I was idlely thinking would pathfinder be improved but the exclusion of magic items that store spells. I don't think scrolls are a big deal really. Wands however seem to be very central and they fix holes that might exist in a group mostly referring to wands of cures.
However flavor wise is it fitting? I feel like the best thing a LG cleric could do is spend every day creating cure wands and handing them out that way you help the maximum amount of people. It makes it so spell casters should really never run out of spells and as we are told that is the main limiting factor for them right?
I just want some opinions do spell items improve or take away from pathfinder play?
Because of typos, I'm not exactly sure what you're proposing.
I think that eliminating wands (and other spell trigger items) is a very bad idea indeed, largely for the reason that you mentioned. They" fix holes that might exist in a group," which in turn means that everyone gets to play the characters that they want to play instead of the characters that the group needs.
There's a reason that "healbot" is a pejorative. Most people don't find healing and condition removal to be fun (there are a few exceptions, of course). By allowing [almost] any class to do healing and condition removal, it means that no one needs to play a cleric unless they want to, and it means that the people who do play clerics can concentrate on other aspects of the class than being a walking box of band-aids.
So not only would this not improve the game, it would actually damage it.
I removed wands from my game (not scrolls or potions), but at the same time introduced a hit point recovery mechanic that makes wands of CLW superfluous. At higher levels, burning through a wand of CLW to heal the party after every single combat is tedious and adds nothing to the game.
|
I removed wands from my game (not scrolls or potions), but at the same time introduced a hit point recovery mechanic that makes wands of CLW superfluous. At higher levels, burning through a wand of CLW to heal the party after every single combat is tedious and adds nothing to the game.
Please tell me more about this recovery mechanic. I love reading people's houserules, and I've been toying with ideas in this direction for a while now.
I removed wands from my game (not scrolls or potions), but at the same time introduced a hit point recovery mechanic that makes wands of CLW superfluous. At higher levels, burning through a wand of CLW to heal the party after every single combat is tedious and adds nothing to the game.Please tell me more about this recovery mechanic. I love reading people's houserules, and I've been toying with ideas in this direction for a while now.
- A character has vitality points equal to their normal hp and wound points equal to their Constitution score.
- Damage is subtracted from vitality first, then applied to wound points. However, damage from a single attack does not carry over unless it is a critical hit; the attack reduces vitality to 0 and deals 1 point of wound damage.
- In addition to their normal effects, critical hits deal wound point damage equal to the weapon's critical multiplier.
- Vitality points can be recovered by resting for 15 minutes.
- Lost wound points require natural healing or healing magic.
- Wound point damage causes injuries which incur penalties and conditions. This is the aspect that still needs some work. Currently, I'm using the called shot effects (Ultimate Combat) for different body areas to represent injuries with different degrees of severity. Whenever a character suffers wound damage, they receive a Fortitude save to resist the injury. Right now, I want to replace the called shot effects with more balanced effects and I'm still struggling with the correct formula for the save DC (heavy-armored martials should be more likely to resist an injury than puny wizards). And I need to adjust several feats, spells, and class features to fit into this system.
The goal is to make the game less lethal and healing less annoying. The injury mechanic is meant to offset that this system favors the player characters. It's also an attempt to counter the 15-minute adventuring day (after a fight, players have to decide if they press on while their buffs are still running and their opponents are caught off-guard or if they take a pause to recover and lose the advantage of surprise and preparation).
I'll share my house rule once I have figured out the best way to implement this.
I removed wands from my game and made potions cost the price of a single wand charge. It's been more than a year since I started this houserule, and it has been so successful that my friend implemented it for his game as well.
I like the potion thing. I've used made up healing items that work like potions before to to make up for not having a healer back in 3.5. I don't think its a huge problem as long as you take measures. whats some other selling points for wands?
I like the potion thing. I've used made up healing items that work like potions before to to make up for not having a healer back in 3.5. I don't think its a huge problem as long as you take measures. whats some other selling points for wands?
Wands are gone from my game. I wanted to redesign wands for some other purpose, but I haven't decided. Ideas included:
1) Having wands grant an enhancement bonus to spell DCs of a certain selection of spells. I like this one the most, but I can't bring myself to give this significant of a buff to spellcasters.
2) The wand allows a caster to spontaneously cast a spell stored in the wand by sacrificing a spell slot or prepared spell.
3) The wand works like a weaker staff that has only one spell.
I could see wands granting you the use of a spell that you don't normally have either prepared or known. convert a spell slot into that spell. could be kind of nifty.
Removing wands to force clerics to cast cure spells all day is a horrible boring idea. It doesn't mean casters never run out of spells it means they can do fun things other than be a heal bot. Also it makes clerics or oracles basically obligatory in every game which is not fun. Removing wands and adding another recovery mechanic for Hit points to the game might work better. I like 5e short rests myself. And I've always played as the 8 hours rest topping people up to full health.
I've thought about tweaking wands but I haven't found a very good way to do it.
@Cyrad
With your wand tweaks
1) like you said that seems too powerful
2) isn't that a straight buff to prepared casters and useless to spontaneous, so basically favouring exclusively the strongest classes in the game?
3) as it is no-one buys staffs so wouldn't that just add wands to the list of items in pathfinder no one ever bothers with?
A fully charged wand of 1st level spells costs 750gp, and 350gp to make. For 2nd level spells that becomes 4500/2250gp. At 3rd it's 11250/5625gp. Wands cap out at 4th, where it's 21000/10500. And, most importantly, the CL of those spells are fixed at 1, 3, 5 and 7, respectively, unless the players spend even more money.
So, what's the problem, exactly? That casters have access to low-level spells with a low caster level that are quadratically expensive and limited to one trigger/round?
So, what's the problem, exactly? That casters have access to low-level spells with a low caster level that are quadratically expensive and limited to one trigger/round?
Yeah, I think that's the problem. More specifically, it gives casters extremely cheap access to out-of-combat utility spells that frees casters up to do what they want to do instead of being locked into things like "healbot."
NPC clerics might make a wand of cure light so they have a bribe to get adventurers to take that mission first. Every plot hook might have a few potions of cure minor.
You want to mess with wands, how about higher level wands that are:
1: Rechargable
2: Give an aiming bonus for rays
3: Have fewer but a higher level spell
4: have one built in metamagic feat
I was idlely thinking would pathfinder be improved but the exclusion of magic items that store spells. I don't think scrolls are a big deal really. Wands however seem to be very central and they fix holes that might exist in a group mostly referring to wands of cures.
However flavor wise is it fitting? I feel like the best thing a LG cleric could do is spend every day creating cure wands and handing them out that way you help the maximum amount of people. It makes it so spell casters should really never run out of spells and as we are told that is the main limiting factor for them right?
I just want some opinions do spell items improve or take away from pathfinder play?
Theres a major element missing in your proposal.
It's called If you're going to remove a major point of the game, it would help if you could demonstrate why it would be an improvement to do so.
why? Who said I was going to remove them. I was trying to see both sides of the issue its a discussion. Trying to see what the consensus on wands and other spell storage stuff is.
I mean heck I said opinions improve or take away. Doesn't sound like i'm pushing for one way or the other to me.
In that case, I can elaborate on the motivation behind my houserule to replace wands with cheaper potions. The motivation dives into some game design stuff.
Many people feel that wands trivialize healing. However, I don't see this as the case. I believe wands trivialize preparation of healing. The need for healing items should always exist in one form or another because the game relies on attrition of resources in order to generate the rising tension of an adventure and facilitate kind of decision making at the core of combat and other aspects of gameplay. The problem with ones is that:
1) It's really easy to stockpile them because they take up virtually no space in your inventory. This runs totally contrary to the feeling of adventure where preparation should be an important part of the game.
2) Usually only a single party member has the responsibility of using and managing wands as a resource. Often the sting of taking damage can feel inconsequential because cost of the healing is only one person's concern.
The consequence is that wands make what should be an integral part of the game feel like a chore. Unfortunately, many GMs and modern games try to fix it by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 4th Edition, 5th Edition, and even some games like Numenera use a system where healing comes from an innate resource every character has. However, making characters less reliant on supplies pushes the game away from adventure and more towards focusing on skirmishes. Overall, that makes the game less interesting.
So I tried to fix it by removing wands and making potions the staple healing item. This shifts the responsibility of managing healing items throughout the party since every party member is encouraged to carry their own supply. Healing feels more finite to each party member. The items feel much more tangible and aren't as trivial to stockpile as wands. And using potions aligns more closely with usual RPG tropes.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
why? Who said I was going to remove them. I was trying to see both sides of the issue its a discussion. Trying to see what the consensus on wands and other spell storage stuff is.
I mean heck I said opinions improve or take away. Doesn't sound like i'm pushing for one way or the other to me.
Here's the thing. When you start a discussion, it helps to have a point of view to kick things off. Walking into a forum and dropping an open-ended question without offering any of your own opinions is the internet equivalent of a mic drop. You basically said "Are wands good or bad? Discuss."
If you don't want to be misunderstood, it helps to tell people where you are coming from. The base assumption for a question like this is going to be that 1) you are against X, because otherwise why bring it up, and 2) you're considering modifying/taking away X, or have already done it, so people want to know why.
You hinted at a 'why', but (possibly because of a language barrier) your point was not immediately clear. So the discussion went off on several tangents, and you got asked a direct question to try and understand your position.
This is what happens when you don't make your intentions clear. Specifically, when you don't give people a 'why'. It's the laziest way to start a discussion, because you basically put the onus of making arguments on other people ("Trying to see what the consensus on.." and "I said opinions improve or take away. Doesn't sound like i'm pushing for one way or the other") without really participating yourself.
I suggest you be a little more clear as to what your issue is with wands, assuming you have one, and clarifying if it's all wands, or just wands of CLW and their ilk. And most importantly, follow up with your opinion or observations to help answer the why. And then what you would offer to rebalance the game if you were to alter an important component of it.
In that case, I can elaborate on the motivation behind my houserule to replace wands with cheaper potions. The motivation dives into some game design stuff.
Many people feel that wands trivialize healing. However, I don't see this as the case. I believe wands trivialize preparation of healing. The need for healing items should always exist in one form or another because the game relies on attrition of resources in order to generate the rising tension of an adventure and facilitate kind of decision making at the core of combat and other aspects of gameplay. The problem with ones is that:
1) It's really easy to stockpile them because they take up virtually no space in your inventory. This runs totally contrary to the feeling of adventure where preparation should be an important part of the game.
2) Usually only a single party member has the responsibility of using and managing wands as a resource. Often the sting of taking damage can feel inconsequential because cost of the healing is only one person's concern.The consequence is that wands make what should be an integral part of the game feel like a chore. Unfortunately, many GMs and modern games try to fix it by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 4th Edition, 5th Edition, and even some games like Numenera use a system where healing comes from an innate resource every character has. However, making characters less reliant on supplies pushes the game away from adventure and more towards focusing on skirmishes. Overall, that makes the game less interesting.
So I tried to fix it by removing wands and making potions the staple healing item. This shifts the responsibility of managing healing items throughout the party since every party member is encouraged to carry their own supply. Healing feels more finite to each party member. The items feel much more tangible and aren't as trivial to stockpile as wands. And using potions aligns more closely with usual RPG tropes.
See that is one of the things I've been thinking about since you can get a healing wand and stock pile them. It makes defense seem less important. Seems that every build is built on offense with a minimal effort put into defense because they can always heal-up out of combat. it makes resource management function a bit oddly.
As it is now, any party that is starting an adventure path,all contribute to buying a wand of cure light. It's a barbarian's life insurance policy. It makes a bard more than a cheerleader with a lute. It prevents game ruining TPKs at low levels. Potions are only good before and after combat. Currently, monsters are little able to use wands, but that is a comparative quick fix, as you can just let some humanoids be adepts. Only goblins, as written, wouldn't be able to read the command words.
If you ditch wands, you need to rethink raise dead, possibly ditching level loss. You need to allow barbarians to drink potions of cure mod while still in rage. You would need some sort of extra pool of hit points the characters, and monsters, can call upon to survive.
See that is one of the things I've been...In that case, I can elaborate on the motivation behind my houserule to replace wands with cheaper potions. The motivation dives into some game design stuff.
Many people feel that wands trivialize healing. However, I don't see this as the case. I believe wands trivialize preparation of healing. The need for healing items should always exist in one form or another because the game relies on attrition of resources in order to generate the rising tension of an adventure and facilitate kind of decision making at the core of combat and other aspects of gameplay. The problem with ones is that:
1) It's really easy to stockpile them because they take up virtually no space in your inventory. This runs totally contrary to the feeling of adventure where preparation should be an important part of the game.
2) Usually only a single party member has the responsibility of using and managing wands as a resource. Often the sting of taking damage can feel inconsequential because cost of the healing is only one person's concern.The consequence is that wands make what should be an integral part of the game feel like a chore. Unfortunately, many GMs and modern games try to fix it by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 4th Edition, 5th Edition, and even some games like Numenera use a system where healing comes from an innate resource every character has. However, making characters less reliant on supplies pushes the game away from adventure and more towards focusing on skirmishes. Overall, that makes the game less interesting.
So I tried to fix it by removing wands and making potions the staple healing item. This shifts the responsibility of managing healing items throughout the party since every party member is encouraged to carry their own supply. Healing feels more finite to each party member. The items feel much more tangible and aren't as trivial to stockpile as wands. And using potions aligns more closely with usual RPG tropes.
Barbarians are not supposed to be built on defense. It should be a character choice.
Awww, and here I thought this thread was going to be about special rules to tape three wands together and use the same command word to fire them off. Or twelve.
<g>
I must admit that wands of cure light wounds and such have always seemed odd to me. Back at the dawn of time, we just used potions.
It would also seem odd to me to have wands not exist at all, or to have them use some wierd mechanic that made them feel more like metamagic rods (which are very odd and somewhat gamebreaking themselves).
What if wands could *only* be used with arcane spells? Wands certainly have more of an arcane feel than a divine one.
This said, I have no overwhelming urge to houserule wands in the first place. A DM can solve the problem very simply by making wands rarer in loot drops, limiting their availability for purchase and keeping a tight hand on PCs that want to use the Craft Wand feat.
See that is one of the things I've been thinking about since you can get a healing wand and stock pile them. It makes defense seem less important. Seems that every build is built on offense with a minimal effort put into defense because they can always heal-up out of combat. it makes resource management function a bit oddly.
Wands makes out-of-combat healing feel trivial but that's not necessarily the case. Economically, healing has the same gold cost in my houserules as it does with wands. Just being able to stockpile so much healing into an easily carried space just totally screws up things and makes what should be an integral part of the game feel like a chore.
It's sad that many modern games just do away with healing items entirely by creating systems that let you heal out of battle without any investment, preparation, or gameplay involved. They try to be more combat focused, but ironically, combats are less interesting because the healing resource system takes a lot of tension and gameplay out of the game.
I think If one wanted to encourage some defense balancing with offense messing around with healing items would be most efficient way to do it.
Low level characters dying and having no access to resurrection or restoration leads to players quitting the game, giving you the balance of no game.
Wow who do yu play with? my character died I better quit the game then instead of making a new character.
Also I can run a game that doesn't require the party to be fully healed after ever encounter that does kill them ever fight.
You could just as easily have potions or restoration too.
Frankly their is a good argument for not letting characters be resurrected all the time it cheapens death.
depends what type of game it is, how deadly,and how the people there fit together, but it's true that too deadly a game becomes boring, because you keep having to make up new characters instead of seeing your one character become a legend. Making new characters up to the power level of the campaign is not always the best solution, if you don't get time to get attached to it, in the end you just play the stats, not the character...
It is not just as easy to carry round potions, let's not start lying now that won't help anything.
Take away healing and you force players to play defensively, which limits class selection and player agency because no-one wants to make the character that forces the group to rest more often since it takes so much damage.
You know what having healin doesn't do? That^ having wands of CLW doesn't mean that better healer can't be made should one want to, nor does it mean a tanky character cannot be made should one want to. Tanky trip builds are a thing, having wands doesn't limit builds as much as loosing them?
What do you gain then for this loss? And increased pressure to always have a cleric or oracle (a pressure which is already acute in some groups) and to only design characters of that class in a very particular way. And an increased likelyhood of defensive or 1 hit KO characters which is in no clear way an advantage.
I can easily envision a thread a month later, 'I made healing a complete pain in the dick and none of my players wanted to play a heal bot so they all made tanky characters with sky high AC and saves but low hit. On CR encounters only hurt them on a crit and take forever to die help me fix'
Or
'I made healing a complete pain in the dick and none of my players wanted to play a heal bot so they all made characters that win round one. Every encounter is trivialised by the slumber witch/colour spray oracle/battering Blast sorc. I don't know how to challenge them, help fix'
Do you know what the fix is? Don't force them to make characters they don't want to, people not focusing on defence isn't a bad thing how many archetypal heroic figures run around with a tower Sheild in full plate all day long? None because it is boring.
EDIT: by run I do mean waddle slowly.
what I meant was that you could have potions of restoration as easily as potions of healing or other made up items of healing.
also calling me a liar is pretty rude. I don't appreciate it. coming on too strong their its meant to be a discussion not a call to war.
Additionally your making some assumptions on people play styles Also Like I said there is ways around it. I mean heck there is more then just healing wands out there too that seems to be the only thing we are covering. I could just as easily make a self refilling potion of healing with charges. Its not really want I wanted to focus on Wands (and other items that hold spells.) in and of themselves. Having a collection of utility wands or damage wands etc.
There is other ways of getting healing too. Your also exaggerating the impact I feel.
Calling you a liar =/= saying something you said is a lie
A wand of cure light wounds has 60 casts of cure light wounds a potion has one, how exactly is carrying 60 glass bottles around as easy as one small stick? Tell me honestly.
So are you, assuming people will always focus on offence if they have access to cheap healing that is an assumption. And that removing said cheap healing will fix that (not that it needs fixing). Everyone is making assumptions it's a symptom of conversation over the internet where one cannot intonate or read facial ques.
Making a recharging potion and removing wands is utterly pointless.
No one collects damage wands and does any relevant damage with them at the level they can be reasonably brought, they are hamstrung by caster level and metamagic or lack their of.
I'm responding to what you think the impact will be that it will force build change, well if you have people optimise offence forced to change build they will optimise defence simple.
I'm am in a campaign at level 10 right now I play a support buffer time oracle of the seer archetype I had to heal 200+ Hit points last session. I did so with a wand, if had had to use spells I would not have had the spell slots I needed to support my party and be relevant in combat and I would have been bored out of my skull. Or we would have to rest much more regularly, neither of these things are good.
Once again you misinterpreted I was not saying carrying around potions was easier then wands I was referring to someone above saying that healing potions didn't make up for restoration and Resurrection and I was saying you could make up a restoration potion as easily as a healing potion.
also definition of liar a person who tells lies. you said I tell lies hence calling me a liar. so semantics
for the rest of your post Your assuming the wand thing is the only change I would be making. that is your error, But I understand you don't like it that is fine I get that.
I think I'm just going to have to stop communicating with you here on this matter we are not going to make any more civil progress this way.
Yeah this
You could just as easily have potions or restoration too.
is quite hard to interpret as anything ot that you could just as easily have potions. Given it's literally what you said.
I said one of the things you said was a lie. If I fix a Tv am I TV repair guy or just someone who fixed a Tv?
I don't think I said anywhere it's the only change you'd make? I am fairly sure it's simply the only one I chose to address. I actually already suggested an alternative method of healing for you should you choose to remove them which would fix the brake you would make by removing wands. You've yet to address it.
I think "Game balance" is one of my trigger phrases. It's too often used to mean "No fun for PCs".
Why don't I do you a favor and hide this topic. When everyone does that it will give you a feel for what your game will turn into.
I was idlely thinking would pathfinder be improved but the exclusion of magic items that store spells. I don't think scrolls are a big deal really. Wands however seem to be very central and they fix holes that might exist in a group mostly referring to wands of cures.
However flavor wise is it fitting? I feel like the best thing a LG cleric could do is spend every day creating cure wands and handing them out that way you help the maximum amount of people. It makes it so spell casters should really never run out of spells and as we are told that is the main limiting factor for them right?
I just want some opinions do spell items improve or take away from pathfinder play?
A couple of disclaimers before I jump in here:
1) My campaign was deliberately retooled to play at a low magic level. I could write quite a bit about this, but as this is not the nature of the thread I'll avoid the temptation to do so.2) Spell batteries (scrolls, potions, wands, etc) have been removed from the campaign, and casters WILL run out of spells.
Healing potions became an extension of alchemy and basically allowed for a full day of recovery as if attended by an expert physician. For each tier of the potion it acted as an additional of rest. The price was also lowered noticeably due to a lack of an instant effect as the potion was taken before a rest period.
Scrolls were reduced to arcane formulas which allowed a prepared caster class to learn a new spell or metamagic feat. (Something they other wise had trouble doing)
Wands, Rods, etc were changed to add bonuses to the DC of specific types of spells. Such as the spells from a specific domain, or school of magic, or ones which made use of specific types of magic spells such as those with the [Fire] descriptor. This was on par with the magic bonuses from weapons. Such items might also have additional features, but they were never overly powerful effects, such as the kings sword allowing for a + 4 to diplomacy as it is a recognized badge of office etc.