Hm, this is a pretty interesting debate. Here are some of my own thoughts after skimming through this.
First of all, even though it has its flaws, I think the best "life meter" in an RPG I've played is the old White Wolf system. You'd have a certain amount of squares based on your size (that never change) that get crossed out whenever you're hit particularly badly (sometimes a hit will be so bad that you mark more than one). Depending on how many squares you have blank you fall into a defferent state of health (winded, wounded, critical, whatever) which in turn affects your fighting ability. In this system, as you advance you gain skills in dodging attacks and making sure that hits hurt you less.
As for the healing class, I really, really liked Joyd's idea of a battle-alchemist. They could focus on making potions or salves that would give quick (and temporary) fixes to health problems during combat. They'd also have the ability to create more powerful cures to heal outside of combat. You could make certain recipies require rare or strange ingrediants to help nudge parties into quests. You could even have an ability for alchemists to distill portions back to their original parts so that they have their own "loot."
To differentiate from magical spells, an interesting solution might be that the only healing magic is created through sacrifice. In order to heal someone you have to hurt yourself (or something else?) to the same degree. Maybe fresh human blood is the primary component to all spells that heal humans. This would make alchemists strictly better at healing, but doesn't take it out of the realm of magic-users. It also allows for alchemists to suppliament their healing ability with some magic, if need be (perhaps there's a brew that can preserve blood for a few hours).
This alchemy idea would also make the medics more rounded, in that they could make other useful concoctions. Maybe Greek Fire? Maybe super-glue? Blindness powder. Cure-for-blindness powder?
Think of Aragorn without such a big sword. The main fighter goes down and he shouts out for the archer to cover him. He runs off to the river they recently passed and grabs the Forget-Me-Nots that were growing by the bank. He quickly crushes the pedals with some of the cold river water and combines it with a vial of mud he'd gotten from a tomb of the fighter's ancestor. He spits in the top and then shakes it together as he sprints back to the battle, as the archer fends off the goblins that are trying to advance.
He feeds the falled fighter the contents of the vial and he blinks and sits back up.
"Alright, that's going to keep you fighting for a one hour, but then it's going to put you in a slumber that only sea salt will awake you from. We have to finish these guys off before you're down for good."
Sounds like good fantasy to me.
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Now that I've spent some time thinking about it: I'm not too big a fan of the whole 'keep track of your damage through numbers' thing, and thats really what you're talking about. It brings too much in the way of numbers in. It's a fantastic system, I know, but you really have to start using stats to make it work, to see how much damage is done by what.
I also like the idea of a battle alchemist, but there's a very big problem with it that makes it not viable: having to get the resources to make your potions. It just makes a lot of tedium that no one will want to do, thus damning the job to obscurity.
A battle alchemist could simply carry the reagents they need on their person. Unless someone really wants to play out the gathering process, it can just be handwaved away. People don't need to play out that they're polishing their sword or hammering out shield dents or using the restroom; there's no special reason people should have to play out gathering materials. (It's something they do during their down time, or the reagents are issued by the company.) It's not an insurmountable problem at all. (On the other hand, it provides a very unique reward for the character - a special, very rare reagent could be found by or awarded to the character that allows them to create a special elixir with a unique effect.)
That's the point I was making. I do like the idea of unique elixirs of a person is forthright enough to actually go and hunt down their own ingredients.
First of all, even though it has its flaws, I think the best "life meter" in an RPG I've played is the old White Wolf system. You'd have a certain amount of squares based on your size (that never change) that get crossed out whenever you're hit particularly badly (sometimes a hit will be so bad that you mark more than one). Depending on how many squares you have blank you fall into a defferent state of health (winded, wounded, critical, whatever) which in turn affects your fighting ability. In this system, as you advance you gain skills in dodging attacks and making sure that hits hurt you less.
As for the healing class, I really, really liked Joyd's idea of a battle-alchemist. They could focus on making potions or salves that would give quick (and temporary) fixes to health problems during combat. They'd also have the ability to create more powerful cures to heal outside of combat. You could make certain recipies require rare or strange ingrediants to help nudge parties into quests. You could even have an ability for alchemists to distill portions back to their original parts so that they have their own "loot."
To differentiate from magical spells, an interesting solution might be that the only healing magic is created through sacrifice. In order to heal someone you have to hurt yourself (or something else?) to the same degree. Maybe fresh human blood is the primary component to all spells that heal humans. This would make alchemists strictly better at healing, but doesn't take it out of the realm of magic-users. It also allows for alchemists to suppliament their healing ability with some magic, if need be (perhaps there's a brew that can preserve blood for a few hours).
This alchemy idea would also make the medics more rounded, in that they could make other useful concoctions. Maybe Greek Fire? Maybe super-glue? Blindness powder. Cure-for-blindness powder?
Think of Aragorn without such a big sword. The main fighter goes down and he shouts out for the archer to cover him. He runs off to the river they recently passed and grabs the Forget-Me-Nots that were growing by the bank. He quickly crushes the pedals with some of the cold river water and combines it with a vial of mud he'd gotten from a tomb of the fighter's ancestor. He spits in the top and then shakes it together as he sprints back to the battle, as the archer fends off the goblins that are trying to advance.
He feeds the falled fighter the contents of the vial and he blinks and sits back up.
"Alright, that's going to keep you fighting for a one hour, but then it's going to put you in a slumber that only sea salt will awake you from. We have to finish these guys off before you're down for good."
Sounds like good fantasy to me.
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I also like the idea of a battle alchemist, but there's a very big problem with it that makes it not viable: having to get the resources to make your potions. It just makes a lot of tedium that no one will want to do, thus damning the job to obscurity.
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