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Old 09-10-2020, 08:47 PM   #21
InexplicableVic
 
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
My experience with hard fights in GURPS is that characters are either fine or down, and healing doesn't do much in either situation.
That may be more of a function of whether your groups have had healers and how effectively they are played. In hundreds of fights in the Felltower campaign, healing spells, healing potions, gems of healing, faith healing, the Combat Medic power-up and other healing abilities/items have made huge differences in fights.
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Old 09-11-2020, 05:38 AM   #22
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
I agree. I see a few options:

Expand the clerical spell list. Often, the real complaint isn't "healing is boring" but "not devastating the countryside with magic is boring." Invent a bunch of gods. For each, add the spells of one college other than Healing and Protection and Warning. For instance, if the God of Fire gives all Fire spells, distributed fairly from PI1 to PI6, people are more likely to find clerics cool.
Great idea. A little more offensive firepower would serve clerics well.
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Old 09-11-2020, 07:58 AM   #23
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

I've seen healing in the middle of combat turn around battles hundreds of times in GURPS, so I can't see that not happening in the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game. The usual goal isn't to bring someone back into the fight after they go down, but one of the following:

To bring somebody above HP/3 so they regain Dodge and mobility. This is huge for mobility-based fighters with high active defenses and Move, but low DR and HP, because they rely on maneuvering and dodging to avoid getting hurt, and often only got hurt by a lucky shot in the first place. Restoring their mobility can often keep them in the fight, where a second lucky shot is unlikely . . . and such characters tend to be high-DX, high-skill types who make a huge contribution, so keeping them in the fight is a big deal. To a lesser extent, it's also important for tanks with massive damage-eating capacity, because they tend to be clanking around slowly in armor and need all the Move they can get.

To bring somebody above HP 0 so they aren't rolling against HT to avoid unconsciousness every turn. This is especially important for tanks, who despite generally having scads of HT, Fit/Very Fit, Hard to Subdue, etc. can't afford to risk an unlucky 17-18 every turn. Again, this is often a counter to a lucky shot: Normally, nothing gets through DR, but somebody rolled well and put the tank at risk. Reversing that means the tank gets to, well, tank for longer, which is a huge contribution. A second lucky shot that undoes the healing isn't likely.

To cheesily keep a caster in energy. Yes, it's cheap, but I've seen casters use tons of FP and HP because they knew they could rely on a healer with Lend Energy and various HP-restoring spells to give them back the energy. It can make a huge difference to the party's success in combat when some wizard with a powerful spell at an ungodly level can freely burn energy to use it, knowing the cleric will charge them up so they can do it again.
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Old 09-11-2020, 04:18 PM   #24
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

It also is great for fixing crippling mid fight

Temporary crippling lasts until the HP comes back, so heal and bring HP back!
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Old 09-11-2020, 08:51 PM   #25
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

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Originally Posted by Spartan506 View Post
That may be more of a function of whether your groups have had healers and how effectively they are played. In hundreds of fights in the Felltower campaign, healing spells, healing potions, gems of healing, faith healing, the Combat Medic power-up and other healing abilities/items have made huge differences in fights.
Yup, in my Nordlund game, the Cleric healing the 20-HP Barbarian or Knight for 16-24 HP at a time is Pretty Damn Useful (tm).
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Old 09-11-2020, 08:54 PM   #26
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

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The basic problem is that being a healer is good for -- helping other people have fun. Now, that's not a bad thing, but it really shouldn't be a significant tradeoff against your own ability to have fun.
If that's the case, or healing is considered a team resource, and not the Cleric doing something awesome to contribute to winning, how about giving the Cleric Comparmentalized Mind (only for healing spells). Then they get to do something fun on their turn in addition to healing someone if they need it.
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Old 09-23-2022, 08:41 AM   #27
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

A lot of what the cleric does is for other people. You can tell because in a party of e.g. six clerics, there's not a ton of synergy: they don't need six people to cast Bless or Sanctuary. One is normally good and two is plenty.

However, the cleric has a few fun things to do for themself. Ways to be awesome as a cleric in DFRPG combat (as opposed to just making someone else awesome):

1.) Curse enemies. Curse isn't even resistable and it can cancel out crits!

2.) Buff yourself with Flaming Weapon and Shield or Might and wade into melee. (If other people panic at having the healer in combat, make them spend $500 on healing potions.)

3.) Get the druid to teach you 1 point worth of Net skill and then throw nets from outside melee. Return on investment on skill is high--each successful hit by you cancels one to three enemy turns. Caltrops also work against lightly armored foes and don't even require any skill at all.

4.) Use Gift of Tongues and Command to encourage enemies to flee or commit suicide.

5.) Spend 20 points or so on Innate Attack, raising it from 14 to 19 so that you can feasibly use Sunbolt to burn the legs/heads off monsters instead of just hitting them in the torso for 2d6ish. Sure, maybe the rest of the party would rather have you spend 1 point on Crossbow and bank those other 19 points toward Faith Healing or more ER instead, but isn't having a happy headshotting cleric better than having no cleric at all?

6.) Get a big shield and shield-rush minor enemies to knock them prone.

Last edited by sjmdw45; 09-23-2022 at 09:11 AM.
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Old 09-23-2022, 10:45 AM   #28
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

You can also incentivize from the gritty side.
Make all wounds NOT healed by clerics require a HT roll at a penalty equal to the damage to avoid leaving a disfiguring scar.
Give healing potions side effects (Overconfidence? Addiction?) so that there is a narrative cost as well as a cash cost.
Make some challenges that are walks in the park for clerics and have good rewards… that other groups of adventurers get, and brag about.
Have churches take a dim view on groups that operate without ‘holy sanction’ and charge them (much) more for spells and potions, or limit the supply.or have them send agents to monitor their unclean ways to keep the parishioners safe from their influence.
Have an NPC cleric gain a bunch of fame/status/wealth for doing cool things, and let the PCs hear about it.
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Old 09-23-2022, 03:38 PM   #29
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

I'm running a game without a cleric in it I just decided to shift focus and allow healing magic with various flavors for other classes. With a note that if we had a cleric those powers would fade and they would need to justify it and we would tweak the characters as needed.

though its a homebrewish world where Clerics are spirit workers who gain and spend favors with the spirits instead of truly worship a god. I guess my players didn't think it was as cool as I did :)
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Old 09-23-2022, 05:12 PM   #30
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Default Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric

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Alternately, just say Clerical Investiture (God of Healing) 1 allows a broader range of healing spells than PI1 does for general clerics, let anybody take it with 5 healing spells (at IQ-1) for [15] and voila, any class with a decent IQ (Bard, Druid, Thief or Wizard) can be a useful healing cleric on a budget ...
Actually, I'd like to see some alternatives to clerical healing spells for some other archetypes. Note: I believe Holy Warriors (paladins) already have access to all the clerical healing spells and abilities.

I want to see some different things. Like Bard song of healing (SoH) thats more complementary buff capability.

Song of Healing: The bard needs to play sing for at least a minute. While performing song of Healing all healing skills are at +3,. All healing receives an additional +1. I'm not sure if a Bard could sing long enough to impact healing during sleep.

So a potion drank while SoH gets an extra point. If the cleric heals someone there's a +1. First-Aid, Esoteric Medicine, etc +3 to skill and +1 to any healing.

For Druids, aside from already being able to brew herbal potions, create healing balms and such, maybe allow healing slumber spell (Druidic PI2).
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