Musings of a Late Night Lago

[User3]

I've always thought about this system:

The Cure spells from 1-5 should cure 1 point per level of the recipient mulitplied by the level of the cure.

So a fourth level cure spell will cure 4 hp per level of the recipient. A tenth level fighter gets 40 HP back from a fourth level spell, but a 1st level guy gets back 4 HP.

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Decapitation should be a death effect. I don't really want to start playing a game like Nodwick, where duct tape is in every healers kit.

[Username17]

So, what to do with the actual healing of points?

Fireball is a craptastic spell, good only in specific circumstances which may never occur in an entire campaign (if you only fight monsters of your own CR, for example, there are no horde effects and Fireball is never worthwhile).

Nevertheless, Fireball advances you towards victory, and Healing only partially undoes opponents' advancement towards victory with the inherent limit of how far they've gotten so far and with the caveat that once they've made any severe progress it doesn't work at all. Fireball inflicts 1d6 per caster level to all characters in a 20 foot radius. For healing to make a difference as a combat effect, it has to be bigger than that.

So a fourth level cure spell will cure 4 hp per level of the recipient. A tenth level fighter gets 40 HP back from a fourth level spell, but a 1st level guy gets back 4 HP.

That's not worth a spell slot, let alone worth an action in combat. One point at first level? Are you high?

Fundamentally, if Healing is going to be a viable combat strategy it should probably just heal all of your hit points. If it's not going to be a combat strategy it can do just about anything based on how often you want people to be able to get into combats of their level.

-Username17

[User3]

Add a flat 10 HP to all the cures.

Then a 1st level spell is curing like 11 HP to a 1st level guy, but only 20 to a 10th level guy..

[User3]

You know, I think combat healing should go the way of the dodo. Its not dramatic, not fun for the healer, and all in all too Final Fantasy and not enough Tolkien.

Healing should happen out of combat. Anyone still standing gets some healing, and the dead ones get transported to a local temple for raising.

[The_Hanged_Man]

I so disagree. Healing can be very dramatic in combat. Think of movies where the hero fights for a whole scene, the hero and villain are both battered, bruised and breathing hard, ready for the knockout punch . . . and the villain suddenly heals and gets ready to smack. Puts the fear o' god into the hero, don't it?

Tolkien lacked healing and any other sort of magic, so whenever you talk about "magic" you're talking about something that's not very Tolkien.

[User3]

I can't think of that happening in any movie or show I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of movies.

Except maybe for bad anime that is based off of bad DnD.

Really, as a story element, combat healing is not dramatic as all. In fact, it seems very metagamey to me.

[RandomCasualty]

You don't want to make combat healing that good, because remember that you're primarily helping the cleric and the druid by doing this, and they really don't need much help. Uber healing at low levels grants the cleric a big advantage in the fighter versus cleric battles at high level. Basically the fighter must kill the cleric in one round or the cleric just uses a 3rd level spell slot and heals back to full.

I don't know if doing that is a good idea.

[The_Hanged_Man]

1084568551[/unixtime]]I can't think of that happening in any movie or show I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of movies.

Except maybe for bad anime that is based off of bad DnD.

Really, as a story element, combat healing is not dramatic as all. In fact, it seems very metagamey to me.

Do you think attacking the weakest opponents is metagamy? Healing is just that in the reverse.

[Username17]

I have to say I am honestly puzzled when people say that one combat method or another should be banned because it isn't fun.

Battlefield Control is fun. Healing is fun.

Some people are only happy when they do direct damage to things. These people play evokers and barbarians. They hit things with giant swords and set fire to stuff. That's fine, but some people don't want to do that!

Really. Some people actually feel a little bit uncomfortable with the prospect of their imaginary alter ego stabbing people or causing pain. These people actually have more fun helping others to slay the dragon than they would by slaying the dragon themselves - and there's nothing wrong with that.

Character types don't magically become unfun simply bcause you aren't hitting things. Different character types are fun for different people, which is why it's a cooperative storytelling game.

-Username17

[User3]

I've played a lot of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Alot. A whole lot.

It has combat healing that scales at the same rate as the Fireball-type spell, and a combat system very close to DnD.

I've learned a few things:

A. Combat healing that is equal to a Fireball spell means that the team with the combat healing wins, every time, over an enemy that can't do it. No contest.

B. Only an enemy that is drastically more powerful has a chance of dropping enough people before the combat healer can step in and fix them. This means that there are only two kinds of combats: very long ones or very quick ones.

C. The combat healer is the first one you drop. Any intelligent enemy will focus 100% of its attacks on the combat healer first, because until he does, he can't drop anyone else.

D. Its no fun.

I'm all for healing, and even for boosting the power of healing spells and decreasing the margin of death for chararcters, but it really should take place outside of combat in a way that doesn't drastically unbalance the game and heap it in the favor of one side.

Basically, its game breaking if it scales equally with the killing spells.

[Username17]

I can't think of that happening in any movie or show I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of movies.

It's in Blade.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

I haven't played Final whatever at all. But here's my takes on that.

A. Can't possibly be true, except to the extent that any group that overspecializes (i.e., not having access to healing) will almost always lose to a well-rounded group. Let's say healing=fireball, I have a fighter and me, who can cast fireball, and you have a fighter, and you, who can heal. I cast fireball at the figther, you heal the fighter, the fighters bash. Repeat. Repeat. Eventually, one or the other fighters dies. B/c fireball and healing cancel, you and I have no net effect on the combat. Same if we both have healing. The only way it matters is if I, being an idiot, have neither. That's the nature of magic.

B. Depends on relative power. IOW, so what?

C. Duh. Same as you always kill the wizard first, if you can, in 3.5.

D. IYO. IMO, healing can be lots o' fun.

[Wrenfield]

Just thought I would mention, most of our high level games where magic items can be crafted or modified by the players ... tend to see a lot of the Wrathful Healing magical weapon enhancement (which is +3) slapped on to crafted/modified weapons. For highly min/maxed damage-dealing melee dudes (Rogues, Barbarians, etc.), this completely negates ever having to worry about dying by damage.

It's a magical weapon enhancement from the Enemies and Allies book.

**

Also, our party Druid consistently summons Unicorns in almost every fight. The flexibility that offers us is that we can use the Unicorn as a harrier, a meat shield, a spellcaster killer, or a back-row healer. Spontaneous summoning is *some good*. Especially when the Druid then wildshapes and embarrasses the hell out of the party Fighter.

**

Also, there is something inherently funny about 2 people in the same thread saying that healing is "FUN". That, my friends ... is just wacky.

[Lago_AM3P]

I thought that healing NOT being fun was one of the excuses to make the cleric and druid brokety-broke way back when.

I know it's a pain in the ass to gauge the mood of a lot of people, but do you SERIOUSLY believe that healing is enough fun to a lot of people that we can balance the game on the fact that in the vast majority of games, one of the people in the group will be a dedicated healer?

I can see this argument being made for dishing out hp damage, getting a lot of skills, or area control spells, but healing? C'mon.

[The_Hanged_Man]

1084582798[/unixtime]]Also, there is something inherently funny about 2 people in the same thread saying that healing is "FUN". That, my friends ... is just wacky.

Not everybody's cup of tea, certainly. But neither are illusionists. Doing nothing but heal isn't much fun. But neither is doing nothing but cast fireball.

In our last game, combat healing turned the tide. For some reason, this otherwise-underpowered adventure had our 9th level party fighting a 13th level (I think, based on the spells cast) wizard who was kicking the holy bejeesus out of us. My cleric was already amped up, but on the other side of a bunch of flunkies and much too slow to get anwhere. The druid, however, would be able to charge and grapple the wizard - if he could survive a bunch of AoO. My wife had managed to nail all the flunkies directly between the druid and the wizard.

So I healed him. He charged, made it w/ a HP or 2 to spare, did ridiculous Druid grappling damage (our DM ruled that pounce gave extra grapple checks), and made the wizard teleport away. Instead of casting another chain lightning that would have killed us.

It was tons of fun.

edit -IOW, I agree w. Lago, it's not enough to just heal. But it's far from boring.