Eillie's Empath Healing 101
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Archived from http://web.archive.org/web/20150424021032/http://www.dm.net/~aldamus/Mentors/GemStone/Guides/Empath.htm
Empathic Healing 101 by Eillie Lindenleaf (Updated by various Lorekeepers 9/98) 9-26-95 The first thing I always say when teaching empaths is that they've chosen the most difficult profession in GemStone. While changes to our spell list in the future may change this, I expect we will always be the least effective hunters. One reason is that our training costs for physical skills such as edged weapons, combat maneuvers, etc. are similar to those for mages and sorcerers -- but unlike mages and sorcerers, the sword is really the only way we can effectively fight creatures. By making informed choices when rolling and training a character, we can almost, but not quite, make up for our deficiencies. You'll find that at a certain point, group hunting is by far a better choice than solo hunting -- and that you can often earn experience faster by healing than by hunting. Just as we depend on others, they depend on us. Herbs and the healer's tent are expensive, second-rate substitutes for an Empath. You'll find that folks are really glad to have us around. Most enchanters give us major discounts for their services. Most people auctioning off extra items will give us better prices. People don't like seeing empaths die, so when we do they come to our rescue in a big hurry. My point here is that power-hungry, anti-social, or violent-minded people (and I mean this in the nicest possible way <g>) will fail utterly as empaths. (They might make great sorcerers though!) Those that enjoy living to help others, who think there's no better feeling than saving someone's life and getting a hug and the word "Thanks" as reward, and who prefer roleplaying to "rollplaying," make fine empaths. :) GUILD SPEAK Type GUILD to speak Guild Speak. Only other Empaths will hear and understand you. This way we can talk about stuff that would bore everyone else ("Left leg please?" "Arathorn's head." "Do NOT heal that guy unless he asks you to, he doesn't like being seen with any weakness." "Sheesh, that fiter gave me 20 whole silvers. If I save his life only 56 more times I can buy one Sovyn Clove!") Type COMMON again to speak normally. :) TRANSFERRING & HEALING We heal by taking on the injuries of others, then by healing ourselves. Healing spells don't work when you cast them at other people. :) To transfer health point loss to yourself, type TRANSFER <person's name>. You transfer 5 health points per level (maximum is 75 health points per transfer); there is no way to transfer less. What this means is that as you advance, you must be more careful that you don't transfer too many. If you transfer more health point loss than you can take ("overhealing"), you die. Always check your own health (with the HEALTH command) before transferring other wounds! [Don't get caught up in the mad rush for experience] Practically speaking, your life is more valuable than anyone else's -- because while you're alive you can save many other lives. To heal yourself, PREP 801 (which is officially called HEAL1) and then CAST. This will use one mana point. Be sure you check your mana points on occasion -- if you cast a spell that you don't have the power or mana for, it does damage to your nervous system. When you learn 806 (HEAL2), you can use it to heal more points at a time. To transfer other types of damage, type TRANSFER (or just TR for short) <person> <area>. The areas are: Left Leg, Right Leg, Left Arm, Right Arm, Chest, Abdomen, Back, Neck, Head. Example of usage: Omnirus has a bruised left leg. You would type: . Note: You can shorten commands (TR for TRANSFER as well as people's names (OMNI for OMNIRUS) HOWEVER, you can not shorten body areas. Those must be typed out in full (LEFT LEG not LL). To transfer hand damage, use the arm. If there's both arm and hand damage, the first transfer will take the arm damage, second will take the hand damage (there is no transfer hand command). Example of hand usage: Antheus has a bruised left hand. He doesn't have a left arm wound. You would type . You will take the hand. If Antheus has a left arm minor and a left hand minor, typing will first take his arm wound and typing again will then take his bruised hand. Eyes are a little weird in that you transfer them from the head, but then use 805 (Organ Repair) to heal them. You don't use 804 (Head Repair 1) to heal eyes. Example of eye damage: Otterex has a bruised right eye. You would type: to take the eye. There is no <transfer eye> command. If Otterex has an eye wound as well as a head, you would type twice to first get the head, then again for the eye. You will then need to use 804 (head repair 1) to heal the head, and 805 (organ repair) to heal the eye. There is also a fairly new verb, TRANSFER <person> <any>, and a new Targeted Healing Feature. The <transfer person any> (often called transfer any) allows the empath to heal the worst wound on the adventurer's body first. Each subsequent transfer any will then take the next severe ailment. With this command, you do not need to type in a body part. Example of usage: Azure has a fractured and bleeding right arm and a bruised left eye. You could type and you would take her right arm damage. If you typed it again, you would take her eye damage. If you typed it once more, you would take missing hp's. Transferring Any puts the empath in a 3 second round time per transfer. Transfer Any...Good or Bad? There have been many heated debates regarding this command on the empath message boards. A lot of empaths think this is a godsend, and a lot think this command is what sparked the downfall of the empath profession. Pro Any, will argue that it allows younger empaths to keep up with the speed of healing, it makes healing easier because you can don't need to aim for a particular body part..Any does it all. Anti- Any will argue that yes while it does allow younger empaths to keep up, it just further pits empaths against each other, whoever can type the fastest will get the wounds...healing is more now like a race. They will also say that using transfer any breeds poor empaths...since you don't have to look at people to use it, empaths tend not to develop their healing skills. I was told there was a level 20 empath who did not know how to heal eyes (see above note regarding eyes)!! Eye healing is something an empath learns at 5th level. Many Anti-Any will say that using it just breeds what's called a "vulture empath." A "vulture empath" is a an empath who heals people as they walk in the room, without looking. If you meditate over an adventurer but he/she isn't wounded, they may frown at you for doing such. The most courteous thing to do is to at least LOOK or DIAGNOSE the person first (more on that below). Targeted Healing is a command that mostly all empaths will agree is quite useful. Targeted Healing allows the empath to heal specific parts of his or her body. Normally, all wounds are healed in a very specific order. For example, you have every limb wound minor (right arm/hand, left arm/hand, right/left legs). To heal these, you would use spell 802. If you just typed, <prep 802> then <cast>, the first wound to get healed automatically would be the right arm. Then each subsequent casting of 802 would heal the left arm, right leg, left leg, right hand, then finally, left hand. Why was this a pain? Well say you had a left leg minor. You also had a right and left arm minor. Razonia comes in with a bruised left leg and asks you for healing. If you took her left leg right now, you would compound that minor into a bleeding fracture. This isn't good for younger empaths. What you would have to do before targeted healing, was to prep and cast 802 until you finally healed your left leg. Then you would be able to heal Razonia without penalty to you. But with targeted healing, this is no longer a problem. Now, all you would have to do is <prep 802> and then type <cure left leg>. You are now instructing the spell to heal a specific part of your body. You can cure all wounded body parts. Example, <cure right hand>, <cure right eye>, <cure back>, etc. Remember if you type the specific healing spell and just <cast>, there will always be a set order of what will get healed first. CURE is a good way to heal a certain body part right away. You can transfer areas as soon as you learn the spell to heal it. Empath Circle spells are, in order: 801 (HEAL1), 802 (LIMREP1), 803 (SYSREP1), 804 (HEDREP1), 805 (ORGREP1), 806 (HEAL2), 807 (LIMREP2), 808 (SYSREP2), 809 (HEDREP2), 810 (ORGREP2). The "1" spells will let you transfer and heal minor damage, while the "2" spells let you transfer and heal medium and major damage. If you have minor damage on an area and take minor damage there again -- either in combat or by transferring another wound -- you suddenly have medium damage and begin bleeding. Heal yourself first. After that, our spell list has several scar-healing spells. You can't transfer scars from other people, normally, even with these spells. What these do is allow you to get rid of scars on yourself. Spells 811 through 814 (LIMREPT1 through ORGREPT1) heal minor scars, spells 815 through 818 (LIMREPT2 through ORGREPT2) heal major ones. There are separate spells after that for replacing blinded eyes and lost limbs (819 & 820). You get a scar when you heal damage. Healing minor cuts and bruises on the left leg will result in "old battle scars on the left leg." Healing a severed right arm results in a MISSING right arm -- not a good situation to be in. However, beyond the scar-healing spells there are herbs that can eliminate scars and limb loss -- and a special empath trick that leaves some people rather confused. Let's say you're at least second level. Oghier hobbles in with a severed right leg, which I transfer to myself. Since I'm standing, I scream and fall to the ground. I mumble something about always forgetting to lie down. Then I cast 807 (LIMREP2). I now have "a fractured and bleeding right leg" and "a missing right leg." I cast 807 again, and have "minor cuts and bruises on the right leg" and "a missing right leg." I ask in Guild Speak, "Someone take my right leg a minute?" You TRANSFER EILLIE RIGHT LEG. Suddenly I have no right leg damage at all, and you have only minor cuts and bruises on the right leg now. The scar's gone! I transfer the right leg damage back from you and then I heal it. You have no scar while I just have a tiny one I can live with. In the trade, this is called "cleanup." In order for it to work, you shouldn't heal major wounds down all the way, just down to minor wounds. The exception is if you're out hunting; those minor wounds can leave you vulnerable to worse injuries. We get no experience points for transferring wounds from other empaths -- otherwise there'd be nothing to stop us from transferring the same wound back and forth and becoming Lords and Ladies in two days. <g> We DO get experience from transferring from others, One trick we sometimes use is to allow lower-level characters to take health point damage from the injured, while a higher-level empath takes the HP damage from the lower-level empath to let him keep taking more. [Note: unfortunately these days, this practice is very rare, however you may find older empaths who do this for younger empaths.] DIAGNOSING DIAGNOSE <person> is not particularly useful. It will tell you whether or not they're injured, but not what the injuries are. DIAGNOSE <person> FULL will tell you how many health points they have, where they're injured, how much they're bleeding, and whether they're poisoned or diseased. To use DIAG FULL though, you have to have both hands free. If you're not sure if a person is missing any health points, you can either wait for them to ask for health or "blood" or you can do a <diag person full>. I recommend using diagnose as opposed to just randomly meditating over people passing by. Many adventurers frown upon healers meditating over them when the are not hurt. There is also an APPRAISE command. You can <app player> to get a quick glance to see where their injuries are. LOOK is another good choice -- you can quickly see if they have injuries. [However a warning with LOOK, people often wear A LOT of things. If you look at them, their injuries and such will simply scroll off the screen.] If they're low on health points too, they'll probably tell you -- or else get in the habit of typing TRAN <person> once after you heal all their obvious injuries, if you're not low on health yourself. However, diagnosing is the only way to tell the difference between a freshly blinded eye and one blinded by a scar. BLEEDING Bleeding means you're losing health points at a certain rate per round (about 7 seconds). TENDing a wound (first aid skill) can stop bleeding temporarily. The more training one has in First Aid, the longer the bandage will last and the shorter the roundtime will be. Some people in a particular secret society have the ability to clot their blood magically; this will look a little strange to us. You don't earn experience from transferring health points from a bleeding character, even if they're doing the clotting trick and aren't actually losing blood. Get the wounds first if you can. Poisons and diseases also remove a number of health points per round, though the amount they remove changes from round to round. Manna bread that has gone bad can poison you, so ALWAYS sniff it before eating it. Unless it has a wonderful aroma, don't eat it. Eventually the poison/disease wears off, but until then, the victim REALLY needs an empath to keep taking the lost blood. Sometimes a poison can be too much, such as one I saw which took 160 health points per round. There's nothing to be done about those. Poisons and diseases are not contagious, so don't be afraid to heal someone with one -- just watch your own health points carefully so you don't overheal. HERBS Herbs are found in various spots around town and are often found on critters and in boxes. This is a list of what they are and what they cure. Ailments marked with an asterisk (*) denotes a SCAR. All others are wounds. Health Points Acantha Leaf Limbs Minor bruises Ambrominas Leaf Fractured & bleeding Ephlox Moss Severed Ephlox Moss *Old battle scar Cactacae Spine *Mangled Calamia Fruit *Missing Sovyn Clove Head/Neck Minor bruises about the head Rose-Marrow Potion Minor bruises on the neck Rose-Marrow Potion Lacerations & mild concussion Aloeas Stem Bleeding from the neck Aloeas Stem Trauma & bleeding from the ears Aloeas Stem Snapped bones of the neck Aloeas Stem *Scar across the face/neck Haphip Root *Several facial scars/Old neck wounds Brostheras Potion *Terrible mutilation wounds Brostheras Potion *Terrible scars from some serious neck injury Brostheras Potion Nervous System Twitching Wolifrew Lichen Sporadic convulsions Bolmara Potion Uncontrollable convulsions Bolmara Potion *Slurred speech Torban Leaf *Constant spasms Woth Flower *Difficult time with muscle control Woth Flower Chest/Abdomen/Back Minor bruises and cuts Basal Moss Deep lacerations Pothinir Grass Gashes and serious bleeding Pothinir Grass *Old battle scar Talneo Potion *Painful looking scars Wingstem Potion *Terrible permanent mutilation Wingstem Potion Eyes bruised Basal Moss Swollen Pothinir Grass Blinded Pothinir Grass *Black and blue Talneo Potion *Severe swelling Wingstem Potion *Blinded Bur-Clover Potion INVASIONS When big and unusual creatures enter in and around town and start attacking people, it's a time for extra caution. Find a safe place and stay there! Don't try to fight the attackers yourself. Again, your life is the most precious, for you have to stay alive in order to heal others. If anything comes into Town Square, run to the Raging Thrak Inn to the northwest, then go to the front desk (don't check in though). There's an earthnode there, which will help you absorb mana as fast as you do in TS, but creatures can only rarely enter the Inn. But during normal invasions (ones that happen outside of town) empaths and clerics often gather at the North Gate. It can get VERY hectic during these times so remember to keep your cool and don't overheal. HEALING THE DEAD If one reaches negative health points, they will die. They will need a cleric to resurrect (rezz) them. If a cleric rezzes them and they still have bleeding wounds, they will die again. When someone dies, often they'll need both a cleric AND an empath. If the body is an a dangerous place, drag it to safety if you can. Get your hands free and diagnose full. Be careful not to overheal, otherwise there'll be one more person for the clerics to rezz. When someone is "vaporized" or "incinerated" it means they're not only dead, they have the most serious possible wounds on every location on the body. Severe vaporization (severe wounds on all body parts) can happen when someone falls from a great height or if they get caught in what's called a void (caused by a nasty spell called "implosion"). Incineration happens when people fail to disarm a certain trap from boxes. There are big experience points there for us, but don't be overeager -- you could quickly find yourself bleeding at 50 points per round, and then be limbless when you're done. It's really a job for two or three empaths. TEAMWORK The key here is to get people healed quickly, especially those that are bleeding badly -- while maximizing everyone's chances at earning experience, and minimizing the scars we're stuck with. Older empaths should leave wounds and health point damage for younger ones, handling what the younger ones cannot. However, some older empaths are unable to hunt for experience because they can't kill creatures 10 levels below themselves, and can earn experience only from healing. It's definitely a balancing act. Watch your experience; when your mind gets numb, bow out for a bit and leave it to other empaths. If you're at MUST REST (fried), don't heal anyone unless nobody else can, because you won't earn any experience from it anyway. If someone asks you to heal them, that patient is yours to deal with unless you pass them on. Similarly, is someone asks me to heal them, that patient is mine to deal with unless I refer them to someone else. However, if I've just eaten a Sovyn Clove and am in a long roundtime, and the patient says "Help me Eillie, I'm dying," you can help them... or if we've arranged in advance that you get health point damage while another empath gets minor stuff and I get bleeders. (In that case, you'd wait until I got all the bleeding before transferring HPs, so you can learn from it.) Scar cleanup is another big thing, but it takes lower priority than healing. Unless, for example, someone died and Ravenstorm is about to go after them with his Transference spell, and he's missing both arms. Gladiatorial Games are fondly known as the Healer 500. This is the one time when players fight each other for fame and glory. Nobody dies in these, but instead fall unconscious and are dragged to the infirmary. Six empaths can be constantly in a state of MUST REST from this event. :) We just take turns, usually in alphabetical order, healing losers as they're dragged in. The key is to get people healed fast, so they can move on to the next round. If you overheal during one of these, you pass out rather than die -- but it's still going to mess you up for a while. QUIRKY PEOPLE Some folks don't like being healed in public, because they don't want to be seen as weak. Others will make public comments about "blasted cocky healers" but are quite nice folks in private. Many Lords don't want to have their "fractured & bleeding" hands healed, because they hunt creatures that regularly break them again anyway. This holds true for people hunting up in the Misty Chamber (often called the "moon"). Some will be very demanding and fret over the tiniest scratch, while others will either forget they're wounded or be so shy they'd rather bleed to death in TS than ask for help. Others roleplay mute characters, so they can't ask for help without breaking character. Whenever someone taps you on the shoulder, hugs you seemingly at random, or the like, LOOK at them to see if they're injured because they might be trying to tell you something. :) TRAINING & EQUIPMENT (this gets complex!) Every chance you get, train in Edged Weapons! The skill costs a bit more than blunt, but there are more swords and axes out there to choose from than clubs, maces, etc. Wear leather armor, and train in Armor skill until you have +40 -- which is eight times, or 7th level. Armor training will reduce your roundtimes for using heavier armor. Other types of armor require too much training and can cause your spells to fail -- and a failed healing spell can be dangerous. +40 armor skill will allow you to wear double leather without penalty. Double leather is the highest recommended leather type for empaths. When you can afford to (this will be a while!), try to get the armor enchanted by a high-level wizard. It's an expensive process but worth it. Enchanting adds to the defensive properties of the armor. When merchants come to town, once your armor's enchanted a bit, get it padded against criticals, strengthened, and lightened. Train in Shield skill often if you can. This gives you a nice bonus to your defense. At level 0, train twice in Minor Spiritual spells. After that try to learn two spells every year: one Empath Circle spell, and one Major Spiritual Circle spell. Major Spiritual has some great stuff you can use for hunting later on: Bravery (11) and Heroism (15) both give you significant bonuses to your AS. The Minor Spiritual Circle spells up to 3rd level are useful, but be wary of Spirit Barrier as it lowers your AS while raising your DS. (It's good for rescue missions, but not for hunting.) [I recommend training in the major list (200 spell list) every year until you learn 225. Then stop and move to the minor list (100's) until you learn 150. After you've learned 150 (a spell that gives you +100 to your Defense-VERY GOOD for hunting) You should go back to the major spiritual list to raise your CS (Casting Strength) in spell 214 (bind). You could train in the empath list until 810 (or go farther if you want the scar removal spells right away) and then stop to move to the minor spiritual list until you learn 150. After you learn 225, I recommend going back and learning all the empath spells until 850. Empath spells past 820 are not implemented (they are not working) however, you never know when the gods will finally turn them on so it's always good to know them.] [So Spell Recap: *Train in empath base list at first until 810 (scar removal spells are useful to have so if you choose to go farther...go ahead. Some empaths have trained in empath spells until 814 then stopped. After you stop this list, move to the minor spiritual list (100's) *Train in major spiritual list until 225 *Train in minor spiritual until 150 *Pick up the empath spell list, learning one spell in that and the major spiritual list every year until you learn 850. After you've learned 850, double train in major spiritual every year to make your bind spell stronger.] Always double-train in Physical Training until you reach your max HPs. Double-train in First Aid until about 10th level, then single-train. [Note: you could opt to single train in First Aid for a while if you choose] Double-train in Mana Sharing until you have a +102 in it. At about 7th level you'll find you're constantly short of power; if you have Mana Sharing others can send you more when you need it. Magic Item Use is a good spell to train in. It allows a person to wave magical items (wands, rods, etc.) However to use some wands, you will also need Spell Aiming (more below). But there is a certain type of wand, called a twisted wand that is VERY effective and only requires Magic Item Use Skill (no Spell Aiming required for this type of wand). Many empaths like to use twisted wands to hunt because they contain a good sorcerer spell. Also many adventurers often give twisted wands as tips to empaths because they know they are an empath favorite. Having Magic Item Use Skill will allow you to take advantage of those wands! Spell Aiming isn't terribly useful. None of our spells need it, except for Fire Spirit (spell 111), which is a ways up the Minor Spiritual list and isn't a great spell anyway. :) It also affects one's skill with certain wands, but that's an expensive and difficult way to hunt. You want to train in swimming when you can. You need one rank to swim to the shrine in the Krolvin area and you need more to get to other hunting areas. Train in Climbing maybe once every three or four levels. If you have some spare points you can put them into Scrolls, Trading, Perception. Hiding is fun, but not very useful without Ambush, which costs so much for us to train in. Additional training notes: After you are done in learning necessary spells, it is HIGHLY recommend learning Combat Maneuvers. It is very expensive to learn (at 20/15) however it can be a life saving skill to know if you plan on hunting at higher levels. If you choose to train in Combat Maneuvers, definitely plan on training in it by your 30's (30th level or higher). What it does for you: the biggest benefit is it adds +1 AS to your swing every two times you train in it. That extra attack strength adds up! It also allows you to ambush without going into hiding. You can only ambush in plain sight using the Combat Maneuver skill (regular ambushing involves hiding, which is difficult to train in.). Ambushing allows you to kill critters in one hit! A last and very important benefit is Combat Maneuvers helps you to avoid maneuvering attacks. At higher levels, you will see creatures that will throw lava, rocks or use sweeping attacks. CM helps you avoid those. The first ten times you train in a skill, it gives you +5. The next ten times, +4, the next ten +3, the next ten +2, and after that it's always +1. This prevents high-level characters from being utterly godlike.) THE FUTURE The Empath Circle list is going to go through massive changes, possibly making a good portion of this document obsolete. :) The latest word is that we will have 5 healing spells rather than 20, and we'll have mental attack spells to enhance our hunting. There are already slots for spells 825 and 830 -- Major Forget and Intensify. Major Forget will make the victim lose its prepared spell and the mana points required to cast it, and take nervous system damage -- while the caster will have that spell prepared plus the extra mana required to cast it. Intensify's workings have not been revealed. These new spells will mean an increase in our ability to hunt, and an excellent reason to train in the Empath Circle spell list beyond tenth level. :) [Note: Our spell list hasn't been changed yet but we're still hoping the gods will do so!] Final words: * Always look at a body before healing by diagnose, appraise or look. * Don't use Transfer Any on people as they walk in the room in order to beat out other empaths for possible wounds. This is considered being a "vulture" and is not appreciated by other empaths and the adventurers. * Do not heal a person if they specifically asked for another empath to heal them. Only do so if the other empath says it's okay. * Do not heal a body that an empath has brought in from a rescue unless the empath specifically asks for help. We have a spell that allows us to bring our group from practically anywhere, to the north gate. Learn what this spell looks like when people come to the gate! Also learn your fellow empaths so you know who's who. * Pay attention to what's going on around you and who's there. Many times empaths will say, "Oh I didn't SEE you healing so-and-so." "I didn't know you were there." Being perceptive will save you a lot of grief in the long run (and many dirty looks!). * With the above, don't heal a body that an empath is with, or traveling with. Sometimes empaths will run across a dead/hurt body out in the field. Another empath will walk up and heal the body right away, not knowing what's going on. If you're not sure what's happening, ask if your help is needed and be sure to look at the people present to see if they are indeed empaths or not. * If you're a young empath and you have an injury you can't heal yourself, ask for assistance IN GUILD, not in the COMMON tongue. Older empaths, when a young healer asks for help, you should help them if you're able. Remember, if the young empaths can't count on their elders, who can they count on? * Always thank people for their tips. You'll be surprised to see how many empaths don't thank people for their hard earned silvers/gems and then turn around and complain that they never get tips! Even if the tip is 10 silvers, be sure to give them a big smile and hug if you can. Many times new people don't have much money and will give only what they can. With that, always welcome people when they thank you. It makes people feel good when they know you see them and care about their well being. Empaths who never respond in kindness to other people's kindness will not make many friends. * Remember, healing is a privilege, not a right. You do not have to heal people if you don't want. You have the right to say NO. * Do get to know your fellow empaths. You will be spending a lot of time with them and it's good to know who they are. You will find teamwork is an empath's best friend. * Be polite, friendly and helpful. Don't steal and kill people. Even if it's "roleplayed," thieves and killers do not make many friends (they get official in game warnings and pay heavy fines). People who are helpful, polite and friendly will make lasting friendships. * Cookies and chocolate are an empath's main source of existence! You will find many of us who like to eat. If you have extra goodies, be sure to share! :) * If you don't know something, don't get embarrassed. Ask an older empath for advice. We all were young one so we know what it's like to be new. * Watch your health and don't overheal. * Be sure to leave town every once and a while. There's a big world out there and it's very interesting to see! * Most of all, have fun!