Healing spells/items are lazy game design for RPGs.

[DraQ]

Regarding the reloading scheme: I think players would prefer the tedium of restarting the game to the loss of quests and loot etc. Essentially it boils down to this: Does it take longer to reload the game (With a restart) or to achieve the same desired result without reloading, by for example, returning to town to recover, stock up on supplies, and return with a different set of equipment/people/spells.

I think it's not as simple. First thing is that returning to town to recover means you're still playing the game, rather than staring at loading screens. Then, if the game is dynamic enough, return to town may bring with itself additional, potentially interesting events.

Though I do love the karmic image of someone unwittingly reloading over and over and gimping themselves.

You and me both.

Ideally, ocassional reload would only bring with it something like single autofailing roll or cleared non-unique valuable item. Stuff like autofailing sidequests and rendering unique items (or people) unavailable would generally require and consume greater quantity of fail points so it would only start happening on multiple reloads.

Regarding Hp Pool and randomness of combat, what kind of combat can be both interesting and non random?

Something like Go or Chess, with a good opponent, but that's beside the point as I don't want to eliminate randomness.

Rather I'd want enough options to be given to a player to be able to pull himself out from pretty deep shit and plan for various situations that may develop. There should also be no universal tactics and applicability of various approaches should depend on many factors including the location layout.

No ranged attacks, no area effects

You can take cover.

no sneak attacks, stealth, or movement magic.

You can delegate one of your melee fighters to guard your injured character instead of actually participating in combat.

Making battles only difficult due to HP attrition has nothing to do with healing items and is purely a result of sloppy combat design.

Not entirely. Healing items don't imply HP attrition, but they do enable it.

The key to interesting gameplay is a high degree of unpredictability coupled with a high degree of player skill influence.

I can agree with that.

As I see it, healing potions add a large degree of player skill influence, since using them properly can make or break a battle (or entire campaign, for that matter). There's no reason to remove them and replace them with other things that add player skill influence when you could simply add those things and have both.

There is a reason, and a good one at that too. Rapidly healing potions and medkits create stupidity in-universe. It's similar as in case of resurrection - availability of both, rapid universal healing and resurrection greatly limits plausible sources of tension, whether we are speaking of scripted, storyfag narrative, or random stuff arising from deep, simulationist ruleset.

Also, stuff that increase player skill influence may be undesirable if it's going to be too universal or powerful. Limiting hoarding doesn't seem to be so easy if you're using large, open world - the more options player has, the more likely he will be able to bypass safeguards imposed on potentially gamebreaking stuff.

Healing items or magic isn't bad in itself, in fact it may be excellent way to balance mechanics that would be too hardcore for given idea of gameplay - wound infections, permanent crippling and so on - but they should be of very limited combat utility.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I can agree that overly powerful healing can ruin storyfag elements (Aeris dies!!!) That most comes down to your combat/setting and how everything is handled (You can create plausible schemes in which only the player and certain enemies can use/benefit from such powerful healing, or only specific circumstances, places, whatever). For every time I've cringed at a character dying because healing potions magically disappeared, I've cringed twice from the player's characters surrendering to an entirely underwhelming force like the city watch, or a powerless shopkeeper dangling absurdly valuable and powerful merchandise in front of an adventuring party/character that could raze the entire city he resides in. Or alternately, demigod shopkeepers/guards that need your help to defeat things anyways. But I digress.

Gameplay wise, I don't see where you draw the connection between healing and attrition. Take a simple combat system: Both enemies have 100 Hp, deal 1-50 damage per swing, no special abilities, no chance of complete miss. Hp attrition decided by RNG. Give the player more Hp and it's now decided by however the player got more Hp. However, give both parties the ability to recover 70 Hp, twice during the combat, in lieu of attacking. Now it's not attrition any more. Combat can be decided by effective use of healing, with regard to odds of killing the enemy with your next strike, being killed if you don't, and the longer term implications of wasting a portion of the healing by being 'safe' and healing as soon as you drop under 51. It's no longer a matter of who started with more Hp or who swung harder. It's a small step away from pure attrition, but it's still a step away, not toward. It relies on the player's skill in judging the value of his two options based on the situation that dynamically arises from the randomized damage.

In your examples regarding covering the mage, do the attacks have the possibility of killing him in a single round? Assuming the enemy has a (realistic) chance of killing your mage with a single shot, why would you ever NOT use cover with such enemies present? It'd be like not wearing your armor or not equipping your weapons. And if the archers can't (lol magic shield gives +n Hp) then why ever use cover until they can? It's a non decision. A thought map for combat should look like a Xanatos gambit, not a customer service flowchart. The more variety of partial losses one can suffer and continue to fight, the better, because it makes things more and more complex.

Also, stuff that increase player skill influence may be undesirable if it's going to be too universal or powerful. Limiting hoarding doesn't seem to be so easy if you're using large, open world - the more options player has, the more likely he will be able to bypass safeguards imposed on potentially gamebreaking stuff.

So don't make it too universal or powerful. Nothing is easy in a large open world; character creation in Daggerfall was completely broken, that doesn't mean it should have been scrapped in Morrowind like it was. Ditto goes for enchanting and magic being scrapped in Oblivion. Potentially game breaking things are the most interesting to play with. There's no more excuse for letting players hold 30 lives worth of healing potions/magic than there is for letting them be immune to magic at the cost of being weak to an effect only caused by magic, or letting them craft a spear that immobilizes enemies for practically no cost by granting them the weakest form of levitation possible. Remove the problem, not the feature causing it through poor implementation.