Cleric Healing and Healing Potions curiosity

[Mister Negative]

I'm really curious about the rationale behind limiting Healing spells (once per spell per caster per subject without penalty), particularly given the lack of restrictions on Healing potions.

I get that this acts to promote resource management, and discourage a particular mindset in fights (offense over defense, just heal up later), but it still seems really odd to me.

It reduces the role of the Cleric in healing, while greatly expanding the importance of potions in the same role. It seems to strip out some of the niche protection of the Cleric, in a way that people would obviously object to if say, charged wand use was prioritized over Wizards.

It still allows massive damage/healing cycles, just through the use of potions rather than a Cleric. After a huge fight (or during), people just bust out the potions, rather than waiting patiently for the Cleric.

It just seems like a restriction that doesn't particularly do anything to meet the flavor of old-school dungeon crawling. Wizards were ALSO limited in spells per day, and that's not a feature of DFRPG. Healing potions were present in old-school dungeon delves, but not emphasized to the point they are in DFRPG.

Has anyone tinkered with it? I'm thinking about 'reintroducing' ritual magic to DFPRG, where the Healing Spells are limited to one 'normal' casting per spell per caster per subject, but allowed to be cast an unlimited number of times as a ritual spell (10x normal casting time). So healing is readily available after a fight, provided you have the time and FP (and time to recover FP).

Either that, or maybe go back to specific injury tracking and only allow each injury to receive ONE healing spell (and a Stop Bleeding first) and specifying that Great Heal is a whole body, all injuries thing. So if you get a nasty cut on your arm, you can get a Minor Healing, OR a Major Healing, but not one of each, or two of one. I don't like the extra book-keeping that involves, even though I think it captures the situation best.

IDK, I just think the current restrictions are a bit onerous for no real benefit. You know you can't rely on the Cleric for much healing per delve, but you can buy craploads of potions, so you just move 'per fight healing' from the Cleric to the potion supply.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Mister Negative

After a huge fight (or during), people just bust out the potions, rather than waiting patiently for the Cleric.

I've never once seen this in play... so... I suspect your mileage is greatly varying to mine.

Either that, or maybe go back to specific injury tracking and only allow each injury to receive ONE healing spell (and a Stop Bleeding first) and specifying that Great Heal is a whole body, all injuries thing. So if you get a nasty cut on your arm, you can get a Minor Healing, OR a Major Healing, but not one of each, or two of one. I don't like the extra book-keeping that involves, even though I think it captures the situation best.

How very shades of Shadowrun. Not a terrible idea (I did this for a non-DF fantasy game I ran and it worked fine), but as you say, it adds to the book keeping (minimal in my opinion - but then I already record all injury the Characters sustain when I run, so again YMMV).

You know you can't rely on the Cleric for much healing per delve, but you can buy craploads of potions, so you just move 'per fight healing' from the Cleric to the potion supply.

Again, I have no idea where this is coming from. Are you actually seeing this in play?

Is your group really so lavish with the potions that they can't wait a few minutes for the Cleric to get around to slapping a heal on them? Or is your group pushing forward so hard that time (both post battle resting and taking a night to 'cool-down' the timers on heal) is itself more precious than the money spent on potions?

[ArchonShiva]

Clerics using a $40 scroll heal more on average than a $120 potion; they aren't really getting their thunder stolen.

However, the penalties are mostly to prevent people from recovering ridiculously fast in more down-to-earth fantasy, as well as prevent repeated 1-point heals at zero FP cost due to skill.

Here's an alternative that will change how the game feels but won't break it: Repeated healing spells don't have a -3 penalty, but both caster and subject pay the FP cost, which cannot be reduced by high skill.

You could even let the caster choose which of the two rules they will use for each casting.

As an aside, you can recover unlimited HP for free with Stop Bleeding, Esoteric Medicine-15 and a very weak cutting or impaling weapon. Expect your GM to be upset, though.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by ArchonShiva

As an aside, you can recover unlimited HP for free with Stop Bleeding, Esoteric Medicine-15 and a very weak cutting or impaling weapon. Expect your GM to be upset, though.

I suspect you're misinterpreting some rules... but in the interest of having missed something, what's this secret?

[ArchonShiva]

Have an imp weapon that can reliably cause 0 damage. Inflict a wound on a DR0 body part, it will inflict 1 HP of damage.

Cast Stop Bleeding, which gives back 1d6-3 (min 1) for 1 FP (costs zero with skill 15).

Repeat.

One third of the time, you will heal more than you inflicted. Esoteric Medicine prevents any critical failures from crippling the subject or summoning a demon. You can heal everyone to full HP in a matter of minutes.

Do not attempt this in an actual game, or I fully endorse the four Watchers at the Edge of Time suddenly teleporting in behind you.

[DocRailgun]

Of course, a reasonable GM will rule "100% of the time you will heal 1 hp (the one you just caused)" and "why would you even try that?"

Originally Posted by ArchonShiva

Have an imp weapon that can reliably cause 0 damage. Inflict a wound on a DR0 body part, it will inflict 1 HP of damage.

Cast Stop Bleeding, which gives back 1d6-3 (min 1) for 1 FP (costs zero with skill 15).

Repeat.

One third of the time, you will heal more than you inflicted. Esoteric Medicine prevents any critical failures from crippling the subject or summoning a demon. You can heal everyone to full HP in a matter of minutes.
.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by ArchonShiva

However, the penalties are mostly to prevent people from recovering ridiculously fast in more down-to-earth fantasy, as well as prevent repeated 1-point heals at zero FP cost due to skill.

This.
Without the penalty Clerics would often use Minor Healing with high skill to cast 0 FP healing over and over.
That -3 skill penalty is not too severe, especially since you want high skill for lower FP costs and you can cast Minor Healing, Major Healing, or even Great Healing and different casters dont take a penalty for other casters.
So one decent Cleric is good for TWO heals per day per person, another two at -3 each (Likely still at above skill 12) for 4 heals per person per day and clerics who invested more in Healing can do better.

I havent really seen people preferring to rely on potions and instead save them for emergencies, such as when the cleric is low on FP and they dont want to risk waiting.

[Kalzazz]

For a game like DFRPG that restricts healing in a draconian fashion I'd really loosen the restrictions on using healing and/Or the restrictions on getting it

The healing rules with the per caster casting penalties and penalties to self healing really seem better balanced under the assumption any random spellcaster will pick up healing spells as are only a couple notches down the pre reg tree from Recover Energy which all casters will have

I'd also allow spending PI energy, so PI Cleric can drop 6 into Major Healing to churn 12

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

I'd also allow spending PI energy, so PI Cleric can drop 6 into Major Healing to churn 12

Have a look in Spells p. 11 and read everything under the header "Talent and Effect".

[Mister Negative]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I've never once seen this in play... so... I suspect your mileage is greatly varying to mine.



Again, I have no idea where this is coming from. Are you actually seeing this in play?

Is your group really so lavish with the potions that they can't wait a few minutes for the Cleric to get around to slapping a heal on them? Or is your group pushing forward so hard that time (both post battle resting and taking a night to 'cool-down' the timers on heal) is itself more precious than the money spent on potions?

It's not that they are pressed for time. It's more that the casting penalties for repeated spells make the PCs nervous about getting injured again. So we either go to the '1-encounter adventuring day', which was bad enough to avoid in Pathfinder and 4e, or we stock up on potions. No one wants to retreat out of the dungeon because someone got badly mauled on one unlucky hit, but no one wants to be the guy who gets a second unlucky hit, when there's nothing you can do about it.

I haven't played enough DF or DFRPG to see whether it's a big problem or not, but reading some of the blogs, it seems like a lot of potion use is really common, not retreating and resting overnight to "reset the Cleric". Potions seem like a mechanically viable solution, but I'm curious as to what that design decision added to the game.

In old-school D&D, the wizard AND the cleric both had spells limited per day. Here, all spells are limited by FP (and ER) and time, except healing spells, which are limited further. I know that it's a legacy from straight GURPS Magic, but I'm curious as to why it was preserved.

It seems odd both mechanically, and thematically.

"Hey, man. Little help?"

"Sorry. I mended your wounds from the crossbow trap. That's all I can do for you today."

"But I just got gored fighting a demon FOR YOUR CHURCH."

"And I appreciate it, but one big boo-boo a day is all the Lord will mend."

"But if I get bitten by a snake, you can cure that any number of times."

"Yeah. Snakes suck."