The only way I know to do that without items at level one is aasimar have a feat available to them that swaps out their Spell-Like Ability for a 1/day Cure Light Wounds.
You can invest into the Heal skill, which will allow you heal additional HP during rest times. What Module are you guys playing?
Trait: Rich Parents -> Wand of Cure Light Wounds?
Feat: Fey Foundling? At least when you heal yourself its more efficient?
If I recall correctly, a Paladin does not have a caster level before level 4.
Consider a WarPriest, perhaps?
If nobody else can heal at all, that means you have no divine casters... which means (among other things) that you also have little to no status removal too... I always hate to suggest that someone change their class but this time switching really might be a good idea. The warpriest and the vigilante both have archetypes to make them more paladin like (champion of the faith, and zealot respectively)- check both of those out and see if maybe there's something you can do with them?
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Suck it up until level 2?
Trait: Rich Parents -> Wand of Cure Light Wounds?
Feat: Fey Foundling? At least when you heal yourself its more efficient?
If I recall correctly, a Paladin does not have a caster level before level 4.
Consider a WarPriest, perhaps?
Wands don't need caster level, just the spell on the class list.
From the Magic Items Chapter: "Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell. This is the case even for a character who can't actually cast spells, such as a 3rd-level paladin." This may have been a change from 3.x, which Pathfinder was based upon.
Masterwork healing kit will help.
Bandages of Rapid Recovery are affordable after your first looting (200 gp per).
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We are in a module so we can’t go get potions.
...huh?
Do you mean there's something particular about this module where you can't shop, like it opens with you all in prison or something?
If that's what you mean, then (assuming it's a decently-written module) you'll probably find some potions as loot, or soon gain the ability to acquire items, or have opportunities to use cautious/low-risk tactics, or something. Pathfinder is a system in which gear and items are an integral part of PCs' capabilities (this includes having been designed such that the bulk of HP recovery is intended to come from items), so if the author knows what game they're writing for, that will be taken into account and you won't need to worry.
But there's a part of me that fears the meaning of your above statement to be something like "The GM thinks that since there's not a shop inventory listed in the module that includes potions, there must not be any available ever". I really hope that's not your situation. O_o
Put a rank into Heal, which is a class skill as a paladin, then take Skill Focus (Heal). With a Healer's Kit, you get a +2 to Heal, which should give you a grand total of +9 so far (1 rank, +3 class, +3 Skill Focus, +2 Healer's Kit). Now, if you have at least a +1 from Wisdom, you can stop there. Otherwise the Caretaker trait gets you an additional +1 to Heal, getting +10, which allows you to take 10 on Treat Deadly Wounds, which I'll also note can be used on yourself.
This isn't good healing (though it can be decent if you can hit a 25 total on take 10 and have a decent Wisdom bonus, it still won't be great), but there are other feats and abilities you can take to boost it later if you feel like it (skill unlock for Heal is actually pretty decent from Pathfinder Unchained).
Personally, I've also created a couple of magical items that add healing to Treat Deadly Wounds as well, but that's homebrew stuff.
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.... Any party without a source of Divine magic is seriously hamstrung. Your party will spend more time resting between fights than actual adventuring.
That's not necessarily a bad thing if a party spends 3 or 4 days resting up in camp after each life or death confrontation. You'll burn thru supplies faster, sure... but managing challenges like "do we have enough trail rations to keep staying out here" is part of the charm of low level adventuring that you lose as soon as you get so much as a wand of CLW. Or maybe that's the old school grognard in me speaking....
Don't forget Medium and Spiritualist -- they can both cast Cure Light Wounds at 1st level. I think there may be a Psychic discipline that allows healing at 1st level, but I am not 100% sure of this one.
There are 20 classes, not counting archetypes, that can use wands of either CLW or Infernal Healing without UMD.
"No one has healing" is only true if none of the players play a Sorcerer, Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Bard, Paladin, Ranger, Alchemist, Inquisitor, Oracle, Summoner, Witch, Magus, Arcanist, Shaman, Warpriest, Skald, Hunter, Occultist, of Spiritualist.
If it is impossible to aquire such a wand, then the problem is not the class composition but the campaign/module/whatever.
Playing without a healer is hereabouts not happening. If no one rolled a class who can do it and the GM is not running a healbot, one of you can pick up the slack after he died. You could draw straws and the short one is going to be the cleric...;)
You get LoH at level 2, but you will find out that it's a bandaid with 1d6 healed. Better than nothing, and getting better later on with status removal, but hp-wise it is weak.
Without spells you cannot really do much healing. Especially AE damage and criticals will get you time and again. Without status removal (I think mostly of lesser restoration here) things are going to be bleak.
And you can trust fate (your DM) and wait and see what is happening. Maybe you can rescue a healer, find a healing item or pick up a special familiar, discover a healing well or altar. There have been various devices in modules to deal with the problem, maybe it is one of those?
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Playing without a healer is hereabouts not happening. If no one rolled a class who can do it and the GM is not running a healbot, one of you can pick up the slack after he died. You could draw straws and the short one is going to be the cleric...;)
You get LoH at level 2, but you will find out that it's a bandaid with 1d6 healed. Better than nothing, and getting better later on with status removal, but hp-wise it is weak.
Without spells you cannot really do much healing. Especially AE damage and criticals will get you time and again. Without status removal (I think mostly of lesser restoration here) things are going to be bleak.And you can trust fate (your DM) and wait and see what is happening. Maybe you can rescue a healer, find a healing item or pick up a special familiar, discover a healing well or altar. There have been various devices in modules to deal with the problem, maybe it is one of those?
I think you overestimate the relevance of HP-recovery spells that aren't named heal.
You correctly assess that LoH won't cut the mustard as a primary avenue of healing, but the difference between that and cure spells is pretty marginal. For example, at your level 2 example, the difference between 1d6 and 1d8+2 is meaningful, but not exactly a vast gulf. But that's only a hit-for-hit comparison: the paladin can use LoH something like 3-4 times per day without reducing his effectiveness at other tasks, while the cleric can cast CLW roughly the same number of times but at the cost of his entire daily pool of spellcasting.
Fast forward to, say, 10th level. The paladin is healing something 5d6 (average 17.5 HP) about 10-ish times per day, again without dipping into other class resources. CCW heals 4d8+10 (average 28) per hit, but you've only got like 3-4 of those, and it means you're not casting other 4th-level spells that day. Go down to lower-level cure spells and your margin of healing superiority falls rapidly, while eating through a lot of daily resources.
The 10th-level paladin who plans to spend all his LoH on HP recovery can expect to heal nearly 200HP of damage in a day, and is fighting at full effectiveness the whole time. If a 10th-level cleric intends to provide the same amount of healing through cure spells, it's going to cost him a good chunk of his highest levels of spells to do so.
You are correct in your assessment that a paladin's LoH ability is not potent enough to fulfill a role of "healer" and keep the party running. However, your comparison with cure spells as a more viable alternative is deeply flawed.
Cure spells were intentionally designed to be too weak to rely on; according to the designers (can't remember if it was Jason Bulmahn or Sean K Reynolds who was speaking at the time) they did that on purpose so that you can't end up with a fight that lasts all day because both sides have powerful healers. Active, spell-/ability-based, in-combat healing is weak on purpose.
Pathfinder is designed with the idea that the bulk of HP recovery comes from efficient items, such as wands of CLW, rather than from daily magical resources.
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The GM doesn't owe the party a healer. It's possible to campaign without one, but it makes the going much more treacherous. I'd recommend someone bite the bullet and multi-class to oracle/cleric. Or just keep going and do what you can do.
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The GM doesn't owe the party a healer.
No, but if he wants the party to survive and not rest after every encounter, he should do what the game expects him to do and drop a Wand of CLW in the loot.
It's possible to campaign without one, but it makes the going much more treacherous. I'd recommend someone bite the bullet and multi-class to oracle/cleric.
Weird, my current party must be doing something wrong, because we're at level 7 and haven't yet healed a single HP infight. The healing gets done by Wand of CLW and the occasional Infernal Healing if the magus has points to spare on Spell Recall at the end of the day. In two more level, most healing will probably be done with my Summon Monster SLA.
SLA summons can really lower the amount of healing needed. They take hits so you don't have to.
The GM doesn't owe the party a healer.No, but if he wants the party to survive and not rest after every encounter, he should do what the game expects him to do and drop a Wand of CLW in the loot.
The game doesn't expect everyone to have a wand of CLW to use. At best, it expects players of higher levels to have the Big 6, because the developers expect players to have some or all of the Big 6 equipped as they are leveling up, raising their stats artificially to deal with monsters that have natural increases to their power. (ABP goes a long way in solving this, although it creates a forced progression among the player abilities.)
Last I checked, CLW is not one of the Big 6 that the developers expect everyone to have.
It's also probably cheaper in the long run to get a magic item that allows CLW 5/day for 1,800 gold, so that you aren't having to run to the magic shop every time you're out adventuring to replenish or purchase another CLW wand. You could even double the price to 3,600 gold so that you don't have to waste a slot for it.
SLA summons can really lower the amount of healing needed. They take hits so you don't have to.
I'm gonna use them for actual healing - Bralani Azata, which are on the SM5 list, have a Cure Serious Wounds SLA twice per day.
The game doesn't expect everyone to have a wand of CLW to use.
Not everyone, one for the party. I'm pretty sure that APs etc. presume that players get some means of outfight healing. I don't have mucht experience with APs (and never played PFS), but my group currently plays Carrion Crown, and we found a few potions
of CLW and lesser Restoration near the end of 1st level, and a partially charged Wand of CLW near the end of 2nd level, iirc.It's also probably cheaper in the long run to get a magic item that allows CLW 5/day for 1,800 gold, so that you aren't having to run to the magic shop every time you're out adventuring to replenish or purchase another CLW wand.
What makes thew wands so good is that they cost less then 200gp per PC for a regular party of four. Also, we only bought a new wand at 6th level iirc. We don't overheal during the day, and spend various unused recources for end-of-day healing.
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Last I checked, CLW is not one of the Big 6 that the developers expect everyone to have.
Okay, first, I'm skeptical as to whether you ever actually "checked", as opposed to this just being your own assumption based on how you've personally always played.
More importantly, efficient item-based healing is assumed in Pathfinder design. The most explicit mention of this I can recall was a few years back in the PFS forums, where a former developer chimed in on a thread to say that PFS scenarios were universally designed with the assumption that the party has access to a wand of CLW and will therefore be entering each encounter with full HP. This was also once cited as part of the reason that the free item you can get by spending 2 Prestige Points (achievable well before 2nd level, likely after your first session) has a value cap of exactly 750gp. The expectation is that since players can't pool their gold for a wand of CLW (due to a ban on sharing resources in PFS), they can instead get a freebie long before their personal wealth could afford that wand.
There's also been other commentary from various Paizonians about deliberately wanting to enable the cleric to be more interesting and diverse to play by letting items take care of most HP recovery so you can use your spell slots to, you know, cast spells.
So, yes, the game is absolutely designed with an assumption that you very quickly gain access to reliable, efficient, item-based sources of healing up between encounters. Exceptions will apply, of course (like if you need to rush from one encounter to the next), but the WoCLW paradigm is absolutely part of the game's design.
Big 6 are: Armor, Weapon, Deflection, Natural armor, Cloak of resistance, and Stat belt/headband for your primary stat
Weird, my current party must be doing something wrong, because we're at level 7 and haven't yet healed a single HP infight. The healing gets done by Wand of CLW and the occasional Infernal Healing if the magus has points to spare on Spell Recall at the end of the day.
If you're having fun, you're not doing anything wrong.
I am gonna hazard a guess that either your DM is softballing combats or you have very short combats, like 2 rounds.
Because we have always needed healing during combat.
Last I checked, CLW is not one of the Big 6 that the developers expect everyone to have.Okay, first, I'm skeptical as to whether you ever actually "checked", as opposed to this just being your own assumption based on how you've personally always played.
More importantly, efficient item-based healing is assumed in Pathfinder design. The most explicit mention of this I can recall was a few years back in the PFS forums, where a former developer chimed in on a thread to say that PFS scenarios were universally designed with the assumption that the party has access to a wand of CLW and will therefore be entering each encounter with full HP. This was also once cited as part of the reason that the free item you can get by spending 2 Prestige Points (achievable well before 2nd level, likely after your first session) has a value cap of exactly 750gp. The expectation is that since players can't pool their gold for a wand of CLW (due to a ban on sharing resources in PFS), they can instead get a freebie long before their personal wealth could afford that wand.
There's also been other commentary from various Paizonians about deliberately wanting to enable the cleric to be more interesting and diverse to play by letting items take care of most HP recovery so you can use your spell slots to, you know, cast spells.
So, yes, the game is absolutely designed with an assumption that you very quickly gain access to reliable, efficient, item-based sources of healing up between encounters. Exceptions will apply, of course (like if you need to rush from one encounter to the next), but the WoCLW paradigm is absolutely part of the game's design.
I didn't say I checked recently...but I'm sure the Big 6 aren't something that changes over night like that. And even so, the Big 6 never included a CLW wand.
I've actually never played a game with a CLW wand. And in all of those games, we've done just fine without it. If PCs died, it was well deserved (in our latest game, one of our squishies moved forward and got sliced to pieces by powerful martial-based enemies). Our only healing was from dropped potions (which is ironic, since in our current campaign, we haven't come across a single potion yet; they're always already used or destroyed).
Also, that's a PFS expectation. Last I checked, PFS expectations are vastly different from what a by-the-book game has for expectations.
As neat as that is, the only way they're going to accomplish that is by either A. forcing everybody to shoehorn into a single item purchase (that our GM, as far as I know, hasn't even allowed to have drop or purchase), which is the current solution (you know how people complain about everybody requiring the Big 6? Same issue here), or B. drastically rewriting how healing, both in and out of combat, can be achieved and applied (i.e. adjusting resting, fixing healing to not apply simply via spells or expensive abilities, and so on).
Regardless of the solution type, all it points out is one thing: requiring people to either purchase CLW wands (does it become the Big 7 now?) or to drastically rewrite the rules (no easy task, I doubt even the PDT could fix it with an Unchained alternate system), all points to bad design.
Still not his job. He may want it but if the group doesn't he owes them nothing.
And that's why I opened my statement with "no".
It doesn't have to be a drop. Stash in the bandit cave (bad guys want healing too, you know?) or simply available in a shop* serves the same purpose. Also, your argument could be used for any single magic item, including the big 6.
*) In any settlement with above 200 people, there's a 75% chance that a Wand of CLW can be found for sale with little effort. That's an almost 94% chance to be able to buy either a Wand of CLW or a Wand of IH.
@Darksol the Painbringer: Potions serve the same purpose. I don't see why enemies would always waste money on potions instead of wands, though. Maybe your GM thinks that bad guys have to suck at math.
@DrDeth: The "doing wrong" part was ironic. And my current party is very damage heavy, we simply spent our recources on killing the enemy instead of healing. That doesn't mean we don't use defensive spells, even infight. It's just that most healing (except Heal, although Channel Energy can be made good with investment) is very weak in PF - buffs, summones monsters et al. can increase defense and thus make healing unnecessary.
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Also, that's a PFS expectation. Last I checked, PFS expectations are vastly different from what a by-the-book game has for expectations.
You should try reading the whole post, instead of getting to the first mention of PFS, assuming that means that's all I'm going to talk about, and skipping forward to the part where it's your turn to talk again.
Listen first, speak second.
Regardless of the solution type, all it points out is one thing: requiring people to either purchase CLW wands (does it become the Big 7 now?) or to drastically rewrite the rules (no easy task, I doubt even the PDT could fix it with an Unchained alternate system), all points to bad design.
I never said it was good design, just that it's what the design is. The item-based healing paradigm (along with related wealth/gear design choices) is part of why I stopped playing Pathfinder. But that doesn't mean it wasn't designed that way in the first place.
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I am gonna hazard a guess that either your DM is softballing combats or you have very short combats, like 2 rounds.
Because we have always needed healing during combat.
Believe it or not, there are reasons to not need much in-combat healing other than having "softballed" or super-fast combats, and there are reasons to consistently feel the need for in-combat healing other than having harder, longer combats.
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Believe it or not, there are reasons to not need much in-combat healing other than having "softballed" or super-fast combats, and there are reasons to consistently feel the need for in-combat healing other than having harder, longer combats.I am gonna hazard a guess that either your DM is softballing combats or you have very short combats, like 2 rounds.
Because we have always needed healing during combat.
Sure which is why I put that "hazard a guess" part there.
"You should try reading the whole post,..."
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Also, that's a PFS expectation. Last I checked, PFS expectations are vastly different from what a by-the-book game has for expectations.You should try reading the whole post, instead of getting to the first mention of PFS, assuming that means that's all I'm going to talk about, and skipping forward to the part where it's your turn to talk again.
Listen first, speak second.
Regardless of the solution type, all it points out is one thing: requiring people to either purchase CLW wands (does it become the Big 7 now?) or to drastically rewrite the rules (no easy task, I doubt even the PDT could fix it with an Unchained alternate system), all points to bad design.I never said it was good design, just that it's what the design is. The item-based healing paradigm (along with related wealth/gear design choices) is part of why I stopped playing Pathfinder. But that doesn't mean it wasn't designed that way in the first place.
I did read the whole post. You pointed out that PFS scenarios were designed with the assumption of CLW wands, according to a PFS developer.
That has (read: should have, as evidenced by Crane Wing shenanigans) no bearing on what happens outside of PFS, because PFS has its own rules set and expectations, which is separate from the entire game as a whole, which may have it as an expectation, but may not have it, either. For example, I (and several other posters in this thread) have stated that we don't run with CLW wands, either because they weren't necessary, because that's not expected of us, or even because the GMs banned it due to bad game design.
In PFS, it is expected, because their rules and regulations are built around that factor.
In essence, games/tables are only as much built around the CLW wands as people (or even GMs) make them out to be. If a game/table decided to do away with the Big 6 in terms of drops and expectations for a player to fulfill all the time (a la ABP system), they won't really have a care or desire to work on their Big 6.
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I did read the whole post. You pointed out that PFS scenarios were designed with the assumption of CLW wands, according to a PFS developer.Also, that's a PFS expectation. Last I checked, PFS expectations are vastly different from what a by-the-book game has for expectations.You should try reading the whole post, instead of getting to the first mention of PFS, assuming that means that's all I'm going to talk about, and skipping forward to the part where it's your turn to talk again.
Listen first, speak second.
Regardless of the solution type, all it points out is one thing: requiring people to either purchase CLW wands (does it become the Big 7 now?) or to drastically rewrite the rules (no easy task, I doubt even the PDT could fix it with an Unchained alternate system), all points to bad design.I never said it was good design, just that it's what the design is. The item-based healing paradigm (along with related wealth/gear design choices) is part of why I stopped playing Pathfinder. But that doesn't mean it wasn't designed that way in the first place.
It is true that I did say that. I also described a way in which PFS' method of enabling access to wands of CLW was constructed as a means to port that expectation over from non-PFS play to PFS play by getting around the restrictions against pooling gold. I also commented on design goals of the cleric class, which has nothing to do with PFS at all.
So I hit on three things:
1) PFS play.
2) A relationship between PFS play and non-PFS play to demonstrate the carried-over expectations from non-PFS to PFS.
3) Fundamental class design, completely independent from PFS.
Then you framed your reply (twice) as though my post was fully centered on PFS.
Could you please describe to me the narrative whereby you read my three-point post but then came away thinking the first point was all that mattered? Because it really looks like you're being dishonest here, but I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and listen to your point of view.
I won't ask you to agree with me. I only ask that you be honest and communicative. I promise to do the same.
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Believe it or not, there are reasons to not need much in-combat healing other than having "softballed" or super-fast combats, and there are reasons to consistently feel the need for in-combat healing other than having harder, longer combats.I am gonna hazard a guess that either your DM is softballing combats or you have very short combats, like 2 rounds.
Because we have always needed healing during combat.
Sure which is why I put that "hazard a guess" part there.
"You should try reading the whole post,..."
Nothing about my having pointed out other possibilities implies that I missed the part of your post where you said "hazard a guess".
On a side note, it's generally considered poor form to favorite your own post, as it looks like you're trying to manufacture an appearance of having a popular opinion. If you're using it for reference, I recommend the "List" and "Focus" features instead.
I only touched on the first point because I'm trying to explain that the first point is really the only time where CLW wands are an actual expectation, which is PFS. The other two are irrelevant to the ideal that CLW wands are an expectation across all forms of gameplay.
There are no such listed expectations anywhere else, in any hardcover book, designer post, FAQ, errata, and so on, that says "All players are expected to possess item-based healing, most commonly in the form of CLW wands," or even something similar to that, outside of what you've already described, meaning whatever relationship you're claiming is there in a regular game, hardly is (especially considering the number of houserules that PFS has in relation to the standard Pathfinder game).
And what difference does a Cleric with Channel Energy make in relation to players supposedly requiring a CLW wand, irregardless of whether such players possess characters such as Clerics in their party? None. Because according to you and several others, CLW Wands are what's required, not Clerics or Oracles or what have you. They're just there. Whereas CLW wands aren't just there, they're also apparently a necessity. In other words, it's a strawman. (And I don't care if I used it wrong, N N 959; to me, strawman and the phrase "irrelevant point" mean the same damn thing.)
Who needs Clerics when they can just be replaced with a Bard with a healstick? I mean, in that light, I fully understand why our GM banned CLW wands, because the wand can nullify entire classes. Seriously, Clerics and Oracles just became obsolete trash because of a healstick. Good job for pointing that out. To be fair though, all Martial characters are replaced by Summon Monster/Nature's Ally spells, so it's not just you, it's them too.
Now, I will iterate again, that something which is highly recommended across several posters (myself included) does not equate to being an expectation. By that logic, every Magus is expected to be be Dervish Dance, because what is highly recommended (Dervish Dance Magi) is also apparently the expectation.
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Okay, now I'm really curious what you think I said about clerics. I'd love hear your summary of what I was getting at when I talked about clerics.
EDIT: Okay, I went back and re-read that part of my own post, just to make sure my memory matches my post, lest I be the one with my foot in my mouth. Verified. Looking forward to your impression of what I was saying about clerics, to which you believe your most recent post was a reply. There's clearly been a massive breakdown in communication here, and I'd like to hunt it down and clear it up.
I pointed out that the class design is a strawman to the ideal that every player needs a CLW wand, and that the most apparent attraction to Clerics (outside of their menial buffs that won't stack with most all of the Big 6) is healing without a CLW wand, because the assumption that a CLW wand will always be there, is absent. I merely presented my argument; the point you made has no bearing on it.
So yes, "Clerics = Healbots" is caused by the assumed paradigm of CLW wands not being an expectation, which means not only is it a strawman (well, not really, as it's followed by my next point), but it actually serves as evidence against CLW wands being an assumption.