Hating on the Wand of CLW

[daemonslye]

Personally, I'm with Doug on this one (as a player or GM) based on points already made throughout the thread. However, the reason we play the game is for fun, and if healing the group to max hp between each encounter increases your group's fun, I say go for it. No style of play is inherently the "right" way - Go find some like-minded folk and, when everyone is having fun, you're doing it right. Right?

So, to answer your question: No Doug, it's not just you. Cheers,

~D

[Ross Byers]

I removed some posts. Don't be jerks. If you think a thread is not worthwhile, then no one is making you read it or post in it.

[Auxmaulous]

Ross Byers wrote:

I removed some posts. Don't be jerks. If you think a thread is not worthwhile, then no one is making you read it or post in it.

I hope you use that same criteria when deleting drive-by posts in every other thread.

And of course since it's gone now I can't prove it - by both mine and Doug's last post were not jerky, disparaging or anything negative. I just stated that both schools of thought/playstyles were at an impasse and if you like playing the way you do than more power to you.

Also that the door was open to debate the design values of the current hp and cure system numbers.

Do you even read the posts you delete?

[JCServant]

There's 400 other replies, but I'll throw my hat in the ring, Doug.

First, unless you're playing Pathfinder Society, its your game. Who says that wands of CLW have to be on sale in the starting town at all? You might be surprised just how restrictive magic item availability is in smaller towns (Read the Gamemaster Guide for more info).

Second, if you want to take them out, and do, what's your proposal to deal with the need for healing? Monsters hit hard. Fighters get hurt. If no one is playing a cleric or healer, what do you recommend?

Personally, I always have an NPC healer on tap for those types of parties. He/She gets a share of the xp and gold. They are there to heal first (and that includes ALL kinds of healing) and buff second. They essentially support the party thematically. This also gives me, as GM, a great 'in' with the party when I need it. Otherwise, the NPC can be as loud or quiet as I want...but they never outshine the party. As GM, I want my players to have fun being the heroes. So, if that means I have an NPC who follows them and keeps them patched up, so be it!

I would be interested in other thoughts as well. After all, again, unless your playing Pathfinder Society, the game is your oyster. What would you change?

[3.5 Loyalist]

Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

Thought experiment: I'm a 4th level fighter with 14 Con. Bizarrely, my party has NO healing whatsoever except for my friend Buddy the Bard, who has Cure Moderate Wounds as one of his second level spells. Also, we have no potions and no scrolls, and there's no friendly local cleric in town. Nothing. Oh, and nobody has bothered putting any ranks in Heal, either.

We come staggering back from the Dungeon of Doom. I've been reduced to zero hits! How long will it take me to recover?

Guess first, and then click.

** spoiler omitted **

Doug M.

Love that you broke this down, yep, magic healing isn't mandatory to game. No one waits a week to heal, maybe a few days.

[gustavo iglesias]

I would like to point that I'm going to drastically reduce the use of CLWW in my campaign, as I have found a (home)rule that pretty much render them obsolete. So I no longer have choose between using mass produced CLWW or forcing the game to stall while the heroes go back to town to sleep a few days or get stuck in a secret room in the dungeon built there so the raiders can rest 8 hours.

I'm incredibly happy with strain/injury house rule

[gustavo iglesias]

3.5 Loyalist wrote:

Love that you broke this down, yep, magic healing isn't mandatory to game. No one waits a week to heal, maybe a few days.

While that is true, is of no help for those of us who have to break our suspension of disbelief because of resting. "a few days" sleeping inside of the Dungeon, or leaving the plot aside, is more than enought to shatter my willing suspension of disbelief.

[LazarX]

Auxmaulous wrote:

Lumiere Dawnbringer wrote:

Auxmaulous wrote:

Lumiere Dawnbringer wrote:

the best players to target for bullying into the healbot role are

the shy and quiet player
the generally passive player
the player going through andropause/menopause
the emotional masochist
the new player who recently joined
the player with a compulsive need to please others
the less aware and informed player whose lack of information leads to them being more easily targetable

This thread went from battling the moronic to full-on creepy.

I think if you focus on manipulating people into playing a "healbot" based on this criteria you have bigger issues than healbots and CLWW (in and out of the game).

a lot of the groups in my local area compare playing a dedicated healbot to a combination of prostitution and indentured servitude. it gets you guaranteed acceptance, but with a bad aftertaste.

i don't personally do the bullying, but a lot of the other players do. earning a free slot do whatever role of your choice in a group in my local area generally requires having performed a minimum of 1 completed year or entire adventure path of consistent healbot duty for that group. exceptions are made if the DM likes you as a player.

Like I said, creepy.

Might be time to step away from the game or find another group?

The psyops angle of manipulation and looking for suitable targets based off of traits is both predatory and unhealthy.

Seriously - if you have a working list of RL qualities you look for in a player you have problems and some misplaced priorities. Many of the qualities you list are reminiscent of what predatory criminals look for in their prospective victims - for ALL types of crime.

The way it's been expressed may come off as "creepy" but it tells an essential truth. Healing is pretty much the least desired role in adventuring groups even though it's been part of the "Big Four" since Chainmail. And much of it is because of the gender role associations with being the "party nurse". And so it's frequently foisted on the last person to join a gaming group. Yes there are exceptions to this point of view, but it's a very vocal POV.

[hogarth]

My two cents (which are way too late in this thread): I dislike wands of Cure Light Wounds, but not because they make healing seem less "precious" -- I like having lots of healing available between fights. I just dislike the aesthetics of whipping out a bag full of magic wands.

[Goddess of Spent CLW Wands]

Cure Light Wounds wands are a necessity for the Pathfinder Society to flourish. I advocate, nay, demand their unlimited use, ad nauseam, until the sun is blotted from the sky by the piles of spent shafts plaintively reaching to the heavens.

[Elosandi]

I prefer a wand of infernal healing.

At caster level 1, out of combat, it's twice the hp per charge that a cure light wounds wand would give, for the same price as one. Plus, it's arcane, so the whole idea of "The gods investing their power in a stick that anyone can use with the right UMD check." isn't an issue.

In regards to when we ended up completely lacking healing for one reason or another, it led to some amusing situations.

In one, the summoner used their Eidolon and summons as the front line. The Eidolon was constantly at half-hp, because their solution to not being able to heal it was to kill it at the end of the day to get a new one the next day at half-hp.

[Calybos1]

Plus it's, y'know, evil.

[Kamelguru]

I think that in a game where 4 out of 5 classes can do some manner of magic, and there is a major faith dedicated to trade and bartering such services, there is nothing flow-breaking about wands of curing at all.

That is probably what a lot of people fail to understand. Magic is common as dirt, but somehow, people cling to this misplaced notion that it is... well... "magical" in the sense of old school games and fairy tales. Heck, even the setting of Harry Potter has less magic around than Golarion.

[Thomas Long 175]

I find this discussion in total rather humorous. Mind, I only read the first page. But if they're using CLWW in combat and you're not outdamaging the healing rate something is seriously wrong IMHO.

[mplindustries]

Kamelguru wrote:

That is probably what a lot of people fail to understand. Magic is common as dirt, but somehow, people cling to this misplaced notion that it is... well... "magical" in the sense of old school games and fairy tales.

Or, people wish magic was rare and "magical" and are upset that these sorts of things make it so that it is not. ;)

Thomas Long 175 wrote:

I find this discussion in total rather humorous. Mind, I only read the first page. But if they're using CLWW in combat and you're not outdamaging the healing rate something is seriously wrong IMHO.

I don't think anyone has ever used a Wand of Cure Light Wounds in combat unless someone was in the negatives.

[Zenogu]

Healing doesn't win the game for you. It simply lets you continue playing the game.

[3.5 Loyalist]

gustavo iglesias wrote:

3.5 Loyalist wrote:

Love that you broke this down, yep, magic healing isn't mandatory to game. No one waits a week to heal, maybe a few days.

While that is true, is of no help for those of us who have to break our suspension of disbelief because of resting. "a few days" sleeping inside of the Dungeon, or leaving the plot aside, is more than enought to shatter my willing suspension of disbelief.

Dig in, barricade, set watches. How does that suspend disbelief?

Some dungeons may be safer than others to nap in, but a dm can always be a cad and throw a few threats that get inside.

[3.5 Loyalist]

Kamelguru wrote:

I think that in a game where 4 out of 5 classes can do some manner of magic, and there is a major faith dedicated to trade and bartering such services, there is nothing flow-breaking about wands of curing at all.

That is probably what a lot of people fail to understand. Magic is common as dirt, but somehow, people cling to this misplaced notion that it is... well... "magical" in the sense of old school games and fairy tales. Heck, even the setting of Harry Potter has less magic around than Golarion.

Was reading this today, quite relevant:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/criticalintel/10302-I -Hate-Magic

Most days I think pf went overboard with magic.

[Kamelguru]

3.5 Loyalist wrote:

Kamelguru wrote:

I think that in a game where 4 out of 5 classes can do some manner of magic, and there is a major faith dedicated to trade and bartering such services, there is nothing flow-breaking about wands of curing at all.

That is probably what a lot of people fail to understand. Magic is common as dirt, but somehow, people cling to this misplaced notion that it is... well... "magical" in the sense of old school games and fairy tales. Heck, even the setting of Harry Potter has less magic around than Golarion.

Was reading this today, quite relevant:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/criticalintel/10302-I -Hate-Magic

Most days I think pf went overboard with magic.

I wholeheartedly agree that magic has been mechanized, categorized and trivialized. But since it is a core mechanic of the game, and it is common by the very meta that constructs the world, the act of arbitrarily making it rare breaks the balance of things. The game assumes that the players have access to copious amounts of magic, because it throws copious amounts of magic back at them. More than half the monster manual has some manner of magical or supernatural power, many which can only be countered by magic in turn.

I would compare it to old people disliking the modern digital world, where everything is online and the once awe-inspiring life-changers of yesteryear, as well as the bulk of their knowledge and knowledge of the world have been made obsolete or trivialized, and technology is now such an integral part of our world that we almost cannot make due without.

Magic in pathfinder is casual. Just as casual as technology is in Cyberpunk.

Before someone posts the "90% of the Pathfinder world are commoners" straw-man: Sure, most people do not have magic as part of their daily lives, and it requires a level of training, but that is perfectly reflected in the magic=tech argument, as 99% of the worlds owners of smart-phones or i-pads actually have barely the most basic idea how their gadgets works.