[mainline] Undead trait and healing

[TheCripple]

The common type of healer may restore undead body, but he can only rebuild flesh and bone. Without the necessary spells that bound the soul to the matter it would still be as dead as it can be. In the living thing this is happening naturally but not in the artificially animated creatures like undead. In the way they are more similar to a machine (dead body moved by magic) governed by software (the soul of the living being). That the point why the necromancers are hated thoughout the Wesnoth. Not just because they despoil the graves but because they enslave the souls of the living beings to do their bidding. And not even death can bring you peace for while he has a fragment of the body you where born in, he can bring you back to do his whims.

That's one way undead are handled in some fantasy settings, sure. However, it's very much possible within Wesnoth that, provided that the undead aren't completely destroyed, repairing bone/flesh/ghoststuff is plenty. Them also healing boats and such even supports this, as it implies that they are making the wood grow to cover holes, similar to what they are doing to creatures. Particularly when some of the healers are elves that grow vines to entangle people as a basic attack.

[Sapient]

Are we seriously complaining that healing *magic* working on *undead* is unrealistic?

Indeed we are.

Undead may be more realistic than we imagined:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/archae ... elet,1268/

[GunChleoc]

Spooky

[DMB]

The only thing limiting what a skeleton can or can't do is magic. A skeleton is held together with dark magic, it is harmed by light or arcane magic. Arcane magic is the same type of magic White Mages use to heal living creatures. This of course means Undead should be UNhealed by being adjacent to White Mages, but this isn't very fun or useful, as a major part of Wesnoth is healing, especially in team games.

The end result is that what should be is not always fun, and what is fun should not always be.

Case in point for the fun but not very fair. Skelecopters.
Technically, they could be. Skeletons don't obey the laws of friction or human restrictions. They are propelled by dark magic, they can go as fast as the magic will let them. Just file down their arms into blades and you could have flying sword armed undead. This of course would seriously break the balance if it were to be implemented true to form. A flying unit moving incredibly fast doing 4-12 blade damage? Yeah that's a little gamebreaking I'd think. Sure, undead shouldn't be healed by White Magic, but it's a game mechanic, and it's balanced.

Skelecopters are still ridiculously fun though.

[HomerJ]

The only thing limiting what a skeleton can or can't do is magic. A skeleton is held together with dark magic, it is harmed by light or arcane magic. Arcane magic is the same type of magic White Mages use to heal living creatures. This of course means Undead should be UNhealed by being adjacent to White Mages, but this isn't very fun or useful, as a major part of Wesnoth is healing, especially in team games.

I think it is worth mentioning, that healing and arcane magic might be two completely different things. Just because the healer happens to attack with the arcane dmg type doesn't mean that's the source of his healing. The Elvish Druid and the Saurian Augur advancements all heal, but do not attack with Arcane Magic.

Also, the white mages attack has evolved away from just being anti-undead = holy. That's why it was renamed.
It is considered anti-magic. Everything magical will be hurt. Woses, Drakes and don't forget Elves are weak to it, but dwarves and men resist. Why they are not invulnarable to it is probably for gameplay reasons, alternatively, every inhabitant of wesnoth has a magic "spark of life", sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller.


Greetz
HomerJ

[ChaosRider]

From my side, someone who had a bit fun with wml codes i think you should just made own era, even with same units as in default wesnoth but with diffrent abilties. Wml allows to filter units on which ability will work.
Other way for this healing (without making new units ids) is to create events which will works in "side turn"/"recruit" and filter each unit by race and ability heals, when you find good units you can delete heal ability and change for your own (which as in this example for saurian healer healing ability will works only on saurians and drakes).

[TheCripple]

The only thing limiting what a skeleton can or can't do is magic. A skeleton is held together with dark magic, it is harmed by light or arcane magic. Arcane magic is the same type of magic White Mages use to heal living creatures. This of course means Undead should be UNhealed by being adjacent to White Mages, but this isn't very fun or useful, as a major part of Wesnoth is healing, especially in team games.

Arcane magic is also the type of magic that white mages use to hurt healing creatures, and for that matter to heal undead. That is enough to throw out any hypothesis that arcane magic inherently heals things and inherently harms undead, in favor of it being able to do both. Much the same way that, say, organic chemical bonds can be broken down to produce ingredients to allow healing (food), and the exact same chemical bonds can be broken down much faster to produce explosions (e.g. plastic explosives).

As for the skeleton being held together by dark magic and such, they can be busted up by a mace easily enough. It is clear that actual, physical damage to their actual, physical bones hurts them. Why, exactly, can't mending physical damage somehow be what healers do?

[Kymille]

I'll give a more radical answer just for fun:

The units in wesnoth represent organized army units. Only a small fraction of soldiers even in a defeated army are actually killed or badly injured, most run away and the unit loses cohesion. In many cases, only the soldiers in the very front can fight anyway, so there are extras. "Healing" on villages or by mages may not represent much healing of wounds at all, but rather an increase in morale, resting, and the return of individual warriors who were driven off or fled in battle. After all, how would sitting in a village for four hours lead to any meaningful healing? You couldn't even fix a serious bruise that way! But four hours in a base in which a unit re-organizes and re-prepares for battle would be meaningful for its survival in a long battle. Similarly, the magical "healing" may include literally healing some wounded soldiers heal but also improve the morale of the unit, lift their exhaustion, inspire stragglers to return, etc.. This might apply equally well to (say) ghosts as to living humans.

This is not original. A view something like this (not with magic) was used by an old SPI World War III wargame, maybe it was called Fulda Gap, maybe something else. Units took fatigue damage but fought equally well (which is also true in wesnoth except for units with swarm) until they took too much and were destroyed (died in wesnoth).

(Similarly, in this view the reason fog is lifted based on movement points is that actual individual scouts may be traveling about to spy out the nooks and crannies in the battlefield which might conceal soldiers, not because humans can see through vast forests or can't see across canyons.)

[DMB]

As for the skeleton being held together by dark magic and such, they can be busted up by a mace easily enough. It is clear that actual, physical damage to their actual, physical bones hurts them. Why, exactly, can't mending physical damage somehow be what healers do?

Well, obviously doing physical damage to their bodies would break up the dark magic, but it's not like the bones are propelling themselves is what I mean.

Break enough bones, shatter enough ribs, and the magic will be dispelled. It needs a body, in this case a rotting one, to rest in. Get rid of the body, nowhere for the magic to stay. Boom, crack, snap, you've sent it back to the grave.

[TheCripple]

As for the skeleton being held together by dark magic and such, they can be busted up by a mace easily enough. It is clear that actual, physical damage to their actual, physical bones hurts them. Why, exactly, can't mending physical damage somehow be what healers do?

Well, obviously doing physical damage to their bodies would break up the dark magic, but it's not like the bones are propelling themselves is what I mean.

Break enough bones, shatter enough ribs, and the magic will be dispelled. It needs a body, in this case a rotting one, to rest in. Get rid of the body, nowhere for the magic to stay. Boom, crack, snap, you've sent it back to the grave.

So if that is the case, why doesn't mending the bones make them better?