Meditate

[Leohand]

I suggest adding meditate as a skill for Fighters. A fighter that is meditating would recover from injuries faster. I think rangers and Paladins could even benefit from that ability, but warriors wouldn't have the discipline, I figure. They'd learn it later then spellcasters though. Any thoughts?

[Larethiel]

Meditate is used to recover your Magic, not to recover from injuries, rangers already have it. If warriors want to restore their health quickly they can sit/sleep/have someone heal them. I don't think it's necessary for fighters, but that's just me.

[Leohand]

I didn't know rangers got meditate, lol, but I was thinking that once you reach 100% health, your wounds stop healing. I was thinking meditate might be coded to help these injuries go away, for when a healer can't be found.

[Dalvyn]

I feel like shouting "No Way!".

If anything, I believe that the automatic healing should be removed, or slowed down.

This is not a single-player game where every character should be able to do everything. It's based on D&D, and D&D is a collaborative game where people need to group up and round out a well-balanced party to overcome all obstacles.

There might be problems with some classes being too good at too many things, but the solution would then be to reduce that class's power instead of making all classes self-sufficient.

[Leohand]

Hehe, I don't really play fighters much, but it seemed like a good idea, but that is why you bring it up, and give people a chance to shoot it down.

[Tavik]

I'll agree that meditate doesn't really have any place with fighters. It is a bit annoying at times to have injuries at 100% HP, but allowing a fighter to regain HP faster is going to end up being very unbalancing. Most of the time the wounds that stick around are very minor and not really anything to worry about anyway. If you are concerned about the RP aspect of those wounds, then it would make perfect sense to hit a priest up for some healing. Otherwise, those wounds aren't going to hurt you at all in your next battle and chances are, you'll get hit a few times and heal back up to perfect health.

If anything, I believe that the automatic healing should be removed, or slowed down.

Here's where I feel like shouting "No way!"

While we do want to encourage the collaboration between players, I don't think this is a good way to do so. My feelings would be that removing this is going to be more of an irritant than anything else. Yes, it's more real, but generally, when you're in a high level area, you're going to need people with you and usually, quick healing as well. Removing auto healing all together is going to make even simple things much more dangerous. Even a couple of low/mid level fighters grouping through the peaks is suddenly going to difficult when they can't recover from any wounds. One round through the area and they'll be needing to flee, head back to the city, get healed and head back. Yes, ideally they would have a healer with them, but there isn't always one online and that is going to make things very difficult. Again, there is plenty of use for healers even with the current HP regeneration.

So, there's my opinion.

[Leohand]

My concept wasn't so much to speed up the life percentage. It's, lets say you have an arm severed, and have enough coin to get it regenerated, but after that, the regrown arm is critically injured, and your life is at 100%, so you don't heal that arm at all. If you don't have any more cash, and there's no priest online to help, you are effectively stuck until one logs on, because first battle you get into, chances are you are going to lose that arm again. So, this concept for meditation, was that when hp is at 100, you can meditate to help those wounds continue to heal, though such healing would be VERY slow, and a priest would be a hundred-fold easier. That's the idea I had.

[Nysan]

I feel like shouting "No Way!".

If anything, I believe that the automatic healing should be removed, or slowed down.

This is not a single-player game where every character should be able to do everything. It's based on D&D, and D&D is a collaborative game where people need to group up and round out a well-balanced party to overcome all obstacles.

There might be problems with some classes being too good at too many things, but the solution would then be to reduce that class's power instead of making all classes self-sufficient.

Meditate aside, I agree with Dalvyn a bit. Auto heals promote soloing way too much.

However, on the same note, I would actually encourage further expansion of basic healing arts. Bandages are a minor used item in the game, rarely found in the average player's bag. The only self repairing skill we have is one that stops bleeding. In a true D&D fashion, any 'adventurer' type person has an understand of basic wound threatment. This is shown in many written sources.

Not looking for a default skill so any sword swinger can 100% self heal, but some sort of minor healing ability...perhaps only able to bring the character up to a certain health %...at a high MV cost. Heck, even a temperary healing system like the bandages fall off after so many game hours and damage returns, encouraging the character to seek a priest or find a safe place to rest and recover. *shrug*

[Dalvyn]

What about this then perhaps?

Restrict auto-healing to specific quiet rooms, like inns?

[Mouat]

Being a long time Mudder, I would be hesistant to allow faster healing while resting. (go ahead shoot me... "Scotty, shields up!") (yeah most of you are too young to know that... anyway...

I am one of those people that would go out soloing and the game is so much better when you have to get groups and as many have mentioned, that is the intent, for people to group to go on grand adventures.

The mud I used to play, characters became so strong or could heal up easiy that nobody ever grouped anymore they would just go soloing...

It's okay to go soloing, maybe you just want to grunt some coin and don't have the energy to RP... just pick places that are not suicidal if you are by yourself. But the game, imho, is so much better when you have to group, just be wary of those fast furiously flirting females forever fondling you while grouped.

I will not mention names... *cough*

[Oghma]

It would be a good way to increase the value of priestly healing in questing or group combat. Also the importance of having potions.

[Jaenoic]

It would be a good way to increase the value of priestly healing in questing or group combat. Also the importance of having potions.

And making classes like the rogue and warrior less effective while making the already arguably strongest class even more critical. I feel that auto healing is fine the way it is.

[Aegir]

What about this then perhaps?

Restrict auto-healing to specific quiet rooms, like inns?

You want to restrict auto-healing, make it so you have to be resting: sitting, sleeping, something. Could even add in the Heal skill so that PCs could augment the natural healing rate at the cost of their own auto-healing. Allowing for Inn rooms to augment natural healing would certainly make them more useful, but it shouldn't be the only (non-magical) way to heal.

One other thing to consider: right now, the in-game economy is extremely hard on PCs, particularly casters. You go making things even harder on PCs by adding more expense to their existence (needing to buy healing kits or potions just to do any sort of lengthy traveling, or having a regular requirement to pay for lodging at various inns just to heal minor wounds) is just going to make that worse. On its own, probably not alot worse, but these things add up.

I do agree that grouping is much more fun than wandering around solo, but the more you build towards grouping being a requirement, the harder its going to be to actually do anything. A change as extreme as you're suggesting is not only essentially requiring grouping, its requiring grouping with a healer, which just adds another level of complexity.

[Vibius]

*coughs and takes cover*

Regaining lost hp and movement only when resting/sleeping seems fine to me, if we combine this with a restriction to spellcasters so they can't attack with weapons while they are casting spells we get conscience of class.

This will likely make the life of first-line fighters more interesting since they will be needed more than before, also clerics will have to choose between fighting or aiding their friends, and wizards will get less involved in melee.

[Dalvyn]

It would be a good way to increase the value of priestly healing in questing or group combat. Also the importance of having potions.

And making classes like the rogue and warrior less effective while making the already arguably strongest class even more critical. I feel that auto healing is fine the way it is.

How does that make the rogues and warriors less effective? They aren't supposed to be good at auto-healing anyway.

Yes, restricting it to sitting is a good idea too, Aegir.

And I definitely like the idea to prevent casters from attacking when they are casting spells, Vibius, yes.

[Oghma]

There's two different poses for sitting, rest and sit, I would limit it to rest because it seems to fit more than sitting, resting to heal

[Lathander]

Dalvyn sums up my thoughts. For the longest time the fighter class was by far the most unbalancingly powerful. Through a lot of discussion and work, things have evened out somewhat. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. Auto-healing at a quick rate is one of the downfalls of the class. I don't see it as a problem. Is it an inconvenience for the solo player, probably yes. While we like to accomodate everyone, including the solo player, we choose to encouarge the group aspect of our game. I think it would be opposed to the interests of the direction of FK to make changes that more and more favor a solitary experience.

[Jaenoic]

How does that make the rogues and warriors less effective? They aren't supposed to be good at auto-healing anyway.

I supposed I can't speak for rogues, I don't play them. But when it comes to the warrior, I have had one throughout many "warrior phases" of the game. When I first created my warrior, the class was very powerful. I would say the most powerful class in the game. They could take a lot of damage and deal a lot of damage. They were consistent, and consistently strong. However it was seen that they were too powerful, to that I can agree, and a skill which they were never supposed to really have in the first place was removed. Then they could take damage and the damage they dealt out was ok. Still a good class. But then mobs started dealing out more damage, and suddenly mobs who wielded weapons damaged your armor about 75% of the time. Suddenly the fighter class was not so hot, because their damage dealing was so-so, but when it came to taking damage, if up against a powerful enough foe they'd go down pretty quickly. These days, in full armor, my L50 fighter has a tough time against ogres(not even the giants) while grouped.

So what's my point? The warrior classes aren't exactly the best anymore. Take away auto-healing and now you can NEVER adventure without a healer. But sometimes a lowbie needs help with a quest and only a fighter is available. Even if that quest is just against little old goblins, the itty bitty damage would add up after a while if it was just the fighter and the lowbie, or even if it was a larger group that had no healer, and death would be unavoidable.

I guess I just don't see the benefit in removing auto-healing, or restricting it to certain rooms only. Also, I feel it doesn't so much encourage grouping as it does just make a healer necessary for any adventuring. It then becomes a nuisance; when going on a journey making absolutely sure you have a healer, or else you can't go. Even if it's just walking to the next town, and you're worried about bandits. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the well-balanced group just as much as the next person, but I feel it's often not feasible with our playerbase. It's just not going to happen, trying to get together a fighter, a priest, a wizard, a bard, a ranger together and go out adventuring without planning ahead.

For the longest time the fighter class was by far the most unbalancingly powerful. Through a lot of discussion and work, things have evened out somewhat.

I can't say I agree with this. I suppose more than anything, I feel like many steps are being taken to make the casting classes much better(and they're amazing now, compared to a year or two ago) but we just keep jipping the melee classes. Some people feel that warriors, fighters in specific, are still powerful but I don't see that at all. And from what I hear, rogues have it even worse. So before we go restricting these classes more, I feel like we need to compensate them.

[Aegir]

I can't say exactly what the cause of this is, but as someone who was inactive for quite some time and just recently returned, I can guess about one very large piece that makes warriors less powerful then they used to be.

Back before I left, the set of armor Aegir wears protected him from most mundane attacks mobs could throw at him, with the exception of a few areas where the items he wore were lacking. Since I've come back, things that used to never get past the armor of specific areas now carve through it like butter.

I know there was a pretty substantial overhaul to the challenge system while I was inactive, but I can't say for certain thats the only element at play here. All I know is that its much more difficult to stand and fight things as an armored fighter then it was before. I'm not necessarily saying this is good or bad, simply that it is, and I can only imagine that being a fighter is alot more painful now than it used to be.

[Nysan]

No actions (including basic attacks) while casting for all caster classes (including paladins, bards, and rangers).

Auto healing (hitpoints and movement) ONLY when using the REST pose.

Balanced and fair on both counts. I like them.

Question on the second, would meditating be grouped with rest because it would seem a bit of a unbalanced stretch to make casters rest for 2 points and meditate for the other.