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Rules Question: Healing

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ST Paul
James Stein
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Rules Question: Healing Empty Rules Question: Healing

Post by James Stein Sat Aug 17, 2013 7:48 pm

I am new to the Ohio area so it was a relief when I realized how close the three Garou games here are to a near-universal house rule/interpretation of rules existence.

That, however, did not prepare me for some unexpected divergences in how I've viewed certain rules in the past. Most of these, when explained, enriched my gaming experience. A few, however, felt a little off mark. Though I've come to learn and accept these differences, I was interested in discussing the ones I still struggle to grasp fully in the interest of full understanding.

The first of these is spending for healing.

In the Laws of the Wild Mother's touch allows you to spend a gnosis to heal a singular level of damage. Nowhere in the verbage does it state you can spend x to heal x, however, I see this as a regular practice here. What brought about this change?
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Post by ST Paul Sun Aug 18, 2013 11:57 am

What about this interpretation misses the mark?
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Post by Frost in His Hair Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:28 pm

When I was STing I got my clarification for suggesting how we ruled it from the reading of the TT gift where you spend one Gnosis and make a roll to heal one level of damage per success scored.

Sometimes WW MET will say "One does One" and other times they say "Spend A gnosis for X effect", so I'll go to the TT material to see the mechanics there since LotW is pretty slapdash sometimes... you know.. like how Spirit Drain still steals Power points from spirits.

I could see and understand why an ST might rule that it's one gnosis + 1 round of laying on hands to heal 1 level of damage, but I would feel that it severely weakens one of very few Garou gifts meant for healing in the game.

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Post by Griffin Defoe Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:58 pm

The point I've been wanting to make lately is that World of Warcraft-style dedicated healers seems really out of place for the material. I think that profuse, break-the-system healing is another symptom of the over-the-top damage output race.

I can't help but be more than a little defeatist about these things, however. Nearly every chronicle in the org is thoroughly entrenched in a surplus of liberally spent XP, and the folks who have the most to gain for their PCs (and many of them with multiple character sheets benefiting) are the ones who could change the culture for the better.
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Post by James Stein Sun Aug 18, 2013 1:56 pm

For me it misses the mark because if you look at the system, objectively, without the house ruled added bonuses and the symptoms of longstanding characters stacking multiple things, damage looks like this:

Basic Gift arena:
Damage 1-2, 3 in exceptional cases
Healing, 1 per action.

Intermediate gift arena:
Damage 1-3, 4 in exceptional cases
Healing, 2 per action

Advanced gift arena
Damage: ???
Healing, no new gift

I think this table is pretty consistent with the baseline of the game, a median example if you will, and preserves the grittyness of the game.

Allowing the healing in the basic arena to shift to 1-5, and in the intermediate arena 2-10...well, that to me isn't fairly indicative of the brutality of the game at all. And that's assuming a max spend of five.

Furthermore, Gaia's Breath talens. Why do they heal four damage? Four dice got ported as four successes, which isn't very solid math.
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Post by Griffin Defoe Sun Aug 18, 2013 2:02 pm

Gaia's Breath is not dice, it's health levels -- four of them. Hammer and Klaive, p. 73.
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Post by James Stein Sun Aug 18, 2013 2:13 pm

So they do. I always thought it was one of those bad ports where number of dice got translated without mathing for failures. I know in HF they healed two instead, but I don't know why now.
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Post by Grip Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:07 am

Oooh. We talking about healing? This is relevant to my interests.

 - So I never noticed that Mother's Touch doesn't give you the "spend X for X" clause. Good to know. However, if my math is good, it's seldom-if-ever a good idea to spend more than one Gnosis when using this Gift. The reason for this is that there are two primary situations where you're going to heal an ally: in combat, or out of combat. Out of combat, you typically have the luxury of time and can spend several rounds doing the healing. In combat, it's often a better bang-for-buck strategy to wait till an ally has dropped (or hit Incap), then heal them for the one. If your friend is taking enough damage (from one-shots or sustained) that it's putting them on the ground, then healing for more than one level is just going to deplete your Gnosis pool when they're likely to fall again after a few hits. This has been my experience, at least, as a healer. Others may have found other/better strategies.

 - All of the above to say that the "heal for more than one" adjustment is actually not terribly beneficial when using Mother's Touch...unless its combined with something like Lover's Touch.

 - As far as WoW-healing practices and perceptions go...I can go either way on this. I won't argue that it's not a thing (it's totally a thing), given that I'm playing a healer and have been exposed to it. At the same time, I do feel that the level of healing in the local games is commensurate with the damage output: that is to say, I think it's to scale. Now, if point-spread is brought into the discussion, then I wholeheartedly agree there are situations where the level of healing just doesn't fit the challenge rating.

 - Again, just drawing on Garou healing and what I know of it in recent experience.

Basic: Heal 1 per. (Theurge, CoG, various)
Intermediate: Heal up to 8, target self and/or all allies (Wendigo), Heal 2 (CoG)
Advanced: Heal amount equal to damage dealt (Fianna)

As I haven't done as much research in the damage game as I have the healing, I can't comment on how that compares, but it's something to consider. It's also interesting to consider who has what and why, and what that means for someone interested in the healer template. When I picked Grip three years ago (no seriously, August 28th is his three-year anniversary. Like woah), I had been reading up on the fluidity of Bone Gnawer rituals and wanted to try them out. However, this particular PC has gone more down the path of the healer than the other theurge paths (the spirit commander, the magic item maker, etc.). Strictly by points and templates, I'd have done a better job as a Wendigo theurge.

I'm not sure if that really means anything, except to point out that even taking out the arms race, there's still going to be ridiculously powerful concepts (for healing or anything else) that are by-the-book, because one tribe/breed/auspice is always going to be better at a thing than others.

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Post by GabrielGrayson Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:50 pm

The thing that Shonn sort of touched on, is that for most PC's, healing is vastly outpaced by damage. But in more ways than have been mentioned. The biggest hurdle for healers is Rage. Multiple actions make it nearly impossible for anyone other than the right CoG, Wendigo (apparently), or Elder Glasswalker Theurge to have any way of keeping up with damage output on one PC.

This of course doesn't take into account multi-targeted powers. I may as well have foregone healing anyone at the Tramples fight last EM, because despite three Gaia's Breaths, 5 Gnosis, a Spirit Familiar holding back-up tempers and a couple Spirit Brews, everyone I healed ended up dead. I know that was meant to be a harsher fight than most, and my PC is only a Cliath right now, but it was a perfect example of how pointless it can be sometimes to waste time on healing instead of killing the things trying to kill you, and just patching people up afterwards.
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Post by James Stein Tue Sep 10, 2013 10:22 pm

Resuscitating(heh) the healing thread:

The tabletop of Mother's touch is an int+medicine roll, where success numbers equal amount healed, however the cost is always 1 gnosis and unlike MET, you always test(roll), even if it's a garou.

I think the spend 1 heal 1 method works because damage outpaces healing in TT too(in most cases), and the 'no test for garou' was the compromise that took extended challenges ouot of the equation(the only real way to replicate the TT mechanic.)
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