The healer's blue bar
Every healer I've played had a blue bar. Run out, drink something, carry on.
It works. It also means a priest is just a mage with a nicer outfit.
Holy power as a fuel tank
In most games, holy power is a tank you refill. Run dry mid-fight and you stand there waiting for it to tick back up. What you believe never comes into it. The bar doesn't care whether you meant anything.
What we're doing instead
Faith here runs on Conviction, and Conviction comes from keeping your word.
You say a vow out loud. "I hold this ground." "This one lives." The vows aren't free text. Each one names who or what, what you'll do, and for how long, so the game always knows whether you kept it. There are five to start with. While you keep it, Conviction builds: from taking blows for the people behind you, from giving something up to help someone, from pressing on when you'd rather stop.
Break the vow on purpose, walk off the ground you swore to hold, and it crashes. Get knocked flat by something you couldn't help, and it doesn't count against you. You just get up and say it again.
Get knocked flat by something you couldn't help, and it doesn't count against you.
What it means for you
You don't heal by watching a bar. You heal by standing somewhere and meaning it. It also means a healer who runs from the fight is a healer who stops healing. If you swore to hold the ground, holding it is the job, and everyone behind you can see whether you do.
There are three things to learn, one at a time: brace and hold (Vigil), keep someone alive (Keeping), and answer for what was done (the Answer).
And you can't just buy the lessons. The healer at the hearth won't teach you until you've sat with the sick and kept the fire for a while.
Where it really is
Built today: Conviction, spoken vows, the three techniques, the crash when you break a vow on purpose, and the healer who makes you earn it first.
Not built yet: the deeper paths and the later, harder vows. The animations are placeholders.
If that sounds like your kind of game
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