I have the same problem with my (live) system. Players are
either taken out of play completely or spend all their power and heal
up.
This is dull because there is no agonising over when to heal and when
not
to - its almost always better to cast healing if you have a power left.
I intend to fix this for our games by classifying wounds as light or
grevious. Light wounds are healable by spirit magic but grevious ones
need
more powerfull healing such as rune magic. This is more interesting
because
this sort of magic is a lot more limited and hopefully this will spark
off
more complicated triage decisions like "You can't fight but you can
still
walk so I am going to save the remaining Heals incase of something
_really_
bad. Why dont you try fighting left handed.", which I think we can
safely
say will provide a starting point for some vigourous player interaction.
In RQ terms this might translate to Healing 6 not repairing a serious wound. But our mechanisms for getting wounded in the first place are very different so its not that simple.
2. Spirit Magic Healing Is Inconvenient
In addition spirit magic healing is not the instant closing of wounds it
has been portrayed as. I am erring towards it taking a long time (1
minute)
to perform and involving such things as cleaning the wound and holding
the
edges together. Consequently the caster and the victim can not do
anything
else. This makes healing in combat much more difficult.
Hopefully this will make the players cautious about getting into fights
while
providing them with the ability to heal up _afterwards_ and continue the
game.
It may also call for more teamwork, I hope to see a couple of characters
trying
to hold a whole group of NPCs away from the healer and a fallen comrade
while they mend the damage. This may not seem much in table top terms
but
I expect it to be a good burst of adrenaline in a Live game.
Again this change cant work quite this way in RQ terms because it would
be
a death sentence to take a wound. A change to a full round with no other
action might be OK; or you could say the casting drags on till you make
a
successfull first aid.
3. Mundane Skill Still Affects The Quality Of The Result.
The quality of the repair work depends on my ability to arrange the
wound.
The healing spell means I dont have to put stitches in to keep the wound
closed
and the body performs in a minute or so what would have taken it weeks
to do
naturally but that does not mean the process has to be different just
for being
faster. It will still scar if the work is not done carefully. And there
could be some
effect on how fully you recover use of the damaged area.
In RQ terms a first aid role performed alongside the spell could be used
to indicate
how weel the wound is closed. A failure could mean a scar and a fumble
long term
problems.
In Gloranthan terms this would mean that it would be worth going to
someone who
can do the job well. You would be less likely to let just letting anyone
cast healing
on you just because they happen to know it and have a few points of
power free.
In addition there is room to 'accidentally' botch the job.
Incidentally I just had some stitches out of my leg a few hours ago. So
the
subject is a sore pint for me. Literally.
+------------------------------------------- + Nick H
+------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #559
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