[Rq-rules] Re: Heal and xenoheal

[Tom Cantine]

I also like the idea of including a downside to healing magic. I think 
it's because with healing magic being too cheap, the consequences of 
combat are not taken seriously enough. Players just don't feel what 
their characters suffer, so it's difficult to model the disincentive of 
sheer pain effectively. In RQ, it's less severe a problem than in games 
with lots of hit points and no hit locations, but it's still there.

I like the way Harnmaster deals with the problem, by describing an 
injury graphically in a way that has a practical effect on how one goes 
about treating it. In fact, in my own game, I use a modified version of 
the Harnmaster wounding system for PC's, while sticking with basic RQ 
hit points for NPCs and beasties.

Another approach is to give Heal a duration, rather than to make it an 
Instant spell. Make it last maybe 24 hours, or even 12, during which 
time it will hold everything together well enough to be used for battle 
and so forth, but when it wears off (or is dispelled!) the wounds open 
up again, although you could of course cast a new bunch of Heals five 
minutes before the last one expires. Natural healing only happens when 
it's actually damaged, though, so to properly recover, the spell would 
have to be maintained at less than the full injury. For example, if 
you've got a 4 point wound to the chest, you'd have three points of 
Heal cast on you every 12 hours for five days or so, and then two 
points for the next five days, and so on.