So I’m having trouble with the Paladin in my group spamming his healing.

So I’m having trouble with the Paladin in my group spamming his healing.

So I’m having trouble with the Paladin in my group spamming his healing.  I’ve already stated that he takes the damage he heals on a 7-9, but he took the move that allows him to heal himself as well as a target, so that almost makes that rule moot.  I feel this is draining the tension out of the game.  I talked about limiting his healing to Level per Day, but they don’t like that rule.  So, I had another idea.  Since the Paladin in question is a Paladin of Dionysius and claims to be a “Party Paladin” I thought about adding a consequence to his healing.  On a roll of 7-9, the target is healed but is drunk for 1d4 – CON hours.  A drunk character would suffer a -1 ongoing to DEX and WIS, but have a +1 to CHA when dealing with social situations.  Is this rule out of line?  I haven’t mentioned it to the group yet, so I don’t know how they’ll react.

17 thoughts on “So I’m having trouble with the Paladin in my group spamming his healing.”

  1. Dont punish players for the moves they choose. Clearly the player wants to be the healer. Focus more on the time cost of healing and the attention it draws when trying to make things go wrong.

  2. The player still has to roll every time the want to heal someone, right? That means they’re risking failure and a GM move every time. Rather than introducing new rules and conditions, I would just be particularly nasty on a missed roll. 😉

    Also, they player still has to follow the fiction. Their character still has to touch the target (skin to skin) and pray for their well-being. If the Paladin is on the God of Healing’s shit list or has been neglecting their duties, those prayers aren’t going to be answered.

  3. More in general, it is not your place, as a GM, to limit what the characters can do. It is like that in other games, not so in DW. Is this draining the tension out of the game? For whom? Are the other players having fun? Be sure it’s really broken before you fix it.

  4. Be a fan, so let him “get away” with being a healing machine. Hurt the players where they cannot be healed. Damage their head, their minds, their hearts. Take from them that which costs more than mere faith can repair. Being a fan means challenging them to be more than they are.

  5. I second Adam Koebel’s comment. There are so many more ways to hurt them than just damage. Bonus, most of these other ways are also more interesting than just taking their Hit Points. 

    Also remember that in order to do it, they have to fulfill the narrative of the move first. So what happens if the ally is on fire? That’s at least a Defy Danger Move and then the Lay on Hands move. That’s 2 moves they might fail right there. That’s more opportunity to give them hard choices to make. 

    And just because they have unlimited healing, doesn’t mean that you have to make it easy for them to do it. Some monsters like to carry off the wounded to eat, or worse.

  6. First: seriously, you’re reading the move wrong. I realize Hospitaller and Perfect Hospitaller can be read as “Lay on Hands also heals you”, but the + before the die roll mean you add to the healing you’re giving your ally.

    And you take that extra damage on a 7-9.

    Second, yes, there are plenty of adverse things to do to your party that are not “do hit point damage”. Even going in for a Hack and Slash doesn’t necessarily deal damage to you — the monster can “attack you” using one of its moves or following the principles of a GM move.

    You can’t heal “the giant skeleton traps you and the mummy in a cage of bones”. You can’t heal “the goblin orkaster collapses the ceiling of the treasure room”. You can’t heal “the orc catapult finally smashes a hole in the city wall and orcs flood the breach”. You can’t heal “while the thief distracted you, one of his buddies cut the strings to your coin purse and is making his escape”.

  7. In my current campaign the Shadowdancer (a custom class the player is building) has been poisoned by a demon sting, the bard a vampire bite and the barbarian has a werewolf bite. All these things are ongoing liabilities and not healable with normal healing magic…

  8. Could also just steer the story into less combat areas plus a temple giving him some quest but requiring being drunk for it or proving himself in some way to be paladin of that faith. Maybe he needs wine for healing as well as other abilities, try to look at the priest on ways to put the faith in the class more or he gets demoted to a fighter until proving himself. Also just hire a priest or henchmen to help with healing. 

  9. Another option is if he wants to be the healer, let him switch classes to a priest or something similar that has less combat abilities (or just reroll). Alternatively, you could always bring the matter of faith into the issue where is he being a good paladin for one god, if so then maybe another one in the pantheon wants to steal him away for his side giving him different abilities or some loss of connection leaving him without any magic. Lots of ways you can do this, if the player wants to abuse an ability, fine but think of some consequences (i.e. healing themself so much that they gain a few hit points and an extra arm or leg or someone hunts them down as they’re now the perfect test subject for some mage wanting eternal life).

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