Spirit Healing ritual is completely opaque

[gussmed]

My group got whomped by a level-3 group of Lightbringers in spiritual combat, knocking pretty much everyone to zero. So for the first time I had a need to use the Spirit Healing ritual, and I'm pretty frustrated with it.

There's absolutely no feedback as to what the effects will be. With crafting, you see what the item will be like depending on what materials you use. With the ritual, there's no indication.

So I set up a couple of rituals, one with Malachite / Meat, one with Wood / Meat. I figured when the turn ended I'd find out how much each one healed.

Nope. Just "two rituals completed," with no idea what the effects were. I can deduce that I healed most of the group, since all but 1 are at reasonable Faith levels now, but I have no idea which ritual did what, or why the one party member didn't heal as much.

[Wendek]

It always does the same thing, the materials don't matter (just take the ones that are least valuable to you at the moment, usually Shadow Bone + Fish for me). So you essentially used the ritual twice. The one member who isn't as healed as the others was probably sent deeper into the negatives.
However I still agree with the opacity since I wouldn't be able to tell you how much the ritual actually heals - I think it's something like 35-40% of maximum Faith, maybe a bit more. So doing it twice is generally going to be enough for almost anything.

[gussmed]

It's really valuable knowing that the materials don't matter.

[Imricdaelf120741]

Herbs are usually the easiest to find/gather/stockpile.

One ritual is enough usually, unless you've been severely beaten. Two or three heals up a small party to full. A large party obnoxiously low/negative will take three to five.

[gussmed]

I’m not sure why you’d say herbs were easy to find and stockpile. On the first island - and this incident occurred on the first island - the only ways to obtain herbs are to trade or found a village.

As poorly presented as spirit healing is, I’m glad it exists. It’s really frustrating that there’s no similar way to heal Sanity damage. “Those Red Cave Bandits were really stubborn and wouldn’t negotiate. My life has no meaning and I’m going to desert.”

[Lorska]

Well morale is used to heal sanity instead right?

[XenoReaver]

Originally posted by Lorska:

Well morale is used to heal sanity instead right?

correct.

[dergefata]

Originally posted by gussmed:

As poorly presented as spirit healing is, I’m glad it exists. It’s really frustrating that there’s no similar way to heal Sanity damage. “Those Red Cave Bandits were really stubborn and wouldn’t negotiate. My life has no meaning and I’m going to desert.”

You can almost always heal up at friendly villages. And for the Red Cave bandits in particular (and this is also not well expressed) you can just start the combat and immediately surrender. You'll take only minor damage, and get the follow-on quests at no real risk to your health.

Then you can come back with a Karakandza and let the demon eat everyone, if you want ;)

[Wendek]

Last time I tried the Karakandza, he was extremely underwhelming, dealing like 10-15 damage per attack with maybe 60 hps and no armor. He probably gets better *after* the fight once you can give him some gear, but for the fight itself it's basically the same as doing it on your own.
Maybe he can have some OP skill and he just didn't spawn with it for me, idk.

[gussmed]

Morale heals sanity, but not effectively instantly the way the Spirit Ritual heals spirit. It’s 20% maximum per turn, and if you’ve got characters who are zero or negative after a yellow challenge, that’s at least one turn they’re below 30%, assuming healing occurs before the desertion check.

If you run a 3-4 spirit healing rituals after a bad purple challenge, you should be safe. I think.

In Thea 1, of course, there was no such thing as lasting damage from mental / social challenges. It was only combat that could kill people directly. Failing non-combat challenges tended to put you in a bad spot indirectly, forcing you into a combat you didn’t want.