Re: HEAL spell?
 

Better than the original suggestion.

However (apart from just not wanting a healing spell) the main issue I had with the original suggestion from Steve still exists with this one: there's no cap on the healing. Any amount of injury can be healed with enough ST being put into the spell. This encourages the use of apprentices (even troupes of slave hobgoblin apprentices, or whoever you can get to know the Aid spell, and/or be a Drain Strength subject) to get as much quick healing as possible. Nobles and the wealthy, and some guild houses, military units, and PC parties, may likely want to try to always have a healing mage and a team of people with Aid, and/or have many people learn Aid even just to be able to help cast this spell. And tracking the fatigue recovery and casting of Aid spells to see how quickly a group of injured people (such as the PCs, all the time) would be a tedious pain and yet so important a thing to do that it would always make sense to track the rate at which any healing mage with an injured patient can rest up and keep casting this spell until there's no one injured to heal.

I.e. it's an issue to make really powerful strategies that are most effective when you do a lot of something that is unpleasant.

As I posted above, I think if you must have such a spell, aren't just looking to handwave most wounds away because you don't like lasting wounds, AND don't want to be having a thing where injuries are healed at the rate of fatigue recovery by the people in the group with Aid spells, then there ought to be a limit like with Physickers, especially the part where after a wound has been treated, it's now "treated damage" which cannot be healed further by physickers or magic spells.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Instead of waiting ten minutes for multiple castings of the Heal spell, just chug ten healing potions or buy a lesser wish for $74.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Ten doses of healing potion cost at least $1500 and require you to carry them around and not get them broken, and can be used once.

Compare to a healing spell which costs nothing but fatigue and time and has no limit to the amount it can heal.

$74 lesser wishes are indeed crazy.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Revised

IQ 11 Heal(S) Prerequisites: Physicker or Vet or equivalent talents (depending on the subject) The wizard pays 5 fatigue then spends one minute (12 turns) in casting while in physical contact (hands or staff) with the still living target. During and after a successful casting the target suffers no further damage from blood loss. At the end of the minute the wizard rolls and on a success the target recovers one hit of damage. Each subject can only benefit from the best result of a Heal or Greater Heal spell cast in the past 24 hours. This spell doesn't regrow missing parts. See the regeneration spell for that.

IQ 14 Greater Heal(S) Prerequisites: Master Physicker/Vet or equivalent talents. exactly like Heal except that the fatigue cost is 10 and the subject regains 1d instead of 1 hit. As with Heal only the single most effective spell result in the past 24 hours applies, no matter how many times the target is injured.

If you really really want to you can cast Greater Heal over and over until you roll a 3 for triple effect. Good luck with that.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Me just thinking out loud:

For all healing spells that attempt to remove damage immediately:

If a wizard is not a physicker, a roll of 15 or greater on a healing spell does 1 die of damage to the patient.

If a wizard is not a master physicker, a roll of 16 or greater on a healing spell does 1 die of damage to the patient.

A roll of 17 does 2 dice of damage to the patient.

A roll of 18 does 3 dice of damage to the patient.

The above are all cumulative, so a non-physicker would harm patients at a rate of:
15: 1d
16: 2d
17: 4d
18: 5d

A physicker-wizard:
16: 1d
17: 3d
18: 4d

A master physicker-wizard:
17: 2d
18: 3d

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Folks need to play the games they want to play, but personally I wouldn't consider opening up magical healing in this way. I understand the argument that effectively free magical healing is already there because you can 'buy' a lesser wish for almost nothing. That doesn't carry any weight for me because I view the whole magic-for-hire angle to be a loophole that doesn't come up in my campaign. I would never consider giving characters access to something like that for pocket change (or any money, really). Setting that aside, I've played TFT in 'lethal' mode for so many years I don't think I would recognize it as the same game if PC's could re boot between encounters.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Sorry for the thread necro but...

I am kind of bummed that this was not included in the game, from what I have been told. It's easier to ignore something than add it back in for those who don't know about this.

My players do not like the fact that there is no healing spell available at all.

Allen

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Agreed, but it should be easy to houserule in SJ's original proposed version. Or if you're open to a more out-of-the-box solution, check out my non-spell XP-based option over on this other thread. Feedback is appreciated.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...1&postcount=57

Re: HEAL spell?
 

A lot of people trashed this idea in the original thread content -- to the point where SJ decided to skip it. But I still think it should at least be an option; and I liked his original (and revised) version better than any of the alternatives I saw, but that's just me.

To my mind it's better to include things in the game than to not -- the GM can always rule that there isn't any healing spell in his/her world if that's the preference of the group, but if there isn't any healing spell included in the game, a lot of players won't even consider the possibility of inventing their own (especially new players), so they'll miss out on something they might potentially enjoy. More is definitely better, IMHO.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I would have liked the heal spell in the rules but since they are not I was thinking physicker could be used a little differently. I might let my players use it for each wound taken by a PC. For example; a player takes 12 hits (total) in a combat but was hit three times. First hit was for 5, second was for 1, third was for 6. ST is 11 so they are at a -1 and are out and need some medical attention fast. There are three wounds so a PC with physicker could heal the first wound 2 points, the second wound 1 point and the third wound 2 more for a total of 5 points bringing the PC up to 4 points. My objective is to get the PC back up and on his feet faster. Each wound taken is different and could have it's own medical attention. I don't know if I will do this or not, just doing a little brain storming. Combat is still deadly but recovery is faster so you don't get bogged down trying to work your way through a campaign. But maybe I'm reading the physicker talent wrong and you can heal each wound because it says, "However, if he later suffers a different mishap, he can be cured of 2 more of those new hits"?

Re: HEAL spell?
 

@CJM, this system works well for dungeon crawls. Each combat is just as deadly, but characters don't get worn down as fast.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

There are plenty of once a day spells in the game. Why shouldn't heal be once a day per figure?

Re: HEAL spell?
 

That method for Physicker is how we ALWAYS played (and liked it very much), because we thought about it and realized that was the only way it made sense to our satisfaction. It also seems to me it pretty much reads that that is how you do it in the new ITL.

We did not use a heal spell, and didn't feel a need for it. When I started using GURPS Magic and there were heal spells, I quickly learned that they made a mockery of combat consequences, and proceeded to add all sorts of house rule limitations and consequences for using those, because otherwise players tend to just have a bunch of people using and aiding people with those spells and hardly anyone ever ends up having lasting injuries, which removes and entire element of play that I learned to really appreciate in TFT.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I've always taken one mishap per wound.

Edge cases: Giant Spider bites and then you fail the saving throw: One mishap or two? Suck out the poison then put a bandage on?

I can see wrapping a sprained ankle, but what are you doing for those armor piercing occult strikes?

Can a Physicker do anything for non-damaging poisons?

Re: HEAL spell?
 

The language of the rules is clear, and indicates that you get one Physicker treatment per fight, not per wound. But, I also ignore this directive and allow one Physicker treatment per discrete injury.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Does anyone have any thoughts about my approach to 'healing magic' over on the Heroic Exploits/Powers thread? I'm anxious for feedback on my Channeling power-set.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

The language of the original ITL circa-1980 rules was that, but it didn't make enough sense for us not to immediately rule otherwise.

The language of the new ITL is not so clear, and to me reads as strongly supporting interpreting each wound as a heal-able "mishap". i.e. the skill descriptions refer to healing per "mishap" and "wound", and only refer to combats when mentioning the time limit.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I remember the ruckus that got stirred up when Steve Jackson suggested the idea of a healing spell. There was evidently enough noise that the idea got dropped from the game manual. I wouldn't be surprised if the changed wording regarding physickers and healing is not a direct result of that ruckus. Mr Jackson made it clear that he did not think a healing spell would be a problem as far as game balance. So, when faced with the amount of resistance to the idea of a directly magical healing ability, he changed the wording to aid players in house ruling an enhanced healing ability for physickers. It is after all, backdoor magical healing. Not instantaneous, but two or three hits in five minutes is better than 1 hit every two days. And for master physickers, if they can heal three points per wound, if they heal two wounds on a character, they can cure more damage than the healing spell that Mr Jackson proposed.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Looking at the reply's to my post and seeing that some of you have already housed ruled that way I think that is the way I'm going to do things. I think it's a good balance between too much healing at once and not enough (at least for my tastes). I didn't want to ruin the balance of the game as the players are having a great time with our TFT champagne. The strength (why I like it so much) of this game is it's so easy to make it your own. Thanks much for your input:-)

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Depends on the injuries.

Physickers heal small wounds well. Larger wounds, not so much.

One of the main problems with the Healing spell suggested was that it failed to take into account smart/determined players figuring out how to work the system. If you don't think about it, it looks like it just heals 3 points - hey, like a a physicker, right?

No, because it doesn't specify any limits, so people can and would get as many people with the Aid spell as possible resting as much as possible to heal as much as possible as quickly as possible. It would become standard practice for smart people with healing wizards to arrange a rest/Aid/spell-cast drill to heal up all wounds as quickly as possible.

That would be a very powerful tactic that people would be foolish not to use, and would be annoying to track, and would remove lasting injuries from the game for anyone able to use it.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Not to be a Doctor Grumpy, but what's with all these IRL surgeons bragging about their dexterity when TFT shows that they only need DX to brew potions?

Doctor Strange's hands are too jittery to drive straight? That's fine, go ahead and operate.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

That still has unlimited uses per day.

How about:

IQ 13 Minor Regeneration(T) Has the same effect and limitations as the Sleep spell, but the subject stops bleeding and if allowed to sleep for a full hour they will heal one hit of damage not caused by fire, silver or acid. Each previous casting of this spell on the same subject within the past 24 hours adds one die to the casting roll. If the caster knows Physicker or Vet (depending on the subject) they ignore one of these penalty dice. If they know Master Physicker then they ignore another of the penalty dice for a humanoid target. Cost: 5 ST.

Critical failures of this spell have been hushed up, but it is rumored that it summons some sort of magical healing bacteria.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I like this one. I would specify that the limit/penalty is per patient (else someone might apply it per caster).

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Fixed up, thanks.

Point is to introduce this as a banned spell. If the PCs persist then they get to deal with the sleepwalking "zombies" with a taste for human flesh who regenerate one hit per hour.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

As discussed at great length months ago, problems with only having that sort of limit include that:

1) Fatigue recovers quite quickly with rest.
2) Fatigue can be replaced immediately with Aid and/or Drain ST.
3) The above lead to an extremely strong incentive to engage in tedious but powerful tactics where you want as many people to learn Aid as possible, and to be resting as much as possible per day.
4) The result is that lasting injuries become very very rare, and the incentive to stop and do magic healing and resting/Aid drills till max healing has been accomplished, is very high.
5) It creates a great desire and competitive necessity for having a healing wizard, and for wizards to spend a lot of their time and energy doing healing.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I would note that this is generally considered a desirable result by people who want healing type spells in the first place.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

And with this last exchange, I believe my interest in this forum has expired.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Where did your previous post go? Did you delete it?

Re: HEAL spell?
 

For those who want a healing spell in their campaign, here are three to choose from. Use them as is or modify them as you see fit. If you find them unacceptable, so be it.

Lesser Heal (T) Cost is 4 ST to cast. Cures one hit of damage on himself or another. If a character has the Physicker/Veterinarian talent the cost becomes 3 ST. Master Physicker/Master Veterinarian reduces it to 2 ST. This reflects the caster's medical knowledge. This spell can be thrown in an emergency situation, but it is efficacious to touch the subject in the area of the wounds, the touch eliminating any DX penalty and providing a one point bonus of healing. Physicker, Master Physicker, Veterinarian and Master Veterinarian get a one point bonus to healing. Add a one point bonus per casting of this spell for Priest or Theologian. Can be combined with healing potions or scrolls and with Physicker/Master Physicker or other mundane healing efforts, but does not combine with any other Heal spell. It can only be used on injuries inflicted in the last hour and can only be used once on a specific injury.

Heal (T) For each 4 points of ST that the wizard puts into this spell, he/she can cure one hit of damage on himself or another. If a character has the Physicker/Veterinarian talent the ratio becomes 3 points per ST restored Master Physicker/Master Veterinarian reduces it to 2 points per ST restored. This reflects the caster's medical knowledge. This spell can be thrown in an emergency situation, but it is efficacious to touch the subject in the area of the wounds, the touch eliminating any DX penalty and providing a one point bonus of healing. Add a one point bonus per casting of this spell for Priest and two points for Theologian.
Can be combined with healing potions or scrolls and with Physicker/Master Physicker or other mundane healing efforts, but does not combine with any other Heal spell. It can only be used on injuries inflicted in the last hour and can only be used once on a specific injury. Heal will cure HT already lost to disease and poison, but it will not cure the disease nor make a poison go away.

Greater Heal (T) For each 4 points of ST that the wizard puts into this spell, he/she can cure one hit of damage on himself or another. Plus this spell cures an additional two points of damage over and above the amount provided by the increments of ST. Heal will cure HT already lost to disease and poison, but it will not cure the disease nor make a poison go away. If a character has the Physicker/Veterinarian talent the ratio becomes 3 points per ST restored Master Physicker/Master Veterinarian reduces it to 2 points per ST restored. This reflects the caster's medical knowledge. This spell can be thrown in an emergency situation, but it is efficacious to touch the subject in the area of the wounds, the touch eliminating any DX penalty and providing a 2 point bonus of healing. Add a 1 point bonus per casting of this spell for Priest and 2 points for Theologian. Can be combined with healing potions or scrolls and with Physicker/Master Physicker or other mundane healing efforts, but does not combine with any other Heal spell. It can only be used on injuries inflicted in the last hour and can only be used once on a specific injury.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

These seem pretty balanced. What IQ levels do you envision these spells being?

Re: HEAL spell?
 

IQ 11, IQ 14, IQ 17 respectively

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I still like Steve's revision of his original proposal, though I think Warhorse11 did a pretty darn good job on these three spells too.

I think it's a crying shame that a healing spell wasn't included in the game, and argue (as I did extensively months ago) that people who don't like it don't have to use it, but it should be available for those who do want one.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I think it was a wise decision not to include a healing spell. I never felt the want of a healing spell in the original version; there was a healing potion already in the rules and if the GM felt the need he could have other magical creatures or items that provided extra healing in a scenario appropriate way.

My concern with adding a healing spell would be:

A) pressure on the Wizard to take the spell
B) pressure on the Wizard to use the spell a lot rather than doing more interesting things with his limited casting power.

Those of you who really feel the need for such a thing can just houserule it yourselves.

However, I suppose it depends on whether you are of the opinion that it's easier to take rules out rather than to add them. And that's a very individual thing.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Yes, a healing spell in the book would materially change the setting expectations and lose the example of a game that works well without having a healing spell.

If one were included, it should be more well thought out and some discussion given to that the spell wasn't in the original game and will affect gameplay so GMs should choose whether such a spell is known or not, mindful of the consequences.

All that said, it's not even a house rule per se to have a healing spell in a TFT campaign - there are guidelines and rules for even PCs to invent new spells during play, and certainly GMs are free to add their own spells and/or change, remove, or embellish the spells that are known in their campaigns.

When adding or modifying spells, I suggest GMs do their best to consider all the implications and potential abuses and exploits by determined creative players, because when some magic is established as existing and working a certain way, and then some players figure out how to do very powerful things with it, it can be a big mess. I've tried to point out such issues in this thread.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

So take the healing away from the wizard:

Healing Moss is found somewhere in every dungeon, but is very difficult to find. Take 15 minutes searching and on a 6/IQ roll for a Physicker (5/IQ for Master Physicker, 4/IQ for Woodsman and 3/IQ for Expert Naturalist, no other talents or spells help) find a number of doses equal to your margin of success. Add a die for each previous search in the same area. Critical failures bring in lookalikes that make the patient think they've been healed. Roll the number of doses of fake healing moss in dice against ST or suffer the same effects as Hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Each dose takes five minutes to apply. Roll 4/DX for a Woodsman, 3/DX for a Physicker, or 2/DX for a Master Physicker and on a success heal one additional hit.

Must be used within an hour of harvesting and within an hour of the wound to have any effect, but Alchemists will buy dried doses for $10 each to replace other ingredients in a healing potion.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Hey Skarg, I'm curious what you thought of my solution over in the 'Powers' thread.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...1&postcount=57

I considered many of the concerns and suggestions raised in this very thread as I was designing it (quite a long, but helpful exercise reading all those posts back to Steve's original proposal).

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Honestly that's one thread I actually haven't read, because I've been really busy and it seemed to be about a powers variant that seemed like it would take some effort to digest and appreciate.

So I'm not sure how well I can comment since I've only really now read the first post and the one you just linked.

For instance, I don't know if it's in the context where the only way to learn talents is to spend 500XP per point.

And I don't know if there are other prereqs besides spending the listed XP?

Because if it is essentially 1 talent point worth of learning per power, but with a limit of 5, then 500XP seems quite cheap for a magic power. If Bob gets level 1, 2, and 3, is that 500 + 500 + 500 XP? Or 500 + 1000 + 1500 XP?

But maybe the expectation is they only go to certain special (?) people, and the balance is more about being able to learn them in the first place, and having to choose 5 from a big menu of tempting juicy power portfolios which I haven't studied? I don't see any sort of prerequisites other than the preceding powers in a portfolio? (This is the sort of thing that had me not read the thread yet, because I figured it would take a time/attention investment to appreciate, and seems like a super powers sort of game, which generally isn't my preferred style of setting.)

Leaving all those questions aside, the healing power has a great advantage over SJ and most other proposed spells, in that it does not create a scheduling game about resting up fatigue and casting the Aid spell as much as possible to keep using it. That's great.

And it is limited to a rate per user per day, which is also, I think, good.

It does range quite a bit in what that maximum is, starting at 2/user/day, up to 15/user/day for a master physicker with the level 5 power, who also gets 4 other super powers to use.

2/day is quite useful, but not a huge effect. 5/day I would call a strong effect. 15/day seems to me like a really big deal, since it lets you heal up even a hugely-wounded warrior who would normally take weeks of bed rest to heal, in one day, and/or path up most wounds a party might take from a typical encounter where someone got hurt, in one day. And it seems you could do it while marching, adventuring, etc.

So the level of healing hero is quite significant, and then the question becomes how rare are these people who have these powers, can PCs start with them, can PCs find NPC people with them fairly easily and convince/pay they to join their party, how hard is it to gain these powers, etc.

And then how many healers of what level will determine how quickly wounds vanish for the people who have them. And that's a matter of GM/player preference for availability of healing.

So, it seems like healing at somewhere from moderate to quite strong, to me, and in a version that is nicely easy to see what it is (unlike spells that attempt to limit by fatigue). So, good job (even if my own taste would be to have it be unknown or very rare, because I like people to usually have to actually rest for days to heal up major wounds).

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Yes, you and I have long disagreed about this topic. I feel it should be available (and will undoubtedly add one to my games) and you don't. Pretty straightforward; different strokes for different folks.

I'm pretty sure the purists will completely disagree with this approach too -- too easy to get plenty of healing that way too -- and adding a healing spell eliminates all those special rules that you just created...

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Honestly, if the point is to have less time spent being incapacitated, I'd just steal a page from newer editions of D&D and vastly increase natural healing rates.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I agree with this sentiment. It should have been included in the game, if nothing else, as an optional spell for those who wanted to incorporate it.

That was the reason I put the various versions of the spells here that I have developed or the course of time. To make them available to those who want them, at least as a starting point to work from. It was not intended to start an acrimonious debate that could go on forever. It also was not done to have the quality of my thought processes derided or insulted as they have been here. And I have been guilty of it to, with others.

Some of the more vigorous opponents of a healing spell have developed a simple solution to extra healing without a magical spell. Healing by wound done by a physicker or master physicker, not by combat. It is a simple solution to the question, modifying only one rule regarding two talents and in many cases will offer as much or more healing than the spells listed above. If I had gone down that road initially, I might be in the other camp now. But I didn't and I am reluctant to give up what I have developed without giving it a fair chance in play. It is a viable and effective option though.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

An opponent of healing spells posted this list of objections to healing spells a while back. I got my nose out of joint and didn't respond to them. I should have. So, now I will.

1) Fatigue recovers quite quickly with rest. (True enough, but whether the players get that time is up to the GM. Random encounters can break up a rest recovery cycle very quickly.)
2) Fatigue can be replaced immediately with Aid and/or Drain ST. (Subject to the availability of Aid spells in the party and willing subjects for a Drain ST spell. Aid is also only a short term fix. It lasts two turns (I believe that equates to 10 seconds). Members of the party may be unwilling to fatigue themselves further just to keep wizard up to snuff. And again, much of this is under the control of the GM. Use of Aid to cast the Healing spell is possible, but again, this is dependent on the number of wizards in the party and their willingness to fatigue themselves to help heal someone else. Setting a pattern with a couple of random encounters will force them to have the idea in the back of their mind that they may need that ST for their own protection.)
3) The above lead to an extremely strong incentive to engage in tedious but powerful tactics where you want as many people to learn Aid as possible, and to be resting as much as possible per day. (If you have that many wizards in the party, its possible, but otherwise unlikely, unless you can convince the fighters to learn the Aid spell, sacrificing three slots and to forego any iron/steel weapons and armor just to be able to cast it at -4 DX, again just to keep the wizard up to snuff.)
4) The result is that lasting injuries become very very rare, and the incentive to stop and do magic healing and resting/Aid drills till max healing has been accomplished, is very high. (Completely under GM control. Random encounters can fix a great many problems about the flow of the game, if the players want to dawdle along at a slow pace.)
5) It creates a great desire and competitive necessity for having a healing wizard, and for wizards to spend a lot of their time and energy doing healing. (Currently running a group using the spells. There is one wizard who has healing capability, and there is a physicker. Most of the healing has been done by the physicker, on a per combat basis. It has proven adequate in most cases and the wizard has usually been forced to expend ST to cast spells in battle and has only been able to cast the Lesser Heal spell one time.)

Re: HEAL spell?
 

In the case of the people I played with, we did physicker healing per wound, but not because we wanted faster healing. We did it because it seemed like the only way that made any sense.

It does tend to have the effect of meaning less rest is needed, and from pretty much only ever playing this way, I never had a sense of a "need" for faster healing other than healing potions.

An effect that I really like about healing per wound is that it means minor wounds and fist fights and so on tend to be not very serious long-term, but major serious wounds DO require serious recovery efforts, either by days or weeks of actual rest, and/or expensive/rare healing potions. To me, that has a really nice feel and gameplay about the significance of combat events and consequences to it. I really like that effect, and it would be undermined by magic healing that heals already-physicked wounds at a steady rate that is much faster than bed rest.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I can appreciate your feeling that way about your approach. I also admit there is a certain logic to it within the game. If a character has serious damage due to multiple smaller wounds, it does make sense that a physicker could treat each of them separately. I would also go so far as to say that if you use that approach, you do not need any healing spells. In combination, they would tip over the apple cart.

Beyond that, I am afraid that you and I will have to respectfully disagree on this topic. If I have given any offense to you in any of my posts, I sincerely apologize. No offense was intended.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Just sticking my oar in to concur. This is both logical and practical. Makes a good house rule, for folks similarly inclined.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I didn't mean to upset anyone, but just to provide what seem to me like valuable considerations to bring up around healing magic.

Clearly some people want fast strong healing magic and I'm not trying to change their minds.

But often healing magic gets mentioned as something "missing" from TFT or that "should" be there, and it seems to me that for the sake of new and undecided players, it should be mentioned that TFT works well without healing spells, that it offers an interesting contrast to the bazillion other games that have fast easy healing, that it can remove an interesting element of play to have major wounds go away quickly, and that there are several sometimes subtle considerations that would be good to consider before adding healing spells.

I don't mean to belittle anyone's thinking process or have an acrimonious argument. I just feel a duty to mention the considerations I see that seem to be missing if I don't respond.


True.


Also true, though with strong enough healing spells, I think non-wizards would want to learn Aid too just for this purpose.


The heroes would tend to wait until things seemed safe enough and then remove their iron and cast Aid. Unless the group is constantly being harrassed by new attackers AND doesn't have enough cover and/or members to spare one warrior, even in dangerous situations one warrior could drop their iron and cast Aid, and spend time resting.

It could even be worth bringing along extra people (slaves, hirelings, followers, allies) who mainly just know the Aid spell and will rest to produce as much healing as possible.

Sure if they're constantly being attacked and never get to rest, this may not work for constant danger situations, but in worlds where there is sometimes time to rest, the comparative healing rate to taking two days to rest is enormous. If a healing spell heals unlimited amounts of ST for say 4 fatigue per point, that's one hour to heal a point of damage, and the wizard and the patient don't even need to be the one resting. That's 48 points of healing per IQ 9 person with the Aid spell. Also compare to healing potions at $150 list price per 1 ST healed. i.e., compared to using healing potions, having a DX 10 slave of pal with the Aid spell is worth how ever many hours he can rest per day, divided by two for 50% Aid spell success rate, times $150. So every person with the Aid spell can result in as much healing as $600-$1500 worth of healing potions per day (and compared to healing potions, lacks the need to actually find them, bring them along, not get them broken, not run out of them, etc).


For labyrinth situations or ongoing short-term tactical/adventure situations, those can preclude lots of time to rest fatigue, sure.

But that is only completely under GM control as long as the GM is going to use that control to confine play to certain situations to avoid healing, which seems to me an undesirable meta restriction.

Our campaign games have usually had a lot of interesting play at the scale of days and regional map movements. What people do when they travel, having the party set up camp to rest to heal people while other people scout and go on raids, etc., is where much of the decision-making happens, and where serious lasting injuries are interesting situations to overcome. That's when people rest on a scale of days. If there's unlimited healing that's much faster than bed rest and doesn't require rest except by Aid casters resting on a moving wagon, that will remove that whole type of consideration from play. It won't be possible for your best warriors to ever have lasting injuries and need to spend time healing unless the situation somehow prevents you from using fast magic healing. I like having the possibility of combat resulting in important people being seriously hurt and needing to rest for a long time.


Ok, but again, I'm thinking more of the impact on play on a scale of days when bed rest would be an option. If it's safe enough to do bed rest, it's safe enough for someone with Aid to rest fatigue for the healing wizard.

My own experience is mainly with GURPS healing spells, and parties taking one or more people with the spell, and always using them as much as they can to keep the party as healed as possible, which only makes sense because the spells are so efficient. The result is that unless the group is in a constant adventure situation with no time to rest fatigue, that almost no one in the party ever has lasting injuries to think about. And even in constant adventure situations, the best use of such wizards's fatigue is often to heal injuries on others.

The other impact is that players tend to then relate to dangerous situations as having all or nothing risks, which seems to tend to escalate their overconfidence to the point and reduce outcomes to either "we won, we healed, we're all fine" or "some or all of us died". I much prefer it when there is a likely result that fighting dangerous things also leads to "some or all of us are really injured and now we need to figure out how we can best recover from that and make it home without dying".

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Oh, and the other impact is just on how the other people in the world operate, and their expectations.

Because such a healing spell makes a huge impact on how effective a group is in terms of what they can take on and how many days it takes to do an adventure, and in terms of whether they can beat another group and what tactics they use.

Without a healing wizard, a party might go assault some dangerous location, and would be best advised to be as careful as possible to avoid getting injured in the process. They'd likely get injured anyway, and maybe need to retreat to distant hidden safe camp to have some/all of their members heal for days while others scouted and/or when on other missions. They'd need to bring enough men to guard a resting camp, and enough food to possibly have to rest for a long time without running out. There would often be situations where several people are somewhat hurt but it would be overly cautious or even foolish to try to rest until everyone is completely healed, so the group needs to assess everyone's condition to decide how best to deploy injured people. Any time someone was greatly injured, they'd need to consider what to do about it. If there are healing potions, how many should be used on whom, and who pays for it? How many people can rest on a wagon while traveling? Etc.

With a healing wizard, a party may not need to be as careful, because often injuries from road encounters can be completely magically healed before the next one occurs. There might still be a desire during a raid to retreat to rest, but the resting time in probably measured more in hours than days and there's a reasonable tactic of not proceeding unless everyone is fully healed, because it doesn't take all that long. So often serious risks are faced with a fully healed party whenever possible. When they "clean out" a dangerous location, they probably completely heal up before heading back, so there's not much tension on the way back.

In a world with healing magic, some groups might not have a healing wizard, but look how much less effective, more expensive, and more dangerous that would be. Hence a massive preference for adventuring and military groups to have such wizards and use them as much as possible.

In a situation where rival armed groups face each other, healing wizards would be massive assets, and using them as much as possible would be a crucial tactic to use. Which also means that the PCs' organized adversaries will want to use them as much as possible too, and the efficiency with which the adversaries use healing magic will be a huge part of how difficult they are for the PCs to face. More than ever, opponents should disengage to heal if they can.

And more than ever, adversaries should kill their opponents, rather than leave a dangerous wounded opponent alive, because even if they're severely wounded, a healing wizard could quickly heal them completely and they could come back after you at full ST the next day, and also want to kill you off especially because you could do the same thing.

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The default level of healing in a starting party is three points for each figure injured after each battle from your sage plus four healing potions per figure in the party. (What else are you going to spend the starting $1k on?)

That gets one fighter from dead to full strength once plus dead to walking after the next battle.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I think the way to look at healing is that wounds and healing might want to satisfy some or all of these principles:

• Undesirability: Players should not want their characters to be wounded, so there should be some penalty that incentivises them to avoid it. I think this is more or less trivial: wounds in sufficient quantity over a short period of time cause death, so there's always a disincentive to being wounded. But some people feel this isn't enough.
• Entertainment:Being wounded should be fun. The penalty imposed should be good from a gaming POV: something that's fun, or interesting, or exciting, or keeps the player on the edge of their seat, rather than boring or routine. Again this is easy to satisfy during a fight, because the character is in danger of dying, but hard between fights.
• Optionality and Mundanity: As the name implies, two related principles that tend to go hand in hand. If healing is so effective that it becomes de facto essential then it should be generally available. Parties should be able to go adventuring without a wizard, or a physicker, or in areas where athelas does not grow, without being completely crippled. Industrial magic should not be too intrusive. It should be practical to play TFT in a setting where there is no magic. Industrial magic is more a part of Cidri than most settings so maybe this is not as big a deal in Cidri games.
• Simplicity and TFTishness:Rules that use similar mechanics to other rules in TFT, and generally simpler rules, are preferred to one-of-a-kind or complex rules.

I think most players care about most of these principles, though not every player cares about any individual principle. This is just as well, since it's unlikely any healing rules will satisfy all these criteria. There might also be other principles I haven't thought of. I think any rules for healing should start by asking which principles they're trying to satisfy, and which they're willing to throw to the wolves.

Using this scheme many objections to a very effective healing system (e.g. Steve's proposal) can be phrased as violations of the principle of undesirability.

In an effort to avoid violating undesirability, some GMs use healing spells that e.g. double the rate of natural healing. But this is perhaps a violation of entertainment, since the difference between a week's enforced rest and two week's enforced rest means little in RPG terms.

The canonical TFT system (no healing spell but healing potions) is in partial violation of the principle of entertainment. During a fight being wounded is exciting because the player fears their character will be killed. But between fights being wounded forces either a return to civilisation for downtime, or burning money on healing potions. Neither is fun.

Steve's proposal is also a violation of the principle of entertainment, since sitting and doing nothing for an hour or two while the wizard rests is kind of pointless, but that's also a criticism of the magic system generally.

A system in which healing magic was very effective and convenient between fights, so that all wounds would be healed before the next one at negligible cost, would be a violation of the principle of optionality and mundanity. IMO it otherwise looks pretty good, and it's probably the scheme I would use if I were GMing at the moment.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I have seen mention of a revision of this spell posted by Steve Jackson. Where is it? My search-fu seems weak today. Thanks.

Allen

Re: HEAL spell?
 

This was Steve's original post.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

That's the only post I could find by Steve on this thread.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Well, there was a lot of fairly harsh criticism of the idea, so I think Steve just dropped it entirely. That's kind of a "revision," right? ;-)

Personally, I still think a healing spell is a good idea, and I think it's been adequately playtested in Dark City's solo adventures for a decade or so now. Which leads me to say it doesn't seem to "upset game balance" at all, but that, apparently, is just me.

I'll probably just use Steve's original proposal and insert the spell as described in the list of player spells at IQ 14 when someone gets to the point where they're ready to add a new spell at that IQ level... I'm still hoping that it gets proposed as an "optional" spell in some future TFT Magic book release.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I've got a draft of a spell for a campaign that is about to start that would let a a character with Physicker or Master Physicker to heal 1 extra point with a successful casting roll and expenditure of fatigue. Since the spell is linked to Physicker, it cannot be used multiple times on the same wounds.

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^ This is a very nice idea.

Also, I want to say that I like the idea that all over Cidri that the known spells are not uniform. Having areas that have more spells or less spells than the standard set makes it interesting.

To that extent, make it a quest for you players to find the scroll that reveals the secret of the healing spell. The local guild will hire your crew to find some long lost Wizard's tower (and other locales) in search of this ancient manuscript. Once found, add the spell to that regions available canon.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

By the way, tucked away in the official releases this spring is a healing power: The Companion reproduces a zine piece on superpowers, which includes a healing power (as well as a self healing power). It is actually a pretty nicely balanced power, and its cost in terms of talent point or XP equivalents feels fair to me. I would have no problem folding this into the game.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

Would this thread now be more appropriate for the House Rules Forum?

Re: HEAL spell?
 

I think probably so, yes.

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Maybe instead of a spell it should be a Talent. Something maybe called Transference? The PC gives of themselves to another. So they are able to take a hit (wound) to heal a hit (wound), not fatigue or stored mana. More a spiritual thing not magic. So it takes more time to heal after you transferred your hit points to another. Keeps the stored mana (ST) of a staff from getting out of hand. Of course it could be a spell that works that way as well. But I was a fan of a healing spell anyway, just doing a little brain storming here.

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That's basically just what the healing 'superpower' does, with the advantage that everyone who has the Companion has the same rules in front of them. The only question is how you work those powers into the process of normal character creation and advancement. I feel like the right move is to use the suggested 'talent point' equivalent costs, either paying them when your character is first made, or paying later at the usual rate of 500 XP per talent point. I think this is a pretty well balanced approach for most of them (though I'm sure people could come up with 'white room' analysis showing one or another of them gives a big advantage in arena combat or something).

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I take it theres no official healing magics in the new rules (apart from potions etc) .. I prefer that myself .. more Tarzan/Conan/Kickaha/Rambo etc :)

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Under the current rules a sufficient number of healing potions can revive any character who died in the past hour and otherwise you have to wait for them to rise as a ghost in order to have a chance of wishing them back to life.

Hence if you didn't bring enough healing potions to revive your splattered comrade you need to sweep up the scattered body parts and taunt them until they rise as a ghost that will chase you all the way back to the Wizard's Guild where they can be wished back to life.

But yes, the game does need a special talent that can quickly cure any sort of minor wound more effectively than modern science. Call it Master Physicker.

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In the old rules M Physicker can cure a maximum 3 hits (I presume by sewing etc)

That doesnt strike me as particularly unrealistic or miraculous, or out of the range of modern science .. a broken leg I presume stays broke for at least a month or two, a severed leg is a permanent problem

Re: HEAL spell?
 

The way damage works in movies is "it gets erased at the end of the scene".

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Has anyone considered requiring Steve's version of the spell be linked to the Priest talent as a prerequisite? And then limiting it to being cast once/day on any given person. And (evil GM mode on) expecting the recipient of the spell to either be a worshiper or have to tithe to the Priest's church?

I could also envision a few narrow Priest-only spells (also requiring the Priest talent), specific weapons, armor, and rituals that must be followed in order for the spells to work. Or even a "holy symbol" that functioned in a similar manner to a wizard's staff (i.e. sacrifice XP for mana that would only power Priest spells). And a Priest would still pay the normal cost for talents, and 3x cost for other wizard spells.

Based on my gaming experience this would make a Healer character either an NPC/henchman or a multi talented generalist.

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the default setting for Cidri is that gods are not real, or if they are then there is no hard evidence of it (so as to really test the believers faith)

linking heal magics to religion would really be a kind of 'proof' of the god(s) being real .. more of a D+D (or non-TFT fantasy system of your choice) approach

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Physicker puts one point of healing on a six point broken leg (by ITL 121) and the subject is walking five minutes after the injury.

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The new rules add two new healing spells (Minor Medicament and Restoration, neither of which do I plan on using in my campaigns) but they don't recover ST lost due to injuries.


The new descriptions of Physicker talent effects however do (to my eye, anyway) leave room to interpret them the way we always applied them, however, which is per wound not per combat, and that, in my experience, usually leaves much less reason to want a healing spell.

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get outta here .. the new rules dont really say that do they?

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No they don't. They say the useof the leg is "lost" until healing occurs, so it could be a very bad dead leg. It does not mention the leg being "broken."

If more than 8 hits are taken, then you've lost the limb completely and normal healing can't help you. That would take regeneration.

Re: HEAL spell?
 

ahah .. so theres really no 'broken' or 'crippled' limbs at all, just wounded or completely destroyed ones. wow my home rules have mutated sooo far from the actual rules lol

in my home games, any damaging hit on a leg requires a SR 3/ST or trip .. any hit doing > half your ST breaks the limb, (at least a month to heal) and if its a chopping type weapon, cuts it off (permanent, obviously, buy a wooden peg-leg for MA=2, if you also have 1 hand using a crutch, MA=4 .. Long John Silver top speed lol)

Regeneration is a new spell? probably that fixes it