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[Neonivek]

the ameaba infection should grow so large that it can consume dwarves whole

Well... Ameaba infections exist in real life... in looking for what a Emetic was... I found that out.

[Pilsu]

How does "it's mythical!" justify trivializing wounds? Just because the game has things other than humans and more humans and the occasional wolf we have to have Clerics Physicians casting Heal doing something something that makes no damn sense but renders you back from near death caused by heavy blood loss? Oh yeah, maybe he's just so absurdly good he starts making no sense. That's how medicine works

Magic herbs are just portable clerics. It's just another cop out

[Rysith]

How does "it's mythical!" justify trivializing wounds? Just because the game has things other than humans and more humans and the occasional wolf we have to have Clerics Physicians casting Heal doing something something that makes no damn sense but renders you back from near death caused by heavy blood loss? Oh yeah, maybe he's just so absurdly good he starts making no sense. That's how medicine works

Magic herbs are just portable clerics. It's just another cop out

I also think that part of the charm of DF is that wounds are not trivialized at all, and that quite often you will lose dwarves that you really didn't want to lose if you aren't careful. Allowing you to reattach limbs and bring fallen soldiers (or legendary craftsmen, or whatever) back from the dead would go a long way towards getting rid of that. DF is dramatic and epic, but it is dramatic and epic because of the danger and challenge inherent in doing many of the things that are done. Magical super-healing would take away from that.

[Neonivek]

Stop exagerating my suggestions Plisu and Rysith.

The inclusion of epic medicine as well as supernatural medicine does not remove the severity of wounds unless it is overabundant.

So I'll deal with it one by one

How does "it's mythical!" justify trivializing wounds?

Plisu what your doing is arguing AGAINST the setting. So even ignoring obvious exagerations in your post you would be incorrect on the basis that THIS IS DWARF FORTRESS!

Allowing you to reattach limbs and bring fallen soldiers (or legendary craftsmen, or whatever) back from the dead would go a long way towards getting rid of that. DF is dramatic and epic, but it is dramatic and epic because of the danger and challenge inherent in doing many of the things that are done. Magical super-healing would take away from that.

Then it is a needed change. sometimes when games are old enough people become complacent in the current game and go "Well this would change the game" just look at IVAN and ANY discussion on ranged weaponry (FYI: They are against it because it goes against the system). The Dwarf Fortress you see before you will change according to Toady's dirrection and not to whatever the community becomes entirely used to. Afterall... Dwarf Fortress is 3d

I do however recognise that Dwarf Fortress does present quite a bit of Grit but you have to also realise that I did not present "Insert coin" type of medicine but rather a system for epic individuals (or Master to Legendary) on some to rare occasion to do the extraordinary. I don't remember the part of my suggestion that said: "And a hobo who gets your arm can suddenly regrow your body"

If you want to argue against my points please to not exagerate them to their extreme.

Secondly even if there WAS a form of "Super-healing" once again it is only a problem depending on how common it is and who can do it.

Toady has already stated he will have some forms of Automatic healing that does step on the grounds of mythology anyhow.

[SirHoneyBadger]

I wouldn't want magic to dominate medicine, and I definitely don't want easy fixes for wounds.

I do think, in some cases, there could be problems that in the real world would be boring and awful and sad (like a soldier who dies 3 months after a battle from a septic wound), could-in the game-become more exciting, on occasion, because of that "magical" influence on the world. Instead of just dying, maybe the soldier comes back as a zombie. Or maybe to cure him, you have to make an expensive deal with the Leechmen. Or maybe your priest has to perform an exorcism over the patient just so that our real-world medical practices (the pre 1400ad ones) will function at all.

I don't think magic should ever get you off the hook, or give you easy fixes, *especially* for things like injuries.

The sheer idea that your dwarfs heal, and that one of them might live after surgery, when they'd otherwise die, is miraculous and magical enough. It doesn't need to be added to a whole lot. But a little spice would be very nice, and that's what magic could provide: Enhancement. Magic should enhance the experience, enhance the story, enhance the game, but not take one ounce of the challenge out of it.

Other games do that with magic, and that's why other games are stupid.

[Neonivek]

Well to give you an example of a mythical fix.

A woman was dying (I actually think it was from a curse) and needed a bite from the golden apples to live.

Not only was it one of the most difficult and dangerous quests ever... but I believe picking an apple dirrectly from the tree would instantly strike you down (plus the gods get mad at you if they find out).

So sure... Supernatural healing is a easy fix... as long as you ignore the thousands of people who failed at the attempt whome's corpses litter the countryside, the horrible monsters and demigods you have to fight along the way, and the possibility for supernatural retribution of any being it is associated with. EVEN THEN there are soo many Golden Apples you can obtain. Uhhh... come to think of it... maybe you should have just let your best friend die.

Though to admit... I have a bit more softer "What should and shouldn't be allowed" since I know how unfun it can be playing an adventurer who has no legs or no arms and I also know how systems where growing back limbs can happen constantly with the most mundane of substances can STILL be as hard as heck and just as brutal.

[Pilsu]

Plisu what your doing is arguing AGAINST the setting. So even ignoring obvious exagerations in your post you would be incorrect on the basis that THIS IS DWARF FORTRESS!

What is your allegation of the setting being reminiscent of greek epics based on? As is, you have to farm your food, enemies are generic fantasy fare to make them recognizable, most of said creatures are bears and other wildlife, wounds heal over time with no magic mumbojumbo and the most magical things you'll see are areas with undead and the entirety of.. three creatures that can breathe fire and a few elementals. Everything else is just a fancy animal with no hidden mysticism. I'm simply not seeing why it'd be considered a high magic setting when everything is fundamentally mundane. You're just eking out an existence in a settlement whereas adventurers embark on such grand quests like "fetch my slippers. Oh and kill some big critter that's been eating sheep"


Hamfisting magic and real life rituals invented to stop your children from masturbating into the game doesn't really contribute anything

[SirHoneyBadger]

I personally don't think there's anything wrong with making a Greek Mythology allegory. The primary reason the game is in the state of low magic that it currently is, is that the game's not finished yet.

Titans are already in the game, as are hydras, minotaurs, satyrs, what have you. All Greek, and all pretty improbable, if not impossible, on Earth.

We've got gods in the game (Armok?), HFS, even more HFS, and strange and mighty artifacts. We could very well see a high magic setting at some point, especially since there's been mention of allowing us to play in the early "Age of Myths" or whatever it's called.

I suspect we'll end up going from High to Low magic, all in one setting, depending on the timeframe you happen to play the game in.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a magical cure for a disease (and that's *cure for a specific disease and/or ailment, which might be magical itself, in origin*, not *healing*), that leads to a suitably epic and challenging (thus, entertaining) adventure.

[Rysith]

I do however recognise that Dwarf Fortress does present quite a bit of Grit but you have to also realise that I did not present "Insert coin" type of medicine but rather a system for epic individuals (or Master to Legendary) on some to rare occasion to do the extraordinary. I don't remember the part of my suggestion that said: "And a hobo who gets your arm can suddenly regrow your body"

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that even if only legendary or master healers could bring a fallen soldier back to life, a significant amount of grit would be lost. I would support a healing system that allowed dwarves to recover from wounds more quickly with proper care (and, in the case of legendary healers, possibly recover multiple red wounds in a season), but not one that allowed fantastic things like limb reattachment or resurrection.

Part of the issue here may be a fortress vs. adventure mode issue: In adventure mode, you could go on the quest for the golden apple and it would be interesting. In fortress mode, you could use the golden apple that you imported (or something) to get out the consequences to your legendary armorsmith of not properly fire-imp-sealing your magma forges. Fortress mode doesn't do epic quests, and thus I think gets in the way of the interpretation of DF in a greek mythology context (as opposed to a dark ages context).

[SirHoneyBadger]

Yeah, that's not a bad point, Rysith..."epic" in Adventure Mode, and "epic" in Dwarf Fortress mode, might mean two different things...states of being...whatever. 

For one thing, I wouldn't normally expect a huge clash of armies in Adventure mode, atleast not as anything other than a background to the quest.

It would be nice, though, if you could quest for magic golden apples, bring back three of them, only use one of them to save your mate/girl/boy/whatever, and put the other two "into play", so to speak, meaning that--only *AFTER* you'd recovered them in the Adenture mode, they could become a part of the Dwarf Fortress mode...that might become interesting: unlocking things for Dwarf Fortress in Adventure.

[bjlong]

Another thought about "healing magic" would be advancing the wound's progress in time a lot more rapidly. This could allow for a correctly set limb to heal dramatically, but also allow for horrendous drawbacks, such as waking up one morning and finding that your leg has rotten off.

Other than that, guys, let's just talk about the mechanical aspects of healing and medieval medicine, from superstitions to practical things.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Superstition, I think, should enter into it. Most of the hoodoo crap our dwarfs come up with would probably just be that, superstition. That doesn't mean it's not important to them, or that it couldn't cause you grief.

I'd like to see one Fortress, having discovered, say, a new-and slightly better-method for, say, lancing boils.

And then this Noble comes in from elsewhere, and his wife has a boil that needs lanced occasionally, and they're both just outraged and appauled that your Fortress does it differently than the Mountainhome.

The Noble thinks you're gonna kill his wife, the wife's hysterical, and in the meantime your Physician's like "...yeah, but it works really well if we use this local herb to pack the wound...". So you might end up having to import "Dr Urist's Stupid-Good Snake Oil Elixer" which is shite, but what the cow wants, from the Mountainhome.

Stuff like that would be really entertaining to see play out, and would bring in some of the Social skills (Bedside manner? Important when the patient is a Noble, *or* a Legendary Wrestler!).

[Rysith]

Other than that, guys, let's just talk about the mechanical aspects of healing and medieval medicine, from superstitions to practical things.

I think that we've got a decent amount of non-magical healing possibilities already discussed. I think that a healing profession, with a "scalpel" tool, that would speed healing, combined with a fallback to the existing water + bed rest system and the possibility of accellerants like golden salve, provides a fairly complete abstraction for fortress mode (which is all I'm familiar with). Some wounds would be non-healing (nerve damage, potentially red organ damage), but the rest of them could be healed with time and care.
I'd also suggest a potentially-personal use of the healing skill: staunch bleeding, allowing dwarves who are bleeding to stop doing what they were doing and make themselves stop bleeding, rather than running around with precious bodily fluids leaking out. There would need to be some kind of priority there, so that soldiers would keep fighting and civilians would keep running from enemies, but would stop to tend to themselves as soon as they felt safe.

I could also see a chance for "healed improperly", increased dramatically for severe or uncared-for wounds, and decreased with the healing skill. That's where I would stick the mis-healed bone, scars, infections, gangrene, permanent wounds, death from complications, etc. I suspect that the new tissue system would help with determining what kind of improper healing happens. I also don't think that it is worth putting in specific remedies to ailments, since that would introduce too much micromanagement in fortress mode (having to stock dozens of specific cures rather than a generic "anti-bad-healing" item like valley herbs). The idea would be that if you didn't care for the wound, it had a high chance to go badly. With herbs or care, it would be a smaller but significant threat. With both herbs and care, the chance would be very small, and with herbs + care + a skilled healer you'd almost certainly recover as much as was possible.

[Overdose]

erm, once the larger blocks of text on this page started showing up, i stopped completely reading, but....

Why not make magic healing an enhancer? Instead of actually fixing anything, it could be used to bring medical work up another level.

Let's say a dwarf breaks his leg. A doctor would fix it up, and of course send the dwarf off to rest. Rather then taking 3 years of bed rest, a magic using healer can come by to perform treatments. Basically, it would improve your chances of your dwarf having their condition become less severe (such as mangled to broken, or broken to wounded). Then magic has it's uses, but it isn't a "fix everything" system.

You might even consider using it in conjunction with all other medical fields, and open up some options, like re-attaching limbs (via surgery) that are intact, but needing a good magical healer to make the limb usable again as apposed to being a dead lump of meat.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Paragraphs are so important 

One area where DF medicine might actually work better in real life is in healing nerves/brain damage.

Since we can't really heal that, even in Real Life, and since it therefore wouldn't userp any Earthly medical treatments, I wouldn't mind seeing a rare foozle that atleast allowed this kind of damage to be healed, over time, with plenty of rest.

If a dwarf that's important to me gets killed, that's life in DF. If they get maimed and the surgery goes wrong and they're crippled for life, again, it happens.

But if over a long period of time, due to a life of service to the Fortress, they're being turned into a braindead vegetable, with no chance of recovery, and a not very nice life, that really doesn't add a lot to my gaming experience.

I'd like atleast a small shot at something that'll restore them. Not make them brand new, but restore their mental facilities, allow their nerves/spine to heal, and bring them back to atleast a dignified active-retirement status.

I wouldn't mind a "golden apple" that did that much.