Self Healing


Prerelease Discussion

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Please let there be some method for every character to self heal, short rests in Starfinder to recover stamina are great for this. They let players recover hit points between fights, and recharge some abilities. It means you don’t need a dedicated healer (but are at an advantage if you have one for buffing/condition removal), and the wand of CLW can stay in the past where it belongs.


Wand of CLW is out, confirmed. However, it doesn't seem like there's anything to replace it so far.


Actually it sounds like wands of clw are being replaced with higher level wands of healing. It's been hinted that this is the outcome and also the desired result. I'm not a fan of that and would also prefer short rests. But I expect I'm in the minority.


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I can get behind the idea of short rests giving some healing, maybe bring over the Stamina system that I was honestly fond of, but if it might be anything like Healing Surges from 4th then count me out. I like not all classes being able to heal, same way not all classes have a method of flying or are not all able to hit hard with a greatsword. Classes having distinct purposes and roles to fill is what selecting an adventuring party should be all about.

In 4th when everybody was able to dole out damage then turn around and heal it was far too homogenized and made class selection less meaningful. If your party intentionally doesn’t fill a role then that’s the fault of the group.

I personally don’t like the idea of players being able to jump back to full health automatically after every fight without having to expend some resources, it makes the game way too easy and removes a lot of the decision making that actually makes RPGs interesting.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Cuttlefist wrote:

I can get behind the idea of short rests giving some healing, maybe bring over the Stamina system that I was honestly fond of, but if it might be anything like Healing Surges from 4th then count me out. I like not all classes being able to heal, same way not all classes have a method of flying or are not all able to hit hard with a greatsword. Classes having distinct purposes and roles to fill is what selecting an adventuring party should be all about.

In 4th when everybody was able to dole out damage then turn around and heal it was far too homogenized and made class selection less meaningful. If your party intentionally doesn’t fill a role then that’s the fault of the group.

I personally don’t like the idea of players being able to jump back to full health automatically after every fight without having to expend some resources, it makes the game way too easy and removes a lot of the decision making that actually makes RPGs interesting.

I agree there should be some limitation or resource used.

All I’m talking about is something like 5E’s HD system, where you can take a short amount of time (usually an hour) and spend HD to recover some hit points.

You’ll still want a cleric as a combat medic, and status removal specialist. But the cleric player rarely wants to expend all their resources keeping the party alive. Healer is a reactive, not active.


DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
Cuttlefist wrote:

I can get behind the idea of short rests giving some healing, maybe bring over the Stamina system that I was honestly fond of, but if it might be anything like Healing Surges from 4th then count me out. I like not all classes being able to heal, same way not all classes have a method of flying or are not all able to hit hard with a greatsword. Classes having distinct purposes and roles to fill is what selecting an adventuring party should be all about.

In 4th when everybody was able to dole out damage then turn around and heal it was far too homogenized and made class selection less meaningful. If your party intentionally doesn’t fill a role then that’s the fault of the group.

I personally don’t like the idea of players being able to jump back to full health automatically after every fight without having to expend some resources, it makes the game way too easy and removes a lot of the decision making that actually makes RPGs interesting.

I agree there should be some limitation or resource used.

All I’m talking about is something like 5E’s HD system, where you can take a short amount of time (usually an hour) and spend HD to recover some hit points.

You’ll still want a cleric as a combat medic, and status removal specialist. But the cleric player rarely wants to expend all their resources keeping the party alive. Healer is a reactive, not active.

While the Short Rest thing was the only decent thing in 5E, an hour seems too long. I've been told the 4E short rest was 5 minutes, and that seems a bit too short. Starfinder may have entirely mangled the most basic function of the game, HP, but it did make the short rest a good 10 minutes, which I feel is a decent amount of time for first aid and a brief chance to catch your breath in a dungeon.


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Both of my groups would abandon PF2 instantly if it started feeling like 4E. We wouldn't be playing PF1 if it weren't for 4E anyhow (well 4E and the OGL).

We probably wouldn't immediately flee if it was Starfindery (limited maximum healing, requires an expendable, valuable resource).

Also.. omg, I think I'm getting downgraded from a mobile cure moderate wounds wand to a mobile remove fatigue wand. Maybe I should have taken Merciful Healer.

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Cuttlefist wrote:
In 4th when everybody was able to dole out damage then turn around and heal it was far too homogenized and made class selection less meaningful. If your party intentionally doesn’t fill a role then that’s the fault of the group.

I should point out that healing surges functioned as a limit on healing in 4e. Once you were out of healing surges, you were pretty screwed (eg a healing poitions triggered a healing surge; if you didn't have any, you only healed 1 HP). There were no healing wands.


From a GM's perspective, the Starfinder stamina system has its problems because it heavily limits encounter and "dungeon" design.


Some kind of self healing is must. Short rests, second winds, something to give folks way to recover HP's without spells.

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