Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

Well, then magic which fixes limb loss would notably reduce DF's lethality if it was cheap/easy.

No because magic won't be able to save them with 100% accuracy either because they will die before getting to your magician.

Dwarf Fortress is much too lethal for magical healing to even get close to making it "less lethal"

It depends on the lethal. Missing limbs? Maybe not. Infection? Ayup.
And you're assuming that magicians won't be sent to within magic-range of battle...

If you are sending your magician, with healing magic, into magic range of battle then you deserve the healing bonus because you are risking that magician's grizzly death.

Mind you most of your soldiers are going to die anyway since battle is STILL that lethal.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Well, then magic which fixes limb loss would notably reduce DF's lethality if it was cheap/easy.

No because magic won't be able to save them with 100% accuracy either because they will die before getting to your magician.

Dwarf Fortress is much too lethal for magical healing to even get close to making it "less lethal"

It depends on the lethal. Missing limbs? Maybe not. Infection? Ayup.
And you're assuming that magicians won't be sent to within magic-range of battle...

If you are sending your magician, with healing magic, into magic range of battle then you deserve the healing bonus because you are risking that magician's grizzly death.

Mind you most of your soldiers are going to die anyway since battle is STILL that lethal.

Couldn't healers heal each other?

Look, can you agree that the ability to easily heal grevious wounds would reduce DF's lethality, especially if it could also heal infection?

[Neonivek]

Look, can you agree that the ability to easily heal grevious wounds would reduce DF's lethality, especially if it could also heal infection?

Not really. I've played enough Dwarf Fortress to know that lethal shots are usually 2 strikes in.

[hops]

Or alternatively healing magics shouldn't exist, we already have hospitals for that.

All magics should be focused on transportation and destruction only.

[Neonivek]

Or alternatively healing magics shouldn't exist, we already have hospitals for that.

All magics should be focused on transportation and destruction only.

Given Dwarf Fortress is a fantasy simulator... the absense of healing magic in a game with spells (Ignoring Wizard Entity, megabeasts, gods, and archdemons since they are allowed to break things) would be odd.

[hops]

Or alternatively healing magics shouldn't exist, we already have hospitals for that.

All magics should be focused on transportation and destruction only.

Given Dwarf Fortress is a fantasy simulator... the absense of healing magic in a game with spells (Ignoring Wizard Entity, megabeasts, gods, and archdemons since they are allowed to break things) would be odd.

A Song of Ice and Fire is a fantasy and there was no healing magic, yet there is...

wait

wait

WAIT

That's it!

WE CAN USE BLOOD MAGIC AS HEALING!
Like we have an altar, and we can sacrifice things to heal the dwarf placed on the altar. The more valuable the animal the more he gets healed.

[Neonivek]

Song of Fire and Ice is close to Low Fantasy though, that could just as easily have taken place in a universe with absolutely no magic whatsoever (at least where they currently are).

This is High fantasy.

[hops]

I'm still for Blood Magic, though, since it'll increase the interaction of Armok (and also make blood barrels more useful)

[Neonivek]

I'm still for Blood Magic, though, since it'll increase the interaction of Armok (and also make blood barrels more useful)

Armok isn't in anyone's games, and if he is it is only because his name is in the name generator. He is only a god in the Threetoeverse.

So no speaking nonsense.

[Gotdamnmiracle]

What about a system striving for balance. The priest prays to the god of healing and junk and the god says "I will grant you the healing of (enter dwarf name here) for a price.". Suddenly the priest stands from his trance, eyes glowing and a numbing hot aura flowing off of his skin. As he runs out the door, pushing an acolyte violently aside, he makes his way into the main dining hall at a dead sprint. After only a moment he is lost in the milling crowd and only resurfaces when a scream is heard and he is found covered in blood, having torn Vanod the miner limb from limb. Somewhere far off in the fortress, down in the hospital, the kings pallor begins to subside, his muscles fill and the atrophy he has suffered is forgotten, his wounds close and all sickness leaves him symbolically, through a swarm of flies leaving through his mouth and eyes.

As the priest calms and the aura dissipates all that can be heard as he is dragged off to the jail is "The blood tax has been paid."

[GreatWyrmGold]

Or alternatively healing magics shouldn't exist, we already have hospitals for that.

All magics should be focused on transportation and destruction only.

But we have wagons, ships, horses, and feet for transportation, and everything from animals to zephyrs to destroy stuff with. Therefore, travel and destruction magic shouldn't exist, either.

What about a system striving for balance. The priest prays to the god of healing and junk and the god says "I will grant you the healing of (enter dwarf name here) for a price.". Suddenly the priest stands from his trance, eyes glowing and a numbing hot aura flowing off of his skin. As he runs out the door, pushing an acolyte violently aside, he makes his way into the main dining hall at a dead sprint. After only a moment he is lost in the milling crowd and only resurfaces when a scream is heard and he is found covered in blood, having torn Vanod the miner limb from limb. Somewhere far off in the fortress, down in the hospital, the kings pallor begins to subside, his muscles fill and the atrophy he has suffered is forgotten, his wounds close and all sickness leaves him symbolically, through a swarm of flies leaving through his mouth and eyes.

As the priest calms and the aura dissipates all that can be heard as he is dragged off to the jail is "The blood tax has been paid."

That's very cool. It sounds more like a god of balance or a demon, though, and it should only be one eof tthe kinds of healing available.

[hops]

Armok or not, blood magic is still a concept that should be considered.

[JesterHell696]

My stance is that magic should be skill based and that it should also be split into "schools", with the attributes being something like, Willpower, Focus, Memory, Kinesthetic sense and Endurance
 
An example of magic schools is the basic Fire,Earth,Water and Wind, as I don't know how you would go about putting healing into those schools, I think you could just add in white(healing, buffing stats, removing curse's and demon banishing) black (necromancy, cursing, debuff's and demon summoning/control) to that list and it covers almost everything that immediately comes to mind.
 
I think the issue of balancing magic can be done by making it rare, hard to learn and cause the user to get tired/exhausted with repeated use and an increasing chance of failed spells as a result and eventually passing out, another possible way to balance it is the eventual reintroduction of the economy, magic healing costs more.
 

[Damiac]

The main issue with trying to balance healing magic is that there's nothing precious for it to cost.  I would think you could require expensive tools, and expensive reagents, maybe items crafted out of gold, platinum, etc.  But as we know, that stuff isn't really all that rare, and fortresses are outrageously wealthy quite quickly. 

Would 1,000,000 dwarfbucks be a fair cost to a full heal? It'd be worth it to save your legendary axelord, but not so much for your dabbling wrestler.  I think that's the direction to look in, not some easy to obtain resource, like blood or cheesemakers.  I would think attaching a dwarfbuck cost to each spell also means you can track the value of magic used, and then use that to attract powerful magic enemies.  Maybe over time the "attractiveness" would fall a bit, so if you only use magic once a year or so, you won't attract legions of horrors.

[Gotdamnmiracle]

The main issue with trying to balance healing magic is that there's nothing precious for it to cost.  I would think you could require expensive tools, and expensive reagents, maybe items crafted out of gold, platinum, etc.  But as we know, that stuff isn't really all that rare, and fortresses are outrageously wealthy quite quickly. 

Would 1,000,000 dwarfbucks be a fair cost to a full heal? It'd be worth it to save your legendary axelord, but not so much for your dabbling wrestler.  I think that's the direction to look in, not some easy to obtain resource, like blood or cheesemakers.  I would think attaching a dwarfbuck cost to each spell also means you can track the value of magic used, and then use that to attract powerful magic enemies.  Maybe over time the "attractiveness" would fall a bit, so if you only use magic once a year or so, you won't attract legions of horrors.

Ehh. Why not the bones of a forgotten beast or titan. That way it is (probably) difficult to obtain and gives you a reason you can't just hide out from them