The Token Healer

[mlogan]

I haven't dealt with a healer yet either. I will say though, I cannot stand a healer who is worthless in battle and not needed really to heal until the boss. Because what usually happens then, is I don't include them in the party and then desperately need them at the end, but they are too weak. So I'm forced to go back and replay to level that character up just for the sake of the boss battle.

 

[Ksi]

I like to mix and match. I've had a healer who was a burly man in his mid-thirties and rebelled against his natural healing abilities at a young age to take up piracy. I've had a serious woman who wields a scythe and dishes out anti-heals and heal-debuffs to the enemy, but can heal her allies too. I've had an ex-soldier who was sick of death and after returning home became a self-taught doctor. I've had a young girl who can heal naturally, but had a terrible, spoiled attitude and wouldn't heal anyone unless she was in decent health. I've had a quirky red mage who was a total coward and would run from battle if he got too damaged, so protecting him was a must. I've had the classic club priestess, except she dealt decent damage and had a chance to stun the enemy as well as draw their magic from them. I've had the Banon-type, too.

Variety, as they say, is the spice of life.

 

[RyanA]

I like to mix and match. I've had a healer who was a burly man in his mid-thirties and rebelled against his natural healing abilities at a young age to take up piracy. I've had a serious woman who wields a scythe and dishes out anti-heals and heal-debuffs to the enemy, but can heal her allies too. I've had an ex-soldier who was sick of death and after returning home became a self-taught doctor. I've had a young girl who can heal naturally, but had a terrible, spoiled attitude and wouldn't heal anyone unless she was in decent health. I've had a quirky red mage who was a total coward and would run from battle if he got too damaged, so protecting him was a must. I've had the classic club priestess, except she dealt decent damage and had a chance to stun the enemy as well as draw their magic from them. I've had the Banon-type, too.

Variety, as they say, is the spice of life.

Life is like a box of chocolates :3 So make your games like it too? x3

 

[RavenTDA]

@Liberty

The lady that does heal-debuffs & anti-healing towards enemies sounds like some of the skills my healer has for my game. It's a cool concept I always thought because as far as I've seen I've not seen it in a game. I found it really useful because there's some enemies in my game that work in teams and when there's a healer you can't directly hit, it's sometimes easier to take out their skills in that fashion instead of out right killing them.

As for my character he's co-hero of the story (there's two heros that share equal spot-light that the player controls). He's sarcastic and pessimistic. Not really the typical happy-go-lucky hero at all, in fact instead of that go-get-'em attitude most hero's have he's really avoidant. His skill set has pretty much only to do with healing and I'd like to keep any damage dealing spells away. The point of his character is that he IS weak and can't really do much on his own. It serves the ideas in the story.

 

[Maus Merryjest]

The healer in my game is Milnes:

He's not a typical healer, as he combines healing spells with thunder-based magic and status effects (paralyze and silence, he's the one you want to go to for dealing with enemy spellcasters.) Far from being the fluffy softywuffles that a lot of healers are, Milnes is pretty goal-oriented. He's been put in charge of the welfare of his team, and he takes reckless endangerment pretty seriously, being neither coddling nor soft spoken.

He's a close friend of the main protagonist, but their friendship is usually expressed in playful and sarcastic banter more often than not- the banter that two colleagues have developed over years of working together.

 

[Kaelan]

Has there ever been such thing as a villain being a healer (besides the stretch of necromancy)? Please discuss the aspects of the healer's personality and their role in the story.

Evil clerics are pretty common in D&D. Makes perfect sense, if you think about it.

There's no real reason to make healers weak or unable to fight properly with melee weapons. They don't even have to be female really. I think those tropes are just a result of people lacking in creativity.

Spoiler

 

[vociferocity]

the healer in Princess Rescue is...I suppose, a bit of a cliche? but that was kind of the point, haha. She's a delicate, emotional princess (I've lost count of the amount of times she tears up in cutscenes), and she's definitely a romantic lead. on the other hand, she wields holy warhammers, and is the main character, off on a journey to rescue her prince.

 

[.notsafety]

I don't really like the "frail, shy staff healer" trope. just seems boring unless the character stands out in some sort of way, which doesn't happen very often.

melee healers are awesome. ones that you never use your heals unless 100% necessary, instead of being able to just waste a turn guarding or recovering the 10% HP you lost from a rat.

 

[Clareain_Christopher]

3 out of my 6 main characters can heal.

The main character, Zirodolla, can do everything in the game, but her healing consists of power numbers. All her spells heal a lot, and

are usually on-demand, no matter what. Her healing magic comes from the element of Holy.

She's a kind, yet fairly strict girl. She's also someone of a...monster- if you know what I mean. ^.-

Another character, Ebalestt, is a mage who can use Water magic to heal.

Most of his heals are more complicated to use effectively, but his MP

is usually a lot more consistent, and it's harder for him to go OOM. Unlike Zirodolla.

He's a prince, and somewhat morally gray. His emotions are usually held back for a more "professional attitude."

And then there's Vaniel my favorites healer in the game. He's a gun-wielding "Sensei." He uses spells to empower the use of items, and then uses those items to heal people. He can also create special items to use in battle. He's probably the hardest character to heal with, but is probably the best healer in the game for pro-players.

Vaniel's personality... I created the dude and still can't figure it out. >.<

---

Healing is **** easy, in the beginning chapters, but once you start getting "tank" characters, healing gets complicated. I healed A LOT in WoW, and is very inspired by how that game plays in terms of raid healing.

 

[Ocedic]

Don't try to adapt your personality to the fighting style/class of your character. The problem with trying to meld the two is you end up with a generic/stereotypical personality that is uninteresting, and/or your gameplay balance is affected by character personality when it should be balanced on its own. Having said that, you can use the archetypes to your advantage. For example, maybe your healer could be a huge buff guy with a macho personality and it would be a humorous juxtaposition between his role and personality.

 

[Paladin-Cleric of Awesome]

Very recently I've gotten back into D&D, so a Healer I'm think about doing, or rather, a Cleric, follows more along those lines.

A Cleric can use 'Miricles' but must ask a Gods Blessing to have any sort of effect, the God will then bestow their Blessing and the Miricle will happen, this can range from healing to damage or whatever the player chooses. However if the God does not bestow the Blessing the Cleric will either end up not able to preform the spell, or will end up doing it at the cost of themselves. Ie. Healing will take the damage onto themselves etc.

Just as an idea.

 

[Chaneque]

I plan on my healer having a good amount of strength, too. Not too much, but enough to fend for themselves. Healers, for a majority of battles, can be amazingly useless. If you run out of MP and have no recovery, you've got some useless character who can barely deal damage over 5 and will die in about 2 seconds if they get hit. That's typical healers, I think, anyway.

 

[Tarelther]

The most interesting healer I've ever seen in an RPG was the blood mage from Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. While the blood mage could take a defensive posture and just spam heals like a typical healer, it was MUCH more efficient for the blood mage to take an offensive posture using damage spells that also heal the party. In this mode, they cut themselves to use their blood to heal and do damage. This could just scream (excuse the pun) emo kid cutting himself to get attention from others. Obviously, I wouldn't use that in a more family friendly game, but it's an option for a darker title.

 

[Grump]

In my pseudo-first project, the main character will be taking on the Healer/Disabler role. He's a Bard in training at the moment, and the second, third, etc. projects will be the second, third, etc. chapters of the story where his role fully emerges. He's a harmless air-headed trouble-maker, though he does (generally) have a good heart. Disabling/Debuffing will be a staple to combat though, so the healer will always have something to do other than heal (and balancing heals with his myriad of other skills will be part of the intended challenge). I'm thinking his staple pure-heal weapon will probably be a harp (so no staff), but I imagine the players will likely want to use the drums or piccolo (they attach small group-heal components to all songs that either debuff the enemy or disable him in some way, respectively).

I figure since his abilities of healing come from musical and psychological sources, there is no mandate on his personality or quirks, so might as well make him interesting Lots of personality conflicts are in store.

 

[Kaelan]

Very recently I've gotten back into D&D, so a Healer I'm think about doing, or rather, a Cleric, follows more along those lines.

A Cleric can use 'Miricles' but must ask a Gods Blessing to have any sort of effect, the God will then bestow their Blessing and the Miricle will happen, this can range from healing to damage or whatever the player chooses. However if the God does not bestow the Blessing the Cleric will either end up not able to preform the spell, or will end up doing it at the cost of themselves. Ie. Healing will take the damage onto themselves etc.

Just as an idea.

Sounds like Miracle, though you could optionally take out the God(s) part and it would work like Wish.

 

[Chaneque]

The healer in my game is a self-absorbed... 'seductress', as they say politely, who pretends to hate everybody and slightly enjoys watching people in pain, but only for around five seconds during which she thinks they got what they deserved. After that, she doesn't like seeing them in pain because it disturbs her and she'll heal them. She claims it's for her own sake, but who knows?

 

[Miltix]

Since my world has no magic in it, my healer in the game can't really heal but she can make potions through alchemy. She can also make some items that can deal large damage so she's also the black mage of my party.

 

[Walden]

In my project, the protagonist is primarily a healer. When she's not on healing duty, she's a pretty good all-rounder: she also fights with a sword and has water magic. She's no Cloud, however; dedicated fighters and mages certainly outperform her. Mechanically she's designed to work well with any party composition because she can fill in for what's needed; this seems appropriate considering she's the party leader, the glue binding the team together. Her personality isn't much of a surprise though; she's an earnest believer in the goodness of mankind who finds her convictions put to the test as she's thrust into a world of political schemes and warfare.

There is a secondary healer in the party: a necromancer, channeling the forces of life and death, to provide aid to the party while cursing his foes with dark magic and hexes. In contrast to the protagonist, the necromancer has a stoic, logical sort of personality who approaches dilemmas with a scientific mindset. He doesn't view himself as "good" nor "evil", finding such labels to be meaningless in the pursuit of knowledge.

While the protagonist by far has the best single-person heals, the necromancer specializes in weaker party-wide healing. Neither is a "pure" healer, though, so if both characters are being used, one can certainly fight while the other heals.

 

[Redacted]

Healers are vital, and it depends on the lore of your game. Is your game self-centric, or story-centric?

Healer archtypes:

• the courageous knight dedicated to carrying out the commands of his diety
  
• the shy healer girl from a tiny hamlet, swept along for the ride, against her better judgement
  
• the orc shaman of a secret society reminiscent to the plague doctors
  

If you want to get old school, maybe a White Mage and Black Mage setup is your best bet.

Other healing classes:

• paladin
  
• cleric
  
• druid
  
• healer
  
• monk
  
• priest
  

 

[Kaelan]

Not sure why I forgot about this the first time I posted on this topic, but NWN2 actually has a really good example of a female healer who's interesting, doesn't fit the traditional "staff chick/love interest role", and does that without having to go full 180 and be evil, or some kind of necromancer, or some other kind personality that tries to avoid the stereotypes by overcompensating in the opposite direction.