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Goodberry


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Demi's scaling is great, but man, this spell is still incredibly annoying.  Just to have to click five times to get healed.  The ability targeting could be switched to mode 7 so that you don't have to wait one round between each use; but AFAIK that only works on the EE 2.5+ engine.  So what I'm doing in my current game, and what I suggest is done in SR, is this:

Currently, SR make five berries, and each berry heals between 1 and 7 damage.  That's 5 to 35 points of damage healed, between 1st and 18th level.

I propose to make two berries, and have each one heal between 3 and 15 damage - increasing by 2 points every 3 levels, on the same schedule SR currently uses.  That would result in total healing scaling from 6 to 30 points.  Crucially, it means two clicks instead of five. 

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Yeah, they're not really supposed to be used for quick combat healing, so I would not necessarily be in favor of either ideas in the original post. Regeneration, on the other hand, seems like it might have some merit. You could even make it one berry instead of two or five (the spell, after all, is called Goodberry, not Goodberries) if you were doing regeneration.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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Actually one variant of the spell is called "Goodberries" (IWD?)

So, I think it's worth questioning the premise: why not use them in combat?  You can use them in combat now, they just aren't that useful.  But this proposal would still make them less useful than healing potions (in BG1) and extra-healing potions (in BG2).  And they only last a day so you can't stockpile them.  Why not make the GoodBerry spell something like "create two temporary, somewhat crappy healing potions?"  There are plenty of healing potions in the game anyway, so it's not like it gives you any kind of tactical advantage. The point of this proposal is to reduce player annoyance without changing tactical gameplay balance.

Regen is a nice idea, but contrary to what @Bartimaeus has opined, I think regeneration can be really strong in combat.  It's just used differently - as a pre-buff, rather than an on-the-spot heal.  Giving a front-liner regeneration and then healing him as necessary is very useful.  So the regen idea would create a greater tactical advantage than you get from the vanilla spell or from healing potions.

Maybe if the regeration is really slow - like 1 hp per round, and never scale the speed of the regen, only scale how long it lasts?

I would still do 2 or 3 berries, not just one.  Being able to split up the healing is kind of an iconic feature of the spell, and IMHO one of its only good aspects in vanilla.

Edited by subtledoctor
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I don't disagree that it can be useful as a buff, but it's not good for "I need healing now"-type situations. And the Regeneration series of spells doesn't need to be as good as the Cure series of spells at that specific task, but I think it needs to at least be able to do it at least a small degree...which it can't in non-Revised SR, which makes having a druid without a cleric a troublesome prospect for me. There's also the issue of conceptual overlap with the actual proper 6th (Druid)/7th (Cleric) level Regeneration spell that I don't particularly like. I'm fairly happy with the compromise I made in SRR where each Regeneration spell lasts 5 rounds instead of the several turns like it does in SR - you only have to wait a round or two to at least get a chunk of your HP back before you can get your character back into action, but 5 rounds is also still long enough that you can cast it on someone before they've taken significant damage immediately before sending them to get ground up. Even a flat turn that does not increase with levels (but rather the healing effect over the turn increases with the levels) would be much better for me than what SR currently does - the key is simply making it so I don't have to keep my wounded character hidden away for an entire turn before they've healed enough that I can bring them out again.

Since it's a food item, really slow regeneration does probably make sense for Goodberry. Keeping it at five berries conjured per casting, I'd probably make it a base of...say, 2 hit points regenerated total at a rate of 1 hp/round at level 1, with an additional hit point regenerated via an additional round for every two extra experience levels up to a maximum of 10 at 17th level. If you decreased the amount of berries to say...3, however, I'd probably make it more like a base of 3 hit points up to a maximum of 10 at 15th level. That's a bit of an awkward spot mathematically speaking (as you almost want to increase it to a base of 4 hit points, but not quite), but I feel kind of squicky about making it only two berries (which I would probably just up to like 5 hp base at that point).

Edited by Bartimaeus
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the spell doesn't need to scale at all if it's effects "stack" with other forms of regeneration. it would be scalable by the way of stackability. on lower levels this spell would effectively mean "mediocre regeneration", and on higher levels, it would effectively mean "significant added regen rate"

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REGENERATION:

@Bartimaeus your point about the Regen series of spells is well-taken; but I think you (and in fact SR) may be coming at the issue from the wrong angle. Yes, there is important utility in being able to heal fairly quickly in combat; but if we alter the Regen spells to achieve that, then what is really the difference between them and the Cure Wound spells? If druids really need a way to heal quickly, and the SR Regen spells really prevent them from doing that, then I think better to just call them a failed experiment and go back to druids casting Cure Wounds. 

Personally, I use a sphere system where the Cure and Regen spells are in different spheres. So some priests can in fact use both. To me, this is excellent: they each have different utility, and you can decide which to use according to the circumstances, rather than once ever when you choose your class. 

tl;dr: I think the answer to your concern is not to make regeneration really fast, but rather 1) to let druids cast both; or 2) to just eliminate the Regen spells. 

(EDIT - 5 rou ds is too short, but 30 rounds is indeed too long. I would change their duration to 10 rounds.)

 

GOODBERRY:

My suggestion is to have the spell provide 2 berries, 3 max. Solely for reasons of convenience. Any more than 3 berries and might as well just leave the spell alone.

My concern about using regeneration is not about how to balance it - it would be easy enough - but rather, that using regeneration would essentially allow berries to stack with healing potions, which they cannot now do. Especially since the spell is moved to 1st level, that may make it too powerful. 

Or would it? Maybe that would finally make it actually useful, with a unique niche application?

Although... remember that Goodberry is druid-only. (Right?). And druids can cast Regenerate spells already. In SR as it currently stands, letting Goodberries act like healing potions actually gives druids a way to achieve quick healing, as @Bartimaeus desires. Regeneration would be redundant. So that argues for making them like healing potions. 

Edited by subtledoctor
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Regenerate Wounds:

At first, I thought it might be because druids aren't actually supposed to have access to the Cure Wounds series of spells in D&D 2.0, but that's not the case. The idea of the Regenerate Wounds series seems to be provide a sort of slow, more naturalistic method of healing for a greater amount but over a long period of time in contrast to the instant necromantic Cure Wounds series. It's an interesting idea, and provides some variety and flavor between the options clerics and druids have...but in practice, I found that it gimped druids to the point where you cannot really have a druid without a cleric in a relatively standard party setup, and I thought that kind of sucked. One thing you sort of raised that I had not considered at all was simply allowing druids (not clerics) to cast both. Some sort of sphere system that gives you greater input on which one(s) you have would also work (which SR doesn't bother at all with given it's working relatively within the confines of the BG2 class and kit system, where a sphere system simply doesn't work). Previously, it was a huge annoyance to me that both Regenerate Wounds and Cure Wounds had the same icons for Ranger-Clerics, but I fixed that with the help of @DreamSlaveOne, so that's a potential solution for allowing the original idea of the Regenerate Wounds series to continue existing, even with a super long duration.

Goodberry:

I like three better than two - two feels like a really oddball quantity, especially coming from its original five in both vanilla and SR for forever. It feels a little dodgy to have a level 1 spell potentially be better than healing potions, but then I realized Cure Light Wounds already is, so that's kind of a silly thought. If turned into regeneration instead, I suppose you'd want to prevent stacking long term regeneration buffs a la the Regenerate Wound series, so you wouldn't want two Goodberries to stack on one character. How that interacts with healing potions I'm not a hundred percent sure, since I'm not a healing potions kind of guy. On the issue of giving druids an option for quick healing in the face of a lack of the Cure Wound series, one should bear in mind that this is a single level 1 spell, and while increasing the utility of a unique concept spell is desirable, the spell should not be scaling upwards to the point where it could ever possibly be even in the realm of competing with much greater healing spells, and so I don't think it could really ever work as a substitute without buffing it to the point on unreasonability.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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Hello!


I like Bartimaeus take and number too, although I was wondering (I cannot verify now): can the berries be split so that they could be distributed to other party members as well?

If not, I think that would really be a nice touch.

Cheers!

Edited by Salk
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Yeah, they can be split. It's a question of how much you want to split them for multiple party members, vs. how much will each one heal and how annoying is it to have to click over and over again for tiny amount of healing. 

I'm playing with 2 berries per cast right now, with a bit beefier hesling for each berry. At low levels, I am enjoying this setup. we'll see how it is as I get to higher levels. 

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I mean, by that logic 1 is even lamer. Would you rather use 8 healing potions that heal 1hp each, or 1 potion that heals 8 hp?

I can make this a mod for you. Instead of 1 healing potion, stores will sell you a stack of 8, and you'll have to use them 8 times to actually heal yourself. It'll be fun: we can take bets on how long it will take before you put your fist through your monitor. 🤣

(j/k - the answer is "never," because carpal tunnel syndrome will prevent you from actually making a fist. 😛 )

tl;dr: play the game both ways and then tell me which you think is "lamer"

Edited by subtledoctor
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I mean, by that logic 1 is even lamer. Would you rather use 8 healing potions that heal 1hp each, or 1 potion that heals 8 hp?

I can make this a mod for you. Instead of 1 healing potion, stores will sell you a stack of 8, and you'll have to use them 8 times to actually heal yourself. It'll be fun: we can take bets on how long it will take before you put your fist through your monitor. 🤣

(j/k - the answer is "never," because carpal tunnel syndrome will prevent you from actually making a fist. 😛 )

tl;dr: play the game both ways and then tell me which you think is "lamer"

Uh, okay.

That was a bit of an unnecessarily hostile and absurdist response, but alright.

Edited by Bartimaeus
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