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Old 06-20-2018, 10:50 AM   #241
Melichor
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Default Re: HEAL spell?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Self-powered Iron Flesh amulet
Dragons will not sell their dung because of the danger they see in gunpowder.

What do you think dragons as a group would do to someone who creates or wields a magic item that requires the hide of five 14-hex dragons?

They are all dead men walking. Probably before the amulet is even partly enchanted.

Campaigns where magic this powerful is commonplace are too high powered to worry about magical healing breaking the game.
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Old 06-20-2018, 01:01 PM   #242
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: HEAL spell?

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Originally Posted by zot View Post
I think this problem disappears if healing converts wounds to fatigue. It's still useful during combat because it can save peoples' lives though, provided the group does emerge victorious.
Yes it does, for the problem of single combats. (If you consider it also a problem if it can be done during a couple of days or less or rest & spellcasting, that problem doesn't disappear.)


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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Why would you attack ZaxZax when there are all these much juicier targets around? Absent aggro mechanics, people attack squishies first, and all the better if those squishies are taking themselves out at the same time.

Also, spell shield will negate healing, and if he drops it to get healed, hit him with a 10d fireball.
Those are great and valid tactical points.

But imagine both sides have a Zaxzax or three, and lesser warriors. Both sides will want to use in-combat healing on their Zaxzaxes as much as they can, because it multiplies the durability of their super-star combatants. The same applies to powerful wizards, or whoever your best people are. The healers multiply their effective hit points unless they can be killed before they can be healed.

So if whoever your best person is, can have their combat lifespan more or less multiplied in combat by a during-combat healing spell. Then tactics can become about how well you heal people or prevent enemies healing people during combat.

And that's what I don't like - yet another game where one of the main things determining success in combat, is efficient achieving and preventing of surreal healing. To me, that's a curse of D&D-like gameplay that has infected way too many games (there are even many computer lite wargames where one of the main needed tactics is constantly healing things so they never die even during combat). For me, TFT was always a refreshing counterpoint that didn't do that, and instead provided a game that was about fighting tactics and making choices and using tactics to mitigate the risk of getting injured, and to actually have to deal with the consequences when you do get injured.


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Originally Posted by Terquem View Post
What is the alternative, in rapid terms, of Magic healing, if any?
In TFT, it's using tactics (and/or magic) to not get hurt, and taking out the most deadly opponents before they hurt you, and possibly healing potions, or keeping people going temporarily with Aid spells, or at the far extreme, wishes.


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Originally Posted by zot View Post
The religion system I'm proposing can provide some pretty effective healing, mostly outside of combat.
I've played in campaigns where one religion has healing magic and the others don't. Can be pretty interesting, though it really shows what a massive advantage it is to be able to heal up without needing to rest.


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Originally Posted by Tolenkar View Post
Woah! That is a cargo load of magical items! I played consistently for about five years and don't remember having even one magic item for a 42 point character. I think I had a +1 fine sword... and that was it. It seems to me a balancing issue more than a magical spell issue. If GM's allow the imbalance... it will be there.
Yes, also in our TFT campaigns, we kept magic items uncommon, partly for rational reasons (e.g. powerful wizards don't like spending time enchanting, and magic items for sale tend to get bought by the most powerful & wealthy people (NPCs) in the game world, whom the PCs probably don't want to antagonize) but mainly because we didn't like the way the game starts to play the more magic items get added, especially if they're commercially available. Players even chose to stash quite a few magic items rather than carry and use them - again partly so as not to attract too much attention to themselves from powerful NPCs/guilds/rulers/thieves/etc., but I think even moreso because as players they didn't really care for the power game created by using a lot of magic items (both in terms of the way it plays out and marginalizes people without them, and in terms of the natural consequences of attracting attention from the most powerful people who want those items for themselves, and who plan intelligently to get them with nasty tricks or other powerful magic (q.v. another reason I don't like playing with the Trance spell available).

Zaxzax was an intentionally extreme example, intended to make the issue clear rather than be an example of something that would typically exist. However it starts to be a more and more rational strategy to put all your resources into single apex fighters if you can magically heal them.

My actual apex PC (though out-done by NPC allies) had several magic items but his "final form" (before converting him & the campaign to GURPS) chose to use one combat magic item (not the most powerful one he owned, but the others he left in storage) - a self-powered Stone Flesh ring, which was enough to bring him to total 9 hits stopped with adjDX 15 and a fine greatsword (3d+3), it was rare for anyone who wasn't rather experienced themselves to even get a chance to attack him, and the majority of ordinary people would do little or no damage even if they managed to hit him. He liked to do sweeping blows (reducing adjDX to 11) just for fun and to actually experience missing and getting hit a little, sometimes. (At least our house-rule EP system meant he only got 1 EP for slaughtering each typical 32-point foe.) Even this level sort of removed interestingness from lower-level opponents and meant that interesting combat challenges for him tended to mean more and more powerful people. If he got a bit injured, that started to be interesting, but if someone could zap it away, that would remove that element, multiply his effectiveness and already-great ability to wade through foes, and mean that in order to be challenging, someone would have to actually be in a position to kill him, rather than merely injure him. I don't like having that be the only thing that's really challenging or has any degree of lasting consequences to face - it also gives the players an experience of "well, again we killed every one and didn't die, so there were no consequences, so we might as well keep non-stop engaging tough foes, who also will have no real consequences due to our fast healing, until we over-do it and get killed."


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Originally Posted by Chris Rice View Post
Surely by the time a character has reached this sort of level they'll be facing foes of appropriate danger level, like Big Giants with Big clubs doing 6+dice damage, etc.
Yes, though that's not really the point. Also even 6 dice averages 21, which will average 3 points damage. Significant if it accumulates, but if Zaxzax is on your side, healing those 3 points on Zaxzax during combat is probably what you want to do even at great risk or cost, as it negates the effect of a 21-point hit, and keeps Zaxzax mowing through opponents and drawing attacks.
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Old 06-20-2018, 01:15 PM   #243
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: HEAL spell?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Melichor View Post
Dragons will not sell their dung because of the danger they see in gunpowder.

What do you think dragons as a group would do to someone who creates or wields a magic item that requires the hide of five 14-hex dragons?

They are all dead men walking. Probably before the amulet is even partly enchanted.
Well yes, and thank the Mnoren (or SJ) that dragon hide is a spell component of Iron Flesh. (But it's not of Stone Flesh, or Spell Shield.)

On the other hand, some dragons might be willing to yield some dung or a 14-hex dragon skin they might happen to have, in exchange for some items with Spell Shield, Stone Flesh, Reverse Missiles, Hammertouch and/or Speed Movement...


Quote:
Originally Posted by Melichor View Post
Campaigns where magic this powerful is commonplace are too high powered to worry about magical healing breaking the game.
1) It's an extreme example to make a point.
2) The point also applies to much weaker/cheaper champions. Even people with non-self-powered or simply spell-cast Stone Flesh with armor and/or some low-level armor enchantment.
3) The more healing magic is available, the more it makes sense to invest in strong champions, because healing magic can multiply their combat longevity.
4) It applies to PCs, who are a kind of champion whether they have armor or not, wizards too. If you can heal people during combat, it's like being able to multiply the combat longevity of your best people, which makes it possibly more powerful than having another star person in the first place.

And that's why I don't like healing in combat (which Zaxzax is just an exaggerated extreme example of): it can make your ability to heal your best people during combat (and to deny the enemy doing so) as (or more) important than how good your people are in the first place. And it's done to death in other games, and I just personally really don't much like the game where a major aspect of tactics is being able to magically heal people during combat.

(I mean, it's even common in computer games and collectable card games supposedly about high-tech military combat, that some sort of during-combat healing ability that's can be about as fast as doing damage, is a common and vitally important ability to use. I was playing a computer game supposedly about fighting the Afrika Korps in World War II, and was facing a Panzer III tank with several Allied tanks, and thought surely we should win, but the Panzer III was apparently invulnerable - why? Yep, the damage system involved a bunch of hit points being slowly removed by each hit, and the enemy tank was parked next to a "supply depot" or something that was repairing it as fast as my three or more tanks were able to damage it. Oh great, the curse of D&D damage & healing strikes again...)

Last edited by Skarg; 06-20-2018 at 01:19 PM.
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Old 06-20-2018, 01:37 PM   #244
JLV
 
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
Default Re: HEAL spell?

And...we've come full circle. Some people like healing spells, some don't.

I say include the spell and let the GM decide if he wants to allow it in his game. Then we're all happy.
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Old 06-20-2018, 01:53 PM   #245
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: HEAL spell?

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
But imagine both sides have a Zaxzax or three, and lesser warriors. Both sides will want to use in-combat healing on their Zaxzaxes as much as they can, because it multiplies the durability of their super-star combatants.
Target priority in a multi-character combat is highest ratio of offense to defense. Usually that means killing mages first. Healing spells do not affect that calculus.

Apex fighters only make sense if you can make sure that they are actually able to protect the squishies, usually by not having the squishies on the battlefield at all.
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Old 06-20-2018, 04:51 PM   #246
Rick_Smith
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Coquitlam B.C.
Default The tactics of fast and surreal healing.

>> Discussion of combat healing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
... And that's what I don't like - yet another game where one of the main things determining success in combat, is efficient achieving and preventing of surreal healing.

To me, that's a curse of D&D-like gameplay that has infected way too many games (there are even many computer lite wargames where one of the main needed tactics is constantly healing things so they never die even during combat). For me, TFT was always a refreshing counterpoint that didn't do that, and instead provided a game that was about fighting tactics and making choices and using tactics to mitigate the risk of getting injured, and to actually have to deal with the consequences when you do get injured...
Hi everyone, Skarg.
I agree. A World of Warcraft raid, where a dozen people are attacking some boss, and half the party is constantly screaming "HEAL ME! HEAL ME!". Meh.

It is harder to fix things than to break them. If healing spells all had a 6 turn casting times it would make me happier.

Warm regards, Rick.
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Old 06-20-2018, 05:13 PM   #247
Chris Rice
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
Default Re: HEAL spell?

I tend to agree with Rick. As someone who preferred to play Wizards, I don't want my spellcaster to be turned into a medic. A wizard has a limited store of ST to use anyway and I'd rather he was using it for cool stuff like illusions, summoning, invisibility etc. If the Heal spell is available there'll be tremendous pressure on the Wizard to use it a lot thus reducing their ability to do the cool stuff. That's why D&D had Clerics, but they were handy fighters and had other abilities too.

It's easy to say "just include it and then the GM can decide to use it" but once it's there, it's there and I think it will be widely used, which I think will be to the detriment of the Wizard character.

So either I'd like it as a clearly identified "optional rule", or have some other restriction on it. In any case, if the characters are going into a particularly deadly dungeon let them buy a load of healing potions before they go in.
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Old 06-20-2018, 06:21 PM   #248
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: HEAL spell?

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Originally Posted by Chris Rice View Post
If the Heal spell is available there'll be tremendous pressure on the Wizard to use it a lot.
Not at its cost. There will be lots of pressure to use it after combat, but there's almost always better things you can do in combat.
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Old 06-20-2018, 07:31 PM   #249
David Bofinger
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Sydney, Australia
Default Re: HEAL spell?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
Zaxzax the Deadly
combat outcomes can become largely about who has more healing magic.
Are you sure? Because I look at Zaxzax and I think the battle is being won by the person with more combat magic items. Which is a perfectly reasonable complaint, but not primarily one about healing magic.
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Old 06-20-2018, 07:44 PM   #250
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: HEAL spell?

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Originally Posted by David Bofinger View Post
Target priority in a multi-character combat is highest ratio of offense to defense. Usually that means killing mages first. Healing spells do not affect that calculus.

Apex fighters only make sense if you can make sure that they are actually able to protect the squishies, usually by not having the squishies on the battlefield at all.
Maybe maybe not, but not the point I was hoping to communicate.


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Originally Posted by David Bofinger View Post
Are you sure? Because I look at Zaxzax and I think the battle is being won by the person with more combat magic items. Which is a perfectly reasonable complaint, but not primarily one about healing magic.
Well that too, but Zaxzax is just an example to illustrate the issue I have with the one issue of healing during combat.

Even if you merely have someone who has a strong attack and who is hard to kill (even less powerful than the actual PC we had that I mentioned, or even another strong wizard), if you can heal the best people during combat, that becomes a very powerful thing to do (which I'm just saying I don't like because it's been done in so many games and adds strong tactics about arranging magic healing rather than fighting, which isn't something I want battle tactics to be about).

And it also tilts tactics towards making sure opponents are _dead_, since you can't just heavily injure some powerful foe, since a healer could find them and then you'd have to fight them again. I don't much care for that, either.
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