Healing in combat - why should it not be needed?


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Tempest_Knight wrote:

Anzyr, you do understand that sub-par and below average mean the same thing, right?

Sub: below
Par: average

~

I have had combats last into the double digits, generally because of 'monster' in combat healing.

Baddie in combat healing tends to lead to PC death. Why? Because the baddies can fight longer.

Seems to point to the value of in combat healing.

~

I'm sure that we can all agree that in combat healing is generally a sub-par option. But there are occasions when it saves the party.

Baddie in combat healing is equally inefficient (outside of Heal the spell and other exceptions), because the PCs should also outdamage CR appropriate healing. If a big bad takes time out of the fight to cast Cure X Wounds, even if might extend the fight a round, they've effectively blanked an entire turn of being a threat.


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Boomerang Nebula wrote:
Brother Fen wrote:
It sounds like your group might need better tactics. Read the Art of War by Sun Tzu.
I've read Sun Tzu's art of war (or to be precise an English translation of it). To summarise he advocates using strategy and diplomacy to avoid combat. Whilst I agree with his point of view, I don't see how it is relevant to healing magic.

Chapter II.

Ch. II.6 "There is no instance of a country having benefitted from prolonged warfare."

Ch. II.8 "The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy, neither are his supply wagons loaded more than twice."

Ch. II.19 "In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns."

Success is achieved by using your resources to achieve a quick victory, or what the theory-crafters on this board call "rocket tag." The spell slots your caster is putting into cure moderate wounds are going to disappear next round as more hit points are done to your front-line fighters. Rather than using your "supply wagons" and "levies" to keep your troops in fighting shape over a "lengthy campaign," use them to achieve "victory."

Or, paraphrasing, "there is no instance of a character having benefitted from prolonged combat."

(All quotes are from the Lionel Giles translation.)


Flawed logic. Any monster healing itself against a party of 5 comes out losing that end, not the other way around. Prolonging is actually better then.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

It's quite simple really. The only time healing in combat is good is if the healing will outpace the damage dealt. If your party can't do much damage, then the monster healing itself more than that damage is not a bad idea. (It's even better if they can do it and still take other offensive actions.) If the enemy can't do as much damage as you are healing, then you can heal and be fine. The problem is that damage gets so extreme in this game that the situations where healing is a good idea are few and far between. My BBEG last night didn't get much of any offense besides his gaze attack because the two paladins were able to push 150 points of damage on him. Each. So the party had nothing to heal, because no one took damage with their 40ACs.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Boomerang Nebula wrote:
Brother Fen wrote:
It sounds like your group might need better tactics. Read the Art of War by Sun Tzu.
I've read Sun Tzu's art of war (or to be precise an English translation of it). To summarise he advocates using strategy and diplomacy to avoid combat. Whilst I agree with his point of view, I don't see how it is relevant to healing magic.

Chapter II.

Ch. II.6 "There is no instance of a country having benefitted from prolonged warfare."

Ch. II.8 "The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy, neither are his supply wagons loaded more than twice."

Ch. II.19 "In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns."

Success is achieved by using your resources to achieve a quick victory, or what the theory-crafters on this board call "rocket tag." The spell slots your caster is putting into cure moderate wounds are going to disappear next round as more hit points are done to your front-line fighters. Rather than using your "supply wagons" and "levies" to keep your troops in fighting shape over a "lengthy campaign," use them to achieve "victory."

Or, paraphrasing, "there is no instance of a character having benefitted from prolonged combat."

(All quotes are from the Lionel Giles translation.)

Faulty logic.

The real world and the game are not the same thing; magic breaks rules.

In the real world, there is no restorative magic.
All resources only dwindle in combat; they can never replenish.
While spells may dwindle for the day, they replenish the following.
In the real world, you don't get magically replenishing food, water, and medical supplies.
That's why prolonged battles are detrimental for a nation: they dwindle resources.

In the game, it's about adapting to the battlefield environment.
You do what you need to do to come out ahead.
Sometimes that means adding damage, sometimes that means spending a round buffing, sometimes that means spending a round debuffing.

If that Cure Moderate Wounds is the difference between a live party member and a dead party member, you cast Cure Moderate Wounds, unless you are 100% positive you can eliminate the threat before it can act again.
If the loss of the resources of a party member outweigh the cost of resources on your part, you do it.


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Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:
Faulty logic.

I'm sorry you feel that way, especially since you're not only transparently wrong, but you're entirely missing Master Sun's point, esp. II.9.

Resources do replenish, as Sun knew well -- if you need more men, you levy more troops; if you need more food or weapons, you reload your supply wagons -- but it's generally a bad idea for exactly the reason you mention. While it's true you'll get more spell slots tomorrow, you will also get more food and weapons next harvest season. If you can hold out that long, having blown your resources through an unnecessarily prolonged set of fights.

In both the game and in real life, the point of adaptation to the battle environment is not to prolong the battle, but to shorten it. If you're taking too much damage, the solution -- in both the game and real life -- is to reduce the amount of damage you're taking, not burn supplies to repair the damage so that you can burn even more supplies a few moments later.


Wars take months or years. Adventures take days. The new day needed to regain spells is therefore a comparatively long time.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:
Faulty logic.

I'm sorry you feel that way, especially since you're not only transparently wrong, but you're entirely missing Master Sun's point, esp. II.9.

Resources do replenish, as Sun knew well -- if you need more men, you levy more troops; if you need more food or weapons, you reload your supply wagons -- but it's generally a bad idea for exactly the reason you mention. While it's true you'll get more spell slots tomorrow, you will also get more food and weapons next harvest season. If you can hold out that long, having blown your resources through an unnecessarily prolonged set of fights.

In both the game and in real life, the point of adaptation to the battle environment is not to prolong the battle, but to shorten it. If you're taking too much damage, the solution -- in both the game and real life -- is to reduce the amount of damage you're taking, not burn supplies to repair the damage so that you can burn even more supplies a few moments later.

No one's saying his book is wrong, just it's application here to this situation. He didn't have magical healing, he had a thousand hungry men. I think it would be a different story if he had guaranteed divine intervention on every conflict.


Cavall wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Lord Twitchiopolis wrote:
Faulty logic.

I'm sorry you feel that way, especially since you're not only transparently wrong, but you're entirely missing Master Sun's point, esp. II.9.

Resources do replenish, as Sun knew well -- if you need more men, you levy more troops; if you need more food or weapons, you reload your supply wagons -- but it's generally a bad idea for exactly the reason you mention. While it's true you'll get more spell slots tomorrow, you will also get more food and weapons next harvest season. If you can hold out that long, having blown your resources through an unnecessarily prolonged set of fights.

In both the game and in real life, the point of adaptation to the battle environment is not to prolong the battle, but to shorten it. If you're taking too much damage, the solution -- in both the game and real life -- is to reduce the amount of damage you're taking, not burn supplies to repair the damage so that you can burn even more supplies a few moments later.

No one's saying his book is wrong, just it's application here to this situation. He didn't have magical healing, he had a thousand hungry men. I think it would be a different story if he had guaranteed divine intervention on every conflict.

Not really. If Master Sun had available "guaranteed divine intervention" that would either have given him food for a thousand hungry men, or preventing the enemy army from fighting, he would have chosen the latter, because he can take care of food issues after the battle. (See VI.22; II.15) Which is basically the choice between cure moderate wounds or hold person.

In a realistic world, if he had paused in his battle plans to feed the thousand hungry men, they will be hungry again a day later, and he will have given the opponent a day to make their own plans and strengthen themselves. In an unrealistic world, the men will still be hungry again a day later, and he will have used an epic magic that could have directly weakened the enemy, to the point that they could have been defeated.

In the Pathfinder world, if he heals someone of twenty hit points, he will have given the opponent a free round to full attack, and the bad guy will probably have done a lot more than 20 hit points. You're bailing a leaky boat with a thimble.

Basically, in the real world, damaging things is almost always easier than building them or repairing them. This is also true, by design, in Pathfinder. It's much easier to prevent 50 points of damage by reducing the enemy's capacity to hurt you than it is to heal 50 points of damage.


Hold Person has between a 0% and 95% chance of working, depending on how high your caster stat is, whether you're fighting a humanoid with a poor Will save, and whether the GM rolls his dice behind a screen and only allows villain saving throws to fail when dramatically appropriate. Cure Moderate Wounds has a 100% chance of working. It's a call the caster has to make on a case by case basis.


Nobody's really saying you should never heal in combat. Just that it's generally less useful than a spell like hold person or shield of faith, and that the role of "combat healer" is actually a pretty nonexistant one—clerics are always better off focusing on another combat discipline (like fighting, or buffing) and just keeping their healing options open.


Matthew Downie wrote:
Hold Person has between a 0% and 95% chance of working, depending on how high your caster stat is, whether you're fighting a humanoid with a poor Will save, and whether the GM rolls his dice behind a screen and only allows villain saving throws to fail when dramatically appropriate. Cure Moderate Wounds has a 100% chance of working. It's a call the caster has to make on a case by case basis.

First, if the DM is deciding pass or fail based on something besides dice rolls, that's a major departure from the rules and outside the scope of this discussion.

Second, we know information about monsters and the amount of healing. We have to weight each action according to the benefit it will give us. A full round of monster damage exceeds healing no matter what level we're at, so our damage prevention option doesn't need to succeed 100% of the time for it to come out ahead. Presumably, you will choose a damage prevention option that you are good at, so you can have some confidence that option will work. You (or your party) can make knowledge checks for information that can guide you to the best options.


Healing in combat is often necessary, and it works just fine. You don't want to "always" heal in combat, but healing in combat is normal and often a very effective tactic.

People are all hung up on the idea that combats should be finished in the surprise round, and then you will have all the time you need to drain a wand of cure light wounds while time stands still. This is a nice theoretical ideal, but, if Pathfinder worked that way, it would be pretty boring. The reality of the game is that combats are always different, and success in the long run goes to the person who can handle the unexpected, not the one-trick-pony. The idea that you can have such strong offenses that you won't need to heal is something I have never seen in decades of gaming.

Healing in combat works fine if you look at the math. You will need sound tactics, and decent defenses, but those are generally required for any strategy.If you want to be "good" at healing, all you need is a positive energy cleric, or equivalent. It is fairly rare that you will get into a situation where you can't keep PCs upright. If you want to be "great" at healing, you will need the healing domain, or equivalent. With this setup you can basically keep up with incoming damage as long as you need to. The Heal spell is a nice jump in healing power, but is not needed until around 15th level, or in extreme situations.


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Fergie wrote:
Healing in combat works fine if you look at the math. You will need sound tactics, and decent defenses, but those are generally required for any strategy.If you want to be "good" at healing, all you need is a positive energy cleric, or equivalent. It is fairly rare that you will get into a situation where you can't keep PCs upright. If you want to be "great" at healing, you will need the healing domain, or equivalent. With this setup you can basically keep up with incoming damage as long as you need to. The Heal spell is a nice jump in healing power, but is not needed until around 15th level, or in extreme situations.

If you're going to make this claim, you need to show your work. Because I don't see any numbers in your post, and I did run the numbers. Numbers that, incidentally, also line up with the numbers here. Average high damage of a CR 11 is 50. Cure Critical is 4d8+11, average 29, Mass Cure Moderate is 2d8+11 (completely missed the CL limit goes up on my last post), average of 20. So with Cure spells you can heal a single target for 60% of the damage it takes or multiple targets for 40%. Channel Energy is slightly better than MCM at 6d6 (average 21) and a way to do it as a move action (Quick Channel). I didn't consider quickened spells but given that Cure Moderate is the only one you could quicken, that's exceedingly wasteful given that Heal is totally an option.

So, what math are you looking at?

Scarab Sages

As other posters have stated, healing is a fine option in combat, but only when it's an appropriate tactical decision. If your Cleric spends 3 rounds healing to keep one guy alive for an extra round, you would have been better off playing a character that could have ended the combat 2 rounds ago, or casting spells that directly inhibit the damage enemies can deal.

I have even gone out of my way to exploit the whole "gang-up on the healer" and made my cleric that I play uber tanky, so I reduce enemy action economy by "tricking" them into attacking what is supposed to be the squishy healer. I once stalled for a full three rounds and just laughed while enemies couldn't harm me anyways.

So yeah, healing is useful when it's useful, but you're better off doing other stuff most of the time, to the point that dedicating yourself to being a healer is pretty pointless.


Let us start with a party of 4 that does not include a dedicated healer.

At a first approximation, removing one of those 4 for a healer reduces their offense by 25%, increasing the length of a victorious battle by 33%. As a consequence of the increased duration every fight consumes 33% more non-HP resources. This is bad if your GM or level prevents 15 minute workdays. Unless the healer can extend the party's survival by at least 33% he's actually making the party weaker.

But most parties include one anvil who contributes little damage. There are now three characters contributing to shortening the fight and one controlling the flow of the fight. Now losing a hammer or arm for a healer reduces offense by 33% and increases the duration of a fight and thus the non-HP resource expenditure by 50%. If the healer can't extend the party's survival by at least 50% he's actually making the party weaker.

Sun Tzu is even more right in Pathfinder than in reality because in Pathfinder your barbarian can't just get more rage rounds off the supply wagon while in reality you can beef up your logistics to move more food and more arrows or bullets or artillery shells and more reinforcements. In reality lower intensity conflicts consume resources more slowly. In Pathfinder they consume more because a round of rage is a round of rage. It doesn't cost less because your cleric is a healbot instead of an angry Gorumite.


The other thing about healing in most D&D fantasy campaigns is you (and your foes) are just as effective when at 100% hp as you are when at 1 hp. There is no benefit to reducing the hp of your foes (typically) until they are at 0 or less which in turn increases the value of doing damage over healing it. And this also points to the value of a 'healing' character being not so much in hp recovery but in condition removal.


From what I remember of the copy of Sun Tzu that I saw, he'd LOVE him some battlefield controllers. 'You mean I can put mountains and difficult ground where I want? Where do I buy them!'

One other issue with being solely a healer is that if your combat troops are kicking ass and taking names, you're ... doing nothing. 'Need healing?' 'Nope!' 'Aw, man ... '

Still, most often you want to prevent the enemy from hurting you. Have some spells and abilities to mitigate it when needed (say, Barbie the Barbarian's down to where the next hit drops her, or she's already dropped), but otherwise you want to do things to prevent damage.

Every class in a way does this. And remember, the classes that most rely on random chance are the melee sluggers.


Bob Bob Bob wrote:
Fergie wrote:
Healing in combat works fine if you look at the math. You will need sound tactics, and decent defenses, but those are generally required for any strategy.If you want to be "good" at healing, all you need is a positive energy cleric, or equivalent. It is fairly rare that you will get into a situation where you can't keep PCs upright. If you want to be "great" at healing, you will need the healing domain, or equivalent. With this setup you can basically keep up with incoming damage as long as you need to. The Heal spell is a nice jump in healing power, but is not needed until around 15th level, or in extreme situations.

If you're going to make this claim, you need to show your work. Because I don't see any numbers in your post, and I did run the numbers. Numbers that, incidentally, also line up with the numbers here. Average high damage of a CR 11 is 50. Cure Critical is 4d8+11, average 29, Mass Cure Moderate is 2d8+11 (completely missed the CL limit goes up on my last post), average of 20. So with Cure spells you can heal a single target for 60% of the damage it takes or multiple targets for 40%. Channel Energy is slightly better than MCM at 6d6 (average 21) and a way to do it as a move action (Quick Channel). I didn't consider quickened spells but given that Cure Moderate is the only one you could quicken, that's exceedingly wasteful given that Heal is totally an option.

So, what math are you looking at?

The idea isn't to be equal to the damage done, it's to mitigate it partially. Too little and he's dead too much and it's wasted healing and therefore actions. Therefore you don't need to heal 50 hp. You need to heal enough the player feels comfortable continuing his attacks. If he doesn't then he backs off and does exactly 0 damage. Which is not good.

Additionally as it's been pointed out a heal will land 100 % of the time. A 11 CR monster will not. So his average dps needs to be taken as if he doesn't do an average of his damage dice but rather an average of damage dice after landing a hit. Your math fails to show that.


Qaianna wrote:


One other issue with being solely a healer is that if your combat troops are kicking ass and taking names, you're ... doing nothing. 'Need healing?' 'Nope!' 'Aw, man ... '

Still, most often you want to prevent the enemy from hurting you. Have some spells and abilities to mitigate it when needed (say, Barbie the Barbarian's down to where the next hit drops her, or she's already dropped), but otherwise you want to do things to prevent damage.

To be fair I dont think a single poster has made the case that a healer should ONLY Heal, and when not given the option, do nothing.

Simply that a dedicated healer, when called upon to heal, do so efficiently and with no hesitation.


Korlos wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
Hold Person has between a 0% and 95% chance of working, depending on how high your caster stat is, whether you're fighting a humanoid with a poor Will save, and whether the GM rolls his dice behind a screen and only allows villain saving throws to fail when dramatically appropriate. Cure Moderate Wounds has a 100% chance of working. It's a call the caster has to make on a case by case basis.
First, if the DM is deciding pass or fail based on something besides dice rolls, that's a major departure from the rules and outside the scope of this discussion.

Hardly. This is part of the most important rule, actually. Unless you guys aren't having fun.

Kayerloth wrote:
The other thing about healing in most D&D fantasy campaigns is you (and your foes) are just as effective when at 100% hp as you are when at 1 hp. There is no benefit to reducing the hp of your foes (typically) until they are at 0 or less which in turn increases the value of doing damage over healing it. And this also points to the value of a 'healing' character being not so much in hp recovery but in condition removal.

But what if you could preemptively stop the condition? Not that condition removal is bad, it's amazing in a pinch, but what if you could remove the guy applying the conditions? Consider that most Cleric condition removal spells come at the same spell level or higher than the condition you're trying to remove, and most require a caster level check and a standard action. Unless it's your smiting archer paladin who just got Hold Person'ed, casting Remove Paralysis is probably less effective than chopping up whoever cast this on him. It's more effective to swim out of a current than to try to swim against it.


Bob Bob Bob wrote:
So, what math are you looking at?

"Average Damage: This is the average amount of damage dealt by a creature of this CR if all of its attacks are successful. "

50 Incoming damage per round should be unusual at that level, as most monsters would not hit with all attacks.

Even if all attacks are getting through, you are preventing the whipping boy from going down on round three. If you are healing for 29/round he should keep getting beat for like 5 rounds or more. Again assuming that all the monsters attacks hit every round, and that there is no healing domain, maximize, etc. If you do have something like that, you can keep the character alive for 9-10 rounds, instead of 3.

In almost any actual game situation, many of the monsters attacks will miss, or there will be enough DR, temp HP, concealment, etc, that healing can be very effective. Alternatively, there are many ways to boost healing, and use spells like shield other, channel energy, etc.

Healing works.
Do it when healing is needed.

-More on those same numbers here-

Here is a great thread on the subject of healing in combat, with some amazing special guests.


My Self wrote:

<snip>

Kayerloth wrote:
The other thing about healing in most D&D fantasy campaigns is you (and your foes) are just as effective when at 100% hp as you are when at 1 hp. There is no benefit to reducing the hp of your foes (typically) until they are at 0 or less which in turn increases the value of doing damage over healing it. And this also points to the value of a 'healing' character being not so much in hp recovery but in condition removal.
But what if you could preemptively stop the condition? Not that condition removal is bad, it's amazing in a pinch, but what if you could remove the guy applying the conditions? Consider that most Cleric condition removal spells come at the same spell level or higher than the condition you're trying to remove, and most require a caster level check and a standard action. Unless it's your smiting archer paladin who just got Hold Person'ed, casting Remove Paralysis is probably less effective than chopping up whoever cast this on him. It's more effective to swim out of a current than to try to swim against it.

Absolutely, it's better to prevent than cure is undoubtedly true. My point would be more that conditions are generally a greater threat than any single hp injury owing to the fact that one functions just fine at 1 hp but your health is irrelevant (short of unconscious/dying) if you're paralyzed (or stunned or nauseated etc.). On the other hand that also makes your condition inflicting foe, for instance, a greater threat than a creature that is merely doing hp damage, so quite right and clobber the heck out of them pronto.


Fergie wrote:
Bob Bob Bob wrote:
So, what math are you looking at?

"Average Damage: This is the average amount of damage dealt by a creature of this CR if all of its attacks are successful. "

50 Incoming damage per round should be unusual at that level, as most monsters would not hit with all attacks.

Even if all attacks are getting through, you are preventing the whipping boy from going down on round three. If you are healing for 29/round he should keep getting beat for like 5 rounds or more. Again assuming that all the monsters attacks hit every round, and that there is no healing domain, maximize, etc. If you do have something like that, you can keep the character alive for 9-10 rounds, instead of 3.

-More on those same numbers here-

Here is a great thread on the subject of healing in combat, with some amazing special guests.

I don't see any math there that supports your conclusion. Bob Bob Bob listed numbers and showed the chart that supports healing in combat being (generally) a waste of resources and poor decision. If you want to convince people you need more then an appeal to authority. Especially, when said authority does not actually cite any numbers either.

If instead of healing you used some proper spells or even just liberal application of weapon to enemy face, you could have ended the fight on round 3 and prevented the 70+ damage the whipping took from dragging the fight out. You also would have saved multiple spell slots! Ya if whipping boy would go unconcsious on the next successful hit, you cure him to keep his actions, but until he's in danger of actually going down, you're much better off contributing the fight. That's a statistical and mathematical fact. You can't argue numbers without showing some of your own.


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I'm sorry, I should have been more clear.

I bolded the text indicating what the numbers on the chart mean.

Because PCs have armor and concelment and mirror images, and stuff, many attacks will miss. Therefor, the chart does not represent how much damage a PC will be taking, but rather how much they COULD take except for all those pesky defenses. If you compare the monster "high attack" number to a theoretical 10th level AC, you will find that the damage taken by a PC is well within the range of healing to mitigate in a tactically effective way.


I wouldn't wait until he's knocked out. That mean he's prone and lost his weapon. That's a full round and free attacks after being healed. That's hardly efficient at all.


It's really a question about whether the actions and spells/items/channels you would use for healing will end up on less expenditure of resources compared to using those spell slots or actions for something else, and generally it doesn't. But that's not to say that it never minimizes resource consumption, and that you should never do it, just that you should consider whether you really need to heal or if you'd be better of doing something else.

Just from a game design perspective, you generally do not want "having a dedicated healer" to be an optimal strategy, since there's a good chance that the player who's stuck playing the healbot probably isn't having as much fun as the player who is tossing fireballs or smashing faces. So you tweak the math of the game in order to make players feel like they don't need a dedicated healer, so nobody ends up getting pressured to play the healer "because the party needs one". More or less that's what happened here.

But if you think healing will be the best use of your money, spells, and actions then don't let people tell you not to do it . All sorts of situations you don't anticipate are going to come up at the table. Just consider that "someone needs to be the healer" is probably a faulty assumption, and if everybody gets out of combat alive with all of their limbs, you can just as easily heal them afterwards as you could during hostilities.


Cavall wrote:
I wouldn't wait until he's knocked out. That mean he's prone and lost his weapon. That's a full round and free attacks after being healed. That's hardly efficient at all.

Who suggested waiting that long?

Fergie wrote:

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear.

I bolded the text indicating what the numbers on the chart mean.

Because PCs have armor and concelment and mirror images, and stuff, many attacks will miss. Therefor, the chart does not represent how much damage a PC will be taking, but rather how much they COULD take except for all those pesky defenses. If you compare the monster "high attack" number to a theoretical 10th level AC, you will find that the damage taken by a PC is well within the range of healing to mitigate in a tactically effective way.

To mitigate? Sure, healing can mitigate some damage. Keep pace with? No. And if you can't keep pace with it, and you are using actions on it all you are doing is wasting actions. To use a metaphor, you are bailing water out of a sinking ship at a slower rate then water is coming in, instead of fixing the damn leak. Fixing the damn leak is always going to be more efficient and that chart demonstrates as such, until you get Bail All Water (Heal). And even then, you could just fix the damn leak. And then consume charge off a wand, instead of blowing a high level spell slot.

I'm sorry the scenarios were healing are efficient have already been covered. All you are proposing is inefficient combat strategies. If you fight with massively inefficient tactics, then it goes without saying your fights take more then 3 rounds.


Anzyr wrote:
And even then, you could just fix the damn leak.

Are you saying that every combat can be quickly ended with a single spell, or a couple whacks for the clerics flail?

EDIT: If a cleric is essentially mitigating an opponents actions, leaving the rest of the party free to beat the hell out of the opponent, that seems like a very effective tactic.


Not being in a position to get hit is a good start.


Hey everyone, it's TarkXT!

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I checked out your darkest dungeon posts. Very entertaining!

EDIT: Heh heh. I didn't realize it was like 10 months old.

I had just started playing the game again since the abomination was released.


Wait what?


Anzyr wrote:
To use a metaphor, you are bailing water out of a sinking ship at a slower rate then water is coming in, instead of fixing the damn leak.

If you have between three and six other people (depending on group size) fixing the leak, then having one person bailing out the water is pretty useful. Especially if you aren't very good at fixing leaks, or if you can't get to the leak because there are other people in the way.


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From my perspective healing's issues are three fold.

First, unless the healing out powers the numbers thrown at you twice over or you can do it faster than a standard action it puts you at a disadvantage action wise.

Second, it tends to put you in a rather awkward position. Nearly all healing options require you to touch your target. Kind of an issue when you're dealing with reach, are of effect spells, multiple enemies, or crowded areas. It's very easy to get yourself in a position where they're coming after you, or worse focus fire on your target to ensure they go down.

Lastly heal spells are largely inefficient compared to their offensive and buffing counter parts. Cure serious wounds is all well and good until you see the shenanigans a stinking cloud can pull, or the satisfyingly gory explosion of a meaty fireball.

Healing ahs it's place, as I've discussed before but to do so there are generally two rules of thumb.

Go big If you're healing in combat from a wand. Please stop. Put the wand down, go home, and never wand again. Heal big numbers when you need it, quickly if at all possible. The fewer actions you waste on recovery the more you're dedicated to winning.

Get buff Healing is for emergencies. Buffing is for combat. AC, miss chances, and battlefield control all work towards damage mittigation. The better you are at it the less healing you need. The less healing you throw out the more resources you can expend towards offense. It's a cycle that feeds itself. Healing slows your own momentum by dedicating an offensive or defensive action purely to recovery.

Stop getting hit! For realsies. If Kragthorr the Butcher is smashing your barbarian to death betwixt his buttcheeks in a gruesome fashion than your barbarian needs to get the hell away from his bottom no matter what his honor demands. Arrows are cheap.


Fergie wrote:

Hey everyone, it's TarkXT!

** spoiler omitted **

Darkest Dungeon Stuff:

Oh yeah I did that.

Things have changed quite a bit since then and I don't tread with quite the swagger as I used to but I intend to get back into it and start doing actual videos for it once I get my computer back.

Houndmaster and MaA are my new baes.


Anzyr wrote:
I honestly have no idea how anyone gets into double digit combat rounds.

No, rarely at level 1.

But by mid levels, breaching into a room with dug-in monsters, lots of them, using terrain, cover, elevation, traps, and magic to control the battlefield. No, not every encounter. But sometimes.

Today we had an 8 round fight. Didn't quite make double digits, but close. A group of 5 PCs (all level 5 except the sorcerer had a negative level on him) took on a level 9 evil priest with some minions. There was a lot of negative channeling vs. positive channeling happening (three of the positive channels to heal were done as swift actions so the warpriest was still in there swinging at the minions), and the evil priest used a Prayer and a couple other defensive buffs. The sorcerer hit him with some pretty painful damage so he dropped the sorcerer, twice, keeping him mostly out of the fight. Took the group a while to get through the minions (a couple of them were using improved trip which managed to stop two PC from getting in close to the priest too early) and reach the guy and he had enough AC that he could afford a Cure Critical Wounds (twice) which healed him for more damage than the group was dealing each round.

If I would have had a couple more minions, I could have hit 10 rounds easy.


A level 9 caster with minions and prepared positions against level 5 PCs is ridiculous. If your evil cleric had pulled his thumb out of his ass and actually fought instead of wasting his time healing it would have been a TPK. The degree to which you're obviously pulling your punches completely negates your example.

The smart party refuses to get involved in that sort of fight. Throw a fog cloud, back out the door, and start doing property damage. Force the enemy to either walk into your ridiculously stacked ambush or send his minions out to get picked off without support. so you can take him at a less stupidly overpowered APL+3. Or leave and let someone level appropriate deal with him.


Whether healing is needed or not in combat kind of depends on how optimized the party is. If the party is optimized for offense/defense, then healing shouldn't be needed in every combat. If the melee aren't optimized then deaths will occur without combat healing.

We once had this guy show up to play in this AP that had lot's of giants with a 7th level character who had a 14AC. Our other party members consisted of a fighter, bard and druid. Needless to say he died.


Atarlost wrote:
A level 9 caster with minions and prepared positions against level 5 PCs is ridiculous. If your evil cleric had pulled his thumb out of his ass and actually fought instead of wasting his time healing it would have been a TPK.

It sounds like the evil cleric was channelling negative energy to do 5d6 damage a round to any PC within range, not casting healing spells.

Not all PC clerics are maxed-out Wisdom clerics who can cast Hold Person with a reliably high DC. Nor are they all battle clerics who can do damage on the front lines faster than they can heal damage. My last cleric had good Intelligence and Charisma stats, for social skills and so forth.

Similarly, not every level 9 evil cleric is an optimised PC-killing machine with exactly the right spells to end the battle.


But with a party of that level, the cleric could pull an Air Walk+Wind Wall, and laugh as only a wizard, air kineticist, summoner, or Serpent-Fire Adept monk could get close enough to pose a serious threat. Unless the wizard decided to buff all the other party members with Fly or succeed on a 25% chance Dispel Magic, there's no way the party could take that cleric down in 8 rounds. They would have to start counting after the 9th turn, once Wind Wall expired. And the Cleric would probably have been channeling at them for the last several rounds. Maybe running away if the battle went sour.

Air Walk+Fickle Winds would let an archer cleric shoot at you until they run out of arrows- I suppose 90 rounds of full protection against martials is enough. Righteous Might is a good enough stand-in for 9 rounds, it gives you reach so you can stay 10 feet above your target, swinging your weapon. Apply Flame Strike, Slay Living, and other second-rate blasts as you see fit. Or better yet, Plane Shift a guy or Hold Person/Constricting Coils into Coup de Grace, with reach.

The question is not: Why would this guy be so well-prepared to face my party? It is: Why would this guy not be prepared to face my party? He has prep time, he has terrain, at the very least, he should have some basic tactics.

In-combat healing is generally a bad trade. If you can make it a good trade (lose one round of own actions, keep the team from dying right here and now), where your expected contribution by healing is greater than that of fighting, then go ahead, heal.


DM_Blake wrote:
Anzyr wrote:
I honestly have no idea how anyone gets into double digit combat rounds.

No, rarely at level 1.

But by mid levels, breaching into a room with dug-in monsters, lots of them, using terrain, cover, elevation, traps, and magic to control the battlefield. No, not every encounter. But sometimes.

Today we had an 8 round fight. Didn't quite make double digits, but close. A group of 5 PCs (all level 5 except the sorcerer had a negative level on him) took on a level 9 evil priest with some minions. There was a lot of negative channeling vs. positive channeling happening (three of the positive channels to heal were done as swift actions so the warpriest was still in there swinging at the minions), and the evil priest used a Prayer and a couple other defensive buffs. The sorcerer hit him with some pretty painful damage so he dropped the sorcerer, twice, keeping him mostly out of the fight. Took the group a while to get through the minions (a couple of them were using improved trip which managed to stop two PC from getting in close to the priest too early) and reach the guy and he had enough AC that he could afford a Cure Critical Wounds (twice) which healed him for more damage than the group was dealing each round.

If I would have had a couple more minions, I could have hit 10 rounds easy.

Question, did your Warpriest have selective channel? Did the enemy cleric have selective channel? Or did you houserule it in, because having your deity heal enemies or harm allies is really weird? I'm wondering if healy channel-blasting could have kept your enemies going for longer than they normally would have.


DM_Blake wrote:
[...](three of the positive channels to heal were done as swift actions so the warpriest was still in there swinging at the minions)[...]

Out of curiosity, how did the Warpriest gain the ability to channel energy as a swift action?


Is healing only great? No.
No one trick pony is.
Can it be amazing? Ofc.
Cleric Can attack or cast for 30 damage or heal in hope, the 30 something healed will allow the barbarian one more round... A character with 1 up is doing as well as one with 300 hp...so, healing the 30Can be. Important.


My Self wrote:
Question, did your Warpriest have selective channel? Did the enemy cleric have selective channel? Or did you houserule it in, because having your deity heal enemies or harm allies is really weird? I'm wondering if healy channel-blasting could have kept your enemies going for longer than they normally would have.

Probably undead minions.


My Self wrote:
But with a party of that level, the cleric could pull an Air Walk+Wind Wall, and laugh as only a wizard, air kineticist, summoner, or Serpent-Fire Adept monk could get close enough to pose a serious threat.

Maybe it was indoors with a low ceiling. Maybe he wanted to kill the PCs rather than spend two rounds buffing while the PCs slaughtered his minions and destroyed the unholy altar. Maybe the PCs all had potions of Fly. Maybe he needed the spell slots to complete the ritual to summon Gryn-Thartep, the necrodaemon. I'm not the GM, but if I was, I could find a plausible excuse to make it a balanced encounter.


In all our years playing our group has firmly embraced the idea of healing being necessary in combat. Pathfinder makes it easier because we can just buy or find cure wands which makes a huge difference. Damage output will always outstrip the potential healing but when the chips are down that 2 or 3D8+X can shift the line between life, death or KO. Ignoring the option for the purposes of pure damage production doesn't feel to me to be the right approach a lot of the time.


I think average DPR is a misleading way of evaluating whether healing in combat is an effective tactic. Firstly a DPR calculation is specific to a very narrow set of circumstances (e.g. specific character level vs specific CR). Whereas the mathematics around healing are more broadly true, that is healing works as intended nearly 100% of the time and characters are taken out of the fight when they reach negative hp nearly 100% of the time.

Secondly and probably more importantly, I have noticed that the damage taken per round tends to follow the statistical pattern of a power series rather than a normal distribution (bell curve). If damage was inflicted as per a bell curve then tactics based on DPR would make sense. Unfortunately damage does not tend to cluster around the average, so DPR calculations are next to useless. The problem with a power series is that the damage is more likely to fluctuate dramatically from round to round, one round you might take only 10 damage and the next 100 or more, so you really can't afford to start the round much below full health otherwise you risk dying before your next action.

My current group of five players tried to go with only healing between combats using wands. By the time we reached 11th level everyone had died multiple times and we had at least three occasions where it should have been a TPK except the GM captured us or did something else instead to spare us the grief of creating new characters. We now have an in combat healer and so far so good. We have already had two battles where in combat healing prevented a TPK.


Boomerang Nebula wrote:


My current group of five players tried to go with only healing between combats using wands. By the time we reached 11th level everyone had died multiple times and we had at least three occasions where it should have been a TPK except the GM captured us or did something else instead to spare us the grief of creating new characters. We now have an in combat healer and so far so good. We have already had two battles where in combat healing prevented a TPK.

Then improve your tactics.

If you just switch off the healing nozzle and continue to do the same thigns that turned you onto it of course you're going to wipe.

IF your melee just charges in devourign delicious crunchy full attacks that's a mistake.

If your spellcaster jsut chuck damage spells around and don't work to lock down excess opponents, or improve the base defenses of your melee that's also a mistake.

If you don't bother to scout fights as often as possible and determine the best course of action before you get into fights you are going to wipe.

The reason you rely on the emergency measure is because you keep finding yourself in an emergency.


TarkXT wrote:

Then improve your tactics.

If you just switch off the healing nozzle and continue to do the same thigns that turned you onto it of course you're going to wipe.

So you're saying in-combat healing is so powerful that you have to use much better tactics in order to survive without it? :)


Atarlost wrote:
A level 9 caster with minions and prepared positions against level 5 PCs is ridiculous. If your evil cleric had pulled his thumb out of his ass and actually fought instead of wasting his time healing it would have been a TPK. The degree to which you're obviously pulling your punches completely negates your example.

5 PCs, above WBL. I estimate their APL to be at least 6, maybe 7 (I consider it to be 6.5, actually). So this encounter, a boss encounter, was APL +4, well within the core book's acceptable guidelines for encounters.

The priest didn't cast those heals until he was quite convinced, and correctly so, that his amount of healing was greater than the amount of damage he was receiving, but his HP were dangerously low. He was fairly surrounded by then and risking eliminating one enemy then dying to several remaining attacks was actually the stupid tactic - healing a large amount resulted in him having MORE HP and being a BIGGER threat over the course of the fight.

Healing in combat works very well when the amount healed in a round is greater than the damage taken in that round - even moreso when the attackers are expending resources and STILL doing less damage than the amount healed.

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