HEAL spell?

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Anthony

...
Regeneration (T): accelerates the subject's healing. Lasts 1 hour per 3 ST the wizard uses to cast it. Heals the subject by 1 ST per hour. Cannot be stacked.
...

Hi Anthony,
I like this spell a lot, but your spell description leaves a few things out... What IQ is this spell? What is it's cost? How long does this last? (24 hours I suggest.) Also, 'Stacked' is not official TFT terminology. I would likely replace the last sentence with, "If this spell is cast on someone who already has Regeneration cast on them, the newer spell replaces the older version."

Warm regards, Rick.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Anthony,
I like this spell a lot, but your spell description leaves a few things out... What IQ is this spell? What is it's cost? How long does this last? (24 hours I suggest.) Also, 'Stacked' is not official TFT terminology. I would likely replace the last sentence with, "If this spell is cast on someone who already has Regeneration cast on them, the newer spell replaces the older version."

Warm regards, Rick.

He left out the IQ but he did specify cost and duration: 3 ST / hour of duration.

I'm guessing he's intending for the same IQ as Steve's spell but only he can clarify that :)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Anthony,
I like this spell a lot, but your spell description leaves a few things out... What IQ is this spell?

I wasn't really intending this as a complete writeup, just as food for thought.

[Jackal]

Magic Fist (M)
Cast: 1x ST
IQ: 8
A telekinetic blow. Does (1d6 - 2) damage or healing, at caster's discretion, for every ST used to cast it; can also trigger traps or carry out other unsubtle physical manipulations within line of sight that the caster could normally do with just his fist.

(Apologies if this was suggested already -- I've been away and this is a loooong thread!)

[Oneiros]

Originally Posted by David L Pulver

To keep players alive, a "die at negative ST" rule is probably the best solution. If we haven't replaced "die at 0 ST" (if SJ has done so, I missed it), we should!

I wonder, though, does that inflate the importance of ST?

Since it's been a while since TFT was out, there's other mechanics from other games that could be adopted. I'm thinking of using a variant of the D&D 5E "death save" mechanic:

Death Saves:

When your character is reduced to 0 ST, you are in danger of bleeding out. Make a 3d6 roll. A roll of 10 or less is a success. On each round, roll again. If you make 3 successes before you have 3 failures, you stabilize and do not need to make any more rolls. 3 failed rolls means the character dies.

A roll of 3 indicates the character stabilizes immediately.
A roll of 4 or 5 counts as two successes.
A roll of 16 or 17 counts as two failures
A roll of 18 indicates the character dies, regardless of current failures.

A Physicker using his action in combat on a bleeding out character does... what, I'm not exactly sure. Allow the downed character to reroll a failed roll? Raise the check to 12? Something, definitely. They couldn't heal the 2 points as described in the talent; that takes longer and is an out of combat action.

And a First Aid talent.. really liking that idea. Maybe that talent would let a bleeding out character re-roll 1 (and only 1) failed check, or raise the check to 11. First Aid might also be something attempted untrained.

If the Heal spell Steve suggested comes into play, it would work as is. If only 3 points are spent, the target would still be unconscious at 1 ST, but stable.

Also, new talent: Hard To Kill - a success on a Death Save for you is a 12 or less.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Oneiros

I wonder, though, does that inflate the importance of ST?

Not really. Durability is still linear in ST.

[JLV]

Actually, you know, this "dying at negative ST" thing might be a lot more important under the new attribute caps.

[Skarg]

Death at ST 0 is very severe, especially if you're just being beaten up in a fist fight.

Death at full negative ST would be quite excessively soft, it seems to me. It's that way in GURPS, but GURPS also has common damage multipliers which range from 50% to 400%, mortal wounds, people who sometimes keep their feet and keep fighting even when below 0 ST, optional bleeding rules, infection, etc, that TFT does not have. With death only at full negative ST in TFT, many foes would be "no risk of death unless they chop you after you fall unconscious", and many more would be little risk of that, because it basically means you'd need to hit someone who was near death with more than their ST in damage in one shot. So it'd go from "most people who fall are dead" to "almost no one who falls is dead unless they get hit when down".

Seems to me there should be a much smaller cushion than full negative, and maybe a die roll involved. Maybe negative 1/2 ST, or roll 3 dice versus ST minus how negative you are, to still be alive, and maybe a further roll(s) to see whether you'll recover or not, modified by what help you get when.

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Death at ST 0 is very severe, especially if you're just being beaten up in a fist fight. Death at full negative ST would be quite excessively soft, it seems to me.

100% agreed. Delivering death while avoiding death is the key tension in TFT. The further you move that line away from death at ST 0, the further you reduce the inherent game tension level. This is same problem with an overly efficient healing spell.

All these things are an attempt to extend game-time, but do so by proportionally reducing game-tension.

JK

[Kirk]

We have played it both ways, sometimes as GM in a situation where the game is special, such as players flying in for one holiday game, etc. and it's just too harsh to kill a player giving him no hope for the next 48 hours to be involved in play.

I was a firm rules adherent for most of my childhood games, the biggest offender I saw were kids in the neighborhood that played Monopoly with taxes and so forth going in to free parking for others to collect. This ruined the bankruptcy approach inherent in Monopoly and made games last through many long Texas summer days.