As per this thread I decided to create a poll similar to my 3.5 Poll. Note: I have borrowed criteria suggested by Matthew Downie in this post
but feel free to leave a comment too!
- Gauss
Option 1: Healing in combat is never the right answer. NEVER!
This option means that you will never ever heal in combat.
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Option 2: Healing in combat is a very bad use of resources and should be a last resort.
This option means that you will normally perform other actions in combat but will save a comrade from dying if it comes to that.
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Option 3: Healing in combat is a perfectly effective way to reduce risk to your party.
This option means that you will heal primarily but not exclusively.
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Option 4: Every party needs a dedicated healer who does nothing but cast healing spells in battle.
This option means that you do nothing but heal in combat. When you aren't healing you are waiting to heal someone.
I vote Option 2.
IMO a character is always better off buffing, fighting, or doing anything else except healing in combat unless a character is close to being downed.
First, because the resources could end up wasted (if they are damaged again, and you could have healed that hit + more after com bat, for example), and second because it prolongs the battle in an unfavorable way most times.
Rynjin, by all means, please favorite your vote. :)
- Gauss
Oh derpy derp derp.
I somehow completely missed that part.
Well, as per the other poll I did people commented too. :)
- Gauss
its simple.
If someone is in deep dooky, and yells out for help in a fight, then the party cleric SHOULD charge to the rescue to heal them. Otherwise most clerics just swing their weapon or cast buffs.
Like the last time I ran a fight, the Rogue got ALL of his hit points taken by a single swing from an ogre. Not fun!
Option 2.
My players are option 2. They don't worry about healing until someone is within a swing of death. After combat any serious injuries are healed with a couple channel energies and the group moves on (I use the Strain/Injury variant for hp, so everything other than critical hits and failed saving throws will heal after a short rest fo bandage up and catch your breath).
I think there is another option.. a 2.5 if you will. Healing someone when there isn't a more effective use of your action.
Most heal spells I use during combat tend to fall in this category.
Usually this means your fighting something hard to hit, and the spells you have are not entirely effective against the enemy.
Also, My wizards familiar tends to do this a lot with CLW wand.
I guess it's hard to judge between the existing 2 and 3. I guess 2 for me. 3 for another gamer in my group who doesn't come to these boards.
I'm pretty squarely in the Option 2 camp. Circumstances such as party level, composition, the threats/challenges in question, and pure dumb luck will dictate my actual response. I will say that as my cleric has advanced in level (1st to 8th), in-combat channeling has become very rare, as the party has gained more tools to deal with threats. However, I am not above converting a 4th level spell into a cure critical wounds if that's what's warranted.
2.5 for me too.
I'd pick option 1, but it's too extreme. Never? If you said rarely, I'd pick that option (especially considering I've been in many parties with no healer), but once in a while even the wizard has to use Infernal Healing in the middle of battle. Super rare, but it happened.
As a player = Option 3 most of the time.
As a DM = Option 2 most of the time.
As DM, i let all player start out with hp equal to = Constitution + Max 1st level class hp + Con Bonus. Also, i do not use -10 for death, but - Constitution for death. Like to encourage high con score.
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I don't think this poll has the right answer for me.
I don't think an in combat healer is necessary, by any stretch of the imagination. For the vast majority of characters capable of healing, option 2 is the answer.
However, I have made characters capable of healing in combat, efficiently and effectively, and for them, option 3 was where it was at. You have to build the character properly to take advantage of this, though--it's not something you can just do with any character. I've personally found it works best with Hospitaler Paladins and Oracles of Life (and have played both to great effect), though I assume some sort of Cleric ought to be able to pull it off, too. I always healed first, when needed, but my Paladin was also a back-up tank and hitter (with a glaive), while my Oracle was a back-up controller.
The key is finding ways to take damage for/from other people (Life Link, Shield Other, etc.) and using the efficiency of group healing (channeling, Mass Cure X Wounds/Heal) and action-economy-abusing self-healing (Paladins LoH on self as a swift, and Oracles of Life Energy Body self as a move). It's very doable, but it requires a kind of focus many people do not enjoy. There are those of us that do, however, and it does work.
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I went with 3, but it's really the 2.5 people are talking about. Far too many times, healing during combat has just plain been a need, and not an option, for 2 to be my real answer...but so much of my gaming in d20 has been in a huge group...monsters have sometimes been almost utterly overpowering...in one case we had 1 character that could hit on other than a 20, and the thing was carrying an antimagic field. Mummy monk. Don't get me started. :p
2.5 for me as well. Not a last resort, but certainly a secondary option.
I chose last resort.
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I don't get it. Why is this a question or a poll? You heal up when necessary. Sometimes you can wait, other times somebody is down for the count and the healer needs to break away to tend to him.
Must everything be so compartmentalized and categorized and regimented? Can't people just make decisions as the need arises?
2.5 for me as well. Not a last resort, but certainly a secondary option.
Yes. I think your bias here, OP, made you to word the poll so that it skews towards your personal viewpoint.
You worded # 2 poorly. Our group apparently plays a lot like JJ's plays. Combats are rather long and in combat healing is just part of the many services a divine caster offers. They buff, do battlefield control, blast or smash, and heal when it's the best option.
Thus they do NOT "will heal primarily but not exclusively" nor "normally perform other actions in combat but will save a comrade from dying if it comes to that". Because saving a comrade from DROPPING is just as important. When the tank DROPS, for a round or more he no longer takes hits or deals damage (nor does his player get to do much). Then, when he is healed he usually has to provoke a AoO while getting up.
The RIGHT tactic is use healing during combat just enough to keep your fellow PC's from DROPPING, not DYING. Buffing is likely the best use of a divine caster, as it often will prevent damage. And of course "healing" includes condition removal.
So, your poll questions are poorly worded, and the results are skewed.
Ryngin, for example voted 2, but his answer ("unless a character is close to being downed") indicates an actual preference for 2.5.
Counting the wordings of the posts, the VAST majority (about 12 votes out of 17 posters) prefers option 2.5= "Other options first, heal when needed to prevent a fellow PC from dropping".
Which is what JJ basically sez.
Mind you, I have heard some groups play super-charged glass cannons where the combat is over by round 3, then wands are used. In those odd circumstances, letting your tank be dropped on R2 doesn't mean much as the combat is over next round. But for most of us combats last 5-8 rounds, and thus having the tank dropping r2 means for well over have the battle 1/4 of the team is out, and that likely means another member of the team will go down.
Also of course, none of these option include one of the better tactics- having your tank be a Paladin who can heal himself as a Swift. For him, healing in COMBAT is an excellent tactic and also wastes no resources.
So, why not try again. Include another option "Other options are often a better use of resources, but in combat healing should be used to prevent a fellow PC from being dropped".
I think your bias here, OP, made you to word the poll so that it skews towards your personal viewpoint.
No, he literally copy/pasted someone else's criteria, which he cites in the very first line of his post.
The rest of your criticism and response basically amounts to "I think the word 'dying' should be replaced with 'getting dropped' in the flavor text supplement of option #2."
Healing in combat is a very bad use of resources and should be a last resort.
Healing only to prevent a fellow party member from dropping sounds like using it as a last resort to me.
So, why not try again. Include another option "Other options are often a better use of resources, but in combat healing should be used to prevent a fellow PC from being dropped".
These are broad categories (they have to be, there are only 4), and what you describe here is basically 2.1 or 2.2 ... certainly not distinct enough to warrant an entirely new option.
I think the poll questions were well stated, and the intention of the OP is not to skew the results with wording (what would be the point of that?), but to get a general feeling about how people handle healing.
If so, then why have most of the responses here favoured a 2.5 option? Indeed, he did quote another poster, but then added his own interpretation of what that poster meant, and it is that we disagree with.
The major issue is the added line "This option means that you will heal primarily but not exclusively." And, most of us are saying that NO, we do NOT heal "primaily" we heal secondarily, after buffing and other better options, but that healing is the right tactic at the right time.
Here's what James Jacobs sez:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pi6r?Clerics-shields-and-the-limitations-of-on ly#46
"Every game is different.
In games I run and play in, clerics always heal in combat, and often that ends up being the thing that lets the players survive.
A player of a cleric needs to be comfortable with the fact that he's there to support the group with healing and similar spells—that's kind of the whole point of the class. If I'm playing a cleric, and my in-combat healing keeps the fighter alive for one more round and in that round he manages to kill the bad guy, but if I hadn't healed him he would have been killed before he got that attack, then effectively I'm as much to thank for the death of the bad guy as the fighter is.
In fact, in Jason Bulmahn's weekly grind game (which he hasn't run since last Gen Con, alas), I was playing a cleric who pretty much was healing EVERY ROUND in combat, or something close to it, it seemed. And the one time I wasn't able to do this (because of what I still maintain to be a grossly unfair ambush that got me killed before my initiative got to me)... the lack of healing in combat resulted in a TPK.
I've never agreed with the "healing in combat is a bad idea." But again... every game is different.
In any event, to confirm to the original poster, if you're a cleric you should probably either favor the buckler or light shield, as those shields were designed in part to serve the game as things that let you use that hand for other things like spellcasting. Or, alternatively, do a heavy shield and don't carry a weapon. Clerics don't need weapons to kick ass and be a valuable member of a group, unless of course they've used up all their spells and channel energies and the like."
There are some people that make healbots, and if they are not healing they stand around doing nothing. I had to break a fellow player out of that mindset. Making a cleric to heal primarily has been supported as "the way" more than once on these boards. Now I don't think it is the most common way to do it, but I have seen it.
The idea is not that "healing in combat is bad". The idea is that you should not be doing it for the majority of the fights that take place. I say "idea" because sometimes things happen, and in that case you do what you have to do in order to survive.
We nearly always find it necessary to heal...AT SOME TIME LATER IN THE COMBAT. Thus, indeed, someone who can do nothing BUT heal is useless for the first few or even 2/3rd the combat. Bad choice.
But a buffer/healer is a very good choice. Buff, buff, flank, heal, heal.
Option 2, although my Paladin frequently uses shield other and lay on hands to heal himself in combat.
Generally the best way to prevent companions from dying is to kill/incapacitate the bad guys.
Its very very group dependant.
Some groups need the beat-stick between fights and otherwise are fine. Other parties need a dedicated healer ready at a moment's notice to heal htm up or the baddies are gonna win the day.
Who is right or wrong? Which is better or worse? Neither really. Its a playstyle issue with the players and the DM. As long as all are having fun, there is no problem.
As an example:
We're currently about to end RotL. We have one melee combat cleric who handles 80-90% of our healing. Two familiars handle the other 10% with little being done in combat. (occasionally yes, but its not terribly common).
For our next campaign we're switching DM's. The players who've played under this DM have advised us that we're going to *need* a dedicated healer. I've signed up for that spot. (go go gadget life oracle!).
I don't think either way is bad/wrong/fun.
-S
I think your bias here, OP, made you to word the poll so that it skews towards your personal viewpoint...
You worded # 2 poorly...
So, your poll questions are poorly worded, and the results are skewed...
This is a lot of criticism (not entirely constructive either) aimed at the OP's question. I think he's made a good faith effort to ask a simple question. Also, you haven't demonstrated how the results are skewed if people just pick both #2 and #3 when they want to pick "2.5"...
You're whining that there isn't an option between #2 and #3, but does it really matter? Some polls ask questions without a middle, or "average" choice. They ask, for example:
"When do you attempt to kill yourself after reading online forums?"
1) Always! These people need a life... They can take mine!
2) Often... The rampant self-importance of anonymous posters who argue over the most trivial things is really depressing.
3) Rarely... e.g. only when some guy named ChadROX tells me "duel-weildin is for noobs, brah"
4) Never! I love trolling people on those forums!
In this poll, there is no "2.5) Sometimes? An average amount?", forcing you to choose between 2 and 3. That's okay. Many polls do this. If you would like a poll with a "middle ground" option, then that's great, and you are entitled to that opinion.
In the time you took to criticize this poll and the accuse the OP of skewing it in favor of his opinion (for some ultimate dark purpose, we can only imagine!)... you could have just made your own poll as an alternative.
*chuckles*
Wow, I really did just copy and paste the suggestion someone else posted. I thought they were good options and did not see a middle option. I figured a bit more guidance as to what I thought they meant was needed but I do not see how that is bias.
If Paizo's boards were more flexible I would add a middle "2.5" option although I really do not see the need. I think that most 2.5 people really fall into #2 or #3 based on the descriptions they give.
In my opinion, one person who said 2.5 went on to describe what amounted to option #2 while another poster who put down 2.5 went on to describe what amounted to option #3.
I have not made any attempt at putting valuations on other people's concepts. I only sought to answer the question from the other thread: Is there a consensus?
While I cannot say there is a clear consensus I can say that nobody has selected option 4 and only one person has come close to selection option 1.
Anyhow, like it or not, favorite or not, there was no bias on my part. (Note: that was a happy accident of rhyming.)
- Gauss
I'm straddling 2 and 3. At low levels especially, it can be very useful to heal during combat, and in some fights, there may not be much else to do.
Recently, I was in a fight at level 3 against a black dragon that was probably CR 9ish. Now, we had a big party (9 players), but it was still pretty nasty, with enough AC that my barbarian was the only character that could hit it consistently, enough HP that even if the weaker characters DID hit, their contributions would be fairly irrelevant (I crit it twice for a total of a little over 100 damage total, and it still took another couple rounds to drop), and I was getting pounded on (as barbarians are want to do). So, the party cleric, witch, and paladin each healed me at least once during the fight. Situations like that come up often enough that calling healing mid-combat a terrible choice is a little narrow-minded.
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However, I have made characters capable of healing in combat, efficiently and effectively, and for them, option 3 was where it was at. You have to build the character properly to take advantage of this, though--it's not something you can just do with any character. I've personally found it works best with Hospitaler Paladins and Oracles of Life (and have played both to great effect), though I assume some sort of Cleric ought to be able to pull it off, too.
I've seen it as a cleric. Merciful Healer cleric with Quick Channel, Phylactery of Positive Energy, and the Healer's Touch feat which together with the healing domain meant that by 9th level all his Cure spells were both Maximized and Empowered for free. In a serious fight he'd usually start with a quick channel and then use his Standard for either a second channel, a Mass Cure spell, or a big Cure (CCW healed about 63 points) if there was one character soaking up most of the damage. He kept our fighter standing while he traded full attacks with a mature adult red dragon.
*chuckles*
Wow, I really did just copy and paste the suggestion someone else posted. I thought they were good options and did not see a middle option. I figured a bit more guidance as to what I thought they meant was needed but I do not see how that is bias.
I have not made any attempt at putting valuations on other people's concepts. I only sought to answer the question from the other thread: Is there a consensus?
You did, altho I am sure you don't realize it:"Option 3: Healing in combat is a perfectly effective way to reduce risk to your party.
This option means that you will heal primarily but not exclusively."
And, most of us are saying that NO, we do NOT heal "primarily" we heal secondarily, after buffing and other better options, but that healing is the right tactic at the right time.
Which is why so many dudes are saying "2.5".
If you heal secondarily, after buffing and other options, you fall into two.
You normally perform other actions but heal when you have nothing else to do and it's needed.
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*chuckles*
Wow, I really did just copy and paste the suggestion someone else posted. I thought they were good options and did not see a middle option. I figured a bit more guidance as to what I thought they meant was needed but I do not see how that is bias.
If Paizo's boards were more flexible I would add a middle "2.5" option although I really do not see the need. I think that most 2.5 people really fall into #2 or #3 based on the descriptions they give.
In my opinion, one person who said 2.5 went on to describe what amounted to option #2 while another poster who put down 2.5 went on to describe what amounted to option #3.
I have not made any attempt at putting valuations on other people's concepts. I only sought to answer the question from the other thread: Is there a consensus?
While I cannot say there is a clear consensus I can say that nobody has selected option 4 and only one person has come close to selection option 1.
Anyhow, like it or not, favorite or not, there was no bias on my part. (Note: that was a happy accident of rhyming.)
- Gauss
You see, gauss, your "guidance" is the problem with option 3.
This option means that you will heal primarily but not exclusively.
With you heal primarily you have moved the position of option 3 and opened the need for option 2.5.
The chasm between:
2 Healing in combat is a very bad use of resources and should be a last resort.
This option means that you will normally perform other actions in combat but will save a comrade from dying if it comes to that.
3 This option means that you will heal primarily but not exclusively.
is too large.
The guidance for 2.5 could be "this option mean that you try to keep your party members health to level in which a routine attack from the enemy will not down them in one round."
Especially at low level it is not always possible but it is a option.
I think everyone complaining that the options don't cover every possible spectrum of choice would probably claw their eyes out in frustration taking one of those "Are you suitable to work here?" surveys attached to many job applications.
If you heal secondarily, after buffing and other options, you fall into two.
You normally perform other actions but heal when you have nothing else to do and it's needed.
No. "Option 2: Healing in combat is a very bad use of resources and should be a last resort.
This option means that you will normally perform other actions in combat but will save a comrade from dying if it comes to that."
Note the terms "as a last resort" and "save from dying". We heal when it is tactically sound, to prevent a comrade from being DROPPED.
If he's been dropped and the enemy is still alive, he's dead. It'll just take an extra round to assure that.
It's just semantics, really.