DE'S PROFILE

What do you mean, "RPG Maker games approaching?"

Here's what I managed to come up with. Unfortunately, the sprite sucks, and the cells are too small to accommodate proper shooting poses, so I had to bullshit my way through it a bit. Oh, and sorry for changing the background color, you can easily change it back if you wish.

RAGEQUIT!!1

This project no die! It's sleeping! And being carried away in a sleeping bag!

Yeah, let's forget real life logic even in video games, it'll make them sooo much better. Like in that adventure games where you send your mouse to fetch you your wallet that's underneath the couch, instead of simply MOVING THE COUCH. Yeah, so much better!

Using poison to counter sleep is not a new concept, it exists in games and makes perfect sense.

Your forgot to include arguments in your post. Why does it make perfect sense? Because it's used in FF11? Yeah, great argument.

There is always a way to accommodate a concept and make it make sense in the context of your fictional universe. Say, you encounter a boss that emits pheromones or ultrasounds or whatever that make your party drowsy... and he kicks your ass (this is part of the story). Later on you're forced to fight the same boss and you know you will lose, but let's say the party finds out about a drug that makes one restless (or simply keeps one awake indefinitely), but it's such a strain on the body that it makes one extremely exhausted (which, in game terms, makes a character take damage). Before that battle the player can choose to make any or all characters take that medicine and become immune to the boss's special attack. A simple scenario that makes the boss something more interesting than a guy who casts MASS SLEEP, makes perfect sense, and is fluffy (i.e. fits the setting). Lots better than "cast Poison on yourself to make you wake up from the Sleep status! Why? Because that's what you do in Final Fantasy!". It's so fucking gamey, I hate this kind of strategy that only makes sense in the context of the games battle system and not... logic (I know you hate that word).

As for boss healing self, I agree, it can work, but requires some thought. For example, imagine a boss, say, a troll, that regenerates rapidly, but if you hit him with a certain spell it loses regeneration. Or a boss that casts healing on itself which you can neutralize by silencing/zombifying/reflecting him.

The reason why the OP's example sucks is because the OP doesn't understand the concept of motivation. It's too complex to elaborate on in this short post, but the main conclusion is this - the player needs to be rewarded for playing good, not punished for playing bad (or at all!). He needs to feel like he's making progress, by having a boss that heals himself you're punishing the player by making part of the progress he made meaningless. A boss with 2000 HP is better than a boss with 1000 HP that heals itself to full once. The boss with 2000 HP will go down once his HP's reach zero; the player knows this and this is his goal. Once he achieves it he feels sense of accomplishment. Every time he deals damage to the boss he is closer to his goal. With the boss with 1000 HP and healing the moment the boss heals the player feels cheated - all the damage he's done so far is neutralized and all the time and effort spent dealing that damage is wasted. There's no sense of achievement, there's sense of disappointment. It doesn't matter that both boss fights are essentially the same and take the same amount of time, what matters is how the player perceives them. In the second case the player's reward for reaching the goal (dealing 1000 damage) is a kick in the nuts and being moved back to the starting point so that he can reach the same goal AGAIN. Do I have to explain why the second boss is bad, and the first one is good?