JLV

I'm confused by your comment, Skarg.

From what I'm reading of Rick's Spell, it gives anywhere from 2-7 hit points of healing in exchange for a single point of damage, and it gives anywhere from 5-15 points of healing for a mere two points of damage. If anyone thought Steve's Spell was "overkill" in the healing department, this one approaches nuclear Armageddon by comparison!

Hi JLV,
I've used spells that do Damage rather than costing fatigue ST, before, and I generally like to make such spells 2 to 3 times more powerful than the regular spells. But in my campaign, I don't have any fast healing (other than healing potions), so doing damage to yourself is a big deal.

But if we have Steve Jackson's fast, 3:1 healing spell, that short circuits the spells that do damage to you. It is too easy to heal what is supposed to be a heavy cost. Also, if this spell can can heal the damage you just gave to yourself, the wizard could always heal up to just one point of damage. (I assumed that this couldn't be done in the first draft, but forgot to write it down.)

So let's try again to balance the nuke of Healing Spells:

IQ 12
D … Death Healing.
You take 1 point of damage, but can heal 1d+1 points of damage on the subject. This spell may not be cast on yourself. For double the cost, 2d+3 damage is healed. Damage healed is converted into fST loss.
(Example, you have taken 5 hits, and someone else uses this spell to heal you fully. All the damage is removed, but you are still down 5 fST.)
This damage is done directly to you, by passing all armor, mundane and magical. This damage is distributed widely thru your organs and can not be healed by physickers, magical healing or healing potions. To recover from these wounds requires lengthy rest (natural healing from resting). Death type spells use thrown spell range adjustments.
COST 1 ST damage, or 2 ST damage.


The rule about nothing heals this damage (no magic healing, no healing potions), came from Thomas Fulmer. This spell could still work with Healing potions, if you wanted it to. They are expensive and (presumably) in short supply.

The rule that says that healing magic does not heal the death magic wounds, means that this spell can work with campaigns which include either fast or slow healing. The long natural healing demanded to pay for Death Magic spells, returns them to a scary wound.

As for the rule that converts the healed damage into fatigue ST lost, I now think EVERY form of fast healing should have this limitation, for the reasons given a few posts ago.

(I'm not intending on putting this into my campaign, I'm just playing with ideas. I like having a few Death Spell type magics in the game, but I've never tried to make such a healing spell.)

Warm regards, Rick.

[Melichor]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

The spell you are suggesting has to compete with Steve Jackson's healing spell (see the start of this thread), which instantly heals in combat time at a 3:1 ratio. Your spell HAS to be better than his, since you were suggesting it does damage, rather than costing fatigue ST (fST) to use.
--------
The spell you suggest would never be taken if SJ spell is in play. If you assume that SJ reverses himself and players have your spell or nothing, then I don't see anyone taking it, except town wizards who never expect to fight.

There seems to be some very vocal concern over adding any Healing spell into the game. I've never been very liberal with tossing healing potions into my game, like any other magic they are rare. The Healing spell we used was the same as what Steve has proposed 4:1, so I'm okay with it.

My idea wasn't intended to compete with anything, it was just a thought I had while thinking about why people are so opposed to adding a Healing spell.

I think magic should have a layer of uncertainty.
If I added this spell to my game I would probably limit the wizard to taking damage equal to 1 less than their remaining ST. A safety net that still leaves the wizard in a vulnerable position.

[JLV]

I don't know Rick, it still feels like way too much. Plus all those people kvetching about "D&D-ish styles of play" will undoubtedly have massive heart attacks over this one...

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Melichor

There seems to be some very vocal concern over adding any Healing spell into the game. I've never been very liberal with tossing healing potions into my game, like any other magic they are rare. The Healing spell we used was the same as what Steve has proposed 4:1, so I'm okay with it.

My idea wasn't intended to compete with anything, it was just a thought I had while thinking about why people are so opposed to adding a Healing spell.

I think magic should have a layer of uncertainty.
If I added this spell to my game I would probably limit the wizard to taking damage equal to 1 less than their remaining ST. A safety net that still leaves the wizard in a vulnerable position.

Hi Melichor,
Steve's spell is actually a fast, 3:1 heal spell, not 4:1. (Or are you saying YOUR home version is a 4:1?)

OK, I misunderstood. You want magical healing to be barely possible so this spell has a really high cost. But rolling two dice of damage as the cost (and then healing 1/4 (round down, minimum 1), is a spell I would never take.

Let's say have a wizard with a ST 10. 1/6 of the time I roll damage over my max, so the spell fails. (Do I lose the full 9 points of damage as well has having the spell fail?)

The wizard is the guy that we least want to take damage. If I roll perfectly, my wizard takes 8 points, in order to heal 2. This spell can't be used in combat (obviously), so it can only be used when I am in a safe place. But how safe is safe? If there is a small chance that you might get into a fight in a safe place, having the wizard hurt as well as another PC hurt is bad.

***
If I'm in a safe place I want to speed up healing. So I heal 2 points from Grog, the barbarian. This saves him 4 days of healing. But I've taken 8 damage which will now require me to heal for 16 days!!! This seems bad, but are there exact levels of damage on Grog, which would make this work?


Let us say that Grog has 5 points of damage. If I roll perfectly and heal 1, then he is at 4 damage and I am at 4 damage. The time for the party to heal has gone from 10 days to 8 days.

Or if he starts at 9 points of damage. If I roll perfectly and heal 2, then we end up with him at 7 and me at 8. Now the time for the party to heal has gone from 18 days to 16 days.

But other than these specialized situations, and assuming that the player rolls perfectly, the spell normally makes things worse.

As a typical worse case, let us say that Grog is at 4 damage and I roll imperfectly, a 9. I heal 2 points but take 9 points of damage. So the healing time has gone from 8 days to 18 days!!!

***
I can't imagine that anyone would take the spell as designed. It would just be simpler to not have any healing spell.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by JLV

I don't know Rick, it still feels like way too much. Plus all those people kvetching about "D&D-ish styles of play" will undoubtedly have massive heart attacks over this one...

HI JLV,
You need to understand that I WAS ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE who kvetched about D&D style healing. I finally added healing spells that are useless in combat (but sped up adventuring). I have advised Steve Jackson as strongly as I can, that he should revise his healing spell. If SJ does not revise his healing spell, I won't use it in my campaign.

I've done all I can do.

I like having a few spells that are like the Death spell in that you pay for them with damage rather than with fatigue ST. This allows kick butt spells that low IQ wizards can actually use. So I was curious what such a healing spell would look like.

My version is kick ass. But it has a saving grace. It would be far less tempting for the wizard to cast this spell again and again, than SJ's fast 3:1 healing spell.

If anyone was seriously considering using this spell, you could have it heal less damage if they want. 1 die and 2d+1? I wouldn't go lower than that,

Warm regards, Rick.

[luguvalium]

Should there be limitations to healing damage caused my magical means? Maybe a Physicker can not fully heal magical damage? Instead of two hits healed, just one for magical made damage. 2 hits healed by Master Physicker. Before germ theory it was common to correlate wounds that would not heal to magic. This would include wounds by magic weapons, poisons made by alchemists, bites from magical creatures, etc., but not damage cause by summoned natural creatures.

There will need to be some balance between a Heal spell with Drain Strength, Zombie, and Death Spell as all involve the transfer of life force between caster and others.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by luguvalium

Should there be limitations to healing damage caused my magical means? ...

There will need to be some balance between a Heal spell with Drain Strength and Death Spell as all involve the transfer of life force between caster and others.

Hi Luguvalium,
I think that this is a very good idea, worth exploring.

Could you give some examples of what you would like to see?

For example, in my campaign, certain monsters and certain evil items cause wounds that can not be magically healed.

Warm regards, Rick.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by JLV

I'm confused by your comment, Skarg.

From what I'm reading of Rick's Spell, it gives anywhere from 2-7 hit points of healing in exchange for a single point of damage, and it gives anywhere from 5-15 points of healing for a mere two points of damage. If anyone thought Steve's Spell was "overkill" in the healing department, this one approaches nuclear Armageddon by comparison!

Which comment of mine?

I quite agree with you that the spells Rick just listed are in most ways much stronger than SJ's originally proposed healing spell, and I'd say they are category C or D, and definitely D if you don't fix that two wizards could heal each other.

Melichor's spell is less powerful than SJ's spell.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

HI JLV,
You need to understand that I WAS ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE who kvetched about D&D style healing. I finally added healing spells that are useless in combat (but sped up adventuring). I have advised Steve Jackson as strongly as I can, that he should revise his healing spell. If SJ does not revise his healing spell, I won't use it in my campaign.

So? And yes, I understand clearly that you were one of the complainers there. Which makes this massive reversal even more difficult to understand. I think I'll just stick with Steve's Spell.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

I've done all I can do.

I like having a few spells that are like the Death spell in that you pay for them with damage rather than with fatigue ST. This allows kick butt spells that low IQ wizards can actually use. So I was curious what such a healing spell would look like.

I don't really see this as a contest between Rick and Steve. And I'm glad you like those things, but I prefer to think my way through the game balance before wholesale adoption of "kick booty" spells. I've been burned too many times over the past 40 years by poorly thought out spells that imbalanced the game.

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

My version is kick ass. But it has a saving grace. It would be far less tempting for the wizard to cast this spell again and again, than SJ's fast 3:1 healing spell.

If anyone was seriously considering using this spell, you could have it heal less damage if they want. 1 die and 2d+1? I wouldn't go lower than that,

Reasonable people will beg to differ with your opinion here. I certainly do.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by JLV

So? And yes, I understand clearly that you were one of the complainers there. Which makes this massive reversal even more difficult to understand. I think I'll just stick with Steve's Spell. ...

Reasonable people will beg to differ with your opinion here. I certainly do.

Hi JLV,
I'm not sure which opinion you are differing with. The sentence where I said I wouldn't lower its healing ability to less than 1d or 2d+1? Or the line where I said that people would be less likely to cast this spell several times compared to Steve's fast healing?


This Death Magic healing spell I won't use in my campaign, I'm sure that it won't be used in the new TFT, and I doubt it will be used in anyone's house rules. As I said, I was playing around with this spell for fun. What would a healing spell that is, '2 to 3 times more powerful that a regular fast healing spell', look like?

I enjoyed the thought experiment. I posted it to the TFT Brainiac list and Thomas F. asked some questions and suggested that the Death Spell damage is not repairable by any sort of magic. (I had allowed healing potions.) I thought that this was a worth while idea. The whole point of the Death spells, is to give a big boost, at the cost of taking hard to heal damage. Closing this loop-hole made sense.

Skarg made a good comment which got me thinking about ALL fast healing spells should convert damage to fatigue. This is a useful innovation, I think. That idea wouldn't have come up if I wasn't playing around with this. Which is reason enough to justify the mental exercise.

David B. wrote in criticism of this spell, on Brainac's list:
> "After you get hurt, do a little dance, [with SJ fast, 3:1 healing spell] wait
> a few hours and you are healthy", whereas the effect of the RS death
> healing spell is like that, only the waiting is less and the dance is a little
> more complex. I can't see the point of making the dance more complicated."

This I felt was a fair criticism. But I would make two points to it. First this is powerful enough to be used in combat which gives different trade offs. And two, if we are going to put in fast healing to new TFT, I LIKE the extra complexity because it results in not everyone being fully healed after a while. Who is not healed? The person who MOST wants to have full ST - the wizard.

Unless the Death wizard also had a different sort of fast healing, he had a non-trivial trade off to make. Take another point or two of real damage, or leave a few people down hit points? I like tough decisions. If TFT has Steve's fast healing spell, there is no trade off. You and your apprentices regain fatigue until everyone is at max.

Later David B. also wrote:
> "I think that might be a bad thing: if after healing everyone is OK except
> the healing wizard has distributed organ damage what does the party do?
> Wait around for him to get better despite everyone else being healthy
> already? Risk him being killed but try to protect him? Leave him behind
> in town? All are problematic. I suppose the best strategy might be to use
> healing to minimise the wounds of the most wounded character.

Now the result of the Death Healing is the OPPOSITE of what my healing spells aim for. (Those spells don't help in combat, but let you get on with the adventure faster.) Dave's comment here, highlights the basic reason I won't be using them in my campaign. They work at cross purposes to how I want healing magic to work.

I'm not shy about saying when I think that something should be changed, or something should go in to the new TFT. But in this thread I explicitly said that I was not going to use this spell, and that I was just playing around with ideas.

This spell is POWERFUL. It is intended to be, that is it's sole purpose. But even so, it has interesting limitations which make it in some ways LESS useful than Steve Jackson's suggested healing spell.

I suspect that the reason you have got touchy is that I've been critizicing Steve's fast, 3:1 healing spell. (Maybe my guess is wrong, in that case, my apologies.) But if so, here we will have to agree to disagree. I think that his spell, as written, IS problematic.

Warm regards, Rick.