Gradual Regeneration
An item or ability used in recovering a small amount of Hit Points and/or Mana Points per a certain amount of time, or just increasing the effects of an already-existing regeneration mechanic. In games that are turn-based or have the passage of time marked by actions performed by the player, health or mana may recover based on turns or steps taken rather than in real time.
Most Roguelikes let you recover hp and mp gradually over time without needing to do anything special, due to Hyperactive Metabolism.
May overlap with Regenerating Health and Healing Factor.
Examples of Gradual Regeneration include:
Tabletop Games
Video Games
- Final Fantasy implements it as the Regen spell.
- Final Fantasy XII has abilities to get MP when losing health, killing and enemy, and hitting an enemy with a physical or magical attack. MP also regenerates gradually if you walk around. Justified in that magic in XII comes in the form of Mist, which can be absorbed via inhalation, and is often released by striking magical monsters. It even regenerates faster in highly magical areas!
- Pokémon: the Leftovers and Black Sludge (for Poison-type Pokemon) items, the moves Ingrain and Aqua Ring, and the abilities Rain Dish, Ice Body, Dry Skin (which rely on weather conditions for regeneration), and Poison Heal (which relies on the Poisoned Status Effect).
- Ingrain also prevents the user from being switched out from play, so it requires a little strategy on the trainer's part to ensure that they don't trap their Pokemon in a bad situation. It does, however, prevent being switched out from Whirlwind or Roar, which is invaluable when catching roaming Legendaries.
- The RPG-influenced Tower Defense game Cursed Treasure has both Mana Pools, which speed MP regen if you build on them, and the Mana Extraction skill, which does the same thing without requiring any particular building pattern.
- The Hearty Hat in Hero RPG speeds HP regeneration.
- Wizardry series: wearing the Ring of Healing or Lord's Garb slowly healed lost Hit Points.
- Recovery-over-time is the modus operandi of healing druids in World of Warcraft who have no less than five different spells that heal over time. There's also several elixirs a character can drink that restore health over time, and warlocks have a self-buff that restores their health over time as well.
- In Legend of Dragoon, the Defend Command also lets you recover 10% of your max HP whenever it is used, making it a vital combat tactic throughout the game, especially since the number of healing items you can carry is very small.
- zOMG!: the Healing Halo and Divinity rings greatly increase the amount of Hit Points and Stamina restored respectively, and the Fitness ring does both by a small amount. The Demon and Shaman ringsets do the same respectively. Sitting down restores more than standing up as well.
- RuneScape: the Rapid Heal and Rapid Renewal prayer abilities double and quintuples the amount of Hit Points restored.
- Roguelike Dungeon Crawl lets most species heal a fraction of their health and MP by every N:th turn. For mummies this is very convenient, because they don't need any food to survive, but any living species must carefully consider whether it's better to wait and heal, and become hungry, or risk an encounter with low health.
- Browser-based RPG Neo Quest II lets the characters heal 1% of their total for the first ten moves after a battle.
- There are a few items and weapons in Demon's Souls that slowly regenerate HP or MP. You're going to need them.
- In the MOTHER/EarthBound series, recovery items or PSI (Which is the name given to 'magic' in this game) do not instantly recover all of your HP, even though they heal a predetermined amount of hit points, instead the points keep going up until they reach how much the item/spell heals.
- Last Scenario has two spells, one that slowly regenerates HP and one that regenerates MP. The latter is Awesome Yet Practical, as the cost is very low and the amount regenerated each turn is rather generous.
- Alter AILA Genesis has Status Buffs that increase the amount of AP or EX you gain per turn, as well as one that regenerates 10% of your HP each round. There are also field effects that do the same, but for all combatants.
- .hack has both HP and MP regenerating buffs.
- From Tales of Symphonia on, TP can be regained in the Tales (series) by attacking enemies physically. Watch in horror as your Squishy Wizard runs up to punch the Giga Dragon in the face after blowing his load on Meteor Swarm spells. There are also equippable items that give characters regeneration, that inexplicably only works while in battle.
- In Mega Man ZX Advent, your Weapon Energy is always regenerating.
- There are item that do this in Kingdom of Loathing, ranging from the Ring of Half-Assed Regeneration (occasionally regain a few hit points) to the Heart Of The Volcano (20 HP and MP per adventure).
- Star Wars video games in which the player controls a Jedi often allow him/her to learn a variation of "Force Heal", which allows the player to heal themselves with their regenerating Force points instead of a one-use medkit.
- Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days uses this for its Cura and Curaga abilities. Cura has health recover temporarily every few seconds, while Curaga has a similar effect, except it creates an area in which all allies receive the health recovery
- League of Legends has a number of items that increase natural health regeneration. Some champions also have an enhanced ability to do this through their abilities.
- Team Fortress 2: the Medic has passive health regeneration. It can be decreased or increased depending on the weapons in his loadout.
- Independence War is a very unusual space sim example in that as opposed to the usual Regenerating Shields Static Health, Deflector Shields are of limited effectiveness and most damage goes straight to the hull, which is automatically repaired at roughly one percent per second.
- Demon's Souls features certain items and weaponry that regenerate the player's health - the Regenerator's Ring, Adjudicator's Shield and any type of blessed weaponry.
- Dark Souls features Sanctus, a shield which provides gradual health regeneration. The Replenishment and Bountiful Sunlight Miracles also do this.