A modest proposal: from healing damage to preventing it

[Zonk]

So, I was thinking about the whole healing/consumables/potions debate.

I had an idea.

It's quite a huge change to the game which I don't expect to be implemented, but I feel it's still worth discussing - interesting ideas could come out of this debate even if the original idea isn't implemented.

Basically...what if healing in-combats no longer the expected 'normal'thing, but instead the focus was moved to reducing damage taken, survive until the end of the fight and then heal naturally?

You'd still expect to take damage from combat - people get hurt in fights, duh - but you'd understand that you won't be able to recover a significant part of your Life by simply through quaffing a potion or using a talent.

In-combat healing would NOT be completely removed, but it would become an exception(through powerful/rare magical items/costly talents), not the rule.

Player capabilities would need to be heavily changed, so while the game would be...different, it wouldn't necessarily be hardeer.

How would that happen?

Let's consider the ways damage suffered by the player can be reduced:

Dodging: Being attacked but not being hit, usually because of having a high defense score. The most obvious defense, but not always an option

Armor/Resistances: You still get hit, but don't suffer it as much.

Attack: Some say this is the best defense. Disable, debuff or just kill enemies before they get a chance to hurt you significantly. Killing an enemy one turn sooner means they get one less turn to hurt you.

Allies: (not-so)human shields. They can take the damage instead of you. Golems, summons...They are complicated because they will also have their own defenses, and count as 'attack' for you, as they will help you kill enemies faster.

Mobility: Avoid being surrounded. Move to a corridor to face one foe at a time. Flee if needed.

Detection: Knowing where your enemies are in advance helps you plan the fight.



Ideally each class/character type should have a decent mix of defenses, which does NOT mean every class needs to have something in each category.

Some classes are simply going to be better than others at this - Archmages for example can already detect foes, avoid damage AND redirect it to an attacker, teleport away, heal(which isn't a proper defense, but should still be possible, although not as needed).

That's ok - we don't need the classes to be balanced against each other, this being a single player game. Some classes are going to be harder, some easier.
What matters it that EVERY class should be playable and able to survive if the player plays intelligently.

Unless you want to add a challenge class which is supposed to die horribly anyway, but I disgress...


So...looking forward to reading people thoughts/comments/criticism about this.

[Sirrocco]

Seems like a significant amount of rebalancing effort (since you're basically taking out an entire axis of the survivability graph and calling for the other axes to be rebalanced to pick up the slack) without significant return benefit.

[Zonk]

Again, I didn't really expect this to really accepted and I know it would take a major rebalancing effort(although not as much for some classes such as Archmages), but I think it's unfair to say there wouldn't be significant benefits.

Some I can think of:
1)Characters would become somewhat less consumable/gylph/rune/wand/rod/whatever dependant.
Rebalanced abilities would let you rely more on your OWN strengths rather than those of your equip. Tools are nice, especially magical ones, but heroism/experience/what you actually learned along the way should matter more.

This would would be particularly relevant for some non-mage classes which have to use "magical" means right now to have a chance in some situations.
It could also make antimagic(or just not using so much magical stuff when you're not a mage) more of an option/something less 'outlandish', which could be interesting.

2)This is more of an opinion but: I think getting the shit kicked out of you then going back to almost full life in a turn or two feels(especially if doing so using items) somewhat artificial/unheroic/tactically bland, as opposed to new/revamped abilities which give you more power to prevent damage - and as my OP mentions, there are MANY ways of doing that, so it wouldn't be something as boring as simply making monster attacks weaker or more +armor/defense/resistence abilities.

3)It would be 'fairer' to a lot monsters who don't usually have means of healing.
Although some argue for the reverse - give some monsters ways to heal themselves such as potions(which would be dropped if they don't use them). I actually suggested that myself in chat in the past(even if only for a few humanoid monsters), but of course it doesn't fit with this new idea.