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[GreatWyrmGold]

Before you start, let me note two things:/
1. I think DF should be a game where there is always a challenge or three which can be overcome, and where you can do pretty much anything in most worlds if you try.
2. I'm going to bed now.

[Mr. Palau]

I think healing magic should be considered a regular part of the medical profession. I also like the idea that most magic ultimatly comes from deities.

The Docs should be a part of the healing god/godess' priesthood. I agree with BoredVirulence (page 2, bottom of), mana should be introduced as a new resource with a low recharge rate. There should also be a few fundemental spells, I believe:
1) resurection (Only avalible to proficent healing priests, and with the god/godess of healing's absolute satisfaction, must be attempted within 5 days of death (otherwise the soul will have permently passed out of this realm), and takes up the mana of a proficent priest for a year)
2) Restoring a limb,  (2 seasons off of a proficent priest's mana, god/godess must be  very happy with you, does not matter how long ago the limb was lost)
3) healing the spine, or another mortal injury (a season of a proficent priest's mana, god/godess must be happy with you.)
4) Healing a cut, an infection, or setting a bone (a month of mana,  godess' opinion irrelevent)

The Docs should be able to preform these out in a field, or on the operating table as part of an operation. If you can get them to the operating table, you can choose not to use magic, or if you want to use magic to make the treatment more effective. Also, I would suggest a base decrease of 50% for using an operating table and the other assossiated medical devices(but not for resurection), so it is still worth your while to have a medical industry.

This would only slightly decrease the use of the medical industry, as although the magic would replace many operations, it would add a new type of operation, whoose demand would likley largely make up for the demand lost due to on field healing.

I think the gods should require sacrifices to appease them, requiring a fixed number of a set of random objects out of a category set for that god. So the god of war chooses 5 of x war-like goods, god of healing 5x healing goods.  You would bring them to an alter, they would be striked by divine fire, and the fire would consume the them. Some of these objects could be animals. A god of war or blood could demand a sacrifice of one sentient being instead of any goods.

You should be able to sacrifice for three things:
1) leveling your wizard, would require 3x the normal sacrifice but would grant him an entirelly new level of magic instantly.
2) restore mana, would restore a years worth of mana to one wizard
3) achieve favor, makes the god like you more, causing spells to be marginally more effective (1-10%, would make a difference but not too big of a differance) and allows you to use certain spells.

Also mana regen should increase with level, to encourage leveling of mages. Should increase as a fraction of proficent dwarf's mana generation, so with no skill in magic you have zero mana, skill 1 you have 1/5 of normal mana regen, legendary +5 you have 4x mana regen.

I don't know what the god's would be off the top of my head, but for the god of healing they would be items related to the medical industry, so in order to get more experinced clerics you would need to set up a medical industry. God of war demands axes, god of nature wood, god of the aether would demand (actually no idea), etc.

Damn, that was longer than I thought it would be.

Also magical talent should be rare, 1/100 with a natural talent, starting at one in all skills, 1/20 with natural ability to learn, but still learn only 1/2 as fast as the 1/100, and everyone else just has no clue how to use it and takes 4x as long to use. I also say 1 year for a talented person to learn one level by just reading books and practicing. So unless you sacrifice, it takes 20 years to get that migrent who happened to be talented up to lvl 20.

This makes sacrifices necessary, and thus wizards far more valuable.

[Neonivek]

Neonivek: Tell me, how does healing magic work IRL? Frauds take your money and leave town before you wise up.

Magic doesn't exist in real life and Simulation doesn't nessisarily refer to real life circumstances. It means that the game is first and formost a simulation in otherwords it is trying to simulate something.

When a simulation includes effects that can only be decribed as "Gamey" then you are taking the game outside it simulation aspects. The key is to allow a game to have balance while at the same time allowing that balance to be organic. Giving healing magic its own unique flaws is a very game idea but not a very good simulation idea because there is no reason why it should be that way.

In DF, we can and probably should make healing magic balanced against not having it, ie mundane healing

That is looking too close to the picture and being unable to see the entire thing. The first and foremost image you should have is for the whole game and balance healing magic as it is in respect the everything else.

If healing magic completely topples mundane healing then all that means is that it completely topples mundane forms of healing and you do not need it anymore. No different then not needing fishermen because there is no water.

This is low fantasy, and having a few dwarves who can easily patch up any dwarves who didn't die within minutes of getting injured(and, if deployed into the field, many or most of those) would ruin both the low fantasy and the grittiness of DF, IMHO

Your statement however was that Low Fantasy was the sheer number of people who have magic. This arguement would make sense in my "It is about how important magic is to the setting" however in this case it is not.

So "Low Fantasy" is irrelevant. So let us rewrite this

"having a few dwarves who can easily patch up any dwarves who didn't die within minutes of getting injured(and, if deployed into the field, many or most of those) would ruin the grittiness of DF, IMHO"

The Grittyness of the setting is still contained and is no different then if you had legendary doctors capable of curing and wounded individual, remember this is also an "Epic" game and thus legendary life saving doctors are perfectly in its perview. The key to battles is that people are going to be killed, maimed, and injured. Something that doesn't change.

Make a high fantasy mod

Mod arguement, instantly invalid

If there's only one good choice, there's less of a game

Choice is not a possitive or negative in it of itself, nor is the limitation or expansion of choice. There are plenty of instances within dwarf fortress where there really is "One good choice" and where the strategic decisions are dictated to you because of circumstance.

This isn't a negative this is the cornerstone of what we call strategy.

If healing magic is overly easy, say if it just takes a day of dorftime, it would make doctors less useful than beekeepers

Yes but why is that a bad thing? There are professions even more useless then Beekeeping in the game already. Should we, for example, require dwarves eat cheese to live in order to give the Cheese makers a job?

Cheese makers are very useful, just not for a fortress. Doctors would also still be very useful, just not to a fortress supplied by a magicial expert in the art of curative arts.

After all, doctoring requires everything from time to lye to thread to potential labor, and has chances of failure, AND requires four or five skills, AND is rather limited in what it cures

Effort doesn't always equal pay off. Many of the alloys in the game are a waste to make but are only there out of choice. As well once again it would mean that doctors are not helpful for your fortress.

The problem isn't an issue of "easier vs. harder," it's about a single thing having the power to save your fort if used and to kill it if not

Then once again we are talking about strategy. Healing becomes useful and thus healing becomes part of the games strategy.

As well you are seriously overblowing the importance of healing. Healing will not save dwarves in the midst of fighting. It is a aftersiege healing method almost strictly. Unless we are to overblow healing magic to the point where a healer can spam instant heals from a mile away non-stop in bulk... but that is an exageration at best.

Imagine if every injured dwarf, from the legendary axedwarf with his arms amputated by a dragon to a hauler whose finger got broken by a flying boot,  could be made very quickly good as new--not crippled, no loss of productivity, no chance of later death from infection or neglect. If you don't see the difference this would make, I'm not sure that we're playing the same game. For me, lots of useful dwarves would have been saved.

It would certainly make a very large difference but not the kind of difference you are thinking of. You will have to send those dwarves out, get them killed against enemy armies, and the game is only going to be getting more deadly.

A lot of this idea of "Lots of survivors" comes from the way the game is currently where sieges are a very safe prospect and where megabeasts are rather simple beasts outside the few super toxic ones.

Now, since we're Bay12, imagine what happens WHEN we give four or five clerics defensive training and steel armor before sending them into battle alongside the militia.

You would have dead Clerics and then you would have no more healing magic and you would have to rely on your doctors that I hope you kept up with training because they are useful.

As well this relies on the clerics functioning on the same wavelength as Necromancy (as in, instant spammable nonstop magic). If they had to do as much as a touch in the middle of battle that would be a huge risk. Can they just fling their healing? Well I hope they don't get swamped while they are taking cover. Healing isn't going to cure terminal battle disadvantage because you thought your charge was unbeatable because you trained four battle healers.

As well five healing mages/clerics? If this is a world where a fortress can throw five clerics with potent healing magic out into the middle of battle... They you deserve every bit of healing magic you obtained.

The soldiers would be healed as they're harmed, and unless healers are given a conspicuous immunity to healing magic, they'll heal each other

The healers probably can heal themselves. Of course given how the game goes it means the cleric is pretty much going to die.

Imagine an evil biome, but the corpses have metal arms and armor, quite possibly superior to your own.

Actually I have no objection to this. Toady you should make this happen.

Mind you I know what you mean. Except you know what? In this situation the game simply has to be made to recognise that healing magic exists. Healing isn't going to, for example, douse fire off a man.

Healing magic shouldn't be the core of your medicine when you get it, but it shouldn't be worthless either

Sure it can be the core of your medicine. The objection of "Mundane magic should be important even with healing magic" is very much based upon "Dwarf Fortress as it is right now" rather then "dwarf fortress as it moves on". If something comes along and outdates a profession because of its sheer might then allow it to. If you embarked on a land where trees give soo much fruit that your fortress will never grow hungry again then just allow it.

The key is if the game will recognise the importance of what this means.

There should be situations where it's useful and situations where it's wasteful or even harmful.

Certainly but those situations should flow from the fact that it is a simulation informed with balance.

It shouldn't be balance for balance sake as well it shouldn't be an arbitrary balance made only to make Healing magic a terrible thing. You have to allow people to rake in their rewards.

If everything in the game came at equal negatives then there is no point in developing something. What is the point of developing healing magic if all that is going to happen is the game is going to saw "Yeah sorry, in order to keep the doctors employed your healing spell just caused that dwarf to explode"

Part 1 finished

[Neonivek]

The Docs should be a part of the healing god/godess' priesthood. I agree with BoredVirulence (page 2, bottom of), mana should be introduced as a new resource with a low recharge rate. There should also be a few fundemental spells

Honestly I don't think powerful wizards and clerics really have too much of a place in Fortress mode for dwarves.

At the same time miracles, given by dieties, should be a very miraculous thing and having a person who has a god-given ability to heal the wounded should be treated in game in a similar way it would in most settings where this is not a common occurance. Uttar reverence.

I never pictured magical healing to be common place. Only so much that magical healing shouldn't be diminished simply because it is very useful.

It would be like starting a new fortress and one of your geese happens to lay golden eggs... you go "Awsome!" and then the game prompt comes up and says "Opps sorry those eggs gave you cancer, you die". Sure that would "Balance" the goose but at the same time it is rather cheapened.

So with respect to that... Mana shouldn't be a resource, it isn't something dwarves trade in. It is something outside the bubble of Dwarven society. Thus I think it should remain outside a Player's, playing fortress mode, perception

This makes sacrifices necessary, and thus wizards far more valuable

I am not sure Dwarves would have a "Court Mage".

---

In otherwords I see healing magic as a great and powerful thing

But something you can't bank on.

My view for Dwarf Fortress is that you can play 10 games and each one your fortress can have a completely different advantage, quirk, or disadvantage then the other. Perhaps in one, one of your dwarves was born from the goddess of fire and thus has flame breath as well as protected from all heat. In another perhaps a migrant happens to be an expert in magical healing. Artifacts express this perfectly, each one having different abilities.

Same applies to the enemies.

It should be a more flexible game but one that doesn't try to take things away because they are too good... only recognising when something is too good and seeing what naturally progresses from it. If the enemy started poisoning their weapons so you couldn't heal them, that would be a perfect example of the game recognising what is happening.

[SuicideJunkie]

Seems to me that if you were to find or birth a dwarf that could do magical healing, the King would send an army of guards to collect said dwarf and take them back to the mountainhomes where they'd be secured in the palace and help keep the royal family in power.
Keep the king happy by meeting demands and giving offerings, and he may deign to grant you a boon of healing every now and then, somewhat like the offer of a barony, but you'd be requesting that one of your dwarves be healed instead of made into a noble.

On the other hand, if you were to discover a fountain of youth/healing spring in one of the good biomes, you'd probably have to send a caravan out (army arc) with guards to escort your wounded and recently deceased to go and soak in the water.
That caravan may or may not get ambushed by goblins, but it definitely won't be available for trading with the neighbours or patrolling against goblins and necromancer armies about to attack your fort.
Trying to build a fortress over the magical place would likely pollute its properties.

[Neonivek]

I have to say that does make sense and would fall under my viewpoint of "The game should recognise this".

It also makes tribute a tangible thing.

[5asdffdsa5]

GWG I personally agree with you but it seems like all you are doing is tearing down Ideas as opposed to making suggestions.
now here is my idea, I am interested in what you think.
Healing magic always works but each time you use it, it generates and undestroyable, usable, or tradeable stone. the first stone might be worth 1024 db's, and each stone after that would be worth double the one before it. This way it would at first be safe to use healing magic but as you used it more and more it would attract more and more attackers.

[Neonivek]

GWG I personally agree with you but it seems like all you are doing is tearing down Ideas as opposed to making suggestions.
now here is my idea, I am interested in what you think.
Healing magic always works but each time you use it, it generates and undestroyable, usable, or tradeable stone. the first stone might be worth 1024 db's, and each stone after that would be worth double the one before it. This way it would at first be safe to use healing magic but as you used it more and more it would attract more and more attackers.

This is REALLY Gamey. To the point where it seems more like a parody/satire then a genuin suggestion.

[5asdffdsa5]

I agree it is gamey but healing magic needs a penalty for repeated use. You can’t say that the magic is balance just because instead of growing a dwarfs legs back you could accidently summon some trolls.

[Neonivek]

I agree it is gamey but healing magic needs a penalty for repeated use. You can’t say that the magic is balance just because instead of growing a dwarfs legs back you could accidently summon some trolls.

Why is healing magic summoning trolls?

This is a simulation... "WHY!?!" is a legitimate question.

[5asdffdsa5]

I like the idea of all magic to having a semirandom side effect. throw a fireball and maybe half the ice [or whatever is balanced] melts, several dwarves are immune to cold for a season or two or some booze explodes. healing a dwarf might heal other dwarves near that dwarf, or it might send a syndrome epidemic across your fortress. So every time you heal a dwarf its a risk. But it might be worth the gamble for a valuable dwarf. I don't think it would be that hard to do. Maybe a bit timeconsuming though. Just associate each type of spell with a sphere and the more ralalted the sphere is to the spell you cast, the bigger the chance of a spell linked to that sphere happening. Of course this is just a generalisation, I would like a much more indepth system with things like more powerful spells having more powerful side effects and possibly rare requirements like dragon eggs or candy. etc etc. etc.

my interpretation of this was that a semirandom event linked to the sphere, therefore one could argue that creating a creature is linked to the sphere of rebirth, and if healing was linked to spheres other than its own rebirth would be one of them.

This is a simulation... "WHY!?!" is a legitimate question.

their are many things that don't make sense in the game candy, clowns, bronze colossuses, and gobos magically knowing when you have wealth, to name a few.

[Neonivek]

their are many things that don't make sense in the game candy, clowns, bronze colossuses, and gobos magically knowing when you have wealth, to name a few.

But those have a line of logic an internal logic.

Also "Gobos knowing how much your fort is worth" Is an expression of how noticable and well known your fort is becoming.

Healing magic suddenly doing the exact opposite of what it is supposed to for no reason however is not part of this logic. Healing creating extremely valuable stones that only become more valuable also make no sense (even a spell that does that makes little sense).

This is because you are applying "Game logic" to a simulation expression.

[5asdffdsa5]

in most religions polytheistic gods have a tendency both intentionally and unintentionally grant well meant wishes that have a harmful effect. because dwarfs are known for being greedy, i can imagine the priest in his prayer to heal your axedwarf asking for some valuable objects, or the gods getting annoyed by your begging for help and wealth and deciding to grant your wish for wealth in a way that hurt you in the long run.

[Neonivek]

in most religions polytheistic gods have a tendency both intentionally and unintentionally grant well meant wishes that have a harmful effect. because dwarfs are known for being greedy, i can imagine the priest in his prayer to heal your axedwarf asking for some valuable objects, or the gods getting annoyed by your begging for help and wealth and deciding to grant your wish for wealth in a way that hurt you in the long run.

That isn't healing magic magic. That is specifically asking a diety for its intervention and the diety itself is doing the magic.

As well gods were ironic and were a bit more vocal. As well most of the time they did their job.

You don't ask the god for, lets say for example, a quilt... and then the god frisks a bunch of poisonous spiders on you. Why would you EVER ask the god for anything?

Heck why even pray in that setting? Gods are just jerks.

Asking dieties for their dirrect divine intervention does NOT need to be balanced by having them throw temper tantrums. It is balanced purely by the nature that these are other people with their own wants and needs who may not want or be able to do your chores. In fact they won't do anything for you the vast majority of the time (unless the world happens to have ultra-active dieties), as well it is something your enemies can use themselves against you (As well some creatures are Incarnate gods).

[5asdffdsa5]

your example about the quilt makes no sense. what I am saying is more like if you ask a god for a quilt and you get one made out of golden thread, you go and brag about it, and someone stabs you and steals it.