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Cure/Cause Wounds & Regenerate Wounds


Demivrgvs

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If I remember correctly, the new thing with tobex is that different sources of regen stack. So spell, potion and and items for example can all give a stacked regen.

You can stack Ring of Regeneration + Gaxx + Potion of Regeneration+ Regenerate x wounds with ToBex.

You cannot stack Regen spells however, only the first one cast will work. (albeit, this has nothing to do with ToBex but with Demivrgvs' decision).

Fwiw, I'd change all this 1/x seconds to a simple 1HP every 6 seconds for all items, spells and potion. That way EE users (God bless them :) ) could stack them properly. Fastest regeneration could be somwhere along these lines:

Head - Pearly white or Wong Fei

Ring 1 - Ring of Regen

Ring 2 - same

Weapon - Unyielding axe

Weapon 2 - Blackrazor

Cloak - Wolf

1x potion

1x Regen spell

Armor - TrollHide (nerfed to 1/6)

; total ammount of 9HP/round. Doubled to 18 with Haste (3HP/second - this is exactly vanilla Regeneration w/o Haste). Balanced out by the fact that this is only available in ToB and some of the items aren't actually that good.

Could be more with some Shapeshifter tweaks, but you'd loose on armor + weapons.

To make the 6th level (or 7th for Clerics) Regeneration spell more useful due to nerfed ammount regenerated, I'd make it undispellable for the duration.

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But yes, I got your point. But also you could take into account that you can also cast the druids spells to 6 party members... which is rather the point of the whole thing, and then have a cleric that patches the combat wounds so they do not kill anyone right out.

Erhm, do you use the ToBEx ?

 

Cause if not, the whole regen spells get defeated cause even a poison effect could block the regen spells effect... as they both use the timed effect and without the ToBEx it doesn't work at all(well actually just the fastest one works, while the rest do not have any effects).

@Demi or anyone else that has the beta; wasn't the regen spells supposed to be stack-able with each others ?

It seems the spells were implemented not to use the standard regeneration effect in order to prevent them from being stacked. It doesn't actually show up as regeneration on your portrait or in the character sheet, it has its own unique effect that is purposely not stackable.

 

I get that it's more of a "cast it and forget it" type of healing, but it feels like the effect is too small. Even if I cast it on everyone, the most it would do is heal up some chip damage on the characters whom aren't being focused. It certainly wont keep my frontliners alive since even a single gnoll is likely to out damage it, and if a random ranged enemy decides to focus my caster they'd die in 1-2 rounds anyways if I didn't react immediately, the piddly extra 2 or 3 hp every 6 seconds wouldn't matter at all. Maybe it's better in BG2 and later levels, but so far I've only got to try it out in BG1 and at low levels it's hard to justify spending the spell slots on it.

 

Casting it once on each party member sounds good, but that's 6 rounds of standing around to pre cast it on each person, which I normally wouldn't bother with on single target spells except for special occasions. And if it is that special occasion, I don't find the regen to be impact full enough to warrant the spell slots not being spent on other stuff. I'm better off letting a cleric do all of the healing since with theirs I can focus all of the healing where and when I need it.

 

Regen is arguably the hardest thing to balance in this game. Too little it will make no difference, too much will make you invulnerable. Worse yet, Haste effect doubles it's effects.

Even the games itself (non-Tobex/EE editions vs Tobex installs) will work differently.

I didn't find regen wounds spells to be useless in combat, quite the opossite - especially Mass Regen is exellent, considering how often one fights in BG2.

Having regeneration on your fighters allows your druids/clerics to do other stuff rather than cast healing spells on people.

What I dislike about them is that they kind of make items with this property little redundant.

Yeah, I'm not too sure on how it could be balanced better, that's why I wanted the discussion. One idea I had was to make the duration and healing static and have an additional scaling component that makes the heal trigger any time you take a damage source (probably limited to once per round). To help balance it against stuff like magic missile there could be a threshold on how much the instance of damage taken should be before triggering said proc. That way it would still have its uses for blanket healing over time, but also might be able to help a character to better stand up against actual consistent harassment.

 

Another way to balance it might be to have the spell not be linear in terms of it's healing. Like say instead of being a static 3hp per round it could instead slowly scale upwards. Maybe 1hp for the first two rounds, 2hp for the next two, 3 hp for the next two, etc. Then the power would start kicking in when it really mattered. Of course that's pretty easily abusable so you'd probably need a much shorter duration and that might not fit well with the druids new playstyle.

 

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Yeah, I'm not too sure on how it could be balanced better, that's why I wanted the discussion. One idea I had was to make the duration and healing static and have an additional scaling component that makes the heal trigger any time you take a damage source (probably limited to once per round). To help balance it against stuff like magic missile there could be a threshold on how much the instance of damage taken should be before triggering said proc. That way it would still have its uses for blanket healing over time, but also might be able to help a character to better stand up against actual consistent harassment.

 

Another way to balance it might be to have the spell not be linear in terms of it's healing. Like say instead of being a static 3hp per round it could instead slowly scale upwards. Maybe 1hp for the first two rounds, 2hp for the next two, 3 hp for the next two, etc. Then the power would start kicking in when it really mattered. Of course that's pretty easily abusable so you'd probably need a much shorter duration and that might not fit well with the druids new playstyle.

 

 

This is how I tweaked KR Berserker on my install. :)

Any time he takes damage, he heals for 2/3/4 HP, and this can only trigger 1x/round. Treshold is impossible to implement.

Second suggestion is imo too complicated. It can be done, but imo not really worth it.

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I really like that idea Dakk.. I like the higher level regen spells, but the first one is really not good enough. 1 hp pr round is only "useful" in between battles, and then you might as well sleep. A mass heal effect will make it at least more versatile..

Having said that, I think it might be a good idea to start the regen progression at 2 hp/round instead of one.

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My 2 cents.

 

Regenerate Wound spells are not supposed to perform the very same role of Cure Wound ones, else there would be no point differentiating them. If you need to quickly restore a high amount of hit points you need a Cleric, which is the dedicated healer.

 

You should not expect a Regenerate Wound spell (except maybe the high lvl Regeneration) to be able to keep your melee character alive on its own, nor it should. If these low level spells could "out-heal the damage sustained by melee tanks" then there would be a serious balance issue imo. In-combat, by themselves, they should indeed only heal minor wounds, but they can be combined with any amount of regenerating items quickly increasing the usefulness of both.

 

Regarding the proposed changes (e.g. regen getting higher over time, restore x hps when struck, etc.), they all seem kinda "complicated" while the current behavior is very simple and almost exactly as per PnP, which is something I always like.

 

Overall I'm still not convinced Regenerate Wound spells need any buff/change.

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I find Demi's logic sound here.

 

On the other hand, I am not sure that following this logic, regeneration is that useful at all. When in non combat situations, it's not really so critical to gain HPs back. If regeneration is ineffective at keeping you alive in combat then it can be viewed only as an alternative to other curing spells (which are usually cheaper) or the use of healing potions.

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When in non combat situations, it's not really so critical to gain HPs back

 

Those long midwinter Durlag's Tower no-reload runs tho.

 

Not to mention that regeneration spells introduce a whole new level of kiting cheesiness.

 

(which is a good thing)

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My 2 cents.

 

Regenerate Wound spells are not supposed to perform the very same role of Cure Wound ones, else there would be no point differentiating them. If you need to quickly restore a high amount of hit points you need a Cleric, which is the dedicated healer.

 

You should not expect a Regenerate Wound spell (except maybe the high lvl Regeneration) to be able to keep your melee character alive on its own, nor it should. If these low level spells could "out-heal the damage sustained by melee tanks" then there would be a serious balance issue imo. In-combat, by themselves, they should indeed only heal minor wounds, but they can be combined with any amount of regenerating items quickly increasing the usefulness of both.

 

Regarding the proposed changes (e.g. regen getting higher over time, restore x hps when struck, etc.), they all seem kinda "complicated" while the current behavior is very simple and almost exactly as per PnP, which is something I always like.

 

Overall I'm still not convinced Regenerate Wound spells need any buff/change.

All, as Salk said, sound reasoning. But what do you think of making all(?) regen spells mass regen? All of your points should still be valid, but open up a whole new strategic use of regen.

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But what do you think of making all(?) regen spells mass regen? All of your points should still be valid, but open up a whole new strategic use of regen.

And how long and how much would those spells last ? That's a power creep to the tenth decree man.

Yes, there can be one mass regen spell at 5th, 6th or 7th level, but it just like the Mass Cure... HOw would you BALANCE the thing, were the spells all made to be Mass Effect-ived ? :DWould there be Pull, Throw, Warp and Biotic explosions... eerhm, sorry about the tangent, but it made me smile. :D

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I don't think mass regeneration would make the power level of them THAT much higher. It's not going to do much for 3 or 4 party members, more than being nice. And it could be a cute niche for regeneration spells.

 

But of course, other players are better suited than me to comment on the power level on higher levels, I rarely pass level 8 :p

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All, as Salk said, sound reasoning. But what do you think of making all(?) regen spells mass regen? All of your points should still be valid, but open up a whole new strategic use of regen.

There's already a Mass Regen at 5th level, I don't think tweaking others as party-based is a good idea. In BG1 it would be pretty imbalanced (full party heal when cast before traveling/resting - afaik can't be helped), in BG2 you have the 5th level option for when you want it.

The point with regen (general) is that it has the best effect on characters which are heavilly protected anyway (think paladins with shields), and little effect on poorly armored/vulnerable people (thieves, two-handed weapon users etc.).

It does help, but don't expect it will keep you alive vs ToB oponnents alone. When mixed with Def Harmony, Barkskin, Pro Elements etc. it can go a long way however.

It isn't a substitue for heals, nor should it be viewed as such. There are battles where casting a Regeneration will help more than Heal (getting beaten to a pulp regardless of AC - think ToB SCS Drow with Critical Stike HLA, prolonged battles without resting possibility like Sendai stautes etc.);

Having a high resistance to damage also makes regeneration much more useful since every HP point is in fact worth much more, and ofc there are other instances where Heal is much better (about to face Glabrezus with PW spells, where regen doesn't cut it for PW treshold).

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Making them all AoE would help a bit. It would still be essentially an out of combat spell, but I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing. I still worry about the numbers though, maybe starting them at a higher base like Jonah suggested would help.

 

Those long midwinter Durlag's Tower no-reload runs tho.

 

Not to mention that regeneration spells introduce a whole new level of kiting cheesiness.

 

(which is a good thing)

 

I actually played a no-reload run in my BG1+Revisions test playthrough and there were some times when it was nice to just cast regenerate and go on about exploring the large wilderness maps. The problem is with places like Durlags tower it'll just be so slow to heal you back up, The time between encounters isn't very long, so even if you casted the high level version of the spell (restore critical wounds, which I can't really justify memorizing over other lvl 4 spells tbh) it's still only 4hp/turn so you're looking at several minutes of standing there watching your HP bar tick up one little chunk at a time. You only have a small amount of those high level slots too, so you'd soon resort to lower levels of the spell and then you're looking at near 10 minutes of doing nothing. Any spell that takes so long to be effective that you're tempted to cast it then go AFK for a drink isn't a good idea to me.

As for kiting cheese. In the infinity engine? No thanks.

You should not expect a Regenerate Wound spell (except maybe the high lvl Regeneration) to be able to keep your melee character alive on its own, nor it should. If these low level spells could "out-heal the damage sustained by melee tanks" then there would be a serious balance issue imo. In-combat, by themselves, they should indeed only heal minor wounds, but they can be combined with any amount of regenerating items quickly increasing the usefulness of both.

 

I definitely don't want the Regenerates to out-heal actual threats. I'm just not so keen on the idea of exceedingly long durations being the main draw of the spell. Small effects over a long period of time doesn't work to well with flow of the game for me. BG combat is fairly fast paced, especially early on where your characters can easily die in 1-3 rounds. In those early levels the regenerate spells are relegated to out of combat healing. That might not be a bad thing if it weren't for how unrestricted resting is in the series. Even if you're playing with resting restrictions though, at low levels you have very limited spell slots and it's hard to justify using them on non-combat spells. The druid is going to be leeching an equal share of XP as combat-centric characters, and if he memorizes these regenerate spells then he actually contributes nothing at all - he can't tank, he can't deal damage, he can't buff anyone, and he can't heal enough to make a difference. Compare that to say a cleric whom could wear metal armor and tank with the best of them whilst also either significantly buffing his allies or actually healing enough to keep people alive. The druid is essentially forced to just cast offensive spells, which is nice and all but it's good to have some variety. A wizard can cast offensive spells just as well or better and also has very powerful crowd control like sleep/horror, better buffs (haste) and debuffs (glitterdust/slow), and essential utility spells like spell thrust/detect invisibility/remove magic/breach.

Perhaps balancing them number-wise to be more along the lines of available damage over time spells would be good route. Obviously it wouldn't be that simple and these spells work a lot differently, but for example level 1 chromatic orb poison is (1d8)+2/round, level 2 acid arrow is (1d6+2d4)+2d4/round, level 3 insect swarm is 2d3/round + 100% spell failure, level 4 poison is 4d4+1.5/round, etc.

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(restore critical wounds, which I can't really justify memorizing over other lvl 4 spells tbh) it's still only 4hp/turn so you're looking at several minutes of standing there watching your HP bar tick up one little chunk at a time.

It's 4HP/round. Given round is 6 seconds, and the effect is doubled by Haste to more than 1HP/second, I'd say this spell is a very valid pick.

 

 

if he memorizes these regenerate spells then he actually contributes nothing at all - he can't tank, he can't deal damage, he can't buff anyone, and he can't heal enough to make a difference. Compare that to say a cleric whom could wear metal armor and tank with the best of them whilst also either significantly buffing his allies or actually healing enough to keep people alive. The druid is essentially forced to just cast offensive spells, which is nice and all but it's good to have some variety. A wizard can cast offensive spells just as well or better and also has very powerful crowd control like sleep/horror, better buffs (haste) and debuffs (glitterdust/slow), and essential utility spells like spell thrust/detect invisibility/remove magic/breach.

I don't really agree on this. Casting RLW (in early levels, where combat is slow) adds approx 20-30% HP due to low to-hit chances oponnents have. This spell heals the ammount of 3xCLW clerics have, and in BG1 where game is built around large areas to explore it's usually better to slowly heal over time. Cleric does wear plate indeed, otoh druid can wear Ankheg/Dragon plate, and have Ironskin, which beats AC later.

Secondly, a druid (imo at least) has very useful spells (both damage and buff/debuff) at all levels, apart final two (6th and 7th respectfully; where he gets more summon/offence oriented).

Finally, there are very few debuff spells which can measure up to several Creeping Doom/Insect Plague castings.

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Given round is 6 seconds, and the effect is doubled by Haste to more than 1HP/second, I'd say this spell is a very valid pick.

And to fix that, we could make the characters immune to Haste to stop the 2x-ing, cause for reasons... well at least all the others except the very high level, where the haste can come with the regen effect. :D See what I did there ?
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