So you don't like oblivion's health system then?

Health potions should be hard to come by. Think about it: in a world where the big stuff is always hard to get why on earth is it so easy to replenish your health, which is something so vital to your survival?

My solution: there are two ways to replenish health: By spell, or by a recovery system. The spell is self explanatory, but to recover your health, you must be undetected or fully rested. This way, combat is much more intense because you can only regain your health by being in a safe area. And even then, health regeneration is considerably slow and can only be sped up with food...all the while you're trying to stay away from danger. In a place like Skyrim this would be pretty hard to maintain. Additionally, this system forces the player to plan his/her battles tactically while making victory in combat that much more satisfying.

Mages need magicka, warriors need stamina, BOTH are screwed in combat without substantial health.

Love the other ideas, too. :thumbsup:

health did not regenerate in Oblivion unless you took a potion, cast a spell or drank something that had healing over time or wore an object of the same effects.

I liked Oblivion's health system, mana regen I'm not adverse to, albiet like others it probably should be slow.

one of the very few things I actually liked from ArcaniA; Gothic 4 was how you didn't start out with health regen. but you could equip items that gave health regen. but even then the regen was very very slow. You could not reliably count on it in the heat of battle but you could let it work when you weren't fighting.

something i didn't like from ArcaniA: Gothic 4 and I really hope Beth. doesn't go this route (as I saw some other poster voice the same fear) was how in the game you really couldn't play as a "hardcoe Mage" even when you reached a competent level your mana pool was just too damn short and spells costed WAY too much mana, again this was even at the highest level in the game I would still only be able to cast a handful of spells then be forced to use a mace.

I'd like to see healing spells that continously drains magicka in exchange for health.
:hubbahubba:

Dunno how much of a difference this would actually make but it's always annoyed me a little bit that potions heal the player instantly. I think they should take some time to heal the player, like stimpaks in NV on HC mode.

Well in oblivion you start out being able to continuously restore you health by spamming your healing spell. You even gain restoration skill for it too. It's really worst parts of both systems. It has the book keeping of a potion based system with the easy health gain of a regenerating system. It dosen't have to be changed to the regenerating health model, but I don't think it should stay the way it is.

Here's what I would like to see.

A basic built in healing if your character is well taken care of (they are not hungry/thirsty). However, not a 1/1sec heal, but something far more gradual, like 1/120 seconds or something.

Slower magicka healing, and relate the magicka healing to health and casting. I think magicka regen should stop after casting or attempting to cast a spell, and gradually come back over time if you don't use any spells. This way regen is accessible in combat but it wouldn't allow simply chain casting or anything like that. It would require thoughtful use of magicka and make max magicka important.

I also think that being at low health post combat shouldn't be a trivial matter.

I think lower than 50% health and you are heavily wounded. Magicka regen is severely hampered (very very slow), resting won't heal, etc.

Below 25% is mortal wound and would trigger a kind of 'survival' mode for the player. At this point all regen is completely shut down. No magicka and no resting. You also may lose health over time (like one health every minute or two). All healing spells and health recovering items/magicka lose effectiveness. For instance a healing spell might have it's effectiveness of a tick divided by 80% and each tick may have a 75% chance of being skipped. So on average a spell that healed 10 hp for 4 seconds would only heal 2 hp per tick, and chances are only one of those ticks would be effective, healing only 2 hp on average. Possibly even the chance of 'infections' over time? Fast travel would obviously be unavailable in this state. These affects might persist until the player is above 50% or above 25% health. The idea is the player needs to find their way to a town and seek help at this point from a real healer or a kind stranger who might help them.

Personally, I think this would be a lot of fun, though understandably it's not for everyone.