I found this posted by someone on a local board. I didn't do the tests
myself, and some assumptions have been made in the statistics, but the
person who posted this has been very reputable so far. If you have any
doubts about the value of a bard in healing, read on...
- Dendall, Ollave of the Aegis
http://www.soerbaird.com
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This is interesting. I must get try to get a magician to conjure some
bandages for me. I take it they weren't real enthusiastic since I hear that
it is more trouble than it is worth for them.
You 1hp per 4 skill seems quite accurate since I have 45 skill now and I
seem to get 10-12 per bandage now. Hard to tell exact numbers since I'm
usually poisoned and have my own healing going at the same time.
Unfortunately the anecdotal 100 hps per bandage seems to be out of line
then. Still, at level 15 my max bind wound would be 80 giving me 20 hits
per bandage and my hits would be around 480 (for my warrior). To heal
normally from 0 to full would take 240 ticks (or around 20 minutes, a tick
is about 5 seconds by my reckoning).
Bandages seem to take two full ticks to apply, so working it out with
bandaging I get 22 ticks for the first half ((11 bandages * 20 hits)+20
heal) plus 120 ticks for the second half, for a total of 142 ticks (or
almost 12 minutes). Not bad, a saving of eight minutes valuable play time
for the cost of 11 bandages (7 gold at the shop rates).
I did some checking on the healing rate with the bard healing song and I
discovered that this is +6 hits per tick for a 12th Bard when using his
lute. So here's a table of some figures (feel free to question the accuracy
since I'm just slapping this out, I'm especially interested if anyone thinks
that the number of seconds for a heal tick and the number of seconds for a
bind wound are wrong)
Assume a bind wound skill of 80 and 480 hit points, the time given is to go
from 0 to 480 hits, bandage costs assume a store price of 6.6 silver, and
the figures are rough
Person standing 480 ticks 40 minutes Just for
reference, but same as diseased person sitting
Person sitting 240 ticks 20 minutes
Troll sitting 120 ticks 10 minutes Troll
warriors rule! Accept no substitute :>
Person being bandaged 142 ticks 12 minutes Only 2
minutes to get to half, but costs 7 gold
Troll being bandaged 78 ticks 6.5 minutes 1.5
minutes to get to half, costs 6 gold
Person sitting w. healing song 60 ticks 5 minutes
Troll sitting w. healing song 48 ticks 4 minutes
Person w. bandages & song 44 ticks 3.7 minutes
Bandages save little time, probably not worth the cost
Troll w. bandages & song 36 ticks 3 minutes
Ditto, cost 3 gold to save 1 minute
This makes it clear that a bard is a very valuable commodity, even if they
just did the healing. Bandages are worthwhile to bring yourself up to half
in the absence of other healing, and they have the advantage that you can
step out of combat for a minute and heal over a hundred hits. It is also
useful to bring yourself above one bubble so you can run properly and get
yourself out of a dangerous area. You need to be able to throw around some
gold though. They can save your ass, and your friends asses so I think it
is a worthwhile skill to have, but no one is going to complain that it is
too powerful.