My issue with items and magic

[Androxine Vortex]

One thing that always bothered me in games is that they will give you a healer mage, but what's the point if i can just buy hundreds of healing potions that do the same thing or even better? It feels redundant to have a single character devoted to healing when any character can pop a powerful potion, some even healing and curing ailments and sometimes even healing multiple members.

How do you go about balancing this? In my game, gold is kind of scarce. It isn't just thrown at you Willy nilly. Potions are also expensive. But, I'm planning on having it so while you wander through fields or woods you can harvest weeds and take them to an Alchemist who can combine them to make potions for you (for a small fee)

 

[EternalShadow]

In Zendir 3, this is balanced out by the necessity of using mana potions to recover the mage's mana (since mana costs are very high) and consequently this means using some other characters as support material.

 

[Harmill]

I think you need to create clear differences between how items benefit you compared to magic. Items can be used by all party members, while magic might only be known by a few (or even just the "healer" character). Therefore, you give more generic properties to items (basic healing) while the healer can heal much more effectively just because the spells are stronger. Maybe status ailment removal items are single-target only, while the healer can remove the entire party's status ailments with a single spell. There are still cases where you'd want to use items (if only one party member is inflicted) and cases where the healer will want to use remove the ailment (if multiples are inflicted).

Or, you can try to give certain characters bonus effects if they use items. A great example is from Tales of Xillia (real-time battles, but it's still a good reference), where Leia is given a multitude of unique bonuses when she uses items. She can make a single-target healing item affect the entire party. While normal characters are forced to stand still for a second to use an item, she can use the item while running without that 1 second of channeling. She can get a 50% chance of being refunded the item. Some of these may not translate over to a turn-based system but the point is there: Leia was given enough benefits that it encouraged you to make her use items to heal. She became an item healer, while a different character was a magic healer.

I think it's more common for a game to overpower a healer class than to overpower healing items. Too many games have very powerful spells that make items mostly useless. As soon as your healer gets that party heal spell, you forget about items and your healer is just spamming that spell every turn. Be mindful of how powerful the spells are.

 

[Kes]

I also think it's a bit tedious to have the 'healer' just healing.  I prefer to have characters with a range of skills and battle attributes. 

 

[Androxine Vortex]

I agree, there are two mages in my game who can almost do the same thing but each one has a few exclusive spells and one is better at offense elemental magic and debuffs while the other is healing and party buffs, she can use damaging spells but aren't as strong.

I find it boring to have a healer just heal. They should be multi tasking to make them unique and more favorable.

Almost in any game i think there's an eventual point where things become obsolete. First levels of skyrim i was chugging Magicka and health potions. Now, my health and armor rating are high and i have magic reduction cost enchantments so i just sell every potion i find because i just don't need it.

 

[whitesphere]

In my current game I have a doctor who heals but she is also great in combat against biological opponents whereas other members are not as effective. Namely she can inflict really interesting diseases and does extra damage against them since she knows their weak points.

Items are also less effective than the doctor. They are more for use in a pinch. So my healer is much more than just a walking pharmacy.

 

[Chaos Avian]

I agree with healers being more than JUST healers. I remember in classic D&D the Priest could heal but he could also pack a damn punch next to the warrior. He wasn't nearly as bulky but far from a paper thin which is what most Healers are today (looks at Final Fantasy). Going back to Harmill point on Tales of Xillia; most Tales of game's healers were also a force to be reckoned with. In Tales of Graces for example Cheria and Sohpie are you go to healers but they are borderline broken in fights (especially Cheria...). I don't even know who thoughts healers should be squishy...

Anyway, back on topic. On way you can still make items relevant with the presence of a healer is to have them with percentage scaling. So it heals let's say 100HP with and extra 35% HP healing on top of that it still makes it relevant when you have let's say 3,000HP. Also, as before mentioned, making a character an item specialist can work well too. Take Edward's Salve skill from FF4, in 1 turns he pops out AoE healing if you wanted Rydia to keep up with the damage, or back her up on healing instead of Cecil having to stop attacking and throw out a potion or two (referencing the Antlion Boss btw). Also, you could have item fusion, mix two potions and you get super potion to use or a normal AoE version of the potion. Same goes for status effects and damaging items as well. 

 

[Alexander Amnell]

Personally I just cut out items altogether. I can't think of a single game (that isn't item-focused like gust, dark cloud etc.) that uses items and isn't redundant. Generally when I play RPGs I ignore consumable items entirely as they are almost never needed and usually make said games a cakewalk as well. I prefer interesting skillsets as an alternative to spam-attacking, potion-chugging imortals. Like a healer/tank hybrid that can take a lot of punishment and heal the party, but cannot heal himself and takes slight damage from each healing spell cast. Of course I also have you regain 50% hp and 20% mp after battle to help aliviate the no battle consumables bit; because I'd much rather have each battle be a challenge than another game consisting of mob rushes that only threaten you if you haven't brought a caravan of potions and a big boss that's somehow 500x stronger than her most trusted second hand man, let alone the pathetic horde you slaughter along the way. Other than a default spammed attack command and the ever present guard, spamming consumables is likely the most common broken yet overused mechanic in RPGs. (At least to me.)

 

[Mihel]

There is a range of things Healers can do beside healing, he does not have to sit on his ass just because his party members are not dying!

It makes sense that if a healer can fix up what is broken (damaged HP/MP or negative status ailments), he could also improve what is already in good condition. If a character as full HP and needs no healing, then he could cast an HP boosting spell; or a MP cost reducing spell to help fellow magicians make their MP supply last longer. Or general stat boosting ailments like ATK+/MAG+/SPD+ to just speed up battles.

He could also have some physical attacks in case his MP run out, just because other party members are stronger doesn't mean he's absolutely worthless.

 

[Andar]

It all depends on how you balance the setting of the game - for example I plan to have the healer class being unable to fight and have some more restrictions, BUT all healing-items will work on map only. The healer will be the only option to heal people during combat, because the potions will not work (or be rather restricted) during combat.


That will create an entirely different form of balancing, but I have no interest in making the 387th copy of "classical cliche medieval fantasy"...

 

[Wavelength]

My bigger issue isn't "why do they give you a healer when you can use items," but "why do they give you items when you could use your healer"!!  Usually the healer can heal the whole party for a few MP, easily restored by a mana potion, which is a lot more efficient than using a bunch of healing potions.

In all of my games so far, items are either rare, expensive, or both - and the economy doesn't massively inflate as the game goes on (that is, if you might expect to have a couple thousand gold on hand near the beginning of the game, there is no way you're going to have tens of millions late in the game), so items are there as something of a last resort - "how badly do you need this?".

Healing itself is another interesting topic that deserves its own entire discussion... but it's very situational based on the game.  You need to approach games like Final Fantasy 3, BoF: Dragon Quarter (a game that did the "items" thing really well, by the way), and League of Legends with entirely different philosophies toward healing.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Depends on how much money you can get, in most games that I played, the healers play a big role because money is not that easy to get and I need them to buy new equipments so I rarely buy potions. Now if you have lots of money, then it becomes easier to just pop-up potions. It's also a matter of whether or not buying the potions is a cheaper alternative than using your healer then buying mana potions.

 

[Espon]

Some games have terrible potions to buy.  Just look at the Final Fantasy series: All the potions you can purchase are only useful early on in the game, forcing you to rely on magic.  While you do find X-Potions and Elixirs that heal you to full on your journey, those are limited in quantity.

In game I'm making, potions are a lot stronger, however they'll be more expensive to buy.  While a couple characters have the ability to use healing spells, they'll mostly be single-target and about on par with how much a potion heals.  There's also no MP and instead what a character can do depends on how much Stamina they have when their turn comes around.  To offset this, though, HP is fully recovered between battles so that you're not chugging potions between battles since stamina is a combat-only stat.

 

[Wavelength]

Some games have terrible potions to buy.  Just look at the Final Fantasy series: All the potions you can purchase are only useful early on in the game, forcing you to rely on magic.  While you do find X-Potions and Elixirs that heal you to full on your journey, those are limited in quantity.

The potions are still somewhat useful outside of battle, where they don't require a turn to chug... or at least they would be useful if it weren't so much more efficient to just Curaga the entire party and then use an MP-restoring item!  Haha

I kind of like the Cooking system in Tales games (even though it tends to be on the underpowered side), which lets you cook a food item for the party once after each battle, and you can't carry more than like 15 each of the three standard healing items with you at a time.  Several games also have "Food" items which are cheap and plentiful which can only be used outside of battle.  In a couple of the games that I'm developing, I've decided to split the difference, using similar Food items but limiting them by the party's Appetite (which replenishes while battling).

Items find a similar out-of-battle utility in games where you can't use Healing spells outside of battle.  If your healing is relatively cheap and powerful, I find limiting it only to battle is a good design choice.  With that being said, though, a lot of players will string out battles in a boring fashion before finishing off the last enemy in order to completely heal their party, so you have to be careful to find ways to limit this fun-sapping abuse of the system.

I love Espon's "expensive, powerful healing items" combined with full heals between battles, at least in theory.  But then you run into the issue where the outcome of a random battle can become too definite (and thus uninteresting) if a fully-healed party has no chance of actually losing the battle.  There's no risk - it starts to feel like a grind.  If the battles are high-variance like Persona 3's, on the other hand, it becomes a great system and it feels incredibly rewarding.

So I think the effectiveness of any kind of mechanic you add when it comes to random battles, loot, healing, etc., is going to be very situational on the other mechanics and dynamics that are being added to the system.  The same mechanic can be a gem if it's part of a well-designed, purposeful and coherent set of decisions, and a wreck if it's part of an arbitrary or dissonant set of decisions.