Thursday, August 30, 2018

Revised GURPS Magic: Healing spells and cumulative penalties

Here is another spell rules change - or at least rules clarification - for my Dungeon Fantasy / Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game campaign, DF Felltower. For more, see my Revised GURPS Magic for DF page.

The various _____ Healing spells in GURPS have a simple but effective limitation: a -3 to cumulative castings.

It's come up in my games - is this successful castings, or just attempts?

For my DF campaign, I have ruled this is casting attempts. Succeed or fail, the very act of attempting Minor Healing, Major Healing, or Great Healing on a subject counts as a casting. If it fails, pay your 1 energy and take the -3 cumulative on the next casting. Succeed, and have the spell effect, pay the cost appropriate for that effect, and also have the -3 cumulative on the next casting.

This makes for a very effective limitation on total healing for the day, which in turn makes injury more of a resource drain than it can be in GURPS. It has played very effectively in our game, too, and made for interesting tactical choices about spell casting and strategic choices about healing spell planning. Pack your potions, the cleric can't just try and try again!

14 comments:

  1. I don't like it, it makes clerics--which are the least popular character in your campaigns to play--less effective. When there aren't undead around, they lend energy to the wizards and occasionally fire a sunbolt. While wizards are essential because of all the diffuse monsters in the dungeon.

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    1. Clerics are tricky, but I think having a buffing and protecting cleric (as opposed to a pure healbot) can be fun...flaming missiles, flaming weapon, armor, etc. (because they don’t need prerequisites). They just need a lot of Energy Reserve. Insofar as the rule is concerned, I confess to being not very tinkerish (and thus sometimes have a hard time weighing rule changes). There’s pros and cons for having the -3 per cast and not having it. It does make for tough choices at times.

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    2. And those tough choices make it interesting.

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    3. I don't think making healing a question of "I'll just roll until I succeed or critically fail" really makes clerics more interesting and potentially popular. No one has backed off of running a cleric because you failed attempts to heal someone give you a cumulative penalty to try again - not that I know of. Mostly people seem to be choosing different templates because they like those templates more than clerics.

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    4. Clerics can't make flaming missiles. That's not on their list

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  2. I'm a little confused by your post.

    Minor and Major healing DO have the -3 penalty. Which reads to me like it is per attempt. Specifically though this is BY THE SAME CASTER ON THE SAME SUBJECT though. So a team of clerics can, well, team up.

    Great Healing DOES NOT have this.

    Rather it says you can only benefit from it ONCE PER DAY regardless of how many casters attempt it.
    It does say ONE TRY PER DAY though.

    That reads somewhat confusingly to me.


    My instinct is to at least allow another caster to attempt it. Otherwise... better make sure that you make your roll.

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    1. We definitely play per caster per subject. Ex: Brother Ike cast minor healing on Hjalmarr at 15 skill. The next time he casts that same spell on Hjalmarr, he’s at a 12. When he goes to cast that same spell on Mo, he’s at a 15 for him.

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    2. We’ve never had more than 1 healer in a group. Well, I shouldn’t say that. Hjalmarr has never ventured with a group with more than one healer.

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    3. I allow multiple castings of Great Heal with the same cumulative casting penalty as the other two spells. It's really not abusive - the cost to cast makes it restrictive, if you run a game like mine where you can't always rest.

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    4. The time to cast it also a huge restriction.

      I accidentally let it be cast instantly at a convention game. I think I like that better anyway.

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  3. I find the rules okay when every spellcaster in the world can heal. I find them very harsh when only clerics can

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    1. We ran a campaign with straight GURPS Magic, no cleric, and wizards heal. So been there, done that. I'm enjoying the spellcaster type split in this campaign.

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    2. The more I play DF the more I miss 'healing for all spellcasters', and I think the game balances better on it. In particular the DnDish notion (which DF seems to support) of clerics supposed to be kinda sorta sluggers runs into problems with the self healing issue, and if the party only has one healer even a character moderately in the negatives is hard to returb

      In a GURPS party with half spellcasters (about the blend I remember when ran straight Magic Magic fantasy), with every 1 o f them healing, the restrictions on it seemed more needed and balanced

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    3. Personally I prefer the introduction of non-conventional healers - for example the alchemist who brews Great Healing Potions, even the Holy Warrior with a Healing ability.

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