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Re: [Slope: Ch 12] New Type of Healing Spell & Death Magic.
It's clear from the SJ TFT forum discussions that there's a variety
of opinions on wounds, healing, and what's fun/interesting/desired or not.
I have much the opposite of the tastes you expressed below, i.e., to me:
* The SJ healing spell _is_ dull, but also is somewhat annoyingly
complicated in its implications, which is that it does add a very
powerful effect if you rest as much as possible, have people help
with the aid spell, and so on. In that way it becomes about 35 points
of healing per person with the aid spell per day, but only if they
are able to rest all day, and if it matters, you'd want to track all
their castings of healing and Aid spells, and make sure the healing
wizard and the patients and resting Aid supporters are all in the
same place at the most efficient intervals to do so. Since some
people will miss some casting rolls, and some people may be heroes
working with a -4 non-wizard DX penalty, it may also make sense for
some people with Aid to Aid their Aid to be more efficient. That
fiddly mess is suddenly determining exactly how fast people can heal,
to a very great degree. If you didn't want the game to be about the
healing process, this is not providing that unless the GM ignores the
details of how that all would play out and hand-waves it somehow.
* I don't think delays to heal are boring.
* Wounds are fun, to me.
* Absence of any lasting wounds is annoying, dull, and un-fun, to me.
* Yes, if wounds don't matter then battles can be made harder and
nastier without the possibility anyone in the party witll be
crippled. But I don't see that as a good thing, particularly because
it means all battles become "we killed them, and suffered no
consequences" or "we died". And play tends to then escalate, until
people die. I see that as removing interesting elements of play, not
an improvement.
* GMs who have outdoor adventures with long delays between battles
are NOT necessarily "doing this already". There's a whole level of
interesting play possible which is about outdoor maneuvers and doing
what's needed to get wounded people the chance to heal, avoiding or
dealing with threats and situations that develop, what the opponents
and others in the world doing that time, etc.
* Having a major factor of an adventure's success be not about
actually handling dangerous situations in ways that don't get you
killed or seriously wounded, but about getting wounded and then using
super-powered magic to have any wounds not be a real concern,
undermines my experience of an adventure game. It's unlike the
situation I want to be experiencing through gaming, because it
removes the possibility and consequences of major lasting injuries,
which is something I want to be a factor.
PvK
At 05:38 PM 6/20/2018, David Bofinger wrote:
It's true the SJ healing spell is dull: classic industrial magic.
But the game isn't really about the healing process, it's meant to
be about adventuring. The purpose of the healing spell is to restore
the party's health so that they can go off and do something
interesting, without the need for a delay that will either be boring
or skipped over. An even more powerful spell would do that more
effectively. I hesitantly and tentatively favour that idea.
Making the spell interesting in itself is laudable to some extent.
It's got limited scope because the decision is basically just made
by one person, not the party cooperating, so it can't be fun for
very many people at once.
But basically, wounds aren't fun. Make the battle about victory and
survival, and as long as everyone goes home to their family it
doesn't matter if they got chewed on a little. If the wounds don't
matter then battles can be made harder and nastier without worrying
the party will be crippled. GMs who choose to have outdoor
adventures with long delays between battles are close to doing this already.
...