An Amateur’s Guide to Healing like a Pro
(part 1)
By Gerry Chartier
Hello, gentle friends! I’m here today to discuss the most important aspect of the magic system – healing. Our system doesn’t work without healing magic – or perhaps more accurately, it would work very well for a few seconds. We would not, however, be able to have days-long questing events without healing. The PCs would all be down within the first hour. Healing is also a major factor in war maneuver events – the right kind can turn around a losing battle. If you’re a new caster and you want to be sure to be useful, healing is a safe bet.
That said, healing is a little more complicated than it appears at first glance. You can’t just take a single path of Healing and go forth to keep the questing party alive indefinitely. Different situations call for different builds. You need to know going in what kind of healing you want to specialize in, so you can tailor your build accordingly.
Attending Med School
The first thing to be aware of is that there are actually three paths of magic that are healing magic. Healing is, of course, the obvious one. The other two are Alchemy and, surprisingly, Necromancy. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. Let’s take a look at those paths and what they have to offer.
The Healing Path
Pool: Ghost Blade, Cure Disease
Not all paths have obvious Pool spell lead-ins, but Healing has two. Of the two, Ghost Blade is going to be more reliably useful, as it allows you to keep your weapon on you while performing slow Raises, or having them performed on you. Depending on what you’re building towards, slow Raises won’t always be a primary concern, but they do get used at almost every event, and if you’re doing them, it’s nice to not be defenseless.
As for Cure Disease, you’ll go whole events without casting it once, but it occasionally comes up, and when it does, it causes you to have to invest double the healing resources into keeping your companions up and functional. If you can spare the pool slot, it’s good to have them handy.
2nd Circle: Heal Limb, Group Heal
Heal Limb is the most important and useful spell in the game. People fight more effectively when they’ve got all their limbs. This spell lets you keep others fighting, plus it lets you keep yourself fighting – or running, as the case may be. Dedicated healers often aren’t combat monsters, so being able to stay out of the way keeps one alive. Plus, Heal Limb is a low-circle spell, easily cast, and unlimited casting, so it’s well worth buying down for. Why every caster wouldn’t have Heal Limb, I don’t know.
Being in the shadow of Heal Limb, Group Heal struggles to get noticed. It’s not a spell you would take unless you have other Healing spells, because it doesn’t do anything in and of itself. Instead what it does is multiply the effect of certain spells – most importantly being Combat Raise Dead and Raise Dead. Being able to use one casting to raise multiple people is very handy, but given that Group Heal is competing against Heal Limb, one is not likely to take it unless the Healing path is taken twice.
3rd Circle: Raise Dead
The spell name describes what it does. Anyone at all familiar with our system knows how vital raising is. However, the spell does come with two major downsides. The first is weapon sensitivity. In order to cast Raise Dead successfully, one has to be 10 or more feet away from any weapon. Most players are going to be carrying more than one weapon – even I generally carry three, and I play a 3-path caster! So, getting weapons away from the casting area slows the process down – sometimes a lot. It can also lead to a healer getting rolled by a hostile who slips around the friendlies (hence the importance of Ghost Blade).
The other major downside of Raise Dead is limited uses. Each slot of Raise Dead one learns grants only 5 uses of the spell. If it’s only taken once, one can piss through 5 castings in the first ten minutes of an event. By itself, Raise Dead does not make one an adequate healer.
When I had a path of Healing, I had a great Raise Dead verbal. I actually occasionally got compliments on it. I’d be happy to pass it on – feel free to ask me about it.
4th Circle: Call the Soul
There’s 3 levels of being dead in our system – dead, scalped, and 3-ticked. Being 3-ticked is permanent character death, and it happens so rarely I’m not going to discuss it further. Being dead is the most common level – a dead character is completely nonfunctional, but there are plenty of resources that can return the character to functionality. Being scalped is a more severe level of being dead, requiring being un-scalped before the usual return-to-functionality resources will work.
Characters occasionally do get scalped, but not with enough regularity to make Call the Soul a spell one is apt to cast at every event. That being the case, 4th Circle is a prime buy-down slot. When I had a path of Healing, I bought down for more Raise Deads, and not once did I say to myself, “Gee, I wish I had Call the Soul instead.”
5th Circle: Combat Raise Dead:
Combat Raise Dead is Raise Dead without an important downside – no weapon sensitivity. It also only requires a 3-word verbal, so it can be rattled off fast. The only downside is you get even less uses per slot – only 3 castings each time you learn it.
6th Circle: Circle of Healing:
CoH is another multiplier spell, like Group Heal, but it is at once more potent and less flexible. It provides one casting, allowing the caster to mark a spot with a circle of rope from which one can cast Raise Dead, Cure Disease, or Heal Limb an unlimited number of times. Unfortunately, once the spell is cast, the rope can’t be moved without ending the spell, so it has to be used strategically. Under the right circumstances, Circle of Healing can make the caster the most important PC on the field. I’ve had that happen twice, once at The Silver Eye, and once at Folkestone Questing. Most of the time, though, the caster will barely make back the investment of a slot that could be taken by either more Combat Raise Dead or Raise Dead. When it’s useful, it’s really really useful, but despite how potent it can be, it isn’t vital for any of the healing builds one might want.
7th Circle: Cry of Life, Seed of Life
Healing is one of the paths where there’s a choice of 7th Circle spells, but one choice is clearly better than the other, and the better choice is Seed of Life. Cry of Life seems like it can be a real game changer, but you only get 1 casting of it, and to have maximum effect, you really have to be able to project. Plus, given that it’s such a significant investment, there’s pressure to use it at exactly the right time, but when that is won’t always be obvious – and may never come at all.
What makes Seed of Life the better choice is that it is unlimited casting. It’s slow, but the caster can just keep on using it. This makes it an invaluable resource at a questing event. Unlike Cry of Life, you’ll use Seed of Life all day, and there’s never a bad time for it.