Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

The point was I couldn't see a point to what you were saying to start with in relation to the question. Its not 1:1 to start with; with a standard roll for Vampiric Strike (which is an Imbuement) you heal 1 HP for every 3 Damage dealt to the target.

My question was did HP scaling affect this healing - which is a form of magical healing. Seems that per Kromm's post on leeching attacks it does. We'll have to test it in game to figure out how precisely to deal with it in our games.

Likely we'll cap possible healing at the amount of damage like Molokh suggests.

I'm not sure why you think it should be scaled based on both the target and the attacker's HP in the first place; should healing spells then be scaled on the HP of the person casting the spell and then the targets? That makes no sense to me - especially since you'll be generating a new mechanic contraindicated by the existing rules.

Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

Sorry. I was trying to clarify the issue by using the example of 1-to-1 Leeching instead of the normal 1-to-3, but I see that it just confused it more. If I were more eloquent I might be able to explain better, but since you've already found a solution that works I guess I'll drop it.

Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

I don't see this one. Vampiric strike allows you to heal 1/3 of the damage you do- so the most you should be able to heal is 33% of your source under any circumstance.

Further creatures that have more HP, tend to also have more ST, and thus do more damage, and thus get more healing- so basically a creature with vampiric strike and extra ST is being rewarded twice; they do more damage healing more, and they heal more because they have more HP.

When godzilla with imbuements eats a normal person he heals 20 HP (assuming godzilla's bite completely obliterates an ST 10 human right down to -50; for 60 total damage).

If you scale that damage, then godzilla completely regenerates every time he eats a person (regardless of how many hit points he actually has; because if you scale that up, then he is hitting complete regeneration no matter what- he could have 100,000 hit points, and if you are scaling healing he goes from 0 to 100,000).

Further, while vampiric strike does heal you, it heals you in relation to the damage that was done- so it has more in common with say absorptive DR then it does with leech- I don't believe absorptive DRs healing scales with HP, it scales with damage absorbed.

Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

Somehow I doubt you're going to run into Godzilla with Imbuements - and if a GM threw one at me I know I wouldn't be playing with him for much longer to start with but that's neither here nor there.

The main issue is; it seems all healing for 20-29+ HP critter scales and its now come up in game play whether or not Vampiric Strike's healing scales as well...

*shrug* I can only hope Kromm or someone else on the totem pole stops by this thread to clarify at this point. Or just extrapolate from his post on leeching and discuss amongst the gaming group from there. One way to deal with it would of course be to ignore the scaling entirely and go with Vampiric Strike's wording with the assumption that it supersedes the other rule.

Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

I don't know, envisioning godzilla as a stupid but natural imbuements based martial artist seems to be actually somewhat in line with the movies of my youth, but that is neither here nor there.

There are lots of big things that might get imbuements and take it to quite the extreme, an easy one that could even come up in a DF type game is to have a mystic knight get his SM increased by a wizard- Now you have huge mystic knight doing super high damage strikes with every blow and fully regenerating all of the arrow wounds he's taking due to scaled vampiric weapon (The threshold for HP healing/stirke is 30 damage, doing 30 damage swings is not that difficult once you start getting size buffs involved).

Maralith demon + imbuements actually did come up in one of our games (even if she was dispatched via TK), I am sure I would not have liked her to be doing 30 damage and healing to full.

We actually have a martial arts dragon PC- tough if I recall correctly the dragon form does not fight; we have a few large RPM users- if using RPM to give yourself 'imbuements: vampiric strike' and then crushing a donkey is cheaper/easier then using RPM for direct healing, I think that might be as good an identifier of the problem with having it scale as there is.

Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

I have no problem with 300 HP imbue godzilla healing oodles, he paid for those 300 HP with CP just like anyone else why shouldn't he get full benefit of them?

I just had a bit of conceptual hangup on the idea of healing more than you dealt but the discussion has cleared it for me

Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

I think Kromm's post is very clear:

Anywhere the rules say you *heal* HP (specifically that verb!), "High HP and Healing" should apply.

He even addresses the issue of two players "abusing" the rule to get more HP from each other than they're losing and says it's fine. They've paid for that privilege by buying up their HP or ST and by buying the advantage that enables healing.

Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

The problem with this is if you're willing to award people higher healing due the expense of buying up all of those HP (or ST), then why are you not awarding them higher healing from buying a higher exchange rate for leech?

At a 1:3 ratio then yes capping maximum gains to injury dealt means that only 40+ HP characters would suffer a "loss" on potential healing received, which limits builds specifically designed around this 'combo'. But if you've spent the extra cp to buy a 1:1 ratio of injury:healing then suddenly even a 20+ HP character "loses" out on potential healing received! Why would anyone with 20 or more HP ever invest in what is clearly meant to be an upgrade if said upgrade does nothing at all for them?

I'd just say you can't stab yourself to gain HP, and its 'taboo' or at least has negative social repercussions if you stab friends/slaves for HP (even if you then heal them back up or only do paper cuts) - and otherwise leave it as written but with HP scaling.
Its the least rule changes and has the fewest edge cases where things degrade into illogical outcomes - even if Leechy-Godzilla can restore massive chunks of HP from eating one human. Clearly Leechy-Godzilla is tapping into the power of the souls of the things its eating or something, it is a magical (chi/necromantic/etc) power after all!

Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

This is a solution solely for GMs who feel that there must be a 1:1 maximum ratio. Personally, as someone who's seen all sorts of rules abuses, I don't think Leech is particularly scary, even with HP. In general, DR, HP and Innate Attacks combined are Just Better than trying to rely on Leech.

We don't even know for sure whether a given case of Leech is a 'HP transfer' or a 'Regeneration only while hurting others'. It could be the latter. (IIRC the Bloodthirster in Dawn of War is kinda like that - losing HP out of combat, regenerating in combat.)

Re: Vampiric Strike and High Health
 

A fair point, and I'm aware of other potential abuses, limiting any ability is subject to GM whim so capping the ratio at 1:3 (or 1:2) is fine - just as limiting HP gain from 1:3 ratio to being most useful at less than 40 HP is. Even so, RAW gives options, and those options should be considered if you're wishing to discuss things in full.

I also feel leech (and its derivatives) are more 'HP transfer' rather than Regeneration "only whilst in combat", as its an easy enough build for the latter. I guess the fluff for the ability is quite flexible though.