Thanks! The health boost was completely luck. The chest options are an array: ['gold' , 'sword', 'shield', 'm_attack', 'm_def', 'cha', 'hp', 'hp', 'mp', 'mp'] and you get one of those at random, so a slightly higher change of replenishing your magic or health.
I agree with the forced turn being a bit weird. But a dude walks up to you - you not going to fight (or talk lol)!? I think if i could slew the view a bit, like in Land of Lore or some of the more modern fully-3D games like Grimrock, it would help. Right now everything is pre-rendered, but I'm playing with some ideas to mimick a 3D rotation animation to give a bit better visual cue to the player.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to try it out, much appreciated :)