HEAL spell?

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Random Goblin

I'm confused--when did HT get separated from ST? I thought damage was done straight to your ST, and a Wizard's use of ST to power spells was basically the same. What am I missing?

Three issues enter in here:

One, "HT" doesn't exist in TFT, only "ST." HT was a GURPS invention, and doesn't actually apply to TFT.

Two, the AW "fatigue" versus "damage" rules open a huge bag of worms that never was clearly resolved in the original TFT, which led to a lot of back and forth among players and a lot of house-ruling on the topic.

(Digression: We solved it by using little square boxes underneath the ST section of the character sheet. You got one box per point of ST. Basically, if you took a "fatigue" hit, you marked off the box with a slash (/). Once you had all the boxes with slashes in them, you were exhausted and passed out, but could begin recovering the fatigue hits at the rate of one every 15 minutes (later we houseruled that to an hour per point). If you took an actual wound, you marked the box with an "X". (If you already had a slash in the box, you just added the backslash (\) to make the "X".) Those were real wounds, and took the normal time to heal. As your wounds grew, your "fatigue" points correspondingly shrank -- so if your ST was 12, you had 12 boxes, and if you had four actual wounds (boxes marked with "X"), then your maximum available "fatigue" ST was 8; which was all you could use to cast spells or expend for other "fatigue-related" issues. This turned out to be a really nice visual way for people to instantly grasp their limitations...)

(2nd Digression: Later on, we added a rule that effectively doubled the power of Wizards -- they DIDN'T fall unconscious when fatigue reached zero, but instead could continue casting. The problem was that each point of extra "fatigue" they spent added the backslash to one of their fatigue wound boxes (it could only be applied to a fatigue wound box, not a regular wound box), and converted the fatigue damage into real wounds. This meant that in a crisis, the Wizard could keep casting, but this time he was literally killing himself to do so. It seemed like a nice compromise between the original Wizard rules and the exhaustion/fatigue rule in Advanced Wizard, plus, low-point Wizard characters didn't run out of juice and become useless quite as fast.)

Third and finally, a lot of people on here mix apples and oranges and talk about things in their house rules which other people on here are not familiar with -- which tends to create precisely the confusion you are suffering from.

Bottom line; if you can't find it in your copies of AM/AW/ITL, then it's probably a house rule that someone is somehow assuming everyone is familiar with...

[KevinJ]

I found a minor healing anf healing spells on some randon TFT fansite and the drawback to their use was that the spells each took ten (10) MINUTES to cast. Good luck doing that in combat.

[luguvalium]

I think a heal spell is a good idea because magical healing is frequently an important part of any fantasy story. I'm in favor of the 4:1 ratio for fatigue to healing. Consider the limitation of requiring the wizard to touch the target. Maybe a Lesser Heal requiring touch and can only heal one point, while a Greater Heal has variable amounts of healing.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by luguvalium

I think a heal spell is a good idea because magical healing is frequently an important part of any fantasy story. I'm in favor of the 4:1 ratio for fatigue to healing. Consider the limitation of requiring the wizard to touch the target. Maybe a Lesser Heal requiring touch and can only heal one point, while a Greater Heal has variable amounts of healing.

I agree with this entirely. Perhaps a Greater Healing Spell costs 8 fatigue to cast, and grants 1-3 hits being healed. (The 8 points pays for the average of 2 hits healed, and if you only heal 1 or if you manage to heal 3, well, sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you!)

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by KevinJ

I found a minor healing anf healing spells on some randon TFT fansite and the drawback to their use was that the spells each took ten (10) MINUTES to cast. Good luck doing that in combat.

I'd prefer any lasting healing spell not be practical to cast during combat. I'd probably make it (Special) rather than (Thrown), require touch and have a fairly long casting time, too.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I'd prefer any lasting healing spell not be practical to cast during combat.

Really, any healing spell with a ratio worse than 1:1 is not practical to cast during combat, so it's mostly moot.

[Melichor]

What if the Healing spell is a bit of a crap shoot for the wizard casting it?

The wizard casts the Healing spell and touches the target.
The wizard then makes a 2 die roll to see how much ST is spent and the spell heals the target 1/4 of the ST spent rounded down (min 1).
ST spent casting the Healing spell counts as damage to the caster.

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Melichor

What if the Healing spell is a bit of a crap shoot for the wizard casting it?

The wizard casts the Healing spell and touches the target.
The wizard then makes a 2 die roll to see how much ST is spent and the spell heals the target 1/4 of the ST spent rounded down (min 1).
ST spent casting the Healing spell counts as damage to the caster.

Hi Melichor, everyone.
I like the Death Spell style spells (which do damage rather than costing fatigue ST), since they give more variety and allow powerful spells to have lower IQ levels.

So let's consider a healing spell:

IQ 9
D ... Death Healing.
The wizard takes 1 point of damage, but can heal 4 points of damage on the subject. This spell can not heal the casting wizard.
This damage is done directly to the wizard, by passing all armor, mundane and magical. This damage is distributed widely thru the wizard's organs and can not be healed by physickers. It MAY be healed with healing potions. Death type spells use thrown spell range adjustments.
COST: 1 ST damage.

He, he. This is a healing spell with some bite. It is powerful enough to be used in combat, but gives damage to the wizard. Worse, damage also costs the wizard a fatigue, so it is a long term loss of magical power. (You might want to increase it's healing power to 5 hits, btw. Four might not be worthwhile given the very high casting cost.)


***

Getting back to your spell Melichor, I really like that it costs the wizard damage. But I'm less keen on it healing a random amount of hits. Also it does far too much damage to the wizard. Death Spell style magics are killer, they have to be powerful enough to make people want to take them.

If I wanted to give the spell, random healing, I would suggest...


IQ 9
D ... Melichors Healing.
Named after the altruistic wizard who created this spell.
The wizard takes 1 point of damage, but can heal 1d+1 points of damage on the subject. For double the cost, 2d+3 damage is healed. This spell can not heal the casting wizard.
This damage is done directly to the wizard, by passing all armor, mundane and magical. This damage is distributed widely thru the wizard's organs and can not be healed by physickers. It MAY be healed with healing potions. Death type spells use thrown spell range adjustments.
COST: 1 ST damage or 2 ST damage.

I think that despite it being a Death Spell type magic, 'Melichors Healing' would tempt people.

(Note that all Death Spell style spells use the same text as is in italics, so if these spells becomes a thing, the spell write ups can be simplified.)

Warm regards, Rick.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Really, any healing spell with a ratio worse than 1:1 is not practical to cast during combat, so it's mostly moot.

Not if you have a great hero or wizard equipped with magic items (and Aid spells and whatever) who is almost impossible for the enemy to hurt. In that case, you might very well want a healing wizard, assisted by people casting Aid on the healing wizard, to heal the hero during combat. It multiplies their survivability and effectiveness, and requires the enemy to do even more to take that person out, and do it before anyone can cast healing on them.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Melichor

What if the Healing spell is a bit of a crap shoot for the wizard casting it?

The wizard casts the Healing spell and touches the target.
The wizard then makes a 2 die roll to see how much ST is spent and the spell heals the target 1/4 of the ST spent rounded down (min 1).
ST spent casting the Healing spell counts as damage to the caster.

Yes, any version that has the caster take damage to heal someone (as long as that damage can't be treated by a physicker) would solve the mega-healing issue and reduce the spell to the "category B" that I don't think is a problem. That's because it eliminates the use of the fatigue recovery rate, and assistants with the Aid or Drain Strength spells, to provide massive healing rates.

I like the unpredictable mechanic too, but it's really the damage aspect that would have it stop the super-fast healing.