Healing spells/items are lazy game design for RPGs.

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Opening the inventory costs only 4 AP and you can use as many stimpacks as you want...barely makes any difference.

Yeah, they have really fucked it up with not integrating the inventory item use with turn-based combat rules.

 

[Leonard DeVir]

Maybe Ill get a lot of whack for it, but I thought D&D in general handled this issue very well. Healing potions arent that common and they heal a minor fraction of your HP. Healing spells arent much better either, and you can heal at expense of another memorized spell.

Ofc Baldurs Gate II is the big exception, as it turns into a dungen crawling grindfest at the end with bazillions of potions and revive scrolls. Playing IWD at the moment and I found 4 healing potions which heal 18 HP so far. After every big fight its resting time.

Other than that youre right. I especially love the enemies courtesy to wait for me till Im healed up in some games. "Oh please, take your time. May I help you finding a potion in your really stuffed backpack?"

 

[Mastermind]

Someone teach me alchemy in Daggerfall?

That game is nearly unbeatable without some kind of 'magic' usage. Even running around in one dungeon without free action is instant death once you met a spider who paralyzes you.

I still remember getting raped by zombies while I was in a rogue, restricted to leather. Fuck that shit. There's no sense of dodging or reflexes. You simply get in, slash, back off, repeat. And hope you didn't get two shotted. That was only the second quest I undertook to dispatch a wereboar in a dungeon.

All that shit net me 153 gold pieces. Wheeeeee....

You're playing it wrong mang. This is what your character's abilities are supposed to look like:

Crit weakness to paralyse + magic immunity is probably the best char gen exploit there is. There's no reason whatosever why you should not have a character who's immune to paralysis.

 

[Duskification]

Make potions/stimpacks/healing items heal over time. 1/2/3 health over 5 - 10 seconds/1 TURN, limited to using only one until said potion/stimpack/healing item wears off.

k

 

[commie]

"I tried this game called Fallout 3 and it's so...gritty and realistic!"

(sleeps on bed and heals all broken bones)

THIS is actually an advantage for this game. I tried it with the FWE realism options and they were fine for a bit, but after a while the whole scrounging around for medical supplies, constant addiction to something, negatives from taking stimulants, ammo weight etc. just became fucking tedious going back and forth, looking for supplies, dropping stuff that weighed too much and then forgetting where you left it because most places look the same etc. as what's the point of a more realistic personal survival mod when you're in such a mediocre world? It just made the game three times as long and didn't make it any more fun as I was still one shot killing almost everything at level 10.

 

[felipepepe]

One system I like is when they split the types of damage in your health pool. Like, you have 30 HP but broke a rib, so you can only heal up to 20 HP until you fix yourself. But yhey always fuck up by making healing bones and severe wounds easy and quick....

Metal Gear Solid 3 for instance, had a nice system where you had to heal yourself, each kind of wound requiring a different solution and debilitating you until healed. IF you could heal yourself only in 'safe-zones', it WOULD be great, but it was completly fucked up since you always find shitloads of healing itens and could just press 'start' in mid-air combat and heal 8 broken bones and a trauma to the head instantly...

 

[DraQ]

If it's so easy to stock up on these fucking potions, then why the fuck do you need me to save the world? Just give some retard a bunch of potions...

That's where the player comes in.

I think it is interesting and a little ironic that the 'grand decline' of 4th edition D&D actually handles this mechanic rather well, and I would argue, better than 3rd edition.

Each player has a number of 'healing surges' which are determined primarily by class and constitution.

It's anything but handling it well. It's completely abstract, gamist shit, dissociated from any sort fo in-universe meaning or sense.

Slow acting potions make sense, or at least more sense than instahealing ones, potion toxicity may make sense, same with other ways of limiting the amount of potions that could be ingested at once. Drinking potions not being a free action also makes sense, same with limiting applicability of healing in many different ways or even departure from flat HP range system, but what sense do "healing surges" make? What is their meaning, what do they stand for?

An effective fix isn't necessarily even remotely good.

 

[villain of the story]

Fuck you, people. Combat in Fallout was fun. Gamey fun. Fun game. You just have no souls.

 

[felipepepe]

I think it is interesting and a little ironic that the 'grand decline' of 4th edition D&D actually handles this mechanic rather well, and I would argue, better than 3rd edition.

Each player has a number of 'healing surges' which are determined primarily by class and constitution.

It's anything but handling it well. It's completely abstract, gamist shit, dissociated from any sort fo in-universe meaning or sense.

Exactly, and that's the main issue of D&D 4th, it's full of completly made-up bullshit like "once a day/encounter" powers/skills, for puny GMs that can only control the players by bashing the rulebook around.

 

[Mrowak]

Once, when I was designing a campaign for 3.5 D&D I came up with pretty obvious solution to healing spells / healing potions abuse. It was basically the marriage of the systems from NWN2, The Witcher and Arcanum.

Basically a cleric could cast only the number of healing spells per day equal to their Wisdom modifier + 1. Similarly you could consume only the number of potions per day equal to your Constitution modifier + 1.

The trick was that I used the same modifiers with +1 class bonus to determine how many protective spells you could have cast on youself / your allies. So a cleric with 16 Wisdom (+3 modifier) could cast only 4 healing spells (3+1) per day. After that he would be unable to hold any protective barrier, any buff or any other non-instantious spell. Hell, casting one 'Cure light wounds' would reduce the maximal number of permited buffs. On the flipside, you could have only max 4 'protectives' active provided that you didn't cast any healing magic.

It was a little bit different matter with potions - after exceeding your constitution all your physical attributes took -1 damage, and you became poisoned. This applied both to heal-all potions, poison antidotes and buffs.

Naturally, you could mix buffs from potions and magic.

It worked rather well, I might add. I wish I could see something like that in a cRPG.

 

[Gord]

I'm not talking about characters camping somewhere, eating food, sleeping, and then fully recovering. That's good design because it forces the player to plan out ahead of time when they wish to rest, if it's safe, etc.

No it isn't. At least not in almost all cRPGs out there, because usually it's just slightly less easily available than healing potions/magic.
Ultimately it all comes down to balancing healing vs. damage. If e.g. your supply of potions is limited enough, they don't hurt the game at all. Quite the contrary.

The Dark Eye PnP did it reasonably well, as healing potions are somewhat rare and expensive and regeneration is slow as fuck (well, compared to other systems, it's still insanely fast when compared to reality...).
However, at least the old editions still had enough other problems, what with the "shield of hitpoints" and all.

 

[Norfleet]

My favorite mechanic to counteract the healing potion spam was healing potion addiction. Characters who start consuming healing potions can become addicted to them and start requiring a "fix" even when they aren't actually injured, or they suffer withdrawal symptoms. This can become quite the drain on your party's funds when your fighter has become a healing potion junkie.

 

[Eyeball]

For a recent example of a game I think does healing well fairly well, I'd like to bring up Dungeons of Dredmor. While instant healing potions exist, they are both rare to find, take skills and several ingredients to craft and don't really heal all that many HP per use, meaning you will have to resort to eating food items for most of your healing, and they only give you 1 HP per round, making standing your ground and quaffing healing items not really an option.

 

[Leonard DeVir]

I'm not talking about characters camping somewhere, eating food, sleeping, and then fully recovering. That's good design because it forces the player to plan out ahead of time when they wish to rest, if it's safe, etc.

No it isn't. At least not in almost all cRPGs out there, because usually it's just slightly less easily available than healing potions/magic.

This. It makes absolutely no sense to rest away damage, and in D&D it boils down to rest-heal-fight on. I mean, really? If I click "rest until healed" its as cheap as chugging potions, no real strategy needed. At least I wont waste 8 hours or more on resting. In the end your adventure takes more than 200 days just because of that nonsense.

I guess, one countermeasue could be to restrict healing severely, you shouldnt be able to undo all the damage so easily; i.e. if you take damage you get cureable and not cureable wounds. If you get hurt a lot - bad tactics. Your potion/spell wont heal you fully up, you will have to rest or visit the local equivalent of a doc to get rid of all of your wounds. Therefore, healing would become more tactical, where you benefit from it if you need it - in fights, when you get hurt severely, to keep you alive.

Im sure there are flaws, but Ive pulled it up my ass in 5 minutes

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

fuck you all i fucking love playing healers/buffers in crpg.

my teammates take care of mobs i take care of them

 

[7hm]

For a recent example of a game I think does healing well fairly well, I'd like to bring up Dungeons of Dredmor. While instant healing potions exist, they are both rare to find, take skills and several ingredients to craft and don't really heal all that many HP per use, meaning you will have to resort to eating food items for most of your healing, and they only give you 1 HP per round, making standing your ground and quaffing healing items not really an option.

DoD does actually have a pretty good healing system.

It only has meaning because you can die and lose your character though.

Dark Spire has a decent healing system. The cost of healing is fairly high but because you can only save in the town, you need to carefully consider whether or not to use the heals, when to use them, and who to focus them on.

Again, healing systems are pointless without meaningful punishment for death. You can do whatever you want if you just have an anytime save / load system.

 

[kmnWolfman]

fuck you all i fucking love playing healers/buffers in crpg.

my teammates take care of mobs i take care of them

MMOs are not CRPGs. Just saying.

 

[sea]

The problem with Stimpak abuse in Fallout is that it's almost built into the design of the combat. Your companions die really quickly late in the game (without mods), and those Super Mutants and Enclave patrols are extremely dangerous, even when you've got some of the best gear available. It was completely necessary to give the player some way to heal up in light of enemies being so powerful, and the Stimpak solution always seemed to be a rushed compromise that they never really improved for Fallout 2. In order to get rid of said abuse, you'd pretty much have to completely redo the mechanics and balance, either reducing enemy numbers or improving party-based play significantly.

 

[Shannow]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=41309

The difference? Frank posted in the right forum.

 

[Serious_Business]

Jagged Alliance 2

 

[JarlFrank]

Jagged Alliance 2 does it pretty well.

Getting hurt usually means you will bleed and need to bandage. Lost HP can't be healed during combat but have to be treated by a doctor or slowly regenerate on their own later. This makes healing important, since if you don't bandage your wounds you'll just bleed out, but it doesn't allow you to get back to max HP easily after fucking up your tactics.

 

[Damned Registrations]

For a recent example of a game I think does healing well fairly well, I'd like to bring up Dungeons of Dredmor. While instant healing potions exist, they are both rare to find, take skills and several ingredients to craft and don't really heal all that many HP per use, meaning you will have to resort to eating food items for most of your healing, and they only give you 1 HP per round, making standing your ground and quaffing healing items not really an option.

DoD does actually have a pretty good healing system.

It only has meaning because you can die and lose your character though.

Dark Spire has a decent healing system. The cost of healing is fairly high but because you can only save in the town, you need to carefully consider whether or not to use the heals, when to use them, and who to focus them on.

Again, healing systems are pointless without meaningful punishment for death. You can do whatever you want if you just have an anytime save / load system.

This. Healing potions/spells are only retarded because the player usually has access to enough to heal every injury they take 10 times over. Just because games with shitty combat have healing in them doesn't mean all healing causes shitty combat. Not every game is diablo. Plenty of games having healing spells or items that are either too scarce or too weak to be spammed in battles, and only get used sparingly for tactical purposes. Or if they do get spammed, it's not enough to keep up with enemy output, and is merely a way of controlling which of your characters are going to die first, instead of making everyone immortal.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

It would be nice if properly using stimpaks would require the first aid/doctor skill.

Good thing FO3 fixed that

Opening the inventory costs only 4 AP and you can use as many stimpacks as you want...barely makes any difference.

I know no one gives a shit, myself included, but that's an exploit...you're "supposed" to put them in a hand slot and waste turns / AP using them.

THIS is actually an advantage for this game. I tried it with the FWE realism options and they were fine for a bit, but after a while the whole scrounging around for medical supplies, constant addiction to something, negatives from taking stimulants, ammo weight etc. just became fucking tedious going back and forth, looking for supplies, dropping stuff that weighed too much and then forgetting where you left it because most places look the same etc. as what's the point of a more realistic personal survival mod when you're in such a mediocre world? It just made the game three times as long and didn't make it any more fun as I was still one shot killing almost everything at level 10.

If you were one shotting everything and still managed to turn into such a mess after every fight, it means the combat is pretty lethal, and you just sucked. That's a good thing. The problem is that you were trying to play it like vanilla (cleaning a place, then dragging everything that was inside to a vendor so you can sell it for more money you won't use on anything because anything worthwhile is found as loot).

I was having fun using drugs like it was 1969 just to survive, being able to carry only a few select things with me and drop the rest, being scared of everything even with metal armor and a super sledge (which I got early from the raider leader in springvale school. In vanilla the fight was easy and unremarkable, but in FWE I had to reload a lot, give up, come back some time later and even then barely managed to kll him and his colleagues, and only because I laid mines to take care of the melee ones.)

Once I was caught by surprise by a raider who hit me in the back while I was porched somewhere sniping his bros. I fell on a car parked down there, which kept me from dying but with every goddamn limb crippled, and had to GTFO because his surviving friends were shooting at my ankles. In vanilla I'd just laugh, pause to use a stimpack on one leg (if it even got crippled at all), and proceed to kill them all.

It was pretty cool feeling as fragile as every other guy in the gameworld. The magical ITU beds are kinda jrpg-ish and killed the tension. Why worry about letting this raider cripple my arm if I can just run back to a bed on the other room, heal and come back to take the rest of the gang?

I pussied out a little and changed food back to "heal some health over time", though.

 

[malichaixx]

It's also pretty easy to get rid of intoxication in Twitcher by drinking White Honey, but it's more the ideas I'm talking about, not the implementations.

White Honey sounds like a chick in geralt's neverending stream of bimbos :D

 

[Surf Solar]

I know no one gives a shit, myself included, but that's an exploit...you're "supposed" to put them in a hand slot and waste turns / AP using them.

Even the "tips/hints" section on the original Interplay/Fallout site mentions that you just can take them out of inventory for infinite use without AP loss.
As for that "exploit" I'd simply do a ap cost for every inventory action aswell (which I did in my mod).
Resting is ok as long as you can't just do it everywhere, without any risk and without any special item.