Healing Kits

Bariagan · Post by **Bariagan** » Sat May 08, 2004 11:00 pm

Hello again, I play a level 7 cleric and I think healing kits are too powerful, especially at the higher bonus levels. As it currently stands, there is no point to using healing spells or even potions for that matter, or bothering to memorize the remove disease and remove poison spells.

Healing kits can be used twice per round (at least that is the most I have gotten) and more importantly provoke no attack of opportunity (which spell casting and potion drinking do), furthermore the +10 (which I buy in bulk lots) heals on average 20 points of damage (with no points in the heal skill), which is about equal to the average 3rd level cure serious wounds and they can be used on undead. Additionally they can also cure poison and disease on the same roll, which are 3rd level clerical spells as well. If you start adding points to the heal skill, they will quickly surpass even heal spells, except maybe those cast by the highest level clerics, and even then it would be close.

Right now they make combats rather easy, as I can pretty much heal all my hit points by using two. Thus I can beat on a monster, heal up, beat on the monster again, and never have anything to worry about.

I would like to see them at least provoke an attack of opportunity. This means the first use in a round would trigger the attack, at least making of similar risk to drinking a potion (I believe you can only do 1 AOO a round on the same target, but I could be wrong). Any other ideas would be welcome.

On different note, should I post statements like this here, under features in the bug tracker, or in another forum? Thanks.

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sat May 08, 2004 11:29 pm

First off, yeh this kind of post probably shouldn't be put on the bug tracker.

I so want to disagree with you because what you say is true!
Heal kits make clerics healing useless pretty much, as well as remove disease and poison (except when you have already taken disease damage).

Ideas on how to balance:

reduce usage to 1/round.
Add attack of opportunity for sure.
Don't sell any heal kits greater than +1 (However leave it so that monsters can still drop better than +1's)
Increase the price of heal kits.
Set it so that when using a heal kit you use it one round, but the heal effect doesn't do anything till the next round.
Set it so that the healing is divided over 3 rounds so it works more like a regeneration type effect. (of course if this one is used, make sure that only 1 can be in effect at one time. If a second is used, it tacks on more healing at the end.)

Post by **Lokey** » Sun May 09, 2004 12:10 am

Bio heal skill does a lot more than that, lol. Very hardcoded, there's no way to tweak them.

Custom system coming, just not going to happen right away.

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sun May 09, 2004 1:26 am

Any info on how the this system is "supposed" to work?

Mokihana · Post by **Mokihana** » Sun May 09, 2004 7:03 am

well the whole draw back of heal kits is weight. they are very heavy. you figure a good fighter carries at least one page of heal pots right. if anyone carried a full inv page of heal kits in ns4 they would be overencumbered.

lokey if you want more balance in heal kits. double the weight again. IMHO

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sun May 09, 2004 10:22 am

I have a half-ogre barbarian that carries over 250 heal kits...
25 x 5.5 is only 137.5 lbs...
He has 50 at the ready on his main page of quickslots.
He's level 11 and I haven't even had to use greater than +1 heal kits yet.

RunarSterk · Post by **RunarSterk** » Sun May 09, 2004 12:06 pm

Heal kits certainly don't make clerics useless. I'd much rather have a cleric at my side than a pile of heal kits. Clerics can buff, too. Clerics can also fight. When using a heal kit, you can't attack anything, and your attack stops (maybe not a big deal, but when you're surrounded it can be tricky to get back to hitting the right NPC). If things go south, a cleric can res you. Partying is more fun than soloing. I'm sure there are more reasons. Kits are powerful, though. But then again, there are a lot of powerful things out there.

LadyCheron · Post by **LadyCheron** » Sun May 09, 2004 12:31 pm

Remember, for the beginning levels heal kits are all that keep 'em alive. When that rabid chicken bites, and you're diseased and there is NO cleric in town - you need a heal kit. Being able to use a kit without provoking an AOO can be the difference between hitting that "near death" chicken (or rat, or bug) one more time to kill it and lying there bleeding and recovering while the mob heals to full and waits for you to stand up.

By all means, one use per round. And make the price curve steeper, if you wish. But most of my characters are getting enough kits in drops that they have not bought any since level 3 or so. I personally think that the town vendor should sell heal kits and potions up to level 3 only - above that should be player-supplied or found in drops. However, that's not the way it was implemented.

Bariagan · Post by **Bariagan** » Sun May 09, 2004 12:46 pm

I am definitely not saying heal kits make clerics useless, I love playing them, and not just for the fun roleplaying purposes. I am pointing out, however, that heal kits are remarkably powerful for their disadvantages. I regularly carry 50 +10's with no problem and they make life incredibly easy. I don't have to worry about damage at all.

Clerics are traditionally good at 3 things: healing, and by this I mean removing negative modifiers as well as fixing damage, dealing with undead, both directly through turning and damage spells (which is why I think sunburst and undeath to death should be removed from arcane) and by protecting others from them, and lastly buffs. Healing kits completely remove the usefulness of the first category, and while it is nice to not have spell slots for remove disease and the like it makes those afflictions go from deadly threats to minor nuisances.

Also, when comparing heal kits to other similar items (potions, spells, lay on hands) they are clearly superior in every way. They are essentially a cheap holy grail of healing.

edit--- good point on their use for lower levels, reducing the bonus would probably help keep them useful for beginning chars but restrict their usefulness for higher levels, especially at 1 use per round.

Mortiana27 · Post by **Mortiana27** » Sun May 09, 2004 11:59 pm

No! Keep the healing kits as they are! They're the only thing that has kept me alive this long.

Perhaps I'm an odd duck, but I don't often "party" with other players. I like to explore and kill monsters on my own (heh. let's just say I don' t like sharing xp).

I quite willingly spend money on the big kits and I quite happily lug around all that extra weight just so that I can venture farther out there into the world before being sent back in a respawn bag. I've even left heavier loot behind in favor of keeping my heal kits close at hand.

I love healing kits, just as they are!

Mortiana27 · Post by **Mortiana27** » Mon May 10, 2004 12:05 am

Bariagan wrote:I regularly carry 50 +10's with no problem and they make life incredibly easy. I don't have to worry about damage at all.

Really? Then I have some problems because at level 9, I tote around 99 +12 kits just to survive the night. If I'm cursed, I'm screwed because I have nothing to remove that. If I'm drained in a particular stat, I'm screwed if I don't have any lesser restorations on me (which I only get from loot anyway).

I can go the Formian Tunnels and all those areas within and still get my butt handed to me on a platter. It's humiliating yet exhilerating - in a 'I wonder how long I'll last this time' kinda way

AndrewCarr · Post by **AndrewCarr** » Mon May 10, 2004 12:11 am

there should be a decent amount of lesser restore pots dropping. I haven't gotten a ton lately, but i've also started killing different stuff which may be the reason. Just conserve them.

Souldin · Post by **Souldin** » Mon May 10, 2004 12:41 am

Mortiana27 wrote:(heh. let's just say I don' t like sharing xp).

there's a synergy bonus that adds xp to your gains when you party up

bongoblue · Post by **bongoblue** » Mon May 10, 2004 12:46 am

Its nice to see I'm not the only solo player aroundd here...

When fighting a mob of rats, heal kits are very handy indeed.

I learned quickly not to use a potion with about 7 AOO hits on my character.

Souldin · Post by **Souldin** » Mon May 10, 2004 12:53 am

yeah, i don't really get to play much (or not feel like it, etcetera) so i am most always soloing mobs. heal kits are of good use to me and lowering the amount of points healed would totally mess me up as i don't really know how to use them (no skill points in them) playing as a barbarian.