One problem wit this is that, in some games (Dragon Quest 8, for example), such items force you to sit through a slow animation after every combat round. In some games, this may happen even for characters who don't need healing, but happen to have an HP regen item equipped. Also, such items may only be available for some characters and not others, or there may not be enough to equip everybody with one. It's also possible for such HP regen to be too slow to be useful; for example, in Elminage Gothic, HP regen is great at first, but it doesn't scale to high levels. Regenerating 4 HP per round isn't very useful when you have over 1,000 HP, for example.

High damage, low healing could be decribed as "real life" model. Which means that our world is a bad setting for RPG, but vey good for strategy game.

Here's an example of a game that gets the balance wrong: Phantasy Star 3.

PS3 could be described as having low damage, low(ish) healing (but note that weak multi-target healing is readily available). Enemies do low amounts of damage, so the general challenge isn't the individual battles, but rather having to survive from one town to the next.

The problem comes from one particular item that you can get relatively early in the game. One town sells a few items that are rather powerful and expensive for that point in the game (note that this town becomes unavailable later, though you can eventually get the items it sold later). One item, the ForceVest, which you can realistically afford if you spend a little extra time in that climate control place, can be used (as an item) to cast (for free) a spell (REVER) that has a chance of reviving a character with full HP.

So, once you have the ForceVest, all you need to do is let a character die, and then you can use the vest to revive the character. It can even be used outside of battle (where you can just try again if it fails), and even if the character holding it is dead, so you can avoid the resource cost normally involved with healing in this game. Since the individual battles are not dangerous when you go in at full strength, and you don't need to use non-healing techniques to win battles, the game's difficulty essentially disappears. Furthermore, the ForceVest (and REVER) even works through poison (which normally prevents the character from being healed in this game).

That shop also sells the RoyalVest (casts NASAK at high power), which can be used to heal the party while killing the caster. Hence, you can now heal the entire party by combining the two vests. It's a bit too expensive for the point in the game when this early shop appears, however.

Note that, if you don't get the ForceVest, there's also a ForceClaw (or something like it) that can also be used to cast REVER, but it's cast at a lower power level and hence is less reliable (but, outside of combat, you can just try again anyway). There's also at least one item that casts a standard healing spell and is usable infinitely even outside of battle.

Phantasy Star 3 may be less a game that fails to get the balance right and more a game with okay balance that gets shattered by the existence of a few piece of equipment that have an obscure alternative use most players remain completely unaware of. (I know I was until 10 years after my last playthrough) In that respect it's better than its predecessor, where you pretty much needed to utilize those special kinds of equipment in order to have a realistic chance of making it through the later dungeons in one piece.

There actually is one rather interesting aspect of Phantasy Star 3 when it comes to healing.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, poison in PS3 does not work like in most RPGs. Instead of causing damage over time, it prevents healing. Specifically, poisoned characters can't be healed at the inn (IIRC), and the techniques RES, GIRES, and NASAR (and items that mimic them, including consumables) will not work on the character. Combine this with the fact that enemy damage is (for the most part) low in comparison to your max HP, and the fact that the poison cure spell (ANTI) doesn't always work, and it actually doesn't make sense to cure poison as soon as you are afflicted; instead, wait until the character's HP actually gets low and *then* cure it. If you try to keep your party free of poison, you will find yourself spending TP or items to cure it, only to be re-inflicted before you actually need to heal.

Of course, it turns out that REVER (and items that mimic it) can be used to heal a poisoned character, but only if that character is already dead, and REVER can, of course, fail. Also, the character will still be poisoned.

Usually, in RPGs it is a good idea to cure status ailments as soon as you can (especially if you are out of battle and don't need to worry about the turn cost), so a situation where that is not the optimal strategy is unusual.

(Of course, there are game where you have to be afflicted with a status ailment to continue (Final Fantasy 3), or cases where normally harmful statuses have beneficial effects (in Final Fantasy 5, being under Mini status doubles your chance of blocking with a shield).)

Anyone else have any thoughts on this topic?

The worst healing/hp balances has Divine Divinity.
First of all, healing resources are very limited. Second, there is a health regen skill, but it is totally useless. It regenerates about 1 hp every 10 seconds. You have hundreds of hp in this game. So it takes 10 minutes or so to heal half of your hp, even in early game, when you have not sooo much hp.
I always gave up DD, because i eventually get stuck at a point, where I`m out of potions and the monsters do so much damage, that -even if I survive a battle- it takes about half an hour to regenerate my hp.
I never understood why this game got a sequel, because of the very bad design.

This reminds me of why I am rather reluctant to play Pool of Radiance. The problem is as follows:
* The only healing spell you get can heal at most 8 HP. Consider that a single class Fighter around endgame can realistically have around 80 HP.
* Even worse, it can heal as little as 1 HP. Really frustrating (judging from my Wizardry experience) to cast one of your limited healing spells, only to see it heal only 1 measly hit point. (Final Fantasy 1 wasn't this bad; the basic healing spell always heals at least 16 HP there.)
* Furthermore, there is no escape. You don't get any stronger healing spells, healing items exist that are a bit stronger but have extremely limited uses.
* Even worse, resting doesn't heal much either. Hence, getting your HP back is a tedious cycle of cast, re-memorize, rest, and repeat. (From what I have read, the game doesn't even remember what spells you selected to memorize, so you have to repeat that again.)

If I play the series, I will probably start with Secret of the Silver Blades (the third game). This game starts you with some mid-level healing spells, I believe, and you actually get Heal, which is a full heal. Plus, there's also the Fix command. I plan on skipping the second game because I don't like the premise behind the plot, and I don't like the game trapping you right away without access to a trainer right after introducing the dual-class option for the first time.

If you're particularly patient, and intend to try to get through the "bonus dungeon" in Pools of Darkness, you might consider making a 4 Ranger + 2 Paladin party. It'll be tough at first, but grinding levels is really, really easy just outside the starting city. In two or three hours you can get your Rangers levelled to 12 (or 13 if you really want that extra Mirror Image) and dual-classed to Wizard; once they get to Rangerlvl+1, they'll be able to use the Ranger weapons and armor while still casting all their Wizard spells (and Rangers are absolute beasts in 1st edition; their backstabs on giantkin are just gross). Those Paladins can either stay Paladins for the entire game and dual right after starting PoD(for that extra 4th level spell), or dual them right at 13(to max their attacks) and have 4 melee wizards and two beefier Clerics to face endgame.

That may sound like overkill, but if you haven't tried that optional dungeon, you might not appreciate how much cheesing they seem to expect people to do. Fight a dozen great wyrms at once, backed up by half a dozen Beholders, and there's really no such thing as too much cheese. Even for a Wizardry veteran. (EDIT: Course, it would admittedly be easier to charedit than do any real grinding; if you don't care about editing, then save yourself the time and just play as you like, obviously ^_^ You can always top off the party after you beat PoD if you want to hit that dungeon)

(PoR wasn't tough because of the healing. It was tough because of the damned vampires. Except for the final boss, and the undead in the graveyard, pretty much all your problems could be solved with one or two fireballs, if your fighters didn't spincleave everything apart first.)

Something to note, getting into Zy-el (Diablo 2) a bit, that mod can have huge health negatives from charms and demon items.

It's not so much a problem with difficulty from weak healing, but more the amount of real time it takes to recover after a battle. It wouldn't be so bad if, like Ultima 3, the game had a spot (not too hard to reach) where you could instantly heal your party to full, or if, like Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy, you could rest at the inn to get all your HP back instantly. It also wouldn't have been quite as bad if there were at least one healing spell other than the weak one you started with. (Why are there 2 consecutive priest spell levels without a healing spell anyway? That's always bothered me about Wizardry 1-5 and AD&D 1e-2e.)