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+--- Thread: RPing a healer who doesn't want to heal? (/showthread.php?tid=5899)
RPing a healer who doesn't want to heal? - ansemaru - 12-23-2013
I recently rolled an alt, and I'm wondering how I should go about playing an element of his personality that could, but doesn't necessarily have to, incorporate actual gameplay.
The short version is that he's a Conjurer who has more or less the opposite problem to Sylphie. Rather than neglecting the elements of earth, air, and water and focusing only on the healing, he scorns healing to a certain degree in favor of the elemental side of conjury. I've decided against him outright refusing to heal, but ICly he treats being a Conjurer more like it's a Disciple of the Land job or even a DPS class than like a healer.
The reason behind this is mostly due to personal reasons- he is very interested and even emotionally invested in the balance of nature, and prior to the Calamity was content to observe and research the natural world without interfering in it. This didn't just mean being a pacifist and not harming plants or animals- he actively avoided preserving things past their natural lifespans and intervening in the circle of life. He's the kind of person who'd be at peace with letting an orphaned opo-opo starve, is what I'm saying. He's not entirely heartless, but he's definitely not a bleeding heart, and frankly finds it offensive that he's expected to be a field medic and not somebody who works to keep nature in balance in a horribly unbalanced time. In his eyes, adventurers and the people of Eorzea are just as much of a part of the grand cycle of nature as the plants and animals are, and he isn't there to save every person from dying, just because mending comes with the territory of studying magical ecology.
So the issue I'm running into is thus: how do I keep him IC without being a dick to other players? Do I just treat all times I'm playing him out in the field as OOC, and only play his quirk IC when I'm in sanctuaries and places where I wouldn't be expected to heal other players in the first place? I wholly intend for his position on the matter to change over time as an element of his character arc, but in the meantime, I want to figure out a way to portray his qualms interestingly. In the original context this character concept was taken from, he was alright with regular healing but refused to use his power to raise the dead. In FFXIV, there's not much of a precedent for player characters capable of necromancy- that seems to be entirely the territory of supernatural entities like Siren- and IIRC skills like Raise don't actually bring people back to life. So unless I want to make him a lore-breaking Gary Stu, I can't really make his area of NOPE in re: healing be raising the dead.
Thoughts? I'm really curious as to how you all think this particular characterization should be played in terms of RP and gameplay integration.
RE: RPing a healer who doesn't want to heal? - Kismet - 12-23-2013
I don't know how to tell you to go about it because I see no issues with the concept. My main is a conjurer, and if she came across your character, she would have zero qualms about his situation. None of my characters would be bothered by it, actually. It makes sense for every conjurer to not be a master healer, and even for conjurers to simply have a preference over what skills they do and do not want to use.
If a character thinks he's being a jerk, then they're probably one of those "how dare you not use the gift the Elementals blessed you with?!" types. That's totally fine if it's purely IC. If someone OOCly has a problem with it, just explain to them what you did in your post. I think you're fine.
RE: RPing a healer who doesn't want to heal? - ansemaru - 12-23-2013
Honestly, I'd be totally fine with people taking offense to his behavior IC. It's not exactly the stuff of being a good neighbor.
Hrm, I guess what I really need is to just test run him in some RP scenarios that aren't just hanging around and talking in the Quicksand or what have you. And just get him out and interacting with people.
RE: RPing a healer who doesn't want to heal? - LiadansWhisper - 12-24-2013
Heh. Â I would love to run into you on Lia. Â xD
RE: RPing a healer who doesn't want to heal? - ansemaru - 12-24-2013
Well, the good news is that I've just hit level 15 on him today, and am in the process of unlocking all the major cities, so it should be doable! My character's name is Ahlek'zi Ghria, if you're interested. (I'll likely be making a page for him on the wiki soon, as well.)
RE: RPing a healer who doesn't want to heal? - Jomoru - 12-24-2013
I'd say he's just getting ahead of the game I've always assumed CNJ was going to get a Dps Job eventually.
RE: RPing a healer who doesn't want to heal? - LiadansWhisper - 12-24-2013
(12-24-2013, 03:05 AM)Jomoru Wrote: I'd say he's just getting ahead of the game I've always assumed CNJ was going to get a Dps Job eventually.
Geomancer would seem to fit Arcanist much better than Conjurer, from a Lore standpoint.
RE: RPing a healer who doesn't want to heal? - ansemaru - 12-24-2013
The traps-and-strategies side of geomancy definitely fits the stated role of arcanima in combat, but the actual means by which one uses the skills- the elements- are decidedly a Conjurer's purview. I could see it going either way, and given that Arcanist is already a class that can go two different ways at level 30, I wouldn't be shocked if we did get Geomancer as the DPS option for Conjurers. Or not! There are loads of classic FF classes out there, and it's not guaranteed we'll even get Geomancers at all.
That said, I'd be really jazzed if we did. As a class, they've always sort of been underserved by the narrative and gameplay, so it'd be interesting to get things like an actual quest line for geomancy.