An idea:Removing Healing Kits from CoPaP

Development for CoPaP
Sarmanos
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An idea:Removing Healing Kits from CoPaP

Post by Sarmanos »

Alright before I get the mob with torches and pitchforks let me explain. Right now Healing Kits primarily serve the purpose of getting unconscious PCs back up and going for the most part with maybe mid-combat healing of other PCs as well. But it has in my opinion, cheapened poison and disease to the point of ineffectiveness. So, let's say we remove them and everyone willingly disables all ways of getting them. What then? Yes, there will definitely be a problem with those who took skillpoints in Heal although there might be a possible solution to that as well.

Well here's two things that could be attempted.

1.One use only Cure Light Wounds items that can be used on yourself and other PCs. This would fulfill the purpose of the Healing Kit in bringing back unconscious PCs but doesn't cheapen the effect of disease or poison. Downside:Those who took skillpoints in Heal get hosed by this.

2.Unique Power 1/Use item that basically does the same thing, but with a heal check can maximize or empower the effect or perhaps make it work as a Cure Moderate Wounds instead of a Cure Light Wounds. Not sure if this is possible to script, but it is definitely promising if it can be done.

Yes, I doubt this idea will fly but I decided to put it forth anyways as my PW takes place on a layer of Hades where disease is fairly rampant and wanted disease to carry a bit more weight in the world. (Yeah so I'm acting in the interests of my own world, go figure)
teleri
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Post by teleri »

A simple script can make disease and poison more effective. just have them check and see what is removing them and not allow Kits to remove disease or poison. You will have to update the kit code but it shouldn't be too hard. (: Heck in Hades I could see al healing reduced (: say by 1-2 points per effective level and heal leavign you no more than 75% healed (:
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Baron
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Post by Baron »

I also find that using heal kits on poison may remove the poison itself but not the aftereffect (i.e. reduced con what-have you) that still requires rest/restoration

The effect would hurt lowbies badly I think...who go through kits like nobodies business...I also suspect that a larger percentage of the kits in circulation are crafted items and not purchased.. this also means that herbalists who used to make money in this fashion are now deprived.

Poisons and diseases with Higher DC's I dont think are effected by kits (though the actual mechanism I dont know), so that is one method you could counter their use for that...though without kits there is really only two ways to remove a disease....cleric or paladin.

I think at one time the Avlis team actually discussed removing all kits for sale from vendors making their only source crafters..but thats not your point I guess.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm reaching for my pitchfork :lol: I'm not so keen on the idea myself.

Baron
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Tristan_Durst
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Post by Tristan_Durst »

You could use the HCR Heal Kits and Medicine Bags. They take in consideration that you have Skill points in Heal, and will bring a character back from neg HPs to 1 hp, but will not remove Poison and Disease, and will only heal you when you rest. To remove effects of Poison and Disease would be a potion of Antidote or a restoration spell, lesser or full. But a Modified Rest Script would be needed as well, to not fully heal you when you rest, but to only give you back 1 hp / Level.

Just is all the players that have Heal Kits and the Alchemist crafters that can make them would be a factor to take in. Personally, and based on the other thread started by Alex, the PGer had a TON of heal kits. It would most defiently curb PGing, and the need to party with a Cleric, or other caster of Healing Spells.

Tristan
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Post by Starslayer_D »

Main problem with upping the DC's on poisons and diseases:
The DC's used by a heal kit to remove the effects are the same DC's as the fortitute save used to resist them.

If you up the poison DC by 10, exspect to see even more healkits used, and most non-Fort-save builds to fail miserable against poison and disease.. making these stronger.

Option, if doable: When healkit is used, lower in the calculation the roll used against the poison's/diseases DC's by the penalty. THis doesn't make inital poisons/diseases harder to resist by the fort save, but makes removing them by healkit harder.
emprod
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Post by emprod »

I'd like to see them stay but be unusable in combat. *shrugs*

As for poison and disease, those are more nullified by every lvl 7+ PC having access to cheap Lesser Amulets of Health than by kits.
Malathyre
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Post by Malathyre »

In a campaign style NWN game a friend of mine ran, he used a modified type of healing kit that allowed one to restore points based upon the heal modifier only, removing the d20 from the calculation. The downside to these is they weren't stackable. If anyone is interested in an item like this for their world, contact me and I'll see if I can get the information from my friend regarding implementation of them.
<Daerthe> There is only room for so much realism before things start to get silly.
Alexandru Stanicu
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Post by Alexandru Stanicu »

What if the heal kit gave you a d4 hp + your heal skill?
If the character the kit is used on is in "bleeding" the kit could either utomaticly bring them to 0, or give the bleeding character a bouns to his next check to stop. (Say the character using the kits heal skill?)
Lastly, we should probably say that heal skill/bandages can only do so much so they are only effective once per hour (game time).


This lessens the effect of them, but still allows them to work, and give a bouns to those with a higher skill.

As far as poison/disease:
In PnP the heal skill doesnt remove those effects, it allows the effected person to make another save modified in someway by the heal skill of the other person (cant do this on your self).
What if we changed it so that:
- heal kits had to be used by someone other than the effected character
- on use of the kit the character makes a new save, and adds the heal skill of the character who used the kit on them (with a successful skill use*)
-only allowed to make one attempt

Example:

Bob gets posioned and fails his save
Joe his friend uses a heal kit on him (Joe has a heal of 10)
Bobs has a new save rolled with Joe's skill (10) added to it

Again this will lessen the effect of the kits without making them useless



* The DC for this check would have to be discussed, and IMO take 20 should not apply to this roll.
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Post by Flakey »

Malathyre wrote:In a campaign style NWN game a friend of mine ran, he used a modified type of healing kit that allowed one to restore points based upon the heal modifier only, removing the d20 from the calculation.
Alexandru Stanicu wrote:What if the heal kit gave you a d4 hp + your heal skill?
Either of those could work, and put more emphasis on developing a decent heal skill, but limiting the number of uses per hour/day will have two big impacts :-

1). Many healers can go through 100 to 200 heal kits in a dm adventure. 95% of them on other people. Usually mostly the low levels that are there. A limit on their use will end up with them dying far more frequently.

2) Many new starters to Avlis rely on the income of either producing heal kits or collecting ingredients for heal kits. Reduce the need for them, and the early starters will be hit hard financially.
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Post by Arkonswrath »

In my opinion this is a very bad idea... here are my reasons:

Right now, Heal kits are the primary source of Income for a lot of current crafters.

NWN, while I know we want to make it as realistic and true to PnP as possible, is not PnP. In a PnP session a person can flat run 120 feet and escape an enemy fairly easily.. in NWN once you are mobbed, you are mobbed and it's hard as hell to shake those mobs without cheesing your butt off and using the transition trick. Heal Kits work as equalizers in this respect. Instead of just dying when in true PnP fashion you could run away and escape, you use a heal kit to keep yourself alive.

DM Events: Heal kits = the most common way a person gets healed in a DM event. You take away heal kits and you basically nullify the "healer" in most DM events. There isn't always a cleric around when a DM event kicks off. You'll end up with a lot more parties dying to mundane mobs.

Now on a counter argument.. I think instead of completely getting rid of Heal kits... make them invoke an AoO instead of being a free action.
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Post by kombinat »

Only usable out of combat, except to stabilise bleeding PCs, and can't be used to cure diseases/poisons? Sounds like a good approach to me.. diseases would be terrifying to anyone not partied with a mid-high level druid or cleric.. poisons at least you can carry antidotes for.

Heal kits would still be very useful, to heal up after combat before the next fight.
Heal skill would still be useful... 2 kits instead of 12 being needed makes a huge difference.
Crafters would still be selling plenty of healing kits, and a whole bunch more potions too.

It'd make encounters that would otherwise be a walk in the park more challenging, but with a change in party tactics (namely, cycling out of combat to drink some potions, and more usage of healing spells/scrolls/potions) they could still be managed.

I use a hell of a lot of healing kits. 200+ in single adventures, often. Spawns and creatures may well need rebalancing with such a change put in... but I'd be all for it. More power to clerics and druids, for a start! Right now, you can outdo any healing spell other than Heal and Mass Heal with a single +1 kit... I don't think that's right.
Alexandru Stanicu
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Post by Alexandru Stanicu »

Ok what about nd4 where n is the character using the kits heal skill?

The limit I mentioned of 1/game hour ...dont we run ~ 4real min to a game hour? I dont see 1 every 4 min as that bad.
Gairus
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Post by Gairus »

We can't all access clerics all the time. Restricting them by time would be an extra-ordinarily over restrictive thing to do.
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Post by Themicles »

To rephrase what I've said in another thread on this topic:

You'd be forcing people to either:
  • A: Earn more money.
    • On Avlis, potions got so expensive that I couldn't buy them anymore without going broke. Why? Because the amount of money I had to spend on potions to stay alive FAR outweighed the amount of money I'd make.
    B: Craft potions themselves.
    • As for crafting, we should never put in measures that force players to craft. It's just not for everyone.
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Post by Khaelindra »

Alexandru Stanicu wrote:Ok what about nd4 where n is the character using the kits heal skill?
109d4...sweet... :) :wink:


My input: by disabling healing kits you'd sacrifice the appeal of a fast-moving game to realism. Potions are FAR too expensive to live on, clerics are not that everpresent (don't start on druids and healng spells, the 1-up on all healing-spells except the CLW makes them not really fun to have to learn to heal an entire party...not even yourself...), and a hp-return of 1/lvl hp per rest means that an epic fighter heals 30 hp after an entire series of fights...imagine a DM-event (or non-DM party-thing) involving combat where the fighter only recuperates 30 hp per in-game day...what kind of opponents could they face? Totally effortless monsters would become scary because they COULD roll a 20 and hit for some of those oh-so-precious 30/rest hit points...A heavy battle and a group would need to sit still for half an hour real time to recuperate...i know i'd HATE to play a non-divine-caster in such an environment.

Disabling them in combat would make the lowerlevels not only vulnerable but also devoid of one of their prime useful tasks in a multi-level party. It would add to realism.

Denying a healer, healer as in a person with (significant) heal-skill, the ability to remove poisons/diseases, will make poisons which now are readily available for a lot of monsters a lot more dangerous. Neutralize poison is a lvl 4 spell, or can be bought as a potion for around 1000 gold. Neither are available for low-level groups, condemning them to resting after each basic spider-encounter or mummy-attack (to name a few). With only one rest-period per 16 RL-minutes, again what you accomplish is a major slowing down of the gameplay.


As a solution for Hades wanting disease to be more or less persistent: can't you just up the disease DC by 10 or 20 or 30 points?

At this moment the healing kit already works against poisons approximately as in PnP: you make an extra check (heal-check) against the poison/disease, and if you beat the DC the character is no longer poisoned/diseases, albeit without regaining previously lost stat-points. As long as you give diseases and poisons a fitting heal-DC (see Star's last paragraph), they should be healable by healers.

Right now, you can outdo any healing spell other than Heal and Mass Heal with a single +1 kit

At least in Avlis no longer true, with the coming of the Heavenly Healing Elixer (max [90hp/40%]-heal) and Greater heavenly Healing Elixer (max[180hp/80%]-heal) potions. No Healer can beat even the weakest of those on a warrior-character of their level. Not even Divinia.


In general: limiting bandages to out-of-combat only would seem reasonable (even if it sorta kills my character :roll: ). Upping the disease/poison DC's to heal somehow seems reasonable. However, disabling their basic power screws lowlevels, crafter, poor people, healers, groups without cleric...too much would be broken for very little gain as far as playing experience is concerned.
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Post by Khaelindra »

Tristan_Durst wrote:Personally, and based on the other thread started by Alex, the PGer had a TON of heal kits.

*looks for "the other thread" but draws a blank*

Am i missing something here, or is this thread a spin-off of a restricted forum?
MorphlingROR
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Post by MorphlingROR »

I personally think that much more harm to disease / poison effectiveness comes not from healing kits, but from immunity to poison / disease amulets that are so widespread. One could easily buy it from a Bioware merchant and they are not even expensive. Poison is still effective when people use only kits and no immunity as it cripples characters anyway and forces them to use restoration.

In my opinion healing kits are needed in CoPaP the way it is now, though if there would be a way to disable them curing poison and diseases and leave their healing effectiveness it would solve the problem without crippling the skill and characters.
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Post by Alexandru Stanicu »

Themi, this would not force anyone to craft, it would just force them to buy from crafters.

Anyway I am not sure that removing is a good idea, but I do sorta think changing them is a good idea.
Why should a box of bandages and oinments do a better job of healing than a cleric?
MorphlingROR
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Post by MorphlingROR »

Alexandru Stanicu wrote:Why should a box of bandages and oinments do a better job of healing than a cleric?
They are not really better. It only comes close if the character invests into Heal skill and I do not see why it shouldn't then. Besides a cleric/druid who invests into Heal will still be a lot better due to Wisdom bonus. Still no kit comes close to a Heal or Greater Restoration spell.
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Post by Moredo »

emp wrote:I'd like to see them stay but be unusable in combat. *shrugs*

As for poison and disease, those are more nullified by every lvl 7+ PC having access to cheap Lesser Amulets of Health than by kits.
I'm afraid alot of people will cut me of their christmas present list but I'm with emprod on this one. :wink: And this can be done easily with just adding a dialogue to the kit.

- Moredo
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Post by Nob »

But they aren't better. I think the perception's getting a bit skewed here. It's not as if having a healing kit is going to make a level 10 character with a few nominal skill points in the skill do a whole lot better in healing than a level 10 cleric.

3d8 + 10 is usually going to heal just as much if not more than 1d20 + 13 in a combat situation, as the average roll of 3 d8s is going to be more consistent than a d20.

The difference is mainly in volume.

That is, you can have 30 healing kits that you can spread throughout a series of battles, or at most you can have 6 cure xx spells, that's assuming you don't bother to cast any buff or offensive spells.

This is mainly an issue because of how encounters work on CoPaP as opposed to PnP. Sure you can get by with 6 cure crits in PnP because you don't have 5-10 creatures per spawn multiplied by maybe 10-20 times per session.

So, what's the exact issue here?

Are healing kits "too powerful"? How?
Do they heal too much?
Do they make disease/poison useless?
What part of them makes them so "uber" that requires such a radical step?
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Post by slave.of.emotions »

I can hardly imagine a cleric heal a big party of adventures only with spells, without to use heal he would most likely have to sacrive all spells to heal only him self.... only heal and greater restoration are effective spells on high level.

When i think about a healer then i think of a character that can heal my whole party pretty quick, and thats mostly a character with a good heal skill, when i think about a character that could support my party, make it stronger, i would take a cleric.

A cleric does not have to be a healer, and a healer does not have to be a cleric.




With healing kits removed all chars in a party would have to be clerics, half of them is buffing and other half healing.
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Post by Baron »

About the only useful change I can see here is to allow an AoO when using a kit..provided that isnt hard coded.

however if kits are made to be unusable in combat, then you will have eliminated the possibility of healers in Combat...most players have worked out a method wherein second liners actually heal the front liners.

In DM events and areas with major mobs this is almost mandatory..it also gives the players in the back something to do other than watch. Eliminate kits altogether and you will Have to scale back mobs....

Clerics simply cannot provide enough healing to keep a 5 man party healed through more than a few encounters...potions are an option of course, but cost a large fortune that many players simply cant afford.

I think this is an item we will have to suspend realism on, I think they are crucial for the way CoPaP is built right now.

Baron
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Post by Tristan_Durst »

Khaelindra wrote:
Tristan_Durst wrote:Personally, and based on the other thread started by Alex, the PGer had a TON of heal kits.

*looks for "the other thread" but draws a blank*

Am i missing something here, or is this thread a spin-off of a restricted forum?
Yeah the other thread is the CoPaP DM Thread. Did not realize this is the Open Developement Thread.

The person in question is toteing:

Code: Select all

166 Heal Kits +10
50 Potions of Antidote
92 Potions of Cure Critical Wounds
41 Potions of Heal
40 Potions of Lesser Restoration
6 Potions of Cure Serious Wounds
7 Potions of Aid
Clearly that is enough to outfit a small army.
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Post by Psyco »

I haven't looked at it, but are the healing kit scripts editable?

If so, then why not just remove the D20 from the DC check of the poisens and disease, leave healing itself as is.

Those wanting to use the kits to get rid of poisen/disease would actually have to put in points to heal then.

Most DCs are ~10-15, so its not a huge investment, but its still an investment. and the bigger diseases have DCs in the 30s, i have seen people fail to heal these under the current system.
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