E.P. for Healers

[John Kirk]

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately with players in my game concerning the awarding of experience points for healing.  Although this discussion concerns Legendary Quest (www.legendaryquest.com), it would obviously also pertain to other games.  I have no doubt that some of the gurus on this forum have already given this topic considerable thought so I thought I'd pick your brains.

First, a brief introduction.  Legendary Quest is a combat-oriented fantasy RPG that has a reward system based on experience points.  Although I'm no expert on the terminology used on this forum, I believe it to be a Simulationist/Gamist system.  (I would appreciate any correction you might have as to its GNS classification.)  I award experience points immediately after a battle since it provides the players with immediate feedback and doesn't really slow the game down much.  Experience is awarded according to how much positive impact a player had on the outcome of a battle.

The problem with this practice is that I have a player that wants to play a character that is primarily a Healer.  As such, he doesn't want to participate in combat to any degree, although he is convinced he must to gain any reward to advance his character.

At first, I didn't have any easy answer to this delima, but I've finally come up with an idea and thought I'd bounce it off of y'all.  My current idea is  to keep the rules as they are but recognize that healing can only influence future battles.  That is, experience points are still only awarded to those characters that have an actual positive influence on the course of a battle.  However, that influence may have come hours or even days prior to the actual confrontation.  This rule merely clarifies what "positively influencing a battle" means for non-combative characters.

Suppose a party defeats a troll during a particularly nasty battle.  Harvey the Healer, the party's Acolyte, expends all of his mana after the battle in healing the group, but did not participate in the battle in any way.  Question:  Should Harvey get experience for the troll?  Answer:  No.  The outcome of the battle would not have been any different had Harvey been vacationing in Tiawana.  So, he gets nothing for the battle with the troll.  Now, suppose after the party is healed, the group heads down the road and shortly thereafter encounters an ogre, which they also defeat after a long and difficult struggle.  Once again, Harvey does not participate in the battle and, unfortunately, cannot even heal the party after the ogre falls because he used all of his mana after the troll battle.  Question:  Does Harvey get experience for the ogre?  Answer:  Yes.  

I think the problem I've been having with dealing out experience for healing is that I did not properly identify all of the causes that influence a battle.  In the first battle, Harvey truly had no effect on the battle and therefore did not gain experience even though he healed the damage incurred during that battle.  However, in healing the party's damage, the party was able to continue on that much quicker and was able to more easily handle their next encounter.  Consequently, Harvey the Healer had a significant positive impact on the battle with the ogre.

Notice that the same could be said for a mage that cast a Dragon Might spell on a fighter before combat with the ogre, but did not otherwise participate in the battles with the troll or ogre.  Since he had a positive influence on the battle with the ogre, the mage would be awarded experience for that battle.  Why does it matter that the mage cast the Dragon Might spell only moments before the ogre battle while the healing priest may have cast his healing spells a day or more before?  Both had a positive influence on the course of the second battle and so both are awarded experience.

Does this logic make sense to everyone out there?  Do you think that I should also require that the priest at least witness the battle that he aided with his healing, or does a priest who stays in town deserve a piece of the action of any group coming to him for healing?  Does anyone have any better ideas?  

Thanks,

John Kirk

[Clinton R. Nixon]

John,

I really like this idea - it seems to fit your game well. I would award the experience whether or not the healer is at the successive battle.

To be honest, I'd use this rule for anyone that influences a battle. If one character travels to get help, and that help means that the other characters win a battle, I'd give that character experience too.

[John Kirk]

Clinton,

To be honest, I'd use this rule for anyone that influences a battle.

To play the devil's advocate, do you really mean anyone? ;-)

How about the Smithy that forged the fighter's shield?  (We have Smithy characters in LQ.)  How about the Alchemist that made the Healing potion the fighter drank?  What about the Enchanter that gave the fighter's sword a +2 bonus?  Should they get E.P. even though they weren't even aware that a battle took place?  If the healing priest that stayed in town gets E.P., shouldn't these craftsmen get E.P. too?  If so, how much?

What I'm looking for is a simple logical rule that I can easily apply during gaming sessions that won't bring up a bunch of arguments as to who should or should not get E.P.  To achieve this goal, the rule should apply equally well to virtually all situations.

Thanks for the prompt reply,

John Kirk

[Jack Spencer Jr]

How about the Smithy that forged the fighter's shield?  (We have Smithy characters in LQ.)  How about the Alchemist that made the Healing potion the fighter drank?  What about the Enchanter that gave the fighter's sword a +2 bonus?  Should they get E.P. even though they weren't even aware that a battle took place?  If the healing priest that stayed in town gets E.P., shouldn't these craftsmen get E.P. too?  If so, how much?

I can answer this! And oddly it is job-related.

I word for a cellular company (this will take a bit, stay with me) with the company we have different calling plans with included minutes. If you use more than your allotment of minutes, you are charged per minute for the overage. The plan minutes is are about 5-7 cents each. Overage costs about 30-40 cents per minute. We are talking about the same thing costing different amounts because of the situation the minutes cost less when you are still under your plan. However, if you don't go over your alloted minutes, the minutes are wasted.

Apply this to the above example, then but with sort of the reverse concept. Of course the craftsman receive xp for making the sword. He receive whatever xp he should get for using his craft skill, but it is not that much because he is not in the combat. He receive a nominal such for preparing for combat by making a tool useful for it, but there's no way to know if the sword in question will ever be used in combat or not. So he gets  xp for using his craft to make the sword whether it is used in 1,000 battles or if it rusts on his wears wall.

[John Kirk]

Jack,

Of course the craftsman receive xp for making the sword. He receive whatever xp he should get for using his craft skill, but it is not that much because he is not in the combat. He receive a nominal such for preparing for combat by making a tool useful for it, but there's no way to know if the sword in question will ever be used in combat or not. So he gets xp for using his craft to make the sword whether it is used in 1,000 battles or if it rusts on his wears wall.

If I understand correctly, you think that I should just give Harvey the Healer, say, 10 E.P. for performing a "Lay on Hands" on the fighter and not give him E.P. for the subsequent fight with the ogre?  Is that right?

John Kirk

[talysman]

I dunno if Clinton meant it, but I'd say: yes. if the rpg is combat oriented and experience is based on positive contributions to a battle, then the alchemist, enchanter, and smith should all earn experience points if they are player characters (advancement for NPCs should probably be ignored, or abstracted if you really feel the need to plot it out.)

after all, how do smiths advance their craft in a very Sim game? in theory, by using their skills to craft items. in your game, there is no advancement for non-combat use of skills, at least from your description, so smiths would need to make weapons of war. you could weight the experience so that a smith or other character who does not take a personal risk would earn experience at a 1:4 ratio (make four weapons, heal four wounded soldiers...)

an alternate way would be to award experience for weapons based on the average amount of damage the weapons would do in a battle. or, for healing potions, the average amount of damage the potion heals.  as an example, consider the way The Fantasy Trip awarded experience: 1 EP per hit point of damage dealt or healed, plus 1 EP per point of DX to the character who dealt the killing blow. I believe also TFT awarded experience for damage taken; in any case, other games have used that as an award as well. by analogy, then, TFT could have chosen to award 8 EP to a smith who made a 2d6+1 weapon.

[Mike Holmes]

Suppose a party defeats a troll during a particularly nasty battle.  Harvey the Healer, the party's Acolyte, expends all of his mana after the battle in healing the group, but did not participate in the battle in any way.  Question:  Should Harvey get experience for the troll?  Answer:  No.  The outcome of the battle would not have been any different had Harvey been vacationing in Tiawana.

This isn't strictly accurate. That is, characters may have fought very differently because of the presence of a Healer who they knew could heal them. For example, say that there are two tactics, A and B. Tactic A if used is very conservative, and will result likely in taking about "half" damage almost certainly. Tactic B is a lot more random. About a one third of the time, it'll result in 3/4 damage, possibly leaving some incapacitated, but in the other two thirds of the time, it results in only taking 1/4 damage. Now, without the Healer, the party will probably take option A, because they don't want to have to lug unconscious bodies around. But if there's a healer, then they can take the more dangerous approach knowing that if it does go wrong, that they have recourse.

In general, remaining hit points (or what have you), or number of foes taken out, are the meters of success in a battle. Often the presence of a Healer makes it possible for more success in the battle. In any case, this can simply be measured by the parties status after the battle and healing takes place. IOW, there's no real difference in the "healing" that a fighter does by preventing creatures from doing damage (by making them dead), and the HP provided by the Healer. It's all one currency, just provided with slightly diferent mechanics.

So I'd have no problem with giving EXP to the healer on the spot. It's all rather metagame anyhow. Ironically this all means that the Healer will tend to profit from the marginal failures of the other characters. Which means in financial terms that he is a hedge. Very valuable.

As far as "future" returns, if you use this you have to depreciate the value of the hits donated by the amount that would have been healed normally in the interrim. That is, basically, it's a rating of HP per unit time. How many hits can you provide in a short amount of time.

Mike

[lumpley]

I like the idea of it mattering who made my weapons.  I like the idea of a swordsmith's name, fame, and skill increasing as his swords see battle.

Very cool, very High Fantasy in a good way.

-Vincent

[John Kirk]

Thanks for all your replies.  You have given me a lot of options to think about.  I'm still leaning toward my original idea, but I do believe that I should come up with some new rules concerning the gathering of E.P. for craftsmen.  Currently, I'm thinking that a craftsman should gain 1 E.P. per day for practicing his trade.  (In LQ, it only takes 25 E.P. total to gain 2nd Character Level, so 1 E.P. per day is actually a lot more than it probably seems.)  A priest doing priestly things (such as healing) in his temple would get this "trade E.P." also.  At this rate, with LQ's exponential experience point system, it would take a craftsman approximately 5 years to gain 7th level from "trade E.P." alone, which is a fairly respectable level in LQ.

However cool it seems, I just am simply not able to bring myself to have a swordsmith gain E.P. for the monsters his swords slay.  Now, a master swordsmith/enchanter that imbued a sword with a portion of his own soul might have some claim to E.P., but I don't think that a plain old vanilla weapon has the "Karma" for E.P. gathering.

Even so, I am willing to hear more opinions along these lines.  The best argument someone could make to me is providing supporting evidence that this idea has a real basis in folklore or mythology.  The reason for this is that I've made strict adherance to authentic folklore and mythology a guiding principle in the development of Legendary Quest.

Mike Holmes wrote:

That is, characters may have fought very differently because of the presence of a Healer who they knew could heal them.

Actually, this whole discussion arose because a pair of players wandered off into the woods independent of the main group.  Annoyed that they'd split the party up for no good reason, I hammered them hard with a beastie.  After they won the battle (barely), E.P. was distributed as normal and the pair of them crawled back to the main group where the healer expended most of the party's healing resources in patching them back together.  So, as you can see from this situation, the healer truly had no influence on the combat.  Since I had already handed out experience for the battle, the healer got no E.P. for his efforts.  The incident pointed out a long-hidden flaw in how I was handling experience, which is why I sought the advice of the experts on this forum.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

If I understand correctly, you think that I should just give Harvey the Healer, say, 10 E.P. for performing a "Lay on Hands" on the fighter and not give him E.P. for the subsequent fight with the ogre?  Is that right?

No, but Milo the Mage still gets the 20 xp for making that healing potion even though it gets dropped and spilled in combat and not actually used.

[Mike Holmes]

Let's get clear here. What are you trying to reward? Simply success in combat?

Mike

[John Kirk]

Let's get clear here. What are you trying to reward? Simply success in combat?

Well, no.  My poor wording may have inadvertently given the impression that Legendary Quest is only about combat.  Combat is definately a big part of the game, but Legendary Quest has always tried to reward players for successfully overcoming obstacles, not just for winning battles.  The most common obstacles in the game are monsters and other combatants, but traps, locks, puzzles and mysteries are also included.  The amount of E.P. awarded depends on both the difficulty of the obstacle and the severity of the consequences for failure.  So, there are specific rules governing how much E.P. a monster or lock is worth.  Unfortunately, while I've covered physical barriers like monsters and locks quite thoroughly, the E.P. rewards for nebulous concepts like puzzles and mysteries are poorly defined since is it hard to quantify a mystery's difficulty (what level is a mystery?).  But, I digress.  Determining the proper E.P. value for mysteries should probably be the topic of another thread.

In the case of Harvey the Healer, though, the problem isn't really how much experience are the troll and ogre worth, but rather how much of the total should Harvey receive (and by what logic).  I do believe that Harvey should recieve something, since he obviously helped in overcoming the obstacles the party encountered.  The reason I brought it up in this forum is that I'm bothered that the parcelling out of E.P. seems like it should be so simple.  And yet, in the 20 or so years in which I've been developing Legendary Quest, something about this topic has obviously escaped me.

[Nev the Deranged]

In Tactics Ogre you gain XP for healing (and other enhancement/curative magic) based on the level of the character you heal (or enhance or whatever).

Personally, I would just award XP based on how effective the healing was, however you measure it (HP, presumably).  

Xp should be awarded for "doing your thing", whatever that is, whether it be healing, killing, stealing, spelling, etc.

Just my 2c

[Mike Holmes]

The real problem here is that you are encountering a classic problem with trying to reward two separate things, and getting a result that doesn't make sense. Are you rewarding the players for their good play? Or are you rewarding the characters for the experiences that they've had? You can't do both. The first example we call metagame. That is, it's understood that, though it's represented by an in-game cognate, the reward is really going to the players for a job well done. You're saying, "you played your character well in a tactical sense, so here's a reward".

The latter is not a player reward. It's a detail of simulation that says that if a character does X, then he'll get better by Y amount. These don't mix. If you go for the Metagame reward, you can forget about "what makes sense" in-game. Just say the character is contributing X amount to party success, so he gets X experience points. I mean, if a character does 10 points of damage to an Ogre, and leaves, he deserves that much credit for success. If a healer adds 10 HP to a character he deserves that much credit. It's all very simple from a math POV.

If you want the Sim method, then you'd have to just determine what makes for an experience that's important to learning, and go with that. From that POV, characters wouldn't realistically get too much experience from killing things. They'd get it from practice.


Have you been reading any of the theory around here? If you can do so it would help make discussion of these things easier. There are a lot of ways to tackle reward systems. Just to get you into another frame of mind, have you considered not having an "advancement" mechanic at all?

Mike

[John Kirk]

Are you rewarding the players for their good play? Or are you rewarding the characters for the experiences that they've had? You can't do both.

I'm rewarding players for good play.  So, as you say, it's a metagame issue.  Does that make LQ more "gamist" than "simulationist"? I've been having a little trouble distinguishing the two, although I've read some of the pertinent articles defining the terms.  LQ definately has Gamist characteristics, due to its empasis on "beating down the barriers and getting to the end-goals" attitude.  On the other hand, it has some rather involved (and, dare I say, elegant) Simulationist-style rules for exploring character development.  So, I think it's a blend, even though the opinions I've seen in this forum state that blending is generally a "bad thing".  I would really like to hear your opinion as to why you think that blending the reward systems a tad would be poor design.  I was kind of warming up to the idea of giving 1 E.P. per day for "trade" E.P.  The "adventuring E.P." would greatly overwhelm the "trade E.P." in this case, but it would provide a good explanation of why non-adventuring NPC's are not all wimps either.

Have you been reading any of the theory around here?

Yes.  Although I've still got quite a ways to go in understanding it all.  I've been playing/writing RPG's for more than 20 years now, and yet the lingo on this forum is from another world ;-)  It doesn't take a genius, though, to figure out that the main contributors here know what they're talking about.  If you can point me to some of the more pertinent articles dealing with this topic, I'd appreciate it.

Just to get you into another frame of mind, have you considered not having an "advancement" mechanic at all?

*shudder*  That would involve about a 1400 page re-write.

Maybe on my next game. ;-)

Honestly, though.  It strikes me that the main contributors on this forum lean toward the "Narrativist" camp.  That's all well and good, but I'm fairly solidly in the Gamist/Simulationist arena.  I enjoy building wimps into solid heros using a structured well-defined system.  (Not supers, mind you.  I can't stand super-munchkin types that expect to be able to blow everything to kingdom come without any real personal risk.)  Of course, I've never really played a purely Narrativist game, so I can't say I wouldn't like it.  (The closest I've come is Vampire).  All I can really say is that I absolutely do enjoy Gamist/Simulationist.

Thanks for all your input.