Please do not remove overhealing. Overhealing IS the risk empaths take in healing. The idea that overhealing could be removed just makes me more discouraged about the future of battle empathing. If the only danger I have from healing someone in combat is just the critters, what is the point? To me, it wouldn't be challenging (or interesting) to play an empath that loves healing anymore and I don't want to see that.

I could see it's removal into a feat, assuming the feat will take something to make it happen other than just achieving it once and being good for the rest of their career without having to think about it again. If it'll be automatic, please don't put it into a feat.

I wouldn't really like to see it as a spell, either. Though with the spell, there is at least the choice still whether to use that spell or not. So between spell or feat (not knowing how feats are to operate) I'd say spell if it has to go.

I wouldn't mind seeing it go, but I agree that it would seem a little strange. I'd say make it a skill based feat. Since people seem interested in keeping it, though, maybe there's a middle ground that could be pursued. For instance, maybe any transfer pulse that would have killed you is artificially stopped short, but instead of breaking the link at that point you get a warning message of some sort ("You feel as though you cannot safely take on any more injuries to the chest" or something) and the next transfer pulse will kill you. If we still go the skill-based feat route, maybe this could be a lower-level version of the "automatically break links before the point of death" feat.

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor

Wouldn't mind seeing it gone so I don't have to pay close attention to how many ways a corpse has been chopped when healing.

>>Please do not remove overhealing.<<

>>^This.

Also this. Not only would it mean that being a healing focused empath really isn't as exciting anymore, but it also just doesn't make sense. If you are healing a moon mage who is a bloody pile of pulp without a head, you should have to be a bit careful not to also be headless. It just doesn't seem to make sense to be able to heal others, cast spells, etc without your head. A body can't be held together if it's missing a key piece of the torso (chest, abdomen). There's logic to the current system. No leg? I live. No neck? Essentially, that's no head, I die.

Perhaps some empathy related warning would be a compromise, but I don't think it should auto-break the link. I know it sounds odd, but there are also RP reasons to overheal and die to save others. I just don't see how this would be related to the empathy skill. With our empathy, we detect the hurt in others, but overhealing is about the hurt in ourselves. I think if there's a spell that protects us from it, it would ultimately need to follow the logic of growing an "extra" artificial portion of our body to temporarily move the wounds too, and if we don't heal the artificial body part before the spell drops, the wounds hit us. If that were the case, it might also be logical to be able to grow a tail to heal someone with a tail. Somewhat an extension of the shifting skill? Perhaps something we have to quest to learn to do? In any case, I think it should be upper-level sort of stuff. There's great RP for being a young empath learning not to overheal.

~Player of ChelmorAes

Overhealing should only go away if monsters beat you unconscious and leave instead of killing you.

Maybe make a more difficult option to transfering like when you take part/some/half to only take what you can survive, or have the link stop just before the body part is destroyed, or something.

Overhealing you softly with his song,
- Stormsinger Shavay

---

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams"
- Arthur O'Shaughnessy

I'd like to see it become a (high) skill based feat.

Nikpack

>>I believe you're misunderstanding the intent. You would not be able to heal without a head, you would be dead without a head. You would simply be able to tell "Wow, my head really hurts... >>if I take any more wounds I might just die..." and instinctively stop taking more wounds there.

Yep, I did misunderstand. How much skill do we need to have in healing before that instinct kicks in? Can I ignore it and overheal anyway? Would you get the message first without the instinctive link break, and then have to be even more skilled to instinctively break the link (like a child has to learn that as its hand is getting warmer and warmer, the thing it is reaching for might be hot, by actually touching the hot thing at least once first - or being told tons of times and trusting the person who says it which would basically be empathy classes I suppose).

<<Your guardian spirit could always cut off your hands to prevent you from losing your head?>>
>>Interestingly enough, the original incarnation of the idea for something to prevent overhealing was for guardian spirits to break the link for you. This was way back before the spell >>summoned an actual creature (before magic 2.0), but it obviously never saw the light of day. I'm pretty sure it didn't involve the brute force method of lopping off a hand though :P

I sort of like the brute force aspect of it. Chop off my hands and it breaks my link? What if I already have no hands?

>>Should you really lust for that overhealing experience, I suppose you could always go without blood staunching?

I've done that once. The RP based "overheal" has only been relevant maybe once or twice in all my years, but I can see how it could be for some folks (and I've seen some young empaths use it for RP fun).

Karthor - no reason to copy and paste specifically, just say generally thanks for the head's up and I am obviously not as well versed in the re-write (partly because I didn't start reading on the forums regularly until the empath stuff was already released and partly because I can't seem to retain all the "new" things that are coming out).

~Player of ChelmorAes

Another "please don't take away over healing" from me.

I'd love to see it in a feat or in part of a spell. Gift of Life is largely under-used and lasts a looong time. It should be something earned. Like others have said, there needs to be a risk to the empathic ability and dangerous wounds or you make the whole thing rather trivial.

I'd also like to say don't take overhealing away. A feat or a spell would be nice for some triage conditions but I don't want people to use it as a crutch either. My RP is such that my character is known to get over-impatient healing and occasionally overheals in her...I'm not sure how to put it....desire to get people healed. But that's part of who she is. If you take that away, part of her personality goes.

As others have said, there has to be some risk to being an Empath otherwise what's the point?

Mialeigh, Speaker of the Order of the White Rose
_________
There are two ways to live your life,
One is as if nothing is a miracle.
The other way is as if everything is.
-» Albert Einstein

Personally, I think the removal of the chance of overhealing would be illogical. However, perhaps a warning that it's about to happen in monsterbold is in order. If the empath chooses to continue taking the damaging wound anyway, it's not as if the warning got lost in scroll- which does happen in triage situations.

And yes, I would like to see redirection!

Sometimes the key to happiness is not assuming it is locked in the first place- Ziggy

A journey of a thousand SMILES begins with a single step- Ziggy

Another vote for 'don't remove overhealing'.

A couple things to point out (I don't know if these will change in Healing 3.0). By the time you are 100th, and really by the time you are about 70th or 80th circle you can transfer that completely destroyed chest in one pulse (Karthor, or anyone else, do you know if taking a wound like that 'slow' would draw it out into multiple pulses? I never use 'slow'). This is why we have take part, take half, take most... learn to use them, they are your friend. Between that, FOC and just flat out paying attention (definately most of my deaths come from me not paying full attention to my own health), there isn't really much reason for a high level empath to overheal. I'm not saying it doesn't happen just that we have ways currently to prevent it, use them. Now folks in their 30s who are going thru the growing pains of "oh crude, since when do I take completely destroyed chests in 3 pulses instead of 4?"... well they are growing pains, we all went through them, solution is not waiting for the last second to cast your spells.

I'm definately with Fizzickle in the 'you overheal, you depart camp'.

Redirection... I think I like this idea, again another tool that has to be thought out and used appropriately in order to actually avoid overhealing.

Mordibar

>> This is why we have take part, take half, take most... learn to use them, they are your friend

>> Mordibar, trying taking HALF when you have a completely destroyed bodypart.

Somehow I think Mordibar knows about taking half (and most or part).

I agree with everyone here in that overhealing is part of being an empath. Learning how to be fast and ride the knife's edge of life in triage is one of the things I enjoy the most on my empath. If it were to just go away I think it would make the whole process, and even a large part of the guild, boring.

I also want to say THANK YOU for bringing this question to us and listening to our feelings on the matter. It really is a nice feeling to be included in the conversation even if things don't ultimately work out how people request. This seems to be happening more and more across the whole game and it really has been great to see.

I agree. Please don't remove overhealing. I like that aspect of play. It leads to a sense of accomplishment for the empath if they can survive not one but multiple corpses without killing themselves off in the process.

Meadbh

LOL

Adrenaline rush from healing seven deaders. I just realized I'll never, ever be a "real" Empath, even if they introduce an entire chain of construct critters. I read 'no overhealing' and I was like 'great!'
*******
Malkien

Use your familiar window. It keeps the wound scroll off your game window.

I only highlight wounds that will kill me if I take all of them (starting with no wounds on myself). I also have a script that keeps GOL, Refresh, BS, FOC, VH, and Regenerate going while I'm healing. Most of my best work in an invasion or tournament triage is done manually, and keeps me fully engaged for the entire duration. I love treading that thin line between life and death and multiple deaders to deal with.

________________________________________________________________________________

We've decided that instead of spells Paladins will be a new arm of the Bard guild utilizing interpretive dance moves.

~GM Zeyurn

>Lots and lots of highlights. Highlight the wound levels so you know what is critical so you can focus first on getting the wounds that are critical to stablizing. Other things that are good to highlight are someone being dragged into the room (either alive, dead, or sleeping -- they have different messages) and basic arrivals. Also, periodic wound effects like the disease and poison pulses.

I actually don't have any healing highlights at all. I have 'body of' highlighted so I can pick out the corpses and bee-line straight to the automatically worst cases.

I don't have all the rest highlighted either. You must have a very colorful day in DR.

All in all, I have very few non-name, non-combat highlights.

Kaeta Airtag

>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear

Everything I'm reading is pretty confusing. You want overhealing left in but want ways to avoid it or be notified of it.

Let me explain to you, as someone who scripts extensively, this means to me: I will add 4-6 extra lines of code to my healing scripts that identifies when I would be overhealing, rectifies that immediately, and I go on with my day.

Most of you use healing scripts and, conceivably when the scripts get shared around again, will be using the same safeguards.

Why bother keeping something in game that is only going to hinder young, inexperienced empaths and people who don't have scripting knowledge? Cut out the middleman and just remove it entirely.

<<Replace Empaths with "anyone who is in combat ever" and we have an excuse for why someone should never be allowed to die in combat. Because, with the exception of high-end fighting, if you "know what you're doing" you generally wouldn't die ever.

Combat is as dangerous as you want it to be at any point in your career and any level of scripting capability.

Overhealing is only dangerous to young empaths and those with substandard scripts.

Please save your Strawmen for where they belong: elsewhere.

>>Why bother keeping something in game that is only going to hinder young, inexperienced empaths and people who don't have scripting knowledge? Cut out the middleman and just remove it entirely.<<

Ummm... no. I don't always use a script for healing, as a matter of fact, when it's tournament or invasion time, I do most of my healing manually even though I'm an expert scripter. While I'm sure I could write a comprehensive script for those situations, there are too many people whispering for healing, asking for healing, clerics wanting to know who can hold life, bleeders to be taken, walking wounded to be cured, etc.

Perhaps you should leave the discussion to those who actually know what they're doing when it comes to empaths, healing, and scripting.

________________________________________________________________________________

We've decided that instead of spells Paladins will be a new arm of the Bard guild utilizing interpretive dance moves.

~GM Zeyurn