Why is it that nobody plays a healer in superhero games? Why

I explain it by powers being conflict-centered or always having some kind of conflict ability.

>>50542828
Name one superhero who spends all their pagecount healing people.

People have trouble thinking outside the box on how to weaponize healing powers.

For example, too much super healing might cause super cancer.

I think I once saw a "healer" character. A side effect of his power is that it kickstarts the healing process for people around him to 20x normal, even for things the body can't naturally heal (cancer, genetic diseases, mood disorders, etc). Hospitals would pay him thousands just to walk down the hallways.

>>50542828
Because healing is boring.

Because healing people is actually helpful.

>>50542856
Doctor Strange manages a fair amount of the time.

There's also Mercy to consider, seeing as Overwatch is considered something like a supers organization by the public, at least in the first video.

>>50542828
Whenever I ran Supers games either everyone had some way of regeneration, at least out of combat, or there actually was a guy that invested a few points into healing. Not enough to be nothing but a healbot but barely enough to keep the party going.

Also allowed me as GM to ramp up the damage I threw at them by a lot.

>>50542828
A guy in our M&M game has the ability to duplicate things that he uses to help heal the party.

Duplicates our own flesh to heal up wounds and things like that

>>50543047
That's why in M&M dropping 1 rank into regeneration is pretty much required in combat heavy campaigns.

>>50542828
I played a pacifist healer in a mutants & masterminds game. Game fizzled out for various reasons, though.

>>50542828
Because being a Healbot is boring.

>>50542856
Panacea, from Worm

>>50542828
The next M&M game I will be playing Elixir, of the marvel universe. Eventually, he will learn to control his powers to such a degree that he can kill people by giving them tumors as well as resurrect people and himself.

You don't get what you wish for when you get powers. For example my group:
>Kid who can summon swords made of light
>Guy who revives every few minutes and is immune to a lot of stuff.
>Guy who acts as a pocket dimension
>Girl who turns insubstantial and possesses objects
>Guy who got turned into a cyborg with electronic ESP.
I'm pretty sure three of the five characters would have preferred to be a healer.

>>50543038
>Doctor Strange manages a fair amount of the time.

Strange does heal sometimes, but it's mostly just something he does between epic journeys through psychedelic mindscapes.

>>50543070
She also turned her sister into an abomination and created mutant bugs.

Because combat is exciting and dangerous and healing people in the hospital is boring. Though it is highly profitable if you sell tickets to the top of the superpower healing waiting list.

>>50543128
How much would a celebrity pay for instant chemotherapy? $80,000? $140,000? $400,000?

>>50542828
Because you're never "just" the healer. If you heal, you can do other stuff as well, or you're going to be bored out of your mind all session.

>>50543157
You cure your friend of cancer then together write a health book about how he beat cancer in a week, instant millions

>>50543070
>>50543113

Panacea is the perfect example of why pure healers are too OP to run as a PC. If you dump all your points into healing and nothing else, you're really just a benevolent fleshwarper, and anything with guts should be no opposition to you at all. Putting a couple points into a healing skill makes sense for most characters though, as both heroes and villains would need to know first aid at least.

>>50543113
Yeah, but it was after Bonesaw scrrewed with her head. And after of years being subjected to Victoria's emotion altering aura.
She also made a plague that made people immune to Bonesaw's plague.

>>50543284
Yeah. Pretty sure if panacea's actual abilities were discovered by the Procterate in-canon (namely the ability to at-will release apocalyptic cure-proof plagues) she'd be in deep shit.

>>50543321
I mean, she did end up in the birdcage, and that's about as deep in the shit as the protectorate ever puts people.

>>50543070
>>50543113
Yeah, Worm is actually a pretty good example. Superheroes tend to be conflict oriented in general, so there are - in most universes - few healers. Those that CAN heal are usually fleshwarpers or mad scientists who only heal on the side. Worm goes one further and actually provides an explanation why there are so few of them.

>>50543354
She willingly submitted herself to the birdcage. I'm talking like what if that was discovered pre-leviathan.

>>50543321
>>50543354
Also, Panacea was always considered very strong - Glory Girl said that her sister was way scarier than herself, and Skitter repeatedly described her as one of the strongest capes in Brockton Bay.

>>50542828

It's borrrrinnggggggggg.

>>50543389
Striker 8+ at minimum.

Because there's a difference between being a healslut and a combat medic. A combat medic is a badass credit to team that rips people apart when necessary, a healslut with little to no combat ability is boring. Unless you like masturbating to being a sissy, I guess.

>>50543375
Yeah, but I mean, they still would've just put her in the birdcage. Unless she was actively unleashing those plagues, they probably wouldn't put a kill order, and short of that the cage seems to be the only real penal measure they employ for parahumans considered that dangerous.

>>50542828

Healing sucks, breaking shit is fun.

>>50543395
Calling her a Striker while not technically inaccurate doesn't really seem like the right classification for her if she decided to go all out wreck shit.

Sure, if she does touch the bare flesh of someone she can do a lot of things, but by the time you're really worried about her she's putting together biological monstrosities and releasing plagues, which is more like a Tinker/Master or Shaker rating despite the fact that she doesn't need tools other than touching things and enough biomass.

>>50543673
Yeah, I'd put her as Shaker 10, Striker 4, Master 2

>>50543696
Actually, I'm retarded, Shaker is a ranged classification, Striker would actually probably be the appropriate call.

>>50542828
Because being a superhero involves stoping the super villains.
If all one can do is help with clean up, then they can still be heroic, but ultimately, they're the person you call when the heroes either fail or take too long/are too sloppy stopping the baddie.

An ounce of prevention is equivalent to a pound of cure. Why should someone feel obligated to play someone who only matters after the team fails?

Does taking wounds from others onto yourself and then letting regeneration fix it count as healing?

>>50543374

Why are there so few of them in Worm?

>>50544033

Yes.

>>50546786

Spoilers, obviously, but:

The superpowers are shards from a multiverse-spanning cosmic alien (the titular Worm) that integrate with human minds during moments of extreme trauma. Said aliens are on a nomadic mission across all realms of space and time to become the perfect organisms, and basically dole out the powers to sentient life to find new ways to utilize the shards

Virtually EVERY superpower is conflict oriented in some way, deviations are completely accidental and the "passengers" themselves that subconsciously manage all the shit that human brains can't (i.e simultaneous and perfectly precise control of millions of individual insects across a six block radius with total integration of all their sensory data, aka Skitter's swarm sense) are inherently violent thenselves.

The more in tune with their powers and stronger they get at usingthem, the more violent and aggressive capes tend to get, since that's their explicit function.

Exceptions are artificially granted powers since they come from damaged shards of the main Worm's traveling companion that was mortally wounded on reaching Earth. Since the process of naturally obtaining powers is so horrifically traumatic, and the passengers proclivity for violencr, there's many more natural made villains than heroes. Artificially granted powers are the inverse, with their strength increasing if the subject is healthy and mentally stable, and produces FAR more heroes than villains

It's a good series

>>50547096

Ah, that's quite interesting! Thank you.

Maybe one day I'll have enough time to read it.

>>50542828
Because, is this a serious question?

>Healer
>Can fix anything short of death like it never happened
>Justifies using near-lethal tactics and a thoroughly brutal fighting style since he can just repair his opponent afterwards

>Spend like 4 points on a minimal rank healing ability
>Party never has to worry about lasting injuries because "He can heal it in a few minutes".
>GM takes this as an excuse to use lots of lethal enemies against us.

>>50542856
Elixir. Which tells you why you don't play healers in a hero game. Because first they murder your waifu, then ask your friends, and then they kill you. And there is fuck all you can do about it, because most superhero healers can't actually res folks

>>50550782
Why was he murdered again?

Because any legitimate Villain threat Supers would face would actually deal with a Healbot before beating the shit out the rest of them.

>>50542828
Are we pretending that DnD isn't a super hero game again?

>>50542828
Combat is usually the focus, at least in D20 and similar style games. As for healers, superheroes usually fight one big battle and healing is (traditionally in TRPGs) mostly useful to recuperate from battle. Same reason being tough is better than regenerating.

>>50547096
>Artificially granted powers are the inverse, with their strength increasing if the subject is healthy and mentally stable
What about Manton/Siberian?

File: 1406069800324.jpg (134KB, 620x877px) Image search: [Google]

134KB, 620x877px

>>50550912
Even then, the healbot is considered the worst and least efficient way to play. Clerics are powerhouses that heal people after they've finished beating them over the head with magic and muscle, not dedicated in-combat healers.

>>50550997
He was an outlier. Along with Shatterbird.

>>50542828
Because barring exceptional circumstances (such as a battle of attrition) or obscenely good healing, in-combat healing is a bad idea, just as bad as going on the defensive (which, again, is viable under certainly exceptional circumstances).

Whenever a character is healing, he's wasting actions he could be using to defeat the enemy. Defeating the enemy isn't as much about making your hp go up as much as it is about making the enemy's hp go down. The sooner you do this, the faster. Save the healing for out of combat.

If in-combat healing is to be viable, it must be so obscenely good that it overrides the opportunity cost of using those actions to attack (or worse: replacing the healer with a combat or buff oriented class and attacking/buffing).

tl;dr: opportunity cost.

And even the less theoretically minded find being a healslut to be boring.

>>50550874
Because he's a mutant who can heal people. And the various groups out there who's goal is "kill the mutants, because reasons" have learned MMO tactics- kill the healers, then the adds, and then wipe to the boss.

>why does nobody pick the funny and intelligent but ugly chick to fuck whenever we have a "which gorgeous babe do you wish to have hot sex with" session?

>>50542828
Most RPG gamers these days started with 3.5, where healing in-combat is fuck-all useless and you're better off just building full "kill-em-all."

>>50542828
Superhos, compared to ther fantasy aren't about the 'survival'. In your typical group, they're traveling, launching attacks, etc, etc. So, they need a healer to keep them alive on the way. However, in superhero campaigns, the focus is severly shifted from survival. It's more about raw combat, yeah. Sure, you could survive, but the city will be a crater if you leave, as an example.

I'd be interested in a healer superhero if he or she was also allowed to be a martial artist or something. Or maybe a nanite host, with cool shields and barriers in addition to rebuilding people.

>>50543389
>Skitter repeatedly described her as one of the strongest capes in Brockton Bay
This is both a very good point, and not a lot of one. Skitter, despite not ever specifically being listed as having one, seems to have some kind of Thinker power devoted to both multitasking with, and breaking, powers.

Give her a few hours with literally any power and she becomes a force to be reckoned with. Though, I believe, if pressed, she'd say that Panacea's power is one of the easiest to break.

>>50551933
Or it could be a side effect of being able to split your attention over 9 digits worth of bug minds.

>>50551933
Skitter's true power is administration (WoG is that her Shard is The Administrator Shard).
Bugs look silly, but she as insane Thinker powers. Like, the stuff she pulls of probablies requires more computing power than any human made supercomputer. specially after she becomes Khepri

Because death is only a temporary problem for superheroes.