Reducing the Potency of Heal Spells

[HellHound]

I've been using non-lethal conversion for some time. It's a nice way to handle it, without scrapping the utility of healing spells completely.

 

[ender_wiggin]

I´m a GM and I do not limit the healing spells. I have changed the raise dead and resurrection spells. These spells have some drawbacks.

Interesting.

Care to share the details?

 

[yennico]

I've been using non-lethal conversion for some time. It's a nice way to handle it, without scrapping the utility of healing spells completely.

Can you tell me more about your experiences. Your PCs are at which level?
Have they access to the heal spell?

 

[yennico]

Interesting.

Care to share the details?

I´m writing this out of my memory...
First I dislike that high level clerics can bring back to life nearly every person.
Second giving life (back) is an ability of a deity which should not easily granted.
Without resurrection save or die spells are more powerful. They are the end for some persons.

Raise Dead IMC work only on persons who has been dead for no longer than three day.
After three days the spirit of the dead person has left the body so raise dead do not work.
Because that "death experience" is a traumatic experience has some effects on the raised person: the raised person gets in addition to the penalty from the original raise dead spell (level drain) a -2 penalty on charisma but this person gets +2 to wisdom because next time he would act wiser in a combat. A raised person does not have a faint undead aura, because the person was not dead.

Reincarnate same modification as the raise dead spell IMC.

Resurrection:
After three days the soul of a dead persons leaves the material world, and so the person is dead.
The cleric who wants to cast a resurrection must convince his deity that his deity grants him this spell. This is not done by dice rolling, this is done by logical arguments: Why should the deity send the soul of this specific person back to the material plane. It is up to the GM to decide if the arguments are worth granting a resurrection.
IMC elves hate undeads so they can not be resurrected because a resurrected persons was dead. Elven deities do not grant the spell resurrection. Half-elves have only a 50% that a resurrection spell works on them. Because elves can not resurrected and are still vulnerable to death effects spells some of them perform an ancient ritual which grants them a bonus of +4 on saves vs death effects only. Half-elves who perfom this ritual loose the 50 % chance of a successful resurrection, they can not be resurrected, but they also get a +4 bonus on saves vs death effects only.
A resurrected person get a -2 penalty on charisma and -2 on constitution in addition to the original penalty (level drain), but gets +2 on wisdom. The resurrected also has an faint aura of undead. A detect undead reveals this aura. Most citizens dislike resurrected persons, so a resurrected never tells anybody that he was resurrected. Some organizations are also known to hunt these resurrected persons. (see also IIRC the book "Touched by the Gods")
Resurrection can not be scribed as a scroll because the deities do not allow to bind the energy of this spell in a scroll. Only a deity has the right to decide which person can be resurrected.

 

[Ryltar]

The spell heals the level bonus but converts the dice healed, to non-lethal damage.

2d8+7 from a Cure moderate wounds spell, heals up 7 points of damage, and converts 2d8 points to non-lethal. The Non-lethal damage heals at one point per level per hour.

This is what I use, and it doesn't create any problems.

 

[Thondor]

Wow. This makes a lot of sense to me. The non-lethal coupled with the exhaustion if the character was dying. I do wonder if this is going slightly to far though.
I'm not as familiar with the rules for exhaustion as I'd like. I assume you would require a full 8 hours to recover. Perhaps in this case the previously dying individual would simply have to rest for a time equal to: damage below 0 X 5 min. Afterwhich the character is fatigue.
This would keep him out of the encounter and force the other players to accomodate his injuries but not put him down for the rest of the 'day'.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Exhaustion normally wears off in an hour, and is replaced by the fatigued condition. Fatigue takes 8 hours to wear off.

yennico's rules seem to favor clerics being raised; that bonus to wisdom really adds up after a while. Conversely, it really hurts sorcerers. It would often be better to roll up a new character than to come back with your casting ability reduced by 2. Maybe these bonuses/penalties should apply only to skill checks?

A little while ago I read a house rule that has characters make a level check (DC 5 + 1/previous raisings) modified by the total of their charisma, wisdom and constitution modifiers. Failure means they can no longer be raised from the dead.

I don't think I understand Ferret's rule completely. Cure spells in the standard rules simultaneously reduce lethal and non-lethal damage. If someone had taken 15 points of lethal damage and 22 points of non-lethal damage, and received a CLW for 6 (3 from dice, 3 from caster level), he would end up with 9 points of lethal damage and 16 points of non-lethal.

What would happen in Ferret's variant? Would the dice part reduce both lethal and non-lethal by 3, and the constant part transfer 3 points from the lethal to the non-lethal column? Or does the dice part only apply to the lethal damage? If the latter, what happens if the character only has nonlethal damage?

 

[ender_wiggin]

HP should be fairly abstract in my game (that's lethal damage hp)

So judging from that, non-lethal damage will be even more abstract. With that in mind, I don't think it'd be a problem if healing spells *don't* heal subdual damage.

For example, if a cleric heals for 2d8+7, seven hit points are cured. Then, 2d8 more hit points are converted to non-lethal damage. HP can't go above max -- if it does, those points of the spell are essentially wasted.

This shouldn't be a problem -- subdual damage is recovered very quickly (usually completely within hours). It should be gone before the exhaustion.

On another note, although the exhaustion normally is gone within an hour, I think this should last longer because your body just basically experienced a great deal of shock, not only from the wound, but from the healing as well.

 

[Planesdragon]

My solution is two parts. The first part is easy:

1. Cure Wounds spells now require the binding of injuries as a somatic component. This increases thier casting time to a full minute (or longer--haven't looked at the book in a few weeks) and gives healers both a reason to carry bandages and a good cover for their spellcasting. A cleric with one rank of heal, a Wisdom of only 14, and a healer's kit can bind a wound automatically by Taking 10 -- so careful 1st level characters are unlikely to waste spells.
2. I don't use HP. Contact me off enworld if you're interested in the details--suffice it to say that a Mortal Wound in my campaign IS A MORTAL WOUND.