We have a new way to SPAM cure light wounds.


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It now seems the Cure light wounds wand SPAM in solved.
We just need to have a trained healer to heal everyone up from near death with an hours rest.

Liberty's Edge

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Though it gets harder the higher level you are. The DC for a 20th level healer to treat a 1st level patient is higher than for a 1st level healer to treat a 20th level patient.


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At least it answers the question I posted last month.

Seems like: The Designers are okay with PCs fully healing between encounters, and that a party is expected to purchase healing kits to achieve this.

If you have a problem with "CLW Spam", could you be a bit more explicit about what you dislike about it?

Liberty's Edge

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Dux Darius wrote:

It now seems the Cure light wounds wand SPAM in solved.

We just need to have a trained healer to heal everyone up from near death with an hours rest.

An hour is probably not going to do it.

My 4th level archer-fighter: 56 hp.
Length of time needed to heal him from 0hp to full if he treats himself: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Liberty's Edge

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Mekkis wrote:
Seems like: The Designers are okay with PCs fully healing between encounters, and that a party is expected to purchase healing kits to achieve this.

Healing kit singular. The Healer’s Tools in the Playtest aren’t consumable, so it’s a one-time investment unless you decide to upgrade.

Liberty's Edge

Shisumo wrote:

My 4th level archer-fighter: 56 hp.

Length of time needed to heal him from 0hp to full if he treats himself: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Unless he has a 14 Constitution, in which case it will be 1 hour, 10 minutes.

Or a 16 Constitution, in which case it will be 50 minutes.


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Luke Styer wrote:
Though it gets harder the higher level you are. The DC for a 20th level healer to treat a 1st level patient is higher than for a 1st level healer to treat a 20th level patient.

So what you're telling me is that I need to hire a 1st level "Expert" to run around with the group healing us up? Surely, this won't lead to a system in which our Charisma defines how many underlings we can hire or what levels they can be.

Liberty's Edge

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Greg.Everham wrote:
So what you're telling me is that I need to hire a 1st level "Expert" to run around with the group healing us up?

No because despite the higher DC a higher level character will probably succeed more often and will heal more hp when he does succeed because that’s based on the healer’s level.

But if you ARE going the hireling route, make sure to hire a 3rd level healer, because at 3rd level, but not at 1st, 2nd, or 4th, Assurance (Medicine) succeeds at Treat Wounds checks.


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Luke Styer wrote:
Greg.Everham wrote:
So what you're telling me is that I need to hire a 1st level "Expert" to run around with the group healing us up?

No because despite the higher DC a higher level character will probably succeed more often and will heal more hp when he does succeed because that’s based on the healer’s level.

But if you ARE going the hireling route, make sure to hire a 3rd level healer, because at 3rd level, but not at 1st, 2nd, or 4th, Assurance (Medicine) succeeds at Treat Wounds checks.

I'm sure there's a gp per healing breakdown that could be done with regards to hirelings and their level.

But... don't let the rules get in the way of my overwhelmingly sarcastic mockery of these new Treat Wounds rules that don't quite do what players wanted, will fail, and will close the chapter on OoC healing.

Btw, how is this any more "high fantasy" than spamming a CLW wand? Really...


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I ban all CLW wands from my games but I'm actually fine with this solution. It allows me as a GM to set up timed challenges that make the 10 minutes of healing time actually important. See chapter 3 of doomsday dawn as a great example.


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Mekkis wrote:

At least it answers the question I posted last month.

Seems like: The Designers are okay with PCs fully healing between encounters, and that a party is expected to purchase healing kits to achieve this.

If you have a problem with "CLW Spam", could you be a bit more explicit about what you dislike about it?

Yeah, I agree. I'm really puzzled by this to be honest.

I really expect it to set off people who disliked healing surges in 4e (and hit dice healing in 5e). Mechanically it is different, but it's the same sort of sit on your butt after each encounter mentality.

Game world wise, it's gibberish. We know healing doesn't work this way. Verisimilitude just got shoot in the heart. I'd still expect people to complain about free healing if it were ritual magic, but this just hand waves everything.

Cure light spam got complaints because there was essentially no resource cost (I don't personally get it, but it was a legitimate mechanical gripe about WBL). This flat out mocks those complaints- 'You thought there were no costs before? hold my beer!' Since one of the main source of complaints about it were devs rather than players, I'm just baffled by the reversal.

This is a weird patch to the problems of healing in PF2 (and make no mistakes, the system has several problems with healing, and dying, still). But this violates everything we were told was a goal and the point of the resonance system in the first place.

While also being a terribly low amount of healing that encourages parties to stop and spin their wheels for a couple hours. This should satisfy no one and anger everybody.


Greg.Everham wrote:
these new Treat Wounds rules that don't quite do what players wanted, will fail, and will close the chapter on OoC healing.

I doubt this chapter will be closed any time soon.

Out-of-combat healing is one of those issues where it seems to be impossible to please everyone. Stamina! Medicine! Wands! Clerics!


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Voss wrote:
We know healing doesn't work this way.

Yeah I am pretty sure that last time i checked out of my window there were no Goblins, flying dragons and undead wandering around the neighbourhood either. I find it curious that in a world where such things exist your one problem is a ten minute healing action. Not fire breathing-flying lizards or invisible demons......

So how exactly does healing work then?

This is after all a "Fantasy RPG" not reality. If you want reality you should really look for an RPG that enjoys one hit death because it is highly unlikely that somebody wearing leather armour could really walk away from a well placed blow from an axe or sword either.

We have fed back that we needed an alternative healing option, something that stopped the party from having a ten minute adventuring day and here it is.

I for one much prefer the idea of a trained healer sitting with medical supplies (salves and lotions) patching the party up for ten minutes, than a party being forced to buy multiple wands, potions and scrolls. Lets not forget, that such items can also be used in combat, thus making combat a little easier and unbalanced.


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Luke Styer wrote:
Greg.Everham wrote:
So what you're telling me is that I need to hire a 1st level "Expert" to run around with the group healing us up?

No because despite the higher DC a higher level character will probably succeed more often and will heal more hp when he does succeed because that’s based on the healer’s level.

But if you ARE going the hireling route, make sure to hire a 3rd level healer, because at 3rd level, but not at 1st, 2nd, or 4th, Assurance (Medicine) succeeds at Treat Wounds checks.

Good luck...

"Hirelings are level 0" (playtest rulebook 189). Skilled Hirelings are effectively level 0 characters with expert proficiency in a skill and a +3 ability modifier; before the 1.3 update, unskilled hirelings would have been untrained and have a +2 ability modifier to hit +0, but paizo obviated the assumptions hirelings were based on without updating their description.

Per Treat Wounds, a Skilled Hireling (such as a Doctor) has to make a DC 11 Medicine check with a +4 bonus, and if successful, or critically successful heals 0 HP (you read that right, zero hit points). Why? Because:
"Each patient recovers Hit Points equal to its Constitution modifier × [the skilled hireling's] level [of 0] or equal to just your level [of 0], whichever is higher." and for a critical "As success, but increase the healing by your level [of 0] × 3." (Update 1.3 page 3)


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Cantriped wrote:
Luke Styer wrote:
Greg.Everham wrote:
So what you're telling me is that I need to hire a 1st level "Expert" to run around with the group healing us up?

No because despite the higher DC a higher level character will probably succeed more often and will heal more hp when he does succeed because that’s based on the healer’s level.

But if you ARE going the hireling route, make sure to hire a 3rd level healer, because at 3rd level, but not at 1st, 2nd, or 4th, Assurance (Medicine) succeeds at Treat Wounds checks.

Good luck...

"Hirelings are level 0" (playtest rulebook 189). Skilled Hirelings are effectively level 0 characters with expert proficiency in a skill and a +3 ability modifier; before the 1.3 update, unskilled hirelings would have been untrained and have a +2 ability modifier to hit +0, but paizo obviated the assumptions hirelings were based on without updating their description.

Per Treat Wounds, a Skilled Hireling (such as a Doctor) has to make a DC 11 Medicine check with a +4 bonus, and if successful, or critically successful heals 0 HP (you read that right, zero hit points). Why? Because:
"Each patient recovers Hit Points equal to its Constitution modifier × [the skilled hireling's] level [of 0] or equal to just your level [of 0], whichever is higher." and for a critical "As success, but increase the healing by your level [of 0] × 3." (Update 1.3 page 3)

So, how do we mark posts for FAQ nowadays?


We can't, but if Mark happens across this thread he'll note it for correction later.

Personally I think the easiest solution would be to rewrite the hireling entry, since I don't have a problem with the change to the untrained penalty, just this side effect.

Unskilled hirelings might be 1st level creatures, with a +3 ability modifier who are untrained (-4) in the task for a total modifier of +0. Skilled hirelings would simply be Trained for a total modifier of +4. And finally, an 'Expert Hireling' would be 3rd level, have a +3 ability modifier, be an Expert in the task (+1), and using appropriate expert quality tools (+1) for a total of +8.

The proposed hirelings Medicine Check (if they're that kind of hireling) would be +0 vs DC 13 (40%), +4 vs DC 13 (60%), and +8 vs DC 15 (70%) respectively. The expert hireling also heals three times as many HPs as the skilled and unskilled hirelings do.


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Cheap effective healing between encounters is a bad thing.

Free effective healing between encounters is a good thing.

Color me confused.


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thorin001 wrote:

Cheap effective healing between encounters is a bad thing.

Free effective healing between encounters is a good thing.

Color me confused.

Is this exactly how I would have fixed the problem. No. But I'm guessing that each of us here would have a different fix and then we'd be complaining about that one. I'll just say "good enough" and worry about other issues.

The cost is essentially time, rather than gold. Can you sit around in the lobby of a keep, after killing the guards, and heal up for an hour without someone interrupting? That's up to the GM, but I certainly plan on wandering monsters being a consequence for healing this way. I also plan on house ruling that a healing kit has 10 uses, so you'll need to stock up with several before each dungeon.


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WhiteMagus2000 wrote:
thorin001 wrote:

Cheap effective healing between encounters is a bad thing.

Free effective healing between encounters is a good thing.

Color me confused.

Is this exactly how I would have fixed the problem. No. But I'm guessing that each of us here would have a different fix and then we'd be complaining about that one. I'll just say "good enough" and worry about other issues.

The cost is essentially time, rather than gold. Can you sit around in the lobby of a keep, after killing the guards, and heal up for an hour without someone interrupting? That's up to the GM, but I certainly plan on wandering monsters being a consequence for healing this way. I also plan on house ruling that a healing kit has 10 uses, so you'll need to stock up with several before each dungeon.

Sitting there mathing out the right proper amount of CLW charges to use would also take time at my table and probably trigger someone to come look if it takes the PCs long enough to do so.

How's this different besides giving an actual time table now?


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I am pretty sure they said that Resonance was invented as a means to STOP the CLW spam. It didn't work very well so they're tuning it, but they wouldn't have created it in the first place if CLW spam was OK in their minds.

Now this.

Well, cool, now EVERY fight can be a boss fight and the adventuring day is about 6 hours and 4 minutes long, give or take:
Boss Fight
2 hours of healing
Boss Fight
2 hours of healing
Boss Fight
2 hours of healing
Boss Fight
Camp

I sure hope none of those bosses come wandering down the hall and interrupt our bandage-fest.

Great, now I gotta convert all my Wandering Monster tables to Wandering Boss tables...


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I already liked wondering monsters and guards. This gives me more reason to bring them out to play.

I imagine Paizo will bake more patrols, and time sensitive missions to prevent the spam.

The issue with CLW wands were actually the speed of healing, not just the reliability.


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Booping someone with a wand takes 1 round, using Treat Wounds takes 60 rounds. The difference is substantial. Thankfully this is the now-default amount of time it takes to repair a shield, wait for a shield spell to recharge, or identify items.

Treat Wounds will save my test-party, 2/3rds of whom are trained in Medicine because the party's only magical healing is the bard's Soothe.


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thorin001 wrote:

Cheap effective healing between encounters is a bad thing.

Free effective healing between encounters is a good thing.

Color me confused.

This is my thought: Dm's could control the availability of wands as easily as they can control the time available between encounters. IMO, it's just trading one kind of optics for another. For some reason some people are fine with bandaids and a bit of time patching people up to full in their fantasy but the idea of a magic item speeding that up for a nominal cost is bad to them... To me, the wand seems more fantasy than Diehard firstaid.


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Yeah I wasn't expecting this to be unlimited. The way I imagine it patching you up after a fight can only do so much before magical healing and rest is required.

Of course I don't know how to balance it exactly but I don't think you should be able to receive this kind of healing from the medicine skill more than once after an encounter.


I think people are getting the wrong "why" when they think of an answer to "why is cheap wands doing this not okay, but skill and time doing it is okay?"

Particularly, it's a matter of predictability from the adventure design point of view - you can write an adventure knowing how much time a party has between important encounters, much more easily than you can write the adventure assuming how the characters spend their money and get an accurate result.

And, this version of the "heal up after every encounter" doesn't actually invalidate the higher-level healing items like more potent potions - those are still of more use in the middle of combat, or if time is of the essence.


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thenobledrake wrote:
Particularly, it's a matter of predictability from the adventure design point of view - you can write an adventure knowing how much time a party has between important encounters, much more easily than you can write the adventure assuming how the characters spend their money and get an accurate result.

Time as a factor is a limit to both kinds of healing though: CLW spam isn't something that finishes in a round or two: it's 1d8+1/round/person. If you can limit it to 1/2 hour to limit medicine you can limit it to 3 min for a wand.

And either way has the same effect on higher level healing items. So in the end, I'm REALLY not seeing ANY difference between the methods other than the looks of it.


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If you roll an 1 (or DC-10 if not maxed) that's it for healing that day, it's not infinite. It takes like 10+ uses of this skill to full heal so you're flipping a coin at this point or worse. Trying to do that multiple times per day will not only use up hours of the In-character day, but you'll quickly reach the point where the healing is exhausted.

So it is not infinite. The adventuring day can be extended a solid amount if there is a great Healer, but how much is extremely variable.

You could roll 20 on the first one and call it a day, or you could never roll an 1 the entire campaign! Exciting.


So what you want there to be a longer cool down on the first aid?


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ChibiNyan wrote:
If you roll an 1 (or DC-10 if not maxed) that's it for healing that day, it's not infinite.

Wands run out and the DM controls when/if they get replaced. So, wands don't have to be infinite either.

ChibiNyan wrote:
It takes like 10+ uses of this skill to full heal so you're flipping a coin at this point or worse.

Don't forget that you're healing multiple people at a time: the whole party gets the benefit of a roll. Add to that that multiple people can have the skill and can roll at the same time: a party of 7 can make 7 rolls in 10 min.

ChibiNyan wrote:
Trying to do that multiple times per day will not only use up hours of the In-character day, but you'll quickly reach the point where the healing is exhausted.

It's eating up time but not as much as retreating to heal or going back to town to try to find a new wand to use.

ChibiNyan wrote:
So it is not infinite. The adventuring day can be extended a solid amount if there is a great Healer, but how much is extremely variable.

It's as infinite as wands IMO.

ChibiNyan wrote:
You could roll 20 on the first one and call it a day, or you could never roll an 1 the entire campaign! Exciting.

*shrug* IMO that's pretty non-exciting: much like the old days when you could get the excitement of rolling 150 craft checks to make your item... Again, I'm not sure why every person in the party isn't taking medicine. No matter your stat, it's free chances to heal and/or speed up your healing.


Vidmaster7 wrote:
So what you want there to be a longer cool down on the first aid?

Sorry, who are you asking?


graystone wrote:
ChibiNyan wrote:
If you roll an 1 (or DC-10 if not maxed) that's it for healing that day, it's not infinite.

Wands run out and the DM controls when/if they get replaced. So, wands don't have to be infinite either.

ChibiNyan wrote:
It takes like 10+ uses of this skill to full heal so you're flipping a coin at this point or worse.

Don't forget that you're healing multiple people at a time: the whole party gets the benefit of a roll. Add to that that multiple people can have the skill and can roll at the same time: a party of 7 can make 7 rolls in 10 min.

ChibiNyan wrote:
Trying to do that multiple times per day will not only use up hours of the In-character day, but you'll quickly reach the point where the healing is exhausted.

It's eating up time but not as much as retreating to heal or going back to town to try to find a new wand to use.

ChibiNyan wrote:
So it is not infinite. The adventuring day can be extended a solid amount if there is a great Healer, but how much is extremely variable.

It's as infinite as wands IMO.

ChibiNyan wrote:
You could roll 20 on the first one and call it a day, or you could never roll an 1 the entire campaign! Exciting.
*shrug* IMO that's pretty non-exciting: much like the old days when you could get the excitement of rolling 150 craft checks to make your item... Again, I'm not sure why every person in the party isn't taking medicine. No matter your stat, it's free chances to heal and/or speed up your healing.

I could of swore you wanted infinite healing...

That said I'm still trying to think of a reasonable way to limit the medicine check without making it too complex.


graystone wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:
So what you want there to be a longer cool down on the first aid?
Sorry, who are you asking?

The OP.


"A given creature can only benefit from 1 heal wounds check in a 10 minute period." So they do not stack. Though crit fail only bolsters against the character who failed, so if other party members can also heal they can do it at the expense of time. It is pretty good, but it's a lot worse than wands. Bringing 10 fresh wands in an efficent quiver was a lot more reliable unless you had to UMD then, then it was still way better than this.

Not sure if the Healer's tools are affected in any way by these checks.


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Vidmaster7 wrote:
I could of swore you wanted infinite healing...

I'm fine with how CLW wands worked and saw no issue: when I said that, other poster assumed that that meant unlimited healing. I've even gone over it several times that it's up to the DM to give out magic items and to control their access. How unlimited/limited is up to the DM's story and pacing.

On a personal note, I prefer the type of game where you can assume most fights start with the party healed up: It's just easier for both the DM and players to plan things out and makes the gaming day run longer. As such, I want the game to have easy healing as an option but I've never advocated that it should be the only option.

ChibiNyan wrote:
they do not stack.

Hmmm... I missed that.

ChibiNyan wrote:
Though crit fail only bolsters against the character who failed, so if other party members can also heal they can do it at the expense of time. It is pretty good, but it's a lot worse than wands. Bringing 10 fresh wands in an efficent quiver was a lot more reliable unless you had to UMD then, then it was still way better than this.

I don't know: in a way, it's much better than wands. The charges never run out, works anywhere you can take the time, doesn't require a caster and/or a skill to trick the item allowing the whole party to try it. Then add in places where healing spells [or all spells] are difficult to cast and mundane healing shines even more.

ChibiNyan wrote:
10 fresh wands

I don't know that this is a fair comparison point. It's 100% up to the DM on how many wands you can pick up so you're picking the most optimal situation for the wands when it might be a single 1/2 spent wand being UMD'd be the rogue vs a party with a monk, rogue, cleric and paladin all with good wisdom and medicine skills.

ChibiNyan wrote:
Not sure if the Healer's tools are affected in any way by these checks.

Affected? Not that I know. They don't have charges/uses anymore.

Or do you mean the kit giving a bonus to the check? If so, I don't think it does as written.


LOL It just dawned on me why they set up healing like this: PFS. Instead of everyone carrying around a CLW wand in case they don't get a healer in a random group, now everyone will need to buy a healers kit and take the medicine skill instead.


Oh and I should of said (Out of combat) but I guess that was implied well enough?

Actually I do like the skill over the wands but I think the skill might be to convenient.

I don't know nothing about that there PFS. I don't do PFS.

Paizo Employee Director of Game Design

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Hey there folks,

There are a lot of reasons behind this addition, some stemming from us wanting to change aspects of resonance, to a general call for more robust out of combat healing, to opening up some opportunities for a broader playstyle.

The only thing is.. if we want good data about how this is working, we felt it best to open it up as wide as possible. See how much it actually gets used to see if it needs limits. If we start out with a limit and that limit is not enough, we might not be able to tell if it is capable of doing the job it needs to.

As always, this is why we playtest. This gives us some very useful data that lets us tune this, and other parts of the system. Nothing more, nothing less.


That cool. good to know I won't worry about it as much.


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I always thought that having the heal/medicine skill handle out of combat healing felt more organic than having it primarily done through bundles of cure light wound wands, and I'm glad that it finally has the chance to shine right out the gate.


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graystone wrote:
thenobledrake wrote:
Particularly, it's a matter of predictability from the adventure design point of view - you can write an adventure knowing how much time a party has between important encounters, much more easily than you can write the adventure assuming how the characters spend their money and get an accurate result.

Time as a factor is a limit to both kinds of healing though: CLW spam isn't something that finishes in a round or two: it's 1d8+1/round/person. If you can limit it to 1/2 hour to limit medicine you can limit it to 3 min for a wand.

And either way has the same effect on higher level healing items. So in the end, I'm REALLY not seeing ANY difference between the methods other than the looks of it.

I know that it takes the same manner of effort from whoever is establishing the adventure parameters to set a time limit, no matter what that time limit is - but that doesn't change that it is narratively easier to have a time limit that would affect the current Treat Wounds rule, but wouldn't function as a limit on wand-based healing.

By which I mean the time limit existing is less likely to elicit a response from a participant in the story along the lines of "...that's goofy."

And that difference of scale also affects what impact the healing has on things like "what healing potions would I prefer to have?" because in a narrative that gives time for a single Treat Wounds use, a wand-relient party could (I know it doesn't usually work out that way in practice, but it can, and there really isn't much reason for it not to other than PF1/3.5's skill systems being overly prohibitive to some classes) each use a wand on themselves 10 times, which at many levels would be more healing. So while the former system leaves players happy to use a suped-up potion in combat because the action to HP ratio isn't awful, the later leaves players unlike to need more healing during combat so HP/action isn't even a consideration (though HP/minute is).

Liberty's Edge

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thorin001 wrote:

Cheap effective healing between encounters is a bad thing.

Free effective healing between encounters is a good thing.

Color me confused.

The thing is that using Treat Wounds is only free in terms of money (well, you need to buy a healer's kit, but that's a negligible expense). Doing it reliably requires a fairly decent skill investment, and also a fair bit of time in many cases (and takes more time the less you invest in the skill). Both are significant investments, far more significant than the money required for a Wand of CLW is at 10th level in PF1.

It's also not unlimited, with an average day spent healing probably involving enough rolls that a crit failure will happen and make it no longer viable at some point during the day (at which point you either need to immediately rest, or have some other healing available...though another person trained in Medicine does qualify as more healing, I'll grant). The less you invest into it, the sooner this will generally occur, not because crit fails likely get more common (which only happens at the very low end), but simply because it will, on average, take more rolls to fully heal people.

And then, of course, there's the thematic element: Using a dozen Wands of CLW is a bit odd and not supported by the fiction, while having a medic patch you up between fights is intuitive and supported by the fiction.


I'm curious if Treat Wounds is getting people to invest more in Constitution. Personally, I often ignore it, even on front-liners who will take damage, because I want to free up points for mental attributes. That might be less viable with Constitution affecting how long it takes to heal.


What if instead of being bolstered in case of critical failure, patients gets bolstered in case of simple failure ?

Good healers could still decently use the action. Poor healers could still try out but will likely stop healing after a few tries. Soon enough everybody would be bolstered to other's treat wound actions and the party would have to rest.


DM_Blake wrote:

I am pretty sure they said that Resonance was invented as a means to STOP the CLW spam. It didn't work very well so they're tuning it, but they wouldn't have created it in the first place if CLW spam was OK in their minds.

Now this.

Well, cool, now EVERY fight can be a boss fight and the adventuring day is about 6 hours and 4 minutes long, give or take:
Boss Fight
2 hours of healing
Boss Fight
2 hours of healing
Boss Fight
2 hours of healing
Boss Fight
Camp

I sure hope none of those bosses come wandering down the hall and interrupt our bandage-fest.

Great, now I gotta convert all my Wandering Monster tables to Wandering Boss tables...

How is this different to PF1e?

I like it. I might actually houserule it into PF1e (with some tweaks. I'm thinking DC 15 = Hit Die + Con mod. For every 5 you beat the DC increase the amount of healing by 3 hit die).

How is this going to impact the adventuring day compared to the PF1e wand of CLW spam?


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graystone wrote:
thorin001 wrote:

Cheap effective healing between encounters is a bad thing.

Free effective healing between encounters is a good thing.

Color me confused.

This is my thought: Dm's could control the availability of wands as easily as they can control the time available between encounters. IMO, it's just trading one kind of optics for another. For some reason some people are fine with bandaids and a bit of time patching people up to full in their fantasy but the idea of a magic item speeding that up for a nominal cost is bad to them... To me, the wand seems more fantasy than Diehard firstaid.

The problem with wands is definitely optics. If we wanted a magic item to fix the problem I'd be okay with that too. Just don't track charges on the item and don't have it heal in increments of 5.5


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thenobledrake wrote:
By which I mean the time limit existing is less likely to elicit a response from a participant in the story along the lines of "...that's goofy."

We'll have to agree to disagree. In a 'we don't know when the ceremony will start so we have to hurry' situation, taking a 1/2 hour nap is more 'this is goofy' than the wands: it's like the video games that give you an 'urgent' quest but has no enforced timeline so you can put it off. It's a very narrow road to walk to make the longer wait make more sense with a time limit.

As to the rest, it seems like optic.

Deadmanwalking wrote:
The thing is that using Treat Wounds is only free in terms of money (well, you need to buy a healer's kit, but that's a negligible expense). Doing it reliably requires a fairly decent skill investment, and also a fair bit of time in many cases (and takes more time the less you invest in the skill). Both are significant investments, far more significant than the money required for a Wand of CLW is at 10th level in PF1.

I don't see it as an investment but more a requirement now: what party isn't going to buy a healers kit [the whole party can use it] and is there a reason for anyone to not max out the skill? it's the new perception skill that most everyone maxed out.

Deadmanwalking wrote:
It's also not unlimited

Close enough. By the time everyone crit fails, the other resources they have will be out and they need to rest anyway. Again, why wouldn't everyone take the skill for free rolls?

Deadmanwalking wrote:
And then, of course, there's the thematic element: Using a dozen Wands of CLW is a bit odd and not supported by the fiction, while having a medic patch you up between fights is intuitive and supported by the fiction.

I'll disagree on thematics. Using magic seems far more in step with them than a few bandages, some spit and a 10 minute break makes all the wounds go away. A med patch works in sci-fi and mundane adventures but that's not pathfinder. 'Fiction' doesn't have someone heal up to uninjured a nap and aspirin but magic? It sure does.

Now I'm not about to debate which set of 'optics' you like, that's personal preference. I'll not agree that wands is universally odd and not supported in fiction or makes less sense in the system as a whole though.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
ChibiNyan wrote:
If you roll an 1 (or DC-10 if not maxed) that's it for healing that day, it's not infinite.

If I roll a 1 that’s it for the day from me. Everyone in the party has to roll a 1 before that’s it for healing that day.

Liberty's Edge

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graystone wrote:
I don't see it as an investment but more a requirement now: what party isn't going to buy a healers kit [the whole party can use it] and is there a reason for anyone to not max out the skill? it's the new perception skill that most everyone maxed out.

I strongly disagree. Having one person with Medicine borders on being a requirement, but more than one is a luxury and in no way necessary. One person provides sufficient uses most days and in most situations. You need some extra for when they crit fail, but you need some for in-combat healing anyway.

In most games, most of the time, taking Medicine is a waste for most PCs. Specifically, it's gonna usually be a waste if someone else has it, and almost always a waste if two other people have it.

graystone wrote:
Close enough. By the time everyone crit fails, the other resources they have will be out and they need to rest anyway. Again, why wouldn't everyone take the skill for free rolls?

Because it's usually completely superfluous and you want to use the skill rank for other things. I mean, yeah, Wis-based characters should generally take it, and someone should take it if nobody in the party has it. Having a second person with it is useful but unnecessary. Having a third person have it is only useful very very rarely, to the point that it's seriously suboptimal in most games.

You'll definitely run out of resources before four people all crit fail, but you'll also run out of hours in the day, and generally won't have four people all with Medicine, IMO.

graystone wrote:
I'll disagree on thematics. Using magic seems far more in step with them than a few bandages, some spit and a 10 minute break makes all the wounds go away. A med patch works in sci-fi and mundane adventures but that's not pathfinder. 'Fiction' doesn't have someone heal up to uninjured a nap and aspirin but magic? It sure does.

10 minutes almost never makes all wounds go away unless they weren't very serious. And bandaging up after a fight is very thematically sound.

graystone wrote:
Now I'm not about to debate which set of 'optics' you like, that's personal preference. I'll not agree that wands is universally odd and not supported in fiction or makes less sense in the system as a whole though.

Wands that work like Wands of CLW are pretty universally not supported in the fiction (ie: at higher levels, Wands you buy in mass quantities and go through like candy). Other magic and wands are much better supported, and would be a fine solution, but so is bandaging people up and other mundane first aid.

Liberty's Edge

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I have to say, I've never understood the objection to healing wands from a narrative point of view. I understand that that most fantasy stories that writers are looking to emulate do not include magic healing sticks so that the heroes can recover from any injury, but they almost never have any sort of immediate healing in literature. They almost never have a character being seriously wounded then returned to full health several times a day. They don't have these things because from a purely narrative fashion, they're almost always bad storytelling, and work counter to any sort of drama or emotion the reader is supposed to experience. But Pathfinder, and most other roleplaying games for that matter, aren't just stories, they're games with a storytelling element. Some times the story can be the best part of the game, but that doesn't mean that everything else should be neglected for the sake of narrative.

There are a number of goods reasons why there's no quick, from death's door to full health healing in stories, because every injury is supposed to be significant. Now while you could look to emulate that in a game, it would also require that heroes are almost never injured, or almost never fight, but that's not the game that Pathfinder (or most RPGs) are trying to be. In Pathfinder hit point damage is the (primary) scale by which you tell how well you're doing, which helps to create drama, because do poorly enough and you just might die. Because of this magical healing is a necessity if you're looking to have more than one or two fights in a day, which in a system with limited daily resources you generally want as a form of attrition, and so that you can have limited resources being more powerful than at will abilities in a balanced and useful framework.

So thing is, if almost no magical healing exists in fiction, especially the readily available kind necessary for surviving several combats a day, why do we point specifically to the wand and say "this doesn't really fit the stories we're trying to emulate"? Of course it doesn't, neither do many of the mechanics of the game, but they're there for a gamist or simulationist reason, not a narrative one. Shouldn't it be viewed from the mechanical perspective? Like what purpose does it serve, what issue does it fix? Even things like is this balanced against other options? Or are there any other options for the purpose it serves?

Personally, I'm fine with the new medicine option. I've always felt that mundane healing should be able to do more. But it doesn't do any better of a job emulating the fantasy Pathfinder takes as inspiration than wands did. Characters in fantasy weren't going from near death to perfect health several times a day from being bandaged and tended to for a half hour than they were from magical healing. You're really just substituting one gamist solution for another.


Wands of CLW are an artefact of Living Greyhawk. Before that organised play program PCs were reliant on staff of healing, clerics and potions. HP was a daily resource with Pcs rewarded for avoiding damage. Since the introduction of wands of CLW that style of play has been marginalised.

Resonance was an attempt to bring that style of play back. It predictably failed. But some people do want it back and wands of CLW stop that from happening (so does this rule).

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