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[rek]

It would seem to be there are two types of "scumming" (awful word) here – resource (HP potions, bombs, rupees, and so on) and mechanic (save points/save states, level access, and so on).

The solution to the former seems simple enough: resource abundance can be tuned directly to the player's status. For example: Link has two of nine hearts full, so the likelihood of heart refills appearing in the next pot/bush/enemy is really high, plateauing when he's at five full hearts, and then decreasing again. At, say, seven of nine full, the appearance of a refill would be at its absolute lowest or completely random. This isn't to say there should always be a Blue Shell for the loser in 8th place though – that's rewarding the player for sucking.

This can be tweaked according to the needs of the area/dungeon as well. If you're expected to beat the boss with fire arrows, arrows and magic potion abundance will skew higher than elsewhere. (I wouldn't be surprised to find this is more or less how it's done in many games.) Keep it tuned though, because beating the player over the head with reminders of how important arrows are in this dungeon by giving them more arrows than they're able to use cheapens the experience and diminishes the challenge.

Mechanic scumming is another matter entirely, and dealing with it may require rethinking key parts of the game. I don't think anyone really considers restarting from a save point because you failed to be a problem, but some games seem to and will halve your HP, empty your wallet, leave your items scattered where you died, etc, when you respawn. Again, not a big deal and it teaches the player there are still consequences. Having access to earlier levels with enemies that are now easy to beat and flush with rewards can be dealt with by treating it from the resource angle: factoring in the player party's levels, treating XP as a resource that influences monster encounter frequency (a level 3 player will encounter as many as 15 Green Slimes here in Newcomer Fields, but a level 9 player will only encounter two at most, frex). Or by changing the mechanic, cutting the player off from those levels completely.

In the example at hand, you could change the mechanic: healing isn't free, or it isn't complete, or it's limited in some other way; or you can treat it like a resource that is only useful or available to those who really need it.

[DjangoDurango]

Tedium itself is a heavy penalty. Most people wouldn't backtrack a long ways unless they absolutely had to. Most people won't do a tedious task over and over again unless they absolutely have to. Those who would, well, if that's how they want to play that's their business. Whatta ya gonna do?  

This is true. The original Pokemon had a feature very similar to your church in the pokemon graveyard tower. There was a square you could walk into and it would heal your entire team for free without even making you go through the long (or rather, long when you had to read it every time you wanted to heal) dialogue at the centers.

But it was on the second or third floor and you had to deal with being accosted by ghost pokemon the whole way to get to it. In my own experience, it was wonderful when you were actually in the Tower for that part of the game because you may be getting your shit roont by the ghosts since there weren't a lot of pokemon up to that point that were good for fighting them, but it was too much of a pain in the ass to use regularly after you'd done all you had to there.

Especially since Pokemon also had centers in nearly every town that would also heal your team for free.

Is it still scumming if you recognize and embrace the reason why a player might return the church instead of trying to thwart it?

[baconman]

Pokemon is ridiculously forgiving if you know how to play it right. And it constantly spells out how to do that for you. Only major encounters or really long caves have ANY chance of whiting you out, unless you really suck at managing your money and resources - which is quite difficult to spend in any way and NOT manage well enough to get through. Even the chances of a type-themed "Gym Master" taking out your team of six with their team of (3, at most) is completely ridiculous.

It is a valid example, if that's the level of difficulty/forgiveness you're going for, and it is something fairly common that can be designed around (lots of games feature save + refill points). But I dunno if it's the right one.