Being pulled in two directions as a DM (Patreon)

The Clerics are dead, and our party needs a healer. What are we going to do?

In a recent session of Rise of Drekis: Chapter 3 our party lost their NPC healer that they desperately need. The nature of the campaign means that without some level of assisted healing, the party isn't going to last long.

The Problem
Bravo is a hell hole. The damage output of enemies is very high, the availability of rest is very low, and the party has no innate healing powers. This is all by design and a core part of the greater campaign. We want the PCs to feel like this area is overtuned, ugly, and uninviting. We want the PCs to end the campaign and have to make a recommendation to invade or not to invade, and for that we want to make the players feel like it might not be worth it.

In the first session, our party came across a jungle goblin healer. This allowed them to have some amount of reconstitution, helped them to see the vibe of "City folk vs wild folk", got the PCs an ally who cannot help bring a city to heel, and gave us a fun and useful, but not too bright, side kick.

The problem is that the sidekick died. More accurately, they were murdered by friendly NPCs. Why, if this healer is so important to the game, would we have friendly NPCs kill the little gobbo friend? The answer, of course, is because we had to get the feeling for the campaign just right.

One part of our game called for a goblin healer to aid the party and show them the wild side. Another part of our game called for highlighting the strength and ferocity of the city folk. These two needs came into conflict when one of our players antagonized the friendly city NPCs by telling them they owed their lives to, and thus should be the slaves of, the wild goblin they so despised. This was intended, by the player, to be a little bit of fun and jesting, but it hit upon a core part of the local setting and lore.

We could have let the jesting slide and moved on with our day, but doing that would have missed a golden opportunity to showcase the viciousness of the region which is a major aspect of this dog-eat-dog, might makes right, barbaric power struggle old world. In other campaigns that might not have been a problem, but in game one our PCs are acting as scouts, specifically to investigate and evaluate the local situation. This city-jungle tension is important, as is the power first mentality, as are the concepts of honor the NPCs follow. Having the NPCs kill the healer certainly underscores the local culture, the impact of character words and actions, and the overall no-safety-net vibes.

But, now the PCs are without healing again, and they certainly need it.

The Solutions
So what are we to do? The NPCs had to kill the goblin. It made the PCs sad to lose their friend, and it made the game way more difficult because they don't have a healer anymore. Let's look at some big picture solutions.

• Find a new wild healer to join the party
• Find a new civilized healer to join the party
• PCs end up with healing items
• PC gains healing powers
• No replacement healing, and just deal with the game being ultra difficult
• A hodgepodge of healing opportunities that arise as needed

Let's tackle them one at a time.

1) Find a new wild healer to join the party
We could dress this up as an orc, a lizard folk, a gnome, even a wild human, but essentially we'd be replacing the goblin healer in both lore and mechanics with another being. This is a "get out of jail free" card that is quick and easy to use but feels a little flat. The PCs had already bonded with the goblin, they're not going to bond with the new healer, they're likely going to see it as just a heal bot, and it will give the campaign the feeling of, "The DM is babying the PCs by making sure they have a healer, even if they get it killed". 

Rating: D

2) Find a new civilized healer to join the party
The party was just days out from a town, and it's possible that they encounter someone in the town who has an interest in traveling with the PCs and helping them out. Perhaps a hired NPC who is here just for the money. Perhaps someone who wants to learn their ways. Perhaps someone who aligns with their ideology and wants the same, or similar, things. This feels a little better than Wild Heal Monster #2, but it still has a feeling of "oh you lost your healer? well here's another one". That feeling can be overcome if the PCs initiate finding a healer of their own volition and there's a sense that they have to work for it. If they look for a healer, meet resistance, and overcome that resistance, then the healer feels earned and justified. But for that to work, the PCs have to start that story, it can't come from the DM.

The other problem with this approach is that it creates a sense of, "The city folk are reasonable and rational creatures that we can get along with just like people back home." That's not really what we're looking for. We really want to hit the feeling of "this is a totally foreign land that we barely understand, out of place in time, with barbaric cultures that we cannot trust". One hired healer doesn't ruin that vibe, but it doesn't encourage it.

Rating: D+ if started by the DM. C+ if started by the players.

3) PCs end up with healing items
Healing problems? What if the PCs find a staff of healing that can cast 3 Cure Wounds spell per day? This solves the healing issue and bypasses all of the social problems. It does run afoul of the introductory vibe of no magic in the party, but that's not much of a problem. The biggest problem with this is creating a believable story where there is a staff of healing that the party finds. Having it dropped as monster loot is a F tier approach, since no monsters have dropped anything like this before and then subsequent monsters would have to drop magic items or else this would feel like the worst form of hand holding.

The best way to make this happen would be as a heist / thievery the PCs do. Show off someone walking around town with a healing staff, showcase the owner as a dick who the PCs don't like, remind them how badly they need the staff, and let them steal / murder for it. This would even help set up enmity with the city folk, which is something we want. The downside is that this is a full session, or maybe even a 2 session, storyline, and this campaign is on a tight schedule. Having this staff be in the very next town they visit which happens just a few IRL minutes after the loss of their former healer is not great, but overcomeable.

Rating: A- if there was time for a 2 session side quest. Unworkable for our short campaign.

4) PC gains healing powers
This is much the same as the last option. It solves our healing problems, but takes a extra in game time. This one takes even more time than stealing a magic item, but could be a tool to explore local cultures more. Such a side quest, to grant someone innate healing powers, should take at least 3 sessions, maybe more, and would fundamentally change the nature of our party's composition. Totally fine in most sandbox games, not great for our well structured but short campaign.

Rating: B if there was time. Unworkable for this game.

5) No replacement healing, and just deal with the game being ultra difficult
High risks, high rewards. Having the party die in the jungle because they got their healer killed by playing pranks on NPCs is great from the DM's point of view, and from the outside perspective of the greater story being told in Rise of Drekis, but it's not particularly fun for the players. Our games should always be about having fun at the table with our friends and not about some high minded devotion to the all powerful story or lore. 

On the other hand, if the PCs can make it work without a healer, that makes their survival in the end all the sweeter. 

We could telegraph just how terrible the jungle is, we could get them tools so they could travel the jungle with less risk but take more time. This would mean they couldn't visit every city and region and wouldn't be able to totally complete their mission. It certainly would underscore the setting's danger.

This works best as a delaying action. Having the PCs be without healing until an opportunity presents itself to fit in one of the other solutions. 

Rating: C+ long term strategy, A+ short term strategy.

6) A hodgepodge of healing opportunities that arise as needed
This is a complex strategy of making sure that healing is available in various forms that feel like the PCs are scraping together options from the bottom of the barrel, but there's never again a reliable source of healing. It could take the form of the PCs finding a few healing potions, running across a healer in the wilds once, having them spend their money in towns, maybe encountering a magical healing spring in one place, having to sacrifice allies or tools to dark entities for healing in another place, and showing them opportunities to steal more consumable healing items in other places. 

This turns the lack of healing into a primary story concern, and will require a recalibration of the whole campaign. If done right, it won't take any additional number of sessions as small bits of healing are folded into all the stories. On the other hand, it is going to take a lot of work to make it fit.

This is an advanced tactic, one I feel comfortable working with, but one that does require restructuring the whole remaining section of the campaign.

Rating: A

What has happened so far
So far I've gotten the party involved with an NPC who has the healer feat and provide some non-magical healing on a short term basis - until they get this person back to their city. Then that NPC went down in the first fight before being able to heal anyone. So we're back to the beginning again. The PCs muddled through without healing by being careful, got to the next town where they bought healing, and are going to be setting out again with their "friend" to the next town where they will lose them. 

Overall, we're going with a mix of options 5 and 6, but it's a complex environment and anything could happen. If the PCs get involved in some sort of boss fight, or raid a lair, or otherwise have an opportunity for reasonable treasure to fall into their hands, we'll see about some minor magic healing items. I do not want to create a vibe of, "this land has tons of magic we should conquer it for", but a clutch of foul tasting healing potions might be up our ally.

Conclusion
Sometimes our well laid plans don't go well. Sometimes our PCs are having fun and poke the bear, causing a cascade of problems throughout the campaign. Sometimes they leave interdimensional doors open, sometimes they insult NPCs who cannot abide it. In TTRPGs, we often want two things that are directly opposed. We want our the words and actions of our character to have an impact in the world around us. We want to feel part of the world. But also, sometimes we want to be lighthearted and fuck around. We want to have a good time, we want to push things to 11, and we want to make fun of the dumb guards who needed to be saved by a goblin. Sometimes these two desires (serious game please vs. I'm having fun with my friends) are at odds and its up to the DM to clean up the mess and make the game workable. 

That's it for today's post. I hope you've all had a good Thanksgiving, or just a good week for the non-Americans.

gl hf
Neal "Koibu" Pass Erickson