Why is it that healing magic is always a divine thing rather than an arcane thing...

Because Medical Practicioners don't heal, they treat, and let the body heal. To directly heal someone with magic isn't an act of knowledge, it's channeling positive energy that just rights it all without you having to know shit.

Now I would like the idea of arcane spells based on actually messing with physiology to treat conditions, like closing wounds and setting bones and such. It would be more for stabilizing, but perhaps at high levels you could heal small amounts purely by messing with their physiology, but it shouldn't be equal to what divine casters do.

in case it's not clear, Divine magic does have the power of Life via God/the gods.
Arcane magic, the alchemists, never could seize it themselves.

Bards are arcane casters who can use healing magic.

In my setting, it's possible to heal with arcane magic, it's just more difficult: you're essentially performing mundane medicine augmented by magic. You can perform surgery with precise cutting spells and close wounds by cauterizing them with precise heat spells.

Divine healing magic, on the other hand, is more primal and more effective. You just lay on hands and say "Be healed." This is because, as says, gods can bestow life and therefore are able to manipulate its essence.

Basically, .

And yet, we have Necromancers who can twist life and create undead or make themselves undead!

I suppose the actual question is why in D&D are healing spells conjuration instead of Necromancy where Necromancy is often described as understanding and controlling the forces of life and death?

In old editions, divine healing spells were considered "white necromancy".

Why is healing magic even in tabletop games? If the original answer was to prevent sacky shit, it sure isn't used that way. Healers are not only required, but naturally upset the entire balance of combat.

Combat, like entropy, trends toward an equilibrium and like real life observed entropy, that's almost always toward a "less usable" state of energy. What this means is that hit points go down, stamina goes down, magic uses go down. Players get less options and are forced into tighter situations. If they play it right, so is their enemy. Just like boxing, the end is going to be sluggish and a battle of grit and technique. Except for parties with fucking healers. Healers naturally reverse the equilibrium. You can fight like an insane maniac because hey, those 60 hit points you just lost will be returned in an instant!

Now, I'm not saying all healing is bad, though it presents a huge prisoner's dilemma (whichever side doesn't use a healer against one using a healer is at a huge disadvantage, thus both sides must have a healer to stand an equal chance); the problem is reactive healing.

Reactive healing means that you can guage the situation and minimize your cost and maximize the fighting effectiveness the healing grants at any time. The only "downside" is if something can combo or one-shot into an instant knockdown, which is a danger regardless of the presence of a healer. On the other hand, proactive healing (before a fight, overheal or a regen buff or a trigger buff that only heals X HP when Y condition is met in-fight) is far more fair and more of a strategy than a requirement. It still serves to reverse stupid sacky chance shit and forces the "healer" to contribute to the fight tactically or offensively. It also is relatively mid-impact, so teams aren't forced to have one, especially if the amount healed is dialed down below the damage a player could deal.

Healing is so massively flawed in games it ruins the fun.

Is this a copypasta, or do you actually have brain problems?

Stop playing Pathfinder.

...

I vote brain problems, personally.

I studied game theory, economics, game design and have designed several role-playing games. I've studied information theory and chaos theory. I don't have "brain problems", I've mathed this out. Reactive healing ruins the experience of games as the arrow of time makes combat trend one way and healing reverses this. Not only does this have bad game feel but it causes immense natural balancing issues. Not the least of which is the prisoner's dilemma of opposing teams playing healers, then there's the problem of being forced to target-pick them first which just allows damage classes to do the same to yours.

I don't play Pathfinder. This problem isn't limited to D&D.

>I can't be wrong, I'm behind 12 PhDs
Sure thing, kiddo.

I really have no words for this, look at pic to extrapolate my confusion

don't respond to bait

and for the love god don't waste GETs on bait

At least it was a cute pic.

>Why is healing magic even in tabletop games?
Because people want to be magic-users that can heal.

>If I disagree with it, it must be bait!

>If I don't understand, surely no one can!

Pretty well outlines these concerns:
rpgmaker.net/articles/176/

Basically cheap healing ruins the stakes in an RPG.

This is true. I see your economics terms and raise you a few homebrews to make healing more managable, i.e. making it only potions/brews that heal over time, or a mixture of science and technology that only provides a temporary fix that will need surgery later to stop the internal bleeding.

Witnessed

>Have you tried not playing D&D.jpg

I would think healing magic would be better if it wasn't just ," I put my hand on you and all your limbs grew back."

That should be some high level shit or some powerful spirit or god has turned you into a divine lightning rod and is channeling it's power through you at the risk of literally burning you out. Granted I think there should be a more meaningful way of expressing "miracles" and divine intervention but that's a debate for another topic.

Anyways, as priest often have the chance to be intellectualls and educated like wizards are it's not beyond the realm of possibility for a priest/cleric/whatever to be trained as a doctor except he can use some healing power to help when you can only do so much with a scalpel and some bandages.

I like Dark Souls' portrayal of faith magic. Some of the descriptions of the spells even state that the faith could come from an evil place.

>Why is it that healing magic is always a divine thing rather than an arcane thing?
It's not always that way, and that distinction doesn't always exist.

It usually is because of tradition. Also it's a way to define party roles.

Poster you replied to here, actually I completely agree with you. A middle point is a great solution. In my own game, potions can be mixed as a skill and one high level of that skill is heal-over-time potions. It also has a limited-use flask that can heal magic or HP, which funny enough Dark Souls 3 ended up doing too. The heal spells are like "Overheal" where if you're at full, you go X points over. And a regen buff that lasts for a fight.

Why have any variety in magic at all? Why can't anyone cast everything?

You can have both. Just have people specialize.
>oh I have 10 ranks in destruction, but only 2 in healing

Check'd

Except the enemies dont get worn down you twit. Your party just slogged through a dungeon and are low on supplies, stamina, spells, whatever. The boss at the end has had an enjoyable day of gourmet meals and viewing art pieces for his foyer. While your party was trying to figure a way past the traps he was getting some head from the princess before servants helped him into his armor. Your party stumbles into the room in time to see him wrapping up his warm-up calisthenics.
The party entropied. The enemies do not.

?

>Potions and other healing items can only heal over time and can be made by anyone with the skill

>They have a chance to become addictive or, if overconsumed can take on the effects of poison

>Direct magical healing still requires a sort of medicine skill so you don't mend someone's bones and flesh the wrong way

I'm not sure what you were trying to get at but in a sense you are kind of right. I would imagine certain spells would be the type that people go out and learn because they are readily available and handy (i.e. presdigitation) So it makes sense for these spells to have some means of being used often even if they are expensive in and of themselves.

Beautiful!

Except that this is the exact approach of Dark Souls. If your system is built to handle it by allowing players to have real tactical choices, instead of just meatsponge more than the other guy, then it works exactly like estus. Giving additional healing would be like Dark Souls II where there's never any real threat of death except one-shots and unstoppable bullshit. Your argument stance isn't flawed, it just shows the kind of games you tend to play.

Who got ?

Which went extra nice with the reversible mechanic.

Cuz Jesus.
There is no reason that a necromancer, the wizard of death and life, shouldnt be able to mend injuries. Healing is divine because healing magic gets seen as good magic, and good magic must come from a god.

Play Vampire 20th. Tzimisce's Vicissitude combined with excessive Medicine knowledge makes a pretty evil motherfucker that can "heal" people. Using blood.

You're a bad liar.

>opposing teams playing healers
Why are there "opposing teams" in a tabletop role-playing game?

>game theory
Does not mean what you're trying to imply it means.

>have designed several role-playing games
So has Monte Cook. Doesn't mean he's good at it.

>Reactive healing ruins the experience of games
"Ugh, I HATE that my character is still alive."

>it causes immense natural balancing issues
That's why all-Medic teams sweep in TF2.

>then there's the problem of being forced to target-pick them first which just allows damage classes to do the same to yours.
"Now their healer is dead and we've got more damage-dealers, but they're in better fighting shape because of the pre-mortem actions of the healer. Ugh! This is so unbalanced!"

But Monte Cook IS good at it, bad example, how about Modiphius?

>meatsponge more than the other guy

That only works if you have unlimited healing. Name on tabletop game where such is the case.

>>it causes immense natural balancing issues
>That's why all-Medic teams sweep in TF2.
This is how I know you're being obtuse. No one claims an all-healer party is a good idea, or that healing is inherently broken. The claim is that a healer will change the math behind combat trades and inherently give an advantage to the team with a healer. Therefore, both teams must have a healer to minimize their risk of loss.
It doesn't matter if one team [the adventurers] has been fighting through room after room, or if the team is freshly arrived [the monsters]. It's a matter of trades, and even a fresh fighter benefits when healed after taking damage.

This situation is near textbook Prisoner's Dilemma, which is game theory, by the way.

You have no idea what you're even talking about.

Opposing teams are the challenges set forth by the GM as opposed to the party. There needs to be stakes and drama. I've explained that easy access to reactive healing on the spot kills that dead.

Game Theory exactly means what I implied. It's strategic decision making and healing removes a lot of interesting decision making. The use of game theoretical terms was also correct. I've had to tutor on this subject before.

>So has Monte Cook. Doesn't mean he's good at it.
>"Ugh, I HATE that my character is still alive."
>That's why all-Medic teams sweep in TF2.
These aren't even arguments, just huge fallacies. Who cares about Monte Cook? There's no need to refute an argument of credibility by quality of work, which wasn't even made. Contradicting with sarcasm isn't helping your stance either. Making a ridiculous comparison to a real-time twitch shooter has nothing to do with tabletop imagination games in anything less than an obtuse sense.

>"Now their healer is dead and we've got more damage-dealers, but they're in better fighting shape because of the pre-mortem actions of the healer. Ugh! This is so unbalanced!"
Again, you can't just sweep straight past point A as though the effect of it is all that matters. Over time, it just becomes Attack, Heal, Repeat. Not about TTRPGs but it has relevant points: gamasutra.com/blogs/EricSchwarz/20121210/183199/DPS_and_the_Decline_of_Complexity_in_RPGs.php

Pathfinder. In my group, we had a fucking frogperson who could cling to ceilings and heal for just stupid amounts every turn seemingly without end. Not like it's a shining example of a good game but you said "name one".

Monte Cook is shit at making games.; His giant boner for wizards always unbalances everything he makes.

Robert Schwalb makes good games.

To add to what you said, in fact most monster parties including bosses are scaled such that a fresh party would flatten them because of the perception of wearing down. Healing only exacerbates this issue.

What's interesting to me is that you're actually kind of right. I don't think Healing should be removed, and it's only really a major difficulty for games like D&D, but this is a real problem in game design. In one game, I think Dragon Age 2 or Inquisition, they decided that healing magic wouldn't be a thing because it essentially required all battles either be resource draining slogs or they'd be too easy. When you have the ability to heal at will, you create a situation where here isn't a way to know when designing the game just how hard things can hit.

For a simple example: When you have zero healing and you know for a fact that the parameters of the game allow for a character to have between X and Y health, you know how much damage a monster can do to feel challenging but not impossible. When you add healing into the mix, that X becomes almost any number. This is one of the reasons CR in D&D and spin offs is so inaccurate and wild. Because it has to make so many assumptions about what the "average" party is like. You also create a situation where having a healer is necessary. If you don't have healing, that CR CL encounter is going to feel a lot tougher.

Personally, I don't think the answer is to remove healing or anything. It's just to change the way that it's handled.

There are plenty of games where the healing is effectively unlimited.

Faith healers.

Final Fantasy doesn't have an Arcane/Divine divide. It's magic users are varied. Sometimes its natural talent and sometimes it's studied (and sometimes it's equipping something).

>Is shit, no supporting evidence
He was one of the lead designers for the most played RPG in the world. He was a major influence on 5e DnD, he makes fantastic adventure modules, he has made millions on his new RPGs which have extremely solid design decisions.

Robert Schwalb made the Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

Your move.

>When you have the ability to heal at will, you create a situation where here isn't a way to know when designing the game just how hard things can hit.
For RPGs it's ironically the opposite argument than for modern shitty FPS games. Where in modern FPS, you have fast HP regen because developers want to design their linear corridor of railroad rooms such that they have exact knowledge of player HP (but they choose full since it's the only amount they can guarantee no matter the skill of the player). In an RPG, Bioware chooses no healing at all since it means they can scale the encounters to accomodate the "average" damage and evasion made by a competent party. This means everything is a damage and skill check and if you fail, you're probably at fault. Think Dark Souls.

>Personally, I don't think the answer is to remove healing or anything. It's just to change the way that it's handled.
Neither do I. Which I said as much. Changing it to be a resource-consuming thing that's rare and over time really makes it a precious thing to players who won't want to squander it. This creates an interesting risk drama. Do I push my luck and see if I can out-tactics this combat without healing while it's down to the wire, saving my heal for the big fight? Or do I heal now, not risking it and potentially having to turn back for today and miss the big fight?

You make a very good point. I personally believe that combat healing is almost always a worse option than inflicting damage, because K.O.ing foes is almost always better than restoring health to an ally. An enemy that is incapacitated can't inflict damage on your party, thus killing even a grunt or two on the first round can result in significant 'pseudo-healing' for your side. Aggression tends to be far more effective, and it also speeds up combat to a small degree which is laudible.

At the same time, removing reactive healing can step on a lot of character concepts and playstyles. I personally enjoy playing support-style characters in games, and having the ability to heal up a fallen ally is both powerful and makes me feel appreciated. Thus, assuming that you're playing something like D&D, you can compromise and meld reactive and proactive healing together in one simple way:

Temporary Hit Points.

In 5E, THP is lost before standard HP if damage is suffered, and it also goes away when the character takes a short or long rest (or after 5 minutes in-game pass). THP also does not stack; if you already have some, and you'd gain more, you set your new THP value to the higher number instead of adding them together.

If you changed it so that every single healing spell in 5E granted THP instead of HP, healers would be encourage to apply it pre-fight rather than mid-fight, since HP could only be regained through rest and spending Hit Dice. Assuming gaining THP doesn't stop you from Dying and making Death Saves, that's a pretty significant change. It would also mean that any excess 'healing' applied to a character (that is, remaining THP after a fight ends) would be wasted, thus (again) encouraging spells being cast in advance.

Monte Cook is someone who mostly made shitty 3.5 OGL games that didn't have any business being under D20, like World of Darkness or Call of Cthulhu.
I'm honestly surprised that Cypher System isn't bad.
Arguing that D&D is good just because it's the most played is also kind of spurious. Not saying Cook is the Devil or anything (like I would have said four years ago), but "He was involved in D&D!" is a bad argument. After all, Twilight was beloved.

>I personally believe that combat healing is almost always a worse option than inflicting damage
That's the opposite of what he said, though. He said the problem is that healing is so good. If your enemy heals, it's much harder to KO them. If you heal, it's much harder to KO you. And since the games where this is a problem are all games like D&D where you have strict party roles, you'll have one person healing and others doing damage.

Also, I'm not really a D&D person, but you know what made healing more interesting than simply regaining meatpoints? 4e's healing surges

Monte Cook is almost the sole reason why wizards are overpowered in any system he's made. The dude has a massive boner for quadratic magic.
But hey, let's pretend that D&D is good. You obviously know nothing of Schwalb seeing as the man has worked on 3 different editions of D&D, a Song of Ice and Fire RPG, and made Shadow of the Demon Lord.

>At the same time, removing reactive healing can step on a lot of character concepts and playstyles. I personally enjoy playing support-style characters in games, and having the ability to heal up a fallen ally is both powerful and makes me feel appreciated. Thus, assuming that you're playing something like D&D, you can compromise and meld reactive and proactive healing together in one simple way:
I think support roles can be robust and satisfying without resorting to reactive healing of any kind. THP are a step in the right direction but there are bigger strides in the form of heal-over-time (HoT) and very limited resources. Being forced, for example, to decide before a bout starts how much you want to use (almost like a bid versus your confidence) really throws in some sexy game theory atomic games.

In one of my games, support is a very easy and common role with satisfying rewards. Essentially, you can make ridiculously poweful potion effects, turning your into a god of different styles, or doing the same for your party. Additionally, you can be an enchanter and make the party's weapons and armor ridiculous or even make tons of specific-cases to give them tactical edges. Not to mention each of the four schools of magic have lots of unique support skills (with one buff per person, weapon, shield each, plus general buffs). Then there's area control stuff similar to the Force spell in Dark Souls.

But it's originally based on Dungeons & Dragons 2e. It's branched out since then, but since it's never totally ditched its roots it still provides its basis.

I haven't played every Final Fantasy, but in IV the job "white mage" is treated more like a priest than it is a scholar; in both IX and X the healing characters get at least some of their power from summons; and in the DS version of III they at minimum wear hooded robes based on a medieval monk's. VI is in progress. Oh god I think I have a problem please help me.

Continuing on, further discouragement of reactive healing could be achieved through several means, including:
>Penalties when characters are below certain HP thresholds (and THP would not remove these penalties)
>Conversely, bonuses for being ABOVE certain HP thresholds, to avoid a 'death spiral' if playing a more Bright game
>Adding a 'cooldown' or explicit limited uses per fight to combat healing, to prevent spamming in dangerous fights
>Draining a highly limited resource from the healed party member when used (ala Healing Surges in 4E D&D)
>Increased casting time in combat, perhaps easily interrupted by enemy attacks
>Increasing the resources required to use reactive healing spells instead of proactive healing (for example, 1 spell slot out of combat, 2 spell slots in combat)

Honestly, there are many ways to discourage reactive healing, not necessarily because it's overpowered (it's not), but because it's not conducive to a dynamic, action-packed combat experience.

Reactive healing is only good if the hit points restored through it are greater than the hit points you'd effectively heal by just killing the enemy immediately (or faster). A healing spell that heals 10 hit points, and an attack that kills an enemy one round earlier and denies him an attack that would have done 10 damage, are both roughly equivalent. If the spell heals 50 and the enemy would deal 10, the spell is better. If the spell heals 10 and the enemy would deal 50, killing the enemy is better. So it's mostly just a matter of the internal mathematics of the game.

My main problem is that, honestly, ending combat one round earlier just saves everyone time, which is generally better.

As for healing surges, I like them. 13th Age handles them well in my opinion. I like systems where healers are useful, but not required in your party, just like you don't NEED a warrior, rogue, or mage. A party with four different kinds of barbarians should be both playable and fun.

>I haven't played every Final Fantasy, but in IV the job "white mage" is treated more like a priest than it is a scholar
What makes you say this? True, Rosa does have a "pray" ability, but there are libraries for both black mages and white mages in Baron castle. In Mysidia, black mages and white mages live side by side, equally close to the tower of prayer.

D&D 3.5 was the most-played because it was hastily pumped out at an opportune moment in the gaming industry then became the option which was most readily available because it had the capital to out-compete other RPGs. It's the most-played RPG for the same reason Wal-mart is the largest chain.

Not every setting needs priests and witches to hate each other.

Mostly because of the whole "white magic as a form of service" thing. And Cecil learns white magic when he abandons the power of evil.

Heal over Time abilities are both generally complicated (especially for new players) and are essentially just reactive healing with a delayed effect. I'm not a big fan of them, or many forms of ongoing effect to be honest. Juggling a bunch of modifiers and status effects with various bonuses and penalties is what turned me off of 3E and PF, and what made me lose interest in 4E as well. There's something to be said for simple, straightforward mechanics that don't require a lot of book-keeping or tracking.

>Being forced, for example, to decide before a bout starts how much you want to use (almost like a bid versus your confidence) really throws in some sexy game theory atomic games.
Assuming your game revolves around multiple encounters per rest, you could have each character spend a portion of their healing resource (like Hit Dice or Healing Surges) at the start of the fight and gain that much THP. Underbid and they might risk dying, but overbid and they're wasting hit points. That could be quite interesting. Call it a 'surge of adrenaline' or something.

>In one of my games, support is a very easy and common role with satisfying rewards.
Sounds interesting and very complicated. Honestly, dealing with reactive healing is important, but establishing a fun game feel that enables various playstyles can be just as important. If a player wants to be a healer who can slap an ally on the back and mend their wounds in moments, removing that option can turn off a lot of prospective players. You're free to design your game however you like, according to your vision, but if that vision can't accommodate some kinds of players, you lose them as consumers of your product. Assuming you intend your game to be published, if it is not already.

I'm not saying it's not. I'm just saying that it's not "Divine/Arcane", it's "White/Black" (and later you'd get Blue, Red, Summoning, etcetera). White Mages are more like priests and clerics and Divine classes, but it's not the same kind of division. Black Magic can even come from the Gods in FF.

Like I said, healing works and healers are a necessity because healing is a patch on your boat to stop the leaks. You can patch wherever you need, and all you need to do is keep the patches on.
If the fighter gets hit for 10 damage and you can heal him for 10, that's all you need when you've got three guys wailing on one guy. You just need to keep everyone alive long enough to do their job. Unless healing is *drastically* underwhelming, it's generally going to be better than equivalent amounts of damage.

He didn't mean they hate each other, he meant they're both going to church. "Living side by side" wasn't the point; "equally close to the tower of prayer" was.

I play RuneQuest, I can cast healing spells with most magic systems.

>If a player wants to be a healer who can slap an ally on the back and mend their wounds in moments, removing that option can turn off a lot of prospective players.
Well, that argument can be made of any equally popular play choice. For example, I could omit summoning or the act of calling demons to do one's bidding (I have). If I do, I'm omitting a play style as common as healing. However, the sacrifice to the game's balance is immense. Honestly when I sat down to try to balance it, I thought "How in the hell do designers do this?" and then I did a lot of reading, then more reading, then finally more reading. I found that most designers either don't balance it or just bullshit a guess. There's almost no real reliable and sufficiently mathed resource for how to handle reactive healing. Essentially, they're a flawed product of the design past. I'm sad for players who have taken a liking to it (on the rise due to the way MMOs have led gamers) but I can't let myself get caught up in that.

I would also disagree that you need to always and forever use straightforward mechanics just to save a bit of tracking, especially if that mechanic has some serious flaws. If your system by and large is streamlined and has good game feel, players typically don't mind one part that has some quirks; nay they welcome the challenge.

>How do designers do it?
By making healers fragile and thus a liability outside of their ability to improve longevity.

Or by making the healer have less total output in terms of other important mechanics (such as damage or out-of-combat utility) so that their healing instead serves the purpose of effectively extending the usability of those features by means of extending the lives of the characters who provide them, in roughly equal measure to the addition of another damage-based or utility-based character to the party.

Or by factoring in healing no matter what and making the advantage of healing characters that they can provide it more easily, so it doesn't muddle with their rough HP approximations.

Or by making healing force the player to give up a resource that's pooled with other, equally-useful non-healing abilities.

>If the fighter gets hit for 10 damage and you can heal him for 10, that's all you need when you've got three guys wailing on one guy.
You're assuming that you're fighting 4 on 1 there, and that one character's healing output is equivalent to the 'boss' enemy's entire damage output per round. If we're also assuming that the healer in question can keep spending enough resources to maintain this level of healing for the entire battle, then healing is indeed overpowered. But that's a HELL of a lot of 'ifs', heck I'm not even listing most of them.

Several games have, in fact, balancing summoning magic in the past. Just because doing so is difficult and requires testing does not mean that it should not be done at all. Oftentimes the mechanics that take the most testing and work to get right are the best ones. I think that if you discount reactive healing along with these other 'problematic' abilities, you will only serve to narrow the scope of your game's possibilities and thus your audience. Don't give up because it's hard to get right, work to include it because it's so hard to get right. also makes some great points.

The guy's point is perfectly sound and then there's you guys, acting like a mob of angry children spilling out of the short bus and realizing that they weren't going to disneyland after all. You don't make the slightest move to refute his points and think it's going to work to just act like it's too stupid for words. The problem is... THAT NEVER WORKS. Perhaps it's offended you that he has an unconventional criticism for the system, perhaps it's upsetting to you that he's attacking something that's long been the status quo. We, as humans, are flawed, and we can't help but be emotional sometimes. Just keep it to your dumb fuckin self and stop spamming the board with shitty "omg wat lol" reactions.

No, you missed my point. Balancing summoners is not hard. It's just an example of an equally popular play style not included. The point being that not all play styles must be included.

That...has no bearing on anything. In fact that person mentioned the concept of targeting healers first, probably because they're A. a ridiculous unit and B. easy to wipe out.

Again, all of these things you mention just assume the forced presence of a healer, which was a problem to begin with. It's taking the conclusion of your argument as the premise, which is just Begging the Question.

Adding to this: typically, dead enemies can't deal damage. So by having a healer rather than another heavy hitter, you're simultaneously letting the enemies live longer and deal more damage. Reactive healing is exactly what makes that trade-off worthwhile.

I'm pointing out exactly why a party with no healer is as viable as a party with a healer in most games. Because the healer has drawbacks. How does that "have no bearing"? How does that "assume the forced presence of a healer"?

Because before the 19th century, people didn't really understand medical science/how the body works well enough for it to really be reliable, so no matter how much bookschoollearnstudy you put into it medical treatment was still a crapshoot at best and healing was generally considered to pretty much be in God's hands.

In a fantasy setting, you gotta realize a fair few things are going to be based on antiquated modes of thinking. You can't just go dragging modern paradigms into it all willy-nilly.

The difference is that most enemies that will require you to heal against ARE heavy hitters that won't go down in one blow. I mean, most bosses in a Pathfinder premade scenario are going to have a few minions that go down quickly, but for the most part it's the big guy that will knock you on your ass and have your healer scrambling to keep the party boat afloat.

But it's not as viable. If you don't have a healer and you go up against the average "this is for your level" challenge in a typical RPG that has healers (D&D et al) you're going to die.

I've both played and run 4e and 5e games both with and without a healer. It's no more essential than a defender or a skill monkey.

The problem, though is that healers remove player triangularity. Triangularity is what happens when a player has N choices where each of them has a different payoff structure, commensurate with their risk. So for example, choice A could have a risk of failing 13% of the time, but a payoff of 100. Giving an expected value of 87, which is swingier than choice B which has a failure chance of 3% and a payoff of 70. Giving an expected value of, 67, which is a whole 20 points lower but also a fifth as likely to fail. Adding this simple risk-reward system into a game adds depth, meaning and most importantly: stakes.

Your proposed method of healer is going to lower the risk while keeping the payoff the same. All for the cost of a "fragile" (read: party-protected) slot in the party.

I've played a lot of 4e and 5e too. Healers were necessary.

See how anecdotal evidence doesn't work since other people can have contradictory experiences?

It can when someone says "X is impossible" and another person says "I've observed X". Or in this case "X is inevitable" vs. "I've observed ¬X".

You're just making pseudointellectual points then. People don't speak in true absolutes even when they appear to, so calm the fuck down. "Winning" the letter of an argument is never an accomplishment. Take a step back and address the actual points being made. Also I'd like to continue to point out that your anecdote still doesn't count as evidence since it's an experience personal to you, not a controlled experiment under rigorous conditions.

Nah, your anecdote isn't that convincing. Maybe what you meant to say was "the campaign was challenging and without such a practical asset as healers, we wouldn't have done as well"
Just about everyone in 5e has means of self-heal and everyone heals on a short or long rest, and you can always buy health potions so long as it isn't an eccentrically low-wealth, low-magic setting. Healers are NOT necessary. In fact, technically speaking, no particular kind of class is "necessary". It's not a video game, you can get away with a part of all wizards if you want to and it'll be fine.

>Nah, your anecdote isn't that convincing
Oh look, I found the point where the meta-arguments started to appear and make the whole thread lose meaning and purpose.

Sure, man, include whatever subsystems you want in your game. I'm just saying, if you don't include some popular elements of fantasy roleplaying, you're probably going to lose out on potential players. If this is your homebrew for your D&D group then that doesn't matter, but if it's something you want to publish it absolutely does.

I did mention that in a previous post. You have to weigh the net healing of, say, a Cure spell against killing an enemy with, for example, the Magic Missile spell. Same action, same resource, different effects with different net damage mitigation results. You have to weigh the benefits of one against the other.

>The difference is that most enemies that will require you to heal against ARE heavy hitters that won't go down in one blow.
It's not about killing an enemy in one blow, it's about reducing the number of rounds it gets to act in during that combat. If the cleric attacks (one or more times) and helps the party kill the 'boss' monster one round early, he's essentially preventing all the damage that enemy would have done on that 'voided' round.

I agree. The statement "If you don't have a healer and you go up against the average "this is for your level" challenge in a typical RPG that has healers (D&D et al) you're going to die." is provably false. In D&D Basic, the Red Box, Clerics didn't get spells until 2nd level. Therefore you could have a group of 1st level characters, in a game with healers, with NO HEALING MAGIC, and still survive. Encounters built for a group of level 1 characters, who could by nature have no access to healing magic, were not designed to kill them all. Therefore, saying that healers are required to overcome average level-appropriate encounters is untrue.

>I'm just saying, if you don't include some popular elements of fantasy roleplaying, you're probably going to lose out on potential players
And I'm telling you that an argument from consequence doesn't change the validity of the original point. Any decision made in a game is going to potentially attract or lose players. You hope as a designer that you can have integrity to your vision and still attract players. You don't compromise for the sake of memes, but instead provide attractive alternatives. You don't ignore them either; as I said, you provide attractive alternatives. Deconstruct what the flawed thing players want to do and redirect it into something positive for your game: such as a generalized support role—even expanding it into something much more robust than a tug-of-war over numbers.

Or maybe we just really think he's being fucking stupid. Just like you're being a bitch for whining about people calling him, probably you same fagging, a retard.

Sure is Dunning-Kruger in here, example-man.

The "actual points" you're making are entirely based on theory, not on observation of evidence. That's the definition of pseudoscience. And even if we ignore that they're still flimsy. Every time someone contradicts you in a practical sense you just say "nuh-uh."

>It can be balanced out by the fact that combat is extended with the absence of a damage-dealer
>Nuh-uh, it's still less viable because [muttering]

>Healers don't have to be able to heal all the damage characters take in a turn. That wouldn't even make sense, and is not representative of most games.
>Nuh-uh, because enemies can just kill you in one hit anyway. In this one game. Even though earlier in the thread I denied only playing this one game, but now suddenly it's the only example I can pull.

>The "actual points" you're making are entirely based on theory, not on observation of evidence.
First of all, you're an idiot. You'd know that you're an idiot if you understood that scientific observation is informed by theory. The second reason you're an idiot is that you conflate your personal experiences as rigorous evidence.

>Every time someone contradicts you in a practical sense you just say "nuh-uh."
Now who's just saying "nuh-uh"? Actually a lot of people have agreed with the heal-hater, at least partially and some in-full. Are you afraid to admit there are two camps giving arguments; thus trying to whiteout one side?

I conflate the experiences of tens of thousands of playtesters and players across dozens of systems with rigorous evidence, relative to the topic being discussed.

As far as I can tell, these are the posts that agreed with him:
What points do they make?

K. Making random generalized statements totally doesn't make evidence but ok.